The very lucky staff who worked for Kettering in 2008 had this phone as our standard issue.  It was pretty amazing because you could read email and (if desperate) reply using the numeric keyboard or the tiny touch screen keyboard with a stylus.  It wasn’t great at phone calls though as the screen would stay on and we had a lot of interesting content created by our ears on longer calls.

The reason I mention this, is this is the same time QAD released the Enterprise Edition (EE).  Since then, almost all QAD’s R&D budget has moved away from the older Standard Edition (SE).

Many of our clients get good value from older versions of QAD.  The cost of ownership is low, the system is very stable and the users know how to use it.

However, it is easy to underestimate just how much the world has changed since then.

Given the age of SE it isn’t surprising that 2014SE is the only Standard Edition version that has a life cycle phase level above “Archived”.  The QAD website states Archived means that “Support may not be available except on a quote basis.”  Kettering will always do what we can for clients on Support, but this can be very difficult in these situations.

Another common issue we see with clients on older versions is it is often running on unsupported hardware or has major software compatibility limitations.   This is a risk that is often much more significant than some realise.

On the positive side, there have been thousands of enhancements across the board in QAD Adaptive ERP as it is now known.  It isn’t practical to try and list these, even at a high level.  However, whenever we perform a Process and Systems Assessment (PSA) invariably we will identify large numbers of opportunities that are only available after an upgrade despite a PSA not being about justifying an upgrade at all.

A PSA is an exercise run by a senior consultant with decades of QAD experience across scores of manufacturing businesses to evaluate your effective use of QAD.  The final deliverable will set out dozens of recommendations.  Specifically, we will identify an issue, make a recommendation, provide estimates of cost and benefit, and outline the next steps.  It is common that the recommendations we make during the assessment that you can immediately implement, at no additional cost, will pay for the assessment before you even receive the report. 

If you agree with the above but still want to know “why now?”.  Keeping current with your ERP is like having insurance.  If you don’t buy home insurance and your house doesn’t burn down, was it a good idea not to buy the insurance?  We want to plan and deliver the upgrade in a careful manner, not respond to an emergency caused by failing hardware or urgent new business requirements.

Kettering has a strategic priority to get all our clients onto fully supported versions of QAD and will do what we can to help you justify your upgrade and make it as affordable as possible.  Please talk to your account manager about some options that may work for you.