Imagine you just bought the car of your dreams. Would you leave it in the car park without locking the doors?
It’s not a hard question to answer. By comparison, when it comes to ‘locking the engine’ of your business, the answer should be equally clear-cut. After all, the systems that keep your business running are at least as valuable as your more tangible assets. But, even though 96% of all obsolete software have security issues, not every business prioritises making sure they update in time.
It should come as no surprise that security is top of the list. Obsolete systems leave you vulnerable to cyberattacks, security flaws and other exploitation of weaknesses in your systems.
If your software is obsolete and support has expired, it can also harm your ability to accommodate the changing needs of your customers. Without the latest version, you’ll miss out on new features that can make you more competitive.
With dated systems, it’s not just the risk of incurring extra costs when something goes wrong. If your staff work with inefficient software, this can impact internal productivity. This also ends up costing you more money.
In other words, there are plenty of reasons to keep your platform updated. So, how do you avoid missing out on important updates?
You’re probably already used to continuously improving the processes in your organisation. Try and regard the work of keeping up with software updates in the same way - as a gradual optimisation of your business.
This approach is also known as Evergreen IT, which PWC invented in 2009. Evergreen IT can be defined as “standardised resources distributed across the company, which can be scaled for multiple users, and which are flexible enough to cope with changing needs without disturbing the entire technological foundation every time.”
Microsoft went on to revise this definition with a simpler explanation: “running services consisting of components that are always up to date”. Software providers like Microsoft work with the same type of continuous enhancements as your business.
They’re also referred to as ‘Kaizen’ processes. They’re constantly working to make their platforms more efficient and to accommodate the changing needs of end users.
Download our eBook on Evergreen ERP below and be prepared for the continuous updates.
Upgrades can be an expensive affair. That's why it has always been top of the agenda for those responsible for applications to handle the process efficiently and to minimise business risks. But you can actually avoid expensive, complicated upgrades when it comes to Microsoft Dynamics 365.
The application is constantly evolving. Microsoft deploys updates eight times a year which fix bugs, strengthen security and expand core functionality, so that your company is always in the best position to evolve.
It gets better - these updates are automatically deployed to your business system. And while they’re recommended, you don’t have to implement all of them. Only the biggest updates – in April and October – are mandatory to implement.
However, you should bear in mind that this might impact process efficiency and integration compatibility. That’s why at Columbus, we’d recommend you implement at least four updates as a minimum (two majors and two minors).
This is mainly good news. It will solve many of the aforementioned challenges of security, costs and competitiveness at once. Previous problems of continuously keeping your business software up to date simply disappear.
Maybe you’re already familiar with Microsoft’s Evergreen updates from Office 365. Even though both are Microsoft products, there will still be several differences when you switch to Evergreen in Dynamics. You need to be absolutely sure that after the agreed update date, your system — which has potentially been customised — will also work as expected.
Are you unsure on how to handle the process? Download our Evergreen ERP guide now.