by  Lynchburg College Archives

I am always surprised when I get a paper invoice – whether it is a personal or business-related bill.  Why would a business or organization send a paper invoice?

• they take time to produce (someone has to print them, stuff the envelopes, stamp them and take them to be mailed)
• they take money to produce (ink, paper, envelopes, stamps, staff time)
• they take time to deliver (days not minutes)
• and they are, in these times, MORE likely to get lost than an electronic invoice.

  by  alexanderdrachmann

I read an article yesterday, part of which really grabbed my attention.  In Accounting Today Daniel Burress has an post titled Three Technology Trends Your Firm Can’t Ignore.  It is his third trend that had me saying “amen!”.

In this last point he describes how it isn’t enough to ask people in a small business what they want – most of the time they will ask for features or capabilities that only slightly make them more efficient or productive.  Why?  Because most of them have no idea of what is possible, what can be done with today’s software applications.  To truly apply technology to a business in a way transforms it, the questions have to go deeper, closely investigating the current work flows.  What do people do day to day?  Why do they do those things?  Do those activities have business value?  Would the business be better, faster or stronger if no one had to perform those activities?  Or if they could perform those tasks more easily and more often?  What would the business be like if that work flow was automated or wholly changed?  These questions apply to any kind of business, not just accounting firms.

“The key is to go to the next level and give people the ability to do what they currently can’t do, but would want to do, if they only knew they could. After all, people really didn’t ask for an iPhone or a BlackBerry. The hidden need was the ability to access their email and Internet without being tied to their desktop or laptop.”  This simple quote from the article says it all – don’t ask them what they want to do but can’t.  Find out what they could do and see if that changes how they work.

So who asks these questions and creatively applies technology to your business?  Chances are, no one.  That is a shame.  If you are interested in creatively applying new technology to your business or even utilizing what you already have in a deeper way, get some help.  When you need to understand the new tax changes you talk to your CPA, right?  And you consult your insurance person about the affect of health care reform on the benefits you provide your employees, don’t you?  So think about getting help with your technology too – consult your technical advisor and I’ll bet you’ll be surprised by what you learn.

  by  gordonramsaysubmissions

A last month I wrote a post explaining about the different types of CRM.  A recent client project made me realize that I had left a few “flavors” off the menu.

This client is a marketing firm that wanted to implement a system that kept track of customer/prospect interactions and  client projects – customer relationship management (CRM) with project management (PM).  This was a new flavor.  They want to track contacts thru the sales cycle to proposal and then when a proposal was won, track the activities required to complete the proposed project.  What businesses would need this functionality?  Any business that performs multi-task activities for a customer – marketing and design firms, architecture and engineering, builders and remodelers, attorneys and CPAs.  The list is quite large and definitely includes technology consultants like myself!  So I updated the graphic from that last post:

Which tools support this kind of functionality?  Definitely the big names do – Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  There are specialty niche products like Clients and Profits which is geared towards marketing agencies.  Then there are applications with broad functionality that can appeal to wide range of small businesses.  These include WorkEtc, Solve360, ZohoCRM and Zoho Project along with a host of others.

What came out of the evaluation I did for this client?  First, we choose Solve360 for their business and we’re implementing it now.  I also now have my eye on WorkEtc. for my next CRM, for when I outgrow Batchbook (which I love).

The price points and functionality vary and the list of companies here is far from exhaustive- it is worth getting some help evaluating these tools to determine which is right for your business.  In this article I talk about some of the success factors.  Get with your technical advisor to find out more.