A Bermudian company has seen remarkable growth in the number of businesses opting to use cloud-based software solutions to better manage their operations.

Since it was formed five years ago, The Certus Group has been providing consulting services and software to businesses on the island and around the world.

A division of Certus, CloudSuite Pro, has been designed specifically for growing small and medium-sized businesses, delivering enterprise resource planning at lower cost via cloud platform technology.

As a Microsoft partner the company offers Microsoft Dynamics, a business management solution that automates financial, customer relationships, supply chain management, and can be used in a number of other areas.

Customers of The Certus Group and CloudSuite Pro include insurers and reinsurers, and companies in the telecoms and financial services sectors.

Rick Siddiqi, managing principal of Certus, said: “The idea is to avoid the time, cost and labour needed to set up a system like this. A business can skip all that and join in at an advanced point and configure things to their requirement, rather than starting from scratch.”

He explained that managers and decision-makers at a company can get information in a cost-effective way and, through an executive dashboard, have immediate data on financials, inventory and other metrics.

During the past few years there has been a big change in attitude to using cloud platforms compared to having data stored in an on-premises computer server, according to Mr Siddiqi.

Two or three years ago, about 80 per cent of new start-ups in Bermuda would choose to have an on-premises set up, but today nearly all opt for the cloud.

“Before, people were concerned about security and the internet, but now cloud computing has become mainstream. It’s use has skyrocketed,” said Mr Siddiqi.

That pattern seen in Bermuda has also been evident at Certus Group’s satellite offices in North America and Europe.

Mr Siddiqi said the message is that small and medium-sized companies no longer need to struggle as they outgrow online accounting software, such as QuickBooks.

Whereas before they may have been fearful about the cost of investing in a more comprehensive business management system, now they can do so for less through CloudSuite Pro, said Mr Siddiqi.

“It is now more affordable. It can be done for a couple of hundred bucks a month.”

He said businesses that had started using the suite were now making decisions and carrying out tasks such as financial reconciliation faster, and becoming more profitable as a result.

Mr Siddiqi said that with all the information in one system, such as payroll, accounting, human resources and inventory, “the process of combing the elements to achieve the required insight is now automated and in real time”.

The Certus Group, which is headquartered in Mill Creek Road, Pembroke, is the first company in the Caribbean region offering Microsoft’s Dynamics GP in a subscription model priced per user.

The CloudSuite Pro and Certus Group website is at http://cloudsuitepro.com