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gating the best technology into a platform that helps our
team win, rather than spending resources on managing
the basic capabilities. We heard a lot about the move
toward SaaS and PaaS and Infrastructure as a Service
and we knew Transwestern was uniquely positioned
to truly make the move to the cloud and reshape the
technology of our organization into a dedicated group
of business analysts who are focused on providing data
intelligence and streamlined processes to generate value
directly to the client’s bottom line.

One of the best financial benefits is that our technology
spend will become more ratable. We pay subscriptions
for licensing software and our cost is directly proportion-
ate to our headcount, which keeps us accountable for
managing our resources effectively to save money in all
aspects. With the emergence of the large cloud providers
(AWS, Azure and others) we are starting to see costs fall
and service improve and our team’s focus is on connec-
tivity and value-added technology — not just the basics.
Transwestern Corporate HQ – Houston, Texas This will prove, over time, to differentiate Transwestern
and provide our clients with greater value as a greater
quickly is that everything about the old way they did portion of our resources are dedicated to their needs as
business will likely change. They need to be ultimately opposed to administrative tasks.
prepared for the greatest change management chal-
lenge they’ve ever faced.

Any company looking to make this commitment should
plan to take 12-18 months to thoroughly document their
desired future state before selecting an ERP and begin-
ning the design process. This is a key to wringing value
from the investment, knowing what you want to accom-
plish and designing everything to meet that objective.
Another important — albeit painful side effect — is some
people in the organization aren’t always ready for the
change. Some figure it out and become champions of
the new processes and find their careers are catapulted
as they embrace change and help thrust the company
forward. Others cannot shake the way things used to be
and feel left behind. This is the most difficult part of the
change management process and requires close mon-
itoring by the Human Resources department to ensure
these scenarios are handled appropriately. Change can
be exciting and rewarding; the first step is being willing to
give up the old ways of doing things.

Saah: This represents a significant shift in mentality
from build to buy and on-premise to cloud. Can you tell
us more about your overall cloud strategy?

Emshousen: With Workday being a SaaS only product,
it paved the way for us to also move to Dynamics 365
in the cloud and, at that point, we ultimately realized we
could significantly benefit from investing more in aggre-

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