Public Agency Retirement Services (PARS)

PARS transforms sales and opportunities with Sage

The Public Agency Retirement Services (PARS) designs financial products and services for public agencies, primarily in the State of California, and has used Sage to transform the business.

“Bringing in Sage was one of the best things that has happened to the company. It has enabled us to access the information we need quickly and easily and helps us envisage what it is we need to know to make our business better”

Karen Zfaty,

Director of Marketing Information Systems, PARS

Growth strains internal communications

As the company grew, communications across different departments became harder, not helped by ongoing regulatory pressures that impact on financial products. Compounding the problem was an existing solution that made it hard to access reports and obtain an accurate overview of the business – where it was at and where it should be heading.

“It became very apparent to all of us, if all of the data was in one centralized location then everyone could have access to current information all of the time,” said Karen Zfaty, Director of Marketing Information Systems. It was time to find a new solution.

Right balance of features and price

Karen Zfaty had identified three key functions she wanted from a CRM system: track new prospects, track existing clients and track plans that had already been implemented to make sure they were still compliant with changing regulations.

PARS found all three in Sage which also struck the right balance in terms of features and price. As well as providing a single repository for all customer information that could be easily accessed and used to generate reports, Sage was integrated across different parts of the business with new fields added to match the application to the business need.

Because Sage is delivered through a web browser, field sales representatives can access it from anywhere using various portable devices such as iPhone, iPad and laptops. Sage has become essential to the sales team and made them much more productive.

Single view drives greater efficiency

Revenue at PARS has grown by around 60 precent over four years, something that Zfaty doesn’t think would have happened without Sage. Other benefits include greater efficiency and much better visibility of the business through better reporting, not least because Karen Zfaty is able to produce them much more quickly. “Sage has increased our efficiency dramatically. I used to spend literally weeks preparing reports that I can now do in hours,” she said.

She described the detail of what they deliver as “phenomenal”, revealing what the company is doing currently and what it should look to do in the future to become more successful.  “We have access to a lot detail about individual clients, individual processes; plans we’ve implemented,” she said. “We simply wouldn’t be able to function the way we do without Sage.”