Case Study 3 - Cloud based services

By Lindsay,
A small company wih 3 employees.  Work can be performed 24 hrs per day by whomever is on duty.  Reports and documents need to be accessed and sent to clients as requested.  Using a Micrsoft Server centralised everything, but information could only be accessed in the office.  Rather than drive to the office to complete the reports, time would be saved by having the data available at home, in the office, or on the road, 24 hours per day.

Solution.  Email was changed to hosted exchange.  Now it was available on work computers, home computers, and Iphone and Windows mobile phones. The data was changed from the server to a paid subscription to dropbox (50 Gbytes).  Now the data is available in the office, at home (via notebook or via the web), and also on the smartphones.

Trips to the office after hours have now ceased.

Take some initiative

By Lindsay,
Sometimes being the owner of a small business I forget what it's like to be an employee.  Still I would expect my staff to take the initiative when it comes to making their jobs easier.  However here's some real life examples of employees who should have taken the initiative.

1.  Sales Manager for multi million dollar company.  Distributed sales team.  A team member leaves, but not before deleting all emails and contacts and other documents relating to customers in their territory.  I had mentioned that using a simple cloud based CRM system such as Solve360 (www.norada.com) could have tied the team together, centralised data, and eased the reporting problem (I mean what sort of sales manager requests weekly customer visit reports anymore........).  Now the process of getting the expenditure of approx $50/month approved by 'management' would have taken a long time.  I did expect the Sales Manager to have paid for it himself - taking the initiative.  End result - years of data lost....

2.  Receptionist has a small monitor on her computer.  She stares at it 8 hours per day and it's really annoying.  I suggest buying a second hand monitor (say 19 inch) for $100.  Not going to spend her money.  End result - productivity is reduced, and stress levels rise.

3.  Worker would like a printer connected to her machine so she can print out documents without going upstairs.  I suggest a sub $100 laser printer.  That capital expenditure won't be approved I'm told.  So I lend her a $99 printer.  4 toner replacements later (operational not capital expenditure) It's still there.  End result - I'm happy with the margins from the toner replacement.  And it's still my printer.

Case Study 2 - moving to cloud services

By Lindsay,
This next case study involves a company of larger size (initially 30 people).  The issues could be summarised as follows:

• The main server running out of capacity.
• The mail system running out of storage capacity, and unable to support remote use without some form of virual private network access.
• A branch office that needed to have access to central data.
• A CRM system that had run out of licences.
• Potential growth that could see the size of the company double in 2 years,and branch offices expand to 5 or 6.

Initial scoping of a server replacement, combined with a CRM upgrade saw a project well within the $80,000 range.  There had to be another way.  And with cloud based solutions there was.  The path taken was as follows:

• The printers were removed off the server.  Rather than purchase extra licences for each user to use this resource, network based printers were used.
• The data storage was moved off the server to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device initially.  This was far cheaper than trying to add extra space to the server.
• The accounting system moved to Xero (www.xero.co.nz).  One small monthly payment, as many users as you want, including accountant access.  Internet access only needed.
• Hosted exchange was bought onboard and all users transfered to it.  This took a lot of workload off the server, and allowed expansion based on a per user per month fee. It also allowed each user to store 25 Gbytes of emails rather than the 1 Gbyte when held on the server.  Hosted exchange also allowed access to email via any web browser as well as on smartphones.
• Dropbox was used to store changeable and critical data.
• A custom built Cloud based CRM system replaced the server based CRM system.

The net result:

• User numbers went to 60, and email is now a per user per month expense.
• The old server continues to hold legacy information, but will be switched off soon.
• Users are able to access email and data from anywhere.
• IT support costs halved
• $80,000 saved.

The takeaway - the company doubled in size and IT support costs halved with very little capital expense, and all other costs now operational, on a per user/per month basis.

This months Newsletter

By Lindsay,
In this months newsletter I mention the PC-TECH.BIZ move to cloud based services, some trends that we've noticed, and a web site that lists the applications that are useful in tracking smartphones (especially for your children).

Go on - sign up for the newsletter....