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Xero
The Pitch

Xero migration certification: Qualifying the move to cloud

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7th Mar 2018
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At Xerocon London late last year the new migration certification and Xero HQ emerged as the New Zealand-based cloud accounting developer’s stand out announcements.

Together it suggests a pincer movement to not only tie workflow deeply into those already committed to Xero and its ecosystem but to also coordinate moving more non-Xero clients on to its ‘platform’.

Where Xero HQ does this by accommodating non-Xero clients to still gain the benefits of the add-on alerts and tasks, the migration certification goes straight to the heart of how you overcome some of the key barriers to getting clients into the cloud.

For Xero, the benefit is clear: more trained partners able to better coordinate the take-up of licenses. But what about the impact on firms?

Badges count - Practically and commercially

Proud as I am of my cycling proficiency badge, some certifications are more meaningful than others. Vendor badges have various guises; however, they usually resolve back to the practicalities of how to use their product, which is fair enough.

The migration certification builds on this to create confidence in putting together a practical plan and business case for moving volumes of clients, as well as the process of migration itself. Training staff and clients makes a lot of sense, but the battle around adoption and take up has to be won and traction gained before training is even on the agenda.

Commercially, it also makes a lot of sense. Building scale and benefiting from the efficiency of cloud can only be achieved once clients are there. The longer this process takes, the longer it will be for value to be realised. Putting multiple team members through this process, therefore, should also have benefits.

Julian Bucks, director of partner services at Xero, confirmed this. “Our take is that it shouldn't just be consumed by a single individual within a practice as it typically takes multiple 'champions' within a firm to really make the transformation seamless and therefore realise the benefits earlier”.

However, the challenge of finding the leadership and the time to make this happen within a firm is something which will be very familiar.

Releasing or relinquishing responsibility?

On a positive note having staff go through the migration certification could help boost their confidence and so release responsibility from partner level to others within the firm to form and manage the plan.

Conferring a mandate from those that are time poor but carry the authority to those that have the energy and enthusiasm to tackle the change, sounds like sensible delegation. However, the flip side is if this actually becomes a way of relinquishing responsibility then it could create more, rather than fewer barriers, and ultimately create a bit of a mess.

In other words, partner buy-in and commitment to change is still a prerequisite for success.

An army of integrators

With so many businesses creating integrations for the online accounting packages, the need for those with the skills to make these processes and connections work is going to increase hugely over the next couple of years.

The process of advising on financial systems can be complex, and there are businesses out there doing a great job of consulting with accountancy firm clients to select and implement the right systems.

Migration certification starts to bring this role more into the mainstream, and by working from within firms, it creates a balance between the practical, more technical aspects, and the cultural and business change management that is required.

Equipping hundreds of people from within firms to handle and think about cloud in this way could have a big impact on the speed of delivering cloud-based solutions to even more SMEs.

Good news for those that believe in the benefits, and amazing news for Xero, of course.

Have skills, will travel

One thing that could run parallel to this is that those with the skills and can follow up with success within their practice open themselves up to new possibilities. Creating niche and rewarding roles within their practice is entirely feasible, with the option to look at more client facing advisory, as well as internal operation roles.

“I would hope that the migration certificate allows practices to offer their ambitious people the opportunity to climb the internal ladder”, said Buck,

There is also the open market. And those with the right badges and a compelling story to tell could see lucrative projects working with other firms to make similar journeys. Although Buck suggested that Xero is seeing the opposite with the trend “showing that practices that are taking cloud seriously are more likely to be holding onto their ambitious people than losing them to their competition”.

I’m a little less convinced, and as we know, finding good staff is hard at the best of times, and those with these kinds of niche skills could create a further high demand.

The cloud battle is more than just features

For doing this, I have an undisguised admiration for Xero. But really it’s about the acknowledgement that the cloud battle is more than a feature war.

The assertion that the future is AI, machine learning and hyper-efficiency is fine - and I’m excited about seeing what QBO, Sage, FreeAgent and others will bring to the table over the next few years too.

Vision is important for capturing the imagination, product releases affirm the progress, but unless there is more help equipping firms to make adoption happen in a more robust way there can’t be the benefit gain required to make the real business difference.

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David Ross
By davidross
08th Mar 2018 11:50

About half way through this was beginning to make some sense, but then I got to "Conferring a mandate from those that are time poor ....."

Plain English please - don't use gobbledygook to try to impress, it does not work

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