We met with a client last week whose challenge is to put to good use an IT system that was bought and paid for during a time when his business was surging, and he had the manpower to justify a major investment in his IT infrastructure.
Now on the heels of a major restructuring effort to right size his company in a tough economy and a tough industry, he finds that his system is overbuilt and won’t scale in the opposite direction that would keep it cost effective for him.
Then this weekend I read an article from the front page of the Phoenix Business Journal regarding a Tower of Condos in downtown Phoenix that is now just 5 percent occupied.
Built-out infrastructures designed to meet a peak demand that is no longer coming or at least won’t be present for quite some time. They don’t scale in the opposite direction. Sunk cost is sunk cost.
With the arrival of the Cloud there is some good news for businesses with respect to their IT costs. Those businesses that have been operating on platforms like NetSuite have over the past year, been able to easily right size their costs by simply lowering the number of licenses that they have in use at this particular point in time.
With Cloud-Based, pay-as-you-go, subscription licensing, the challenge of an overbuilt IT infrastructure is a thing of the past
For those businesses who find themselves faced with an overbuilt IT infrastructure, give us a call at TrueCloud. We’ve got some solutions that can help ease the pain right now.
Dave Rice CEO, TrueCloud
www.truecloud.com
Monday, August 24, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Top 10 Reasons to choose Cloud-based Solutions to Run Your Business
1. A Cloud-Based software application delivery models provide many strategic advantages over their predecessors.Affordable Feature-Rich Capabilities Delivered over the Web – Finally the public network has become reliable enough and secure enough to run all aspects of your company, including mission critical applications on a system that resides in the network (or the cloud) and is attended to by skilled IT professionals for a single monthly subscription cost, much like cable television. The features and functions of these complete systems are now comparable to the those of the large traditional enterprise systems (ecommerce, CRM, ERP and financials), at a far more affordable rate.
2. Anytime, Anywhere, Ubiquitous Access to the System – All that’s needed is an Internet connected computer. If you have employees that telecommute, work from home, a “feet on the street” remote sales force, international or global access requirements, they can all have real-time access to these applications now.
3. Amazing Reporting Capabilities that Span an Entire Business – These systems were built from the ground up, taking advantage of the latest technology as well as the lessons learned from prior generations of enterprise systems. Role-based dashboards provide real-time information in the form of key performance indicators to you, the owner of a company, right down to your front-line employees. When it comes to reporting, no longer is there more then one version of the truth – everyone is looking at and operating from the same information.
4. A Much Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) – A cloud-based software application delivery model means you can forgo the initial purchasing of software, hardware and support services in favor of renting your software (CRM, eCommerce and ERP) and IT infrastructure on a pay-as-you-go basis. As a result, you forgo the recurring cycle of upgrading and replacing hardware and software each year as new computing power makes old hardware obsolete, and new software upgrades require revisions and new releases. These on-going maintenance and support activities become the responsibility of the cloud-based service provider, and are no longer a burden for you to bear.
5. Reduced Implementation Time & Cost – A cloud-based software application delivery model results in significantly reduced implementation costs. The software is already loaded on high performance hardware within a state-of-the-art data center that is manned on a 24/7 basis. With an existing pre-configured and production ready network, you won’t have to engage in activities like software installation, relational database installation, network operating installation, hardware environmental issues and related “burn in” activities that come with new products. Instead, with the help of a provider (like TrueCloud), the use of pre-configured implementation templates will dramatically accelerate the implementation cycle in order to get to a working system faster and cheaper.
6. Turns Variable Costs Into Fixed Costs – Cloud-based software application delivery models turn otherwise variable costs into predictable monthly payments. These solutions provide you with an expert IT staff and a fixed monthly expenditure over a multitude of otherwise variable and uncontrollable expenses – including implementation costs, hardware costs (including break/fix, upgrades and maintenance), software costs (including point release updates, new version upgrades, bugs and user assistance), recurring labor costs (such as systems administration, network support, DBA, user support and troubleshooting) and put them into a predictable and fixed monthly expenditure that can be adjusted up or down based upon number of users on an annual basis. This cost predictability finally enables businesses to concentrate on strategic IT planning and spending without unscheduled and costly surprises.
7. Reduced IT Salary & Management – Cloud-based software application delivery models means you can forgo the need to employ database administrators, system administrators and IT management who have traditionally been required to provide expertise for business software applications. More than just a payroll cost, this means you can also eliminate the recruiting, hiring, management and continued training and personnel issues associated with additional IT labor resources. Ever increasing and changing technologies make it extremely difficult for organizations to efficiently staff the many professionals required to successfully operate an effective systems environment.
8. Focus on Core Competencies – Cloud-based software application delivery models allow you to focus on managing and growing your business, and relieves you of day to day IT troubleshooting or distractions.
9. Achieve On-Demand Scalability – Cloud-based software application delivery models provide unlimited growth and scalability. These solutions can provide on-demand scalability as your company grows, without the need to sink more capital into advancing hardware and platform devices. There’s no unnecessary investment for you if it turns out that you don’t require the hardware performance originally forecast.
10. Advance More Strategic Projects and Initiatives – Cloud-based software application delivery models mean that more strategic projects and initiatives can be pursued. Many organizations spend as much as 80 percent of their IT budget on maintenance costs, including hardware, software, upgrades, and IT support, not to mention the untold amount of time and effort that business managers and staff spend indirectly engaged on these issues. With no hardware or software procurement, and with IT related labor costs bundled into the software subscription price, you can realize a dramatically lower or reduced maintenance burden. This enables reallocation of those efforts away from maintenance and toward value-added company technology initiatives.
Dave Rice CEO, TrueCloud
www.truecloud.com
2. Anytime, Anywhere, Ubiquitous Access to the System – All that’s needed is an Internet connected computer. If you have employees that telecommute, work from home, a “feet on the street” remote sales force, international or global access requirements, they can all have real-time access to these applications now.
3. Amazing Reporting Capabilities that Span an Entire Business – These systems were built from the ground up, taking advantage of the latest technology as well as the lessons learned from prior generations of enterprise systems. Role-based dashboards provide real-time information in the form of key performance indicators to you, the owner of a company, right down to your front-line employees. When it comes to reporting, no longer is there more then one version of the truth – everyone is looking at and operating from the same information.
4. A Much Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) – A cloud-based software application delivery model means you can forgo the initial purchasing of software, hardware and support services in favor of renting your software (CRM, eCommerce and ERP) and IT infrastructure on a pay-as-you-go basis. As a result, you forgo the recurring cycle of upgrading and replacing hardware and software each year as new computing power makes old hardware obsolete, and new software upgrades require revisions and new releases. These on-going maintenance and support activities become the responsibility of the cloud-based service provider, and are no longer a burden for you to bear.
5. Reduced Implementation Time & Cost – A cloud-based software application delivery model results in significantly reduced implementation costs. The software is already loaded on high performance hardware within a state-of-the-art data center that is manned on a 24/7 basis. With an existing pre-configured and production ready network, you won’t have to engage in activities like software installation, relational database installation, network operating installation, hardware environmental issues and related “burn in” activities that come with new products. Instead, with the help of a provider (like TrueCloud), the use of pre-configured implementation templates will dramatically accelerate the implementation cycle in order to get to a working system faster and cheaper.
6. Turns Variable Costs Into Fixed Costs – Cloud-based software application delivery models turn otherwise variable costs into predictable monthly payments. These solutions provide you with an expert IT staff and a fixed monthly expenditure over a multitude of otherwise variable and uncontrollable expenses – including implementation costs, hardware costs (including break/fix, upgrades and maintenance), software costs (including point release updates, new version upgrades, bugs and user assistance), recurring labor costs (such as systems administration, network support, DBA, user support and troubleshooting) and put them into a predictable and fixed monthly expenditure that can be adjusted up or down based upon number of users on an annual basis. This cost predictability finally enables businesses to concentrate on strategic IT planning and spending without unscheduled and costly surprises.
7. Reduced IT Salary & Management – Cloud-based software application delivery models means you can forgo the need to employ database administrators, system administrators and IT management who have traditionally been required to provide expertise for business software applications. More than just a payroll cost, this means you can also eliminate the recruiting, hiring, management and continued training and personnel issues associated with additional IT labor resources. Ever increasing and changing technologies make it extremely difficult for organizations to efficiently staff the many professionals required to successfully operate an effective systems environment.
8. Focus on Core Competencies – Cloud-based software application delivery models allow you to focus on managing and growing your business, and relieves you of day to day IT troubleshooting or distractions.
9. Achieve On-Demand Scalability – Cloud-based software application delivery models provide unlimited growth and scalability. These solutions can provide on-demand scalability as your company grows, without the need to sink more capital into advancing hardware and platform devices. There’s no unnecessary investment for you if it turns out that you don’t require the hardware performance originally forecast.
10. Advance More Strategic Projects and Initiatives – Cloud-based software application delivery models mean that more strategic projects and initiatives can be pursued. Many organizations spend as much as 80 percent of their IT budget on maintenance costs, including hardware, software, upgrades, and IT support, not to mention the untold amount of time and effort that business managers and staff spend indirectly engaged on these issues. With no hardware or software procurement, and with IT related labor costs bundled into the software subscription price, you can realize a dramatically lower or reduced maintenance burden. This enables reallocation of those efforts away from maintenance and toward value-added company technology initiatives.
Dave Rice CEO, TrueCloud
www.truecloud.com
Friday, August 7, 2009
I/T has Become a Cost of Doing Business
If you haven’t read either of Nick Carr’s books (“IT Doesn’t Matter” or “The Big Switch”), then as a CEO of a small business, I strongly encourage you to do it as soon as possible.
Carr’s writings are rapidly becoming the manifesto for the Cloud Revolution that is overtaking businesses today.
In a nutshell, IT for the vast majority of businesses in the world, has transitioned from a state of a strategic necessity that transforms companies and differentiates them from their primary competitors to commoditization and similarity in the span of about 40 years.
Businesses should be focusing their IT investments along these lines:
1. SPEND LESS: The biggest threat to companies when it comes to IT is overspending.
2. FOLLOWING VS INNOVATING: There are plenty of product solutions in the world and private software development performed on behalf of private companies has limited value. Most requirements can easily be fulfilled by existing software and equipment.
3. FOCUS ON RISKS: IT is mostly judged these days on what does not work as opposed to it’s vanishing competitive advantage.
Dave Rice CEO, TrueCloud
www.truecloud.com
Carr’s writings are rapidly becoming the manifesto for the Cloud Revolution that is overtaking businesses today.
In a nutshell, IT for the vast majority of businesses in the world, has transitioned from a state of a strategic necessity that transforms companies and differentiates them from their primary competitors to commoditization and similarity in the span of about 40 years.
Businesses should be focusing their IT investments along these lines:
1. SPEND LESS: The biggest threat to companies when it comes to IT is overspending.
2. FOLLOWING VS INNOVATING: There are plenty of product solutions in the world and private software development performed on behalf of private companies has limited value. Most requirements can easily be fulfilled by existing software and equipment.
3. FOCUS ON RISKS: IT is mostly judged these days on what does not work as opposed to it’s vanishing competitive advantage.
Dave Rice CEO, TrueCloud
www.truecloud.com
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