On-premises to SaaS: 6 lessons from real-world migrations

Moving from on-premises to SaaS sounds simple on paper. New system, same business, fewer servers to maintain. In practice, it's a project that touches every store, every team, and every process you've built up over years.

The benefits of making the switch are well established: lower infrastructure costs, automatic updates, and real-time visibility across the business,to name a few.

The operators who've actually migrated, whether they're running a handful of locations or hundreds across multiple countries, tend to agree on what mattered most. It's rarely the technology itself that determines whether the move delivers value. It's the preparation, the sequencing, and what “success” looks like months after go-live rather than on launch day.

We've been talking to customers who have already transitioned to LS Central on SaaS, and they shared their biggest lessons learned throughout the process.

Here are six lessons worth taking into your own migration planning.

1. Your data preparation can make or break your migration

A successful SaaS migration starts long before the new system goes live. One of the most important questions to answer early is deceptively simple: Is your data ready to move?

Consider N Sport, part of N Group, a leading distributor of sports and fashion brands in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The company operates three multi-brand retail concepts and, when it decided to move to SaaS, the project covered 262 online point of sale terminals across 90+ locations with eCommerce and a BI solution integrated into the platform.

A major part of the project was thorough preparation. N Sport and its implementation partner assessed the company’s current and future needs, while key users were involved throughout the process. That preparation helped create a solid foundation for the move and the changes that followed.

“We believe the detailed preparation of the project was the key reason we didn’t have any issue during the data migration process,” says Dijana Filipović, Director of Development, Logistics and Online Sales, N Sport. “The data from our previous system was already well-organized, so we didn’t make any changes during the migration.”

The lesson is straightforward: the work you put into your data and processes before migration can have a major impact on what happens during and after it. The cleaner and better understood your data is, the easier it is to identify what needs to move, what needs attention, and what can be left behind.

"For us, the biggest benefit is that now all our data is in one place...our processes are faster, we have all necessary information in real-time, and we have much more control across our business," Filipović adds.

2. Phase your rollout, don't force a big-bang launch

Taking a new system live across your entire business at once can feel efficient. But if something needs adjusting, you’ve suddenly got the same problem everywhere. A phased rollout gives you a chance to test, learn, and improve before scaling up.

 Transmarco Group, a retail and distribution company running 147 point of sale across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, took this approach. The company started in Indonesia before extending the rollout to Malaysia and Singapore. And the benefits were already becoming clear during the rollout:

“We are already seeing significant efficiency gains, particularly in faster report generation and improved data accuracy,” says Herry Rizaldi, Chief Development Officer, Transmarco Group. The robust integration between LS Central and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ensures our regional teams can execute store operations and POS transactions with much higher precision.”

For businesses operating across multiple brands, formats, or countries, a phased rollout gives you room to adjust. What works in one market may need fine-tuning before you take it to the next, and it’s much easier to make those changes before they become a company-wide problem.

3. Real-time visibility changes how problems get solved

When your POS and business systems are working from the same real-time data, problems are easier to spot, and much easier to act on.

BIAS Retail LLC, which develops international brands including French fashion label American Vintage across the Middle East, had spent more than five years working with separate POS, ERP, and other business systems.

The fragmented setup created data silos, manual processes, and difficulties scaling the business. Moving to a SaaS solution changed that. With real-time data synchronization between POS and ERP, BIAS Retail gained real-time inventory visibility, helping minimize overstocking and stockouts and plan more accurately around customer demand.The company also reported a 20% reduction in operational costs and a 15% increase in sales driven by better inventory management and targeted promotions.

“LS Central has revolutionized our operations,” says Mr. Bino, CIO, BIAS Retail LLC. “The seamless integration across all our sales channels, along with the efficiency and insights we've gained, has not only improved our business performance but also elevated our customer service standards.”

With SaaS, that visibility becomes part of the way teams work every day. Instead of waiting for reports or reconciling information across systems, they can spot what’s happening and respond while there’s still time to make a difference.

4. The cost model shift is as important as the operational one

A SaaS migration changes more than where your software runs. It can also change what it costs to keep that software running.

Ampersand, a Vietnamese F&B group with seven brands including The Running Bean and Häagen-Dazs, saw this firsthand after moving from on premises to SaaS in 2024. By reducing infrastructure and maintenance expenses and the IT workload required to manage them, the group cut overall operating costs by 20%.

“The cloud upgrade significantly reduced our infrastructure and maintenance burden,” says Khoa Nguyen, General Director, Ampersand. “The result is clear: better system performance and 20% operating cost savings. It’s one of the most impactful technology decisions we’ve made.”

For businesses making the case for migration, the numbers can speak for themselves. Moving to SaaS can mean less time and money spent maintaining infrastructure, and more resources available for the business itself.

5. Change management is the hard part, not the software

Getting the software live is only part of the migration. Getting people across dozens or hundreds of locations comfortable with new ways of working can be the bigger challenge.

 Army Navy Burger + Burrito, a restaurant group in the Philippines with 60+ locations, 100+ offline POS terminals, and full drive-thru operations, puts the importance of this into perspective. As the business scaled, the limits of a fragmented, manually intensive on-premises setup became clear, pushing them toward SaaS for real-time visibility and faster decision-making. But getting there took more than new software. Chellet Paez, COO of Army Navy Burger + Burrito, highlights the need to focus on the people side of migration:

“If we were to do the migration again, we would put more emphasis on change management, user training, and maximizing standard features, especially those that reduce manual work and improve visibility.”

That’s a useful reminder that go-live isn't the finish line. Give teams the training, communication, and support they need to build confidence with the new system and plan for that support to continue after launch.

6. The real value shows up after go-live, not at go-live

A SaaS migration doesn't deliver all its value on day one. Once the new foundation is in place, businesses can keep adding capabilities, adopting new technologies, and innovating as they grow.

Canadian health and wellness chain Body Energy Club is a good example of this. After moving to SaaS, the company experienced numerous benefits, including connecting its mobile app to LS Central, which helped drive a 40% increase in app sales, to adding pickup and one-hour delivery through Uber and extending loyalty across stores, online, and in-app.

And it’s still looking ahead. As the business works toward 50 to 100 stores, it is exploring AI-driven tools for demand forecasting, inventory distribution, and personalized marketing.

“Moving to SaaS [offers] us the latest features, better connectors, more reporting options, and a scalable, fault-tolerant environment,” says James Cooper, CTO at Body Energy Club. “As we expand, it’s important to have a system we can rely on globally.”

The work doesn’t end when the migration is complete. Go-live puts the new foundation in place, but the real value comes from how the business uses it afterward: adding capabilities, improving processes, and taking advantage of new technology as it becomes available. That’s what turns a SaaS migration from a technical project into a long-term business investment.

Treat migration as an operational reset, not just a technical one

A successful SaaS migration isn't measured by whether you made it through go-live without a problem. It's measured by the efficiencies that show up once migration is complete. Prepare your data, phase the rollout, support your teams, and keep looking for ways to get more from your new platform.

If you're considering a move to SaaS, contact us to discuss your goals, challenges, and what a successful move could look like for your business.