Posted by Len Diana on Fri, Jun 04, 2010 @ 11:07 AM
Is Your Company Ready for a MRP/ERP Solution?
Increased productivity, reduced operating expenses, improved information flow and enhanced performance management are some of the benefits that you can realize by implementing a MRP/ERP solution. An informed selection and well-planned implementation can reduce unanticipated costs and extended project timelines. Should you replace or implement a new MRP/ERP solution? Here are 7 thoughts to consider:
•1. Fast and uncontrolled growth: Are you growing at a very fast pace? Has production volume, processes, and work force increased?
•2. Lack of sufficient and accurate information on your company's performance: Problems are starting to surface when trying to capture exact figures and you're getting mismatched data regarding performance indicators.
•3. Consistent mismatch between inventories and production management: Sales order processing and inventory management are not coordinated to get you proper information.
•4. Duplication of effort: Finance, HR, and production departments are maintaining their own records which may result in duplication of efforts.
•5. Correct information is not accessible at the right time: Accurate data on stock in inventory, month-end sales figures, or orders in transit is not accessible on a timely basis.
•6. Little or no ability to forecast and plan: How can you project into the future your organizations needs without the proper information?
•7. Your current system is becoming obsolete: you haven't upgraded your hardware or software in several years and it's negatively impacting your organizations goals, productivity and growth.
If your organization is experiencing one or more of the following business issues, then it's time to seriously consider implementing or replacing a new MRP/ERP solution.
Posted by Len Diana on Mon, May 17, 2010 @ 09:09 AM
From a Focus Research 2010 report: "The business tasks, functions and applications referred to collectively as enterprise resource planning or ERP are some of the most business-critical in existence. After all, optimized resource planning helps to maximize business agility and revenues. But once you've surveyed the ERP market and assessed and prioritized your business' specific needs for ERP solutions, you're still challenged to craft your best possible short list of candidate offerings and vendors."
Your basic buyer has between 25 to 250 employees and is in search of solutions that have core functions like accounting, finance, HR, payroll management, CRM and basic resource planning. They may be looking for a simple off-the-shelf ERP package that's easy to use and inexpensive. Vendors must offer an edition that is designed for easy installation and configuration as well as integration and consulting services.
When choosing a solution, it has been reported that "meets my feature requirements" as the number one criteria. Also highly ranked are:
- Reliability and performance
- Customer service
- Vendor would be a good partner.
This quote by a director of finance of a manufacturing firm with 26-50 employees from Focus Research's ERP Systems Buyer's Guide 2009 sums it up: "Know your existing system. Whoever is heading the project needs to talk to everyone to know the way company functions. Know the problems you are trying to solve, research all sides of it and make sure vendor can solve it."
If you'd like copies of these research reports from Focus Research, email Len at LDiana@baesis.com
Posted by Len Diana on Fri, Apr 16, 2010 @ 03:23 PM
Does your CRM tool offer the right solution and features?
Not all CRM tools are created equal but whether you are using a hosted or on-premise CRM tool it should include the following 10 features:
Lead Management: If you allow a lead to fall through the cracks, can you afford the lost revenue right now? The lead needs to be routed to the right sales person and managed throughout the entire sales cycle.
Feedback Management: How can you optimize the customer experience if you are not capturing feedback from all channels of communication? Your sales person can now capture a better understanding of the customer's needs, wants and buying patterns.
Order Management: With multiple departments handling an order the chance for human error grows and so does the paperwork. However, order management allows for quotes to be converted to orders, modified and then saved into a single system.
Territory Management: No sales rep should be stepping on another's toes when you have created sales territories and manage territory-based processes with workflow rules and reports.
Email Management: You customers are using email these days to communicate their complaints, issue requests and offer feedback. If you want to anger your customers, don't respond to their emails or your CRM tool can chronicle customer-related communications with automated tracking of customer emails.
Contact Management: If you're using MS Outlook, it is simply an ineffective way to track your contacts. With a 360-degree view of their customers, sales people can view contact and account information, and purchasing history all from a central location.
Reporting: CRM tools have many varied formats for reporting from standard templates to customized documents. Reports can have detail providing contact information, opportunity pipeline, lead-status analyses and case studies.
Opportunity Management and Forecasting: You need to quickly view the sales and production pipeline so that your business can handle the orders they're generating.
Marketing Campaign Analysis: How can you know if you're getting the best bang for your buck if you're not monitoring and analyzing the advertising and marketing efforts? CRM solutions help track activity from trade shows to direct mail so that every dollar spent is productive and leads to future profitability.
Marketing Revenue Tracking: Wouldn't it be nice to have every sales dollar linked back to marketing activities? With marketing revenue tracking it's easier to convince upper-management that a costly campaign produced results.
If you're not currently using a CRM solution or are thinking of changing tools, the features listed can be of great help in that decision. Whether you are using a hosted solution or on-premise tool, CRM has become increasingly vital to all businesses.
Posted by Lee Motta on Tue, Feb 16, 2010 @ 01:05 PM
ATTENTION: Time is running out! Is your WISP plan ready?
All organizations that employ or have a customer base that reside in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts need to have a detailed Written Information Security Plan (WISP) in place by March 1st, 2010.
Feel free to blog any questions or concerns regarding the 201 CMR 17:00 - Standards for the Protection of Personal Information of Residents of the Commonwealth.
Cut and paste the link below which was distributed by the “Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs & Business Regulations”, and contains important information in achieving WISP compliance:
Posted by Len Diana on Wed, Feb 10, 2010 @ 10:19 AM
On September 19, 2008 the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation established new identity-theft regulations, 201 CMR 17.00: Standards for The Protection of Personal Information, which requires all Massachusetts businesses to protect all personal information of the citizens of the Commonwealth. Accompanied by Massachusetts law M.G.L. c 93H
201 CMR 17.00's requirements include up-to-date antivirus software, firewalls, encryption and a Written Information Security Plan (WISP) along with other documentation. Massachusetts WISP plans with these compliance standards must be met by businesses by March 1, 2010.
We recommend that you read the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation FAQ, at: http://www.mass.gov/Eoca/docs/idtheft/201CMR17faqs.pdf
2010-02 Compliance with 201 CMR 17:00, Standards for the Protection of Personal Information of Residents of the Commonwealth
http://www.mass.gov/pageID=ocamodulechunk&L=4&L0=Home&L1=Government&L2=Our+Agencies+and+Divisions&L3=Division+of+Insurance&sid=Eoca&b=terminalcontent&f=doi_Bulletins_bulletins_10_02&csid=Eoca
Can Baesis help?
Yes, as part of our WISP services, Baesis will perform the following procedures that are required by the 201 CMR 17 Regulations:
- Develop a customized WISP
- 27 Point Network Audit: Ensuring that their network meets the regulations of security requirements. (Baesis managed service clients should already meet or exceed most of these requirements)
- Risk Assessment
- Create an action plan for remediation to achieve compliance
- Provide on-going assistance in maintaining compliance
- Establish network security, policies and procedures
Posted by Lee Motta on Fri, Oct 02, 2009 @ 03:19 PM
What is Disaster Recovery?
Disaster Recovery means different things to different people. What's really important, is what does it mean to your organization. In this blog, I am going to hope to cover many areas, such as:
- What does Disaster Recovery entail?
- Why it is important to be prepared?
- How do you do it?
- How will I know when I am done?
- What are the best practices to maintain your IT infrastructure?
- Examples of where some have succeeded... and others have failed.
- How to utilize RAID Technology?
- Can RAID Technology and Disaster Recovery work together?
According to Wikipedia, Disaster Recovery is the process, policies and procedures related to preparing an organization for a recovery or continuation of an IT infrastructure that is critical after a natural or human- induced disaster.
With the increasing importance of information technology for the continuation of business critical functions, combined with a transition to an around-the-clock economy, the importance of protecting an organization's data and IT infrastructure in the event of a disruptive situation has become an increasing and more visible business priority in recent years.
It is estimated that most large companies spend between 2% and 4% of their IT budget on disaster recovery planning, with the aim of avoiding larger losses in the event that the business cannot continue to function due to loss of IT infrastructure and data. Of companies that had a major loss of business data, 43% never reopen, 51% close within two years, and only 6% will survive long-term.
Stay tuned to this blog to learn about different product options, methodologies and just some good, common sense ideas.
Posted by Lee Motta on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 @ 07:12 AM
What can Managed Network Services do for your organization?
Businesses continually find themselves driven to use technology on a daily basis and this technology grows in complexity on a daily basis as well. Technology needs impose risk and often pull companies away from their core responsibilities of providing products and services that bring value to their markets and dollars to their bottom line. Poor planning can adversely impact your business operations. BAESIS, with its 40+ years of experience in Massachusetts in technology markets, knows that there really three key areas for concern. These are:
TIME lost trying to understand and make use of what you have and what you may need to stay competitive
RISK of your systems (and business) shutting down due to inadequate resources to support what you have
MONEY lost from your bottom line due to no business continuity/disaster recovery plan or uncontrolled costs
All three are important and affect your business in different ways. But be assured, they all tie back into money. So let's take a quick look at each.
TIME: Most people relate time to a soft dollar cost. In that sense, it is difficult to capture and more difficult to build an ROI based on time savings. BUT...and this is a big "but", that time adds up and costs real dollars that are deducted from your bottom line. So what do you pay your IT person? You may have one who wears many hats or you may have several who are dedicated to the task. Time is real and costs real money. So let's look at an example.
One IT person costs say $75,000 per year (I believe generally speaking that this is a very conservative number). That breaks down to $340/day, say $34/hr since they likely work a 10 hour day. If they spend 6 hours /day dinking around with IT issues, and mind you these issues could be "How do I do ...?" to standard Break-Fix stuff, that cost for their time is $204 /day of non-revenue generating tasks. If you could save 50% of that time with an outside resource managing this process, that would translate into a $102 /day savings x 220 hours /year = $22,440 per person/year. Now this likely is a line item expense on your P&L statement but the cost is real just the same.
The other side of this time savings is what else could that staff person be doing that is proactive and will either make your company more money, or allow them to seek cost savings in other operational areas of your business. There is a very large hidden savings to be found here.
With a 20 PC network riding on 2 servers, this cost savings is a wash when a Silver level managed services plan is implemented. If you have more than one IT person, the saving really add up.
RISK: This always means different things to different people. Risk is a REAL concern in today's electronic business climate. Often the cost of risk goes unseen until something bad happens. Some of these issues could be:
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Loss of critical company data due to inadequate backup methodologies
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Loss of financial / personal information (I don't think we even want to go there; just check the news headlines on a daily basis)
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Loss of a critical server that runs your business or keeps you connected to the outside. Customer correspondence would be lost, incoming orders, etc.
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Loss of confidential/proprietary information when a laptop walks off-site or a PC becomes corrupted.
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Loss of key personnel because they can't get their jobs done due to inferior IT infrastructure
I could go on and on as the example far outnumber your patience to read them. Suffice to say, if your IT staff does not have the time to take care of their little incidences, they can become the problems that can lead to disasters!
Outsourced IT services can mitigate this risk, SUBSTANTIALLY, and let you get back to what you do best. That may be producing a valuable commodity, manufacturing a "made to order" product, or simply serving your customers better.
MONEY: All relates back to money. What come in must exceed what goes out or we have no business left. At least not a profitable one! Since so many companies today are run with someone else's money, it is all about the profit you can show this year, this month, this week, and all too often, this day. Any way you can cut costs and increase operational efficiencies, the better for your company in the short-term...and for your long-term viability. Saving money comes in many guises:
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reduced head-count to do the same job
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reduced operational cost brought on by business efficiencies
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reduced IT staff time (cost) to operate on the Break-Fix mentality
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reduced lost time due to stress related illness (and yes, most IT people carry a pretty high stress load)
BAESIS is one of the new breed of service providers that is bringing Enterprise Level IT Management to the Small-to- Medium Business (SMB) marketplace. We deliver a very strong cost to value ratio and tailor our network service offerings by working with our customers to understand what REALLY needs to be delivered. These services are delivered through one of these three service level offerings: BRONZE, SILVER, or GOLD. The BAESIS Managed Services plans cover some if not all of the following areas:
- Site-visit/Discovery session
- Testing and Evaluation services
- LAN / WAN Web Network Design and Administration
- Hardware, Software, and Peripherals: specification, acquisition, and maintenance
- PC, server, and network Monitoring and Management
- Physical Reconfigurations and Upgrading
- Capacity, Backup, and Disaster Recovery Planning and Implementation
- Network Security, Connectivity, and Data Assurance☼ User Training / Support / Help Desk
Wouldn't it be nice to know what your IT Support costs would be in advance? Isn't there security in knowing that your investment in technology was sound and followed a well thought out plan that you helped to develop? These are questions to ask. We welcome the opportunity to work with you and your staff to ensure that your organization always has a high level of system availability, performance, and security that meets your needs, and budget. Please call or email us today for your FREE Managed Services Assessment.
Posted by Lee Motta on Mon, Sep 21, 2009 @ 02:22 PM
Managed Network Services: what are they and what can they mean to your company.
This is often a very confusing topic for many companies in today's business climate. We are all familiar with the "Do more with less" mentality that permiates our business culture. But do more with what and less with what? These are fair questions.
Here are some brief answers.
Do more with:
- My technology infrastructure and investment
- My people's time, talent, and role with my company
- Do more with what makes my company money
Do less with:
- Managing / Maintaining / Updating my own infrastructure
- Spend fewer FTE hours fixing what breaks and implementing the constant changes that take place on a daily basis within my network and/or systems
- Get back to my "core competencies" as these are the things that make my company money. Spend less time on your systems and processes, and more time with your customers.
Since this is the initial posting to this blog, please stay tuned on a weekly basis to learn in greater detail what Managed Services entail, what they cover, why to do it now, and how they can be that silver lining in the ever present IT cloud.