2009 has been a scary and emotional year for business owners.  Wall Street has been on a roller coaster ride that has affected the entire economy.  While banks and auto makers were getting bail out money the small business community was left to fend for itself.  While some simply closed their doors, most hunkered down to ride out the storm.  These small business stopped any effort to grow and minimized spending in every way they could.

Now that the shock of these traumatic events begins to wear off  business are beginning to show life again.  As business are starting to rebuild themselves, it is important to learn from the past.  Returning to old spending habits will no longer be acceptable in this new economy.  Business, especially small business, need to advance without spending money like it is going out of style.  One way business can accomplish this is my making each person in their organization as productive as possible.  Technology is one tool business owners have in meeting this objective.  Here are 5 ways to increase your bottom line in 2010.

5.    Let’s face it, data loss happens.  Users delete files, over write files, systems fail ETC.  Until now the only protection was to make manual copies of your files or use tapes to backup your servers/computers.  Today disk based or online based backup systems significantly improve the backup of critical data.

For mobile users online backups are a game changer.  If you have a laptop that moves from office, home, or business trips and much of your data resides on that machine look into online backups today!  A small program that runs on the laptop can copies your files to a secure server on the internet is the best way to know that your information is protected.  There are many companies providing this service today, but two popular services are Mozy and Carbonite.  For companies that have lots of laptops in this situation there are services from companies like Symantc.

For small business that have servers to protect, disk based backups is something everyone should be considering.  Tape technology is nearly 40 years old, and although the technology and storage capacities have improved, there are still limitations.  Generally tape solutions only backup your data once per day, in most cases at night.  If there is a data loss in the middle of the day only the data from the previous night is recoverable, anything created or modified that day is lost.  In the case of  an entire system failure tape recovery can be very slow.  In some cases it can take anywhere from a day to a week to recover an entire system from tape.  With disk based solutions recovery times are significantly reduced.  In some cases an entire system can be recovered and users working in less than one hour.  Now there is a productivity improvement that effects the bottom line!

4.    The cloud is coming, the cloud is coming.  The technology business is in the middle of another major evolutionary transformation.  We have all gotten use to having servers that house our data.  We have also learned that technology needs to be refreshed every three to five years and that refresh is expensive.  Putting new technology systems in place can be one of the largest capital expenses a company has.  This is where cloud computing comes in.

Cloud computing replaces the traditional server in your office with a service provided securely over the internet.  Instead of spending thousands of dollars up front for that server in your office that has to have growth plans built in, cloud computing gives business the ability to pay for only the computing resources they need today on a per user basis.  This change in purchasing behavior moves computing cost to a operating expense and helps with cash flow.

3.    Most executives have had the ability to work remotely for years.  This flexibility allows the ability to be with family and friends, but still have the ability to get work done, when ever, where ever.  If you are using any kind of remote access tools today, think about the productivity gains that has meant for you and your business.  Many business have not extended this ability to the rest of their staff.  Would it be nice to have Joanna, your top service rep, able to get her work done without coming into the office with a cold and get others sick?  What about Bill, who has that big project to finish but should be home tucking his kids into bed?

There are many ways that remote access can help business become more productive.  It can also be a benefit, like health care and 401K, but this benefit does not care the expense that the other examples do.

2.    Having the right communication tools is critical in today’s fast moving business world.  New Unified Communication platforms enable your employees to communicate with customers, coworkers, and business partners whenever and wherever.  Unified Communications include email, instant messaging, voice calling, and presence.

Email has become a staple of business over the last ten years or more.  Instant Messaging has been around for years as well, but it business application has grown in recent years.  Many people consider these tools to be very similar, however with the introduction of presence these powerful tools have very different uses.  Email educate is that messages should be returned within an hour to a day.  That’s not a very good response when a very quick question of a coworker could be answered in a matter of seconds and can delay progress of project.

With today’s Unified Communication tools, the user can tell the status or presence of their coworkers based on their calendar and other indicators.  If Bob has an appointment on his calendar his status is marked as “in a meeting” and email may be the best communication choice.  If he is away from the computer his status will be marked “away” so calling Bob’s cell phone might make more sense.  If Bob is at his desk an simple Instant Message can get the information needed in seconds. These tools empower users and help make better decisions on how to communicate with Bob and ultimately increase user productivity.

1.    All of these things sound great but without good Technology Management getting meaningful and impacting usefulness out of these tools in your business will be difficult at best.  Most small business have grand plans and technology is often a part of those plans, but without someone that knows and understands business and how to map the technology to business most of these initiative often come up short.

Many small business have someone that takes care of their computer systems and fix them when they break. That might be someone in the company who’s second set of responsibilities are the computers because they just know the most about it.  In other cases a consultant or company plays that role.  Slightly larger companies have a person on staff that takes care of everything “technology”.

What most small business lack is that forward looking vision that will take budget and business need and make decisions educated decisions based on that information.  This kind of thoughtful decision making can be the most impacting tool to the small business owner because it is what makes these other technologies come to life.

As a start-up entrepreneur, I try to focus on two things each day; writing and building channel communication plans for my new clients. That’s not to say I’m ignoring the process of prospecting future business and doing 101 other tasks each day, but my primary responsibility is to the projects that pay the bills today.  My actions don’t differ from many emerging solution provider business owners, and that may create problems for strategic growth and profitability goals. I’m aware of my short-term business deficiencies and working to improve my processes and planning every day, but many entrepreneurs get buried in the daily minutia and don’t plan the next steps in developing their business. That’s where a well-qualified business coach is critical, becoming the conscience of your business plans (to the point you’d swear they were hired by your bank). In the IT services and managed services space, Stuart Selbst fills that role quite handily with a great combination of personal IT business success and years of personal training experience.

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Stuart for a few years through our work with several CompTIA services group initiatives, and had the privilege of meeting many of his clients over that time. His partners can’t say enough about working with him and the testimonials are so positive it’s almost embarrassing (in a good way). Each is quick to point out tangible results from their business relationship and Stuart estimates their average revenue growth in 2009 was 68% -just ask them if you have any doubts! [I’ll add my FTC disclaimer here and say I am not, nor have ever been a client of Stuart Selbst Consulting and do not receive financial incentives for including Stuart or his company in my blog.]

Business success requires discipline; a collaborative focus on achieving the business client’ short and long term goals, with the owner assuring tasks are executed to achieve the targets set for each period. The business coach’s role may be multifaceted, but in the end it’s critical they ensure their clients are setting and attaining goals at the upper end of the company’s potential. You employ a business coach when you want to maximize the productivity and success of your business, not just to keep growth at the same pace (unless circumstances require it). Stuart puts his knowledge of industry best practices and industry experience to work, and ensures mutually created plans are adhered to. Most of all, Stuart assesses the steps taken and ensures the goals are within reach, then helps adjust the plans if results aren’t where they need to be.

 In addition to one-on-one sessions with clients, Stuart provides group training and seminars on occasion. He works collaboratively with many experts in different disciplines, and hosts educational events across the continent with this team of managed services and IT business thought leaders.

Stu knows how to build a conducive learning environment at his training conferences, illustrated by his upcoming Spring Training for Business event, March 10-13 in Phoenix. Attendees will enjoy a great round of desert golf, followed by 2½ days of business education workshops conducted by IT industry professionals, and then cap it off with a dose of spring training baseball. It’s already a great value at $999, but Stuart is offering a $200 discount to anyone registering through my blog (just use code TSC200 when signing up at Spring Training for Business).

If you’re an emerging IT business owner and can’t get to Phoenix in March to experience Stuart Selbst live, check out his site and sign up for his blog. You’ll find he’s extremely focused on the success of his clients, well versed in running an IT business, and is a very passionate about what he does. If you think your business can do better (even if you are profitable), give him a call and discuss the prospects of working together.   

Website: http://www.stuartselbst.com/

Blog: http://www.stuartselbst.com/Rss.aspx?ContentID=899899

About seven years ago I was involved with a customer who was implementing a Citrix solution into their business so that employees could have access to their networks when working from home. At the time there was some talk that Citrix would see the end of networks as we knew them (i.e. desktop computers connected to servers). From what I can see it has not happened yet?

Citrix was not the first solution that was going to see off the poor old PC and server and I’m sure one day something will come along to take over the world. Right now Cloud computing is the buzz word leading to the end of the humble standalone server.

If you are interested in discovering the next big thing the following article by Don Dodge is well worth reading. Click here

Upon a report of CNN News’ “strict coincidence”, I wonder if that is a case. Perhaps the Christmas terror plot is strictly a coincidence, due to the fact that the father warned of delusional religious beliefs of the terrorist’s. Does that mean that my month-old report has nothing to do with it? Perhaps I was speculative about it, then. Then again, there is a grand South Africa FIFA 2010 event coming up, which might have given the suspect a geopolitical advantage to travel abroad through the familial wealth of scamming.

Perhaps CNN is generally just as slow as snail, as is proven.

Let’s continue our thread on IT-business alignment, which we succinctly defined as “IT providing the services the business needs, at a reasonable cost and a reasonable level of quality”. Putting aside a more detailed analysis of “reasonable” for another time, we can examine how a business can define what it needs from IT, so that IT can align itself to those needs.

Operationally, there are several characteristics by which the business can define what it needs from IT:
1. Service Uptime
2. Service Performance
3. Compliance
4. Responsiveness
5. Productivity

In this blog entry, I’ll briefly examine these, and in my next posting introduce some sample scenarios to make these concepts concrete.

Note that the first two of these refer to Services — framing what IT delivers as a service allows us to view things from the business’s perspective, rather than from a technical IT perspective.

Service Uptime – this is where, on a per-service basis, the business defines what uptime requirements it has – both MTBF (mean time between failures), and MTTR (mean time to repair). Different businesses will have different requirements here, for different services. For example, a hedge fund will have extreme uptime requirements for its trading systems during market hours, but be relaxed about uptime during non-trading hours.

Service Performance – again, on a per-service basis, the business will define performance requirements needed. Our hedge fund will likely want extremely rapid response time for its trading systems – and be willing to pay top dollar for it – while an insurance company’s claims processing system would likely be less performance-sensitive

Compliance – this has to do with ensuring that IT’s overall operations meet the standards that apply to it, whether due to externally imposed regulatory policies, or form internally imposed security or operational policies.

Responsiveness – how quickly can IT respond to the business’ requests, such as on-boarding a new employee, or provisioning a new server or network?

Productivity (which is related to cost) – how efficient is IT at its tasks? It is using the most effective tools and processes?

In the next posting, we’ll look at some sample companies, and explore how these characteristics might apply to them.

A key aspect that has fuelled the growth of India is Information Technology or rather, the brains running or utilizing the technology & today, as the entire world is looking, India stands at the threshold of becoming an Information Technology superpower. There are minor skirmishes, some trebles but the fact is gradually getting in that India is in demand with regard to its IT manpower. Technology development, harnessing or outsourcing, India has been on a steady rise. As we get more competitive, there is a greater emphasis on Quality, multiskills, communication skills, personality development & overall employability skills & this is here where there is a lot of catching up to do.

A popular survey states that “less than 25% of Indian graduates are actually employable”- merely states the obvious. Apex body, National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), estimates India’s requirement of software professionals at 2.3 million by 2010, has predicted a shortage of 0.5 million skilled knowledge workers based on current supply. The constant development in technology keeps upping the gap even further.

Organizations have now started paying attention to the all important Tier-II & Tier-III cities as Metros are already on the overdrive. But, the approach they seem to have taken is of the same standards as those of Metros. So, it’s a grand time for all these places that are slowly witnessing the IT upsurge to get into the thick of action & provide quality candidates that are readily employable.

That brings us to karROX “ONE STOP IT TRAINING MALL”. A 17 year old industry veteran, karROX works extensively on its core competency; IT Training. karROX essentially is committed to provide employable candidates to the industry as well as help the candidates choose the right industry. A pack of karROX comes with Software Training, Networking Training & IT Security Training along with IBM & Oracle courses, University courses, Testing & certifications, Corporate Training with equal emphasis on soft skills, thus making it a ONE STOP IT TRAINING MALL. This ensures a wider choice for students & high profitability for Franchisees at their location.

We are keen to expand ourselves in your locations and are looking forward to discuss partnership/other possibilities and its business models with you for our business expansion globally. Please find our contact details for you to have a discussion.

A recent report by Dell revealed that there’s been an increase in demand for business PCs.  Right before the release, Dell had actually seen their sales in business PCs fall.  Windows 7, however, gave businesses a reason to purchase them sooner than later.  Not only that, but the demand has remained steady for about a month now–with an increase in sales expectations running from 80% to 110%.  Prior to the release, many were speculating that businesses wouldn’t bother updating their machines for Windows 7.  Looks like they were proven wrong.

CLICK HERE to read more.

최근 경제위기로 인해 많은 기업들이 IT 예산을 삭감하려는 움직임이 일고 있다. 그러나 무조건적인 삼감보다는 먼저 IT 전략이 비즈니스적인 가치를 만들어내는지, 수익성을 달성하기 위해 혁신을 강화하는지 점검해 보는 것이 필요하다. 특히 경영혁신 강화를 위한 도구로서 IT의 역할이 필요하다면 지금은 오히려 경영혁신 강화를 위한 합리적 도구로서 BPM을 고려해볼 때이다.

이 책은 혁신의 강력한 도구로서의 BPM이 기업경영에서 어떠한 핵심가치와 경쟁력을 주는지 설명하고자 한다. 이를 통해 기업들이 Post ERP 로서

BPM을 다시 살펴보는 계기가 되기를 바란다.

목차 

 
제1장 프로세스 경영이란

01 비즈니스 프로세스에 대한 이해
02 프로세스 경영의 역사
03 차세대 프로세스 경영, BPM

제2장 국내 프로세스 경영의 현재

01 국내 프로세스 경영의 도입 동향
02 ERP로 경영혁신의 진화
03 ERP 그 이후, BPM의 등장
04 국내 BPM 도입의 현황

제3장 프로세스 경영의 실천 방안

01 프로세스 경영 실천을 위한 과제
02 프로세스 경영의 핵심 성공 요소
03 프로세스 경영 도입 시 빠지기 쉬운 함정들
04 프로세스 경영의 고도화 전략
05 사례를 통해 본 프로세스 경영

제4장 성공적 프로세스 경영의 구현 방법론

01 프로세스 경영의 구현 절차
02 프로세스 경영의 전략 수립
03 프로세스 표준화와 모델링
04 프로세스 통합과 자동화
05 프로세스 성과관리

제5장 프로세스 경영 구현 기술

01 IT 시스템의 발전과 프로세스 경영
02 프로세스 경영 구현을 위한 지원 도구
03 BPMS의 표준 기술요소

There was a time when, if you were an “IT guy,” you were guaranteed a job.  But when the economy fell, so did IT jobs.  Those who have kept their jobs have been met with salary cuts or higher workloads with no additional pay.  But enough about the economy–I’m sure we’re all tired of hearing about it.  ComputerWorld just released the “Salary Survey 2009“  and it’s pretty impressive and neat to browse through. They have included:

• A Smart Salary Tool to compare your pay with IT workers in similar jobs across the U.S.
• Coverage on the economy’s impact on IT (sorry!).
• Advice on which industries and jobs are poised for growth.
• An overview of trends in workers satisfaction, job security, stress levels, etc.
• A view of salaries by industry and by region.
• A view of 40 job titles based on level.
• And more including opinion articles!

So as you can see, you could probably spend quite a large amount of time browsing through the various sections.  I hope you find it useful and would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Just a little over a month after announcing that it would standardize on the Autotask platform, the SMB Technology Network has officially released its new template for the platform. This release is just a starting point for us. We are committed to making consistent improvements to this platform that integrate industry best practices and SMBTN partner offerings into a professional services automation platform that fits the needs of our membership. Currently, the SMBTN/Autotask Platform offers the following:

• A customized Autotask Template for SMBTN Business Members
• Integration with a variety of Managed Services platforms, including hosted Kaseya from Virtual Administrator, Level Platforms, N-able, Zenith Infotech and others.
• Integration with SMBTN’s Virtual Assistant partner, TelAssistant.
• Integration with SMBTN’s Outsourced helpdesk partner, Cloud Services Depot.
• Integration with SMBTN VitalSigns Financial Dashboard by CoreConnex.
• Integration with the latest release of the SMBTN Community Toolbar.

SMBTN also understands the importance of integrating its member’s websites and marketing functions into their back office operations. With this in mind, SMBTN has begun working with Pronto Marketing on Autotask forms integration which it hopes to have available for its members in the first quarter of 2010.

Finally, SMBTN will also host its own forum on the SMBTN Community for peer support, sharing best practices and gathering ideas about future improvements to its Autotask platform.

Pricing for the SMBTN/Autotask platform starts at just $99 per month for a single user (through the end of the year) and includes Autotask Pro with the SMBTN template, Outlook integration, Client Access Portal, Quickbooks integration, Corelytics Lite Financial Dashbaord and the SMBTN Community Toolbar. For more information, visit the SMBTN Community or contact SMBTN Member Services.

Do you ever wish you had a real, live person to answer your phones, track you down in an emergency or just enter a service ticket into Autotask or Connectwise for you? Ever had a client complain about getting your voicemail or a delayed call back? Most IT professionals would like to have this kind of support but fear that they cannot afford it. However, much like managed services and outsourcing has changed the way we do business as IT service providers, it has impacted the way offices run in general too. Many businesses and professionals are beginning to outsource the work of receptionists and assistants to virtual assistant companies like TelAssistant.

TelAssistant is the nation’s premier provider of remote receptionist services for small to medium IT companies, entrepreneurs, small businesses and home-based businesses. SMBTN recently partnered with TelAssistant in order to permit its members to focus on taking care of clients and growing their businesses, knowing that they have a professional support staff behind them to make sure no important opportunities are missed.

TelAssistant uses the latest in technology and tailors their service to your needs. They will greet your callers, announce calls to you, route calls to any number you designate, schedule appointments, fill out work order tickets, take sales leads and even follow scripts that you put together. Best of all, you can have this level of professional support staff for less than $10 per business day.

TelAssistant Features:

• Fast & Easy Setup: Use your current phone number or select a new one.
• Work Ticket Completion
• Dedicated Account Manager
• Unlimited Talk Time
• Voicemail to Email: Listen to your voicemail right from your email.
• Other Included Features: Call Screening/ Announcing/ Routing/ Patching/ Auto Attendant, Appointment Scheduling, Sales & Work Order Form Completion, Local or 800 Number.

Best of all, SMBTN members can try this service for two weeks without obligation. Setup is complete in just 3 easy steps. For more information on how to take advantage of this free trial, please check out the details of this offer on the SMBTN Community.

If you’re like most of us, your To Do list is long and clients come first. Marketing tasks like updating your website or putting together a newsletter always seem to be something you’ll do “next week”.  This is why we are very pleased to announce a new alliance with Pronto Marketing. Not only will they take care of your website and newsletter but they will do it for an affordable monthly cost.  Derek Brown, the CEO of Pronto Marketing, likes to think of it as “Managed Services for Marketing” but prefer to call it “marketing-as-a-service.”

Whatever you call it, Derek is the guy to deliver it. What makes him so special? Well, let’s start with the fact that Derek spent over twelve years at Microsoft, many of those leading the Windows SBS Product Marketing Team and visiting SBS user groups. Prior to his time at Microsoft, he held technology marketing positions with Tech Data, some software start-ups and value added resellers. Thus, Derek knows both our channel and its marketing challenges extremely well.

What’s unique about Pronto is their focus on execution. We’ve all got boxes of marketing materials from vendors or programs we’ve signed-up for and big plans gathering dust back in the office somewhere. If this sounds like you then I invite you to take a moment to check out Pronto Marketing and see how they can get your marketing on track for a very low cost.

The complete Pronto online marketing program is only $247 per month – but the SMBTN Business Member discount price of $197 saves you $50 per month.

•  Professional Website–Based on the WordPress platform and customized to meet your business requirements and branding. We proactively update your website each week with new content or as you request. In addition blogging tools are integrated right into the website.   
• Original content – our team of writers and editors create compelling content for the newsletters and website – we don’t repackage other content.
• Monthly e-newsletter–We manage the whole process including your offers and news and all production and list management.
• SEO and Analytics–Placement in local directories, optimized for local search and reporting on email and web
• No Term Commitments & No Hidden Fees–Pay as you go month by month and cancel anytime. Our price includes all design and content, updates, hosting and emailing fees – everything.
• Learn More–Get the details on the SMBTN Community.

In these times, we all need to be looking at ways to grow and strengthen our businesses. Hence, I strongly encourage you to check out what Pronto has to offer.  However, nothing is more reassuring than the successes that other SMBTN members have had with Pronto Marketing:

“It all starts with a filling out a simple questionnaire and in a short period of time you have a something that is customer ready with minimal effort on my part. I can now focus on what I need to do and that is helping my clients solve their business issues.”

Alan Helbush, MCP, SBSC -  Where To Start, Inc.

“Pronto Marketing is fast, efficient, well-organized, professional and does great work.  Our newsletter and website development have been a terrific success.  Pronto makes us look great and we would be happy to recommend them to others.”

Eric A. Adkins, CTO – Adkins Technologies

We are also working on new integration between Pronto Marketing sites and the SMBTN/Autotask Platform that will permit you to capture information about visitors to your website in your Autotask PSA software. We hope to have this ready in the first  quarter of 2010.

For more information about the Technology Marketing offering from Pronto Marketing, please visit the SMBTN Community or the Pronto Marketing website.

LOS ANGELES (November 2009)–Cal Net Technology Group, Southern California’s leader in IT computer services and IT consulting, has announced that Founder and CEO Zack Schuler will Chair Project Nimbus, a collaborative community-based research project sponsored by Channel Insider. Members of the project are comprised of IT industry professionals, the Channel Insider editorial team, and members of HTG Peer groups.

On November 4^th, 2009, Schuler will be co-presenting the team’s Solution Providers 3.0 findings at the Heartland Technology Group’s conference in Orlando, Florida. The presentation will include the best due diligence practices for solution providers and managed services providers in identifying, adopting and building cloud computing practices.

Project Nimbus was developed in order to achieve three goals:

1. Identify the various go-to-market channel models for cloud computing and how they apply to solution providers.
2. Explore the issues, opportunities, concerns and obstacles in cloud computing as they relate to the current and future IT reseller and managed services channel.
3. Provide the channel community with directional guidance on navigating into the cloud computing era.

“As the Solution Provider 3.0 model develops, largely due to our collective influence, Project Nimbus aims to keep everyone apprised as to what the future landscape entails,” remarked Schuler. “I am personally looking forward to helping everyone succeed in this next era of computing.”

About Cal Net Technology Group

Founded in 1995, Cal Net Technology Group provides Southern California’s businesses with technology solutions expertise ranging from outsourced I.T. services to ongoing support and consultation. Their signature services include TECManage, designed to provide a cost-effective option for companies who need the services of full-time I.T personnel, and COManage, best for those in need of part-time and support services.

Could it be true? Are IT employees that stressed out? According to a study conducted by a Canadian grad school, companies should invest in programs or provide “peer support” for IT professionals experiencing high levels of stress.  The research was done through 14 in depth interviews rather than a survey sample.  I’d be interested to know how the stress levels of IT professionals compares with professionals in other fields (i.e. investment bankers, lawyers).  Unfortunately, the study focuses only on IT professionals, but the results are interesting nonetheless.  CLICK HERE to learn more about the study and its results.

Over the past several months, my firm (AxonTech) has had the opportunity to use the services of ThirdTier on several occasions. The first was more of a test to see what kind of support they could provide to one of our workstation techs on an Exchange issue that our network engineers were not available to work on. We contacted ThirdTier and David Shackelford (an Exchange MVP) walked our technician through the process. Follow up was excellent and we were very happy with the results and the price we paid for the service.

I have personally used ThirdTier on a couple of other occasions related to Exchange and Small Business Server. Each time, I have had excellent results, a quick response, good follow-up and paid a reasonable price.

When I contrast this with the support I receive from Microsoft and other vendors, it is like night and day. I have successfully scheduled call back appointments with ThirdTier that were actually kept on time. I can’t say that for the “competition”. Furthermore, the folks at ThirdTier actually value the information that I provide to them. I don’t waste time proving the basics to them like I do with a Microsoft technician that I have to wait up to four hours for to call me back.

The bottom line is that I spend less time and close tickets faster when I work with ThirdTier than I do when I work with Microsoft. That is unfortunate but true all the same. I was told recently by an IAMCP member that I just need to know how to “work the system” in order to get the results I want and  in all fairness, he might be right, However, I really don’t think that I should have to manipulate the technicians at Microsoft into transfering me to an appropriate person in the USA to deal with my issue. Hence, I look forward to using the services of ThirdTier as my third tier support until Microsoft can compete with their service.

Congratulations to Amy, Eriq, Chad and David on putting together a top notch service. I highly recommend that anyone that is frustrated with the time wasted on Microsoft technical support, give them a try. You will not be disappointed.

Check out ThirdTier today at http://www.ThirdTier.net.

Yes, the sad truth is that us IT people fail too. CLICK HERE for a list of the “Top 10 Corporate Information Technology Failures.”  The projects are listed in alphabetical order, rather than actually being ranked.  The selection was based on the amount of financial losses or damages sought in lawsuits.

Welcome respected invitees to our virtual knowledge event – FRANCHISE GYAAN – Day 5

Business can be fun? You don’t agree. But, that’s why you chose this business in the first place didn’t you? It’s the same business for which you are so passionate & what’s the point in doing something where you don’t enjoy, have fun & rejoice. So, celebrate your way into working hard for your business.

Allow us to take you to the route you have chosen to expand your business – Franchising. You might have guessed today’s topic, It is ‘Franchisng and Entrpreneurship – Fun at Business’

Please add in your comments about the presentation and about our initiative – FRANCHISE GYAAN in here. We thank you again for participating in our initiative to educate entrepreneurs about Franchising.

]]> http://smbtn.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/coreconnex-announces-partnership-with-service-leadership/ Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:26:27 +0000 Jim Locke http://smbtn.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/coreconnex-announces-partnership-with-service-leadership/

Last Fall, we were very proud to announce our affiliation with CoreConnex and their excellent Corelytics Financial Dashboard. Frank Coker and I really seem to see eye-to-eye on the importance of financial benchmarking for IT service companies. Today, CoreConnex made a great product even better by announcing a new alliance with Service Leadership, Inc. (See full press release: CoreConnex, Inc. and Service Leadership, Inc. Announce a New Partnership).

Combining the Corelytics™ Financial Dashboard by Coreconnex with the Service Leadership Index™ significantly streamlines and extends the depth of solutions offered by both companies, providing a one-of-a-kind, best-in-class solution for the owners and executives of IT Solutions companies to maximize their profit and value.
 
Subscribing companies can update their data monthly with a single click and then see how they are progressing toward S-L Index™ best in class benchmarks for their business model and against the goals they set for their business, enabling them to monitor and manage their financial performance on a continual basis.

We look forward to working with CoreConnex and Service Leadership on a revised version of our SMBTN VitalSigns program and hope to be able to offer even more meaningful financial information to our members.

SINGAPORE : It may be an economic downturn, but sales at COMEX have reached a new high in its 19-year history.
The four-day IT show generated sales of S$63 million. That is a 10 per cent increase from last year’s COMEX.
Despite the sales increase, the number of visitors over the four days was similar to last year at around 710,000.
The last day of COMEX saw many bargain hunters walking away happy. For example, a 32-inch LCD TV was going for S$549, while prices of some notebooks went for as low as S$559 each.
Some visitors told Channel NewsAsia they had waited for the last day of COMEX 2009 to get the bargains.
Exhibitors also noted that consumers were more willing to spend this time round, with one reporting a 20 per cent increase in sales.

More here: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/technologynews/view/1004745/1/.html

Really useful for all those computer service guys…

More here: http://www.fonerbooks.com/pcrepair.htm

World’s oldest working computer to be rebooted – The Inquirer

Shared via AddThis

Someone once said to me that technology is what you call something that doesn’t quite work properly yet. Many of products we now take for granted were once referred to as technology in their infancy – fridges, showers, cars, planes – are now simply called by their monikers. Presumably a chair was once considered technology but maybe that is pushing the argument too far!

Outside the bosses in the technology-oriented industries, do the c-suites buy ‘technology’? Or do they wait until it is in such common usage amongst their peers that it is no longer perceived as risky in any way? Moreover, how can suppliers of technology products and services accelerate this process?

Many of the companies we talk to stress the importance of reaching the c-suite but it is an extremely hard task to accomplish. A few years back we held a seminar where the Deputy Chairman of Goldman Sachs, who dealt with CEOs every day, came to talk to us and our clients about the key c-suite issues. Technology hardly rated a mention in his view! Although we now have a generation of CEOs who started work with a PC on their desk and who use technology everyday so one would guess this is rapidly changing.

The best way to accelerate the transition from ‘early adopter’ to ‘majority’ is to get as many existing customers as possible to talk about their usage of the product and its benefits. There isn’t a company around that wouldn’t buy that statement but it is far too rare that they really focus on this requirement.  The Brands2Life client that, in my view, did this best in recent years, in my view, had a dedicated customer relationship manager within the marketing team who managed the key clients day-to-day from a PR perspective and ran an annual customer excellence awards scheme that culminated in the winning customers receiving their award from a member of the English Rugby World Cup team at the Natural History Museum. Needless to say these customers were always available to endorse the company!

I reckon that, far too often, the request to get customers involved in PR comes from the sales manager at the end of the meeting as a throwaway comment. The customer contact probably recoils in horror at the prospect of their name in lights proclaiming huge investment and/or cost-cutting and the subject is quickly dropped. It doesn’t have to be that way.

So here are some key tips on how to maximise your chances of getting customers to participate in PR:

• Get the CEO to champion the programme, ideally get customer endorsements into their KPIs
• If possible get a member of the marketing or PR team to have some dedicated (and ring-fenced) time to focus solely on clients
• Brief the sales team properly on the process and the benefits – show them how other companies have implemented these programmes to their financial benefit
• Pick the customers that have a corporate goal to communicate their innovation, collaboration or operational excellence – and map your proposal to that goal and language – this can often be found in the Chairman’s Statement in the Annual Report or in the Year-End Analyst presentation
• Pick the individuals within those customers, who want to raise their profile for some reason – we had great success with the procurement team of a large bank once who needed to promote their role in a successful post-acquisition integration and were being ignored by their in-house PR team
• Make sure that the customer understand their potential role in the PR process in its entirety – we have a document we use with clients for this and it invariably helps to avoid mis-understandings
• If resources allow, allocate a PR person to look after each client and hand-hold them through the process. This will avoid any doubts entering their minds and de-railing the process
• Make sure that any resulting coverage and/or results are quickly fed back with accompanying information on the audience – this will help them to position their role in a positive light before anyone else in their organisation sees it
• If at all possible get the CEO of the vendor to thank the customer personally for their involvement by phone, email or letter

It is a substantial investment to put all these things in place but, if the money and resource can be made available, I think it will make a considerable impact on the speed of the journey from Moore’s early adopter to ‘majority’.

My four-year-old’s latest parlour trick is to turn on the PC, open up a browser window, find the Cbeebies home page, and play away.  She can manage this completely unsupervised.  Unchecked, she can be playing away for several hours at a time.  To our embarrassment, she often pulls the same stunt on the computers of any friends or relatives we happen to visit – no matter the hardware or operating system.

This got me thinking.  my daughter’’s only four now but in twenty odd years she’ll probably be a business IT user, and her expectations of what she’ll expect her company’s IT to deliver will have been shaped by her experiences as a youngster:

• Immediate access to applications regardless of the hardware you happen to be using
• Questions like “can I run this on my machine?” are irrelevant
• Any delay in accessing / retrieving information is unacceptable
• All IT and communications hardware is connected to the Internet without restriction
• The physical limitations of the hardware you’re using shouldn’t get in the way of productivity

No major new insights here – but it is fascinating to think that a whole generation of youngsters are growing up taking things like networking, broadband access and cross-platform compatibility completely for granted.  Their expectations of what IT can deliver are entirely different.

In the meantime, I think I need to set up some password protection and access restrictions back at home!

I recently read an interesting article I wanted to share with you on the challenges businesses face when dealing with IT and ROI.  Naturally, every endeavor in a company is going to raise the question, “How much is this going to cost and what will be my return?”  IT services are no different.  CEOs will often wonder how necessary the latest software will be to the advancement of the company, or if it’s just something the “computer nerds over in the IT department” really want.

The author does, however, offer an interesting solution.  The key is in building a conversation around the ROI of the project in order to build trust.  And in order to build trust, the IT department will have to remain involved well after the money has been spent and analyze the actual data, rather than present some numbers in advance, spend the money and simply hope no one will care.  Click below to read the article in its entirety:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/20/return-on-investment-technology-cio-network-roi.html

Over the years I’ve spoken to hundreds of IT professionals and via research studies gained insight from thousands.  The following are some observations that I’ve made that seem somewhat consistent:

Change Management Often Means Don’t Change Anything.  On some level this makes sense because whenever we interject change into our environments there is a risk that problems will occur.  However, it is important not to create a culture that is anti-change.  One IT professional that I was working with claimed that he was a champion of implementing external storage virtualization but others in his group were opponents and squashed the project.  Another IT professional was combating their backup admin because the latter was dead set against implementing a disk-to-disk backup solution because he still clung onto his tape library.  Change must always be weighed in terms of risk and reward but a culture of no change can be destructive.  I do agree that “no” is a viable answer but it shouldn’t be the default.  

Innovation Often Causes Disruption.  There is actually a bit of a misperception that IT is typically ahead of the curve on implementing innovative solutions in the data center.  In reality it often takes years for innovation to permeate the masses.  We must also consider the fact that IT resources are limited and as such there is limited ability to actually evaluate and implement new systems.  

Incumbency Matters.  There is a legitimate reason why incumbency matters and that is because IT professionals invest a ton of time, money and resource in getting their infrastructure to work they way want it to.  And in the course of doing so they become experts on these systems.  To rip and replace with something completely new that they have little or no expertise can be counter-productive.  Having said that – it is still important to look at new solutions and it is critical that we don’t let incumbency trump excellence.  

We Often Over Engineer To Address Requirements.  We do this with storage, networks, servers, etc. – because the cost of risk is usually higher than the cost of capital.  However, in an economy as bad as the one we are facing – the cost of capital is arguably higher than the cost of risk.  The priorities have shifted with further and continued emphasis on optimization and utilization.  

Urgent and Important.  In 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steve Covey presented the idea that we should focus on those things that are important but not urgent.  However, any IT professional will tell you this is not the world that they live in.  Putting out fires is necessary and unavoidable.  But consider his point.  Let’s say someone has a heart attack.  That is both important and urgent and obviously must be tended to immediately.  However, if that person had eaten right, exercised and went for annual check ups – all IMPORTANT things to do – then perhaps the heart attack would have been avoided.