by Seth Fineberg
Costa Mesa, Calif -- Long-time accounting and business application software provider Syspro is temporarily slashing its reseller license fee by 50 percent in an attempt to attract newcomers to its channel.
Syspro typically charges resellers a one-time investment of $10,000, but has reduced that fee to $5,000 under a new promotion that is being extended to resellers in the U.S., the Caribbean, Mexico and South America. The offer is slated to end Feb. 13, but could last longer depending on its success, according to Jeff Arbuckle, Syspro’s channel development manager.
“The one clear thing we’ve seen with all of the mergers and acquisitions our competitors are doing is companies abandoning their business partners. We see this as a tremendous opportunity to expand on our channel,” Arbuckle said. “Our history and culture has been to work with our partners to see how we can best support them. This is a great opportunity to attract some strong players, particularly in manufacturing and distribution accounting, which is our primary focus.”
Syspro is sending personalized e-mails to its database of potential resellers, with a letter from Arbuckle explaining the program, as well as information on the company and its applications. The company is also collecting leads from various trade shows, including the recent Pacific Design and Manufacturing Show in Anaheim, Calif., and the National Manufacturing Week conference in Chicago.
In addition, new Syspro resellers are being offered sales opportunities created through recently introduced software, enabling them to sell into a number of select verticals, as well as horizontally oriented manufacturers and distributors. These new products include the Syspro Trade Promotion and Deduction Management System; the Syspro Material Yield System; and the Syspro Collection System.
To date, Syspro has approximately 200 resellers in North America and about 30 in South America. Arbuckle said that the company doesn’t have a numerical goal in mind for the attempted increase.
Arbuckle claims that the 25-year-old company has never lost any resellers to its competition, and admits that they have been selective about the firms that join the channel. He noted that Syspro looks for resellers who are committed to their specific verticals or focus, as well as those that are willing to “see the long-term picture.”
Springfield, Ill.-based reseller Levi, Ray & Shoup signed on before the promotion, joining the Syspro sales channel in October after a six-month evaluation on both companies’ parts. The firm now carries Syspro’s full suite of products, in addition to Microsoft CRM.
Jim Krup, solutions manager at Levi, Ray & Shoup, said that, although his firm signed on before this promotion, the lengthy process was worth it, and he believes that Syspro is a company that his firm will stay with.
“Unlike some firms, we searched them out [rather than the company selecting us] and selected them over their competition for a lot of reasons,” Krup said. “One of them being the fact that they don’t compete with their business partners in any way. Their one-time sign up fee was also very attractive; we have a representative on call whenever we need him; and they are very involved in initial conference calls and demos.”
