Small and medium businesses focus on understanding all they can in order to identify and exploit opportunity in the market.  Doing so makes sense as the business seeks new revenue and profit.

Unfortunately, small and medium businesses don’t have the same focus in their adoption, integration, and management of technology.  Most often SMBs take a reactionary approach to their technology – creating disruption and additional cost to the business.

Avoid falling into this trap by understanding and working toward overcoming the following common mistakes:

• Weak Internal Technical Support:  Often technical support is assigned to the employee who is the ‘computer geek’-type.  They perform these duties in addition to their regular job responsibilities.
• Keeping Older Technology Too Long:  It is a well known fact that older technology needs more repair and fails more often – leading to business downtime. It doesn’t accommodate new, lower cost features and functions designed to increase productivity and lower expense.
• Not Keeping Software Licenses Current:  When a business doesn’t keep their software licenses current they miss out on critical updates, don’t have access to technical support and hold their people back from being as productive as possible.
• Training as a Last Resort:  SMBs often assume an employee knows how to use the technology or that the employee will ‘figure it out.’  Instead, you should offer training to your users as a mechanism to increase productivity – especially when you introduce new technology or applications.
• Poor Technology or Information Security:  Most businesses use passwords to access networks and email.  But, often they don’t have policies or tools to ensure the right level of information and technology security needed to adequately protect the business from external intrusion, theft, or disaster recovery.
• Sporadic Data Backup:  Many SMBs back up their critical applications and information right after they have had a failure.  At this point, it is too late.  Having the right policies and tools to regularly backup business information will keep you out of future trouble.
• Inadequate Virus/Spam Protection:  Viruses and spam represent a large problem for SMBs.  Both rob the business of productivity, time and money.  SMBs must go beyond simple PC-based tools to ensure the best protection of your systems, information, people, and budget.
• Allowing “Personal” Applications on Business Equipment:  Because most SMBs don’t manage their technology, individual employees are free to add their own personal images, software applications and information – often leading to poorly performing systems and security breaches.
• Open Wireless Networks:  With the ease and proliferation of wireless networking, many SMBs accidentally leave their wireless access points open and available for anyone to access.  This huge vulnerability puts your systems, information, and business at risk.
• No Laptop Security:  As employees work at home or travel, they take critical business information with them.  SMBs often forget to encrypt or protect critical information from accidental theft or loss when the laptop is lost or stolen.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics Partner

How often do you realize what you ‘should’ have done, after the fact?  Wouldn’t it be great to have a guide to help you avoid risks – especially technology-related risks?

Small and medium businesses, unfortunately, seem to adopt technology in a manner that creates risks, problems, and additional cost when they could have been avoided from the start.  Here are ten technology adoption risks you need to avoid – today:

1. A “Set It and Forget It” Mentality: Hardware, software, information databases, and networks all require regular maintenance.  Ignoring this compromises productivity and increases business cost.

2. Buying New Software , But Skipping on Hardware Upgrades:  To take advantage of what new software has to offer, hardware upgrades are almost universally needed.  Skipping on hardware upgrades costs time, money, and productivity.

3. Letting Price Drive the Decision:  Many times SMBs choose the least expensive option only to discover that their choice doesn’t have the functionality they really need.  Or the business will choose to do their own installations and upgrades – to save $$.  This approach leads to poor technology performance, increased business cost, and missed market opportunity.

4. Failing to Plan: Don’t adopt technology without first having a plan.  Take a proactive approach to understanding your business needs, what options are available, and how and when to budget for them.  Adopting technology at the point of a crisis leads to overspending and less than desired results.

5. Allowing “Bootleg” Software:  With the ubiquity of the internet, software is easy to share and obtain.  SMBs, in an effort to manage cost, will adopt or purchase software that is not legally licensed.  Doing such is a legal, productivity, maintenance, and support risk that is played out through increased cost and time.

6. Implementing “Good Enough” Solutions:  That inexpensive home-oriented wireless router just won’t hold up in a business setting.  Likewise, that spreadsheet is not the best tool to manage your customer information.  Get the right solution for the need, every time.

7. Thinking “We Can Manage It Ourselves”:  What business are you in?  Unless you are a technology business, let the experts manage your technology for you.  Focus your energy, time and resources on your core business, not the technology.

8. Demanding Technology Remain “In-House”:  A common perspective is that all the systems, applications and information must be physically kept at the business location.  The state of technology today, is such that many of these components can be located anywhere; often with more security and better management than if it was kept in-house.

9. Skimping on Security:  Your business information is critical to your future success.  Protect your business information from disaster, intrusion, virus, spam, or internal data theft.

10. Not Keeping Track of Technology:  Understand what technology you have and how it is being used so you can reassign, upgrade, or dispose as business need demands – not as your users want.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics Partner

Technology industry analysts and seasoned business executives have difficulty putting a hard figure on the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of today’s traditional SMB application solutions. In computing the cost of software, businesses tend to focus on the purchase price. Yet even when fully operational, software is never free. It must be supported, maintained and upgraded. 

Software’s “Hidden” Costs

Beyond the purchase price, the ‘hidden’ costs are: implementation, training, support, maintenance and all subsequent upgrades. Also included should be the cost of ‘downtime’ while the business tries to figure out how to fix the software should it fail.  Together, the hidden costs of software can easily exceed the original purchase price by a factor of 100-200%!

How do SMB software costs break down?  The U.S. Department of Commerce study shows that software purchase expenditures account for only approximately 30 percent of the total. The biggest hidden cost is represented by labor expenditures ranging from 37 percent for support and 33 percent related to software getting the software up and running. The numbers translate to a ratio of 1:2, software license to management/labor costs; and 1:1 license fee to implementation.

Getting Rid of Hidden SMB Software Costs

Today’s technology allows small and medium business more choices than ever before.  Today, unlike just a few short years ago, SMB organizations can eliminate all the hidden costs in one decision.  How?  By outsourcing all software via services.

It is as easy as that.  Instead of having all the software ‘owned/licensed’ by the business, SMBs can subscribe to enterprise-class financial software, a whole range of productivity and collaborative applications, even their IT management.  All for one, low monthly price.  No surprises, no hassles, no unforeseen financial impacts.

Outsourcing SMB software services brings you these benefits:

• Expertise — the provider knows software and services better than anyone else.  You focus on your business, not the technology.
• Economy of Scale — software can be maintained, supported and upgraded through standardized processes and automation.  The solutions easily scale up as you need them to, never holding back your business.
• Reliability and Performance — in the highly competitive software industry, software providers have a vested interest in continually upgrading and improving product performance and services.  You are assured of the greatest and best performing solution to propel your business forward.

In the end, the real savings are achieved when your business runs better, faster and less expensively, giving you a competitive edge in your market.

SMB Software without Hidden Costs

SMBs around the world now have access to industrial-strength financial, customer management, and productivity and collaboration solutions – on a subscription basis.  Businesses just like yours are realizing the benefits of predictable, manageable costs, freed up capital for other purposes, and the value that enterprise-class solutions bring.  There is no need to compromise because you’re an SMB!  These solutions, offered via monthly subscription, bring you the best of both worlds:  business power and performance, and easy to manage costs. 

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics Partner

In the rush for revenue, businesses often forget the customer.  The focus is on the invoice or transaction and the time it takes, instead of the relationship and ‘lifetime’ opportunity of a particular customer.  Such behavior can lead to poor business predictability, lowered customer loyalty and satisfaction, and (ultimately) lowered profitability. 

Businesses of all sizes, especially SMBs, can benefit from keeping track of their customers.  Doing so leads to greater profits for the business.  Traditionally there are three ways that this is done, each fraught with its own perils:  1. Salespeople keeping track in their heads or on spreadsheets,  2. Accounting keeping track by invoice, or 3. Internal ‘contact management’ software serving as a central clearing house for prospect/customer contact information.

A fourth way to keep track of your customers, for profit, is through the adoption of customer relationship management solutions and procedures.  Below are eleven ways CRM will benefit your business – bringing additional profit opportunities:

1. Faster, Fact-based Decision Making:  Because you will have your customer financial data at your fingertips, you can quickly adjust your offer(s), pricing, terms, and quickly assess any impacts.  You will be more responsive to market conditions.
2. Knowing Where to Invest:  By understanding your customer’s purchases and your costs, you can automatically identify the profitable customers for further investment.  At the same time, you can identify customers that actually cost you money, taking appropriate actions to mitigate loss.
3. Predicting Business:  By understanding customer purchasing habits and any associated cyclicality, you will be able to anticipate demand more accurately – allowing you to manage down your business costs.
4. Driving Up Marketing Impact: Through deep insight into the characteristics of the most profitable customers, you can identify new prospects that share the same characteristics – increasing the probability of sales success while lowering your cost of sales.
5. Regular, Consistent Communication:  Your relationship with your ‘certified proven spenders’ will be improved through automated use of mailing and emailing lists to constantly keep in contact with your customers.  This can lead to deeper and more solid relationships and the closure of incremental business.
6. Automated Invoicing/Billing:  With the ability of your CRM system to integrate to your accounting systems, accurate, timely, and automated billing will drive down your cost of business and drive up collections.
7. Tighter Marketing and Sales Integration:  CRM systems contain capabilities that allow you to track specific marketing/campaign investments to leads, opportunities, and closed deals – allowing you to know what works and doesn’t work – lowering your cost of marketing while increasing revenues.
8. More “Home Runs”:  Through integration of your customer into your product/service planning and/or decision process, you can increase the successful introduction and adoption of new products or services you bring to market – lowering your chance of failure and poor investment.
9. Higher Customer Loyalty/Satisfaction:  Because you will see every customer, their needs, and any unresolved items, you can instantly improve your businesses response rate to your customer – thereby increasing loyalty and satisfaction – leading to new up sell or cross sell opportunities without an expensive sales process.
10. Improved Sales Effectiveness:  Let’s face it.  Salespeople are asked to manage more relationships than they have time for.  CRM helps them work more effectively by managing priorities, follow up responses, opportunities, communication, and territory management.  The direct result is a lowered cost of sales with a greater return on sales investment.
11. Your ‘Institutional Memory’ Continues to Grow: pointing the way to new opportunity. You don’t lose critical customer information when sales or service people turn over, allowing you to speed productivity of new sales or service people without having your customer’s experience skip a beat.

Lastly, businesses that subscribe to an outsourced CRM profit even more!  In Addition to the advantages described above, CRM subscribers don’t have to make any added technology investments in hardware or software, nor do they have to manage the system through additional IT resources.  Subscribers to an outsourced CRM have the best of both worlds – all the benefits without the capital outlay.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Small business owners keep asking the same question: “Do I really need a customer relationship management system?” Organizations with small budgets often see CRM as a luxury item.

A key to business success is relationship management. It seems almost too obvious, doesn’t it? Relationship management finds customers, understands customer behavior, communicates and stays in touch with customers, understands and meets unique customer expectations, needs, and interests, and turns buyers into predictable and long-term sources of profit.

CRM is far from a luxury. CRM is a business necessity. CRM helps you answer two fundamental questions:

1. How does my business acquire customers?
2. What motivates my customers to buy and how do they purchase from me?

Insight into these two questions – and actions taken as a result – sets you apart from the competition and attracts a larger share of interest, revenue, and profit.

If you’re a one-person sales and marketing team, then you probably can continue with your spreadsheet-based tracking system. If, however, you need to share information across even a handful of team members, or have plans to grow your business, then a CRM system is worth another look.

CRM brings considerable benefit – even to small business. Some of the many potential advantages include:

• Having a 360-degree view of your customers, from initial contact to sales order to follow-up activities;
• Improved identification of cross- and up-selling opportunities;
• Quick identification and qualification of new sales opportunities;
• Superior customer service and competitive responsiveness;
• Discovery and management of the most profitable and loyal customers for business value growth;
• Enhanced communication and activity coordination between internal marketing and sales;
• Capture and exploitation of ‘institutional memory’ (contacts, activities, results) for process improvement; and,
• Better, more accurate marketing investment spend – putting dollars where they return the most.
  
  

Superior CRM solutions help you build customer relationships by setting mutually satisfying goals between organizations and customers, establishing and maintaining customer rapport and producing positive feelings in your organization and for the customers.

What is the bottom line? Your business gains more loyal and profitable customers who repeatedly buy from you for a longer period of time.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has typically been viewed as a technology and not as a tool for greater opportunity.  As such, much of the focus of business is on the evaluation, acquisition, implementation, cost, and management of a CRM system - instead of how to use CRM as a key tool for the mining of new opportunities.

How does CRM help you find more opportunities?  How is CRM an effective mining tool?  The answer to both these questions can be answered in a simple sentence, “By helping you create more loyal and satisfied customers.”  Let’s take a look at how you can “mine” new opportunities – even from your existing customers and current operations – by using CRM to accomplish the following five activities:

1.  Find and Nurture Your Best Customers:  Many businesses focus on the customers that buy the most, thinking that revenue equals success.  In the end however, it’s loyalty, satisfaction, and profits that equal success.  CRM identifies the most loyal and profitable customers and gives you the tools needed to nurture those relationships into more opportunities for your company.

2.  Align Goals:  When your customer service and value align with your customer’s goals, the outcome is a ‘win-win.’  CRM captures, aligns, and assigns customer’s goals within your organization to maximize your relationship and opportunity capture.

3.  See Buying Trends Early:  With CRM your business will have fast, clear information that reveals buying trends and profitable customer needs before the competition.  This creates new and profitable opportunities for your business.

4.  Deliver Better Value to Your Customers:  By being able to link all activities and outcomes, from initial cold call through sales order, you stay on top of critical details and timelines that keep your customers coming back to you, over and over. CRM identifies customers that have purchased products or services of one type that also have a need for another, complimentary product or service.  You can easily and conveniently create or anticipate demand for other products and services within your most loyal and profitable customers.

5. Save Money:  Wouldn’t it be great if every individual or company we contacted would immediately purchase something? Or, that every dollar spent on marketing would return revenue?  Because they don’t, business walks a time/energy/cost tightrope.  Businesses need to quickly determine where to spend sales and marketing-oriented time and energy with an eye toward closing profitable business fast.  CRM-enabled businesses quickly identify where sales organizations should spend their time and energy, thereby closing more business more quickly and lowering overall cost of sales.  Likewise, the CRM-enabled business can connect marketing programs directly to contacts, leads, opportunities, and sales orders – ensuring you invest where you get the greatest return.

Businesses know that the route to opportunity and profitability is through existing customers.  CRM is that key element to managing customer relationships to greater loyalty and satisfaction, while also lowering the cost of new customer acquisitions.

In the end, customer relationship management is more than an application or ‘tool.’  It is a culture where the business is focused on the acquisition, retention and service of customers and their needs – leading the business to new opportunity and profitability.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Customer Relationship Management software has been the rage for over ten years.  Starting with the enterprise, CRM has now been adopted across the entire spectrum of business – including small and medium businesses.
For the small and medium business, CRM is a key to revenue control.  Why is this?

1. Automated Website Lead Capture:  While your website can create awareness and interest, the CRM system can turn your website into a lead gathering and qualification tool – automatically routing new leads to your salespeople for immediate followup.

2. Managing Marketing Campaigns:  No longer will you market ‘blindly’ to your customer base. With CRM you can identify ‘ideal’ customer characteristics and selectively target for higher results and more revenue.

3. Opportunity Qualification: Your business will quickly be able to standardize on common qualification criteria and opportunity scoring – allowing you to separate the good opportunity from the bad – focusing effort where it returns the greatest revenue.

4. Activity Management:  CRM removes the mystery behind what is happening with every lead, prospect, or customer.  Up-to-the-minute reports can be viewed or printed to help you manage your activities toward accelerating deals and driving more revenue.

5. Customer Loyalty:  Because you have insight into your customers’ purchase behavior and history, you can anticipate their needs and provide service beyond your competition – leading to increased loyalty and desire to do business with you.

6. Territory Management:  Ever wonder what part of the city, region, or country brings you the greatest opportunity?  Don’t guess.  Get the facts from your CRM solution.  Use the information to sell more focused and to help your sales team manage their territory for maximum benefit.

7. Reduce Customer Defection:  Discover potential customer risks before they become problems.  Keep customers working with you, instead of going to the competition.

8. Manage the Top Line:  Watching business costs is critical to profitability.  CRM keeps your eye on the top line by allowing you to watch the trends and details on your qualified pipeline, sales activities, closure rates, and marketing effectiveness in driving revenue to your business.

9. Customer Satisfaction:  Tracking problems or issues to resolution helps your business keep your customers happy.  Happy customers buy more and buy more often.  The result?  More dollars to your business.

10. Growing Customer “Wallet Share”:  CRM gives you the insight to discover new opportunity within your ‘certified proven spenders.’  Bringing you new revenue opportunities, more often, and more quickly.  Your salespeople and business benefit from capturing more dollars.

Small and medium businesses, generally, tend to rely too much on too few customers – leading to cyclicality or revenue risk in time of soft demand. Small and medium businesses can mitigate these risks through adoption and exploitation of CRM – bringing new and predictable revenue to the business.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

When is it Time to Move to SaaS?
Know if SaaS is Right for Your Business

 
A relatively new concept, known as Software as a service (SaaS), allows organizations to take advantage of critical technical functionality and services without building, expanding, operating, or managing underlying systems.  At its most basic level, SaaS allows a small and medium business to take full advantage of leading edge technology, software, and business processes without having to own or operate it.  You get the advantages that have been largely the domain of large businesses, without the investment.
 
While the benefits are many, SaaS may not be right for your business.  To help you evaluate whether or not SaaS is right for your company, we’ve put together a specific list of things to consider.  The more you can answer ‘yes’ to any of these, the more you need to consider SaaS for your business.

1. IT systems management and optimization are not core competencies central to your business:  Unless one or more of the terms “IT,” “computer”, or “systems” are in the name of your company, it’s unlikely that IT infrastructure management and optimization are your core corporate competencies.

2. IT capital and/or staffing expenditures are rising/continuing to rise at your organization company. If one of the reasons you invest in IT is to increase organizational efficiency, shouldn’t IT costs go down, not up, as the business becomes more IT-dependent?  If your technology costs keep going up, then it may be time to consider SaaS.

3. There are physical limits to your organization’s ability to grow and/or improve its IT resources: Even companies with well-designed, incredibly efficient server closets or data centers are increasingly running out of space, or requiring more power and cooling, or are seeing increased utility bills.  SaaS can eliminate all three of these problems.

4. User demands for IT systems and support are growing faster than your company’s ability to meet them: Rapid growth in demand for IT resources has many causes. Examples include new or expanded web commerce, employee turnover, new customers or partners requirements, added support for mobile-networked device users, mergers, acquisitions, or organic organizational growth.

5. Licensing and/or support costs for business-critical software applications are exceeding available budgets in your company: This is a pervasive issue that just doesn’t seem to go away.  The more technology a business procures, the more budget is consumed on renewing licenses and keeping the systems running.  On average, 63% of all IT budget is spent on maintenance (Gartner & Forrester).  SaaS can eliminate these license maintenance and support costs.

6. IT support requirements are draining limited resources away from your company’s core business activities: You need to spend your $$ on core business activities, not on buying, implementing, upgrading, managing, and optimizing technology.  SaaS can solve this problem, quickly and effectively.

7. Your organization needs to deploy new applications or services quickly, without operational disruption, and with limited or no capex budgets: Business responsiveness and competitive advantage demand a flexible and quickly adaptable business infrastructure. If your systems take weeks or months to adapt, you’re not at an advantage. SaaS-based solutions can be up and running much faster than traditionally licensed options.

8. You need to move critical IT resources to fewer, more modern platforms to improve business performance and reduce dependency on increasingly scarce and expensive support resources: How about getting rid of all your platforms and support resources in one decision?  If you’re at a point where its time to consolidate, upgrade, or if you’re just challenged at attracting and keeping key IT resources, consider SaaS alternatives.  You can solve all three of these challenges, right away.

9. The business needs do not require extensive or frequent customization of critical software or services: If your business requirements don’t require many modifications of technology or if your business needs to take advantage of ‘best practices’, SaaS is the ticket.  SaaS solutions can easily accommodate your general business requirements without the need of significant modification and associated costs.  And, the best SaaS environments automatically build in the best practices you need – right out of the box!  You get the best-of-both-worlds, all without capex expense.

10. You understand and have, or seek to acquire, expertise in process management necessary for business success: Business and IT processes form the backbone of a company.  SaaS doesn’t eliminate the need for such.  However, the very best SaaS providers also have the expertise you need to prepare, adapt, roll-out, and support your critical business and IT processes within your company.  They take on the ‘heavy lifting’ of making sure your business has what it needs while you concentrate on running your business and investing in your core competencies.

Is your business ready to move to SaaS? You can make theTransition easily and quickly.  Get back to managing your business and not technology.  Take full advantage of functionality and benefit that is ‘beyond your budget.’  All with one call.  Accomplish all this with the SMB Suite.  A full solution set bringing you all the outsourced technology advantages you need to lead. The SMBSuite is your answer to technology confusion, lowering It costs, and delivering the tools you need to run the business. Visit: http://www.getsmb.com or call 1-800-525-6398.

So, what are you going to do now?  Maintain the status quo and continue to grow your internal IT budgets? Or, learn more about how to get off the ‘technology train?

Making sure your CRM solution is a success…

Choosing and implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions can be a resounding success or an unmitigated disaster.  Big businesses can ‘afford’ the shock of failure.  Small and medium businesses can’t.

To achieve success in selecting and implementing CRM in your small and medium business, pay attention to overcoming the following:

1.     You’re Not Sure What You Need:  Each CRM solution is different.  To make sure you identify and choose the best solution for your business, prepare a brief summary of ideas, requirements, or objectives that you wish to be solved or delivered by the solution.

2.     The Solution Can’t Adapt to Your Business:  Is there something unique about how you manage your customer relationships?  If so, does a particular vendor allow you to ‘customize’ the solution to your unique needs?  If the solution can’t adapt, look elsewhere.

3.     An “Uh Oh” Cost/Expense Moment:  From up-front ‘investments’, to customization/consulting fees, to monthly or annual licensing costs, or subscriptions – each solution costs something.  Make sure you uncover all the costs before you get started.  Choose to work with solutions with simple fee structures and no hidden costs or additional expenses.

4.     An Inexperienced Vendor:  CRM is not ‘accounting.’  CRM is not “technology.”  Make sure that your solution vendor is deeply experienced in customer relationship management processes, best practices, solution implementation, and support.

5.     Information Security:  Your customer information is a key, strategic business asset.  The information, communication, terms, services, and products you sell to your customers must be secure from intrusion, theft, virus/trojans, or other external threats.  Make sure your CRM vendor is skilled at protecting you and your assets.

6.     The Solution Doesn’t Expand:  Your business and customers can’t be held back by an inadequate CRM system. Choose a solution that easily expands with your business and always provides fast, anytime/anywhere access – no matter how many customers you have.

7.     The Solution is an Island: Your business is integrated to deliver the best customer experience possible.  A CRM solution must fully integrate with your business processes, your environment, and your customers.

8.     Little or No Connectivity:  Your business uses common productivity and communication tools. Things like personal computers, software, email, fax, and mobile devices.  You need the flexibility to have each of these devices act as communication tools and access points into your customer information to and from your CRM solution – even if you’re out of the office.

9.     Can’t Get Fast Information:  Make sure the solution you choose allows for ‘real-time’ reporting and analysis.  Also ensure that you have access anytime, anywhere, from virtually any type of device.

10.   Can’t Get Help When You Need It Most:  To maximize the benefit of a CRM solution, it must be used fully and across all relevant parts of the business.  As such, training and support/help desk is mandatory.  You need to have people and information ready to help, when you need help.  Your business can’t be left to ‘figure it out.’

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM Partner