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This is a presentation given at the first Cloud Xero event held in San Francisco on February 29, 2012. As this was the first in an ongoing series of Cloud Xero events, we decided to introduce the concepts of cloud computing especially as it relates to the accounting industry. We followed this with a demo of Xero - Beautiful Accounting Software (http://xero.com/). All images used under creative commons and are owned by their respective owners.
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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