Blog Credit: Andy Chase
“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” Henry Ford
Revised annually, this list started as a Top 10 and grew quickly once we collected inputs from our customers & practice leaders. Whether negotiating your next Managed Services Provider (MSP) renewal, looking for Transition Support, or exploring on demand help or managed services for the first time, I do hope this analysis helps you to realize a successful & innovative JDE support partnership.
Why Oracle JDE customers might want to consider changing MSPs…
- Cloud Lockdown – Your MSP has you on one contract for Cloud Infrastructure and JDE managed services, padding their margins for IaaS on OCI, AWS or Azure while locking you into only being able to use their services for Tools Upgrades or Code Current projects. There is a better way…
- Turnover of Key Talent Resources – Your MSP keeps losing your go-to support people and you keep training their replacements.
- Lack of Flexibility – our MSP holds you to the letter of the contract even if/when the needs of your business or industry change, being willing to add scope, but rarely if ever willing to reduce scope. (avoiding ‘Churn’ at your cost)
- Innovation Still Not Coming to Fruition – Enterprises today are under increasing pressure to innovate and transform their business, and many who hire MSPs do so for that very purpose. Sadly, some of those who have outsourced to an MSP are still not innovating – how can this be? #ContinuousInnovation
- Subpar Resources – You know more about JDE than those assigned to help. Seriously!?
- Use it or lose it! – Your MSP profits from your slow periods/seasons, charging fixed fees even when you do not use the service, then during peak periods you have to pay unreasonable overage fees.
- Reactive Support vs Proactive Monitoring– Your MSP isn’t utilizing 24×7 monitoring tools to enable more proactive support. The result? A snowball effect of reactive support and constantly tending to unnecessary fire drills.
- Nickle & Diming on Extra Fees – Your MSP charges rate multipliers for off hours help and support and/or they raise your support costs every year.
- Strict Scope Parameters – Only certain E1/CNC activities are covered in contract, with related activities billed separately T&M (package builds, database refreshes, ESUs, etc).
- Lack of Desired Skills – Your MSP isn’t able or willing to help with industry specific Functional support, or perhaps with related 3rd Party & Development needs.
- Not Providing Strategic Solutions – Your MSP isn’t available to help conduct critical discovery sessions to identify ideal JDE enhancements or 3rd party solutions that solve organizational challenges & help you achieve growth objectives.
- No Skills Enablement – Your MSP isn’t teaching you how to be self-sufficient in the areas you are capable of supporting or handling yourself.
- No Documentation/Knowledge Transfer – Your MSP isn’t generating adequate documentation/KT for your staff with clearly defined business support operations & IT workflows.
- Inconsistent SLA Response Times – Your MSP isn’t able to respond consistently in a reasonable time period across all High, Medium & Low priority tickets.
- Missing 24×7 or Global Support Coverage – You’re in good hands as long as issues occur during business hours and say before 2pm on business days; or, perhaps as a multi-national company you struggle to get adequate care and localization expertise for international operations?
- Automation Avoidance – Your MSP isn’t giving you automation tools like Smart Build or Cerberus that increase efficiencies and reduce the costs associated with time and labor spent building and deploying packages or resetting passwords.
- Not Playing well with Others – Your MSP isn’t willing to operate in a shared responsibility or On Demand Support model that allows you to pick and choose the areas you would like to execute by using your own team or other resources of your choice
- High Entry Point / High Costs – Your MSP wants upfront commitments and long-term renewals binding you to a minimum number of FTEs or higher number of hours making it difficult to reap benefits of remote support or managed services while still controlling costs
- Watered Down ‘Core’ Expertise – Your MSP says they are a JDE shop, but their support operations are divided giving attention to SAP, NetSuite and other ERPs, limiting their focus on JDE while assigning ERP-neutral infrastructure, database & network resources to solve your problems
- Acquisition Heavy – Your MSP was recently acquired … unfortunately for some, once they’ve found a great boutique or purpose-built service offering, that MSP is acquired and then consolidated with other MSPs which can result in months or years of interrupted SLAs, turnover of key resources, account management disruptions, new unfavorable contact terms, higher costs, etc
- Innovation Still Not Coming to Fruition – Most organizations today are under pressure to innovate and transform their business, and many who hire MSPs do so for that very purpose, yet sadly, some of those who have outsourced to an MSP are still not innovating – how can this be?
- Old School Ain’t Cool (at least in IT) – Your MSP is still using ‘typewriters’ and ‘VHS tapes’ to tackle your IT problems, for instance writing extensive code for integrations rather than keeping up on the latest technology innovations (LC/NC Platforms, JavaScript, NoSQL, REST APIs, JET, Mobility, Orchestrator, Logic Extensions, RPA, Cloud Apps/Services, etc)
- E1 Optimization Avoidance – our MSP seems content riding the wave of your antiquated ERP system rather than partnering with your organization to facilitate demos & knowledge sessions, providing Gap Analysis and E1 Optimization services, that help engage and equip your stakeholders to understand, evaluate, prioritize, and then modernize E1 so as to transform your ERP capabilities through Continuous Adoption, Automation & Mobility.
Last but not least, here is some of what CE customers are saying about their experience switching from other MSPs:
Follow through to completion. CE sees the task through in a timely manner, even when documentation is required. It’s sent without a follow-up.
Knowledgeable on latest technology. Able to advise and support new development and processes utilizing the current E1 technology with a STRONG level of comprehension and familiarity.
Ownership. CE will take on the task and ensure all that needs to be addressed is taken care of and provides the client with guidance when there is concern, a better process, more efficient design or solution. This is extremely valuable.
Response. Quick results on ticket completion.
Automation. Deployments that typically consume hours are automated by Smart Build. Great perk and deployments are consistent.
Professional. CE always maintains a professional personality without being robotic. If a further explanation is needed, CE will accommodate with a call and kindly discuss any concerns in a manner that is easily understood when the topic is unfamiliar.
Subject: Excellent service. “The ERP team continues to rave about the service Circular Edge is providing. Please pass along our thanks and compliments to your technical staff.”
No complaints at all. Such a huge improvement compared to the last vendor
We had JDE User performance issues for years and CE team was able to come in and make recommendations and correct the issue within months
Very impressed with CE’s dev team and how they are up on the new stuff as well as just being supper knowledgeable
I would say above all, the guidance and true concern for maintaining a stable E1 system have been the most beneficial qualities in our managed services’ partnership with Circular Edge. Thank you!
#JDEdwards Customers –If you can relate to even just a handful of these scenarios Contact Circular Edge today to learn about Smart Help Help Desk, Production Support & CNC Managed Services, our 3x Award Winning Customer Success Formula designed to put the needs of the customer first.
You can also meet the CE team in person at #Blueprint4D in Dallas this May.
