One of my favorite sources of information for small business technology is SMB Group.  Laurie McCabe’s recent post about business intelligence and small business was right on point.  As compared to large enterprises, small and medium sized businesses have greater challenges when it comes to pulling business insight out of data that is in their disparate and unconnected applications.   In addition, according to the SMB Group study, many small business owners feel like business intelligence solutions are too complex and too expensive.  Unfortunately, missing on the insights and opportunities analytics can provide may end up more expensive in the long run.

I especially like the part in her post where Laurie McCabe lists “symptoms” of data analysis problems.  How many of these does your company suffer from?

About a year ago I wrote a post about some cloud-based analytics tools for small businesses.  I still think these tools are viable alternatives but for many small businesses they are still too expensive – small businesses look at them and fall back on the tried and true Excel spreadsheet.  Recently I’ve run across some less expensive tools that have connectors to applications that small businesses use like Highrise, Batchbook, Freshbooks, etc.  These include Easy-Insight and EazyBI.  Both can pull data from some cloud applications (though both could use more connectors in my opinion), from in house databases like MS Access or SQLServer, or from Excel spreadsheets.  Once the data is in one place it is much easier to see a complete picture of your business.  In addition, these tools can fill in important gaps in these applications.

Is it magic?  No, you have to understand data and how it connects to get truly good insights.  Some folks have a knack for this and do it every day in Excel – these tools just make it easier.  Others may need outside help.  Either way, these tools bear watching.  I would expect more tools to enter this market as well, making now the time for small businesses to take their data seriously.

  by  dougclow

Everyone is talking about cloud computing – heck I’ve written a good bit about it myself.  How do you know if your small business is ready?

First off, I’d argue that making any large technology change requires readiness – not just moving to the cloud.  So keep the following in mind when you consider any major infrastructure or application change.

  by  zolierdos

What Business Need Does it Fill?

What are you trying to accomplish by making a change?  Save money?  Open up new revenue opportunities?  Allow your staff or customers new functionality?  Improve processes and inefficiencies?  Any of these could be good drivers for making a technology change but be sure you know which it is and that you can clearly articulate why you want to make the change.  First of all, you want to make sure you aren’t chasing the latest bright, shiny object.  Second, any change will something your company will have to work through – it is never magic – so you want to make sure you can clearly articulate the business benefits.  Finally, going through the cost/benefit exercise, even if informally, will help you determine whether the benefits are worth the costs, both in hard dollars and in internal change costs.

Does it Support Business Processes?

Does the new toy support existing business processes?  How ingrained and mature are these processes?  On one hand if they are mature processes, it is easy to define those processes and map them to what will need to be done in the new environment.  On the other hand, if they are mature processes and don’t map well to the new functionality, your level of complexity in the change management arena just went up – a lot.  The same goes if you have no existing business processes or if they are ill-defined or ill-understood.  Things just got harder.

Here are some examples:  Let’s say you want to bring in a CRM tool.  Do you have a sales process?  A support process?  Are you going to try to teach your staff a new tool AND a new process?   Or is your current process inefficient and the tool will help streamline it?

Do Your Employees (and You!)  Have the Skill Sets They Will Need?

How tech savvy are you guys anyway?  I’ve found that many of the new applications are fairly easy to learn if a) you understand the underlying business process and b) you are reasonable comfortable with most common business tools (Word, Excel, email, etc.).  If even these basic tools are difficult to use then once again your level of difficulty score has gone up.  You’ll have to add time and effort to training and support.  Do you have an IT staff?  If so, are THEY comfortable with the new architectures and environments?  How much training and support will they need as well?

Don’t go into any big technology change without thinking about these three factors.  It is worth getting help from a professional to do a simple readiness assessment so you know the true cost of the change you are contemplating.

There is an interesting article in Accounting Today – Will You Innovate or Evaporate?.    The gist of the article is that services firms (particularly referring to accounting firms, of course, but I think this applies more broadly) ought to lift their heads from their practices from time to time to see what is out there – what different tools or techniques from other industries could be applied to a practice to make it better.  I am sure the author was thinking more broadly but here I’ll address how this applies to technology.

The point the author makes in this article is that you can innovate by making small changes and weaving them into the firm’s culture and DNA.  This makes absolute sense when talking about adding technology changes – why take on a huge implementation, upgrade or overhaul when a small change might make a big difference?  Or if you are making a big change, just make one, take your time, and make it right.  Take the time and, yes, spend the money, to make sure the implementation and roll out is smooth.

What are some examples of small changes?  You can start emailing invoices.  You can start scanning and filing documents online.

What are some larger innovations that, when done carefully, might have a big payoff?  You move from a local file server to cloud based storage (with the proper security level of course) so that your staff can access data from anywhere and from (almost) any device?   You could give your clients access to their files and information (including billing information) online.  Maybe they could even actually pay their bills and make appointments online.

What technology innovations has your business made lately?

  by  nyoin

I read an interesting article on CMSWire today called In the Cloud, the Role of IT Changes.  The opening argument was that now most companies, large and small, outsource things like wiring, copier support, phone support and the other “crawl on the floor to connect wires” type of IT work.  Now that they are also starting to move applications away from their premise and to the cloud, what role is there for IT in a small or medium sized organization.

I agree with the conclusion that IT will not go away.   The activities that IT folks do will change from installing, supporting and monitoring applications in house to choosing and managing vendors and external applications and making sure any integration work.  IT resources will be aligned more tightly with the business and focus on how the business uses the software and how the software might be configured to be most efficient.

In fact, as technology becomes more strategic for companies, the IT roles becomes more strategic and less “cost of doing business”.  How can your business best leverage emerging technologies?  What is your level of risk in various circumstances and how can you mitigate that risk?  Are you signed up for the appropriate level of service for your company?  Have you negotiated the best possible deal?

The points in the article are all good but how does this apply to small business?  I think it leads to a number of questions that each business owner has to address:

• do I have the time and knowledge to make technology decisions?
• do I have the time and knowledge to choose, negotiate with and manage any number of vendors?
• do I have the time and knowledge to integrate the solutions my business needs?

  by  philcampbell 

Didn’t get enough buzzwords last week?  Not to worry, I am here to fill the big gaping void in your week!  Here are more buzzwords that every small business owner should know.

Lets get started!

1. Business intelligence – CIO.com defines business intelligence or BI as “… an umbrella term that refers to a variety of software applications used to analyze an organization’s raw data”.  So what does that mean?   Generally it means going beyond straight transactional reporting to using data to  improve decision making, cut costs or identify new business opportunities.  It generally entails merging data from various sources and looking at data over time to identify trends, etc.  You use BI to answer questions like “who is my most profitable customer” or “which is my costliest route”.  I talked about BI in this post.
2. Cloud computing – there are lots of definitions but mine is this:  any computing resource that you use that isn’t on your desk or in your office.  For example, this blog is physically stored on a server that I think is in New Mexico.  Heck, I am not entirely sure where it is.  Where it is NOT is in Dunwoody, GA – hence it is in the cloud.  If you use Gmail, Evernote, Dropbox or any other software as a service (SaaS – another good buzzword) program you are “in the cloud”.  You can read more about the cloud here and here.
3. CRM – stands for customer relationship management.   It is a business function, usually supported by technology, designed to improve interactions with customers.   It allows a business to, in one place, keep track of interactions and communications with a customer like inquiries, complaints, phone calls, emails, and transactions.  It can help marketing, sales and customer service stay on the same page when dealing with customers and prospects.   I wrote a few posts about CRM you can read here and here.  If you go beyond traditional CRM that and start to keep track of a customer’s online behaviors thru social media like Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn and the like you are dabbling in Social CRM (see, another free buzzword for the price of one!).  There is a great article that describes social CRM here.
4. ERP – is the acronym for enterprise resource planning and it refers to an integrated system that manages most of the business functions of an organization.  It can include finance and accounting, HR, supply chain management, project management, CRM and more.  ERP solutions for small businesses include NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics and a plethora of smaller niche applications.  There are so many choices it can be confusing – Laurie McCabe has a good article on how to choose the right business applications.

What does all this mean?

All of these buzzwords should be in your technology plan – if you aren’t using them now you will want to use them in the near future.  If you aren’t sure how to get started or don’t even have a technology plan, get help.  These are all tools to help your business grow and be effective.  And who doesn’t want that?

  by  revbean

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  edgeplot

Back in the day, I wrote a lot of custom software.  First of all, that is what I DID and second, finding good software that met the business needs in a flexible way was hard.  Ok, I know I am showing my age now!

As time has passed and technology has advanced we have more and more technology options to support our business and these options have great functional capabilities.  At the same time, access to these technologies has become easier, especially for smaller businesses.  I find it remarkable that I can have, at my fingertips, the same business capabilities of a large corporation.  Gotta love the cloud!

With so much to choose from I would find it hard today to ever recommend “build it for yourself” to a client unless they had a very specific, niche need – a need that was their competitive advantage, something that set them apart.  You can get inexpensive development resources today but you still have fundamental issues with “roll your own” applications:

• you may be using developers inexperienced with building bullet-proof  applications
• you may be building with a technology that it is hard to find developers for
• you will have to do your own maintenance and changes
• you may be using a technology that won’t be supported long term.

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 »

by  RossW

I have written other posts about cloud computing and I am sure you see articles and blog posts about it all the time.  Today I want to narrow in on how cloud computing can improve how you run your office without buying hardware.

Reducing Software Costs

Most of us use the ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite – it is great but it can be expensive.  Some companies have found they can get close to the same functionality but for free with other office suites such as Zoho, Google Docs, and OpenOffice.

File Sharing and Collaboration

Not too long ago if you wanted to share files with your co-workers or employees you had 2 choices.  You could install a network your office or you could employee “sneaker net” – trading files on (used to be) floppy drives or (today) flash drives.  Now there are a lot of choices for online file sharing and collaboration – from simple tools like Box, Dropbox, Google Docs, Zoho or Egnyte, to setting up an intranet via a hosted version of Microsoft SharePoint.  Depending on your needs and which tool you choose, you can not only share files, you have instant access to capabilities like controlling access, tagging, keeping multiple versions of a document or searching across documents.  Even if you have highly sensitive documents, there is a cloud vendor that can  help you.

Providing Remote Access Regardless of Device (almost)

A cool thing about the file sharing and collaboration tools listed above is that most of them support file access and viewing via any browser and have special purpose iPhone or iPad apps.  It is great to be able to refer to documents and share them while you are out of the office.  The only problem is that you can’t EDIT the documents.  Unless, of course, you purchase a special purpose app, of which there are several.

Beyond the file sharing and collaboration tools, another more recent addition to the cloud parade are cloud-based desktops – in this case instead of having your software installed on a specific machine where you can only use when you are ON that machine, you can can have a virtual desktop that you can access from any device with a browser.  Since it acts just like your desktop (because it is) you can run any application that is on your desktop.  How cool is that.  Vendors in this space include Desktone, OnTheNetOffice and tuCloud.

Making Software Upgrades Simple

Virtual desktops bring another simplifying factor to your office – what if you could do away with installing software on each individual machine and keeping up with releases and patches on a one off basis?  Virtual desktop functionality allows you to create a “master” desktop with all the software your company needs and to replicate it across your users.  Time to upgrade or apply a patch?  Do it once and everyone gets it!  You can even create one-off masters if there is specialized software only a few folks need.  Of course, you still have to pay for the software licenses for each user.  I know, always a bummer to find out there isn’t a magic pill to rid you of software costs!

I hope this helps you think about concrete ways cloud technology can help you simplify your office, expand your capabilities and maybe even save you some money.  If you have used tools like these and have a story to share I’d love to hear them!

It has been almost a year since I wrote my last blog post on cloud computing and tons has been written about it since – and yet I think the recent article on CMSWire.com that claims that small and medium sized businesses are still confused is right on the money.  So in honor of the one year anniversary of my last post I’ll take another run on the subject.

The simplest definition is still this:  if you use technology in your business without buying software and installing on your own hardware you are using cloud computing.    But what does that mean to a small or medium sized business?

More Technology is Available for Your Business

Think about all the technology you use or could use in your business – email, calendars, accounting and CRM software.  Once upon a time only large companies could afford applications like these.  If you wanted this functionality you had to buy the software, buy the hardware and maintain both, at considerable expense.  Today any size company can utilize these applications for a monthly subscription (or sometimes it is even free!).  This allows small and medium sized businesses to be more nimble and more strategic than ever before.

You Can Save Money

Not only can your business take advantage of the technology the big guys use, you can do it for a lot less money.  Since you are essentially sharing the application with others your cost is much lower.  Even better though is you don’t have to buy or support the hardware infrastructure these applications often require.  In fact, businesses that have already invested in servers and have to pay employees or service providers to support them can often reduce those costs or eliminate them altogether by moving to cloud applications.  Maybe your business requires some specialized software that isn’t available in the cloud – you may still be able to reduce your over all technology costs by running that application on servers in the cloud.  Amazon, Rackspace and others provide on-demand computing services and bandwidth which means you don’t need your own servers.  Companies like these are staffed by experienced folks dedicated to keeping the machines up, running and secure.

It Isn’t Magic

Cloud computing opens up a wealth of opportunities for today’s businesses.  Like anything else though, it is not a magic bullet.  There are costs involved and every business needs to look at their needs and make decisions to “go to the cloud” on a case by case basis.  There are access and security risks to consider and data integration challenges to address.  Talk to an experienced technology advisor about the opportunities for YOUR business.