Are your emails being taken up the wrong way?

According to the makers of the new Outlook plug-in called ToneCheck, studies show that tone and language choices cause e-mail messages to be misinterpreted 50% of the time.

Tone is very hard to get right in an email and to some degree is influenced by individual interpretation. Nonetheless Microsoft has developed an Outlook plug in that checks the tone of emails for you and aims to prevent angry or misunderstood email.

It’s seamlessly integrated in to your email so it doesn’t slow you down.
It’s currently free whilst it is in beta; preview phase allowing for usability testing.

ToneCheck is used like spell checker. It analyses your e-mail and make suggestions about which sentences which have strong emotional components based on the intensity of 8 primary emotions. As with spell checker it is up to the user to decide whether changes are made.

“As a business the wrong tone can turn-off customers, tick people off, cause you to lose sales. ToneCheck™ helps people write better and prevent them from saying stupid things.”
ToneCheck.com

It may not be necessary to use all the time but perhaps useful when sending a particularly stressful email whether it be late at night, towards the end of a product or to particularly sensitive business partners.

“You might be the most diplomatic person around, but the fact remains that people tend to misinterpret what others say. Picking the right words to use in an email is never easy, and the chances of you coming up with something that will have a negative value if the reader wants to look for it can never be subjugated completely. They can, however, be minimised considerably by using a tool like Tone Check."
Killer Start Ups, July 2010

Boost Creativity – The key to innovation!

We all know about brainstorming, creativity circles and crowd sourcing innovation through suggestion boxes but do how much of it actually works in practice is the real question…

According to Newsweek, brainstorming sessions were discredited as far back as 1958, when it was found that the technique measurably reduces the creative output of a group compared to what they’d accomplish separately.

Switch projects. Multi-tasking might be counter-productive, but stopping one project to work on another at regular intervals has shown to help you solve difficult problems within those separate projects more quickly.

Watch less TV. One study shows that for every hour of television, kids spend 11% less time in creative activities. Three hours of TV adds up to a one-third drop in creativity.

Follow your passion. In a sense, this is common sense. Studies show you’ll do your best at things you are most passionate about. Where this runs afoul of common wisdom, though, is that it suggests you don’t need to be “well rounded” — and in fact, that corporate dictum to do a little of everything for career advancement might actually hurt your ability to work creatively.

Ditch the suggestion box. According to Newsweek, “Formalized suggestion protocols, whether a box on the wall, an e-mailed form, or an internal Web site, actually stifle innovation because employees feel that their ideas go into a black hole of bureaucracy.” The remedy: empower employees to put their ideas into practice without a lot of red tape.

Exercise. As little as 30 minutes of exercise improves “almost every dimension of cognition” for at least 2 hours. It only works on people who are already physically fit, though. For out-of-shape folks, the fatigue outweighs the benefits.

Spontaneous Idea generation is the mother of creativity. Though we don’t know what ultimately promotes the creation of a new idea, we can make every effort to create an environment that promotes idea generation.

There are the two common things that most creative people have; a mind free of rigid social controls and the unwavering desire to follow one's own interests.

The final key to promoting creativity on a personal level and also in terms of creating the most appropriate environment is consistency and practice. Creativity should be a constant rather than a sporadic event just as innovation should be a continual process which demands commitment.

SAP continue to lower their carbon footprint

Companies are increasingly making an effort to reduce their carbon footprint, some more proactively than others in order to reduce their contribution to global climate change.

A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).

SAP has reduced its worldwide CO2 emissions from 120 kilotons to 115 kilotons since Q
2.This is quite an achievement considering the surge in the business travel in light of the economic recovery. It comes down to their efforts to reduce their energy consumption supported by increased levels of renewable electricity being purchased by them. Renewable electricity now accounts for 50% of their global electricity usage.

The objective for 2010 is to stay below 460 kilotons and achieve this they will need to continue to compensate for travel needs.

Last year SAP announced their aggressive commitment to reduce its total carbon emissions to the year 200 emissions level of approximately 274 kilotons by the year 2020. This represents an overall reduction of about half compared to the company’s year-2007 peak levels of 540 kilotons.

To help reach this goal, SAP is using the SAP® Carbon Impact OnDemand solution to access and analyze emissions data across its entire operations and evaluate its carbon footprint reduction efforts. SAP identified several key areas for implementing carbon-efficient operations, including travel, data centers, buildings and commitment to renewable energy.

Detailed emissions data are available to the public in the SAP sustainability report and are updated quarterly.

SAP Now Tougher Competition for Oracle with Acquistion of Sybase

SAP continues to grow and further substantiate their position as the world’s leading provider of business software with what was could possibly be the largest acquisition the company has ever completed. SAP will now prove to be tougher competition for Oracle as they enter the mobile segment where Oracle has no presence.

SAP have completed the acquisition of Sybase, a partner and a market leader in managing, analysing, and mobilising business information. The intention behind the acquisition is to accelerate the reach of SAP solutions across mobile platforms and drive forward the realisation of SAP’s in-memory computing vision. The long held tradition of organic growth has been further abandoned.

“With this transaction, SAP will dramatically expand its addressable market by making available its market-leading solutions to hundreds of millions of mobile users, combining the world's best business software with the world's most powerful mobile infrastructure platform," SAP Co-CEO Bill McDermott said in a statement.

Based in Dublin, California, Sybase delivers a range of solutions to ensure that customer information is securely managed and mobilized to the point of action, including enterprise and mobile databases, middleware, synchronisation, encryption and device management software, and mobile messaging services.

Sybase will continue to function as a separate entity under the SAP’s ownership. The present management of Sybase will also be retained. The industry pundits are saying that SAP has realised the importance of acquiring smaller but popular companies for expanding its operations into hitherto untapped markets.

The acquisition supports SAP's strategy of pursuing acquisitions that complement its portfolio and offer additional value to customers worldwide. The acquisition brings together SAP solutions with the Sybase platform to unwire the enterprise and deliver critical and accurate business information on any device, at any time.

SAP and Sybase will build on their successful co-innovation history to present new and exciting solutions to the marketplace. Bringing together in-memory technology from SAP and Sybase's strong database and mobility products will enable companies to become "unwired enterprises," in which critical information and applications are available on any device, at any time.

Customers will have the ability to take the explosion of data and harness it in a way that is consumable by employees using any device. Employees will be able to make faster, more informed decisions, and companies will benefit from greater productivity, speed, and agility to help their businesses grow.

All this talk of Virtualisation but what is it?

I keep seeing articles, posts and features around virtualisation and the benefits it offers to businesses but before we can begin to consider the benefits we need to know what it is.

I can’t be the only one who is not completely technologically minded and new to the world of IT (as a new employee at IIS) so I went on the hunt for some simplified information that I thought might be of use or interest to the SME owners, managers and employees.

The traditional approach to IT required a new server for every new software application which of course added substantial costs and weeks to projects. Even planned hardware and software updates and maintenance impacted productivity. IT managers were challenged to meet organisational demands with limited time and budgets available to them.

The increase in the number of servers being introduced resulted in more money, time and people being required.

Virtualisation means that one single server can be used to run multiple applications simultaneously in virtual machines. New applications can now be rapidly deployed.
Virtualisation is the smarter way to grow IT; less time, money and people are necessitated.

The main benefits are:
Minimum spend on power and cooling facilities
Allows you to take full advantage of hardware performance
Facilitates a rapid response to organisational needs

The focus shifts from maintenance to efficiency and innovation with less people being needed to support the IT environment, their skills and knowledge can be utilised more efficiently elsewhere within the organisation.

Virtualisation will help small and medium businesses achieve enterprise-class levels of IT high availability and continuity at a significantly lower cost if they have the appropriate IT infrastructure foundation.

Technology Adoption in SMEs

It has been claimed that the majority of IT spending by SMEs is on communication solutions.

The high spend and investment in communications technology is a result firms seeking to deliver faster and more reliable service to their customers.

Speaking to the SME Times, Dell director Satyen Vyas claimed that in addition to email technology, enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management solutions are highly sought-after.

The question which overshadows SMEs investment in more formulised CRM is perhaps the potential for the process to become inhumanised which is perhaps what differentiates SMEs from their larger competitors.

There is the debate as to whether technology is being adopted by SMEs as a result of external or internal pressures, or whether they are taking preemptive actions ahead of their adverseries allowing them to achieve a competitively advantageous position.

Grandon and Pearson (2004) found external pressure to be a statistically significant determinant of technology (e-commerce) adoption by SMEs. Broadly stated, external pressure could include demands on technology adoption imposed by suppliers, trading partners, customers, competitors, and collaborators.

Likewise, competitive pressure has been found to be a strong determinant of the adoption of communication technology by SMEs (Premkumar & Roberts, 1999). Further, technology obsolescence, adoption of newer technological standards by the industry or business sector, and demand from customers or markets also serve as external influences on technology adoption.

New technology presents many opportunities to SMEs but there is evidence that many hurdles are still faced when it comes to technology adoption and that there is still a considerable number of SMEs that are adverse to the risk of embracing new innovative solutions.

Journal of Business and Entrepreneurship, Mar 2010 by Badrinarayanan, Vishag, West, Vicki L

To read more visit: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5424/is_201003/ai_n53505283/?tag=content;col1

SMEs missing out on funding opportunities in the UK

It is estimated the total value of support schemes available to UK business is £5 billion per year.

According to experts, it’s not just government grants that are not being taken advantage of but financial support from advisory, guidance and information services too.

The issue has been highlighted by North West accountancy firm, Hurst which has seen an increase in demand from businesses seeking alternative sources of funding and advice on grant applications.

Helen Besant-Roberts, partner at Hurst said:

“Lots of grants are set aside for specific business types for example IT, construction and creative media. There are also lots of grants available for innovation and research as well as to help new businesses to grow. Some funding is aimed at business owners to help develop skills, but they often find that looking at the different schemes awarded by many different awarding bodies can be daunting at first.

“Even if you know what funding to apply for, you need to make sure you apply for it in the right way. I work with a lot of charities and businesses who feel they are often wasting valuable time filling in grant application forms incorrectly and need guidance in getting the most out of the application process.”

Helen, who specialises in providing compliance and advisory services added:

“Typically you can get business grants and other awards for anything from £500 to £1 million and you might be able to apply for multiple schemes or grants. There are also a lot of interest free loans available for capital investment, particularly in energy efficient assets. The application process for different types of funding can vary greatly and some are more onerous than others. Before applying for a grant, loan or award, you should prepare a business plan with forecasts outlining how much money is needed, what it is needed for, and the benefits that will be obtained. We would always recommend that you get advice before making an application.”

Jan O’Connor, manager at Wood Street Mission, a charity that provides help to families in the Manchester and Salford area said:

“As a charity there are several funding options available but it’s easy to get bogged down in the rigorous application processes. We need to secure funding to cover all our costs so it can be immensely frustrating having to invest so much time and effort completing complex forms rather than doing hands on work for the charity.”

The government provides a number of financial products for helping small and medium businesses, including Grants for Business Investment and Research & Development, the Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme, and small loans. In addition, there are many other organisations that offer funding for certain types of business investment and growth.

Examples of funding available for charities include awards from charitable foundations, such as the Lloyds TSB Foundation, Awards for All, the Hedley Foundation, plus grants from organisations such as the Big Lottery and Futurebuilders.

Latest from the SME WEB!!!

Troubleshooting Guide for SAP B1 Integration Component

This document is intended to provide you with information for troubleshooting while installing or using the SAP Business One Integration Component available for SAP Business One 8.8 PL12 or higher.

http://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/pub/wlg/20300?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20SAPNetworkWeblogs%20%28SAP%20Network%20Weblogs%29

SAP provides the clarity needed to become a best run business!

Ghanaian businesses have been urged to adopt modern technologies to speed up their operations to enable them stay on top of the competition and to reduce cost.

At yesterday's programme dubbed "SAP Ghana World Tour 2010" in Accra Noble Ekajeh, Regional Manager of Systems Applications Programme (SAP), said the global business landscape had changed and companies, which failed to deploy the right technologies and software's to grow their businesses would lag behind.

He said the changes required businesses, especially Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs), to adjust quickly to changing market conditions and lay a strong foundation for growth.

SAP, Mr Ekajeh said had developed comprehensive software to assist companies to get the maximum returns on their investments.

Among the solutions are 'mySAP Enteprise Business Suite' targeted at large businesses, mySAP All-In-One targeted at sophisticated SME, and SAP BusinessOne as some of its products targeted at advanced SMEs.

"SAP BusinessOne is designed for advanced SMEs, competitively priced, flexible yet full-featured and can be implemented in record time because of available rapid implementation tools," he said.

SAP Business Suite software, he explained was designed for large organisations and international corporations to support their core business operations ranging from supplier relationships to production to warehouse management, sales, and all administrative functions, through to customer relationships.

"There are specific solutions for industries, for instance, high tech, oil and gas, utilities, chemicals, healthcare, retail, consumer products, and the public sector," he said.

He said "as the world's leading provider of business software SAP delivers products and services that help accelerate business innovation for our customers. We believe that doing so will unleash growth and create significant new value for our customers, SAP, and ultimately, entire industries and the economy at large."

Mr Ravenna said no matter the geographical location of a business, it could rely on SAP-based solutions to meet its ever-changing needs.

"Our vision is for companies of all sizes to become best-run businesses. In today's challenging business environment, best-run companies have clarity across all aspects of their business, which allows them to act quickly with increased insight, efficiency, and flexibility," he said.

SAP is the world's largest business application vendor with more than 91,500 installations and annual revenue in excess of €10 billion. It has customers of varying sizes across the world.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Open Your Eyes to the Solutions – Involve Your People

Just a thought for the day for those businesses which are struggling or are perhaps have resigned themselves to merely survive and weather the storm. Every day presents new opportunities, creativity can flourish and ideas can be created. Trying something new should always be the prerequisite, if you don’t someone else will.

"You are surrounded by simple, obvious solutions that can dramatically increase your income, power, influence and success. The problem is, you just don't see them."

Jay Abraham

The business world is constantly in flux, new challenges are emerging daily, new competitors surfacing and new standards being set. With the degree of change therein lies the temptation to throw in the towel and give up when it all just gets too much. We can become blind to the solutions, support and knowledge which permeates the world of business and in itself can seem a tad complex.

A business manager has a complex role to play, the tasks and responsibilities diverse however large or small the business. The functions within your organisation shouldn’t be underestimated and you should always look to the future… Whatever your size today, surely you aspire to achieve growth?

Teamwork and employee involvement is what I believe to be the key to opening up our minds to the solutions which may otherwise dismiss or fail to notice.
With innovation now being a key success driver, how can one person or even a small percentage of people within an organisation be expected to take on the mammoth responsibility to be consistently creative? Every member or your workforce will bring something to the table; they just need the opportunity to do so!

“Innovation today isn’t a sudden break with the past, a brilliant insight that one lone outsider pushes through to save the company. Just the opposite: innovation today is a continuous process of small and constant change, and it’s built into the culture of successful companies.”

Janet Rae-Dupree

“…the group effort allows us to move much more quickly and become successful much faster.”

Chris MacCarthy – Director of the Innovation and Learning Network

Social Media Can Improve Productivity

There countless social media platforms now being presented to us and some companies are making every effort to become involved in what they see as being the key platforms. But really it’s not about the scale of our efforts, it’s about the way in which we are utilising the tools which are available, and the efficiency of our endeavors in this new and opportunistic discipline.

There is also the big question mark hovering somewhat like a storm cloud over whether businesses entering the world of social media is perhaps hampering productivity levels as employees become distracted and hours spent embracing and interacting the world of social media are considered to be immeasurable in terms of the impact on business.

This is true in as much as it is true for marketing as a whole. The rewards and benefits may not be immediately discernable but as with any activities being undergone within an organisation, if the objectives are determined from the outcome, however specific or broad, the ease by which the results and outcomes can be measured will be shaped.

Some managers believe this new work style which involves workers engaging in social media activities has resulted in a blur between personal and professional time. The question is whether the potential benefits of engagement outweigh the widely acknowledged and cited drawbacks.

There are few noted areas within which social media can potentially enrich productivity.

Scalable Networking

The majority of networking is today being carried out online which saves a hell of a lot of time and supports networking on a much larger scale than would be conceivable on a face to face basis.

Information Overload Can be Avoided

Some may argue the opposite, but if searches are refined and networks, forums, groups and platforms are selectively embraced then information becomes more distinguished and specifically tailored to meet the needs of the any particular business or business person.

Freedom to Collaborate

In a world where collaboration is most often supported by some type of software, social media can provide the functionality to make sure that everyone can be productive while using the tool that works best for them. That said it is something which does need to be monitored as the freedom which the world of social media bestows could potentially be abused.

I think the blur and potential for social media to be abused can and should be ideally overcome be developing or utilising the ethos which exists within an organisation. If everyone is on the same page, is committed to the organisation and its objectives and holds its values in high esteem the potential shortcomings of social media as identified by many managers should certainly be surmounted.

Social Media can evidently be a double edged sword and it is fundamentally down the organisation or individual user to identify what they want to achieve through their involvement, examine the way in which they are using the tools available and endeavor to make the most of them.

How are SMEs Getting Finance? Aldermore present the solution as they gain a competitive foothold

SMEs continue to have issues acquiring loan finance from banks. Now tired of receiving the cold shoulder from the UK’s largest banking institutions they are beginning to seek finance via other sources and means.

Invoice financing is now in vogue. It’s used to free up cash and working capital by borrowing against the business’s unpaid invoices.

Aldermore, the new British bank, says that the number of SMEs using invoice financing is soaring as small companies look for new ways to deal with the SME funding crisis.

British lenders are this week expected to continue to announce profits in spite of concerns over levels of lending to SMEs.

HSBC Holdings announced £7bn in profit for the first half of 2010 yesterday, with about a billion of this coming from its UK operations. They boldly announced that they intend to increase the pay and bonuses given to their staff, though one can only suppose who may receive them in actuality.
HSBC also admitted that despite their mammoth windfall as the UK climbs out of the recession they are have not increased overall lending to firms in the past 12 months.

Business loan applications are down 20% in the first half of 2010 and the stock of outstanding loans to SMEs was fractionally down because many core customers to HSBC are paying down debt.

Aldermore says that small businesses are increasingly frustrated with the inability of some of the big UK banks to meet their demands for funding.

The banks could be missing a trick as invoice generation is a sure indication that the firms in question remain viable.

Ian Wilkins, Managing Director at Aldermore’s invoice finance arm, comments:

“Some SMEs want to create some headroom in case of a fall in orders or a possible double-dip. Other businesses want to release cash to fund expansion.”

“They all realise that they will not be able to rely on their bank to give them the kind of overdraft facility that they have used in the past. Banks have to reserve capital against overdraft facilities even if they are not being used.”

“Small companies remember the lessons of the last recession and they are keen not to be let down at a crucial time by their bank.”

“I would love to say that the surge in invoice finance business that we are seeing is entirely down to our own efforts but we are definitely helped by the fact that other banks are giving SMEs the cold shoulder.”

Adapted from Source : http://www.smeweb.com/finance/news/how-are-smes-getting-finance-081003.html

Seeking SAP B1 Implementation Consultants

With the increase in demand for SAP Business One IIS is continuing to grow. Companies are transfering to IIS for our renowned service and the added value of Intelligent Essentials. As a result we're on the hunt for additional implementation consultants to join our teams in the UK and Ireland. We're seeking 2 additional SAP B1 implementation consultants, one in the UK and one in Ireland.

Do you have experience and knowledge of SAP B1?

Are you customer focused?

Do you live in the UK or Ireland?

Would you like to become part of a thriving and innovative organisation?

If you answer yes to the above questions then you should Contact us at IIS to find out more and see how you may well join us on our mission to support SMEs in becoming a Better Business with SAP B1 and Intelligent Essentials.


Email: careers@beabetterbusiness.co.uk