Mapping your Cloud

As providers of accountancy software and services, we see the growing development of online hosted services as something we cannot afford to ignore; a change that will inform the way we supply, manage and charge for services in the future.

Offering different, often more customer-centric, cost-effective ways of working, will benefit everyone - and make the prospect of providing users with a full suite of services from one trusted provider a reality. Were not quite there yet, but the journey of discovery has certainly begun.

The 2011 online solutions market has come a long way, specifically in terms of take-up and the increased trust the public are now willing to place in data hosting. The market for online solutions has accelerated dramatically. Usage is booming and e-commerce, media download and vendor presence to consumers has never been stronger.

Businesses, including accountants, have been somewhat slower to adopt. The market still views online social usage and online business solutions separately – as different streams that do not align, except in specific areas such as social media and advertising.

This delay highlights the markets reluctance to relinquish control of valuable data to an unknown secure server location, especially in times when data theft, identity fraud and legal compliance are also at an all time high. But this is changing – especially as levels of trust and demand continue to grow. The solutions themselves, offering capital cost savings and the convenience of multi-location access, have become key drivers to adoption.

Although desktop and online solutions remain separate, we have seen online tools emerging to complement desktop software installations. At Sage we believe more entrants will join the online solutions market, creating a competitive, price-sensitive situation in which product differentiation will be key.

Standing out from competitors will be the most important factor to gaining market share and increased consumer choice will make that an ongoing challenge.

Our view is that online solutions should provide a relevant and useful extension of desktop software. The ‘hybrid model' benefits customers by causing little disruption and offering more choice and flexibility. This is why simply telling clients to ditch systems they trust and are familiar with wont motivate them to adopt cloud-based solutions.

We think accountants will look to find an online suite of products from one trusted provider; a group of services tailored to their specific needs and budgets.

Through a single point of access, customers could access all the online services they subscribe to with their chosen vendor, choose a level of functionality, then see this reflected in pricing. As such, the market will demand enhanced and seamless integration, greater levels of choice, modularity and flexibility, presenting relevant workflow and processes to meet individual needs. The usability of such applications will be critical. Design will be centred on who will be using the solution rather than sheer volume of functionality.

Eventually we will all become reliant on these online solutions to provide real-time data and any-time access, and also to enhance processing. They dovetail nicely with modern employment trends too – supporting remote working policies, positive recruitment and real-time information management.

The adoption of ‘apps' is important too and online and mobile development models are very different to those of traditional desktop and developer communities. They provide economies of scale that are unlikely to be viable for any one solutions vendor. Third party development relationships can not only ‘scale out methods customers use to interact with software and services, but can keep businesses on the crest of change and enable sharing of ideas, expertise and best practice. As such, we believe strategic partnerships will be the key to rapid deployment of new technology and services.

At the moment, the trend is all about concentrating on complementary partnerships rather than diving headlong into unknown markets – but this will change.

Diversification could become a competitive factor. So you could access a quotation for all your business contracts (utilities, telephone, mobile phone, broadband or finance) from a single, trusted software services supplier – possibly even one consolidated contract to cover them all.

Accountants could work with other practices to provide a ‘virtual portfolio' of services to a wider audience of clients, leveraging on economies of scale and specialist expertise.

Extreme as such examples may seem now, there is clearly a message here about how the internet and online solutions may mould the world in future. The potential for growth and innovation is immense and now is the time for users and suppliers to start mapping their own version of this exciting new vision.

When it comes to using the Cloud, and in particular the way accountants, clients and software providers supply services, it seems the sky really is going to be the limit.