Sage

1.0

May 13, 2018

Anonymous employee

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Nice offices. You get 5 paid days per year to do charity work - this is a genuine positive.

Cons

Sage has a strategy to move customers from its old, outdated on-premise software to new cloud products. It sounds great but the execution of this strategy is hopelessly poor. The engineering teams are spread much MUCH too thinly on projects that add no value and make no sense. And the company is horribly weighed down by its out of date legacy products and seems to have no clue how to change that. The execs have at least recognised this and have said we need to "ruthlessly prioritise". But there is no follow-through. We still spend most of our time on pointless projects. I've personally tried calling out some of these pointless projects only to be dismissed out of hand. The execs seem to have no insight whatsoever into what is valuable and what is just a waste of time. As a result, the cloud products are not making fast enough progress. And then there is the performance review system. As many other reviewers have said - there is a forced ranking in place where people are arbitrarily rated as "unsatisfactory" to hit some notional distribution curve. Those victims at the bottom are then managed out. It's basically a way of cutting headcount/costs without having to pay severance. Admittedly, some teams/people are certainly not performing well, but the arbitrary forced ranking just shows that the senior managers are not in touch with what is going on in their teams. If they were, they could target the poor performers. Appalling and almost unbelievable in this day and age, but I have seen it first hand. The reviewers here are telling the truth. Don't believe any denials from HR. (Can't believe I'm saying this about a company I've worked for for over 10 years). The result of all this? Sage is failing to deliver on its cloud strategy as is clearly demonstrated by the recent half-year results and profit warning. It's people are terribly demotivated, as demonstrated by the reviews on this site - compare Sage to it's competition. I honestly can't see how the company can turn itself around without a massive change in management, a crash in revenue growth while it sorts out its cloud products and then (just maybe) a return to sustainable growth.

Sage Response

Thanks for your feedback. Our product roadmap is filled with exciting developments and we have a lot to be proud of. Earlier this month we announced how Sage Business Cloud Enterprise Management accelerates with Fast Start. Customers choosing Enterprise Management with Fast Start can be up and running within two months, helping to reduce initial costs through adopting a standard process and a pre-configured solution. They will also benefit from all the product features of Sage Enterprise Management core modules in less time – with the ability to add new modules as their business grows. We've also recently launched our new Pay Now invoicing - meaning no more chasing late payments with Sage Business Cloud Accounting which is powered by Stripe. Invoice Payment functionality is now available in Sage 50 CA and UK powered by PayPal and Sage 50cloud US powered by Stripe. Upcoming launches include Sage 50 DE and UK and Sage 200 UK powered by PayPal. Customers embraced the development with 200 customers and $775k of pending payment in just three days. We launched our new Sage Business Cloud Accounting mobile app and we’ve already clocked up over 6,000 downloads and earned an impressive AppStore rating of 4.9. It's also been a huge year for Sage Financials as we have partnered with many colleagues around the globe and across functions. This was something we wanted to accomplish in a very short timeframe, which meant an intense focus on a clear set of objectives to make it happen. In the first half of the year we have added product functionality, enhanced the user experience, streamlined business processes and provided tooling to ensure we could on-board customers in 5 days or less. Even working at pace, we had our customers at the heart of the mission. We tested every feature, process and message with customers and partners. We received rave reviews on the changes and planned changes for the second half of the year. And we are receiving awards for our success too, here's some of the latest: -2018 Medallia Expy Award for the category of 'Activate Every Employee' thanks to EVERY colleague's participation in CX programs like 'NPS Closed Loop', Sage Listens, and Magic Moments! - Sage Learning Services wins the 2018 Impact Award from CEdMA -Germany: Innovationspreis-IT - Sage Live won Best of Innovation Award IT 2018 in the category "Finance”. - Innovation of the Year, AccountingWeb, 2017 -Best Technology Company, National Centre for Diversity, 2018 Our performance management process is designed to increase the effectiveness of our colleagues and therefore organizational capability to deliver strong levels of performance. We are progressing on our journey in building a high performance culture to effectively manage, support, and develop our colleagues to become One Sage. Our colleague surveys do indicate that our colleagues want clearer parameters around performance expectations, and we are already making those changes based directly on that feedback. Thank you for taking the time to share your perspectives with us.

2.0

Jun 8, 2026

Account executive

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

was hired as remote and get to have that honored, but have been openly told no career progression because of remote status. decent pay

Cons

Leadership instability: Seven manager changes during my relatively short tenure. Unrealistic targets: A sales quota set at 1,100% growth (not a typo). Slow product development: Getting anything actioned on the product side takes far too long. Product management turnover: Three product manager changes, resulting in no meaningful deliverables in over three years. Misaligned hiring priorities: Greater emphasis on DEI optics than on hiring people positioned to drive growth. Internal vs. customer focus: More energy spent on internal events than on product enhancements. Lack of accountability (the biggest issue): No one takes ownership. Responsibility gets passed around constantly — for example, client cancellations going unprocessed because they impact someone's numbers. Managers have openly encouraged pushing the work onto someone else rather than handling it.

Sage Response

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. We’re sorry to hear about the challenges you’ve described around leadership continuity, targets, growth, and ways of working. We recognise the impact that stability, clear accountability, and achievable goals can have on the day-to-day experience of our colleagues, particularly within sales and customer-facing roles. We shall share your feedback with leaders for their visibility as we continue to evolve how we support our teams to truly thrive at work. If you have any additional insights to share, please leave us more feedback via our internal Always Listening forum or through your manager. Thank you again for sharing your perspective.

Failing to execute on its cloud strategy - Anonymous employee Sage Employee Review

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