UNIT4 has launched a new cloud-based offering "Shared Journey." This new solution is offered by the company to public and private sector organizations after completing a series of pilot deployments in a cloud-based, shared services environment. UNIT4’s Agresso (News - Alert) Business World and Coda Financials enterprise software solutions will be available with "Shared Journey." An announcement in this regard was made by UNIT4 at the Grape Escape analyst event in Boston. UNIT4 is the top global provider of enterprise software for Businesses Living IN Change or BLINC.

Groups of companies, public sector bodies or not-for-profit organizations are able to work together with Shared Journey. Organizations can quickly set up and launch a shared services operation based on either Coda or Agresso using Shared Journey. All the benefits of cloud computing are available to each organization or division within the shared service. While delivering group benefits and efficiencies, the highest level of independence or identity is also maintained.

In a release, Ton Dobbe , the Vice President of Product Management at UNIT4, said, "Shared Journey is a solution developed after carefully monitoring the experiences and requirements of more than 6,000 customers. What we observed and collected was a universal set of requirements for both enterprise resource planning and financial software needs, and compared these by industry segments most likely to adopt a shared services approach."

According to Dobbe, rapid-change companies behave differently regardless of the similarities of the user organizations. Interoperability and the impact of operational and other change dynamics have to be considered. Companies require these dynamics to take an "independence" approach to their buying behavior. They should not get locked into any one deployment model.

Currently, three components, namely a virtual machine environment of choice, a private or public cloud environment, and a redundant web backbone and data storage hub, comprise Shared Journey.

Affordable subscription-based pricing is the key to UNIT4 Shared Journey. This includes the shared license, maintenance, and technical IT and operational support services. The group can scale and grow as required with Shared Journey’s demand-driven pricing model. Individual members will have to pay lower monthly fees if more organizations join Shared Journey.