Decisions Moves Into the Cloud to Guarantee Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Decisions, the independent database software provider, has chosen the Cloud Computing Centre to host and manage all of its Software as a Service business for its contact manager™ CRM solution to guarantee business continuity to its customers.
Decisions chose the Cloud Computing Centre because of its capacity to provide a fully hosted service. As Chris Christodoulou, technical director at Decisions explains, "The team worked with us to ensure that the entire solution was ready to 'Go to Market'; they helped us to get our sales strategy in place, prepare our contracts and all the collateral we required for the initial talks with our customers. However, the most important aspect of our partnership is the ongoing support they provide us through the entire sales and implementation process; having them alongside us in our client meetings is invaluable."
As a provider of membership management software solutions to member-driven associations, societies and professional institutes, Decisions' - sole aim is to make it easier and more cost-effective for its clients' organisations to attract, retain and serve their members. This made its move to offering its services in the Cloud a logical move. As Christodoulou continues, "Our customers' budgets continue to be under pressure, so the SaaS model is very appealing to many of them. In addition, hosting our applications in the Cloud means that we can provide full disaster recovery support for our customers as part of our offering."
However, as with many companies out there looking at the Cloud, Decisions was unsure of what needed to be addressed in order to facilitate this move as seamlessly and efficiently as possible. "There is so much information out there on the Cloud. What you really want is a simple guide on how to move your business over and still continue to meet your objectives," explains Christodoulou. "This is exactly what the Cloud Computing Centre provided us with, which is why we chose to work with them as our strategic partner for SaaS."
Decisions initially engaged with the Centre on a "proof of concept" basis, enabling them to see the infrastructure in action and receive advice on the specific issues they would need to address in order to successfully complete this move.
"The correct choice of SaaS partner is key to ensuring a seamless transition to the Cloud Computing model, as there are a number of key technical criteria that need to be addressed. From data centre location, to business continuity and disaster recovery strategies and connectivity concerns, if you include all of the surrounding business issues of developing a 'route to market' or 'go to market' strategy, there is a lot of information that needs to be processed prior to embarking on the move to the Cloud. Not getting this right can cost you dearly, and this is a position few can afford to be in, which is why we invest our time upfront understanding the nuances of each individual customer to advise them on how best to progress with the Cloud," explains Keith Bates, Chairman at the Cloud Computing Centre.
The Centre is a privately-owned provider of services to hundreds of companies with many thousands of users across the U.K. It maintains over 500 managed servers requiring petabytes of data storage capacity.
Expanding on Bates' comments, Christodoulou concludes, "Our market is highly dynamic and our business is constantly growing to exceed the demands of our customers. We are expected to be constantly available and responsive. As such, it is imperative that our system is flexible, resilient and always accessible. This is exactly what the Cloud Computing Centre does for us; our partnership with them means that our customers can stay in business even if disaster strikes."