TechOne to devolve internal IT, move to cloud

TechnologyOne plans to decentralise its IT operations and shift all internal systems to the cloud under a major rethink of the way it handles corporate services.

The ASX-listed software maker revealed the strategy in its annual report (pdf), on the back of efforts in 2012 to automate and standardise many of its back office systems.

"Our strategy is to migrate all our internal IT systems to the cloud in order to simplify our computing model and gain the significant cost savings that come from leveraging the enormous scale of our cloud providers," corporate services operating officer Edward Chung said in the report.

"At the same time, we are devolving our IT function back to our business streams. Each stream will be responsible for selecting their vendors, maintaining relationships and ensuring service levels are met."

Chung saw the adoption of cloud as a case of leading by example. The firm is positioning itself as a provider of hosted software, and wants to "learn valuable lessons" about migration that it can use to persuade customers of enterprise software to do the same.

"We will continue to use these learnings to create offerings and a business case template for transitioning our customer and prospects to the cloud," Chung noted.

The migration of its own cloud-based systems is already underway. Chung noted that "email, enterprise suite, resource scheduling and demo environments" had already been pushed into the cloud, though he did not provide details on what services the firm has subscribed to.

"We are now focused on moving R&D, Consulting Services, file storage and our office suite to the cloud in 2013," he said.

"This will only leave minor IT systems, which will be transitioned as cloud offerings become available".

Chung expects the strategy to result in a "highly available computing model where our people can work anywhere, anytime, on any device."

He also anticipates a "simplified disaster recovery procedure" to be achieved once all internal systems are hosted.

The cloud transition and IT decentralisation follows a year-long review of systems and processes and a program of work that aimed to provide "early warning systems (monitoring controls) for our leaders".