Colour and your Company Image!

What are the colours of your company really saying about you?
Have you considered the subliminal messages that you could be sending out to your audience which could potentially impact their perception of your company?

It may or not be something that you’ve thought about but when you think about your own reactions to colour in terms of your perception of some the world’s leading brands such as Coca Cola you may begin to question your own use of it. According to colour experts red produces the most extreme responses from audiences within a business context. It’s hard to ignore it!

One of the most recent attempted changes of a brand to change its image with the use of colour was McDonalds when they redesigned their restaurant fronts and some of their interiors using a substantial amount of green. The intention behind it being to portray a sense of environmentally friendliness and sustainability, in a corporate and resource sense which was backed by changes to their corporate responsibility strategy.

When you think about it there are a substantial number of extremely successful brands which are predominantly employ the colour red in their imagery.
Virgin
Liverpool
Manchester United
Vodafone
Ferrari
McDonalds
Kellogg’s (the name is in red)

The trouble is that people have different perceptions and associations with colours depending on their own experiences, opinions and mindset. Of course there are generalisations you can make but again it doesn’t necessarily mean you have a fool proof plan. Colour on its own is not going to change the image of your brand or company but what is apparent is that it should be considered in the terms of supporting the message and identify your endeavoring to portray.

Test out colours and ask for feedback internally and from your audiences.
There are seemingly regional differences in responses to colour with UK audiences having the most extreme response. Males are also twice as more likely to have an extreme reaction to colour than women according to the results of a recent HP study.

We’re happy with our choice of orange what about you?

Orange is a warm, sensual, joyful, passionate, lively welcoming colour. e bay uses orange tones on its front page!

Royal Blue projects a sense of a solid, stable, trustworthy and powerful company, use Royal Blue. Think how government departments use Royal Blue in their logos & letterheads giving an impression of honour and power. Team it with red to add a hint of danger and excitement to the message.

Pale blue and pale pinks remind us of childhood, babies and children and are ideal for businesses that want to create a more caring, sharing image of young families etc.

Yellows can be cheerful and bright or brash and deceitful with undertones of cowardice. Use soft yellow tones and gold’s with strong colours like Royal Blue, Burgundy and Green for a fresh, bright image.

Green is seen as peaceful, passive, restful but boring and dull unless mixed with warmer flower colours of apricot, orange and reds. Remember the saying “Green with Envy”!

Avoid browns to express your business identity. Browns are earth colours, warm, solid, dependable, sensible but are found by most people to be unimpressive, dirty, dull, boring, unexciting.

Reds, blue-reds and orange tones are vibrant, hot, passionate, exciting, aggressive, dangerous, evoke a ‘don’t touch’ image. Used in moderation they can be warm but firm at the same time.

Violet, Mauve and Purple colours are used to express mourning and grief, are dignified, mysterious, wise, solitary, authoritative colours and best used with tons of white.

Grey, Grey Mauve & Grey Green colours are sad, old, mournful colours and invoke images of lonely, dull, lifeless times. Prime Minister John Major was nick-named ‘The Man In Grey’!

Black is a powerful, dramatic, sophisticated, serious, dignified, elegant colour but can also invoke images that are wicked, sad, evil, gloomy and withdrawn.

White is a pure, innocent, youthful, faithful, simple, honest peaceful colour.

Top Ten ERP Trends for 2010

Are the trends ringing true?

Upgrade and footprint expansion activity
ERP decreased 24% in 2009 but it is expected to grow 8% per annum over the next 5 years. Based on the growth which SAP have achieved in 2010, 16% in Q2 the estimates may have been a little cautious.

Open Source
The use of Open Source Technology will continue to increase except for ERP Applications. A survey by Accenture also showed that nearly 40 percent of the 300 organisations queried planning to increase investment this year and they also planned to migrate critical operations to open source systems in the next 12 months.

Small businesses going to ERP sooner
Small Businesses will be moving to an enterprise level ERP system sooner. In 2005 the average company had at least 29 employees before adopting an ERP system; this number is expected to decrease to 18 in 2010.

Mobile ERP
Mobile ERP will grow in use and importance. With the emergence and popularity of the i-phone, i-store, and mobile applications, the next evolution in ERP will be a mobile client interface to ERP systems. SAP have merged with Sybase in order to more effectively meet the demand for mobile solutions; the wheels are in motion!

New enterprise resource functionality: energy utilisation
New enterprise resource functions going forward will require increased energy utilisation. That is there will be an even greater emphasis on ERP energy/carbon management systems. Energy management is the hot topic, driven by a pressure to meet targets and reduce taxes. Investment is being made in to energy utilisation functionality and the monitoring of it, however a survey carried out by Verdantix in the US enterprise carbon management isn’t yet an integrated business practice.

New-growth markets
New Growth Markets: Verticals. Forrester anticipates that of the seven major verticals the largest amount of ERP growth will occur in the Manufacturing sector even though the manufacturing industry is the third ranked industry in regards to overall ERP implementations.

Expanding ERP
The traditional ERP concept that we are familiar with was first introduced in 1992. Going forward traditional ERP systems will transform into what is being called EERM (External Enterprise Resource Management) which incorporates knowledge management information into your business process.

Diligent focus on ERP benefits realisation and ROI
Long gone are the days of spending like it's 1999 and hoping for the best. CIOs and COOs will continue to face pressure to prove that every dime of investment in ERP systems is justified and generates a solid return on investment.

The companies that choose the right software for their organisations, best manage business and organizational risk, implement effectively, and position themselves for benefits realisation will be better positioned headed into the recovery. This will require companies to more effectively assess vendor viability during their ERP selection processes and leverage ERP implementation best practices more than they have in the past.

Recession has had a positive impact on the manufacturing sector

Recession isn’t all doom and gloom, with every hardship there is a lesson to be learned and an opportunity for improvements to be made. It doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom!

In the words of Albert Einstein, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”.

According to a recent survey by PwC, the UK manufacturing sector is emerging from the recession stronger and leaner than ever. PwC found that leading manufacturing businesses were not only able to improve working capital by up to 15% in the recession, but also to improve gross margins by 1.5% through cost saving initiatives.

Specifically the PwC survey finds that manufacturing companies have become more efficient by:

• Preparing for a range of potential outcomes through robust scenario planning for up to 10%, 20% and 30% declines in revenue

• Aligning incentives to cash and working capital performance to ensure they were ‘top-of-the-mind’ within management teams

• Realigning their manufacturing base including accelerating the shift of either manufacturing plants and/or commodity products to Lower Cost Countries (LCCs) or temporarily in-sourcing product to fill excess capacity and retain skilled workforce;

• Reducing headcount, averaging 10% across companies reviewed

• Directing the product mix towards markets more resilient to cycle and downturn (and increasing prices in these markets);

• Multi-skilling the workforce to increase flexibility, improve utilisation and avoid losing skilled resources

IIS coming to a radio station near you!

Due to the success of our last radio advertising campaign on Irish radio we have decided to give it another bash.

As the new marketing coordinator at IIS I headed in to Newstalk yesterday afternoon to produce the ad.

I was immediately impressed by the bright and modern offices and made to feel at ease and extremely welcome by all the staff I came across and engaged with.
The atmosphere was relaxed yet professional, with staff clearly enthusiastic about their work and happy to be there.

The producer was excellent as was the voice over both clearly with a great deal of experience respectively and also in terms of working together which meant the ad was recorded, tweaked and ready to be aired within an hour and half!

I was mightily impressed and two days after having decided to invest in radio advertising our ad is now ready to go and due to air on Monday.

Listen out for Intelligent Information Systems on Newstalk 106 – 108 fm over the next two coming weeks. We’ll be getting our mention morning, noon and night and we would love to gain some feedback and will of course be happy to respond to any queries or interest that it sparks!

Don’t forget the radio

A lot of businesses are beginning to reconsider their marketing spend having curbed it during the midst of the recession. The realisation that this wasn’t and isn’t necessarily the answer or the area in which spending should be cut has become more apparent as businesses begin to look to the future and embark upon seeking more than mere survival.

Whatever industry you're in, one thing's for sure, you need to advertise your products and services in order to grow your business. This is the single, most important objective why you would want to advertise your business - to increase your opportunity for success. Without advertising, you might as well close shop and fold because you won't get an increase in sales if you don't continuously market to your clients as well as your prospective customers.

"Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does."
Steuart Henderson Britt

An advertising medium which is regularly dismissed due to the difficulties in measuring the effectiveness of it is radio. However, there are many benefits which businesses fail to recognise.

It is perceived as the most intimate of advertising mediums as people are so often alone when listening to the radio such as when driving to and from work.

People also tend to develop a personal relationship and sense of loyalty with their favourite radio stations and shows. As a result people may be more receptive of radio ads than other advertising media, as well as trusting the messages and being more likely to have a direct interest in what is being advertised as they are specifically targeted. Radio stations and shows know the demographics of their listeners intimately.

Radio is an everywhere medium, the theatre of the mind which doesn’t require the audience to locate additional materials or objects to fully receive the message. They don’t need to buy anything, locate their glasses nor do they need to know how to read.

And most importantly it’s affordable and speedy in terms of production. Don’t forget the radio, it could be just what you've been looking for!

5 Reasons Recent Graduates or Interns are the best people to kick start and manage your social media presence

College students or recent graduates are being cited as the best people to look after your company’s social media presence, all be it with some supervision, as they are seen as being far better at interacting online than those higher up.. This was suggested recently by Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media writing on The Business Insider War Room.

Even if you think your online image is too important to entrust to interns or recent graduates you should take a leaf out of their book and follow their example.
Some of the reasons they can help you achieve social media success are:

They are chatty – this mindset and their willingness to interact and converse on a range of topics as they are happy to avoid the other perhaps more mundane and repetitive tasks such as photocopying works in their favour in the world of social media.

They are closure to the ground – they are more likely to pick up on information, interactions and underlying problems or difficulties from the ground up that CEO’s are unlikely to acknowledge or be aware of. They can bring an outside and fresh perspective and potentially help your company overcome its misgivings and things which could potentially be hampering it’s intended identity and perceived image.

They are excited and enthusiastic – they are in touch with day to day reality far more so than CEO’s are likely to be. They are potentially closure to your customers in terms of understanding their perspective and what they are interested in. Being in tune with the social world that your customers reside will come across in your social media presence as well as their general enthusiasm and excitment for potentially some of the same issues.

They know they have weaknesses – a student or a recent graduate is more likely to be in touch with their weaknesses and will be happy to admit them and their ambitions to overcome them. This is far more attractive to customers as opposed to being greeted by a constant message that your company is perfect which may be portrayed by a CEO.

They take chances – the risks may not be as high for a student or recent graduate, they are optimistic and striving to prove themselves and are therefore more likely to take chances. This is necessary within the world of social media as it needs to be constantly driven by ambitions to make everything better.

Once guidelines and policies are in place there is no reason why your social media presence shouldn’t be managed by your interns or recent graduate employees; seemingly it’s all about taking risks they just need to be monitored and quantified!

SAP and Sybase First Offerings!

SAP and Sybase have announced the integration of Sybase technology with current SAP enterprise offerings, following the companies' recent merger.

The companies are aiming to offer state-of-the- art mobile database management functions, which could allow users to access and manage company databases from their smartphones.

SAP is banking on Sybase's expertise in mobility solutions and the shifting trend in the enterprise IT market to carve a niche for itself in the enterprise mobile market.

The Sybase Unwired Platform is designed to allow mobile users to access company data from their smartphones when they are away from their office. The platform will also let them alter the information stored on the database.

The platform is being offered to companies with a a lot of sales executive working in the field, who also need to access company data in an instant.

In a statement, Gary Kovacs, senior vice president of markets and products at Sybase, said: “Sybase offers the most comprehensive expertise and platform for mobilising SAP solutions, as well as for rapid development and deployment of custom mobile offerings in the industry.”

Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2010/8/10/sap-and-sybase-unveil-first-offerings-merger/#ixzz0wNhfCzMG

"Intelligent Information Systmes" Our Professional LinkedIn Group

Having updated our company profile, created my own personal profile as a member of the Intelligent Information Systems team, joined and begun to interact with groups the next step on the LinkedIn Platform, as advised by the SAP social media support team.

Having created a facebook company page, blog and dedicated youtube channel I wasn't sure about what additional benefits a LinkedIn business group could offer.

LinkedIn is seen as a business-oriented social networking site and people tend to act more professional in this network than they would in Facebook or MySpace. Plus, many professionals tend to visit this site more frequently than they would other social media sites as they use LinkedIn to research companies and potential contacts.

There are seemingly many great benefits for having a LinkedIn Group for your business.

•Individual Visibility — when someone joins your group, they can elect to have a small badge representing the group display in their profile (and people generally opt in for displaying the badge). This badge signifies that someone has a particular affinity with your company and brand.

•Corporate Visibility — the group gives your company additional visibility. When someone sees the group badge in your profile or the profiles of others, they may click on it to see what the group is all about. If a customer joins your group, it shows that they are committed to what you are doing and makes them ‘stickier’ and less likely to take their business to another company.

•Corporate Announcements — you can use the Groups feature to contact your group members with an announcement or other news. While you can only use this feature once per week, it is a low cost way to keep members informed about new programs, offers or company news. The alternative would be to use an email or newsletter solution that could cost you from $25 to $100 per month or more.

•Job Postings — you can also use your group to post job openings for your company or affiliates. Only members of the group can see the postings, so this is another reason for people to join your group.

•Better Connections – even if you are not directly connected to another group member, you can still send that member a message or invite them to connect with you because you share the group affiliation.

•Group Newsfeed — any activity in the group is reported in the news feed for anyone who has joined the group. For example, I can easily see if there are any new posts or news added to the group site by reviewing my newsfeed. Users can also opt to get daily or weekly email updates of new activity.

We look forward to utilising our new group presence on LinkedIn and would love for anyone interest in SAP Business One, Intelligent Information Systems or Intelligent Essentials to come join the Intelligent Information Systems Group on LinkedIn. It may also be of interest or use to anyone involved with or working for an SME regardless of whether you have implementated SAP Business One or any ERP software solution within your business as we endeavour to enlighten you and keep you informed and up to date on the latest developments and benefits until you feel the time is right to take the plunge!

Improve your SAP Business One Solution with New Intelligent Essentials Elements

Intelligent Essentials is a range of enhancements from IIS that improves SAP Business One in key areas. Essentials provide one add-on that allows you to select the functionality that you require in your SAP Business One implementation.

Two new innovative Essentials Elements, Intelligent Email and Intelligent Colour Size Matrix are now available from IIS further building upon our dedication to making your SAP B1 Better.

Intelligent Email provides email automation functionality for SAP Business One. Automatic and Batch emailing of statements and marketing documents has never been so simple.

It allows you to drive down the cost of sending out statements, accelerating the process and moreover improving customer service by permitting you to send out batch advance delivery notification and numerous other documents.

To get a copy of the Intelligent Email Brochure contact michelle.hunt@iisystems.net or copy the link provided!

http://www.beabetterbusiness.ie/Essentials/e4.pdf

Intelligent Colour Size Matrix enables users to create child and parent product codes. Within CSM you can create a master product which will then create a matrix of child products related to it. This solution is perfect for companies in the clothing or footwear sectors and any business where products come in variable shapes and sizes. The Intelligent Colour Size Matrix Brochure will soon be made available but in the meantime any one interested in gaining more information should contact us!

sales@iisystems.net

Take a Break!

We are all striving to be more productive and the get as much done as we can within the given work day. For many this means not taking a break which actually is proven to hamper productivity.

The standard working week of 40hours is constantly being extended as people push themselves to meet expectations, targets and ensure that they maintain their jobs. The "work until you drop" culture is not only unproductive but it could also be detrimental to our health. People who work longer hours are more prone to illness and injury which in the long term benefits no one.

Industrial companies put a lot of effort in to "asset integrity" - which really just means protecting critical plants and machinery from damage and wear and tear.

Within the service industries should companies not be doing the same where their people are their only assets?

Conflictingly financial services, consulting, the law and even the medical profession perpetuate working hours where all-nighters are heroic, driving with jet lag is the norm and anyone who actually has lunch risks becoming lunch.

For the last 100 years every productivity study in every industry has come to the same conclusion: after about 40 hours in a week, the quality of your work starts to degrade. You make mistakes. That’s why working 60 hours may not save you time or money: you’ll spend too much of that time fixing the mistakes you shouldn’t have made in the meantime. That’s why software companies that limit work to 35 hours a week need to employ fewer QA engineers: there isn’t as much mess to clean up.

With regard to multi tasking, when the cognitive scientist Dan Simons looked at the vast mountain of evidence that demonstrates the futility of it, he was inevitably asked whether there were anything we could do to enlarge the capacity of our minds to which the answer was an emphatic no.

Simons said that the one thing that truly enhances cognition is exercise.
Experiments by his colleague Arthur Kramer showed that walking for a few hours a week led to large improvements on cognitive tasks. Stretching and toning exercises had no cognitive benefits, but aerobic exercise, which increases blood flow to the brain, did. Seniors who walked for just 45 minutes a day for three days a week showed better preservation of their brains in MRI scans. Exercise, Simons concludes, improves cognition broadly by increasing the fitness of your brain.

Instead of setting unrealistic demands upon yourself or expectations for others you should take a break! Step away from the desk at the very least over your lunch break and if your the boss encourage it and lead by example. After all it's called a lunch "break" for a reason!

The Computer in Your Pocket! iPhone is finding its place in the Business World

Initially conceived as a technology for personal communication the iPhone is now being completely submerged, integrated and utilised within todays fast pace business environments and the trend is one which is set to continue.

The iPhone offers great promise of mobility for businesses with the ability to drive efficiencies, increase convenience and employee flexibility. These factors ultimately bear relevance to the competitiveness and profitability of a business.

A survey carried out by Logmeln found that nearly a quarter of SME employees work off-site at least once a week and about 12 percent of them work virtually. More than half of SMEs surveyed plan to increase their use of remote access services over the next six months.

With SMEs accounting for 59% of the UK workforce, and over 50% of them, according to a study carried out by Interactive Intelligence, actively encouraging and supporting remote working the outlook is apparent.

The iPhone is becoming more popular as a result as it provides a great way to boost their off-site productivity, allowing them to check emails, access calendars and make calls when on the move.

Sybase Inc., an industry leader in enterprise and mobile software recently announced the results of a survey carried out in the US which demonstrates that the demand for iPhone in the workplace is on the rise.

Apple is intending to introduce a number of new features intended to improve the functionality of iPhone for business. More than a third said they would consider purchasing an iPhone for work even if not provided by their employer.

The ability to multi-task is the most anticipated feature and almost half of those surveyed also think that video conferencing will be of key importance in building stronger client and colleague relationships.

"It's the paradigm shift from 'cell phone' to 'computer in your pocket.' It's all about the software and apps," said Gene Munster, senior research analyst with Piper Jaffray, in an interview with TechNewsDaily.

The iPhone has made some great progress in terms of entering the long exclusive territory of the Blackberry. It is now entirely compatible with Microsoft Exchange, hard drives can be encrypted and secured and phones can be imaged so the same phone is rolled out to the entire workforce.

It is currently estimated that 40% of all new iPhones are being sold to businesses for such use.

The Apple application store is what truly differentiates it from the Blackberry. Companies are now utilising the platform and offering their own applications on the iPhone to further differentiate their own offerings and also to ensure that they continue to meet the evident changing needs of their customers.

Research carried out by Strategy Analytics shows that organisations that leverage the iPhone are in fact reaping greater benefits from mobility than organizations that do not have iPhones.

The conclusion…
iPhone for business is the way forward and businesses both large and small would be unwise to ignore the trend and neglect to take advantage of the technology and the unprecedented benefits it has and is likely to continue to afford.

70% of all UK SMEs not investing in SEO for their websites

A new study has found that 70% of all UK SMEs have little or no Search Engine Optimisation on their websites. This means that for those businesses they are not taking advantage of the unique opportunity which the internet provides to improve your corporate image and brand visibility.

The research was carried out by ThomsonLocal.com and an online analytics provider Analytics SEO. They analysed 1000 websites of companies with 50 or fewer employees.
SEO is one of the most effective ways to promote a website and shouldn’t be disregarded. If the right terms are used targeted traffic can be generated for your website.

82% don’t have a HTML Sitemap, 75% don’t even have an XML version. Meta isn’t great either, with 56% failing to write unique page descriptions and 35% missing page titles; the list is endless!

Though this may not be currently detrimental to business as the vast majority of competitors are evidently not taking advantage to any great extent either, they are still missing out on vital opportunities to potentially compete with their larger counterparts, aggregating new clients and customers.

Only 3% of sites were found to have ‘advanced levels of SEO’.

Laurence O’Toole, Managing Director of Analytics SEO added “We are used to seeing poor websites, as it is our business to identify and fix poorly optimised websites, but we were really surprised at how many SMEs still have not invested in SEO. Companies need to adopt a new approach to their online presence. They have to ensure that their sites are built according to well established industry guidelines and fully optimised for search engines. Even if a company does not have a transactional website, the adverse effect on sales of a poor website could be substantial.”

SAP committed to customer centric innovation

Customer-centric innovation is the core principle of SAP strategy, said Sanjay Poonen, executive vice-president and general manager SAP business and LoB solutions.

“The goal of SAP is to take care of everything behind the scenes, to provide the backbone and nervous system to enable companies to focus on core business”, he said.

SAP are aware and are paying attention to the fact that the needs of UK businesses are changing as they now and in the future are set to increasingly require and demand multi channel software and their strategy is being built in response to this shift.

On-premises, on-device, on-demand, and seamless orchestration of all of these are the four pillars on which SAP's strategy is based, said Poonen.

UK research shows companies will shift gradually to a mix of in-house, mobile and cloud-based applications, which SAP believes is as a result of increased recognition of the cost and business benefits of delivery methods.

According to SAP’s survey of 250 CIOs in large UK companies, on-premises software deployments will fall by 20% to 51% by 2015, as companies demand access to their applications on the go or via the cloud.

Additionally, the survey said, the share of on-demand implementations will increase 11% to 28% and on-device will increase by 8% to 21%.

Another key strategy for SAP is to focus on industry-specific analytics solutions as the firm believes this will be the next wave of demand.

The largest ever attendance at the SAP’s Sapphire customer partner and world tour events this year has indicated to SAP that businesses understand the value of IT.

SAP enhancing Enterprise Support through user groups

With more than 35 years experience in supporting enterprise critical applications SAP is committed to continually investing in tools, processes and methodologies to enable customers and deliver the highest level of support.

SAP has now set up a searchable, online repository of customer benefit cases and best practices. .
The repository of self-service resources, including product roadmaps and expert opinion, was set up to support a methodology to help customers get better value out of SAP's enterprise support.

The repository and methodology were developed in collaboration with the SAP User Group Executive Network (Sugen), a global network of SAP user groups.

Sugen was at the centre of negotiations with SAP that eventually led to a reversal of a controversial decision in 2008 to implement enterprise support for all customers.

SAP and the Sugen SAP Enterprise Support Charter team host regular regional feedback sessions with customers to jointly develop best practices, guided procedures and self-service resources.

SAP said the latest joint venture with Sugen shows the software maker remains committed to continued collaboration with user groups.

The initiative is aimed at helping customers to realise the benefits of SAP enterprise support faster and subsequently reduce their total cost of operations.

"As a result of the dialogue between SAP and the user groups, customers have choice and can now focus on the value proposition of SAP enterprise support," said Tonnie Van der Horst, chairman of Sugen.

SAP Enterprise support has been and continues to be developed to address the various business challenges that business face. SAP offers customers a tiered portfolio of support offerings. The level of support can be selected to meet the individual needs of your business across the entire life cycle of the application from implementation and testing, to maintenance and operations, to monitoring, optimising and upgrading.

SAP is convinced that the value of SAP Enterprise Support can help customers receive the most out of their IT investment, enabling their IT staff to provide transparency and additional focus on business process improvement.

Computer Weekly.com
SAP Services.com

LinkedIn For the SME

LinkedIn is geared towards professionals and has become one of the world’s largest virtual networking platforms. It

For a small business it is seemingly not what you know but who you know. It’s all about the contacts, building relationships and taking advantage of the dimensions of your business relative to your larger competitors!

LinkedIn’s mission is to connect the world’s professionals supporting increased productivity and success.

Set up 6 years ago it has achieved continuous monumental success by linking over 70 million professionals worldwide across 180 countries and 157 industries with approximately 3 million new professionals joining every month which is the equivalent to 1 joining every second!

There are now over 675,000 groups, with 1,500 new groups being formed every day and 1million status updates every week. The UK has the largest membership in comparison to its European counterparts with over 4 million professionals signed up to the network.

When you sign up you build a profile, add you C.V and information about your experience, expertise, interests, accomplishments and qualifications. From there you can begin to construct your network, searching for people you know first and foremost and from their connecting with additional professionals through invitations, introductions and links.

When searching for people you know consult your outlook contacts or business cards and carry out a quick search for them as well as anybody you may have worked for or with, in the past or that you are seeking to work with in the future.

The whole point of LinkedIn is to network, get to know people in your vertical, advertise job posts or seek out employment, offer your services or advice, create discussions and gain insight that you may otherwise remain oblivious too.

For small businesses it removes obstacles such as geographical isolation and time constraints creating a level playing field with larger competitors. Everything is done online which means that networking can be done almost anywhere and anytime whenever the time is available.

Through making valuable connections professionals can build their brand and find new opportunities.

The How To: First Steps into the World of Social Media

Gaining support and encouragement from SAP as we enter the world of social media via monthly webinars has been fantastic and we continue to look forward to the forthcoming sessions as we embrace opportunities and elements of the landscape which haven’t yet been discovered by us.

Here are some of the tips that I’d like to share from the first two webinars which I’ve found effective and should help you on your way to making the first few steps into the world of social media.

Listen and Learn - The first step is to begin to observe what your customers and competitors are saying on the various social media platforms. Take your time and start with one platform; don’t take on them all at the same time because your likely to become overwhelmed.

Enable - Join or follow a forum and begin to comment as you gain confidence. This is the first step of social media interaction.

Connect - Reach out to those who have influence and seek to connect with your customers, competitors and all your business partners.

A useful blog post which may be of interest and use to those interested in SAP Business One connecting and engaging with SAP and other SAP Business One leading professionals and users from Intelligent B1 is "SAP in the World of Social Media".

To Do List Month One

•Check on main competitors.
•Check on customers.
•Find a niche social network and blog in your vertical; join and follow respectively.
•Respond to comments and queries if people looking for advice.

Note: If you’re a member of twitter use links shared by those you are following to find relevant and interesting blogs to follow.

Another useful and insightful blog post from Intelligent B1 is "Where to Start in the World of Social Media

To Do List Month Two

•Join LinkedIn and set up or check out your Company Profile.
•Join relevant groups and begin to interact with other professionals in your verticals.
•Present your Company’s unique message.
•Look at how you might encourage your audience to seek advice and put forward their queries via social media platforms in order to improve your service and products proffered.

Have Fun! The most valuable bit of advice is to enjoy it! If you’re not enjoying it your audience is unlikely to be inspired or motivated to engage with you and it’s also unlikely to last if it’s not something which you take pleasure in.

The Low Down on E-Commerce

There is an increased impetus for companies to establish an online presence with recognition that absence can hinder growth and erode competitiveness.

The simplicity of it all may be taken for granted as it involves and demands far more than the setting up of a website and merely selling your products and services. Many of the same challenges faced on the high street are similar particularly in terms of attracting visitors to your site.

As with traditional retailing you are still looking for and should be measuring footfall, conversion rates and average transaction values.
One of the most significant and difficult challenges is how to market your website as opposed to traditional retailing where the human element can influence the marketing and sale of products to a great extent. Email marketing, affiliate schemes, search engine ‘pay per clicks’ and online PR all require different skill sets to traditional retailing.

Businesses are likely to be more geared up traditionally for replenishing stores and now also need to introduce processes that require them to fulfill individual orders. As the processes and systems requirements are actually very different many retailers end up outsourcing this aspect to specialist providers.

The design of the site is of enormous importance. With traditional retailing you are likely to spend a significant amount of time and money on planning the shop fit and layout and the same care and attention should be paid to the design of the website.

Websites which are easy to navigate are more likely to be returned too; online retailing is meant to support the customer in making the purchasing process hassle free and the website design should reflect this.

A website may not need a full-time sales manager, but it will need someone to take charge of it and make sure it’s working, updated frequently and remains relevant – fundamental issues that a surprising amount of people overlook.

E-Commerce Check List
1.Ensure your website is visually appealing, simple and easy to navigate
2.Plan the marketing of the site and seek outside advice and expertise where necessary
3.Consistently update and refresh content for SEO
4.Ensure that your online presence is given as much care and attention if not more than your high street presence

E-Commerce should be given priority over high street presence as it is the tool which allows you direct 24 hour access to your customers where they can browse and shop at their leisure from the comfort of their own homes. Making a good impression is vital if they are to return to your website and is likely to influence their perception of your organisation as whole.

Maximise your ERP Solution by Measuring ROI

According to a report issued by the Aberdeen Group ROI of ERP Software is gaining increasing attention from SMEs of have implemented solutions. The focus has shifted since a survey they carried out at the beginning of 2007 when 32% of companies never estimated ROI to justify ERP projects and 33% never measured the actual return on those investments.

The top strategic actions which are of importance in achieving optimum ROI and the full benefits from ERP are seen to be standardising and accelerating business processes, and providing visibility to business processes across functions and departments.

While many companies now feel compelled to make an investment in ERP as a necessary infrastructure to support their business, best practices for maximising the benefits from such a solution involve the measurement of the reduction in costs, improvement in schedule performance and customer satisfaction, and the ability to redeploy employees to add more value to the organisation.

Best in Class companies are 33% more likely to utilise ROI estimates to justify ERP projects than Laggards and 71% more likely to measure the results when completed. While 100% of Best in Class companies use ROI estimates to justify ERP projects costs, they do not all come under the same level of scrutiny.

Replacement activity was cited as requiring the most scrutiny as an existing ERP solution is presumably already bringing value to the enterprise, while a new purchase will be most likely replacing a need that has not been previously satisfied.

The most regularly suggested reason for not measuring ROI is that it is too
difficult to measure. The most successful ERP implementations have clear objectives which should be easily quantified and measured so that full gains can be realised.
24% of SMEs point to a lack of tools to measure ROI, however, most if not all of the tools are available within the application for which the ROI is being measured.

While ERP plays a supporting role in creating and expanding sales channels and in developing strategic partnerships, it is essential to enabling improved business execution, the top strategy in aggregate across companies of all sizes.