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What approach is best for supporting JD Edwards Today – Internal IT Staff vs. On-Demand Application Managed Services?

For most companies running JD Edwards, the answer has been an internal team of 3 to 4 JD Edwards support staff with an occasional hiring of an independent consulting or a systems integrator to support a project or upgrade has worked just fine.  

However, the JD Edwards landscaped has quickly changed over the past two years. Today, companies are facing new market conditions.

  1. CIO’s are being asked to reduce capital expenditures and operational expenses.  They are looking for less expense alternatives to support legacy technologies. 
  2. IT organizations are focused on new technologies such as AI, IoT, and Security Vulnerability and have limited availability to focus on maintaining their ERP application.
  3. Changing workforce skills.  The career path of a JD Edwards resource is closer to retirement then not. Next generation IT workforce is focused on next generation technologies.
  4. Product maturity of JD Edwards is maximized. R&D spend from Oracle is going to its suite of Cloud applications.
  5. A fast reduction in the number of dedicated JD Edwards consulting services organizations are reducing and eliminating their JD Edwards practices in lieu of Oracle’s new Cloud Applications or other technologies.

Let’s review the Pros and Cons.

Internal JD Edwards IT Staff

Pros:

  • Extensive knowledge of the company’s version of JD Edwards, related technologies, people, and processes.
  • Ability to have daily in person support.

Cons:

  • High employee personnel cost to support JD Edwards.  A typical JD Edwards customer spends between $200,000 – $500,000 per year supporting JD Edwards.
  • Difficult and expensive to find, hire, train and retain JD Edwards support staff.
  • Limited exposure and knowledge to best practices or new capabilities.
  • Limited ability to provide support after hours or on PTO.

GuidewireSI’s JD Edwards Application Managed Services

Pros:

  • Access to a team of JD Edwards application, development, system administration experts averaging 16+ years of experience.
  • Flexible pricing structures from consumption based to prepaid plans with rollover hours.  Only pay for what you need when you need it.
  • 24 x7x365 availability with SLAs with one-hour guarantee response time, currently averaging less than 8 minutes.
  • Visibility and accountability with online portal and ticketing system providing real-time monitoring, ongoing reporting and oversight by a dedicated JD Edwards team.

Cons:

  • Limited on-site availability.
  • Concern related to knowledge transfer from in-house resources to application managed services team.
  • Skills and knowledge to find and qualify if GuidewireSI is the right company to meet your specific JD Edwards needs. 

To schedule a 30-minute Assessment to determine the potential value of GuidewireSI’s On-Demand Application Managed Services, Click Here.

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