TCG and SEEBURGER – a shared cloud experience

Cloud solutions are becoming more and more popular. Easy to connect, quicker access a breadth of solutions and the need to be up to speed and comply with changing legislation are persuading many users to move into the cloud. The market is developing at a rapid pace and an increasing number of partnerships are springing up, giving customers ever better solutions. TCG and SEEBURGER have bundled their expertise and their many years of experience to offer cloud solutions together. Read on to find out more about their newest shared public cloud product.

TCG Process GmbH  and SEEBURGER have joined forces to offer a broad range of products to automate business processes such as processing incoming invoices, orders, order confirmations and delivery notes.

A growing number of customers no longer wish to run the machines behind the above solutions inhouse. The ever higher infrastructure and administration costs this involves, as well as a lack of flexibility and know-how in monitoring the day to day running of the software and system as a whole, are turning cloud models into an attractive alternative. Therefore, just over a year ago, both partners launched another exciting cloud solution  together.

The advantages of processing invoices in the public cloud

The Invoice Portal Cloud Service means that processing invoices with TCG‘s DocProStar Invoice integrated into a SEEBURGER solution can now also be done in the public cloud. Previously, this was a service only available on-premises.

The advantages are clear:

• The infrastructure and technology run unobtrusively in the background. Operating and administrating the solution is no longer the customer’s responsibility, rather the provider’s.
• The default product is extremely stable and automatically scaleable.
• Hot fixes and updates are automatically managed by TCG and SEEBURGER, the software version used by the client is always completely up-to-date, including all its features.
• Fair pricing based on a subscription model, with a low access price. You pay for what you actually use, based on the number of invoices you have processed and how many pages these have.
• Data is strictly filed by client, operated in a German-based computing centre and fully complies to GDPR.
• Information security confirmed at all levels through ISO/IEC 27001 certification.
• Can be integrated with the client’s IT infrastructure through standard interfaces.

Working together to integrate solutions in the cloud

Implementing this cloud solution, with all the demands on security, availability and accessibility, posed a number of challenges for both partners, helped us grow in experience and, finally, resulted in a successfully integrated cloud solution. Step by step, we were able to overcome each hurdle and create a product optimised for the future.

1. The original on-premises solution was usually set up especially for the specific customer and their needs. This isn’t possible in a public cloud environment. Instead, we needed to define the best fit to meet the most customer needs possible, while also taking out any unecessary ballast. So that we, as an established provider, didn’t need to reinvent the wheel, a good solution was a hybrid integration with TCG’s cloud-enabled product.
2. We needed to consider a number of factors when choosing a cloud provider. As well as meeting our high demands on stability, performance and around the clock availability, they also needed to comply with GDPR regulation and be able to securely protect our customers’ confidential data.
3. Adding new clients to the cloud service needed to be quick and simple. This process and its obligations had to be defined so that, once clients have been speedily taken aboard, all they need to do to get going is to send their invoices into the cloud
4. New features and updates need to meet certain stability criteria, as well ac successivley extending the cloud’s portfolio. An increasing number of country packs are being made available online to enable foreign invoices to be processed in the standard version.
5. As the data volume and the number of clients in the cloud increases, the infrastructure is adjusted to support this. Thanks to daily monitoring by TCG and SEEBURGER, the smooth running of the system is assured.

As well as ensuring that the system and its infrastructure are stable, in a successful cloud partnership, both sides need to  communicate quickly and efficiently with each other, and to have a relationship based on trust.  TCG and SEEBURGER have worked together for a number of years, and our good relationship enables us not only to offer our clients great service, but also to work together on further cloud solutions for order and delivery management.

As well as a public cloud solution, TCG and SEEBURGER have also joined forces on a portfolio of further cloud solutions, including the possibility of using AI to digitise a company’s incoming e-mail.

Would you like to find you more about the public cloud and how we can help you use it? We at SEEBURGER and TCG would love to advise you on this or on other matters.