Sage joins Biz2Credit Platform, a business finance portal for small and medium businesses in India

May 5, 2009; 10:54 AM

New Delhi, India – May 05, 2009 -- Sage India has joined forces with Biz2Credit in India, a business portal that connects small business owners to lenders, financial advice and other entrepreneurs. The Web site provides a secure environment for India's small and medium enterprise population to collaborate with lenders or other service providers to launch or grow their business. 

Business owners interested in financing Sage product purchases can sign up and apply for credit on www.biz2credit.in. Through their account, business owners can access loan options and work with lenders on the system, including public, private and micro and rural financial institutions.

“We’re demystifying credit for small business owners worldwide. We’re using technology to provide transparency in a market that is traditionally misunderstood and inaccessible for entrepreneurs. We couldn’t have found a better partner than Sage to offer our credit services to business owners in India.” said Rohit Arora, Co-founder, Biz2Credit.

“Sage is excited to be associated with Biz2Credit in this new initiative,” said Thomas Abraham, Managing Director of Sage India. “This is in line with our focus on the SME segment in Manufacturing and Services. We will be offering the Sage range of ERP, CRM and Payroll products on this platform. With our specific solutions for Discrete and Process Manufacturing companies, we believe we have a strong value proposition for this segment”.
 
Statistics reveal that Indian small and medium enterprises constitute over 80 percent of the total number of Indian industrial enterprises and are responsible for over 40 percent of the value addition in the manufacturing sector. Still, Indian small business owners face a financial resource crunch that leads to market opacity, service provider dependency and reduced competitiveness and sustainability.
 
“Business owners lack time and manpower to survey the market for the best loan product or service provider for their enterprise,” said Arora. “Most entrepreneurs do not have the resources to hire a full-time financial controller or business consultant. Biz2Credit empowers them to access financial products nationwide.”

“Whether you’re a business owner or your clients are business owners, credit is a key growth factor,” said Katie Kapler, Director of Online Strategy for Biz2Credit. “The platform not only provides entrepreneurs with direct capital access, but it also gives service providers of all sizes the ability to extend credit to their small business customer-base.”

About Biz2Credit LLC

Founded in 2007, Biz2credit connects small business owners with service providers and lenders, empowering them to effectively compete with big business, innovate their services and products and grow their enterprise. Biz2Credit does this by matching small business owners with loan options based on the strength of their business, venture financing priorities and the creditworthiness of the individual. Built for transactions, Biz2Credit gives small business owners 1GB free storage space to manage and share documents, access to a global small business exchange to market their services and free advice on how to start or grow their enterprise.

About Sage

Sage services over 1000 customers in India with its ERP, CRM and Payroll products across industries like, Financial Services, IT Services, ITES, Media, Hospitality, Logistics, Discrete & Process Manufacturing, Travel and Exports. Sage has offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. Sage follows a Partner model worldwide for selling and implementing its solutions and has over 40 Partners in India presently. Sage Software India (P) Ltd is a subsidiary of The Sage Group plc, a leading international supplier of accounting and business management software solutions and related products and services for small to mid-sized businesses. Formed in 1981, Sage was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and the Group now has 5.8 million customers and employs over 14,500 people worldwide.