Changes Ahead at SugarCRM, Company Reveals at Analyst Summit

San Diego: SugarCRM is refocusing its business more tightly on its target mid-market manufacturing and distribution customers, top SugarCRM executives said at the the 2025 SugarCRM Analyst Summit today.

"Sugar has taken an incremental approach with evolution," said David Roberts, who joined the company as president and CEO in September. "We have had a pretty horizontal CRM platform. Even though we moved on from our open-source roots, there's a lot about that that still persists. So I'd like you to expect us to be more bold than you've seen in the past."

The company is defining its ideal customer profile, but that doesn't mean that it will be abandoning its current customers who don't fit that profile, Roberts added. "Our focus is going to be on helping the seller be successful. We will focus on technology and innovation."

He pointed to the following plans for the company, all to be completed by the end of July:

• Rebuild the executive team.
• Run the business from a new go-to-market model.
• Re-establish the partnership model, partner plans, and recruitment priorities.
• Launch new messaging.
• Revise the hosting model.
• Define a roadmap and technology delivery plan.
• Revise product packaging and pricing.

The company will look to help customers reach more of their potential as they use the SugarCRM solution, Roberts said.

So SugarCRM will focus on communicating the value and benefits that can be derived from the technology in language that resonates with customers on the benefits technology can provide rather than the technical aspects of the solution, Roberts said. "Our product team is going to be the ones defining the industry templates, not just in implementation but in the core product."

The company is changing its marketing message from "let the platform do the work" to "unlock the sales potential," said Clare Dorrian, the company's chief marketing officer. Previous messaging didn't work because it was too horizontal, she added.

The marketing focus shift is just beginning, Dorrian added. Over the next several months, the company plans to concentrate on winning targeted ideal customers and building relationships rather than on transactions.

SugarCRM interviewed analysts to learn what they see as unique about the company and its technology and to understand how prospects initially come to examine the platform, Dorrian said. ChatGPT enables SugarCRM to process initial inquiries at scale and to understand some core themes from those inquiries.

"What we realized is that people approach us because we have a flexible program," Dorrian said. "Businesses want a solution that works today and that's going to work for them tomorrow, particularly in manufacturing and wholesale distribution. They demand excellent functionality."

Marketing and sales needs to focus on building a rapport with prospects and current customers, Dorrian added. "Doing business is not about the transaction; it's about the value you can bring to your customer. You need to earn the right to do business with the customer."

Customers aren't dreaming about the possible; they're focusing on what they need the technology to do to get work done, Dorrian added.

SugarCRM is looking to enable customers to boost their sales by expanding the capabilities of the technology, which will include several new capabilities in the next year or two, said Paul Farrell, the company's chief product officer.

There will be new capabilities for buyers as well as sellers. "We're going to be redoing the whole we way that are doing things," Farrell said.

The next innovation will be adding data sources to intelligent account management.

SugarCRM is also adding generative artificial intelligence account summaries as well as an account hierarchy. The summarization will enable users to see in-depth account details, including experience, intent, risks, action, language, and opportunity, in a single view. Users will also be able to see their own customer pipelines, context, and other details. The display layout will offer color consistency, different modules, data, status, context, clarity, and styling, all designed to reduce clicks and the windows and account user has open at any single time.

The SugarCRM technology is continuing to add analytics as well.

"This is going to be a real game-changer," Farrell said, noting, however, that part of the success of SugarCRM and its customers will depend on the actual use of the new capabilities. "If people don't use it, it's worthless," Farrell said.

SugarCRM's success will also depend on working with Sugar Outfitters, said Jason Glass, SugarCRM senior vice president of global partnerships and alliances. Sugar Outfitters is the official marketplace for plug-ins and integrations tailored for SugarCRM.

"We're looking at historical relationships we have today," Glass said. The company plans to emphasize simplifying partner interactions, enriching the partner experience, and treating partners as customers.

"In 2025, we're going to add to our partners across the globe," Glass said. "The company will be launching partner learning labs to make sure that partners are aware of all of the upgrades of the SugarCRM software."