Tag Archives: Salesforce.com Inc.

About 1023 days ago Cloud Computing

The Great Cloud Migration: How to Stay Ahead of the Pack

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For the small and mid-sized business, the “cloud” is already a familiar friend. Small businesses have increasingly found ways to reduce capital expenditures and operating costs through cloud computing, in which computing is provided by shared resources and software on the Internet on an on-demand model. As a result, they continue to move many business functions from on-site servers to the Web. However, few businesses truly have a cloud “migration” strategy and even fewer have successfully leveraged the cloud in vendor relations. Cloud-based outsourcing Maybe you’ve ditched the Microsoft Exchange server in favor of Google Apps.  That was easy. It’s just like your Gmail account, but for work. Or perhaps all of your files are securely backed up — not on a bulky external hard drive, but on Box.net. And they’re accessible from any Internet browser on any computer.Whether you realize it or not, your business has already begun an important migration. But few small businesses have thoughtfully managed this transition and even fewer are fully taking advantage of business in the cloud. Using the cloud as a cost reduction tool is increasingly common — reducing paperwork, lowering transaction costs, and investing in less hardware (and with fewer resources to manage it) can yield immediate impact in accelerating your growth. Less understood, however, is how to use the cloud as a business enabler. On this front, companies like Salesforce.com and SuccessFators continue to push forward. Without installing any software, vendors can manage the entire customer lifecycle or HR processes with greater data detail and accuracy than ever before. No longer do you need a file cabinet of paperwork or indecipherable database for these important business processes. Outsourced to the cloud, your data becomes globally accessible and more secure and redundant — all while saving you real money. But as the cloud becomes more pervasive, maximizing the value for your business means going beyond Salesforce.com and Gmail.  What if the cloud could help you keep your business on the cutting edge? Start thinking about the cloud as more than just a tool you use — anyone you do business with should be in the cloud as well. The cloud can level the playing field Small and mid-sized businesses have long missed out because of their size: they don’t have the budget to buy hardware and don’t have the scale to show up on the radar of innovative software vendors. The cloud is leveling this playing field. As an executive, your number-one job is to sell your product — and there are hundreds of hardware and software solutions that could potentially help you achieve that goal. If only it was easy to decide which one to choose. It’s not. You are inundated with calls, e-mails, and advertisements from countless vendors and, if you’re like me, ignore most of them. Or, you select a few to try and next thing you know, your team has invested days or weeks evaluating products. But here too, the cloud can help. There is a new cloud model for software sales that is enabled by what we call IT as a Service (ITaS).  ITaS changes the economics of product demos and evaluations significantly — instead of days, they take minutes to set up. Using ITaS , software vendors can provide actual, hands-on IT (such as fully functional product demos) to multiple end-users in minutes without any on-site presence.  In the end, it’s you (the buyer) who benefits most because you can test each product without the tribulations of costly and time-consuming on-site evaluations and ensure that ultimately you receive the best product for you. Some of the largest software vendors in the world have embraced this vision of using the cloud to optimize and speed sales cycles (Cisco, SAP, and McAfee are early adopters). This is where the cloud is going. Imagine if, instead of having to endure countless marketing pitches, you can get your hands on any IT product you are interested in and try it within minutes — without delay or download. This is yet another way the cloud can save you time and, as a result, money. Products that enable ITaS are by no means the first non-traditional uses of the cloud to make your life easier. Salesforce, Google, Ooyala, Discus, and Cordys for instance all deliver relevant cloud services to the small business market. Your business’s size is no longer a limiting factor. As we see more SaaS and ITaS, even a two-person company can buy from the big boys — the Ferrari’s of enterprise software — and test-drive before they buy. The cloud can help you gain access to new solutions and ensure they match your business needs — all without wasting your valuable time. SIDEBAR: Tips for proactively managing your Cloud migration If you can hold it, question it.  Physical assets cost you money. In many instances, there is no longer a reason to have hardware. Wave goodbye to external hard drives, e-mail/Web servers and filing cabinets. Your business will be lower¬-cost in the cloud. Do what you do best. You have limited hours — spend them wisely. Why waste time with tedious CRM or HR processes — it’s not what you like to do OR what you are best at. Outsource those tasks — Saleforce.com and SuccessFactors would be happy to do it for you — and focus on your core business instead. Don’t just save money — make money. Be proactive. Don’t get caught up treating the cloud as merely a vehicle for cost reduction. Executing core functions in the cloud can make your company more agile and more effective. Expect others to move to the cloud. To fully capitalize on the cloud, you should ensure that your business partners are leveraging the cloud in their interactions with you. Expect instantaneous demos of software you are considering buying. (Zvi Guterman, is CEO and co-founder of CloudShare, a cloud computing service provider. Previously, Guterman co-founded and served as CTO of Safend, an endpoint security company. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Hebrew University.)  

About 1451 days ago Business Software

Traditional CRM vs. Social CRM

Connecting with potential customers is one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses today.  A recent study by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland shows that marketing/innovation is the single biggest competitive disadvantage confronting small business, after access to capital.  In fact, converting marketing leads into buyers and finding efficient ways to promote and advertise, are two areas small businesses say they struggle the most with.  This finding is supported by a recent Microsoft small business study, which found customer acquisition and retention to be the biggest challenges facing their small business partners. To help overcome customer acquisition challenges, many small businesses are looking into customer relationship management (CRM) tools and strategies.   In the past, many viewed CRM as being too complex and expensive to implement for the expected return on investment.  But over the last couple of years, software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings from the likes of Salesforce.com, NetSuite, and a host of others have allowed companies of all sizes to implement CRM products and services at a fraction of the cost, time and effort needed in the past. Traditionally, CRM’s strong suit has been improved operational effectiveness, easier access to information, and improved interdepartmental collaboration.  While these are critically important to the success of any business, the focal point of these areas are internal to the company.  And while a more efficient company should have a positive impact on customer interaction and responsiveness, does it really help us to meaningfully connect with those potential customers empowered in a Web 2.0 world? Social media adds this missing dimension to the traditional, operational areas of CRM.  And according to a recent Nielsen Company study, two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visited a social networking site or blogging site — what they refer to as “member communities.” The integration of social media into CR strategy — called Social CRM — differs in focus from traditional customer relationship management in a few key ways. Data-driven vs. content-driven Businesses began investing in CRM applications in the ‘90s mainly to store contact data.  Before contact management software was available, businesses had to store their valuable customer information in Rolodexes, spreadsheets, and even filing cabinets.  It was important to have a central location to store the data that was also easily accessible to communicate effectively with contacts.  And with multiple people “touching” the customer for various reasons, it quickly became important to be able to track activities, appointments, potential deals, notes, and other information.  Consequently, traditional CRM grew out of this need to store, track, and report on critical information about customers and prospects. Social CRM is growing out of a completely different need — the need to attract the attention of those using the Internet to find answers to business challenges they are trying to overcome.  And nothing captivates the attention of searchers like relevant, compelling content.  Having the right content, and enough of it, will help connect you with those needing your product or service.  Creating content in formats that make it easy for your target audience to consume it increases the probability that you will move them to action — starting a conversation with you.  Whether it be by developing a blog post, podcast, YouTube video, or Webinar, creating attractive content is a key pillar of social CRM strategy. Process-centric vs. conversation-centric Traditional customer relationship management is heavily focused on implementing and automating processes.  Companies looking to implement processes like lead and activity management would turn to CRM.  Management would turn to CRM to standardize on sales processes to increase the accuracy of sales forecasts.  And customer service requests could be tracked, routed, escalated, and resolved in a uniform fashion to ensure proper handling.  Traditional CRM helped make it possible to ensure the proper activities and tasks would be performed by the appropriate people, in the correct sequences. While there are processes involved in building a successful social CRM strategy, conversations are at the heart of it.  Having meaningful conversations with those searching for the help you can provide is the turning point in transforming clicks into customers.  The processes involved are aimed at making it easy for people to find us (through our content) and invite us into a conversation — on their terms.  This may take the form of a comment left on a blog post, following your company on Twitter, or possibly embedding your PowerPoint presentation on their webpage.  There are numerous ways to participate in meaningful conversations with people looking for help in solving challenges.  Formalizing a strategy to increase the likelihood of engaging in these conversations is a tenant of social CRM. Operationally-focused vs. people/community-focused As mentioned above, managing customer information is a major concern to businesses of all sizes.  It plays a key role in the ability of businesses to respond to customer requests, manage resources needed to close deals efficiently, and provide management with reports to keep track of sales performance.  This helps executives achieve operational effectiveness, and is particularly important for businesses expanding their sales and marketing operations, needing to implement new processes to manage growth.  Businesses have typically turned to CRM to improve communication between sales and marketing operations, as well as to improve data-access to positively impact decision making.  Whereas traditional CRM activity focused heavily on operational effectiveness and its impact — both internally and on the customer — social CRM is all about people and community.  It’s about how your company intends to participate in the ongoing conversations taking place in the industry.  How you embrace non-traditional influential people like popular industry bloggers, and social sites on the Web frequented by your audience.  And fully understanding the importance of contributing to discussions, in a transparent manner, will help you build the kind of reputation needed to become a valued member of the online communities important to your business. So if you’re turning to CRM to help bring on new customers, you’ll have to go beyond traditional CRM focuses by integrating social media infused tactics and strategies.  But it’s important to remember social CRM is not a substitute, but a much needed complement to traditional areas of customer relationship management.  It gets us close to what we’ve needed all along. Brent Leary is a small-business technology analyst, adviser, and award-winning blogger. He is the co-author of Barack 2.0: Social Media Lessons for Small Business. His blog can be found at http://brentleary.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/brentleary.

About 1512 days ago Business Accounting Software

Online Accounting: Numbers in the Cloud

Financial management is the delicate balancing act that transforms marketing success, operational results, and managerial savvy into a viable, durable business. In order for a small business to be efficient and effective in managing its finances, computerized accounting and digital financial services tools must become part of its daily kit. While such tools are traditionally desktop-based software programs, a new breed of online financial management applications has emerged in the last few years, taking advantage of the growing confidence that businesses are developing in the Web as a safe business environment. Now that entrepreneurs are indeed becoming comfortable with the “software in the cloud” model and the inherent benefits it offers, they are in growing numbers starting to look beyond e-mail or office productivity to more sophisticated and sensitive applications like financials. Web-based financial management applications are not new — think online brokerage and banking. But fully featured online packages are just now fully blooming, not only rivaling in functionality their desktop-based counterparts, but also extending their usefulness through value-added online services such as bill payments, electronic checks issuance, digital invoicing, or customer credit verification. Moreover their collaborative features, such as multi-user access and accountant view make it a natural fit for the “on the go” lifestyle of most modern small business managers. Accounting online The heavyweight of small business accounting, Intuit, has launched an online alternative to its Quickbooks software that can be finally considered a valid option. While its previous attempts were not very successful, the current version of Quickbooks Online, priced from free to $34.95/month, is a quality product that, while not as powerful as the desktop version, does a pretty good job. Peachtree, a longtime small business favorite, also has debuted a well featured online version starting at $150/year and representing a very viable alternative. Notable new online-only accounting packages for small businesses include Clarity Accounting and Less Accounting which is nicely integrated via mashups with Web favorites such as Basecamp, Shopify, and PayPal. Almost ready to re-launch is NetBooks, a product with a bit of a troubled history, but with a very interesting and complete set of features and now in final Beta release. Accounts can now be opened and used for free. A truly superb product, designed for mature small businesses is Intacct. Created from the ground up as a Web-based application, it provides very sophisticated accounting features and it natively integrates with a number of other Web-based software offerings such as Salesforce.com. For even more mature and large organizations, requiring not just accounting but a comprehensive online suite of business management applications, NetSuite is the leader in the space. Online bill payment If you think for a moment about what it is truly involved in paying your business bills using the traditional checkbook and snail mail, it is not difficult to imagine that there must be a better way to do it. Well, there is, and it is called “online bill payment.” While banks have offered similar services for quite a while as part of their online banking offerings, there are independent services that go well beyond the electronic check, and make the process of receiving, screening, tracking, and paying bills extremely efficient. Both Paytrust — owned by Intuit — and CheckFree can receive bills on your behalf, scan them, make them available to you in digital format via a secure Web interface, and allow you to pay them with a click of the mouse, issuing an electronic check or an EFT order.  This approach can be adopted for all vendors and all invoices, and cuts the average time needed to process a bill by more than 50 percent — in my experience — and greatly simplifies the record keeping aspect, eliminating paperwork. Online invoicing When it comes to get paid, or at least to efficiently issue and send invoices, there are a plethora of Web services available. The most notable is Freshbooks, a pioneer of the Web 2.0 era, which allows for efficient time tracking, billing, quoting, and more.  Intuit has its own offering tightly integrated with Quickbooks online called Billing Manager, while Zoho Invoices comes as part of the Zoho online productivity suite. A roster of other minor offerings fill various professional niches and differentiate on price and unique features, including: Free Agent, Simply Invoices, Invoice Place and Billing Orchard. The Web is opening the doors to scores of new software developers every day, reducing the costs to develop new products and services, creating competitive opportunities for better, less expensive products. Online financial software is just now entering the realm of full acceptance among small businesses. Expect an explosion of new, more tailored applications from large players such as Google and Microsoft as well as upstart companies. New products will surface on the horizon in the next couple of years offering true integration with banking, invoicing, billing, and all the other financial services that small businesses use every day, together with more robust ways to analyze performance, giving way to a new generation of well managed and more robust small enterprises. Andrea Peiro is the Small Business Market Expert at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Founder of the Small Business Technology Magazine, a recognized authority, author, analyst and speaker on high-tech marketing and use of information technology in small and mid-sized businesses, he has been frequently interviewed and featured in such media outlets as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Inc. You can reach him at us.andreap@gmail.com.

About 1571 days ago Business Software

Web Applications: The Coming Threats

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If you’re looking for a secure form of computing, you can certainly do a lot worse than software-as-a-service (SaaS), but like any technology, SaaS is far from 100 percent secure. SaaS, a remotely operated form of computing offered by the likes of Salesforce.com, nSite (part of SAP Business Objects), Qualys and others, is growing in popularity among small and mid-sized businesses, but still has fairly low penetration. A survey by Forrester Research, of Cambridge, Mass., of businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees in 2007 showed only 11 percent were using SaaS. “It’s starting to expand out and playing a much more crucial role,” says Liz Herbert, an analyst with Forrester. The appeal to small business is obvious. Having software managed by a third party obviates in-house IT positions and places the onus on maintaining consistent uptime (99.7 percent seems to be the norm) on someone else. Moreover, security concerns are fewer than with in-house systems. “It hasn’t prevented people from signing up,” says Robert DeSisto, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, of Stamford, Conn., said regarding security. “I wouldn’t say it’s a big issue, but it’s an issue.” Security concerns The truth is, there are security gaps in any kind of technology. SaaS programs are vulnerable to the following threats: Mass SQL bots, which compromised hundreds of thousands of websites. The loss of data. And the publishing of confidential data on the Internet. Those are worst-case scenarios and not all that likely, but if you’re contemplating a contract with a SaaS vendor, Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, recommends hitting the prospective company with questions about their approach to secure computing. First, Kandek suggests tackling the loss-of-data question. “You should ask, ‘If I lose data, how will you get it back to me?’” Kandek says. While most companies will back up information like CRM databases as a matter of course, a bigger issue is if such information is made available to the public or competitors somehow. Kandek deems it unlikely that a competitor would go so far as to hack a rival company to get such information. A more likely scenario is that the information is made available as collateral damage during a random hack or bug attack. Questions to ask a provider For the latter reason, Kandek advises that those who use Microsoft’s SQL Server especially to grill their potential SaaS provider about how often they update their software with patches provided by Microsoft and the like. “Patches could be important so you should ask when they do it, do they wait until the weekend or do it as soon as they can. That gives you a good idea of how diligent they are about it,” Kandek says. The issue doesn’t just apply to Microsoft. Even if you’re using a Linux-based system, there are patches issued on a regular basis that may be relevant. Kandek says another question to pose is about data security. “You should ask, ‘How do you make sure it doesn’t go away,’” he says. Meanwhile, Kandek says you can ask vendors for Web application codes for further reassurance, but you’re unlikely to get them. “That is usually considered proprietary and competitive information,” he says. Another tip is to ask for a third-party security monitoring of the prospective firm. While there’s always the possibility that such results could be questionable (the monitoring firm could be in cahoots with the SaaS vendor), there are ways of checking the integrity of the third-party monitor. In the end, just as there is no 100 percent guarantee of security with any form of computing, there’s no way to be completely certain that your vendor is on the level, either. “You can be defrauded,” Kandek says. “It’s a trust relationship you have to build.”

About 1602 days ago Business Software

Keep Your Head in the Cloud

Throughout 2008, the concept of cloud computing has been at the edges of an incredible number of conversations, blogs, events, and reports. This coming year expect the hype to grow and the topic to be front and center across all facets of the IT industry: the change that this new approach to computing delivers will start to be truly felt not just in the space of consumer applications like social networking, chatting, or multiplayer gaming, but also across the business functions that impact your daily professional life. Cloud computing includes all those IT usage models for which the common theme is reliance on the Internet for fulfilling the computing needs of the users, without requiring their knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them. These IT models include Web 2.0, software as a service (SaaS), and platform as a service (PaaS) — the latter of which moves software platforms from the traditional ownership model into the cloud. The upshot of cloud computing is that computing services are becoming more like utilities to a business. Instead of purchasing a new server for your company, paying to have it installed and setup, and managing this server in house, you can simply rent the computing power you need, run your business applications, and only pay for the power you use. Like your business already does for electricity or water. No upfront investments, no hardware management, no troubleshooting. This option frees your company from the overhead of maintaining a complex IT infrastructure, but still provides you with the flexibility of running your own software — such as a custom database for sales or a dedicated inventory management system that perfectly fits the needs of your business. Software as a utility That same utility model can be applied to software. Instead of owning a software application, you can just rent its functionality. That is exactly what you do when you use Google Mail, Facebook or LogMeIn. You are utilizing software provided to you as a service (SaaS), rather than having to install it on your computer. This “virtual software” is run in “virtual computers” that utilize the resources of clusters of real computers all working in perfect concert in the “Internet Cloud” and transparently and with zero overhead from the end user point of view. This approach, however, imposes limitations on how you can customize such software and integrate it with other applications, since you do not directly control it. To obviate the customization issue there currently are two distinct approaches: the mashup and the PaaS. Mashups are becoming very popular with the newest generation of Web 2.0 applications, where users can actually integrate SaaS from multiple vendors across the Internet and with little effort, such as opening a document stored in the Basecamp project management system directly with Zoho and from there sending it via e-mail using your Gmail account, with no need for multiple logins. This approach works if the SaaS products you want to integrate are developed according to rigorously established interoperability standards. The PaaS approach consists of utilizing the customization and development tools provided by the SaaS vendor to leverage an established development platform and extend the functionality of its offering. Salesforce.com is the most popular example of such an approach. You can utilize their SaaS, extend it with a large library of third party add-ons, and customize it using their development tools to meet your specific needs. The technical skills needed though are substantially higher that what is required to use mashup techniques, but the level of customization possible is much higher. No need for installation In the practical world of small businesses, the most evident manifestations of cloud computing are the hundreds of software applications that are becoming accessible via the Web with no need for any local installation and available as free or paid services. The proliferation of these applications is providing small businesses with not only inexpensive alternative to traditional, costly software, such as office suites, accounting packages and customer relationships management, but also with a whole roster of useful products that fulfill very specific niche markets needs and would not normally make sense for vendors to develop as conventional software. Some examples are Zoho for office productivity, Freshbooks.com for accounting and Basecamp for project management. Another example of cloud computing that is directly affecting small businesses can be found in all those business services that heavily rely on the Web to interface with customers, such as online banking, bill payment, hotel reservations, airlines tickets booking, and teleconferencing. These transactional services are all leveraging the Internet as a service conduit, independently from the computer the customer is utilizing to access them and make heavy use of cloud computing technologies. Examples in this category are Paytrust.com for bills payment and Paypal.com for credit card processing services. A third area of significance in cloud computing applications is e-ommerce. Services that offer simple, end-to-end e-ommerce platforms that require little or no knowledge of Web design or programming to be setup — such as Amazon WebStores or eBay Stores — are becoming more popular and more sophisticated, giving small businesses the possibility to setup a professional e-commerce site in just a few days. In the small business markets cloud computing is evolving into a truly disruptive technology, enabling low-cost computing, commoditized software, and low barriers to entry for more technology entrepreneurs to create the next generation of software services. In my next column, I will review practical ways a small business can move its computing almost entirely to the cloud lowering costs, reducing its IT overhead, and increasing its flexibility and responsiveness. I will explain how to leverage the cloud for office productivity, collaboration, data security and storage, financial management, project management, and more. Stay tuned. Andrea Peiro is the Small Business Market Expert at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Founder of the Small Business Technology Magazine, a recognized authority, author, analyst and speaker on high-tech marketing and use of information technology in small and mid-sized businesses, he has been frequently interviewed and featured in such media outlets as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Inc. You can reach him at us.andreap@gmail.com.

About 1602 days ago Computer Security

Time to Take a Look at Digital Signatures?

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Aurora Lifetools helps disabled people win Social Security claims. The firm typically works with clients whose claims have been turned down as too small by law firms that traditionally handle such matters, although Aurora is not a law firm, and its professionals who represent claimants are not attorneys. Since the sums involved aren’t huge, Aurora’s success depends on its ability to represent large numbers of claimants. Electronic signatures are a huge help to that effort, according to Drew Hyde, senior partner. “About 12,000 people apply for Social Security Disability every day — that tells you how big the market is,” he says. The company’s staff of nine, using electronic signatures combined with customer relationship management and database technology can enroll about 200 cases a day in Aurora’s system, he adds. “Without electronic signatures, those same nine people could pull in about 35 cases a day — maybe.” And, even if the company had a staff of thousands, some clients would be impossible to help without digital signatures, he says. “In the old days, we couldn’t take on anyone with less than a week to go before a filing deadline,” he says. It would simply take too long to get the papers certifying Aurora as the client’s representative signed and in place in time to submit a claim or appeal. Today, Aurora can complete the process of interviewing and signing up a new client by phone and Internet in about 12 minutes, Hyde says. “Now, someone can call us at 3 p.m., and we can submit the claim at 3:45 and protect that client’s rights.” The time is right to move to digital signatures In 2000, the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce (ESIGN) Act decreed that a properly obtained electronic signature has the same legal standing as a handwritten one. Since then, adoption of electronic signatures has been slow, except in certain industries, such as financial services. But acceptance of digital signatures has been building to a critical mass in the last year or two, perhaps in part because the general public has grown comfortable with the basic concept of a legally binding Internet transaction, such as filing an online tax return or clicking “Buy It Now” on eBay. At the same time, evolving technology has made digitally signing easier, according to Jason Lemkin, CEO and co-founder of EchoSign, an electronic signature service. “It wouldn’t have been practical in 2000, because you needed today’s browsers and Ajax [asynchronous Java Script and XML] to make the experience as easy and elegant as it is today,” he says. At the same time, as business in general becomes more Web-oriented, using paper contracts seems less and less logical. “When everyone’s using Salesforce.com and LinkedIn, it doesn’t make sense to have to use FedEx or a fax machine in order to close a deal,” he says. Avoiding revenue loss But there’s another reason to consider electronic signatures today — one Lemkin says has created an upsurge in EchoSign’s business in the past few months. “The most important thing in today’s economy is revenue assurance,” he says. Electronic signatures help by allowing companies to close a legally binding deal in minutes, while a customer is still on the phone. “When you have customers who want to buy, you don’t want to make them dig up a fax machine or go out to the mailbox — because they might not do it,” he says. Revenue assurance is the biggest benefit of using digital signatures for Hcareers, a job board for the hospitality industry. “With many of our one-time transactions, we would simply work by e-mail confirmation,” notes Jim Finn, vice president of sales. That made life easy from a logistical point of view, but customers occasionally reneged on their deals. “We had a certain percentage of write-offs,” Finn says. “It wasn’t a large percentage, but we weren’t really happy with any.” Today, Hcareers customers must digitally sign using Agreement Express, showing their consent to the site’s terms and conditions, which include a commitment to pay for services used. The result: “We’ve had 80 percent fewer clients being sent to collections in the six months after implementing digital signatures,” Finn says. Working with digital signatures comes with other advantages as well, he says. “It’s far more efficient than a fax machine, and better for the environment. My contracts are all in cyberspace, so I can print them if I need to — and I don’t have two file cabinets standing outside my office.” In fact, he says, “From an efficiency standpoint, electronic signatures are the only way to go about securing contracts.”

About 1694 days ago Hardware

Is it Time to Toss Your Servers?

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Abaca Technology Corp., which launched in 2005, offers physical and virtual anti-spam appliances. The company uses Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing service to host the software that works with its appliances. Without EC2, it would have been much harder — and much more expensive — to launch Abaca, according to Bill Kasje, vice president of Business Development. “As a small company, we were able to get our servers up and running quickly,” he says. “We didn’t have to invest in a big infrastructure environment, or have backup power and redundancy, all the things our customers expect from us because email is a mission-critical application.” Though Abaca does deploy in-house servers, it would need at least four more, in a cluster configuration, if it were hosting its software in-house, he says. This way, Abaca’s IT team could focus on the company’s core competency: filtering spam. For many small companies, the smorgasbord of newly available off-site or “cloud” computing offerings means they can reduce the number of servers they purchase and maintain in-house. In fact, according to James Staten, principal analyst as Forrester Research, they may no longer need servers at all. “There are now options available over the Internet that didn’t exist before,” he explains. For instance, companies used to use servers for file sharing, but there are many Internet-based options such as Microsoft Windows Live, Dropbox, and so on, that provide the same options over the Web. “Backups can be done over the Web too,” Staten adds, “and it looks almost exactly the same as when you back up to a server. A lot of people have print servers, but that’s not really necessary any more either, with today’s network-based printers, or wireless-enabled printers with built-in print servers.” In fact, Staten believes, many small companies no longer need any in-house servers at all. Better without servers Why reduce or eliminate servers? “The number one advantage is it gets you out of the IT business,” Staten says. “You don’t have to worry about high availability.” [A high availability configuration ensures continued function by connecting two or more servers in a cluster so that one can “fail over” to the other in case of a problem.] You no longer need to worry about off-site backups, emergency power supplies, or how your company would preserver its data in a widespread disaster like a hurricane, since all these protections are now provided by an off-site by a service provider, and defined in your contract. You can also get by with fewer IT staff, Kasje says. “We would have to have IT staff monitoring systems around the clock. All we have to deal with are the software issues, so that’s much easier. There is a whole class of problems we don’t have to address.” Not having servers on site means much lower upfront costs, though it also means ongoing costs to pay for a service or server space. “You’re trading capital expense for operating expense that you can adjust up or down, depending on your needs,” Staten says. And while the day-to-day costs may be similar, or perhaps lower for owned equipment amortized over several years, off-site servers can provide lower cost if you take risk into account. “There are so many more things to account for,” he says. Three off-site options For companies that want to cut their server count and turn to Web-hosted options instead, there are three different basic options to choose from: Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) In this approach, an application is provided by a SaaS provider and runs on its servers. Your employees (or customers) use the Internet to log into the software. Well-known examples include Salesforce and Google Documents. Hosted servers In this approach, you contract for server space — or even an entire (real or virtual) server at your provider. In many ways, you can treat this off-site server as if it were a regular server, loading applications and data onto it as you see fit. However, the hosting provider maintains the server, usually providing backups, security protections and such. Rackspace and Hostway are two examples of this approach. Raw cloud space “Cloud” is a relatively new term that is often used to describe any Web-hosted offering. Strictly speaking, it simply refers to the architecture by which software and/or data reside in a network or “cloud” of servers connected by the Internet, rather than on a single machine. You can lease raw space in the cloud, for instance, from Amazon’s EC2 service. In this setup, you are still responsible for managing your own server space. If your provider had an outage, in the case of SaaS, the application would be up and running as before once the outage was over. In a hosted server setting, the provider would restore data on the servers, providing the configuration you had before the outage. In a cloud computing outage, once the outage was over, your IT staff would need to reconfigure and reload your online server with the applications and data that were there before. You would be responsible for ensuring backups, and also the security of your data. Because of these added tasks, Staten doesn’t recommend pure cloud computing for small companies unless they also have solid in-house IT expertise. On the other hand, he says, “If you’re really tech savvy, these are great new options to avoid ever having a server within your walls.” Whichever option you choose, Abaca’s Kasje recommends giving off-site computing a try. “You can step into this very easily,” he says. “And you should be able to figure out very quickly whether it’s something that can benefit your business.”

About 1724 days ago Business Software

Software-as-a-Service Vs. Managed Services

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With all the technological terms so lightly bandied about today, determining the best way to deliver software to your small mid-sized business — whether via the managed service or the software-as-a-service model (SaaS) — can be confusing. Here are the pros and cons of both models and some tips on which model works best for your business’ particular needs. In a nutshell, a SaaS vendor hosts, maintains, and upgrades its software on its own servers and your employees access it via the Internet. Managed services are a more comprehensive outsourcing of information technology business functions, such as security and networking, says Robert Mahowald, director for SaaS research at IT research firm IDC. Examples include the customer relationship management application Salesforce.com from the company of the same name, as well as many payroll software packages. SaaS vs. managed services Because SaaS applications aren’t sold as software packages for download or purchase, users don’t buy licenses or upgrades. Instead, they pay a flat, usually monthly, subscription fee. The software resides on the host server from which all users — no matter their organization — access it. Vendors rely upon economies of scale here, spreading the cost to run and host the application across many users. This makes for costs lower than with other sales models, Mahowald says. Though SaaS applications can be configured in minor ways — companies can often make changes to how the application presents on the desktop — the code itself can’t be customized expressly to an organization, he adds. Businesses that partner with managed service providers (MSP), on the other hand, purchase a software license for each application they ask the MSP to run. They essentially hire the provider to run the software and to run maintenance and install upgrades and, depending on the model, to host the application, says Charles Weaver, president of the MSPAlliance, a professional organization for MSPs. Consider the costs Though the cost for a SaaS application is often much less than for a managed service application, users pay for for up-close attention, maintenance and support, seamless upgrades, and customization that MSPs can offer, he adds. When weighing one model against the other, first consider how integral the software you’re purchasing is to your organization, says Robert Bois, research director at AMR Research, which conducts IT research. “Most companies outsource payroll using SaaS because it’s not a differentiator or a competitive advantage for their company,” Bois says. Some applications may be vital to the organization but may not need much differentiation from those used by competitors and a SaaS is fine here too, he adds. The customer relationship management (CRM) application Salesforce.com is one example. For areas of the business that need customized software or software that must be tightly integrated with other areas, consider the hands-on help an MSP can offer, Bois says. “There’s a kind of continuum in making these decisions,” he says. “In virtually every part of the organization you have to ask: do we really want to own all of the software?”

About 1755 days ago Business Software

Tech Talk: Network Manager Caters to Clients with CRM

PacketTrap Networks, of San Francisco, was founded in 2006 as a network troubleshooting and resolution company. The fast-growing business, which expects to double the size of its 23-person workforce in the next year, found that upgrading to a better customer relationship management (CRM) platform helped save time, labor, and better serve clients, CEO Steve Goodman tells IncTechnology.com. Elizabeth Wasserman: Why has CRM been essential to your business? Steve Goodman: As an early stage company, customer relationships are incredibly important, both from a referral and from a product roadmap standpoint. Customer referrals are important to us so the most important thing we can do is deliver high quality products to them. We do that by talking to our customers on the early end about product requirements, through the sales process, for customer support and we strive to evolve the relationships with those customers for years to come. From that perspective, having a CRM application is imperative and we would sink without it. Wasserman: Did you use CRM from the start? Goodman: Initially, we were in development for nine months. Subsequent to that, we went with a low-end CRM product. But it didn’t scale very well and we couldn’t use it for remote workers. It was also not relational, which means that you couldn’t put thousands of records in it. It was really meant for a small office. We had quickly grown to more than 30,000 users and recognized that we needed to bring in something more stable and robust.. Wasserman: What type of product did you choose? Goodman: We went with Salesforce.com. We realized we needed something to scale with us and we didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg to get it. If I add a new sales guy, I just add an affordable, new monthly fee. I love the ability to not pay everything up front but on a monthly basis. It’s almost like a per-drink model or pay-as-you-go. If you get the whole package up front, it gives you a certain number of uses. Well, we don’t have that number of users today. I’d rather pay as we ramp up. These types of software-as-a-service models allow us to do that. Wasserman: How long did it take to migrate your business over? Goodman: That’s actually the beauty of it. They have a very open back end architecture that allows a relatively inexperienced developer or engineer to easily migrate from your legacy systems over to them. Then there is the flexibility of their systems to customize them to your needs. That’s really important. The transition was no more than a few days. We could do it over a weekend, which was nice. We didn’t lose any productivity as a result. There is training involved and that took some time. Wasserman: What can you do now that you couldn’t do before? Goodman:, Let’s say someone downloaded our software to take advantage of our  21 day trial. If a sales person wanted to extend the trial because the potential customer didn’t have the opportunity to use it or test it, it used to be they would actually have had to close down the proprietary legacy system and go into a completely separate system and log in and find that customer. The whole process would have taken two or three minutes. We’ve all been on customer service calls waiting for that customer service rep to do their job. Now, the whole thing is integrated so with the click of a button I can extend their trial. The customer experience is exponentially better. For an early stage company in a highly competitive market, we can differentiate ourselves with the customer experience we provide. Software differentiation is becoming less and less a differentiating factor, especially in a market like we’re in. The more that a customer feels glued to you, the more likely that customer is to recommend you to another customer. And 50 percent of our business is word of mouth.

About 1847 days ago Business Software

Business Management Applications: The Power of Data

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Few things can be as rewarding as the experience of owning your own business, the feeling of being an entrepreneur, the freedom of managing your professional destiny. With independence and self determination though come the profound responsibility of providing a good working environment and a reliable paycheck for yourself and your employees — in good times and bad times. Each day you have to make hundreds of decisions that could change your life and the destiny of your company. During tough times many small businesses fail because projected profits are overestimated, costs misjudged, and cash flow is out of control, while owners lose track of what works and what does not, taking chances not supported by accurate figures. A clear, analytical knowledge of your business performance is always very important to substantiate decisions, but it becomes absolutely critical in times of economic downturn, when the volume of business tends to be reduced, operational costs increase, competition steepens, and margins shrink. The accuracy of decisions that could make or break your venture depends upon how refined is your understanding of variables such as operational costs, cash flow, yield of your marketing efforts, projected sales. Would you, for example, be able to quickly and reliably list your best customers, detail what your profit margins are, or assess the value of your inventory? Analytics can help To better weather a recession, entrepreneurs should consider adding to their instinct and experience the support of data and analytical evidence. In moments of economic crises only the most efficient businesses survive and thrive. Access to internal information can be the difference between success and failure, allowing you to accurately determine what customer to focus your attention on, what areas of your business to trim first, and how far down you could reduce your prices to remain competitive while keeping your profitability at acceptable levels. Information technology has for decades enabled large corporations to acquire, gather, organize, represent, evaluate and prioritize information from all sides of their businesses. Today the same technologies are affordably available to smaller companies in what are called business management applications (BMAs). BMAs are software tools to help manage information across the entire business and assess performance in sharp, clear terms to reach more accurate decisions. Most small businesses operate using an assortment of standalone, single-purpose software products to manage business functions: accounting, point of sale, inventory, customer relationship management, and most likely various disconnected online applications for tasks such as direct marketing, e-commerce, or group conferencing. Even when integrated, individual applications can rarely address the intelligence needs of a small business, mostly because the flow of data among the software programs remains limited, and cross-referencing figures becomes a very difficult task. Tying together different business functions Only software designed from the ground up with well integrated features and natively sharing information across functions can provide the information you need to truly limit the risk associated to your decisions. BMAs tie together most aspects of your business such as: Financials and accounting Customer relationship management Purchasing and merchandising Production and manufacturing Inventory management  and distribution Order processing and shipping or delivering E-commerce Human resources Ideally this type of intelligence should be available on demand, easy to access in an understandable and usable format. A new generation of BMAs is attempting to make this happen by fully leveraging the power of the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies to deliver corporate-grade functionality to small businesses with low deployment overhead, universal accessibility and pricing models with minimal initial costs. In general there are great advantages for small businesses with limited technical resources in using Web-based BMAs, versus installing and maintaining complex software on their local network. These benefits in most cases include: Very high level of collaboration among employees: your entire team can access your company’s information and work from anywhere they have access to an Internet connection; No software installation or management, no servers required; High level of data security and availability with frequent and reliable backup; Very high level of integration with ecommerce and online payment processing services. The leaders in the online BMA market, each focusing on slightly different market segments are NetBooks, Salesforce.com, SAP Business One, and Netsuite. All these products offer different plans meeting the diverse needs of small businesses, providing tailored software applications as a service, with quality customer support and very simple setup. Ultimately, following only a modest investment, the adoption and use of online BMAs will help your business adapt to the economic downturn, by helping you: Simplify your financial management, improve fiscal insight and manage risk; Decrease the lead-to-sale time, increase the reach of your marketing and open new channels; Identify inefficiencies, reduce operational costs, increase flexibility and responsiveness; Increase productivity through better communications and better access to information. Economic downturns are part of the American economic system. They are important moments to weed the strong businesses from the weak ones, and prepare for the next period of growth. This is the time to think ahead, adapt, and create new opportunities. Andrea Peiro is a recognized authority, author, analyst and speaker on high-tech marketing and use of information technology in small and mid-sized businesses. He has been frequently interviewed and featured in such media outlets as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Inc. You can reach him at us.andreap@gmail.com.