Technology in Practice

Do you spend a lot of time looking for a customer in Sage Pro ERP, only to give up and add a new customer record instead? Do you wonder why finding your product codes has to be so difficult when you only have 10,000 SKUs? Have you forgotten who “that guy” was that you bought an item from 4 years ago? Join Lesley Slepian, Sage Pro ERP Practice Manager and John Guglielmo, Sage Pro ERP Applications Specialist for a 50 minute lunch time Webinar on Wednesday, July 14th at 12:15 p.m. ET. They will share detailed techniques for changing your pick lists so they work for you. You will understand how to modify pick lists and how to use them to save you time and effort. Join us and then share your ideas on an open mike at the end of the presentation.

2010 has been a year marked with unprecedented hype around cloud computing. It seems like everywhere you turn a new cloud solution finds its way to the market place. But with all this hype should come a moment of pause. Even Gartner’s Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies places Cloud Computing at the “Peak of Inflated Expectations”. While there is little doubt that cloud computing is here to stay a plague of outages have hit many of the major clouds this year; NetSuite, Intuit, Salesforce.com, Microsoft and twitter. The most recent being Intuit (Read: Intuit Sites Outage Strands Thousands of SMBs). If your business depends on any combination of these services you have already experienced a mediocre uptime of 99.9%. This translates to 8.76 hours of downtime for the year and we still have 6 months to go! Our clients that have traditional servers deployed or virtualization are experiencing a far greater percentage of uptime and superior end-user experience. As I said, there’s little doubt that the emergence of cloud computing has changed the face of technology forever but for those are trying to run their business off these new technologies make sure to bring your umbrella as the storm is fast approaching…

On Friday June 11th, Net at Work sponsored the 12HoursOfTech conference as part of NY Internet Week. The event was produced by SmallBizTechnology and was targeted at providing small and medium size business (SMB) with insight and actionable information about how to effectively use technology. Here are some valuable highlights from the day’s presentations: Amazon.com style selling Personalized selling (like Amazon.com) is driven by understanding customers Amazon turned a market place into a community by being obsessive about their customers The difference between a great organization and an average one – Great organization find a way to say YES to their customers If an interaction is not recorded it is not strategic – ever interaction needs to be stored CRM is the system of record for customer interaction CRM must be a “way of life” for a company Don’t just collect customer feedback and ideas – Act on them CRM implementations are never complete – they need to evolve as businesses mature and change Obsess about customers. Empower employees. Be diligent about understand changes Concentrate on core competencies and engage experts, when needed Online/Social Media/eMail Marketing Build credibility with your community before problems occur Authenticity is a key to trust Marketing has changed from yelling at potential customers to listening to and participating in a community God gave you two ears, one mouth – listen twice as much as you talk Create, distribute, share, & comment on content with real value Always give more than you ask in return While search ranking (SEO) is important it is not the key factor, especially if you don’t reach the right prospects Schedule and coordinate marketing efforts across all channels – get maximum exposure with minimum intrusion Create a publishing calendar for social media marketing In eMail marketing subject line is the most important part of the message Break your eMail message into short segments of copy Buttons instead of text – increases response by average of 6% Add eMail opt in to your Facebook community page Use “We’ve missed you” eMails to reconnect with customers Know the source of people on your eMail lists – target them with different campaigns SMS (Text Message) Marketing There were 1.5 Trillion Text Message sent in the US last year “Short Codes” are 5-6 character numbers that are standard addresses across all carriers Mobile Display Ads are less effective than Browser Banner Ads – hence have lower costs (CPM) Permission is critical to success with SMS Marketing Effective Mobile Marketing tactics include; Coupons, Reminders, Event Alerts, Polling, & Contests Make sure to add Mobile Marketing Call to Action (text XXXX to 9999 to receive valuable offers) to all marketing communications Case studies show real ROI for SMS Marketing – $15 text blasts resulted in +$1,000 in revenue Online Reputation Management 90% of people trust recommendations from people they know 70% of people trust recommendations from people they don’t know 67% of people buy more if you have customer product reviews on your site Make it easy to collect, respond to, and showcase customer feedback Don’t be afraid of negative feedback Most often people post negative to get problems resolved 90% of negative reviews can be turned around Be the first to address mistakes and comments – customers appreciate engagement Use customers as competitive weapons Franchises can benefit from centralized control over customer review responses Online Video Production Length of average online video = 4 minutes Be sure your videographer is insured Be aware of building/business restrictions on filming at a location Post a waver/disclaimer when filming at an event Make sure that standard release forms are used in interviews Make sure that any music is cleared and royalty free or licensed Stay focused and “on-message” Local Search Business owners can create a free account at biz.yelp.com Placements in local search often fail because they focus too much on image and not on content You can find the agenda for the event here: http://www.12hoursoftech.com/agenda.php

Earlier this week I wrote a blog for the Sage ERP Business Management Blog titled 5 Reasons CFOs Are Embracing On-Premise Software. I wrote about how many companies have been taking a closer look at on premise CRM solutions after analyzing the costs of Software as a Service (SaaS) & the costs of integrating their internal systems to external ones. I mentioned that in today’s environment, with the affordability of virtualization, many customers can actually realize a lower total cost of ownership by doing their own “private” cloud. Since firms need to refresh hardware over time and SaaS is being considered more frequently for applications like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) it is likely that many of our customers will be facing these decisions too. The value of Net at Work is that we not only do business applications but all of the hardware infrastructure to support them. If you want to learn more about how to determine if a virtual environment may be right for you we have engineers that can help you through the process. For more on this topic see a recent post There’s Never Been a Smarter Time to Virtualize by Mathew Hegarty, Net at Work Infrastructure Practice Director.

Most, if not all digital copiers today contain a hard drive – like the one on your PC, and they store images of all the documents that were either copied, scanned or emailed. CBS’s recent television report titled “Digital Photocopiers Loaded With Secrets” exposed a security risk related to these copier hard drives and we’d like to provide you with information with regards to multi-function copier ( MFP ) security. If you haven’t watched this report, it’s not to be missed. For your convenience, our sister company Docutrend Imaging Solutions has posted the security features of all their manufacturers’ products online (Canon, Ricoh, Savin, Sharp, HP, Lexmark), as well as whitepapers and FAQs. Watch CBS News Videos Online

DATE: Thursday, June 24 TIME: 1:30pm – 2:00PM EST Click Here to Register FileBound e-now is a hosted solution that provides everything you need to convert all of your paper invoices to e-Invoices with the click of a mouse and pass the invoice data directly into your accounting system. e-now also provides single click access to invoices from within your accounting system, automated routing for approvals, and compatibility with SharePoint® 2010 implementations. Join us for a complimentary webinar to learn how Filebound e-now can provide: Full Data Extraction of header, footer and line-item detail Invoice Approval workflow with multiple levels of approval All for 25¢ per invoice! Register Here For this Webinar e-now is an automated invoice processing solution with the capabilities of an enterprise class solution, but priced and delivered to meet the needs of all organizations!

FileBound e-now is a hosted solution that allows you to convert your paper invoices to e-invoices with the click of a mouse and pass the invoice data into your accounting system. FileBound e-now is integrated with the full line of Sage Software ERP ( MAS 90 MAS 200 MAS 500 accounting systems). Join us for a complimentary webinar to learn how Filebound e-now can provide: Full Data Extraction of header, footer and line-item detail Invoice Approval workflow with multiple levels of approval All for 25¢ per invoice! Reserve your Webinar seat

We are pleased to be the headline sponsor of 12HoursOfTech – http://www.12hoursoftech.com taking place in NYC on June 11, Friday. This all day event, from 8am to 8pm (including a reception from 6pm – 8pm) brings together leading technology experts such as Carbonite, Constant Contact, Yousendit.com, Yelp, Vertical Response and others to share their insight and expertise in how you can use technology as a tool to grow your business. Produced by Smallbiztechnology.com, attending business professionals and entrepreneurs will learn about web sites, social media, security, email marketing, and so much more at 12HoursOfTech. Hosted by Microsoft, 12HoursOfTech is produced in conjunction with Internet Week NY 2010.  12HoursOfTech provides 12 hours of easy to understand insight to help business professionals and entrepreneurs use technology as a strategic asset in their businesses”. 12HoursOfTech provides a perfect opportunity for businesses to network, learn and have fun – all day. It’s almost like a technology spa, in the heart of New York City. 12HoursOfTech speakers include: Net at Work, Tap11 VerticalResponse, Inc., Hill Data Management, OrangeSoda, Constant Contact, Infusionsoft, Kutenda, Ez Texting, Parallels, Inc., Carbonite, RatePoint, oDesk, pattiedesign, Affect Strategies, YouSendIt. Visit the 12HoursOfTech Website For Speakers/Agenda/RSVP.

There is a misconception that Document Management technology is only for larger organizations with big budgets. In this Live Webinar we will talk about the basics of Document Management technology, why it’s relevant to Small to Mid-Sized businesses (SMB) and how it can help you achieve greater efficiency – even with a limited budget. Key Topics to be covered: Understanding Document Management. What is the right system for me? How do I get these benefits without spending a lot? What else should I consider before buying? Watch recorded webinar here