Standard processes in the cloud!

Business processes with mission-critical data and the cloud - until now, this did not go together for many companies in the upper midmarket, especially in German-speaking countries.

These often have a conservative clientele that is reluctant to entrust its internal company information to an entity outside its own corporate boundaries. Even if one has the impression that "cloud" has long been the standard, this is not yet the case in many areas.

Concrete projects to introduce public cloud solutions are often only now starting in this market segment. This is because the advantages of the cloud are now obvious even for high-end SMEs: lower entry or fixed costs, usage-based pricing models, no need for in-house IT resources for operation, always the latest software thanks to automatic updates, rapid provision of required resources and the cushioning of peak loads.

For the customer, public cloud means that he no longer buys software, but rents it as a service from a provider who also takes care of the administration; the customer accesses it via the Internet. This circumstance requires new technological solutions.

It is not enough to make existing solutions developed for classic on-premises use available in a data center and then call this "cloud". Cloud solutions must be "cloud native".

This means that applications have been designed and developed for the cloud computing architecture and that the operation of the solution and its further development follow cloud approaches, such as a shared Dev Ops team and agile development.

Companies usually aim for hybrid scenarios. The public cloud is particularly suitable for generic, frequently occurring processes, as these can be standardized and do not require a particularly high degree of customization.

Individual processes, on the other hand, such as those of an ERP system, are often kept on-premises or continue to run in the company's own data center, especially by larger companies. What is needed, therefore, are modular solutions that supplement the ERP system with flexible services for specialized sub-processes from the cloud and can be easily and seamlessly integrated via APIs.

The task of IT departments in companies is thus increasingly changing to orchestrating the networked cloud landscapes that are emerging in this way, instead of administering the IT themselves.

And that's where cloud solutions that serve to automate generic, document-based processes, such as document classification, document reading and archiving, score points - an offering that WMD's xSuite Cloud Platform provides.

Example incoming mail: Here, the classification of documents is carried out. As in a virtual mailroom, all incoming mail is sorted - for example, according to invoices, applications, complaints, orders, etc. - and automatically transferred to the relevant downstream system.

For example, document reading: This takes over the automated reading of content from invoices, for example. These can have a wide variety of formats and be received via different channels. The read content can be validated directly in the cloud or forwarded to the local ERP system for this purpose.

Archive example: A typical use case here is the archiving of SAP documents, for example. This can also take place very well in the cloud via an ArchiveLink interface. However, the cloud archive can also be used for data and documents of all types and from any system. The location-independent access via various end devices and the extension by business processes or file solutions underline the advantages of a cloud archive.

Cloud solutions that are modular but interlock and that can be used together or individually - this concept will sooner or later convince even skeptics of the advantages of cloud use.