Craig Walker, CTO @storminwalker

An introduction to the Cloud

So what is the Cloud?

It’s not using a laptop on a mountain...

or on an airplane...

Unless you’ve been living under a rock...

you’re in the Cloud

So what is the Cloud?

So what is the Cloud?It is computing on the Internet.

The mainframe era...

with the client-server era...

The Cloud

Out of the box and into the cloud

You

man

age

On-Premise

Applications

Data

O/S

Virtualization

Servers

Storage

Networking

Out of the box and into the cloud

You

man

age

(as a Service)Infrastructure

Applications

Managed by vendor

Data

O/S

Virtualization

Servers

Storage

Networking

You

man

age

On-Premise

Applications

Data

O/S

Virtualization

Servers

Storage

Networking

Out of the box and into the cloud

You

man

age

(as a Service)Infrastructure

Applications

(as a Service)Software

Managed by vendor

Managed by vendor

Data

O/S

Virtualization

Servers

Storage

Networking

Applications

Data

O/S

Virtualization

Servers

Storage

Networking

You

man

age

On-Premise

Applications

Data

O/S

Virtualization

Servers

Storage

Networking

Out of the box and into the cloudYo

u m

anag

e

(as a Service)Infrastructure

Applications

(as a Service)Software

Managed by vendor

Managed by vendor

You

man

age

Hosted Applications

Managed by vendor

Data

O/S

Virtualization

Servers

Storage

Networking

Applications

Data

O/S

Virtualization

Servers

Storage

Networking

O/S

Virtualization

Servers

Storage

Networking

O/S

Data Data

Apps Apps

But why the Cloud?

Anytime. Anywhere. Any device.

Simplification of IT

No more upgrades!

No more upgrades!

Meter up, meter down...

No more server rooms...

No more server rooms...

Disaster Recovery

Business Continuity

Queensland, Australia - 2011/2012

@growthwise

We picked up our laptops on Friday afternoon and went out the door with them. Because we can work from anywhere we had not one hour of downtime & enjoyed working from the coffee shop & our lovely park across the road... We didn’t have to worry about ensuring everything had backed up correctly. We didn’t have to worry about disks to re-install software on computers. Other than where to see our clients we didn’t have to worry about anything at all.

http://www.growthwise.com.au/our-flooded-office-experience/

Christchurch, New Zealand - February 22, 2011

@djcaSidekick

Our building was damaged… the 2 buildings next to us came down.Initially made sure everyone was OK & told them to take a day or 2 to make sure their families were OK.On Friday that week we met at my house for lunch & told war stories.On Monday everyone turned up at my house with whatever laptops they could find & started working, processing everyone's January GST returns due that day.As long as we had an Internet connection we could carry on.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/business/6333225/Accounting-firm-shifts-to-the-cloud

Reduced Cost

Capex → OpEx

Total cost of ownership

ACCOUNTING SOFTWAREQuickbooks, Sage PeachTree

PRACTICE SOFTWAREThompson Reuters

SELF MANAGED SERVERSServer hardwareNetworking infrastructureServer operating system, virus scanner, firewalls, etcServer(s) support and updatesSoftware licensesSoftware maintenanceUpgrades & maintenanceStorage/backups

The old way

$10,000’s (up front)

$$$ (ongoing)

The cloud way

BUSINESS SOFTWAREWord, ExcelExchangeSharepoint

$100’s (per month)

Value

Times are tough

• limited credit

• shrinking markets

• deficit spending

Global economic downturn

Changing strategies

Organization demands

• budgets cut

• projects stalled

• lost resources

• do more with less & do it better

• find new markets

• innovate

Transform your business

• Democratization of computing

• Reduced time to value

• Limitless scale

• Forces agility

• Gives you reach

• Provides opportunities to re-invent with limited disruption

The cloud dissolves time, space & geography

Fake SaaS vs Real SaaS

Multi-tenancy

Hosted Apps vs SaaSHosted apps SaaS

New versions released yearly (if you’re lucky) & may not be applied Xero does 10-12 release pa (versionless)

Updates per customer, requires outage Bug fixes, updates, enhancements instantaneous & for everyone

Same crappy user experience (designed for desktop)

UX designed for the web - rich, sleek and productive Internet experiences

Can only handle small numbers of concurrent users Designed to scale with your business

Less durable & limited by hardware Unlimited

Support provided by hosted vendor but not by software vendor

Free, full, support provided by the vendor (who controls everything)

Backups nightly Backups running constantly (no data loss)

High cost structure Reduced cost structure (economies of scale)

Caveat Emptor: if it’s not multi-tenant,

it’s not SaaS

How do you measure up?

Average hourly rateWrite offsWIP/lock up daysRevenue : Salary ratioAverage fee per clientDebtor daysNet profit before tax %

How do you measure up?

Average hourly rateWrite offsWIP/lock up daysRevenue : Salary ratioAverage fee per clientDebtor daysNet profit before tax %

The cloud opportunity

Connected

Real Time

Smart

Efficient

Integrated

The cloud opportunity for accountants

Ask client for datafile

Remind client to send the datafile

Check email & save datafile to hard drive

Remember client’s password & version

Upload to my copy of the software

Compile reports

Review data & make adjustments

Send file back to client

Explain & remind how to overwrite current file

Login to Xero

Compile reports

Review data & make adjustments

$$$

OLD WAY CLOUD WAY No Friction

No cost!

Friction

Old way: customize reports for each client

REPORTS REPORTS REPORTS

Customize Customize Customize Customize

REPORTSREPORTS

Customize Customize

REPORTSREPORTS

REPORTS REPORTS REPORTS

Customize Customize Customize Customize

REPORTSREPORTS

Customize Customize

REPORTSREPORTS

Cloud way: customize for groups of clients

REPORTSREPORTSREPORTS REPORTS

REPORTS

REPORTS

REPORTS

REPORTS

REPORTS

REPORTS REPORTS

REPORTS REPORTS

REPORTS

REPORTS REPORTS

REPORTS REPORTS

Customize Customize Customize

The Single Ledger

Shared data

For the accounting practice

For the small business

General ledgerFinancial statementsManagement reports

Fixed assets

InvoicingDebtors

CreditorsExpense claims

Contacts

online

multi-user

anywhere

anytime

bank feeds

payments

mobile

EDI

payment graph

connected

smart

benchmarking

leads and opportunities

group buyingbusiness network

notificationsinvoicing

portal

The SaaS accounting journey

API

You can see your clients business in real time...

Get alerts when something is wrong...

Provide benchmarking across your client base...

Become the Virtual CFO

Your clients’ business in your pocket...

Anytime. Anywhere. Real time.

Demo

So how do you get started?

• Classify your information assets

• Determine your requirements & risks

• Do some sums on your ROI

• hardware/software savings

• organizational efficiency

• organization growth

Get some advice

Identify the low hanging fruit

Research the vendors

Research your vendors

• Check their reputation - but remember size isn’t everything

• Security• understand how secure your data has to be & how the vendor

solves your security problems

• Data protection• how do they protect your data?

• what’s their backup strategy?

• how can you get the data out?

• who owns the data? (Note: YOU DO!)

• Reliability/availability• what’s their service level agreement?

Try before you buy!

Beautiful accounting software

Questions?

Beautiful accounting software