Enhance SAP Business One with Intelligent Email

Intelligent Email provides email functionality for SAP Business One.

Customers are becoming more Internet focused and web dependent and are more and more likely to reach out to you via email. By utilising online communications you can reduce service costs of your business and enhance customer relationships by speeding up response times and providing documents requested by them in a timelier manner.

The key features include:

Single and Batch Delivery of Statements via email

Email of Marketing Documents quickly and easily

Batch Delivery of Marketing documents

Update of status field to email once document has been sent

Intelligent Email will support you and your business in driving down the cost of sending out statements, allowing you to quickly send out copy statements and invoices, as well as facilitating batch advance delivery notification and various other documents to improve customer service.

Intelligent Email works with a substantial number of marketing documents and statements which include the following:

Sales Quote Purchase Order
Sales Order Good Receipt
Sales Delivery Purchase Return
Sales Invoice Purchase Invoice
Sales Credit Note Purchase Credit Note
Sales Return Purchase Payment
Sales Statement Service Call
Sales Receipt Service Contract

To find out more visit: www.beabetterbusiness.net
Or Check out our Intelligent Email Release 1 youtube demo video on our youtube channel Intelligent B1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHHJT63aOVE

Social Media Best Practice

Our efforts at Intelligent Information Systems have been noted in relation to our social media practice. Within this months SAP Social Media Webinar broadcast to channel partners the spotlight was put on Intelligent Information Systems as we were given a mention for our endeavours.

Our Social Media Best Practice has thus far has involved the following:

Establishing the platforms that we wanted to create a presence.

Forming a Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn company page as well as a LinkedIn company group.

Finding our customers and competitors on the various platforms.

Setting up a company blog and you tube channel and regularly updating it with relevant and insightful content.

Integrating all the social media platforms, and using Tweetdeck to update them all at once.

Ensuring that our posts across the various platforms and sites remain consistent.

Joining and interacting with groups and blogs within our customer verticals, as well as within areas of interest to us most notably SAP and SAP Business One.

Our next step is to begin to make use of the free online tools to monitor our social media presence; we shall keep you updated!

There are lots of integration tools and apps available on the different platforms and branding options. We have put a lot of effort in to ensuring that we have made use of everything that is available. Check out or presence on the various sites via this blog page. Feedback, insight and tips are all very welcome!

Climbing the social media ladder – listening and learning

As promised we said we’d share our learning and insight gained from SAP in relation to social media and how to fully embrace every aspect of it, or as much as is relevant to your business. As an SME ourselves our learning couldn’t be more applicable to our partners and we feel it’s our duty to help you along the way!

The focus of the most recent webinar was on listening and learning. A recent area which I myself have been interested in, in terms of measuring our social media presence and improving and building upon it. We endeavour to become even more responsive to our customers and are seeking to use social media tools and the web as a whole to proactively engage with and stay in touch with our customers’ needs within the various verticals.

Evidently what has been brought to my attention is the fact that you can also use free online tools to determine how successful other marketing activity you have or are carrying out is by actively listening to the conversations that are being held across the web in relation to it. This insight could be even more valuable than asking customers direct questions and seeking feedback as it isn’t limited by specifics.

Are customers/businesses talking about their passions, pain or are they giving praise? The key buzz metrics to consider are noise and the level of it, sentiment, topics, where in terms of geographical or online locations, and who, whether it is users, industry experts or journalists involved in the conversations.

Some key tools which we are set to test and will provide feedback on once we have done so ourselves are Google Alerts, Social Mention, Delicious.com and Blog Pulse.

These are all free tools. There are paid for tools available from and including cymphony, visible technologies, radian social media monitoring and Nielsen buzz metrics. Though the insight from these may not be immediate they potentially provide more insight and support you in ensuring that you don’t just acquire data, you acquire information; interpreted data and knowledge!

ERP and BI combine forces and yield stronger benefits for SMEs

ERP’s role in providing visibility across functions and departments is where there is seemingly a strong connection with BI.

Business intelligence (BI) is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analysing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions.

ERP software is multi-module application software that integrates activities across functional departments, from product planning, parts purchasing, inventory control, product distribution, to order tracking. ERP software may include application modules for the finance, accounting and human resources aspects of a business.

So why do we need both?

ERP systems are known to produce a lot of data but not a lot of information. Data is facts and statistics where is information is data which is converted to knowledge; it’s interpreted data. BI facilitates the transformation of data to information.

Businesses are operating at an accelerated pace today forcing the need for speed in decision making but decision makers are also forced to work with an increasing amount of data.

In 2009 Aberdeen’s annual report revealed that 32% of those SME’s that have implemented their solution have extended their solution with BI or some analytical tool. Of all the SME’s surveyed, 31% had invested in some sort of BI or analytical tool, of which 51% had no ERP.

Both BI and ERP individually bring value to a business, but when married together the two produce a synergy by which the total value exceeds the sum of the parts.

As an SME the ideal solution is SAP Business One designed specifically to meet the needs of SMEs which can be integrated with Crystal reports.

The SAP Business One application together with the Crystal Reports offering from the SAP Business Objects portfolio, delivers compelling reporting functionality and information access to small businesses. With these offerings small businesses can get up to date intelligence to drive decision making.

To find out more visit: http://www.sap.com/solutions/sap-crystal-solutions/index.epx

Intelligent Information Systems are an SAP Gold Partner, delivering SAP Business One and Crystal Solutions. To find out more visit: www.beabetterbusiness.net

SMEs acquiring more customers with Twitter and Facebook

Small and midsize companies are figuring out how they can use social media to gain customers. Small businesses are acquiring more customers using Twitter and Facebook than large companies, even though large companies spend more money on so-called “social marketing.” This is recording to research carried out by Nielsen Co.

To ensure your small business doesn’t miss out get started by setting up a Twitter account, find your customers and ask them what they want. It’s that simple.

Small businesses know there customers which helps when it comes to your tweets and knowing what to say. You can also undergo market research by soliciting feedback about a new offering or design that you are considering.

For some small business owners, traditional advertising channels such as television, radio and newspapers are prohibitively expensive.
For others, the web is a medium more in tune with their potential customers. It provides an opportunity for small businesses to advertise on a level playing field with their larger counterparts.

While large companies usually try to accumulate a lot of Twitter followers, small businesses tend to be smarter and use the service to build relationships with people. A Twitter relationship means that you reply to all tweets to you, and you encourage your followers to send you private direct mail or “DM” messages whenever they want.

Another advantage small companies have over larger ones is that they can usually respond to Tweets more quickly. Larger companies normally have to go through layers of management to make a public comment, but smaller companies can respond on Twitter within a day or so, which means if something needs fixing, you can get to it faster than your larger competition.

You can also let some of your firm’s personality shine through. You don’t have to sound generic and overly professional like the big guys. Be friendly and personal. Research shows that the Twitter world is conversation-obsessed. Consumers spend almost half of their tweets on conversational messages.

Build up your relationships with your customers on twitter and when they are happy with your business, products and service they are sure to tweet their followers about it and potentially retweet your business tweets which will bolster word of mouth communications for your business.

SAP and StreamServe sign reseller agreement

SAP® Document Presentment by StreamServe Helps Companies Increase Operational Efficiencies While Enabling Enhanced and Targeted Communications With Customers

In an effort to help companies around the globe increase operational efficiencies while enhancing the way they communicate with customers. SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) and StreamServe, Inc., a leading provider of business communication solutions for document presentment and personalized customer communications, have agreed to offer StreamServe’s leading document automation solution as a solution extension from SAP. Available today, SAP is reselling StreamServe’s solution under the name “the SAP® Document Presentment application by StreamServe.”

SAP Document Presentment is an innovative solution that fully automates the generation and personalization of documents (e.g., billing statements) and communications from multiple enterprise applications to multiple output types, including print, e-mail, fax and mobile. With SAP Document Presentment, customers can deliver highly targeted communications to their customers, thereby providing an opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell new products and services.

“We have had much success using StreamServe’s document presentment software with our SAP system, and have found that the solutions work perfectly together in helping us to achieve our customer communication needs and improve the customer experience,” said Richard O’Brien, Marketing and Services manager, EDF Energy. “We are thrilled by this agreement, which we view as a natural one. By uniting the strengths of both companies, this offering further simplifies the process of whom the customer contacts regarding the sale, support and maintenance.”

To read the full press release visit the SAP Newsroom.
Source: SAP AG

Difficulty remembering your catalogue of passwords? You’re not alone!

Lost passwords are the biggest headache for IT helpdesks, according to a survey by
Diskeeper and research firm Vanson Bourne.

The survey showed 55% of 100 IT directors across the financial services, manufacturing and retail sectors cited lost passwords as the top cause for complaints to IT helpdesks.

The retail, distribution and transport sectors have the highest number of lost password complaints with 60% of IT directors citing the problem as the most common. Computer freezes and crashes were the biggest grievance for 60% of those surveyed in the financial services sector.

Nigel Stanley, practice leader in security at Bloor Research, believes passwords should be replaced with pass-phrases. "The key problem [for IT helpdesks] is the Monday morning reset menace. This is made worse by companies forcing resets every month or so on cycle. Some self-help password reset programmes are quite useful but the uptake isn't massive" he said.

Source: Computer Weekly

Tips for ensuring you never forget your passwords

Keep a top passwords list
Make a short list of the top 5-10 passwords that you need in case your computer crashes. These are the passwords which are crucial for you to remember. Keep the list in safe yet convenient place away from your computer, perhaps in your wallet. You should also make sure someone you trust—for example, your spouse, or a business partner—knows how to find this list. If anything happened to you, it might be necessary for a loved one or an associate to access your accounts.

Keep a copy online
Keep a copy of passwords on a secure location online. As long as you use the OS X keychain or 1Password files, your passwords are securely encrypted, so you can safely store them online without worrying that someone could get at them without your permission—as long as the password you used to secure your keychain is a good one!

Access Passwords from anywhere
1Password lets you export your data as an encrypted Web page. If you put this page in a location where you can access it online, you can get at all your passwords from anywhere in the world while still keeping them safely encrypted.

Avoid gibberish or bizarre character combinations
While character combinations such as “dfFe#*23” might be hard to guess, they are also difficult to remember. These passwords are less susceptible to brute-force attacks, but such activity will be combated in other ways, such as limits on incorrect logon attempts.

Don’t change the password too frequently
You are more likely to forget a password if you only use it for a short period of time. A good average for changing your passwords is 90 to 120 days.

Don’t use an excessively long password
Try not to use the entire alphabet or the preamble to the Constitution as a password. Depending on the system, some passwords have a maximum and minimum length. Pick something that you can easily remember and type.

Avoid ERP Setbacks

Here are some guidelines from companies that have gotten it right:

CREATE A COMMON LANGUAGE. Frame the project as an organisational transformation, not an IT project. Make sure everyone in your organization understands the nature and goals of the ERP initiative, particularly in the early stages. Many companies battle their own history and legacy of past success in driving change.

APPLY THE 80/20 RULE. Focus on transforming the business activities that matter most to your organisation. Many of the companies in our study turned their ERP projects around only after recognizing that 80% of their business was driven by 20% of their business processes.

KEEP THE BEST OF THE OLD, DISCARD THE WORST OF THE NEW. Don't change things just for the sake of changing them. Preserve the activities and technologies that set your organisation apart and that customers like. Embrace only "new" things that will help move your business forward.

DEVELOP ENTERPRISE METRICS. Measure the performance of your organization as a whole to determine whether ERP is working. Finding improvement in certain business units doesn't necessarily mean your organisation has become more efficient overall.

PLAN FOR THE LONG HAUL. Cast the ERP effort as a long-term project, not a quick fix. ERP is a long, arduous and expensive process, but when executed properly, the potential payback is great.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Albert H. Segars and Dave Chatterjee

SMEs Resolutely Behind VOIP… but why?

A recent survey from IBISWORLD revealed that VOIP services are among the top IT technologies with an expansion of 20.1% in spite of an overall decreased growth rate in the IT sector.

“VOIP is an acronym for Voice Over Internet Protocol, or in more common terms phone service over the Internet. If you have a reasonable quality Internet connection you can get phone service delivered through your Internet connection instead of from your local phone company.”

VOIP Info

Colin Duffy chief executive of UK VOIP provider, Voipfone, cited the advent of the technology in 2008 as bringing advanced telephony features to SMEs, which were previously only available to big companies for tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Mass market penetration is now being achieved not just with large enterprises but with companies with as little as 20 employees. This rise in demand with SMEs was borne out by a recent survey carried out by Star which revealed that, amongst those businesses with 100 employees or less, 41% have already deployed VoIP technology since it was first introduced in the late 1990’s.

Increasingly, organisations require telephony systems which are not only cost effective but can help to deliver better customer services and enhance productivity. This is where VoIP can really deliver over traditional PBX systems. Beyond what is perhaps the most compelling reason, cheaper calls, there are a number of factors driving the demand.

As VoIP is based on software rather than hardware, it can be easier to maintain, upgrade and scale up or down. With IP telephony, SMEs can also add functionality and flexibility to their communications to deliver an enhanced level of customer service, such as directly connecting web users with customer support staff and using automated functions such as call forwarding and three-way calling, all of which are rapidly becoming essential tools in our 24/7/365 world.

VoIP is also the route to more advanced applications that converge together, much like the usually touted Unified Communications philosophy. What this actually means is that we are seeing facilities like ‘presence’, mobility solutions and rich-media conferencing converging voice, data, application and video technologies and services.

Sources: SME Web; Techwatch; VOIP Info

IBERIA Bank Improves Planning and Forecasting with SAP ERP Management Solution

Yesterday SAP announced IBERIABANK uses its enterprise performance management (EPM) solutions to improve financial forecasting, reporting and budgeting processes, as well as support the company’s rapid geographic expansion. Since implementation in 2004, the solutions have enabled IBERIABANK to analyze the profitability of individual bank branches, products and clients, and more readily meet balance sheet and liquidity requirements.

Source SAP AG

Over the past several years, IBERIABANK has grown from $2 billion to more than $10 billion in assets. Today, it relies on the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Planning and Consolidation application, version for the Microsoft platform, to support the accurate forecasting necessary for this growth, and to streamline its budget and financial reporting processes. The application has allowed IBERIABANK to eliminate the use of standalone spreadsheets, significantly cutting the time needed for forecasting and analysis and improving accuracy – even as reporting needs have grown. Though the bank's organizational structure has grown more complex, time spent on quarterly forecasting has been reduced by one-third and financial closing periods have been cut by three days. The company has also benefitted from the application's ease of use.

There are more than 125 IBERIABANK users of SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation – including the entire executive team and three different levels of managers – and the company plans to continue expanding its user-base. In the application, users create additional financial and product dimensions; include analyses of credit exposures and past-due accounts by individual market to help banks decide where they should deploy resources, pursue opportunities or allocate staff; and run specific reporting for loan officers in a fraction of the time. All in all, IBERIABANK has cut three days from its financial close cycle and reduced the forecasting process by four weeks.

Are SMEs missing out on the benefits of the cloud?

SMEs appear to remain unconvinced that they should consider Cloud and Cloud-Like alternatives.

Independent research, commissioned by Rise, investigated opinions among small businesses towards cloud computing. It found only 42% of small businesses have heard of cloud computing and as many as a quarter (26%) of those who have heard of it, said they don't really know what it is.

Of those who have heard of Cloud Computing, 26% said they are skeptical about its benefits and only 4% of small businesses said they use Cloud Computing and are happy with it.

The hype around Cloud Computing could be the issue in terms of assuring SMEs of the true benefits that they could potentially yield.

What is cloud computing and why should SMEs be interested?

“Cloud computing means that instead of all the computer hardware and software you're using sitting on your desktop, or somewhere inside your company's network, it's provided for you as a service by another company and accessed over the Internet, usually in a completely seamless way.”

Chris Woodford, 2009

Here are some of the cited advantages from a number of sources.

Lowered Costs – Cloud Computing offers tremendous advantages to small and medium size business in terms of reduced costs. You pay for what you use.

Greater level of security - Cloud computing can be more secure than traditional IT. It's all about economies of scale - many established cloud suppliers employ leading security experts, invest vast amounts of money into securing their applications and develop technology beyond the means of any small business.

Scalable Storage Options – You can scale your companies storage needs seamlessly rather than having to go out and purchase expensive hardware.

Automatic Updates – There is no need for IT to worry about paying for future updates in terms of software and hardware.

Remote Access – Employees can access information wherever they are, rather than having to remain stationary much of the time.

Green Computing - Cloud Computing uses less energy than traditional data centers which is important to many in this day and age.

Ease of Implementation – Without the need for implementation of hardware and various other components which can take several hours. You can be running your business in almost as much time as it takes to setup a facebook account.

Skilled Vendors - Would you rather these guys manage and protect your data – Microsoft, Google, IBM, Yahoo, Sales Force and Amazon or an incompetent over paid IT staff?

Response time – Cloud computing accomplishes a better response time in most cases than your standard server hardware.

Even playing field for small startups – This allows small companies to compete more effectively with some of the larger businesses. This balances the playing field.

A more collaborative way of working - Using cloud computing applications, people can work more closely together, accessing and working in the same documents in real time - without the need for hundreds of emails with attachments.

Performance and Durability - Run your websites and saas applications at a much faster rate with the benefits of using a much more durable service.

Improve Customer Satisfaction and Sales - Cloud computing offers opportunities for businesses to take full advantage of the latest user-friendly marketing and sales tools available on the Web with the hassles and pains of software installations and maintenance.

Social Media Made Easy - Integration and Monitoring

The world of social media is vast and your involvement can be time consuming. Each feature and platform is new to me and integrating each element is a key way in which I recognise I can save time. The tools are available so why not use them!

TweetDeck is a desktop application which allows you to readily update your different social media accounts via one platform as well as monitor the activities of your friends and networks across the various platforms within which you have a presence once the accounts have been linked in and verified.

TweetDeck offers an excellent reply capability. Unlike the Twitter web site, TweetDeck doesn't only show you replies that start with @yourusername—it shows you any tweet that contains @yourusername anywhere in the body. Similarly, it can show you a constantly updating search for a particular term, like a search for "Lifehacker." The more modules you add to TweetDeck, the wider it gets.

It’s easy to use, customised to your needs and can be minimised to allow you to concentrate on your work whilst supplying you with updates in the same fashion as your outlook account.

Hootsuite is another desktop application which is comparable to Tweetdeck.

Ping.fm is tool which can help you deal with social media updates. As with TweetDeck you can post one update at Ping.fm which can be spread across the various social media sites; contacting them simultaneously. Updates can be made from your browser via the ping.fm dashboard, email or via SMS or if you are using the Twitter iPhone App Tweetie you can also integrate ping.fm.

As you become involved in the various platforms you are sure to be interested in how it is supporting your company or brands presence across the web. How Sociable and Social Mention are sites which readily condense and assimilate all this information for you across the whole web.

How Sociable is a website which can be used to readily assess the visibility of your brand or company across the web. It only takes minutes, sometimes seconds to acquire the data and you can then drill down to see where you have been mentioned within which sites and in what context.

When you input the name of your brand or company you receive a visibility score once it’s processed. The score is calculated based on benchmark results which were acquired using one globally recognised brand which was given a score of 1000. To ensure that even small, local brands would be recognised they introduced a sliding scale.

Keep an eye on your progress by regularly checking your score.

Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information.
It allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web's social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc…

Make your life easier and monitor your progress!

Facebook Questions Supplies Huge Opportunities for SMEs

Facebook has begun the rollout of its new feature, Facebook Questions. While online Question and Answer services are not exactly new, Facebook’s community of 500 million users adds a new dynamic to the space and could potentially create an exciting opportunity for small businesses.

“Ask Question” is now a feature of the Publisher, meaning Facebook places it on the same level as status updates, posting photos and sharing links. It’s also integrated on Facebook Pages, where a new “Questions” tab lets users ask questions directly on the Page that can be answered by Page admins or fans.

A Facebook blog post explained the service: “Millions of people ask their friends questions on Facebook every day. What new music should I listen to? Where’s the best sushi place in town? How do I learn to play the piano? With this new application, you can get a broader set of answers and learn valuable information from people knowledgeable on a range of topics.”

Some of the features that Questions will include will offer an opportunity to SMEs. For example, you will be able to create public polls within Questions. This means that SMEs will be able to get feedback on their products and services very quickly, and more importantly for free.

Another feature that will have a definite impact on SMEs is that you will be able to respond to questions about your business with your business name. In other words, if you have created a page for your business, ‘John’s Café’ you will be able to answer questions with your page profile. This allows anyone who comes across the question to visit your businesses page rather than your personal profile.

Also when you pose a question it can be easily spread to whom you like. If you tag it with a certain topic category, the question will be posed to all those users who have expressed an interest in the topic.

Facebook questions is only available to a limited number of users at this time but
Facebook developers are committed to making it available to all users as quickly and proficiently as possible as they gain feedback from their beta testers.

SAP proves a success for retail giant Walmart

SAP financial tools were sought after by Walmart having realised that they needed to replace their financial systems with a more scalable and flexible one.

Walmart is pushing ahead with the implementation of SAP financial tools across their global locations having successfully piloted the installation at Asda in the UK.

Asda reported improved financial reporting ability which has confirmed that Walmart’s objectives for implementing SAP financial tools can be achieved.

The SAP system replaces Walmart’s legacy, in-house developed system, which had grown over 30 years.

“The SAP implementation gave us the ability to improve our methodology for valuing inventory under the retail method of inventory accounting,” Walmart said in its financial report. “We have improved our ability to measure inventory at more granular levels.”

Meanwhile, Doug McMillon, Walmart’s international president and CEO, said: “In the United Kingdom, Asda continues to make good progress towards their strategic goals.”

“Walmart realised they needed to replace their financial systems for a more scalable and flexible one, “said David Dixon, SAP Programme Manager at Asda.

“It selected the UK to be the pilot for the global rollout because we are a reasonable size, second to the US in terms of business size, and language wasn’t a barrier. They also felt it [Asda] was a willing business.”

“The main rationale [behind the SAP rollout] was to have a ‘one version of the truth’ approach, to standardise and gain a degree of control around the world,” said Dixon, who added that one of the biggest challenges of the implementation was connecting the system to the global business.

Dixon said that the SAP system has introduced a number of benefits to Asda. “We have now reduced the time to close at the end of the month, we have got a more flexible and streamlined payment process and we have got improved reporting. We have also seen efficiency and control improvements,” he explained.

Asda were recognised by SAP in May of this year for their successful implementation and the approach they had taken. They were the gold winners within the Large Implementation category.

“Strong quality project planning pervaded the entire process and throughout the implementation the plan was matched to actual activity every step of the way. Asda Stores Ltd also agreed pre-defined success measures with all parties involved to ensure that everyone was working towards a common goal. These success measures were met and the judges considered the overall quality planning processes exemplary.”
SAP News

Adapted: Computer Weekly