Living the Stream!

The key to productivity in an organisation is to keep members of your team engaged with your business process.  There are whip cracking ways of doing this of course but the more effective way to this is to make them really want to be engaged.  Help them to love the tools they use by improving their daily working experience.

Some Intact iQ users are now doing this a very clever way by keeping their team ‘living in the stream’ of their business management system.   Companywide, department wide or by individual user – give your team access to the information that they need… but also to the information they want (as long as it doesn’t break company policy that is!)

Here’s a beautiful example of one I saw today; so nice I ‘borrowed’ it… with their approval of course.   
The screenshot shows all the information and quick access buttons that are important to this user’s role, but also some external information that the user enjoys.

Based in Toronto (boy it’s cold!) but he has a huge interest in Irish and British news.  So alongside his departments KPIs – he has access to the BBC news feed and also an Irish news ticker along the bottom.  A keen interest in foreign exchange he keeps his eye on the exchange rates at all times and he has one click shortcuts to both internal system areas and external applications like Microsoft Excel & Google.

No need to go anywhere else… help your users live in the stream of your business process!

Windows 10… Now I know what was wrong with Windows 8

I'm sometimes attracted to the shiny new thing, well I at least like to try it for a while on a non-production device.
The very first time I pressed the Start button on Windows 8 I was floored, flummoxed and floundering for familiarity. I liked the idea of it because it felt like Microsoft had brought something to the table that was going to enable some tablet (or iPad as we called them at the time) functionality. Bloggers and journalists described the new Start Screen as "jarring" and while I agreed, I knew I was annoyed by it for a different reason.
I'm a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 user (also had an SP2), so I liked the touch ability but I don't think it made a suitable iPad replacement… it was edging towards a laptop replacement during the 2^nd iteration… and now, Surface pro 3 is a fine laptop replacement. I love this device and I am one of the few "likers" of Windows 8 and I would argue in favour of Windows 8 over Windows 7 especially since the 8.1 release…. With the exception of one big thing…
It was when I spent the last 3 or 4 days using Windows 10 (due for public release mid 2015) that I realised exactly what was wrong with the Windows 8 Start Screen for me.

Have you ever walked into a room and thought 'why did I walk in here, what am I looking for?' Well, that was (is) me with Windows 8 Start Screen. I could be working on a document and decide I need to find something germane, so I press the start key and I am faced with a full screen of live tiles with images of rain, old school friends smiling with their new kitten, news in Syria etc.,,, and now I cannot remember what I came in here for.
If I press escape I can re-read what I was working on and then go back into that live tile room and try to recall what I thought was so important earlier. It was after pushing up to Windows 10 that I realised what I missed about the old windows start menu… continuity & contextual reference-ability.
I think Windows 8 came too soon…. In a way, Windows 10 should have come first (pepper in just a little section of live tiles)… then in a future Windows version from far, far away.. maybe the full start screen would have been more acceptable..?
I look forward to a stable launch of Windows 10 though I am surprised how early they released this preview. Windows 10 should bring businesses the OS they need to move on to from the Windows XP and soon Windows 7 platform.

The ever changing face of business and accounting software

While Leonardo da Vinci is a household name synonymous with painting, sculpture, observation and invention, few would be aware of the name Luca Pacioli, Leonardo's friend and mathematics teacher and father of the modern double entry accounting system.

In 1494 Luca's textbook "Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità" was published and included most of the accounting cycle as we know it today. He described the use of journals and ledgers, and warned that one should not go to sleep at night until the debits equalled the credits. His ledger had accounts for assets, liabilities, capital, income, and expenses. He demonstrated year-end closing entries and proposed that a trial balance be used to prove a balanced ledger.  Fast forward almost 500 years into the digital age and we continue to conform to the now ancient rules of debits, credits, journals, ledgers and trial balances albeit now on personal computers in various guises.

So, why the need for a Research and Development team in an accounting and business management software Company like Intact Software?

While back office accounting standards have remained relatively constant, modern organisations are continuously striving to become leaner and more competitive. Leveraging technology enables businesses to automate laborious manual processes freeing up key staff and empowers company principals to focus on their growth. This results in businesses operating within the same market having different processes, different measures and ways of doing business. The net effect is that an out of the box software solution cannot meet the requirements of both businesses.
While many software vendors often implement "best practice" on their clients, the companies that have grown, and continue to grow, have done so by increasing customer satisfaction through ever tweaking & improving their business process. Removing that competitive edge by conforming to off the shelf software is not the approach modern companies are now choosing to take. They simply want to automate and computerise these lean processes that have served well though the years.
To provide these lean and tailored solutions, Intact Software invest heavily in staying ahead of the competition, understanding trends in the SME markets and responding to the ever modernising needs of a worldwide customer base encompassing over 10,000 users of our solutions. The culture within our company is one of continuous improvement through listening to the demands of our customers & partners and of course our soon to be customers & partners.

Our boldest R & D move in recent years was to relocate the team to a separate geographical location and away from the day to day operational demands. We sought a suitable location where we could control access to the team and therefore maintain the required focus on innovation and bringing our third generation product Intact iQ to market. After months of investigation, we relocated to a space synonymous with start-ups and not with companies over 20 years in operation. Surrounding our team with the entrepreneurial spirit of the start-ups was a hugely advantageous side effect.
While the rules of accounting remain constant, it is important that innovators like Intact Software continue to enable new business processes to be included and measured within the Luca's ancient standards.

 

ITs been done before

On a recent social outing I noticed a friend of mine deleting emails from his Blackberry - ‘Mail box Full’ emails actually and over 50 of them clogging up the small screen. For the purpose of this post however, I’m ignoring the irony of mass emails to alert you to a full mail box, a mere nod should suffice.

The process was click, scroll, delete, yes...click, scroll, delete, yes.... click, scroll, delete, yes... ad infinitum, not easy to ignore, especially as he could do this without looking. I had to ask why ……

“Shift, click, scroll, click, delete does the same thing” I said.

The original thumb breaking process had now been reduced from 300 clicks to 5 clicks and we could enjoy the evening. Now I know that some readers might call me a “Smart Ass” but sometimes we all need the assistance of a Smart Ass. In fact, for centuries people have been requiring the services of Smart Asses. Just the other day I had a Smart Ass come to my house to repair my fridge! Some new parts and some professional services (Smart Assed Services) and my fridge is once again fridging!

I’ve always liked the caption above. Day to day business can feel like a battle and in fighting these battles we often overlook available resources that can have a dramatic effect on the outcome. If you find a task arduous and time consuming, like my blackberry friend, there is a good chance that others have too. There is also a good chance that some Smart Ass has a solution. No-one would consider creating a spreadsheet without using Excel or trawling through hundreds of websites when you can just “Google it”.

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems provide many business solutions. The good ones are developed around real businesses that have faced real business problems. The best ones can be tailored to meet exact requirements. The doyen of this elite, Intact Software, has provided thousands of solutions to real business problems. Many of them having been solved with an out of the box Intact solution
and some that have required a ‘perfect fit’ tailored Intact solution.

There are many ERP solutions available to choose from but it is important to ensure that they are backed up with more than adequate Professional and Customer Services. Many faceless companies can offer a system without providing you with a solution. Experienced ERP providers will avoid offering services to a potential client if their system is not a perfect fit. Unsuitable systems are often ‘found-out’ during implementation…. if you’re lucky.

Intact Sales Director Mark McArdle has often stated “Give me one hour of your time and if you are not impressed with this solution, you can invoice me for your time!” A statement not to be made lightly; and certainly not made if the solution is not a perfect fit. Its not rocket surgery when you know that implementing systems like Intact can assist you in ensuring you are not over or under stocked, you are receiving correct payment for the supply of goods and services, your customers are being looked after and you are buying product at the best prices. All of which result in a more successful business and healthy margin.

So the next time you are carrying out a tedious task, consider that somebody somewhere has also had this problem. Pretty soon you may have your very own smart-ass with a smart-ass system, resulting in clearly defined processes & greater productivity.

Ireland - A Blacklisted Nation

I'm not talking about FIFA's decision to allow Thierry Henrys goal stand and eliminate us from the world cup, or even our Ladies Bobsleigh team under threat of expulsion from the Winter Olympics for whatever reason. Nor am I referring to Roddy Doyle’s dialogue in the Commitments referring to us Irish as, well 'Outsiders'!!

Modern day communication in our country is under threat. As a nation we send hundreds of thousands of emails every day. Some hoping to generate business for our ailing economy, some to catch up with distant relatives or long lost friends, anyway you catch my drift..... But are these intended recipients actually receiving our emails as we would expect? Maybe not!

Regular email is considered HAM and unsolicited email SPAM, so let’s get that out of the way and move on! Thankfully procedures are put in place on the internet and within companies to try and differentiate between Spam and Ham so we are saved the task of siphoning through our inboxes for mail we want to read. Super! However, what if the person you are trying to send an email to has a system in place that thinks your Ham is Spam? That couldn’t happen surely, you're not selling Viagra, Cialis, and Rolexes etc. Well mail systems need to be more clever than that because if they weren’t, how would Pfizer ever send an email to anyone? They're a pretty big company!!

Many anti-spam products use a technique known as blacklisting. I won’t bore you with the exact details but basically if you're name or number (IP address) is on a black list, there is a good chance your mail won’t be received by the intended recipient.

Some recipient’s mail servers check your name and IP address against a number of blacklist servers and if you appear on one of them, your mail gets sent off into cyber space never to be seen again!

I don’t send spam emails, how can I be blacklisted?

Well, up until recently, the most common way to be blacklisted was for your computer to become infected by a mass mailing worm (virus) which acts as a spammer on your computer. If you didn’t stop it quickly enough, you would eventually end up on a blacklist.

That is up until recently (I eventually get to the point)!! When I say recently I mean in the last six months, Irelands leading ISPs have now found themselves listed on Blacklist servers and the moderators of these servers are refusing to take them off! Germany based UCE are refusing to remove blocks of Eircom’s IP addresses from their blacklists. Barracuda, Spam Cop and Abuse At are also blacklisting Eircom’s mail servers but will accept requests by individuals to remove domain names and IP addresses. And it doesn't just stop at Eircom; O2, Clearwire, Vodafone/BT are all there too!! You can check it out for yourself at www.mxtoolbox.com where you can type in your domain name (yourcompany.com) or IP address and see where you are listed.

This is a result of poorly managed networks; trying to charge people for anti spam systems when they should have been stopping it themselves. Allowing their mail servers relay mails at will just to make selling their products that bit easier. Not having the brains to differentiate home users from business users (they know how to differentiate charging them!!).

It doesn’t look like this will be resolved soon though they have at least admitted to the problem which is a big step in the right direction.....

Maybe we should revert to fax or Skype and start talking again!!!

Changing Broadband to save money?

First may I wish a happy and a prosperous 2010 to everyone... 2010; the year when companies that have survived the onslaught of recession will be looking to become stronger and to do so will strive to reduce any operational costs even further.

Is broadband one of those potential savings? Well the broadband companies claim so, but will it save your company money or will it cost you?

Here’s what you need to look out for:

Types of Broadband (Ireland):
In Ireland there are 2 primary means of supplying broadband to a premises; DSL and Wireless – which usually present themselves in your office COMs room as phone Line or Ethernet respectively.

The question you must ask here is “Will my existing equipment support the new connection type?” – the prospective supplier will offer you free equipment to support the new connection, but will it support any features you may have setup e.g. email, content filter, on-line backups, remote access, remote support, CCTV ?

And if it does, who is going to configure it for you and what will they charge?

IP Addressing:
Changing providers will inevitably result in a new pool of IP addresses being assigned to your router. The IP address can be seen as a modern day phone number for your computer network. If you have a remote office, remote users (sales reps), work from home, centrally managed email e.g. MS Exchange, CCTV, VoIP connections etc. a newly assigned IP address will result in all these features requiring to be reconfigured. This is time consuming and costly not to mention the downtime during the changeover.

Email Relaying/DNS:
While this topic is usually less severe and less common than the above, it should still be considered when making the change. Changing broadband provider in Ireland may also require local computer settings to change if you are relaying mail out through the original providers SMTP server, or if your DNS is pointed at the previous providers your internet may not work.

Internal IP Addressing
Your network has an internal IP range typically 192.168.1.x, where the first 3 parts of the address specify the network address and the x refers to your individual computers address in the range. Some broadband providers are shipping broadband routers (modems) with the address 192.168.1.1 which in a lot of cases can be the IP address of your network server. This will cause an IP conflict on your network which will disconnect the computers from your server.

Final Thoughts:
While it is possible to make a saving by swapping broadband providers, the cost of changing should be considered before doing so. My advice would be to plan it and to discuss it with your IT providers to see the exact costs involved in preparing for a minimum downtime changeover.

Cloud Computing for Small Businesses

During a routine check of a client’s server and its backup facility I noticed that the amount data being backed up had reduced significantly.

As anyone would, I asked my customer where all the company documents had disappeared to. I will admit that I was quite tentative in asking such a bold question (as their IT provider) almost expecting the response "What do you mean?"
To my shock his response was (with a proud smile) "A computer genius friend moved them to the cloud". Which was then followed up with "I'm hoping to move my accounts system (INTACT) to the cloud too".

While I believe the "Cloud" offering does have its place in business IT, (I use it myself in the form of Gmail and Google Apps for simple things like notes) I believe the jury is yet to return on its long term viability.

Why? Just a few reasons in brief:

Legality – If you are storing your company records in the cloud, chances are you are storing personal information about your customers. EU data protection law would see this as a breach. Perhaps not right now as these laws seem only to come into play when information has been leaked, but you can be sure at some stage that it will.

Trust – Websites, Emails, Newspaper Articles, News Readers, Government Websites all preach to us about how never to give your banking details out to anyone. Do not tell anyone your address, your name, your inside leg measurements because as soon as you do your identity will be stolen and you will be wiped from existence. However, according to a marketing person you should put everything you have on your computer up to a place on the internet on a server that you have never seen and have never spoken to anyone that has ever seen where it is located. Ireland, France, UK, US, Cayman Islands, Iran or all of the above?? I believe there must be a question over giving all this information to a company like Google whos share price is based solely on the amount of information it can get its hands on.

Longevity – How long will it be before Microsoft takes over Google or Apple takes over Amazon, or Roman Abramovich takes over the lot! Where will your data be then? How will you access. Every had a domain name registered with an online company that were taken over by another online company….

Reliability - http://www.creative-seo.co.uk/creative-seo-news/search_engine_news/gmail-down-00174.php

It often makes me wonder how people can get caught up in buzz words like "Cloud Computing", "Virtualization", "Blade Systems" etc while real concerns such as Backups, Malware Protection and Internet Abuse fall by the wayside – Marketing budgets I suppose!