Sage, Brightpearl Team Up To Boost Cloud-Based Retail

Sage, which works in cloud business management, is working with digital operations platform Brightpearl on helping retailers utilize the cloud for their operations, a press release says.

The partnership will “take advantage of best-of-breed cloud finance and retail management solutions, supporting them on their digital journey,” the release says. And under the agreement, Sage will make a minority investment of around £17 million in Brightpearl.

Sage Chief Operations Officer Lee Perkins said the move would be good as businesses started to recover from the impact of the pandemic.

“As retail businesses from across the globe recover from the impact of Covid-19, trading online has gone from being a ‘nice-to-have’ to a ‘must-have’ for retailers,” Perkins said, according to the release. “Digitising back office operations is a critical step towards transitioning to online commerce,” Perkins added.

Derek O’Carroll, CEO of Brightpearl, said the company was ready to utilize the new partnership in order to “further support our retail customers and accelerate the strong presence that Sage and Brightpearl have in the UK and US.”

“Brightpearl’s solution brings significant benefits by automating retail processes so global merchants can save time and deliver outstanding and rapid end-to-end customer experiences,” he said, according to the release. “This investment will allow us to expand the platform and provide even better service, increase our product innovation and our fabulous team globally.”

Retail in the 2020 holiday season marked a shift away from the tried-and-true paths of years past, with the most important things being inventory and fulfillment, PYMNTS has reported.

Big retailers like Amazon, Costco, Nike and Bed Bath & Beyond have had to balance having inventory and also getting it where it needs to go in a timely manner. The pandemic’s volatility has made it less sure that things will always flow smoothly, and customers’ spending behavior has changed, as more of them than ever are spending online.