I promise you ti was an accident.
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Once they get that single sign on working…
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Yes I’m sure.
Well… in that case we have time LOL
Thanks for all your honest feedback. I did not need convincing but I have been able to utilise your comments to justify my cause, so it has been very useful!
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As a Certified Platinum Partner, I can tell you that it will not stop you from getting service. However, the challenge goes beyond support and updates. Essentially, should you come back online with the software, Epicor will charge you back maintenance to get the benefits of the latest version. (There may be a negotiation possible) that is the policy.
Another approach that we encourage our clients is to look at improving the efficiency of your business by not dumping modules but getting a greater return on investment by adopting best practices, improving profitability and making your company more valuable by using ERP to your advantage. When you approach it in this manner, you are far more likely to see the value and the cost will be the last thing you look at. There are many case studies we and Epicor can share on the topic. Each customer can be unique but the tools ERP provides are valuable and can be deployed in any company.
Sincerely,
John Preiditsch
Six S Partners
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Thanks for the info John.
I’m an independent consultant, who are probably the only group of people who would take your call. I would be very likely to not take on someone who doesn’t carry maintenance. But not carrying maintenance is not a good idea. It’s just a cost of doing business.
From my perspective as an independent: I’m also looking for clients who are long term. I look at a company who’s not willing to pay maintenance costs as someone who’s probably going to nickel and dime me on everything as well. I’ve had clients like that in the past (former clients) and they are no fun to deal with. I’ve grown over the years and learned that not every client is a good client.
I know you said you didn’t need convincing - it’s your bean counters. Hopefully you use my perspective as further fuel. If they think they can simply reach out to a partner or an independent in a pinch, they’re probably not going to get a good one. The best analogy I can use - your car needs maintenance and all the good shops have a two or three week wait. There’s one garage that can get you in this afternoon. Ever wonder why they don’t have the same wait? You don’t want that same thing with your ERP help.
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Curiously we are told here in the UK, if we want to reduce the modules you have licensed, Epicor will revalue the remaining ones at todays prices, this means you may be paying the same for less functionality.
This was told to a customer of ours last year.
We are also told that if you withhold maintenance for two years, you can back pay the maintenance, after two years you have to purchase the software again.
We had a customer who last year upgraded from 9.04 to the latest. We soon and didn’t use the Epicor support.
So there are two reasons why you may want to keep paying the maintenance, firstly if there are any legislation changes that are required, for example in the UK we have recently been required to link Epicor to the government for tax purposes. This of course could be written by any competent developer.
The second reason for keeping maintenance is security, your version of epicor will run on certain versions of SQL. At some point the version of SQL you are on won’t be supported which means the data will be at risk and the later versions won’t support your version of Epicor.
This is why Epicor are pushing the cloud version, don’t pay, you don’t get access.