I know, I know, the technology world is rife with slang, jargon and acronyms.   In fact we’re famous for being almost impossible for the layman to understand – I’ve been using words with no vowels for longer than I care to admit.  That said, some of these terms are important for a business owner to understand – if for no other reason than to make sure their business has what it needs.

So let’s get started!

1. Backup and recovery – the verb phrase “to back up” means that you make a copy of your data so that if you lose it you can replace it.  The noun “backup” is the copy you made and the act of replacing it is “recovery”.  You can back up your data on any sort of schedule – monthly, weekly, daily, hourly or even more frequently.  I usually recommend making a backup at least daily.  There are a lot of ways to back up your data – to a USB drive or other external hard drive, to a CD or DVD or to the cloud.  Services like Mozy and Carbonite are a business owner’s best friend.  Here are a couple other thoughts on backup and recovery:  First, make sure you are backing up everything you should be.  I had an outage about a year ago and realized I was backing up everything except my email.  Ouch!  Next, test your recovery.  If I had done that I would have realized I was taking incomplete backups BEFORE I got bitten.
2. Redundancy – redundancy essentially means duplication.  A system is redundant if services are split in two or more pieces so that if one fails you have something to fall back on.  It is important to think about your technology and to determine where and when you need redundancy.  If you are a small business owner with only a single pc your redundancy plan might be to go to Office Depot and buy a new pc.  Then you could use the backup from number 1 to be back in business in a few hours.  If you are a larger business or are looking to push technology services to the cloud you may have deeper needs.  When you talk to service providers ask them about their redundancy and look for two things:  first is hardware redundancy which means that they have split your services over multiple machines so that if they lose one you are still good to go.  Also ask about location redundancy – what if oh, for example, Hurricane Irene slammed into their data center?  Do they have services in another, preferably far away, location that can keep your business up and running?
3. Archiving – to archive means to save off old data that you want to keep around but don’t need ready access to.  Archiving is closely related to back up and recovery but with a subtle twist.  When you are archive you may choose to copy your data to a medium that isn’t as easy or fast to recover from and that is separate from your current data.  An example of this would be where you back up your current data to the cloud for fast and simple recovery but you put your really old stuff on a DVD and store it offsite.  It is important to consider what needs to be archived – you may not want to pay to back up and store all that old data every night and you certainly won’t want to add time to recover it in the event something bad happens.
4. Disaster recovery – Wikipedia says “ is the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster”.  Your disaster recover plan will include your backup, recovery, redundancy and archiving plans.  It is the technology portion of your overall business continuity plan.

What does all this mean?

  by  Roger Smith

  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.

Implementing a CRM (customer relationship management) system can be a huge undertaking for a small business. Done poorly it can create more work and inefficiencies for an already small staff. Done well it can revolutionize a business by improving workflow and make it easier to touch customers regularly and meaningfully.

I’ve written some other articles on CRM here and here so if you need a refresher pop over to those and pop back.

There is a lot of literature about CRM success and failure and frankly it would make any small business owner go screaming into the night – most stuff has been written for large businesses that have to implement CRM across huge sales teams, whole marketing departments and a 24×7 support staff.  Most of these articles have very little to offer a small business and what is meaningful is hard to find.  Today I’ll share my top tips:

1. Make sure you understand your overall business goals.  What goals do you want a CRM application to support and what business issues are you trying to solve?
2. Choose a technology that fits your business.  Price and features, though critically important, can’t be the only criteria.  Does the tool fit how your company works?  Is it a cultural fit – a free-flowing, unstructured application might fit a design firm better than one with strict linear processes.
3. Before implementing the tool, define the processes that support the goals in the first bullet.  Don’t just dive face first into the deep end – take the time to figure out the new processes and to configure the tool for those processes.
4. Figure out how and where the new tool will integrate with your other systems.  For example, if you want the contacts in the CRM to update in your accounting system, get that working.  Or if you want your sales folks to see aging data when they look at a contact, get that working too.
5. As you are implementing the tool, be sure to promote the processes.  That is a nice way of saying “make folks use the process”.  I’m not saying to throw them into the pool (another pool metaphor – hey it is summer and it is hot) – they need help, support and training.  At the same time, don’t let them circumvent the new way of doing things.  You’ll only slow down adoption and perhaps create a culture of “we really don’t have to use this”.
6. Finally, even though I am saying you should make folks use the new processes, make sure you allow time to revisit and revise the processes.  You won’t know everything when you start and it makes sense that you might have to make some tweaks.

Small businesses, from professional services to retail establishments to service organizations, can benefit from a well implemented CRM.  Take your time going through these steps.  In many cases it makes sense to get some help; find a technical advisor who can help lead you.

Have you implemented a CRM in the past year?  What went well and what went poorly?

Earlier this week there was an article on SmallBizTechnology.com about how the biggest problem small businesses have in using technology is lack of education.  I absolutely agree with the sentiment – who has time to learn about technology when they have a business to run?  In the article Ramon Ray recommended spending an hour or two a week learning about technology.  From there, however, he talked a lot about technology that boosts a businesses online presence – Facebook, blogging, Twitter and local search.  These are all important but there is so much more!

So what else should a small business owner educate themselves about?  There are so many topics that it can seem like a maze but if you take a look at this list you can concentrate on a few topics at a time:

• How can you make things easier for your customer?  (easy online access to content and services)
• How can you make things easier for your staff? (remote access, simple processes, collaboration tools)
• How can you touch more prospects, close more sales and increase revenue? (CRM, email newsletters)
• How can you streamline your internal processes and maybe save money? (better integration, fewer but more powerful systems, remote hosting, cloud services)
• How can you get a better handle on your business? (reporting, analytics)

So here is a short round-up of good sources for technology information – these are examples but they should give you somewhere to start:

• online technology magazines and blogs like smallbiztechnology.com and smallbusinesscomputing.com.  I also like Laurie McCabe’s blog.
• industry specific online sources like the Law Technology News section of Law.com or Techtips on TheProgressiveAccountant.com
• online communities like American Express Open and Biznik.com
• local blogs like atlantasmall.biz

What technology topics would you like to know more about?  Where do you go to get your technical education?

by  Erin!

I have written a few posts about CRM applications in the past but I’ve come to realize that folks are still confused about what CRM is.  I think that is part of the reason there are so many failed CRM implementations – too many people don’t realize how broad the term is and when they choose a tool they do it without evaluating what they need and comparing it to what is available.  Believe me, sometimes more is NOT better.  Worse, CRM is as much a business strategy as a technology – you need both to be successful.
 

So what is CRM then?

According to Wikipedia CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, is a broad term referring to “a widely-implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support.”.  Wow, that is a lot of stuff.

In an attempt to further simplify I’ve come up with an overly simple graphic (so you knowledgeable folks don’t need to tell me what I left out – sock puppet simple, remember?) to help illustrate.

If you think of the three major functions of CRM in a Venn diagram as above you can see that sales, marketing and customer service share a major function which is simply called Contact Management here but is really the information about your customers.  Therein lies the problem.  Some companies want the sales functions and contact management, some want the marketing functions and contact management.  Some companies just want contact management.  Regardless of what you want, if you don’t choose the right application you are likely to get one with all of the functionality.  Anytime you get more than you want to use you are asking for trouble.

So how do you get the right tool?

It pays to think about your strategy first, even a simplified one.  What are you trying to accomplish for your business?  Then, with a bullet list of requirements, look at the functionality of the available tools.  Don’t restrict yourself to the big names or the one your buddy uses – look at all of them.  Make sure you are getting what you really need, not a whole lot else.  Picking something that has just what you need will make installation, training and adoption immeasurably easier.

But what if I need more functionality later?

If you are absolutely, positively certain you will want, say, sales force automation in the next 6-12 months then add it to your requirements.  Otherwise, add a requirement that speaks to the ease of moving data in and out to your list.  Who knows what applications will be available a year from now – make sure you can easily get your data out and worry about what the next right tool is when you are ready.

Get help if you need it

Remember, unless you are an IT professional or CRM expert, choosing a tool and implementing it correctly can be a daunting proposition.  If you had a tax or legal issue you’d get help from your accountant or attorney, right?  Don’t hesitate to get help from your technical advisor if you need it.

Bottom line

There are a lot of CRM applications and most of them are pretty good.  It is a pretty mature technology and there are many happy customers using each and every one.  Unfortunately they almost all have unhappy customers too and many times it is because the wrong tool was chosen.  Take your time, do it right and get help if you need it.

I have spent a number of hours over the past few weeks, bringing air and light to the far recesses of my son’s bedroom and removing a winter’s supply of mud, bugs, dust and pollen from my screen porch.  So that makes it time for my second annual post about spring cleaning your technology.

The Current Clean Up List

To get us started I’ll refer you to my previous posts on the topic – every year you should look at your website to see if needs to be refreshed (and it probably does!).  There are more great tips for cleaning up your website in this post from Moreover Technologies. You should also clean out your old emails or at least archive them out of your mailbox.  Finally, I’ll add here my continued plea to put your fax machine of its misery.

Read more »

Wow, we are part 5 of the series on how to use technology to improve customer service with your small business.  No foolin!

Today I want to talk about online chat, also known as live chat or click-to-chat.    This is a feature you can add to your website that allows your customers or prospects to choose to communicate with your company real time, using text.  It can be implemented in a number of ways and can provide a variety of service-related benefits to your small business:

• Your customer service folks can be involved in multiple chats, allowing them to help more people at one time than they could on the phone.  Not only can your representatives have multiple chats going at once, you can “can” responses to frequently asked questions and your reps can use them by pressing a single button.   You can increase customer service while reducing operational costs!
• It allows your customer service people to engage in communication that is more conversation-like than asynchronous email.  The number of people that engage in live chat or instant messaging is on the rise so this a communication channel that many are very familiar with.  Finally, while it is real-time and comfortable, it allows for a level of anonymity that some people prefer.
• Customers or prospects that engage in online chat generally have a higher tolerance for waiting for service (but not too long!) – by definition they are online and can easily multitask while they are waiting for answers to their questions.  When they are on hold on the phone they are usually much less patient.
• Most, if not all, live chat implementations allow you to push content, via links, to the recipient.   You can provide FAQs or a how-to videos easily, for example.
• If you have an e-commerce site where you sell a product, most live chat vendors provide “shop with me” functionality that allows you to gently guide your customer thru your site and address any questions.
• You can set up live chat to proactively engage users if they spend a long time on a page or repeat actions that indicate they are having a problem.
• All of the chat conversations are logged and saved to a database.  You can use them identify frequent customer problems or diagnose customer-service issues.

Live chat can provide benefits beyond improved customer service.  Most of the vendors provide functionality that helps you better understand how users interact with your site and to optimize it.  You can proactively engage prospective customers at key place in your site, perhaps speeding up the acquisition or conversion process.

As with any new technology, there are a lot of best practices you can employ to improve your chances of success – just as there a lot of way to screw it up and annoy your customers and prospects.   This is definitely a place where you should get professional help to make sure you are doing the right thing for your business.

If you are interested in learning more about live chat, contact your technical advisor and see if live chat needs a place in your technology plan.

I attended a very nice panel discussion yesterday (Using Technology to Grow the Firm, sponsored by Creative Growth Group) and one of the topics that came up close to the end was adoption of new technology.  This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart so naturally, since it is on my mind, it is this week’s topic.

Technology that is under utilized or unused (shelf-ware) is the bane of every company.  What starts out as an well-intentioned investment in the firm becomes, well, a sinkhole for money and time.  We’ve all heard of the multi-year, multi-million dollar ERP or CRM projects that end up getting scrapped because no one in the company can or wants to use the system.

For a small business the lost investment might not reach the dollar size of a failed project for a huge company but the results can be devastating because the failure affects virtually everyone in the enterprise and proportionally the level of investment is usually much higher.  Entire books have been written about project failure, I won’t rehash all the gory details here.  Instead, here are a few questions for small businesses to keep in ask themselves when they are thinking about putting in new technology.

• Is this technology part of an overall technology plan that takes into consideration your overall business goals and objectives?  If it is not or you don’t have a plan you probably aren’t setting yourself up for success.
• Does this project have a well-defined adoption plan?  (Yes, on paper.  It isn’t really a plan if it isn’t written down.)  Just purchasing training, while hugely important, is NOT an adoption plan.
• Do your employees truly understand the value of this technology to the organization and their part in making the implementation a success?  If they aren’t bought into the change you can still be successful but it is much much harder.
• Does this new technology really provide something that makes your employees’ jobs easier and better?  Does it fit with the way they work?  Or is it just another thing to add to the long list of stuff they gotta do every day?  If it changes how they work significantly, has the new workflow or business process been identified and documented?
• Is someone truly accountable for making sure the technology is used and the investment is realized?  I recently heard a story about a dentist that spent tons of money on new software for his dental practice.  As part of the deal he got training credits and he made sure all the assistants and office employees went to training.  Then he never mentioned the system again…he wasn’t holding his employees accountable for using the new system nor did he delegate that accountability to anyone else.  So guess what?

Bringing in new technology is a huge investment of time and money for a small business.  It is important to take the time to think it through.  If you aren’t sure how to do that, get some help from a reputable consultant or technical advisor.    If it is truly worth doing, if it is going to help grow your business, isn’t it worth doing right?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/ / CC BY 2.0

What kind of planning do you do? Do you take some time to think about your business and set goals for the coming months? A lot of us do this at the end of the year for the coming year but of course it can be done at any time and should be done regularly. Without some sort of planning your business has no direction. Your strategy or plan tells others (and yourself!) where you want to go. If you think this is only for big businesses you’re making a big mistake. This planning doesn’t have to be fancy; you’re the audience so write it down however you like. (I do recommend writing it down though, if you don’t does it really exist?)

A technology plan is an extension of your business plan that addresses how you will use technology in your business to support the business goals you set. Simple as that.

Ok, saying it is simple, putting it together is a little more involved but not complicated. Here is how it goes:

• First, review your business goals and objectives. Even though you are putting together a technology plan, it is really about your business and any investments you make have to support your goals and objectives.

• At a high level, outline your current environment. Who are you customers? What technology do you currently have in place? How do your employees and customers use the technology you have? Are there any risks or vulnerabilities in your current environment? For example, can your systems and processes handle more business? Are they outdated or out of support? Are you covered in the event of unavoidable outages? Are you covered in the case a key employee leaves or is unable to work?

• Determine if there are opportunities to further your business goals and objectives by adding or removing technologies. Can you save time or money but using an email service instead of sending your newsletter manually? Do you have a good way to keep track of your customers? Are your  employees able to fully serve your customers’ needs when they are out of the office?

• Look at your current state and the opportunities and determine a strategy or set of strategies to tie them together. Think about what might have to change operationally if you make these changes. Will you have hire more people or can you do with fewer? Who will be responsible for maintaining and using the new system?

• Determine the cost and benefits of executing on a specific strategy and make sure you know how you will measure success. Are you expecting your sales people to be more effective and make more sales if they have the ability to produce quotes at your customer site? How many more?

• Define a list of activities, including how long they will take, how much they will cost and whether there are any dependencies. Take small bites; make one change and see how it does before making another one. You don’t want your business to implode or your customers to be confused as you work through your technology plan. You also won’t want to make a lot of big investments at once.

The result of this is your technology plan. It is a road map to how you will move forward with technology to accelerate your business. It might look intimidating; it doesn’t have to be, though you may need help. An experienced technology adviser or consultant can lead you thru the process, especially where you are evaluating new technologies. New applications and tools spring up almost daily; an expert will keep up with what is going on and help you identify possibilities.

For an example of technology planning go to http://clearlysimplesolutions.com/what_we_do_tech.php.

Most of the small businesses I talk to, even the tiniest of them, know that when they need legal advice, they need to see their attorney.   The same goes for their financial needs; most of them have a CPA that they see at least once a year at tax time.  Most accountants would recommend more regular visits at key times in the business cycle to help with future planning.  For example, if you need a new vehicle for your business you should consult with your accountant BEFORE you purchase to make sure the type of vehicle you choose will maximize your tax benefits.  Small businesses regularly talk to their insurance provider, if only to understand how health care changes affect the benefits they provide their employees.

Yet, when it comes to the technology businesses use, they are often left adrift with no help.  Some businesses have a simple website set up by their cousin along with some boxed software they use for billing and accounting.  Others have had consultants build fancy websites and other solution providers in to set up networks and more complicated systems.  In both cases though, these businesses have set no overall technology vision that supports their business plan.  They don’t know if the “pieces” they have fit together, if they are paying too much for overlapping technology, or how much they are wasting on “shelf-ware” they never use.   It is like they are standing way to close to an impressionist painting.  All they see are the dots, not how they combine to create a beautiful flower.

Worse than that though, they don’t have anyone helping them identify opportunities where technology could accelerate or tranform their business.   Often there are ways to leverage technology to increase revenue or reduce costs…if businesses only knew what was available.

Today, every kind of business is more and more dependent on technology (like it or not!).  This dependency will only grow.  As a small business owner it makes sense to seek out the advice and counsel of an overall technology advisor.  Someone that can help you see the painting for the dots.  You have a business plan, and maybe marketing plan and a sales plan.  You also need a technology plan that ties these all together.

For an example of what a technology plan is and how it works you can go to http://clearlysimplesolutions.com/what_we_do_tech.php.

Do you have your technology plan in place?