Even enterprise software providers aren’t immune from the need to undertake a business transformation.
In 2010, Australian enterprise software provider TechnologyOne identified a change that was coming to shake up the way organisations consumed software and services.
As a result, TechnologyOne jumped on a plane and headed to Seattle to meet with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to see what a future in cloud looked like for the Australian Securities Exchange-listed company.
Boasting 1,200 customers in six countries, TechnologyOne considers Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle its main competitors; consequently the space the Australia-based company plays in is very competitive.
Speaking with media at an AWS roundtable on Wednesday, Edward Chung, TechnologyOne’s long-serving COO cum CEO, detailed the company’s transformation.
Chung noted that the speed at which people demand services was one of the main drivers behind the company’s shift. He said as a result, TechnologyOne started transforming its entire business to respond to the «digital revolution».
«We’ve transformed from a traditional software provider that used to install software on-premise, to being full software-as-a-service (SaaS) and it’s been a wild journey,» he said. «The only way is to be cloud-first and a SaaS provider.
«We’ve rewritten our whole software base to keep up with different phases of the industry.
«A huge transformation for a company which today is 30 years old, coming from on-premise to full SaaS — SaaS is the only way customers are procuring.»
Chung said it wouldn’t have been possible without the cloud and AWS in particular, as eight years ago there was no cloud vendor to help here in Australia — AWS itself only launched its Sydney region five years ago.
According to Chung, the hardest thing about changing the business model to a cloud-based one was that the company was breaking new ground in Australia, with the shift also requiring a re-engineering of the company’s offering.
«Our customers have rapidly gravitated to SaaS,» Chung told ZDNet.
«We were thoroughly impressed with how quickly the government sector has adopted our SaaS — it’s beyond what we hoped for. This meant that we scaled the business even faster than we initially planned to meet their needs. We love that they push us — because all of our customers benefit from this.»
Speaking with ZDNet in November, founder, former CEO, and now chairman of TechnologyOne Adrian Di Marco said the massive market that is enterprise cloud in Australia is continuing to pick up pace.
«The cloud is a new paradigm for customers. The market is actually massive in Australia, there are government departments, which we’ve seen huge demand from federal government, state departments, local governments, universities — they all want to go into the cloud and they really all want it delivered how we’re offering, software-as-a-service, not as a hosted thing,» he said.
«The cloud is growing exceptionally fast. It’s a business that’s on a massive trajectory up.»
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