Key Takeaways from SugarCRM’s 2021 Analyst Summit
Last month, SugarCRM held its annual industry analyst summit where we shared company updates, provided a preview of what’s next, and showcased our customers’ success. With that in mind and without breaking NDAs, I’d like to share some key takeaways from the event.
A Focus on Growth
If I were to pick the main theme surrounding this year’s summit, it would be Growth. This was apparent in our analyst participants–we were pleased to have an uptick of 50% from last year and a broader geographic representation.
Growth was front-and-center in our event content as we showcased examples of growth not only from a business, product, and employee perspective but also provided a look into how we’ve helped our customers grow their businesses as well!
What Our Customers Think
During the summit, there were two customer-focused sessions, featuring 7 of our great customers sharing how their businesses were positively impacted by using Sugar. One customer shared that he and his colleagues call their department “The Sweet Spot,” referencing Sugar’s integral role in their day-to-day operations. Here is what others had to say:
- Andrew Ord, Product Owner, Rightmove – “We spoke to a lot of providers and we got a good feeling from Sugar. I guess the reason why we knew it was good for us was because the POC [proof of concept] actually reflected our requirements and brought it to life really quickly. We actually involved a lot of the sales team in that decision and they were impressed.”
- David-Alexandre Krupa, Asendia – “There’s basically nothing not to love about Sugar, so it shows that it’s definitely a good choice for us.”
- Kim Garfield, Director, IT Solutions Delivery, UDR – “…what we wanted to do was a few things: Customer self-service was super important to us, transforming the way we run our business which translated into a centralization of functions and breaking away from the traditional way of operating apartment communities, and Sugar has been critical and at the center of that for us.”
- Sherri DuBois, Pricing & Contract Coordinator, SugarCRM Administrator, Neenah – “We find Sugar easy to match to our business, with or without customization, we can match the process with the flow of Sugar to our business model.”
- Jenna Cole, Project Manager, Customer Product Development, Neenah – “Our salespeople are often out in the field meeting with customers and they find the call reports an easy, useful tool to quickly communicate customer information and feedback across our organization .”
- Tanja LeMotte, President, Corvus Janitorial Systems – “We make phone calls, we send emails, we send text messages, and we do all of that communication through Sugar. Being able to get that 360-picture of communication with the franchise prospects so anybody can jump in and make the next touch that’s needed—all of that activity is really easily tracked in Sugar and we love that.”
We really couldn’t ask for better customers, and one of the things I love about Sugar is celebrating our customers who let the platform do the work. We’ve recently announced the Customer Breakthrough Awards featuring curated eight award categories that demonstrate the diversity and uniqueness of the Sugar community.
What the Analysts Think
Instead of sharing their feedback, let’s hear it directly from the analysts themselves. Following our event, Thomas Wieberneit, Ralf Korb, and Marshall Lager hosted a CRMKonvos livestream. They asked for initial reactions about our summit from analysts Kate Leggett, Liz Miller and Mike Fauscette. SugarCRM’s CSO and co-founder, Clint Oram joined the lively discussion.
We also had Craig Charlton, CEO at SugarCRM, and Jason Rushforth, SVP/GM of Americas at SugarCRM join industry experts Brent Leary and Paul Greenberg to discuss their thoughts on Sugar’s Analyst Summit and the state of CRM/CX today.
Closing Thoughts
SugarCRM’s 2021 Analyst Summit was an excellent chance to share important updates and receive feedback from industry influencers and customers alike. I’m very excited about what we have in store for our customers in 2022 and looking forward to sharing that with the analyst community!
