SAAS means "Software As AService". This means another business hosts and maintains your solution for you, setting you free from the time and costs associateed with hosting it in-house. The bottom line is it's cheaper and less hassle.
Business Geeks runs our offerings primarily on as SAAS basis. We host web sites, CRMs and other applications, and have commoditised or packaged some of our offerings to include maintenance and optionally support.
Please see this report on SaaS Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for CRM from crmlandmark.com. It's interesting reading.
WHn you are ready to talk about SaaS web sites, CRMs, HRM or other services, call Business Geeks :)
In the past several months we've had a few customers some to us with web sites in trouble.
One had been locked out of their site by the developer and he would not even let them move the site to a new server!
Another had a web site that had been hacked, so we re-built it using Joomla and installed the latest extensions. We are also providing a watch service for this customer, keeping an eye on Joomla and extension upgrades to reduce the risk of getting hacked again.
Yet another had a part finished site with a developer not able to complete the job. We problem solved a few bugs and got the site operational for an important event.
It's always good to help someone out when they are in a jam. :)
(but it's even better to build a great web site for them from scratch!)
That's right, there are now new fonts available for the web, and Business Geeks is already using them. Not only have we already used them on some customer's web sites, this news letter uses them too! The real benefit of this is twofold:
Talk to us about how to make an impact for your business using these new fonts. Business Geeks can assist you with corporate image, including colour scheme, logo, web strategy & design, business cards etc.
Call Business Geeks on 3333 1839 to discuss your requirement for "looking good".
There's a lot of noise out there, and business needs to compete on the Internet with both web sites and Internet Marketing to get noticed. We 're going to bring you three new web sites each issue that can help you promote your business.
Blogger is a free BLOG site run by Google. It has perhaps millions of users by now. It gets searched a lot, and it can be styled quite well
HotFrog is a directory service in which you can list your business. We use it ourselves.
SlideShare is an online slide sharing facility and community. You can store presentations here that are effective in promoting your business.
By The Way...
Facebook has unfortunately made FBML ( Facebook Mark-up Language) inaccessible, but it still remains a great platform for promotion, and we can engineer a “landing page” for people who see a site.
If you would like to engage in some serious (but fun), and hopefully productive Internet Marketing, talk directly to Steve Barnes on 3333 1839 or 0423 311 839.
People occasionally ask me how to resize an image, or what software they should use. Well now and then a little gem pops up, and this just may be one. Look at Pixlr: http://pixlr.com/express/
There are plugions for Firefox and Chrome browsers also to make using Pixlr easier.
Step1 web site customers will love this little utility. It will make it easier to get product imagery from suppliers onto your web site.
I (Steve) have implemented SugarCRM 5 repeatedly, and have sufficient liking and confidence in SugarCRM5 that we used it internally at Barnes-Open, and now Business Geeks. It is a stable and sound product, with a good web interface. Importantly, it can be customised as well through the Studio and other means. There are also add-ons available through the Sugar Forge (although quality is variable).
One of the important things about successfully implementing Sugar is to understand how it fits in your business. Yes, it's powerful, but how will you use it? That's why we work both on your sales process and your Sugar implementation to give you a complete recipie for success!
A recent assignment I have undertaken at a consultancy used SugarCRM 5, and we used the Studio to help optimise the product for their purposes:
added some third party components to extend functionality
added fields and drop-down lists to extend existing components
removed unnecessary fields to unclutter the interface and optimise it for the sales process
in addition to altering the display and edit views, we alteredthe list/search views as well to better serve the sales process.
The result was a significantly changed product. It was faster to use and more intuitive for the staff as they attended to their specific sales processes.Why? It was optimised for their business!
One important task is formalising documentation so employees can readily understand the overall marketting and sales process, how their CRM serves the process, and the role they play in making the process effective and productive. This task should be wrapped into the CRM consultancy so you get full benefit instead of that fly-by-night consultancy feeling!
CRM interest is on the rise in Queensland. This video shows interest levels from July 2009 to July 2010. What's interesting here is that Queensland is taking CRM (Customer Relationship Management) more seriously as time goes by. This is borne our by our own experience at Business Geeks in Brisbane (Queensland's capitol city). We specialise in Sugar CRM, and people are walking into our shop front to ask how we can help them with either CRM or Sugar CRM specifically.
Business Geeks has been using Ubuntu Linux on our office desktops and notebooks for abiout two years now. We love it. It's amazingly fast compared to Windows, immune to bots and seemingly to viruses. We run an office forewall, but no antivirus or spybot software on our workstations or laptops.
More than that, 99% of the software we run is free because it is open-source.
So when we heard Google had tossed Windows, we smiled and conferred "Viva La Revolution!".
So here's a story from the Financial Times (www.ft.com)...
Google ditches Windows on security concerns
By David Gelles and Richard Waters in San Francisco
Published: May 31 2010 23:26 | Last updated: May 31 2010 23:26
Google is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system because of security concerns, according to several Google employees.
The directive to move to other operating systems began in earnest in January, after Google’s Chinese operations were hacked, and could effectively end the use of Windows at Google, which employs more than 10,000 workers internationally.
“We’re not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,” said one Google employee.
“Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,” said another.
New hires are now given the option of using Apple’s Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. “Linux is open source and we feel good about it,” said one employee. “Microsoft we don’t feel so good about.”
In early January, some new hires were still being allowed to install Windows on their laptops, but it was not an option for their desktop computers. Google would not comment on its current policy.
Windows is known for being more vulnerable to attacks by hackers and more susceptible to computer viruses than other operating systems. The greater number of attacks on Windows has much to do with its prevalence, which has made it a bigger target for attackers.
Employees wanting to stay on Windows required clearance from “quite senior levels”, one employee said. “Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval,” said another employee.
In addition to being a semi-formal policy, employees themselves have grown more concerned about security since the China attacks. “Particularly since the China scare, a lot of people here are using Macs for security,” said one employee.
Employees said it was also an effort to run the company on Google’s own products, including its forthcoming Chrome OS, which will compete with Windows. “A lot of it is an effort to run things on Google product,” the employee said. “They want to run things on Chrome.”
The hacking in China hastened the move. “Before the security, there was a directive by the company to try to run things on Google products,” said the employee. “It was a long time coming.”
The move created mild discontent among some Google employees, appreciative of the choice in operating systems granted to them - an unusual feature in large companies. But many employees were relieved they could still use Macs and Linux. “It would have made more people upset if they banned Macs rather than Windows,” he added.
Google and Microsoft compete on many fronts, from search, to web-based email, to operating systems.
While Google is the clear leader in search, Windows remains the most popular operating system in the world by a large margin, with various versions accounting for more than 80 per cent of installations, according to research firm Net Applications.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
Do you ever wonder if your site is really secure? Business Geeks are (thankfully) a Comodo partner. We're glad we didn't have clients using VeriSign when this hit...
Inside Scoop
Comodo Notifies VeriSign of Major Security Vulnerability and Urges VeriSign to Correct, Remediate and Notify its Customers Comodo recently requested an independent third-party notify VeriSign of a security vulnerability affecting its customers Web sites, including a major financial institution. While Comodo was not in a position to fully evaluate the scope of the vulnerability, Comodo believed it to be a significant security concern for VeriSign's customers (and users of their customer's Web sites) that rely on secure SSL Digital Certificates to transmit business and personal data.
I have been surprised at the number of enquiries for CRM coming off the street the past few months. Could it be that the penny is dropping and Australian SMEs are getting serious about organising and serving their customer base.
For us, this is Sugar Sweet, as we use SugarCRM for most of our customer database systems.
The more we work with SugarCRM, the better we get of course. So after several years of working with SugarCRM, we think we are getting pretty good. We know bow to configure it, extend it, integrate it with Joomla! CMS. We know hown to set up roles based on workflow models, which we like to start any serious SugarCRM project with.
If you would like to sweeten your business and get on top of customer relationships and maximise business opportunitues, contact Steve at Business Geeks to see how we can start making your business SugarCRM sweet!
It is always a pleasure when customers ask us to become more closely involved in their organisation. This morning I have taken a phone call from Michael Turner, CEO of the Lutheran Church of Australia, Queensland District (or LCAQD for short).
We did a full Business Process and IT Survey for LCAQD some months ago, and have since assisted them in getting control of and extending their Joomla based web site to incorporate Event Management and a payment facility.
After having completed two assignments for them, and providing ongoing support, getting a call to engage us in a planning session was a nice pat on the back. We'll be giving them as much value as we can when we meet, and hope to be in a position to BLOG about the results!
Many businesses use miocrosoft Outlook for thie email and calendaring. A common question our customers face when selecting SugarCRM is what to do about email and calendaring.
SugarCRM 5.5 has built in email and calendaroing functions, with the ability to send meeting invitations to other staff and leads and contacts. This means sales staff can work entirely in SugarCRM, eliminating use of Outlook.
Some organisations however need Outlook integration so the sales team can effectovely relate to other business units. There is also sometimes a requirement for the business to offer meeting inviations that integrate with a Microsoft Outlook client.
The current SugarCRM version is 5.5. It offers support for Microsoft Outlook via connectors from Grinmark or Kinamu. Which one is best for your business depends on your requirements.
SugarCRM 6.0 is lloking good. It reportedly has built in support for Microsoft connectors for Outlook, Excel and Word. It also has a real leap forward in device integration, catering for iPhones and iPads. Version 6.0 is in advanced (Beta) testing now, and will be released in the not too distant future. Business Geeks envisages implementations in early 2011; maybe earlier if add-ons we regard as critical are available for this version. Business Geeks plans testing SugarCRM 6.0 in July/August this year. We will advise partners as to migration paths after our testing, and offer planning sessions for the change.
This means may customers will have availability of established commercal plugins for the current version, and a viable way forward for integration with mobile device technolgies in the not too distant future.
If you would like to see a vide-cast of new SugarCRM 6.0 features, please see the link on the home page of the Business Geeks web site at http://www.busigeeks.com.au.
If you would like advice on CRM, or a demonstrationof SugarCRM just call Business Geeks now.
Social CRM and Business Intelligence:Listen, Take Action, Measure Results
According to Gartner's 2010 worldwide CIO survey, Web 2.0 and Business Intelligence continue to rank high on the list of technology priorities.
At the same time, attracting and retaining new customers, targeting customers and markets more effectively, and expanding current customer relationships all made the top 10 list for business priorities.
Do you have a sound system for handling your customer relationships and interactions, with the ability to market to them? If not, talk to Business Geeks, we are experienced hands with SugarCRM and can implement a customised Customer Interaction Hub for your business that acts as the central point of activity and reference for your company, improving efficiency, reducing errors, saving time and impressing customers with your obviousd "on the ball" capability!
That's a good question. I'm glad you asked. :) Without analytics, you just can't see what is working for you.
In terms of projects, that means concentrating on the tasks that build the required outcome. You need to estimate in order to quote, and then you should track how you go against your estimations.
Sales are sort of like a long running project. We need to know the effort we chosse to put in is bringing us results. If a particiular strategy, media or channel is working best for us, we should pour more effort into that in order to maximise our return on investment.
At Business Geeks, we use SugarCRM. Steve has used it for several years now, and has done lots of configuration and customisation work. One of the advantages of Sugar is that you can extend the gathering of metrics to gain more intelligence froma specific channel.
Most peope relate very strongly to visual portrayal of information and statistics. Charts and diagrams are important. Mixing SugarCRM's capabilities with charts and configuring it well empowers business to do some very serious naval gazing! It's a good thing that, when provided this facility, management can optimise their sales processes and strategies.
Here's a sample of a SugarCRM dashboard. We have loaded Sales Opportunities in this SugarCRM instance across multiple lead sources and outcome stages.
You can see here that "door to door" has generated the most activity, with "Walk In" a close second.
Existing Customers and Networking Groups come close after that.
Notice "door to door" has a more staggered progression in the sales opportunities. This is because when going dooe to door, you are presenting your value to an unqualified lead, whereas a "Walk In" has a specified need and is alreadyalead looking for a service. Walk-Ins thus tend to close more quickly provided you have good sales staff in your shopfront.
If you would like to understand more about your business, and have some experienced heads to assist you along the way, talk to Business Geeks.
Just occasionally I get files I can't read. Some are a bit obscure, like database files. Others are just proprietary formats and the sender assumes everyone has the same software as they do! My two pet hates are Microsoft Publisher and Visio.
The best way to ensure people can read your files is simply to use a common file format! PDF files are easily generated from Open Office just by printing to PDF. It's dead easy. Microsoft may not be quite as helpful (they do like closed standards), but there are plenty of cheap addons available which install as a printer in Windows, enabling you to print to a PDF from any program that can access a printer.
Doesn't it make sense to use a format everyoine can read? PDF is great for documents. It's not able to be modified by most users, so your work is preserved, and the PDF reader is ubiquitous - a great technology word that one; it means it's EVERYWHERE!
If you currently use an older version of Microsoft office, and would like a free product that reads and writes most Microsoft formats AND writes easily to PDF, just go now and download Open Office!
Don't pass go
Don't collect $200 (you won't need it, Open Office is free anyway)
So this is what the world looks like to some techos. Including some web developers.
At Business Geeks, your success is our success. We not only care about keeping your web site up, we care about you and your business. That's why we not only do web site development, we also do business and product strategy, search engine optimisation (SEO), Internet directory marketing, social media marketing, email campaign marketing and other underpinning services. We also add value with Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Project Management, Personnel / Human Resource Management (HRM) and other business applications. Yes, at Business Geeks, we do business, not just geek.
Many businesses use miocrosoft Outlook for thie email and calendaring. A common question our customers face when selecting SugarCRM is what to do about email and calendaring.
