Archive for November, 2007

Database Servers: The Backbone of Your Business

Regardless of the size or the type of your organisation, your organisation most probably has a database to handle your organisation’s data storage needs.  Your database is critical to the day-to-day operations of your information management systems because it acts as the repository for everyone’s data.  This makes it all the more important to have a database server that will allow employees, customers and management to access and manipulate the appropriate sets of data.

What are Database Servers?

In a nutshell, database servers act as the interface between the actual database and the programs or people that need to access the data that the database holds.  The larger your company, the more sophisticated your database server needs to be because of all the extra duties it will perform.

Database servers don’t just allow users to access the data in your databases.  They also disallow users from accessing certain sets of data, in that database servers are the ones that enforce permissions and limit what data certain users can view and manipulate.  It also allows users to access the database from several different computers and using different clients and programs.

Why are Database Servers So Important?

Database servers are practically what allow your staff, your management and your clients to access the contents of the database.  After all, what use is a great repository of information if no one were able to access it?

Its second importance is as a regulator.  Remember that one of the goals of information management is getting the right information to the right people at the right place at the right time.  With its functions of indexing for better searching, enforcing permissions (effectively limiting who can access which sets of data) and facilitating access to the database from different computers and programs, it’s a critical piece of information management equipment that your database cannot go without.

The Benefits of Using a Database Server

Aside from all its functions that are necessary to your daily information management needs, data servers offer a whole host of benefits that might just convince even a non-technical organisation to get a database server for themselves.

Database servers do all the complicated and processor-intensive stuff – indexing, searching, data analysis and sorting, among others – on the server side, so only a single query needs to go from the client side in order to receive a response from the server.  This increases productivity and reduces the bandwidth needed for daily operations, especially in a networked office.  Your investment in powerful computers (which is, incidentally, a big expense) is also limited to the sever hardware itself.

Database servers process all the data that passes through them.  That means compressing, indexing or otherwise optimising the data that go in and out of the database.  This feature makes for a more organised database (thus maximising the storage space) and more optimised returns to queries from the client side.  It ensures that the client side gets only the data needed or requested, so the lines aren’t cluttered up unnecessarily.

Outsourcing: The Good, the Bad and the Horrible

Outsourcing has become a popular means of hiring people for a certain project or aspect of the business which is normally taken care of in-house.  Outsourcing is a viable alternative to hiring your own workers since you only pay for the results yet do not have to worry about (nor spend money on) how such results are achieved.

Nonetheless, while it is true that outsourcing has its advantages, there are a few horror stories related to outsourcing that could make you think twice about doing it yourself.  Here is the good, the bad and the horrible side to outsourcing.

The Good 

1.  Lesser cost – The biggest benefit that you can realise out of outsourcing is the savings.  Getting freelancers or an independent provider/supplier for your projects whether long-term or short-term is cheaper by far than hiring newbies to take care of business or hiring more staff.

2.  Time-effective – It will also free up a considerable amount of time for you since someone else will be taking care of what you would normally include in your agenda on a regular basis.  While you still need to confer with your outsourced service provider, you can do so at your convenience.

3.  Less pressure – You will also be under less stress and pressure if you hire freelancers or independent service providers/suppliers because they will do the worrying for you and troubleshoot as necessary.

5.  Shared responsibility – Outsourcing will give your outsourced provider the shared responsibility of making the team work excellently to satisfy your customers.  It’s your job to choose the best providers and it’s their job to prove to you that they are indeed the best.

The Bad 

1.  Less control – Outsourcing means you don’t control the process, only the outcome of the projects that you have commissioned to your independent contractor.  You don’t have much say on how your contractors will accomplish their work – only that they do so.  Thus, if you are a perpetual worrier who needs to be continually apprised of progress, you’ll have a hard time dealing with freelancers who report in only once the job is finished.

2.  No loyalty – Freelancers get as many clients as possible without considering whether they are competitors or not; hence, their loyalty towards your brand or company could be divided.

The Horrible 

1.  Poor service quality – Unfortunately, some companies jump in the outsourcing bandwagon without really considering all possibilities hence, they get the most horrible type of freelancers around and the most unsatisfactory output.  Bear in mind that your work ethics/attitude are different from others’ so your call for excellence may not be met with the same outstanding results.

2.  You don’t get what you paid for – This is not similar to poor service quality, this is more of getting what you never talked about.  While people may promise you the moon to sign you up as a client, sometimes they will not deliver what has been agreed upon and instead do something else that could ruin your operations and reputation.

3.  Security Risk – Since you have not much control over the process of “production” whether of goods or services, there are security issues that you have to deal with.  For instance, if you are outsourcing transcription work, there’s a risk that confidential or sensitive information can fall at the wrong hands.

Information Management: What Is It?

With the advent of computers as storage for information and media for information exchange like the internet, a whole host of buzzwords have popped up surrounding the methods for handling information.  Terms like information technology (IT) and information and communication technology (ICT) are just some of the dozens of terms spawned by advances in computing and communication technology.

 

A Term Vague to Many

Information management is exactly like the two terms above.  It was born out of a need to manage the increasing amount of data at the disposal of an organisation, and different people have varying definitions for it.  The latter was probably a result of the wide scope of the term, as we will explore later.

 

Information management refers to the collection, handling and distribution of data and content from different sources and to different recipients or audiences.  Information management, in the context of an organisation, covers how the information is organised, processed and distributed or delivered.

The task of information management has evolved from the simple paper filing and storage of the 1970’s to a more advanced concept in the 1990’s, one that involved not just computers but entire computer systems.  This evolution first happened when the common means for storage transferred from paper to electronic media.  The shift made the task more difficult because more technologies had to be understood by the one who managed the information – the information manager – more than mere ink and paper.  The information management job became even more complex as networks, particularly the internet, emerged and became prevalent within and across organisations.

 

The Tasks of an Information Manager

Any information manager has to be able to do a variety of tasks that accomplish the goals of information management that were enumerated above, that is, the collection, handling and distribution of data.  The phrase “getting the right information to the right person at the right place at the right time” is quite a popular way of summing up the goals and duties of any information manager and, for that matter, any information management system.

 

Information managers have to be able to understand three things:  the technology at work, the concepts in play and the people involved.  The first one relates to the great and growing number of technologies used in information management.  That could include things like computers, terminals, servers and databases.  The second one relates to the necessary understanding of how ideas are used and processed, especially in a workplace or organisational environment.  The third one relates to the knowledge of the people who need to have access to the appropriate information and how they can and will use it.

 

Information management, as a field of study, covers many topics, branches and disciplines of management and computer science.  To some extent, it attempts to bridge the gap between raw information and the people who will ultimately use it.  In the same way that any information management system must be able to do that sufficiently, so must the information manager who will implement and maintain that same system.

Business Loans: What a Lender Is Looking For

If you’re starting up a business, you’ll need some capital to begin with.  Perhaps you already have a going concern but now you need money for expansion.  In both cases, you may have to visit the bank or other lending institutions to borrow the necessary funds.

You have to maximise the chance that the lender will be persuaded to lend you money.  Just as lenders pitch themselves as good places to get money from, now you have to convince them that you’re a good lending risk for them.  What can you do?

1)  Dress the Part

Let’s say you’re a bank officer and you’ve been assigned to review two applicants filing for business loans.  In ambles the first one, dressed in torn jeans and none-too-clean uppers, with a discernable lack of personal hygiene detectable from twenty feet away.  The second one walks in briskly, neatly dressed in a three-piece suit, and favours you with a friendly, if somewhat nervous, smile.  Stop.  Off the bat, which person would you be inclined to lend money to?

There’s no doubt that there’s more to first impressions and appearances.  Miscommunication, subterfuge and fraud do exist, so it’s impossible to be dogmatic about appearances.  Why give the lender a bad impression, though, when you can so easily make a good one?

2)  Make a Plan, Know the Details

A lender is more likely to be impressed by a prospective borrower who has done his/her homework.  So if during the course of the interview a borrower brings out a couple of spreadsheets and presents a well-thought-out business plan which satisfactorily answers the lender’s questions of “Who are you, why do you want to borrow money, why should we lend you money, how are you going to spend the money we’ll lend you, and how can we be sure you’re not going to throw it away on some hare-brained scheme?”, he might stand a chance of getting his loan.  If, in contrast, another borrower who’s asked the same questions can’t come up with definite answers, then his chances of getting a loan will get significantly lowered.

3)  Anticipate the questions you’ll be asked and have your answers ready.

Lenders also want to look at financial statements.  They want to know what they’re getting into, so they will likely ask for information such as personal financial statements and tax returns as well.  A borrower who is ready to provide that quickly is bound to impress a lender favourably.

4)  Know the Lender

Before you borrow, find the answer to questions like the following:

-What sort of businesses does the lender usually deal with?
- How long has the lender been in business?
- Have the lender’s clients been more consumer or commercial in nature?
- Is the lender affiliated in any way with businesses related to your own?

By so doing, you may find information that will help you choose the right lending firm for your business.

5)  Have Long Relationship, Win Leverage

A good standing with your bank could be a factor in helping you obtain a business loan, as you would then represent more of a known quantity.  A lender will want a client whom they can work with on a long-term basis, and you should as well.

5 Ways to Handle Bad Debts

Debt Affects Everyone

More and more families are saddled with debt nowadays.  The average American family is in debt to the tune of $12,000, the average UK family to around £8,800 sans mortgage.  Even students are getting affected, with those attending various courses having debts ranging from $8,000 to over $20,000.  Businessmen are in no way exempt to the general trend towards indebtedness.  However, their debts usually include loans which were taken out for capital or operational expenses.

Five Ways to Deal with Bad Debt

Why does bad debt happen to good people?  The answers vary widely.  If you’re one of the people saddled with this debt, all is not lost.  There are still ways of getting out from under that crushing burden and getting back on track.

1)  Take stock of your cash flow.  Some entrepreneurs with debt problems don’t know how much they’re spending, sometimes not even how much they’re really earning.  The first step towards handling debt is to find out how much money is coming in (your income), and how much is going out (operational expenses, debt servicing, etc.).  This information is needed so that you can figure out a) how to make “inflow” greater than “outflow” and b) how much more you need to increase inflow or how much more outflow you need to reduce to make this a reality.

2)  Establish certain fiscal guidelines to live by.  Establish a maximum amount you can spend, and keep below it.  No ifs or buts.

3)  Start cutting down on outgoing money.  Personally, this means reducing the number of times you go to the mall, brown-bagging lunch to work, commuting instead of driving, halting non-essential expenditures like subscriptions and vanity purchases, etc.  For your business, this is streamlining operations so you spend less to achieve the same business ends.

4)  Think about restructuring your debt, and if that can help you.  You have various options available to you.  One is to talk to your creditors and see if they’ll agree to lower your payment rates.  This can free up more money per month, at the cost of extending the loan lifetime.  Another possible option is to take money from any investments you have, such as an idle property you haven’t found use for yet and use these to pay off your high-interest debts.

You could also consolidate your loans to obtain a lower interest rate and reduce your payments each month.  Still another possible debt payment scheme is to snowball your debt, meaning you pay off the smallest debt first, followed by the next-smallest, and so on.  This is a way to keep motivated paying debts, as you see those amounts disappear one by one.  Take note, if you obtain the services of a credit repair company, you may get a negative mark on your credit history.

5)  Discuss your options with an advisor.  Look for a reputable one and he or she may be able to help you make your repayments more manageable.  Ultimately, though, you’ll have to be the one to follow through with any suggestions the advisor might make.

When Markets Turn: 7 Ways to Batten down the Hatches

The bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble isn’t something new – or unique. There have been other inversions related to the money market before. The 1930s stock market crash, the reverses of 1975 and 1982, the 1987 debacle, the late 1990s dot-com speculation all follow the pattern of greed and fear, which some people say are the only two emotions governing the movement of stocks. When people want more, safeguards are bypassed and the soundness of investments and products is overlooked in favour of speculation. The downturn that follows can be considered a sort of correction, albeit a drastic one.

We’ve already seen and are continuing to see the effects of the present financial crisis. Though pretty small in terms of actual damage done, the subprime crash has far-reaching effects that threaten to depress not just financial markets, but other fields of business as well. What can you, as a business owner, do in order to ride out the storms that are coming?

Ways to Ride Out a Downturn

#1 Plan, Analyse, Re-Plan

When times get difficult, it’s the companies that don’t pay attention to the basics which flounder. A business with an up-to-date contingency program can devise strategies to cope with unexpected turns and losses. It’s vital to have a business plan which addresses bad times, which answer a lot of “what if” questions. What if the cost of raw materials rises? What if we lose our number one customer?

The frequent reappraisal of your company’s plans can also serve to alert you to potential danger, such as delinquent accounts, declining margins, and so on.

#2 Maintain Relationships

In hard times, you’ll need all the goodwill that you can get from your clients, suppliers, networked agencies, etc.

#3 Focus on Business

#4 Stay Trim, Stay Fit and Save Money

When times are good, people tend to not scrutinise costs too much and to stop looking for ways to save money. This results in cost inflation. In personal health, it’s much healthier to stay at a moderate weight than pig out and then go on a crash diet. The same goes for companies as well. When a downturn comes knocking on your door, it’s important not to get caught owing a lot of money.

#5 Adjust and Adapt

#6 Diversify

#7 Look for New Opportunities

To do well during a downturn, you have to stay focused on the most important elements necessary to a business such as accounts receivable, costs, debts, and cash flow.

A downturn can actually be a time for well-positioned companies to accrue market share. While everyone else is getting their heads down and concentrating on the essentials needed to ride out the storm, the savvy entrepreneur can be capturing markets by redefining his/her service or introducing new products. The best thing about it is the fact that competitors can’t or won’t be able to respond in kind.

Don’t get caught waiting for a return to the old market. Each downturn leaves the business environment changed, in ways that are sometimes unpredictable. It’s much better to base your future actions on the premise that future methods of doing business will not be the same. Markets will shift, and opportunities will arise elsewhere. Each downturn is, after all, an episode in the continuing evolution of business markets and models.

Incorporating Your Business: Is This the Right Move?

Whether you run a small business from your kitchen all by your lonesome or you have an office somewhere else with a couple of people working for you, getting your business incorporated could be your wisest business decision yet as incorporation can protect your business and assets. If you doubt this little piece of wisdom, ask your accountant (if you have one) or a financial advisor. Ask other businessmen like you, if you want. You’ll be sure to get the same answer.

Should You Go for It?

Generally, the answer is yes.

Incorporating is still the way to go if you want to protect your personal assets from creditors. Your corporation will be the only one liable to creditors should your business go bankrupt or should one of your clients sue your company for whatever legal reason.

If you are the sole owner of your business, you will be held accountable for all payables, debts, loans, and financial obligations that your business has incurred. Hence, your personal assets or savings are at stake in a sole proprietorship or a simple partnership business structure. That is, when your business goes bust, you (and your partner, if you have one) go bust along with it.

If you incorporate, however, your liability technically becomes limited to those assets and monies that you have invested in your business – no more and no less. Your business loans are payable by your business, not by yourself. Thus, if a time comes when you are no longer able to sustain payments to your business loans, your corporation’s assets may be liquidated to come up with the payments, but assets that you personally own will be left alone.

If you incorporate, moreover, your company’s tax obligations are payable by your company, not by yourself. Although this may seem mere splitting hairs to you, there really is a great advantage to separating your business dues from personal ones. For one, corporations generally get levied lower taxes. For another, corporations usually enjoy tax exemptions in select countries and states. An accountant can explain to you in great detail how this works. At this point however, suffice it to say that through incorporation, you could enjoy a substantial amount of tax savings.

Incorporation also endows you with the capacity and the flexibility to respond to sudden economic downturns and financial emergencies. Corporations can sell stocks to raise capital. Aside from this, banks are generally more amenable to lending money to corporations than to businesses that have other structures. Corporations are actually perceived to be more stable (and thus much better risks) since they can exist even when the major shareholders die; shares of corporations are expected to get passed on –inherited or sold – whereas family-owned businesses have a much greater chance of failing when the original proprietor passes away.

Indeed, incorporation is usually the right move for the entrepreneur who wants to survive and succeed. However, know that you may not have as much control in a corporation as you have in a sole proprietorship or a simple partnership. Thus, if you want to call all the shots, then perhaps incorporation is not the right move for you.

Hiring IT Professionals: Full-Time or Temp?

The sudden boom of the IT industry created a demand for IT professionals that many were eager to fill. Nowadays, thousands of new university graduates from IT-related courses are competing for any given position in just about every state in the U.S. With such a massive available workforce, it has become an increasingly available option for employers to hire IT professionals on a temporary basis so that they’d be able to continually replace employed IT professionals with ones that are newly trained and therefore more updated on new trends in the fast-moving IT industry.

Nothing Permanent but Change

There are some advantages to hiring temporary workers that are immediately obvious. First, there is the fact that new employees are more probable to have experience with new technologies and new standards, which are updated quite frequently in an industry as fast-paced as IT. Chances are good that you won’t have to spend as much on temporary workers, too, because things like retirement benefits and tenure packages don’t exist for them (or, at least, such benefits are not as extensive as those for permanent employees).

Hiring mostly temporary IT professionals can have cost-related drawbacks, too, although they’re not as obvious or as visible as the benefits. The biggest disadvantage of hiring IT professionals temporarily would be the cost of the replacement and the consequent training of the new employee. The former entails work hours for the hiring authority (usually the manager or someone from the HR department) that has to read through all the resumes, screen them and then pick out a shortlist. Interviews also consume precious time and resources. Training will use up resources as well. You spend money to pay the trainee on top of what you’ll have to pay for whoever will train your new employee.

The Benefits of Permanence

Getting IT professionals as permanent employees isn’t as bad as what some people paint it out to be. For one, you are assured of continuity and consistency if the same group of people from previous projects will be planning and implementing your next one. The experience is also a critical factor because permanent workers would be more familiar with the needs of your company and would therefore be able to make solutions better tailored to those needs. Permanent employees also do not need the same kind of training as entirely new IT professionals and will only need supplemental knowledge to augment what they already know.

Some employers view the tenure of IT professionals as a disadvantage because, as has been stated, higher salaries (as if their salaries weren’t already high to begin with) and benefit packages come into the discussion.

Which One to Pick

The decision to get temporary or permanent IT professionals depends entirely on the IT needs of your company. If your company’s demand for IT skills and solutions is pretty much constant throughout the year, it would be a good idea to get permanent IT professionals on board. If, on the other hand, your company experiences seasonal spikes in demand for IT skills and systems, it’s time to think about hiring IT professionals on a project basis. Doing so will get you the skills and expertise you need without having to pay salaries for the rest of the year when that expertise isn’t required.

Content Management: Are You Using the Right Software for Your Business?

More and more companies have been jumping on the trend of a customer-oriented business. Websites like Friendster, MySpace and YouTube are all testaments to the power and the allure of user-generated content.

In order to succeed in such a content-intensive enterprise, you’ll need to integrate content management software into your business’ operations. You probably know what this is; in fact, you’ve probably heard your fair share of sales pitches for them. Despite all the hype that these software vendors generate, many of the programs being offered do not work. This post will cover the necessary elements of any good content management program so you can determine whether your content management software is working and appropriate for your business.

Necessary Characteristics

Portability and Compatibility

Your CMS needs to make it easy for customers to both import and export content on and off your servers. Your CMS should be able to handle different kinds and formats of multimedia and not just text-based content. Also, make sure that your CMS is compatible with the systems that your customers are bound to use. There’s nothing that turns a customer off more than a system that’s frustrating to use.

Versioning

Any site that focuses on user-generated content will necessarily be very dynamic. Changes in terms of the site’s format and design will be frequent, and even more so in terms of the site content. Your CMS should be able to handle versioning at both the element and the page level so that maintenance or even rollbacks can be done with maximum efficiency and minimal loss of precious data and content.

Customisation

One mistake that many content-heavy companies make is thinking that there are only a few types of content management systems and content management software available. This is laughably untrue. In fact, there should be as many types of content management systems and software as there are companies. That’s because each company has its own needs and methods of handling content, and it’s the software that should conform to the company, not the other way around. Customisation is an important factor and feature if you want your software to be optimised for your business’ operations.

Good v Expensive

In a 2003 survey by the Information Architecture Institute, price was a very big factor that led companies to use mediocre or inappropriate content management software. Majority of the respondents said that commercial software was too expensive, which, the IAI said, hindered the effective and efficient use of content management software and systems. Fortunately, content management software has since matured.

Nowadays, it is a viable option for businesses, including your own, to get open source software and then just modify it to their needs. Open source software is free for public use and is very customisable. All you would need is a programmer who is well-versed in content management software languages like Java, PHP and MySQL in order to get a much cheaper content management application tailored to your needs. You’ll be saving on costs because you’ll be grouping together the role of designer, implementer and maintenance into the single salary of your IT staff.

In the same way that content-heavy businesses (like yours, presumably) tailor themselves to their customers’ needs, the content management software you use can and should be tailored to your needs as well.

5 Must Do Tips before You Change Accounting Software

When it comes to technology, change is an ongoing process. You can never stay with just one type of computer/software or youll just get gobbled up by your more technologically updated competition. Therefore, should the time come for you to change accounting software, you should treat it more as an investment and not just as an expense. Below are some tips to help you maximise returns, minimise cost and make the change as easy and as beneficial as possible for everyone concerned.

Assess Your Needs

Before anything else, you should first find out the needs of your company or your organisation. This is perhaps the most important step in the entire process of preparing your organisation for a change in accounting software because it will determine the type of the accounting software youll get and the kind of functionality and scope youre looking for.

Set Your Goals

This step will just carry over from the previous step [Assess Your Needs]. Make sure that your goals are realistic too. If youll be changing your software on a very limited budget, dont aim to find one that does every single step of the accounting process. If it looks like you cant afford the latest and most sophisticated software, look for one that will satisfy several or most of the steps of the accounting process in your organisation.

Consult Both the Accountants and the Techies

While youll most probably be talking to your organisations accountants about the entire change, its also a good idea to coordinate with your IT personnel. Because your new software will necessarily run on a computer, you have to ask them whether it can be integrated into your organisations current system and, if the new software wont, what modifications will have to be done. Also, ask whether the change will allow your organisation to comply with industry standards.

Create a Panel with Everyone Represented

Of course youll be creating a panel to screen your new software prospects. But instead of the usual mix of top-level bosses and management heads, throw in some of your accountants and some of your computer systems people. Aside from cost considerations, you should also take note of their input because theyd be the ones to notice certain aspects of the prospective software like usability and scalability important factors that your managers might not notice or, even worse, not even know about.

Be Formal about Your Inquiry

The size of your organisation doesnt matter. Whether youre going to ask for a quote or are soliciting a bid, be as formal as possible when corresponding with a prospective software provider. When they know that theyre dealing with an actual and legitimate business, theyre more likely to give you the business edition software and not just the usual consumer level stuff. When youre talking about software that your organisation will be using across several computers for the next several years, that sort of consideration will matter.

When changing software or anything in your operations, for that matter, always remember to take input from several levels and to always consider how the software will work, not just how much it costs. In the long run, youll want a piece of software thats modifiable and future-proof rather than one that was just cheap at the beginning.