There are a couple of key components to every ERP implementation. Executive Support, Functional Fit, Quality of Training, Access to Information and, more important than ever in 2018, the seamlessness of integrations.
The nature of a ‘complete business solution’ is very different today than it was just a few years ago. Business no longer depends on a single solution provider for software. A business rightfully sources best of breed software for specific tasks. Department managers find this software from Google searches and reading reviews of that software written by their peers. This means that each department can end up with the perfect software for their needs, which is awesome for them. The mountainous challenge for internal IT departments or external software consultants is to make all these systems integrate to provide the ‘most seamless business system’ possible.
Announcing SmartConnect.com
On September 12th 2018, eOne is releasing SmartConnect.com which is going to make it much easier for our partners and customers to deliver ‘even more seamlessness’ in their Business Systems. SmartConnect.com is not just some new integration software. SmartConnect.com has evolved from 12 years of knowledge, experience and feedback from those people that deliver integrated business solutions for a living.
eOne partners have delivered 6,000 wildly successful SmartConnect solutions for their customers. Up to this point, those implementations have been done with SmartConnect as an on-premise integration solution. SmartConnect.com takes all of the great things about SmartConnect and brings that to our partners as an Azure SaaS integration solution.
Reasons beyond ‘the cloud’
As CEO of eOne Solutions, I am really excited about this release – but not for some of the stereo typical ‘cloudy’ statements I am expected to deliver here. I am excited about SmartConnect.com because it is going to reduce our number of support calls to our help desk. This means that there are less tricky issues facing our partners and customers. This seems like something rather mundane to be excited about, but 60% of the calls to the eOne help desk revolve around the common themes of:
- Issues with the install
- Server and Firewall Security issues
- Server software versions
- Upgrades
While talking to our partners and customers is one of our true joys in life, we would rather help them build an awesome integration solution than discuss the intricacies of a network and server installed by a long-gone IT manager 7 years earlier!
Spend your time on the important things
SmartConnect.com means that you can jump online and build integrations in short time – eliminating the daunting pain of ‘getting ready’ to build an integration. Consultants will now be free to spend their time writing detailed specifications, outlining the business process the integration supports. Consultants will have more time to build solutions that provide the ‘most seamless business system’ possible.
All of the good things you love about SmartConnect have flowed on to SmartConnect.com, but we leave much of the painful stuff behind. We have made some changes, based on your feedback, to make building integration maps easier than ever, and we will outline all of these things over the coming days and weeks.
Choose your preferred deployment type
Rest assured that SmartConnect is not going away. You get to choose when you purchase SmartConnect whether to deliver integrations via on-premise SmartConnect or with SmartConnect.com. There will be really good business reasons and a few functional reasons to choose the deployment of your choice.
The great news is that integrations are getting easier to build and you will be able to manage all your customer’s integration from any location and via a single solution. Happy Days.
Interested to learn more? See what’s included in the release of SmartConnect.com here.
Dive even deeper by requesting access to the SmartConnect.com beta here.
