Our annual global Industry Insights Report is an opportunity for the Epicor team to tune into the pulse of the industries we serve. While the overall sentiment from this year’s survey was positive and most businesses predict growth fuelled by continued digital acceleration, the data does provide a valuable window into how we can better customize our solutions and services.
Recognizing we have a vital role to play in the digital transformation of your business, Epicor will continue to listen, respond and champion new initiatives designed to specifically address your needs and concerns. This year’s survey results highlighted a handful of concerns that we were already addressing, including cybersecurity, cloud migration and connectivity.
Epicor Cloud Reliability Center
The reality is all software is prone to viruses and vulnerabilities – but due to its scale, cloud technology leverages far greater financial and expert resources than a single organization could feasibly commit to. We have expanded our strategic partnership with Microsoft to deliver enterprise-class solutions globally on the Microsoft Azure platform which uses the latest in artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect and remediate vulnerabilities at scale even before they are exploited. As a gold certified partner – the highest available – we have priority access to Microsoft resources that can be put to work for our customers. Microsoft spends over $1B on cybersecurity every year and Microsoft Azure’s physical data center security is so strict and technology-forward that it would be cost prohibitive for a single business to try to replicate it on their own premises.
In addition, Epicor has created an additional layer of support – the Cloud Reliability Center (CRC). Our CRC is staffed 24/7 by Epicor IT experts – at corporate Headquarters in Austin, Texas– who are constantly monitoring and safeguarding your cloud environment. This team of experts is “always on” to identify and address potential vulnerabilities in the infrastructure before they are exploited. Regardless of your support service selection, or how you choose to engage, all our cloud customers receive protection from the Epicor CRC.
To round out our commitment of offering the highest levels of security, Epicor employs a trusted, independent, third-party security testing service to test our system perimeter security. This ‘penetration testing’ is conducted at the order of the Epicor CIO on a biannual basis and is executed independent of all Epicor Cloud Operations group testing.
Connectivity Continuity Planning
One in 10 of the businesses we surveyed are still falling prey to unstable internet that severely impedes their ability to consider hybrid cloud solutions. If tricky internet is your issue, we have some advice:
Cloud Council
In a commitment to ongoing listening outside of the annual Industry Insights Report, we have also created a Cloud Council designed to enhance peer-to-peer advocacy among our most prolific cloud-based users. The council is a hand-picked group of customers representing various executive roles and geographies spanning across our core industries. The goal is for the diverse group to be representative of the major needs of the sectors they operate in, influence best practices, and provide early guidance on Epicor’s roadmap.
Epicor Modules
Epicor has enhanced its core ERP solutions with a series of business specific modules to meet the shifting needs of the essential businesses. An organization can purchase only the modules relevant to its business, operations and key challenges or add relevant ERP modules to address new needs or challenges as the organization evolves.
All the Epicor modules – Epicor EDI, Epicor ECM, Epicor Security Suite, KBMax (Epicor CPQ) and Epicor Payments – are cloud hosted and are an excellent gateway to modernization. Understanding that many organizations have not migrated their ERP solution to the cloud, the modules integrate seamlessly with the current on-premises solution, give the user the experience of the cloud and future proof the business for a full migration when they are ready. Collectively the hybrid approach delivers a simpler deployment, lower costs, elasticity (i.e., the ability to only use the necessary resources at any given time), new functionality, less need for internal IT resources, and the ability to easily add users and functions to accommodate business growth.
Our promise to you is to keep listening and evolve so together we can create a world of better business.
