We’ve spoken before about how the cloud is changing the dynamic with your ERP provider. How does this affect the day-to-day running of your ERP?
When you selected Infor to support your business you made a contract, however, only some of the commitments were written down. Implied, though not stated, was that Infor have a responsibility to maintain and enhance CloudSuite – equally it is your responsibility and yours alone, to ensure it works in your environment.
So, what are you to do?
Option one: assume that nothing bad will ever happen.
There are a couple of problems with that.
- The stats show that Infor fixed over 3,000 defects in the last year – so bugs exist, and you need to determine if and how they’ll hurt your business
- Infor will be part of your integrated application stack. To maintain business sanity, you need to test end-to-end: not just the bits that Infor flags as changed. You need to prove that you can still take and service orders, while getting the goods and services from your suppliers.
It is also worth considering how well Infor can test the software you use. They won’t have access to your configuration, won’t be using your customisations and certainly won’t have access to your data. So, for your business, it’s as if the software hasn’t been tested at all.
Option two: Testing
Not just the feature releases. Given that Infor deliver 30% of the new features in the service packs, you need to test every monthly delivery.
Can it be done without placing an impossible burden on your business users? The answer is Yes. It takes a bit of commitment and investment, however it’s a well-proven 3-step process
3 steps to starting testing
- Get your key business processes documented – you need to know what’s meant to happen
- Get a survival pack of those processes (think order to cash, procure to pay) automated so you can instantly test the new releases and be sure your business can still operate
- Empower your business users so that testing new capabilities are automatically fully documented and their time is minimised.
Testing software = business insurance
That’s where Original Software can help.
CertainTeed (part of St-Gobain) did it. We’ve been working with their North American division for over 5 years. They use our solutions to handle their weekly cadence of updates, and in that time, they have had zero unplanned downtime in their application. Not a single hour.
If you’re ready to embrace the challenge and build that business resilience, get in touch.
Colin Armitage – CEO, Original Software
