For some time now, organisations across New Zealand and of course the world have steadily moved from on-premise software to more modern cloud alternatives. This increasingly extends to core Enterprise Resource Planning solutions, the ‘crown jewels’ of the applications that help run the business effectively. Generally, the reasoning for the move is based on cost, reliability, and flexibility; after all, these factors make for a strong justification for on-demand solutions which easily reach ‘anywhere’. But there are other arguments, too, which must be factored in, and many fall into what we might call ‘housekeeping’. Let’s take a closer look.
The upgrade cycle
Face it, if your ERP is still on-prem, it is probably also at least 3 or maybe more versions behind the most recent one available from your vendor. It’s easy to make that assumption for a couple of simple facts. The first is that a major upgrade can be somewhat indistinguishable from an implementation – and as we all know, implementations are arduous, to say the least.
Attendant with arduous is, of course, cost. Major upgrades take a lot of time, take the focus off ‘business as usual', and generally wind up far more complex than initially imagined because when one part of the ERP upgrades, it turns out something in a distant part of the organisation is incompatible.
Yes, we said going cloud was about more than cost. But cost itself comes in many forms, as those faced with version upgrades know all too well. With cloud ERP, the upgrade cycle is compressed and iterative; that means smaller, more regular upgrades which don’t require an overhaul so complete that it is ignored for as long as humanly possible.
Software maintenance (and value derived)
A common gripe from customers on legacy on-premise ERP systems is the maintenance they pay on their software. (Yes, we’re back to cost, but again, in a form different from the hefty up-front purchase for an on-prem system). The gripe is valid because, in many instances, it seems like money for nothing, as Dire Straits may once have observed. With little in the way of new features or functionality, software owners quite legitimately wonder where all that cash goes, and what if anything it is really paying for.
That’s not the case with cloud software. Those regular iterative upgrades – usually ‘over the air’ – don’t just cover patches and security updates. They also steadily introduce new functionality as it emerges. This means your business isn’t stuck with the limitations of early 2000s technology, but constantly enjoys the ‘latest greatest’. Incremental introduction of new features also reduces the ‘change management’ and training load for your personnel – and that’s always one of the toughest components of any major system overhaul.
Hardware overhead
Back in the 1990s it was in fact quite an impressive thing to walk into a data centre or even hardware cabinet, admire the flashing lights, and in some cases, show off to associates (admit it, you remember this as well as I do!).
These days, nobody wants hardware, and nor should they. While every bit is as essential to your operations as foundations are to a house, neither is of particular interest so long as they are done well. With cloud ERP, the hardware goes from hogging office space and costing a bomb (yes, there’s cost again) in technicians, electricity, constant attention, and of course the problems which come with inevitable failure, to a big fat zero. It literally becomes invisible, vanished into the cloud, and ‘someone else’s problem’. That someone else – Google or AWS, IBM or Microsoft Azure – is far better at looking after hardware than you ever were, too. And that means reliability and performance go up, while economy of scale means the cost goes down. It doesn’t get much better than that.
The crucial question of support
With all the very good reasons for going cloud, why wouldn’t you? For many, it’s a lingering question-mark around support. After all, a cloud vendor is a faceless entity headquartered overseas, far removed from God’s Own Country, right?
Well, wrong actually. The mechanics of the channel are pretty much the same for cloud ERP solutions as they are for on-premises software. So, you’ll typically have a vendor country office, and a network of local partners handling sales, implementation, and first, second, and third tier support (this is precisely Verde’s role). Escalation to the vendor, in the same way as the on-premises model, is rare but available when necessary.
Partner support is always preferable, in either case, because your partner should understand both the software and your business/requirements.
Probably the only question remaining, then, is this: Why haven’t you made the shift to cloud?
There may be good reasons – but it might also be time to take another look.
In the latter case, get in touch now for a no-obligation discussion of what Verde can do for you.
