Sage Group plc announced, on January 31st 2013, the formation of a new organisation to drive its growth across the European mid-market. With Christophe Letellier at its helm, the new European mid-market team will be aligned behind Sage ERP X3 and will consolidate Sage's resources and leverage its assets while retaining and building on its local expertise, enabling it to deliver solutions to market faster, encourage innovation and drive competitiveness.

This evolution supports Sage Group's new vision and refocused strategy, announced in July 2012 at their user conference in Paris. Sage has decided to set up the new entity to achieve these goals and realise significant growth opportunities and recognises that Europe has a common set of priorities and initiatives with a clear focus to ensure the market opportunity is maximised.

Alvaro Ramirez, CEO Europe, commented, "We now have a common set of priorities and initiatives across Europe and this clear business focus represents a big step forward. Christophe Letellier, with his experience leading the Sage ERP X3 business globally, as well as his previous success in executive roles in Sage, is ideally placed to take advantage of our mid-market growth opportunity and increase market share. Many of our mid-market customers need support to grow internationally and that growth can require more sophisticated and comprehensive solutions. Our unique understanding of a wide range of different businesses operating in or across different markets means we are best placed to deliver the benefits of technology and we're seizing this opportunity because we intuitively know what's right for our customers."

The other appointments announced to support Letellier were:

• Jayne Archbold as Head of Strategy and Communication
• Franz Bruckmaier as Head of Product Development
• Christophe Vanackère as Head of Sales and Marketing
• Mike Farrell as Head of Professional Services
• Luis Pardo as Head of Customer Services
• Tiphaine Guillorel as Head of Finance

After my attendance at Sage's European user conference and writing of the in-depth report on ERP X3, I have been waiting for something like this announcement to happen to provide focus and direction to exploit the full potential of the ERP X3.