Cloud accounting provider MYOB is investing heavily in the future, telling the crowd gathered at its Incite event in Sydney yesterday that it will spend $60 million on research and development in 2017, with artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things among its focus areas.
Also part of MYOB’s future focus are bigger businesses, and with this the organisation has launched Advanced People, a new cloud payroll solution designed to help mid-market businesses manage their payments.
The new solution enables users to manage various systems and processes on one platform, also allowing employers to tailor the system to their needs.
Users themselves are able to customise their own personalised dashboards and enter live data outside the platform via Odata functionality. By unifying data entry into one place, the platform is able to reduce the strain of using multiple databases and resources to curate data, allowing businesses to increase their efficiency.
Speaking about the launch, Andrew Birch, MYOB’s General Manager of Industry Solutions, said the cloud-based system, combined with customisable features, allows Advanced People to tackle the “complex scenarios” experienced by larger scale businesses.
“We’re seeing a high demand in the marketplace for cloud-based solutions. Cloud is the future of Enterprise Resource Planning [ERP] and payroll,” said Birch.
With MYOB traditionally seen as a solution for small business, the company has been making a concerted effort behind the scenes over the last few years to reach bigger businesses.
Tim Reed, CEO of MYOB, said that while SMBs have been proud to use the company’s products, they eventually grew too big and existing solutions couldn’t keep up; “it was like a badge of honour to outgrow MYOB”, he said.
Now, MYOB wants to get them back.
Advanced People is built on the same platform as MYOB’s existing ERP solution, Advanced Business, having integrated its ERP features into one unified space.
Focusing on automation, the merged platform holds MYOB’s first Data Calculation Engine (DCE), an algorithm which calculates employee tax and superannuation automatically.
MYOB’s PaySuper, as well as a shelf of third-party tools, can be plugged into the platform in order to help simplify data entry and visualise it; amongst other functions.
As a mid-market platform, users are able to choose what tier of Advanced People they want to pay for month-by-month, allowing business to accommodate for fluctuations in their payroll requirements.
The announcement comes after MYOB finished up the end of their DevelopHER program at the end of last month.
Looking to maintain diversity in the workplace, the paid internship program, which teaches women to code, ended with the hiring of its three participants. The bid to improve diversity within the company came as MYOB realised it couldn’t develop relevant products if it was missing out on the perspective of half its user-base.
This thought was brought forward yesterday, with Birch saying the housing of MYOB’s development and product teams in Australia and New Zealand means the company has a solid understanding of local regulations and the needs of businesses.
Looking ahead, the company will look at the development of a mobile-first approach, and increasing functionality for employees of businesses using MYOB solutions.
Image: Andrew Birch. Source: Supplied.
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