Why should you be considering an upgrade?

Technical compatibility:

The technical benefits of upgrading your system may not be obvious to everyone within an organization, but the decisions made here have a significant influence over the productivity, efficiency, longevity, and financial stability of an organization.

By upgrading your system—we refer to Microsoft here, however, this is also relevant for non-Microsoft environments—you ensure that your organization is keeping in line with the vendor support matrix. In the case of Microsoft, this applies to any ERP system that is using SQL as their underlying database. By upgrading, you are aligning with the complementary and pre-requisite technology, whether that be your operating system, your database platform, or your security governances.

A factor to consider is backward compatibility, or the lack thereof in some scenarios. If you are proactive in upgrading your SQL, but your ERP system is an older version without the compatibility to a newer version of SQL, this may require you to consider upgrading or seek an alternative product set.

By keeping your environment up to the latest revision (or at maximum two revision prior to that) it would mean that you could consider a cloud-based environment, meaning your IT infrastructure spend is minimized.

Other considerations include your technology platform. Typically, the server platform requires a refresh every 4 to 5 years; as above, the vendor support matrix must be considered including server licenses, security patching, business continuity, and finally, disaster recovery.

For organizations who cannot avail themselves of SaaS, the possibility of using Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a serious consideration. Owning your ERP license and outsourcing the infrastructure relieves the financial burden of having to have a Capex budget every 4 to 5 years. Having a managed service allows for IT to concentrate on supporting the organizations business aspirations and let the data center concentrate on the day to day running of the infrastructure service.

Features enhancements:

Upgrading on a regular basis ensures your organization has access to all the latest 1Staff Back Office and Microsoft Dynamics GP features for your staffing organization, including—but not limited to—new releases; updates; minor enhancements; security patches; and major releases.

Whilst these are all user and business benefits, they ultimately connect to your return on investment: your organization has invested in a solution and are paying maintenance, so you need to ensure that you are utilizing and appreciating the features and enhancements that are being provided to you.

Third-party applications:

If your organization is reliant on third-party applications to conduct your business, you need to consider the implications if those third-party applications upgrade and the impact on your solution if there are any incompatibilities. A key driver to staying on the latest version of your solution is so that if your third-party applications upgrade, you can continue to work with them and take full advantage of the service they are providing.

Your people:

Fact: most people want to be using the latest and greatest technology and software. Therefore, by holding back on upgrading, you could be putting a limit on your resource pool: new employees may not want to come and work for an organization that has a working practice embedded within old technology, and current employees may want to move to organizations that are keeping up with technological movements.
You also risk the longevity of your working practices when employees that know and manage the older technology move on, leaving your organization without a subject matter expert for your aging and outdated system.

The culture of not updating technology within an organization and staying current is one that can have a significant negative impact upon your workforce.

Why haven’t you upgraded yet?

In our conversations with clients, we have discussed many reasons as to why they might be choosing not to upgrade.

• They do not fully understand the benefits of upgrading, and do not realize what they are missing out on.
• They are worried that there may be disruption to the business.
• It is not their decision to make and are therefore content with using what is provided. They are not empowered, engaged, or involved enough to be able to make the decision, or perhaps do not know enough to be able to present a business case.
• They believe that ‘if it isn’t broken, then don’t fix it’, simply because they do not know how much better it would be if they upgraded.

Any of these sound familiar?

They do not need to be a reason not to upgrade.
Talk to your Account Manager so we can work through your concerns and come up with a solution!

Ultimately upgrading, or at least seriously considering upgrading your solution is something that should be a high priority for you and your organization.

Considering an upgrade? It’s never been easier to get started.

If there is any information here that has raised questions or thoughts, or if you would like to know more about your options for upgrading, now is the time to act!

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