Case Study
Seconds Out - Time for You to Enter the Ring
Unfortunately by saying they need to ditch these core platforms in favour of yet unnamed cloud solutions the IT Director is doing a fine job of upsetting everybody.
Diplomacy was clearly not high on her interview panel's selection criteria. As a Non Executive director it is time for you to intervene and so you put on your steel helmet and pitch in.
You start by pointing out that there are two platforms, that for one reason or another have slipped into Enterprise Technical Debt territory: Kofax and J D Edwards. Kofax can at least be upgraded to a supported version. J D Edwards though is another matter and here, right now it is probably best to leave things as they are, but upgrade to the JDE W 9.4 version after the year end is complete and manage support via third party software consultancies, of which there are a few. This allows time to research and select a replacement ERP, migrating to it over a period of 2 financial years, possibly by running both platforms in parallel with supernumerary staff to guarantee success.
I90 is more tricky as clearly the Company, by going its own way, is at this point self sufficient and not really dependent on external vendors apart from IBM, which is famed for preserving the longevity of its hardware and software offerings, but eventually they too will retire them. That said, there are clear signs that through complacency the Board are ignoring signs that their core application is drifting into Technical Debt territory, because if the firm were put up for sale ( an event not unknown to those owned by Private Equity investors) its possible that potential buyers might see this I90 platform as more of a liability than a strength and seek to replace it or converge it with the commercially supported version, all of which has cost and carries risk.
There is, you say, no need to panic and echoing the CEO's words, suggest that its time to embrace a sensible future road map that seeks to secure the company's intellectual property and ensure it remains competitive in a market that is dominated by online platforms. Very diplomatic, but the writing is firmly on the wall and you can see from the glint in the IT Director's eye that she will not allow this to drop and will see that proposals are brought forward to future meetings.