In today's highly competitive environment, innovation plays a key role in staying ahead of the game. Fortunately, you can rely on help of business tools such as Dynamics ERP and SharePoint to help your teams collaborate, create, and deliver quickly and creatively.

The key to competitive advantage in today's connected world is innovation. Companies that can continually offer new product features and services will win and hold the attention of customers. To support innovation, how do you keep your employees thinking outside the box and building for the future?

Share the knowledge

Connect your employees to each other no matter where they are. When employees can collaborate in real time instead of emailing documents — not knowing who has the latest version and who contributed what — they keep innovation flowing. Dynamics ERP and SharePoint will give your teams the power to share their ideas in a central location without any slowdowns.

Lack of information, dated information, or disjointed information all keep people from making the best decisions. When you get the right information to the right person at the right time, you allow them to focus on productivity instead of data crunching. With business intelligence built on an integrated ERP system, you deliver information that fuels innovation.

Connect departments

When one department doesn't know what the other is doing, duplicate efforts, wasted time, and poor decisions follow. Dynamics ERP and SharePoint together allow you to share information from all departments across your organization. Help your team move forward together, basing decisions on the whole picture.

You can stay ahead of the competition by supporting innovation and creativity with a connected ERP system. Microsoft Dynamics ERP will help your teams collaborate and connect. Let's talk about how we can help you find creative solutions to get ahead of ever changing markets.

Are you able to track the true profitability of the projects that your business delivers? If your business provides services that are delivered by multiple people or departments in your organization, you may not be charging enough. Estimating costs to cover salaries, sales time, travel time, and other hidden expenses may be eating up your profits without you realizing it.

Take the guesswork out of project costing with a systematic review of the projects that you have delivered. Evaluate how you should capture and assign actual costs to specific projects, including:

• Project definition. Projects take different forms for different organizations, and it's helpful to have a good understanding of what yours entail. A manufacturer could define a project as a custom-made machine. A marketing campaign is a project for an advertising company. Each wedding would be set up as a project for a caterer.
• Assign the costs that should be allocated. Direct costs, such as materials, are easy to allocate to projects, but other costs might be less obvious. Think through all the steps of your project activities, from conception to delivery, to capture the full cost of delivering that project.
• Determine how to track time, costs, and expenses. Rule of thumb: keep it simple. Consider how much detail you really need to capture to accurately track costs. And be sure to make it easy for your employees to enter and assign time and expenses to each project, no matter where they are – you'll get more accurate results.
• Monitor. Check the results of your project costing regularly to make sure that your employees are using the system consistently. Use reports to monitor the profitability of each project, and then adjust your prices accordingly.

Project costing is a critical business management technique that most companies today need for at least a part of their business. A business management solution such as Dynamics ERP can help you manage projects and the expenses that go with them automatically. Give us a call and let us help you get a handle on project profitability.

Distributors around the globe face similar challenges with inventory. These common problems put distributors at a competitive disadvantage as customer expectations rise.

Common challenges include:

• Too much of some products – excess inventory and dead stock lead to decreased turnover and profitability.
• Stock-outs of other products – resulting in backorders, lost sales, and dissatisfied customers.
• Knowing what is in stock – the on-hand quantity in the computer system does not agree with what is actually on the shelf in the warehouse.
• Material misplaced in the warehouse – material is "out there somewhere" but can't be found when it's needed.

Effective inventory management A systematic plan to achieve effective inventory management will allow you to meet and exceed customers' expectations of product availability. In addition, effective inventory management will maximize net profit by minimizing total inventory investment. Effective inventory management results from the balance of inventory control and inventory management.

Inventory control is managing the inventory that is already in your warehouse, stockroom, or store, including:

• Knowing what products are "out there" and how much you have of each item.
• Knowing exactly where each piece of each product is located in your warehouse.
• Ensuring that all inventory remains in salable or usable condition.
• Storing products to minimize the cost of filling customer orders.

Inventory management is determining when to order products, how much to order, and the most effective source of supply for each item in each warehouse – that is, ensuring that you have the right quantity of the right item in the right location at the right time. Inventory management includes all of the activities involved in forecasting and replenishment.

Customers expect you to know what is in stock and when you can ship. Let us help you find the right balance of effective inventory management with a financial management system that helps you deliver on time and on budget.

Desktop Virtualization is a new way to simplify management, strengthen security, and ultimately gaining new efficiencies from your investment in IT. Read on to find out more.

There is growing interest in Desktop Virtualization with its promise of improved manageability, security and efficiency for the business. Simply put, Desktop Virtualization is new technology that separates the system software such as the operating system and applications from the underlying hardware.

Desktop virtualization allows the hardware, like a laptop or a server, to run multiple operating systems. Imagine having your Mac running Microsoft Windows and Office, or your Dell running OS X and GarageBand for example. To stretch the concept even further, operating systems and applications can be housed on remote machines – such as a server farm in Texas – which you access via the web. The applications are not resident on your computer at all.

Desktop virtualization shifts the burden of managing the system software from you or your in-house IT teams to someone else—people who can do a better job managing and updating your Windows and Office software than you can. If you have a fairly large organization managing a large number of machines, centralizing support allows the organization to gain from economies of scale—ie less people to manage more machines at less cost. Leveraging the computing power of server farms with faster machines also allows employees to get more value out of aging desktops and laptops.

Enabling anytime, anywhere access to applications and data, Desktop Virtualization connects your employees to the tools they need no matter where they are. As organizations support more and more remote employees, using desktop virtualization technology gives them access to their Windows desktop anywhere in the world, at any time, on any device.

Are you supporting remote workers or is your hardware slowing down your employees? Let's talk about Desktop Virtualization and how you can try it for your organization today.

As an owner or manager of a small or mid-size business struggling to keep up with technology and changing business environments, it's easy to get overwhelmed. Should you keep limping along with multiple, unconnected systems, or bite the bullet and implement an ERP system? The ERP evaluation process isn't easy, but with a few guiding principles you can prepare your company for the future.

Practical advice for ERP selection

1. Define critical requirements first – Don't get sidetracked with the bells and whistles of the applications you review. Before you start, define the functionality that is critical to your organization and stay focused. Communicate your requirements to your vendors and require that they focus on those requirements in their presentations.
2. Double check references – Go the extra mile when you check references provided by a vendor. The more clients you speak to, the better picture you will get of not only the vendor's products, but also their level of customer service for all their clients – and not just their best clients.
3. Don't overthink it – It's easy to get into "analysis paralysis" with such an important decision. Once you have decided to take the plunge into ERP, keep moving forward and find the best fit for your requirements. Create a realistic project timeline to maintain momentum and keep the project on track.
4. Choose the evaluation team carefully – Choosing a new ERP system is a business decision, not an IT decision. While IT should be involved, the evaluation team must make certain that the product fulfills the critical business elements that are needed for the organization's success.
5. Partner for project success – Once you have found the right solution for your organization, make sure that you have the right partner as well. The implementation partner you choose will make the difference between success and failure. Choose an organization that understands your business.

Prepare for the future Selecting an ERP system is a big step for a modest business organization. Choosing the right ERP system will build the foundation for growth for many years to come. Find out how you can transition from spreadsheets and disconnected software to a fully integrated ERP system. Call us today.

ERP Drives Manufacturing Innovation It's the start of a new year and 2012 forecasts for manufacturers are starting to look more promising. To stay ahead of the competition, you need to respond to the market with innovate product additions. A fully integrated business management system should enhance innovation to improve your responsiveness to the market.

Improve innovation When you can identify opportunities for new products at an early stage, you can respond with new, innovative products or product variants. Your ERP system should provide you with information from across the organization, with deep insight into product preference trends. With industry-specific and customer-specific KPIs delivered to your key decision makers, you can get a jump on the competition to meet changes in customer preferences.

Innovation in most manufacturing environments requires collaboration between outside partners as well as multiple internal departments. Spending time fighting outdated systems makes it hard for teams to keep communication lines flowing. An ERP system that integrates with collaboration solutions like SharePoint and common applications like Office gives teams the tools they need for easy collaboration.

Reduce time to market Fast and accurate planning is a must for the innovative manufacturer – budgeting and planning cycles can't last weeks and months anymore. Real time inventory, production, and supply chain information presented in one easy-to-use dashboard gives managers the tools they need to plan and execute quickly.

Coordinating multiple facilities and departments to support new products from production to delivery requires an integrated ERP system. Automated workflow ensures that products move from development to production environments by eliminating delays and miscommunication. A fully integrated ERP system will support new products entering the production schedules and adjust inventory levels at key distribution points.

Get ready for leaps of innovation in 2012, and improve your responsiveness to the market with a fully integrated ERP system. Call us to talk about how we can help you build a better business.

Productivity is one of the fundamental building blocks of profitability. In New Year planning sessions around the globe, a common theme is how to enable current employees to achieve more in less time. For companies using Microsoft productivity tools such as Office and Exchange, the strategic advantage of an ERP system that fully integrates with those applications is clear.

Productivity tools are just the beginning Day in and day out, your employees work with productivity tools like Microsoft Word to create forms or Microsoft Excel to analyze data maintained in a SQL Server database. All of these applications share the Windows platform and present a familiar look and feel to users. An ERP solution that works like and with these productivity tools and server products can unlock a new level of value. The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

The Line of Business (LOB) applications that your organization uses to manage core business processes are probably built on the Microsoft platform. Choosing an ERP solution that runs on the same platform could simplify integration and shorten your time to benefit. The broad acceptance of the Microsoft platform also encourages competitive pricing among alternative LOB applications and technical support services. With a single platform focus, IT resources can dedicate time to improving business processes instead of integrating and troubleshooting disparate applications.

The value of Microsoft Dynamics ERP The Microsoft Dynamics ERP product line provides the foundation to build on the Microsoft platform for flexibility and ease of use. Facilitating the flow of information between the many parts of your business, you’ll connect financial management and business intelligence to LOB and productivity tools. Productivity will improve through:

• Fast, easy integration with your existing technology systems,
• Quicker and better decision making with central business intelligence,
• Fast, universal adoption to drive down costs and boost efficiencies.

As your organization plans for 2012 and beyond, consider the productivity gains you can achieve with connected systems that are familiar to your employees. Making employees’ lives easier will pay off with improved operating margins and increased cash flow.

Call us today to find out how you can increase employee productivity.

Small businesses using Office 365 are unlikely to have an issue with the restrictions Microsoft has imposed in an effort to fight spam – but it's best to know and be prepared. The sender limit sets the daily maximum number of recipients for one cloud-based email account to 500, or 1,500 for Enterprise accounts. With smart planning, it never has to be an issue.

While many small businesses evaluate moving their productivity applications to the cloud, it's important to understand and manage restrictions that may affect your business processes. The Sender Limit in Office 365 was set up to deter spammers from abusing Microsoft's cloud solution. A noble cause we can all support. But some organizations have legitimate reasons to send bulk emails from one account.

Distribution Groups count as one recipient By using distribution groups you can easily stay under the 500 recipient limit even when you need to send the same email to a large group. Use distribution groups or dynamic distribution groups when you send messages to large numbers of recipients. Groups are counted as a single recipient toward the Sender Limit.

For example, if you send a message to 100 recipients by adding each of those recipients on the To:, Cc:, or Bcc: fields, that counts as 100 recipients toward the recipient rate limit. But if you add those same 100 recipients to a distribution group or dynamic distribution group, and then send the same message to the group, that counts as one recipient toward the recipient rate limit.

Most organizations already use distribution groups to streamline email productivity. With Office 365, you may want to build a few more internal or external groups to manage the number of recipients for high volume email senders. A little planning can eliminate any concerns about the daily Sender Limit.

Office 365 is a cost effective solution that can fuel growth by retaining capital for your small business. We’ll be happy to sit down with you and talk about solutions that support the growth and success of your business.

When evaluating ERP systems, most companies analyze the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) as part of the decision process. TCO includes the full cost of implementation and maintenance over a period of time, often 3-5 years. Factors incorporated into the analysis generally include software license, implementation, and software maintenance costs.

Well managed implementation will deliver results quickly

In the Analyst Insight "ERP: Is High ROI with Low TCO Possible?" released by Aberdeen Group, researchers found that the actual TCO realized by companies is more dependent on the Best-In-Class use of the ERP systems than TCO alone. Return on Investment (ROI) derived from the ERP system will offset costs when companies implement ERP efficiently to quickly achieve cost savings through productivity gains.

For their research, Aberdeen Group measured those benefits on the following criteria:

• Number of days to close the month
• Days sales outstanding
• Percent of orders delivered complete and on-time
• Growth in operating margins year over year

These basic factors are indicators of the operational efficiency and productivity gains that a company is typically trying to achieve with the implementation of an ERP system.

Key recommendations from the Aberdeen Group report include:

• Establish specific ERP implementation benefit goals, and measure results.
• Initial implementation should focus on achieving results in critical areas.
• Continued measurement of ERP results leads to increased business value.

Find out more about the Aberdeen Group's research on the benefits of ERP implementation. Download the report here.

Contact us today to find out how your organization can realize productivity improvements of a Best-In-Class ERP implementation. Dynamics ERP delivers high ROI with a low TCO.

Security experts are predicting a rise in the use of personal gadgets to access company data – which means that you will have less control over what kind of data goes in and out of your IT system. The best way to rectify this is by having a concrete and comprehensive IT policy that secures your data – without compromising the freedom of your employees to use their mobile devices.

As technology continues to become more affordable and accessible to consumers, it's an inevitable fact that employers will see more and more of their employees using their own personal devices such as laptops and mobile phones to access the company's IT system.

This can be a dangerous thing. Since these devices aren't company owned and regulated, you have limited access and control over how they are used. Employees could download all sorts of malware and viruses on their devices and pass the infection along to your IT system when they access it.

The solution: a comprehensive IT security policy. It's important that you find a compromise between the freedom of the employee to use the device as desired and your need to keep your IT system safe from viruses and other threats to your data's security. Steps such as having employees run mobile device management (MDM) software on their devices is one of many actions you can take to lessen the risk of security breaches. You may also want to implement applications and software that check and screen for malware, both for laptops and mobile devices. And don't forget that while Android seems to have a bigger problem with malicious software, Apple isn't exactly virus-free, either.

Employees have a right to use their personal devices as they see fit, but not at the expense of important company information stored in your IT system. Running a tight ship in terms of security is an effective way to protect your business interests and your sensitive company data. If you are interested in knowing more about developing a concrete and effective IT security policy for personal device use as well as general system access, please don't hesitate to give us a call so we can sit down with you and discuss a custom security blueprint that's just right for you.