Trying to stretch a tight IT budget a little further? Some would say you should consider having your in-house IT staff deploy and maintain your Enterprise Resource Planning.
This approach sounds logical in theory – after all, why not try to get the most out of the people you’re already paying? In addition, your in-house staff will always be there when problems arise, and will have the best knowledge of how your business processes actually work.
But there’s a major obstacle to this approach: today’s IT budgets are on shaky ground. In early 2012, Computer Economics’ annual survey of North American IT executives found that in general, the growth in companies’ IT spending was “subdued.” In addition, 31% of IT executives who participated in the survey were expecting budget cuts in the year ahead.
Shrinking IT budgets don’t bode well for companies that want to deploy sophisticated Enterprise Resource Planning platforms. It takes a wide range of technical skills to implement these solutions and keep them running – which is why you should consider working with a managed services provider instead.
How IT Complexity Can Put a Burden on Your Staff
An IT staff that has to support a major Enterprise Resource Planning platform will probably make this task its number-one priority. In a way, that’s a good thing – your business users need their systems to be as well-maintained as possible. But the more time your IT team spends fixing business software, the less time they’ll have left over for strategic IT work that can extend your company’s competitive advantage.
And as time goes by, your IT infrastructure will likely become more and more difficult to maintain. Why? Because as you implement more Enterprise Resource Planning modules, you’ll need to put each one on a separate server. That means more machines and more potential problems. As a result, your IT infrastructure can become needlessly complex, leaving your IT team in constant “firefighting” mode.
But it gets worse. As IT spends more and more time just keeping hardware and software running, the business will begin to suffer. End-users will get tired of using the same solutions with the same features. Managers and executives will ask for better decision-making tools, but to no avail. Customers will grow weary of calling to ask why shipments are late.
So, Why Managed Services?
Your Enterprise Resource Planning systems are supposed to propel you forward to greater revenue and expanded market share – but they could end up holding you back. How can you support your most important business systems cost-effectively? By embracing a new strategy called managed services.
To learn more about managed services for JD Edwards solutions, read our next blog post. Or get a free Managed Services Consultation by calling Syntax at 1-877-968-2948 today.
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