Cloudbusting! Busting some myths about Cloud!
Back in 1985 – almost 40 years ago - Kate Bush released a track, Cloudbusting, and via this blog, I’d like to bust some myths about Cloud too! It’s hard to believe that it was almost 18 years ago when Amazon Web Services launched two market-busting ‘cloud-based’ solutions, swiftly followed by Google with Google Docs.
These were the foundations of the original cloud computing services, and when the term was initially coined, so the Cloud is certainly not a new concept.
Since then, technology has evolved at pace and the world is becoming more digital as both we and our customers are realizing the benefits of cloud migration. At Unit4, we continue to develop and deliver our solutions to produce the outcomes that today’s forward-thinking organizations require, and the best way to do this - for both parties - is via the Cloud.
With Software as a Service (SaaS), we can help our mid-market customers to remain compliant, competitive, and efficient. As an industry-leading technology provider, our next-generation solutions enable greater flexibility and agility, giving mid-market and service-oriented organizations a competitive advantage and helping to heighten both user and customer experiences.
However, this is not just our perspective - a raft of organizations, not just large enterprises, first started using SaaS more extensively around 10 years ago and as usage has grown so have the proven benefits.
The cost of doing nothing
For any organization, there is natural trepidation when approaching digital transformation, and moving from legacy, and on-premises, systems to the Cloud is no exception. However, the benefits of the Cloud will outweigh the true cost of doing nothing and provide a modern solution to modern issues.
Organizational inefficiency is often characterized by outdated hardware and software which can not only hinder organizational resilience, productivity, and user experience but can lead to higher costs and less customer satisfaction.
For mid-market organizations, a perceived challenge to digital transformation is lacking the resources of larger competitors and, therefore, that cloud migration is a bigger undertaking. Many mid-market organizations have varying levels of IT maturity so may wrongly assume that cloud migration is more effort than it’s worth.
However, collaborating with the right technology partner, which can do a full assessment of both current and future needs, will make the cloud migration journey far smoother.
The benefits of an integrated Cloud-based solution
A key benefit of the Cloud is automatic updates to your system, ensuring you are running on the latest versions, equipped with the most recent features and, critically, security measures. Flexibility, and the ability to scale up, or indeed down, to meet your organization’s needs, is another positive.
Some fear that shedding on-premises servers can lead to less, or worse quality, maintenance. Again, the truth favors the Cloud – Remote access not only increases the availability of support but allows for 24/7 monitoring meaning that risk can be mitigated.
Support is further bolstered by the existence of customer support agreements, with clear service level agreements, to ensure system uptime and responsiveness. Remote support also frees up internal IT and tech teams to focus on more strategic work, since release management and patching are no longer required.
One myth is that digital transformation can require large financial resources, the truth is the opposite. Cloud migration negates costly hardware and infrastructure changes; the cost of hardware maintenance is high, while an ERP solution can grow, and pull back, as you do.
As growth is at the heart of business, having resilient operations that can adapt to growth, as well as decline, means that adaptation is swift. Realizing this growth with cost and time efficiency is a huge target for smaller organizations and a plus for larger organizations.
For our customers, we have also found that the ease of integration is another positive and they are able to easily exchange data and interoperability using Unit4 Industry Mesh. If such benefits were still not enough, the Cloud provides organizations a competitive advantage by offering the most innovative technology available, which continually evolves.
Hear from those already benefiting from cloud migration in our customer stories
Many of our customers – across multiple sectors - have already made the move to Cloud, either joining us to take advantage of the cloud solutions we offer or migrating from our on-premises ERP.
Speaking about the benefits, Mary Kent, Head of IT Programs at Magnox said, “Unit4 has been a great partner for many years and Unit4 ERP has delivered strong operational benefits. Moving to the cloud has made us even more streamlined and effective and has allowed us to take advantage of improving technology faster.”
This sentiment was echoed by Helen Baker, ERP Support and Development Manager at Southampton City Council in the UK who found: “Unit4 is making the council smarter and more agile. By automating and streamlining processes in the cloud, as well as introducing self-service, Southampton City Council can direct more resources to front-line services.”
Our customer stories allow you to hear the true benefits of cloud migration directly from our customers, so don’t just take our word for it. There really is a cost to not taking action, so find out today why cloud migration with Unit4 can deliver on ROI and time efficiencies.
Learn more about your Cloud Migration journey with Unit4 on these pages for Unit4 ERP, Unit4 Financials by Coda and Unit4 FP&A, and start your Cloud Migration assessment today.
