Has your bakery’s software reached the end of the line?
Despite claims they are merely resting, some older bakery management software programs are, in fact, dead.
News of their demise reaches us soon after bakers receive official notice that the application they use to run their businesses has been discontinued. Having been told that there will be no further development to this software, they soon seek out an alternative.
Discontinued bakery software systems fall broadly into two technical categories. Some were originally written for venerable IBM servers. Others were standard Windows-based programs. Either way, their original creators have either retired, sold up or otherwise moved on.
What these now-defunct systems have in common is that they are on-premises applications, i.e. they run on server hardware owned and maintained by the bakeries that use them. None made the jump to the cloud model whereby bakeries no longer needed to run such hardware.
We know from our own experience that moving from one computing model to another can be daunting. It was a prospect we faced ourselves back in 2016 when we decided to switch Cybake to the cloud. This was not an easy task. It took serious investment. To fit the new cloud model, Cybake had to be redesigned from the ground up.
Happily, this redesign also meant taking advantage of the vast processing power available with the cloud. Crucially, in our case, this huge resource led to the advanced forecasting, reporting and business intelligence capabilities within Cybake that, today, sets it apart from the pack.
Future-proof
More importantly for Cybake users, our move to the cloud future-proofed the software they rely on. Today’s Cybake is an ever-evolving application that we update all the time and is developed in close conjunction with the community of commercial bakers that use it.
This community has grown rapidly over the last few years and expanded across the world. The cloud unquestionably made it easier the achieve this growth. It also made Cybake a more attractive prospect to new customers.
The creators of software applications that have now reached the end of the line faced exactly the same choice as we did almost a decade ago. They chose not to redevelop their technology for the future.
Some now offer their customers an option to soldier on in support mode, which can be costly, while others offer migration to generic ERP packages. Unsurprisingly, neither option feels like much like payback for years of loyalty.
When faced with these choices, commercial bakeries start to look at other options. They often reevaluate the systems they have been using. Shortcomings include a lack of mobility, user-unfriendliness, and an inability to integrate with e-commerce or other types of business software.
So, if you have received a communication telling you that the software you use in your bakery has run out of steam, you are not alone. The good news is that there is an alternative that is easy to move to, that you can use anywhere, and that will allow you to take full advantage of today’s web-based world.
If the system you use faces an uncertain future, why not get in touch?
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Rachel Hindle is the Business Development Manager of Cybake in the UK and the coordinator of the Independent Cybake Partners group.
