AsureQuality moves global IT systems to the cloud

Global food safety and biosecurity services company AsureQuality has moved its enterprise systems to the TechnologyOne cloud.

“We now have an enterprise system that we can easily deploy globally to our 60 sites across New Zealand, Australia and Singapore,” says AsureQuality CFO Alan Bird. “This makes it a lot easier to scale up as we grow globally, which was a key consideration for us.”

He says while some cost savings will be achieved by moving to the cloud, the key benefits of the migration are reduced risk, and future proofing the business.

The New Zealand government-owned company provides food safety and biosecurity services to the food and primary production sectors. It was created in 2007 by the merger between ASURE New Zealand and AgriQuality.

It employs 1700 people at some 140 sites across New Zealand, Australia and Singapore. Its services span the entire food supply chain, as well as all major primary industries. The migration to the cloud was one of the top IT projects AsureQuality cited in the latest CIO100 report on the top ICT using organisations in New Zealand. AsureQuality ranked number 83 in this year’s CIO100.

AsureQuality was already using TechnologyOne’s enterprise software in an on-premise environment. Bird says the company explored moving its existing TechnologyOne software to a hosted environment, but preferred the benefits of SaaS.

“By using the TechnologyOne Cloud we always have the latest iteration of the software,” says Bird. “As patches and enhancements come through we now receive those automatically, without needing to go through a formal or complicated upgrade process.’

“In just eight weeks we were set up and using the cloud service,” says Bird. “The whole system is now managed by TechnologyOne, and we just use the software. Our IT team can focus on activities that add value, rather than managing the back-end of the system.”

TechnologyOne Executive Chairman Adrian Di Marco says the migration prepare AsureQuality for a “cloud-first, mobile-first world”.

He says AsureQuality is also using TechnologyOne’s new Ci Anywhere platform, which allows the firm’s employees to access their information anywhere, anytime using smart mobile devices.

“Now, their only concern is who should have access to the software, while TechnologyOne manages the rest,” says Di Marco.

.

Send news tips and comments to divina_paredes@idg.co.nz

Follow Divina Paredes on Twitter: @divinap

Follow CIO New Zealand on Twitter:@cio_nz

Sign up for CIO newsletters for regular updates on CIO news, views and events.

Join us on Facebook.