Legacy data is defined as “information held in an outdated or outmoded format or computer system that is, therefore, difficult to access or process” by Business Dictionary. Although it does sound foreboding, we must understand legacy data in the modern day, the reasons you may need to migrate to a new system, and the procedures involved in a migration or conversion project. It’s better than it appears, and the process may go smoothly with the appropriate people on board. The process of moving data from a source system to a destination system is known as data migration. If you want to keep some or all the data now held on your legacy system, this is one reason to think about data migration. In the worst event, your old system malfunctions or fails, rendering it inaccessible and irretrievably destroying all the data that was previously accessible; if the data on your system is essential to your business, you cannot permit this to occur.
To help you become “legacy-free,” Platform Transition professionally offers dimensional data migration from your legacy software.
Root of the Foundation
Platform Transition used to be known as The Financial CoPilotTM and provided operational accounting services to expanding businesses before committing to the accounting data transfer industry. Before Platform Transition, its leadership team built businesses in sectors such as insurance consultancy, real estate, construction, and retail financial services. An associated closely held business required data transfer services but could not locate a solution that satisfied their needs or the necessary budget and time constraints. As the first clients of the solution, they began their journey in this business. As a result, they are aware of the clients’ challenges, opportunities, and frustrations. They know that empathy is a primary ingredient in the migration process, followed by effective and competent execution of the actual migration.
Differ Markedly from Others in Data Migration
Platform Transition offers named unique processes with outlined workflows and purpose-built results that clients can customize to meet their needs and specifications. Each procedure entails cooperation, teaching, counseling, and consulting, with the option to improve the client’s experience to include up to 25 more in-migration requests at standard pricing. It has streamlined the client engagement process so that they are only accountable for four main tasks. At the same time, it completes the migration on their behalf, and the Platform Transition team has developed innovations and migration methodologies that allow clients to “go live” on the new system on time, regardless of the status of the migration.
Make the Services More Affordable
Platform Transition charges fixed project fees for most of the scopes in their statements of work. This indicates that the customer will have a precise grasp of the expenses of their data migration, including any data abnormalities and further scoping requests, shortly after signing the contract. Customers can now use Platform Transition’s services and support without hesitation because they have successfully eliminated the worry that comes with a service provider that charges by the hour. They have every incentive to do the task effectively the first time because the incentivization for that outcome is aligned.
Meet the President, Hugh O. Stewart
Hugh Stewart has vast experience in many different industries including as a data migration specialist, contract CFO, financial literacy educator, and former nuclear fuel designer. Hugh is the CEO and Founder of Platform Transition LLC, a business that offers complete solutions for Sage Intacct historical data migration. The company’s president frequently faces the task of being present and open to absorb the tragedies, heartaches, successes, wins, and losses of the organization and its people while responding to events with composure and temperance. His responsibility is to explain that, despite the situation, “we get to make it okay to step into whatever is next, together.”
Obeying the President’s Duties
Hugh O. Stewart is the director of the production for Platform Transition and serves as the company’s principal subject matter expert for most scoping calls. He mentors the project management team and oversees the developers in charge of the company’s R&D initiatives.
He also oversees joint venture operations for companies with which Platform Transition has partnered to take on projects that they would otherwise be unable to manage. He has a staff of experienced professionals supporting the company’s functional areas, including operations, administration, and finance. He also conducts weekly sessions on migration theory and practice for members of the company’s production teams.
The development, dissemination, and monitoring of Platform Transition’s 10-year, 3-year, 1-year, and quarterly plans and reporting on the related performance corresponding are some of his more critical strategic responsibilities.
Digital Documentation
The inclusion and advocacy of implementation partners for clients to install their new accounting systems with expanding volumes of detailed historical data are the most significant improvements that Platform Transition has observed in the last few years.
Clients used to be advised to leave their data in the legacy system by both their implementation partners and software publishers. Clients were also aggressively discouraged from importing copious volumes of detailed data from their legacy systems.
According to the founder, the barriers and constraints that could once be used to justify limiting a client’s capacity to bring over as much history as they desired are waning. This is because cloud-based ERP systems now have effectively unlimited amounts of storage space and processing capacity. Additionally, many systems no longer employ paper-based backup techniques since many clients’ supporting documentation may be digitized and kept in the same environment as their legacy data. Software publishers are starting to understand that users want their data and their attachments that originate from their legacy systems. As one of its most recent process innovations, Platform Transition now migrates attachments from many of the legacy systems that it supports
Improvements to Data Migration
Three things that Hugh O. Stewart would change about data migration include:
Challenging the paradigm of ETL (Extract, Transform, and Loading) to make it more customer-centric. As it stands right now, the process needs to be more expanded and transparent. It is geared towards supporting the service provider’s operations, which leads to an outcome that does not promote transparency, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, or ease.
Transforming the industry to create a fixed-fee standard as opposed to using a Time and Materials approach to data migration. Currently, service providers are not incentivized to be efficient with their use of time, nor are they incentivized to arrive at the most efficient collaboratively validated solution possible. The variable cost of data migration is a contentious worry for many organizations implementing new systems that need to learn how to plan for what is usually a very opaque process.
Supporting the early consideration of data-informed mapping structures in the design of the target system architecture. Platform Transition has learned through hundreds of exit interviews that customers prefer to have their historical data-infused element structure inform and be a significant factor in the design and development of their new target system.
Desire to Achieve Future Steps
By transferring data and settings between software systems, Platform Transition is the market leader in the Sage Intacct ecosystem, and its innovations support implementation partners and growing businesses in focusing strategically.
The goal of Platform Transition is to have their automated service and consulting products integrated into the top 10 ERP systems for the top 100 Value Added Resellers in the United States, according to Accounting Today’s Top 100 VAR List. Hugh estimates it will take them about 15 years to become the most significant data migration operation in the world if they are successful.
Advice for Young Leaders
Hugh offers some limited wisdom to ambitious entrepreneurs: Recognize that the fallacy of instant business success is real and is probably haunting you. The reality is that your idea for a business is not likely going to succeed in your first attempted market launch. The market rewards you for how long you can persevere in identifying the ideal match between your skill set and the market demands that you are particularly motivated to fill or qualified to serve, not for how sound your initial hypothesis was. Construct your deals, views, and strategies so that you can first be wrong, says Hugh.
He claims that it will take some time for you to figure out what you are supposed to do in the world and how you were supposed to contribute uniquely. He continues, “Many of us quit long before we find our flow or our natural and unique contribution. Nothing on the globe will be able to stop you once you’ve discovered that specific niche and positioning.”
“That is what’s happening to us right now.” – Hugh concluded.
Business Ethics
Every quarter, Hugh has the privilege of approving initiatives that the company’s team suggests be taken to carry out particular actions based on the disclosed plans. Regarding the company’s beliefs, Hugh is happy to report that they genuinely uphold them.
- We speak with one voice.
- We quickly get it done right the first time.
- We are a space where chaos fades away.
- We are responsible for the customer’s experience.
- We create solutions for the customer challenges that matter.
Written by Steve Sanchez.
