Advantages Of An Inventory Management System

Every business organization is in need of a good inventory management system which shall take care of all its inventories in the network. Companies spend hundreds of dollars every year to keep their networkmonitoring systems updated and to take care of all their network related issues. No one wants problems like sudden stoppage of work due to poor inventory and due to sudden needs of repairs and renewals.

Companies often face sudden situations when they realize that their work has stopped because something went terribly wrong with their inventory. This problem can be solved with the right usage of inventory management system. You need a good management system as per the needs of your business. One of the leading providers of software solutions which has helped IT companies in more than one way, has come up with an excellent solution in the way of inventory management system. This is unique and most updated software which has been well accepted.

You just need to purchase this inventory management system for Spiceworks and be assured that half of your work is already done. You will just need to install this system in your business and see how well it works. Network monitoring is an integral part of this software solution. It shall keep a track of every detail which is taking place in your network and shall keep you informed accordingly. It is the problem of several companies, that software is downloaded and uploaded without the authorization of the concerned authorities. You will not face any such problems when you are using this inventory management system. This is because, this system shall inform you when anything has been added to your network or when something is deleted from your network. Your network tracking has become much easy.

Inventory management system shall send you and updated report on the status and position of inventory in the system. You will get every detailed information which you need tor better management of inventory. You will be informed beforehand and before it is too late about any software licenses which are going to expire soon, so you will be never jolted out of the blue when one morning just before your presentation you realize that one of your most important software is not working as it should do. This type of error in alerting the user much before time will never take place when you use the inventory management system.

If you have been facing such kinds of problems in the past and looking for solutions to handle these issues, log on to www.woodappleunik.com or write to reachus@woodappleunik.com

BUYING A CRM FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

CRM software is a system that is helpful to all businesses in organizing all the information associated with their clients. The objective of CRM is to collect that information, analyze it, and make it available to all departments. 

Because of the intricacy of CRMs, smaller companies often see it as a highly expensive tool. However, in this day and age many CRM applications can be found in the market specifically catering to small businesses. This approach makes CRM more affordable, allowing smaller businesses with tighter budgets to pay only for the services and features they use. 

There are a few important factors that SMBs should consider before selecting a CRM: 

Plan your budget- budget plays an important consideration for all small businesses. Therefore opt for a CRM solution that not only suits your budget requisites but also offers best value for money. 

Define your requirements- it is highly recommended that you understand your business requirements first and then look at the potential vendors in the market. Highlight your reasons for wanting a CRM deployment; In order to identify your top CRM requirements, you'll have to gather a comprehensive insight into the expectations of your customers, the objectives of your company, and the needs of your sales, marketing, and service staff. 

Easy to use- your CRM system that should be implemented without letting you make any changes to your current business methods. Another key aspect of a CRM is that it should be easy and simple to use. 

Plan for future growth - with a growing business it is highly important your CRM should not only address your short-term needs, but your long-term plans as well. Make sure your requirements list accounts for any expected changes in your business model. This will help you choose a system that can grow with your company. 

On a final note, to make things a little easier for you below are some of the features that a good CRM should provide you with:

• A multi-user environment
• At least 10 MB space
• Hourly backup of data, plus, off-site backups done each night
• Encryption of data
• Shared communications and calendar
• Management of contact as well as lead
• Automation of the sales force
• Email marketing and reporting
• Ability to customize the knowledge base
• A wide variety of reports
• Sharing of documents
• Tracking of tasks
• Tracking of support
• The ability to import data from other applications like Outlook

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The origin of Online CRM

Online CRM is the fastest growing area of CRM applications. It promises to render on-site CRM services obsolete in a few years to come. But it all began a few years ago when competition amongst small to medium sized businesses increased to an all time high. These businesses were competing against each other for a larger share of the pie and there was a need for improvised business practices, strategies and applications.

Software automation was the need of the hour but the lack of a single comprehensive platform that integrates all departments of software was apparent. Onsite CRM was a distant and far too expensive proposition for small companies to venture into.

 CRM vendors were the first to notice this and they immediately went back to the drawing board and created a much more cost effective version of the CRM tool. This was called hosted CRM, onsite CRM, online CRM and software as a service or Saas.

The Pros

• CRM tools are hosted by a third party web host, typically the software vendor. These services are then delivered over the internet.
• Cost effectiveness. The cost of entry and installation is reduced by a huge margin as there is no infrastructure needed. All that is required is a high speed internet connection and you are all set.
• Data sharing and collaboration: You can share and collaborate data across the entire organization at multiple levels.
• Scalability and flexibility: Unlike an on-site CRM, online CRM is far more scalable and flexible. You can customize it and add unlimited number of users to it.
• Features: Online CRM for small businesses has some of the best features that are required for small and medium sized businesses to succeed.

The cons

• It isn’t really easy to choose the best CRM vendor. There are hundreds of such vendors and you have to ensure that you make the right choice.

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What cloud computing really means The next big trend sounds nebulous, but it's not so fuzzy when you view the value proposition from the perspective of IT professionals

Cloud computing is all the rage. "It's become the phrase du jour," says Gartner senior analyst Ben Pring, echoing many of his peers. The problem is that (as with Web 2.0) everyone seems to have a different definition.

As a metaphor for the Internet, "the cloud" is a familiar cliché, but when combined with "computing," the meaning gets bigger and fuzzier. Some analysts and vendors define cloud computing narrowly as an updated version of utility computing: basically virtual servers available over the Internet. Others go very broad, arguing anything you consume outside the firewall is "in the cloud," including conventional outsourcing.

Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing capabilities.

Cloud computing is at an early stage, with a motley crew of providers large and small delivering a slew of cloud-based services, from full-blown applications to storage services to spam filtering. Yes, utility-style infrastructure providers are part of the mix, but so are SaaS (software as a service) providers such as Salesforce.com. Today, for the most part, IT must plug into cloud-based services individually, but cloud computing aggregators and integrators are already emerging.

InfoWorld talked to dozens of vendors, analysts, and IT customers to tease out the various components of cloud computing. Based on those discussions, here's a rough breakdown of what cloud computing is all about:

1. SaaSThis type of cloud computing delivers a single application through the browser to thousands of customers using a multitenant architecture. On the customer side, it means no upfront investment in servers or software licensing; on the provider side, with just one app to maintain, costs are low compared to conventional hosting. Salesforce.com is by far the best-known example among enterprise applications, but SaaS is also common for HR apps and has even worked its way up the food chain to ERP, with players such as Workday. And who could have predicted the sudden rise of SaaS "desktop" applications, such as Google Apps and Zoho Office?

2. Utility computingThe idea is not new, but this form of cloud computing is getting new life from Amazon.com, Sun, IBM, and others who now offer storage and virtual servers that IT can access on demand. Early enterprise adopters mainly use utility computing for supplemental, non-mission-critical needs, but one day, they may replace parts of the datacenter. Other providers offer solutions that help IT create virtual datacenters from commodity servers, such as 3Tera's AppLogic and Cohesive Flexible Technologies' Elastic Server on Demand. Liquid Computing's LiquidQ offers similar capabilities, enabling IT to stitch together memory, I/O, storage, and computational capacity as a virtualized resource pool available over the network.

3. Web services in the cloudClosely related to SaaS, Web service providers offer APIs that enable developers to exploit functionality over the Internet, rather than delivering full-blown applications. They range from providers offering discrete business services -- such as Strike Iron and Xignite -- to the full range of APIs offered by Google Maps, ADP payroll processing, the U.S. Postal Service, Bloomberg, and even conventional credit card processing services.

4. Platform as a serviceAnother SaaS variation, this form of cloud computing delivers development environments as a service. You build your own applications that run on the provider's infrastructure and are delivered to your users via the Internet from the provider's servers. Like Legos, these services are constrained by the vendor's design and capabilities, so you don't get complete freedom, but you do get predictability and pre-integration. Prime examples include Salesforce.com's Force.com,Coghead and the new Google App Engine. For extremely lightweight development, cloud-basedmashup platforms abound, such as Yahoo Pipes or Dapper.net.

5. MSP (managed service providers)One of the oldest forms of cloud computing, a managed service is basically an application exposed to IT rather than to end-users, such as a virus scanning service for e-mail or an application monitoring service (which Mercury, among others, provides). Managed security services delivered by SecureWorks, IBM, and Verizon fall into this category, as do such cloud-based anti-spam services as Postini, recently acquired by Google. Other offerings include desktop management services, such as those offered by CenterBeam or Everdream.

6. Service commerce platformsA hybrid of SaaS and MSP, this cloud computing service offers a service hub that users interact with. They're most common in trading environments, such as expense management systems that allow users to order travel or secretarial services from a common platform that then coordinates the service delivery and pricing within the specifications set by the user. Think of it as an automated service bureau. Well-known examples include Rearden Commerce and Ariba.

7. Internet integrationThe integration of cloud-based services is in its early days. OpSource, which mainly concerns itself with serving SaaS providers, recently introduced the OpSource Services Bus, which employs in-the-cloud integration technology from a little startup called Boomi. SaaS provider Workday recently acquired another player in this space, CapeClear, an ESB (enterprise service bus) provider that was edging toward b-to-b integration. Way ahead of its time, Grand Central -- which wanted to be a universal "bus in the cloud" to connect SaaS providers and provide integrated solutions to customers -- flamed out in 2005.

Today, with such cloud-based interconnection seldom in evidence, cloud computing might be more accurately described as "sky computing," with many isolated clouds of services which IT customers must plug into individually. On the other hand, as virtualization and SOA permeate the enterprise, the idea of loosely coupled services running on an agile, scalable infrastructure should eventually make every enterprise a node in the cloud. It's a long-running trend with a far-out horizon. But among big metatrends, cloud computing is the hardest one to argue with in the long term.

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