TechOne reports cloud migration windfall

Australian software powerhouse TechnologyOne says its decision last year to start moving its business operations to the cloud has resulted in significant savings and productivity improvements.

Executive chairman Adrian DiMarco said stage one of the transition was establishing Gmail as the company’s email platform last year, a decision he claimed reaped cost savings of between 20 and 30 percent.

TechnologyOne expected to achieve further savings of that order as other functions are moved to the cloud.

“Our move to the cloud has provided us with a simpler, faster and more flexible model,” DiMarco said.

“We don’t have to deal with databases, technology and complexity. We’re left to focus on our own business”.

Further, he noted that moving core IT functions to the cloud has lead to major operational and cultural improvements within the company.

“The move away from the traditional operating environment has also had a positive impact on TechnologyOne’s culture in terms of greater collaboration, sharing, mobility and flexibility, benefits which are all inherent in a cloud based offering.”

And ultimately, the company hopes it will now be more focussed on its core business functions, notably software development.

TechnologyOne’s move to the cloud was also motivated by last year’s disastrous Queensland floods, which forced the company to evacuate its Brisbane headquarters, resulting in significant disruption to the business and great expense.

Most of the company’s corporate systems remained operational, but its 300-strong R&D team ground to a halt because off the disaster.

“As a company that invests more than $30 million a year in R&D, this team is the core of our business and we simply cannot have them offline,” Di Marco said.
 
“The biggest lesson we took away from this was that if your data is in the cloud and not onsite, your people can work from anywhere, on any device, at any time. It’s a more flexible model of computing, with its own built in disaster recovery.”

TechnologyOne now feels that having undertaken its own journey to the cloud, it is better qualified to lead the way for its customers.

“Now we have successfully navigated the complexities of cloud migration, we are very confident we can save our customers a lot of that pain if and when they choose to move,” DiMarco said.

Listed on the ASX, TechnologyOne has a market valuation of around $500 million. It provides -maiinly through the channel - enterprise software solutions spanning HR, asset management, business intelligence, CRM and mobility serviing organisations spanning the government, health, financial services and education verticals.