Productivity tools are just the beginning
Day in and day out, your employees work with productivity tools like Microsoft Word to create forms or Microsoft Excel to analyze data maintained in a SQL Server database. All of these applications share the Windows platform and present a familiar look and feel to users. An ERP solution that works like and with these productivity tools and server products can unlock a new level of value. The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

The Line of Business (LOB) applications that your organization uses to manage core business processes are probably built on the Microsoft platform. Choosing an ERP solution that runs on the same platform could simplify integration and shorten your time to benefit. The broad acceptance of the Microsoft platform also encourages competitive pricing among alternative LOB applications and technical support services. With a single platform focus, IT resources can dedicate time to improving business processes instead of integrating and troubleshooting disparate applications.

The value of Microsoft Dynamics ERP
The Microsoft Dynamics ERP product line provides the foundation to build on the Microsoft platform for flexibility and ease of use. Facilitating the flow of information between the many parts of your business, you’ll connect financial management and business intelligence to LOB and productivity tools. Productivity will improve through:

• Fast, easy integration with your existing technology systems,
• Quicker and better decision making with central business intelligence,
• Fast, universal adoption to drive down costs and boost efficiencies.

As your organization plans for 2012 and beyond, consider the productivity gains you can achieve with connected systems that are familiar to your employees. Making employees’ lives easier will pay off with improved operating margins and increased cash flow.

Call us today to find out how you can increase employee productivity.

Downtime is one of the main concerns of physicians reluctant to implement an electronic medical record (EMR). But that doesn’t have to be a concern, thanks to gloEMR.

According to an article in Healthcare IT News, one of the 10 barriers to EMR implementation is the fear of lost productivity. Many physicians believe that they will lose 25 percent of their productivity for three full months after EMR implementation. And who can afford that?

Fortunately, that doesn’t have to be the case. gloStream utilizes an innovative implementation process called gloStream Detailed Needs Analysis (gloDNA). During this process, gloStream gathers all of the information needed to create an ideal EMR or practice management solution for clients—who can be up in running in weeks, not months.

The result is a solution tailored to your needs. “Thanks to the functionality within gloEMR, I have the capability to see a healthy load of patients when I’m in the clinic and still finish all of my charts so that I can leave by 4:30pm,” says one gloStream client.

In fact, the gloDNA process is so successful that gloStream offers a money-back guarantee: If your practice isn’t back to its full patient load within 15 days of your glo-live date, gloStream will provide a refund for gloStream software and services.

Having a paperless office essentially means drastically decreasing the use and consumption of paper in the office. Of course there will always be a need to use paper for some things, but reducing the paper you consume can save you a lot of money and at the same time help the environment.

There are many ways to go about doing this. One is to invest in equipment and technologies to make paper use more efficient for when you do need to use it – for example, printers that allow you to print on both sides or scale down images.

Here are some other actions you can take:

• Digitize your hardcopy files so that you have soft copies as well as reliable backups.
• Assess which paper records you can recycle (or shred then recycle) – this also reduces your document storage space.
• Release online memos instructing people to avoid or eliminate unnecessary printouts (such as printer test pages).
• Send web links through email or IM instead of printing a webpage to share.
• Distribute presentations on flash drives instead of printing them for your audience, or use websites such as SlideShare.com that allow you to share online.

When you use less paper, you save on paper and printer ink costs. Minimizing the paper you store also saves you valuable office space. In fact, one company saved $30 million in lease costs when they went paperless.

Of course, we can’t really completely eliminate our use of paper. But even small changes can go a long way toward a paperless office and healthier environment – and lower operating costs.

Resources:

http://156.98.19.245/workplace/index.html

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/technology/communications/6-tips-for-a-paperless-office.aspx#tipsforapaperlessoffice

http://www.ismckenzie.com/eight-ways-to-eliminate-paper-and-clutter-in-your-office/

And therein lies the problem. Many people seem to put such a high priority on immediately replying to electronic communication that they often unintentionally offend the people they are actually physically with. For example, how does that colleague doing the “Blackberry Prayer” during a meeting – hunched over a handheld device, texting and emailing – make you feel?

Here are a few etiquette tips when using our electronic devices:

• When in meetings, turn your phone off – or at least put it in silent mode.
• Check your messages and return calls and emails after meetings, not during them. It’s much more polite to explain to a caller or email sender that your response was delayed because you were in a meeting rather than explaining to everyone with you that the person on your phone is more important than them.
• If you are expecting an urgent call you must take, inform others about it before the meeting begins. When your phone vibrates, excuse yourself quietly and take the call outside.
• Never wear an earpiece while in a meeting.
• Don’t use your mobile phone or PDA while you are talking to somebody – it gives the impression that the person you are talking to is unimportant and insignificant.
• Loud ringtones are inappropriate for certain settings, so make sure they’re off at the right times.
• If you need to use speaker phone, ask the person on the other line for permission first, and announce who else is in the room with you. Many people are (understandably) uncomfortable not knowing who else may be listening to them.
• While in video conferences, treat the people on the other end of the line as if they were actually in the room with you. No discreet playing of Plants vs. Zombies on your iPhone while the brand manager from the other end of the line is giving his sales report – regardless of how boring it may be.

Remember: electronic correspondence can never replace actual human interaction and conversation. Even though we’re in the electronic age, the old saying still applies: “Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.”

How to prevent eye strain:

• Never stare too long at your monitor. Blink occasionally and use eye drops to avoid dry eyes.
• Rest your eyes regularly for about 2-3 minutes. If you have time, take a power nap (5-15 minutes) – this not only gives your eyes a rest, but also gives your brain and body a well-deserved break.
• Use glare-resistant glasses or a glare reduction screen for your monitor.
• Avoid working in too-bright environments.
• Reduce the brightness of your computer screen.
• Place your monitor at least 20 inches from your eyes. If you can’t read the screen, increase the size of your windows. You may also want to visit an optometrist to see if you need glasses or a new prescription.

How to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome:

• Adjust the height of your chair so that your arms and wrists are level with the keyboard.
• Move and click on your mouse lightly.
• Perform this wrist exercise several times throughout the day:
  1. Stretch your arms out in front of you, palms facing out – as if you were doing push ups. Hold for 5 seconds.
  2. With arms still stretched, straighten your wrists and relax you hands.
  3. After a few seconds, make tight fists and point them downward with your wrists. Hold for 5 seconds.
  4. Repeat step 2.
  5. Let your arms hang at your sides and then give them a gentle shake

Try incorporating these easy, quick, and safe tips into your daily routine. If they become habits, they’ll help you avoid the inconvenience and pain of carpal tunnel syndrome and eyestrain.

With traditional network infrastructure, when employees are away from the office—because they’re traveling for business purposes are or are taking time off—collaboration is impossible and productivity is lost.

As a result, many companies are helping their employees to work remotely. A 2007 study by Nemertes Research revealed that 83 percent of organizations now consider themselves virtual, with workgroups spread across multiple locations and geographies. In addition, 91 percent of employees work outside of headquarters, and 96 percent use some form of real-time collaboration tools.

A mobile workforce may involve:

• Real-time access to desktops and documents;
• Internet and instant messaging access through mobile devices;
• Real-time collaboration tools (such as editing documents simultaneously); and
• Audio and video conferencing.

Companies that effectively enable a mobile workforce:

• Improve productivity through ongoing access to information;
• Drive business responsiveness through constant communication between employees and clients; and
• Support work-life balance and improve job satisfaction—which helps attract and retain talent.

However, there are challenges to enabling a mobile workforce:

• Deployment can be disruptive to your current IT infrastructure;
• Devices and applications may be incompatible with your current infrastructure;
• Employees may not know how to use new tools; and
• Mobile devices and data may not be protected.

We can help you avoid these problems when enabling a mobile workforce—and at the same time, minimize your investment in technology with products that scale to support your evolving needs. Contact us for more information.

CutePDF – makes PDF a piece of cake

PDF files ave become a standard in document exchange between professionals around the world. The only problem with this is that you usually need expensive programs like Adobe InDesign or Photoshop to generate them, but thankfully CutePDF is here to save the day. CutePDF is an online tool that converts all compatible documents, such as MS Word or MS Excel files, into PDF format, which you can then send out. Simply download the easy-to-understand free version, and convert your documents to PDF in a jiffy. You can also purchase a pro version with more features if you need them.

Send large files through YouSendIt

If you exchange files on the web – especially audio or video files, or programs and installers – then you’ve probably been frustrated by most email servers’ inability to handle large files. Now you can use YouSendIt, a free online service that lets you send files up to 100MB easily and quickly. Just upload the files you want to send and enter the email address, and the recipient will get an email with instructions for downloading the files from the YouSendIt servers. If you register for a free account, you can opt to have your own email address appear as the sender. Again, there is also an optional paid version that increases the maximum size limit.

Convert your files using YouConvertIt

File conversion is yet another tricky and frustrating issue. Opening .docx (MS Office 2007) documents, for instance, in older versions, or using some video and audio files in foreign formats, requires the user of a special converter. The problem with converters is that you have to scour the internet looking for the specific converter you need for each situation, and often each operates differently. With YouConvertIt, you simply enter your email address, upload the file you want to convert, choose output file type, click convert, then follow the instructions given. It’s a simple as that.

The more professional and long-winded approaches to accomplishing these tasks do have their merits, but most of us don’t need or want the hassle. With these free, online solutions you can quickly accomplish what you need in just a few simple and easy steps.

A recent study conducted by the University’s Department of Management and Marketing has shown that moderate internet browsing for personal uses during working hours (and MODERATE is the operative term here) actually increases productivity among workers. This a big “Ha! I knew it.” moment for many, with most employers preferring that their employees not be posting new status messages on Facebook or checking out the latest sensation from Britain’s Got Talent from YouTube. Their reasoning being that it wastes company resources and makes employees lazy.

300 employees from different companies were made part of the study, where it was found out that workers who use the internet for personal reasons, called “Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing” or (WILB) in the study, for less than 20 percent of their working hours were 9 percent more effective, focused, and therefore productive in their respective jobs. WILB activities usually encompassed searching for and researching about products to buy online, reading blogs and news websites, social networking (like Facebook, MySpace or Friendster) activities, playing online games, and watching streaming videos from sites like YouTube and Veoh.

Professor Brent Coker, the man behind the research, explains that people need short breaks to reset their concentration. According to him, focusing on a certain task for too long degrades the level concentration, making “zoning out” from time to time essential in maintaining an optimal frame of mind to be able to accomplish a work task efficiently.

But before you lug your gaming CDs to the office or prepare for marathon runs of your favourite Facebook application, Dr. Coker is quick to remind everyone of the term MODERATE usage. Anything beyond that, he says, will then result in loss of productivity. So don’t feel too guilty when you watch Susan Boyle belt her heart out on YouTube for a couple of minutes or post a comment or two on Facebook. As long as you get right back to work afterward, no harm, no foul.

Increasing your employees’ online workspace by expanding it across two or more monitors can significantly improve productivity with minimal cost investment.

In the past, multiple monitors have been the domain of programmers. Visit Google headquarters, for example, and you’ll see awe-inspiring configurations of screens: two, four, even six monitors, stacked side-by-side or one on top of the other. However, multiple monitors can also benefit just about any type of office worker.

Increased Multitasking

According to a number of studies by specialists in human-computer interaction, the bigger your employees’ screen space, the more work they can see and therefore the more work they can do. For example, employees can keep their email and chat screens open on one monitor while working on a Word or Excel document on the other. They no longer have to spend time switching between one or the other, and can respond to each more quickly.

Higher Productivity

In a study commissioned by the electronics company NEC and conducted by researchers at the University of Utah, office workers were asked to perform several basic tasks using various monitor configurations. The workers using two 20-inch monitors were 44% more productive than the workers using a single 18-inch monitor.

Minimal Cost

Multiple monitors may not have been feasible in the past due to cost, but the price of LCD panels fell by almost a third in 2008, and the trend is likely to continue through much of 2009, according to market research firm iSuppli.

Ready to enable your employees to get more done in less time? To upgrade to two monitors, in addition to the extra monitor you’ll need two video cards or an upgraded card with two outputs. Read more here, then contact us to help make it happen.

Have you ever wondered how to fix a leaking pipe or a broken light? Or how to check your car’s coolant or radiator fluid? How about maintaining a lawn, or tying a Windsor, or cooking a tasty meal for you or your kids in less than 30 minutes?

The answers to these questions and more can be found in self-help sites such as eHow and WikiHow. These sites are databases of how-to articles presented in a clear, concise, and simple manner that anyone can easily understand.

Unlike other guides that drown you (albeit unintentionally) in so much technical jargon that you end up completely lost, these sites make it a point to keep things uncomplicated – it’s all about helping you get something done right, and done fast. You can always learn the mechanics of why or how it works after you’ve gotten it done. Here, results are the primary consideration.

Both websites offer a variety of subjects to browse through. If you’re looking for a specific topic, simply enter the inquiry in the search box. Certain topics even have video tutorials and/or illustrated guides that make the learning process even easier. However, if you don’t have anything particular in mind, then you can browse through topics that are classified by category. Navigation is intuitive and user-friendly.

Another good thing about these websites is that the information is absolutely free – you don’t even have to register an account to gain access to them. And with WikiHow, if you feel like sharing a bit of your own knowledge, you can contribute your own how-to articles and become part of the WikiHow community. eHow also accepts entries that, depending on how you play your cards, can even help you earn a bit of extra money (there’s an eHow article to help you get started).

So the next time you find yourself in a spot with anything from a stubborn stain to treating a bee sting, try visiting these sites since they just might have the simple and straightforward solution you’re looking for.

What is IM?

IM is software that allows you to communicate in real time with other people who have the same software. It’s like email, but instantaneous.

IM was originally considered a way to stay in touch with friends and family, but lately it’s taken off in the workplace. That’s because IM offers a fast, convenient way for employees to interact with colleagues or clients in real time. In fact, many cutting-edge employers now encourage their employees to use IM instead of phone calls or e-mails.

Benefits include:

• Increased productivity: Workers can remain at their workstations instead of walking across the office or picking up the phone to obtain information, and the need for time-consuming meetings is reduced.
• Real-time communication with vendors and customers.
• Connection of traveling employees through mobile devices.

Where can you get it?

While there are many free IM services available such as AOL, Yahoo!, Skype, and MSN, many companies now offer solutions specifically designed for business. We can work with you to determine the best solution for your specific needs

How to get started:

1. Select a single provider.
2. Expand services as needed. While basic IM may be adequate for some small businesses, others may benefit from expanded offerings, such as text conferencing, pop-up messaging, and email integration.
3. Make sure your information is protected from external threats such as hackers and viruses.
4. Create a usage policy to avoid internal misuse.
5. Ensure that all employees know the rules and have installed the software on their systems.

To be effective, your IM application should be carefully integrated with your existing IT system and workflow. Give us a call today and we’ll help you through these steps to implement a secure and productive IM solution.

• inefficient coordination
• waiting for information
• unwanted communications;
• customer complaints
• barriers to communication

In addition, researchers determined that the time spent per week dealing with communications issues was more than 50 percent higher in companies with more than 20 workers. In hard costs, your company could be losing up to half a million dollars each year by not addressing employees’ most painful communications issues!
The good news:  we can help you implement applications and services to greatly improve your inter-company communications, including collaboration tools such as email and shared calendards and address books, social media technologies such as blogs and wikis, and IP-based communication tools such as instant messaging (IM) and Voice-over-IP (VoIP). Call us today and let us help you stop this expensive leak.Related articles:

• Report: SMBs Expected to Spend More Online (searchenginewatch.com)
• How Collaboration Tools Bring Cost Savings, Business Alignment (searchcio-midmarket.com)
• Inefficient Communications Costs SMBs $5000 per Employee (SMBnow.com)

No wonder, Internet fax providers like MyFax have reported they’re getting over 15,000 new costumers signing up each month. Many companies, large and small, are switching over to this new way of faxing; while others are adding an online fax service to compliment their traditional office fax machine.

• Read more at SB Informer…

I love technology, and in fact, the particular blue tooth headset I’m using is made by one of the premier brands.

• Read more at Small Biz IT…

However, over time, some of you have found that you could do so much more with the device as you found good software to make it a powerful productivity tool. Some software you might want to consider, to enhance the mobile warrior within you.

• Read more at Small Biz IT…

• Read more at Entrepreneur…

• Read the story on PCW Business Center…

And Why Should I Care?

• People are your most valuable and expensive resource – are they working smart and in a well organized way?
• Intranets are not new, and they are very popular among companies of all sizes. Intranets are a technology companies tend to love because of their easy implementation and the many benefits they offer at a low cost

An Intranet is an internal network built using the protocols and standards of the Internet. It’s an intra-company network that offers access to the same type of resources as the Internet but is limited to company’s employees (or selected outside users) only. Intranets are not expensive to implement and they offer many benefits, which probably explains why they are so popular. Some of the benefits of having an Intranet include:

• Better communication. Having an Intranet server where all the relevant information your employees need stored in one place reduces the time spent in locating information through normal, people-dependent channels. With Intranets, you just go to the server and get what you want.
• Increased productivity. When all the information your employees need is easily accessible, they spend less time communicating unnecessarily and more time doing their immediate jobs.
• Improved teamwork. Intranets are great for facilitating teamwork because when everybody has access to the same information, it is easier to be a more effective team player.
• Improved learning and knowledge management. Constant learning is a prerequisite for success in almost any business, and if you want to keep your employees in top shape, you need to make their learning experiences as easy as possible. When all the information they need is updated regularly, and above all is kept in one place, all it takes to learn is a desire and access to the location (i.e. your Intranet server’s knowledge base).
• Cost-effective. Unlike many custom applications, Intranet solutions are not expensive, yet they come packed with useful features and functionalities.
• Easy to use. The fact that Intranets use the technologies of the Internet means that your employees will not have to learn new programs. Actually, very often the only thing one needs in order to use and Intranet is a Web browser!
• Easy to adapt to your needs. While it is true that there are many Intranet servers and not all of them are equal, most of the best on the market provide extensive customization possibilities. If you implement a Intranet server that is packed with features, in the beginning you might have some difficulty figuring out what exactly you need. However, your IT Consultant will know your company’s needs and will select the features you need to use right away, and then gradually enable new features as you need them.

If you’re wondering what it takes to implement an Intranet, the answer is easy – just some time and a small investment. There are many Intranet-ready solutions and one of the best for a company of up to 50 computers or so is the Microsoft Windows Small Business Server (SBS). Microsoft SBS includes many nice features and one of them is an Intranet. So if you are already using SBS for your company network, just ask your IT Consultant to enable the Intranet features.

What Now?

• Evaluate your business and talk to your team about your common workflows and document organization to find areas where you could be working better.
• Work with you IT Consultant to implement the best Intranet solution for your company’s needs.

If you’ve never experienced the feeling of drowning in emails, then you are an exception. If this has never happened to you, publish your email address in a couple of sites where spambots get emails for spamming from and you will see how it feels to get dozens of junk emails a day. However, even if you are not drowning in spam, you still can receive many other unwanted messages a day, and soon you will discover that if you don’t know how to manage your inbox, the information overflow can be enormous. Here are some tips on how to manage your inbox effectively:

• Create separate folders for separate projects/people. One of the ways to deal effectively with information overflow is to separate the different streams of information. If you keep all your messages in your Inbox folder, soon it will contain thousands of messages, and it will be more difficult to find the message you need. You can create separate folders for different projects/people and file the emails into these folders.
• Create rules. Rules are one more way to optimize the flow of emails. Different email programs have different rules available, so you may want to check with your particular program to see which it offers. Almost always you can at least set rules for automatically moving/copying messages to/from a certain person to a separate folder.
• Use new message alerts. Very often you can configure alerts for new messages. If your email program does not have this feature enabled by default, you should consider enabling it.
• Manage spam filters. Spam filters are also part of inbox management, and depending on the amount of spam you receive, managing spam filters could take a lot of time. However, one of the important issues you must have in mind is that if your spam filters are not properly set, they could cut legitimate messages as well. So, set your spam filters with care.
• Use flags. Flags are a really useful way to separate a message from the rest. As with many of the other advanced inbox tricks, different email clients offer different flag systems, but almost any program offers flags for marking incoming messages as important, urgent, etc. If you have never used flagging, you will be surprised how easy and effective it is.

There are many more tips, all of which are good to know. Actually, we are just scratching the surface and we could add more ways to optimize your inbox use! But if you apply even the tips above, you will experience significant improvement in terms of effective email use. Isn’t it time you took charge of you email?

Email is perhaps the most important productivity tool available – yet its potential as a time waster is well known. It’s essential that you master this critical business tool and make it work of you.

Email is one of the most indispensable collaboration tools for any business. Email has become such an integral part of our lives that we can hardly imagine life without it. Using email is not difficult. Using it effectively, though, is not easy.
Everybody has experienced spam and how unwanted emails clutter up our inbox. Likewise, many of us have overlooked an important message that has gotten lost in an overflowing inbox. However, these are not the only cases when people are using email ineffectively. Here are some tips that will help you use email more effectively:

• Keep several email accounts. Having only one account means that generally you will be receiving dozens of messages a day, much of which is spam or is otherwise unwanted or unimportant. But even if your spam filters are working properly, you still should have several accounts. For instance, you should have a business company domain and be careful of using this to register or subscribe to services, and you should have another account for personal use with Gmail, Yahoo, MSN or another similar email service.
• Answer emails quickly. Good communication etiquette requires that you don’t keep people waiting for your reply. While you can’t be expected to answer emails immediately (unless it is an urgent matter, but then you’re better off using the phone), answering within a reasonable timeframe –one business day or less – is acceptable and increasingly expected.
• Manage your inbox. Even if you have several accounts and each of them is for different kinds of emails, your inboxes still will get cluttered. Managing your inbox effectively is one of the greatest improvements you can make in email use, so you may want to check this article on using email rules for advanced tips on effective inbox use.
• Use Folders. There are many emails that you want to keep after you have read them. Create a system of folders that makes sense to you so that after you’ve read and responded to an email you can move it out of your Inbox where it will distract you, to a folder where you can find it later if necessary.
• Distribution lists rules. Spam wouldn’t exist if there were no people who sent it. So, give your contribution to having a world with less spam and do not send unsolicited mails in bulk. Make sure that you are sending your emails only to people who want to receive them. Even better, check that you comply with the provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.
• Do virus checks. Actually, the place for this tip is not near the bottom of the list — but let’s hope that your corporate security policy takes care of this and that you are not solely responsible for protecting your email against viruses and other malware. It might sound obvious that you should do virus checks, but even though email is a primary channel for virus distribution, many people still forget about virus checks. Don’t be one of them.
• Use advanced email tools. Going beyond the basics is always a challenge and as your experience with email grows, you will discover that it can offer much more than just sending and receiving emails. For instance, many email programs have a calendar function, which you could also use to improve your scheduling and collaboration within your team. Or saving emails that you need to act on later as a Task with a reminder so you can move it out of your Inbox.

Using email is simple, yet in some ways difficult. The more you learn, the more questions you have. However, it’s a business fact of life today that you can’t live without email and you need to master it.

Collaboration and teamwork can make or break a company. Long gone are the days when your employees could work independent of each other. In today’s market, if you want to stay competitive you need to use collaboration to the fullest. Thanks to various tools and technologies, this task is simple.

Which Basic Collaboration Technologies Are Right for Me?

Every business needs to use some kind of collaboration technique. In fact, there is no business in today’s world that can survive without basic collaboration technologies such as a company Intranet, email server, a fax/print server, or a time management functionality (for instance, electronic calendars). These technologies are so fundamental that most likely you have been using them for ages. So, as you might be surprised to learn that you are actually already using collaboration technologies but you just didn’t know it!

However, you may also be surprised to learn about additional tools that you may not be using today that will help improve your company’s collaboration efforts.
In addition to the basic collaboration technologies you have used for years, new ones are emerging all the time. Below is a list some of the most popular groups of collaboration technologies you can use in your day-to-day operations. To learn more about each collaboration tool, just click on each link to read our related articles.

• Conferencing tools. Audio and video conferences become a daily necessity for many companies. No matter whether you use audio and video conferencing to communicate with your distributed team or with suppliers and clients from all over the world, these collaboration technologies can be very useful.
• Document and application sharing. When many people work with the same document at the same time, it is very inconvenient when you have to wait for your colleagues to finish his or her tasks with that document, so that you can proceed with your work. Document and application sharing make that inconvenience history since it’s now possible for many people to work simultaneously on the same document.
• Workflow and project management. Workflow and project management technologies will help you manage your business more effectively by minimizing downtime and increasing the performance of your employees through organizing tasks better.
• Online collaboration. Even if you don’t have many (or any) tele-workers and remote workers, online collaboration tools are great because you can access them from everywhere and you can work at any time you please. Additionally, you can share these tools with your suppliers and clients and further improve your sales and customer service process.
• Change management. Maintaining multiple versions of the same document is too much of a hassle, but not when change management technologies handle this for you. When you use these technologies, you can maintain as many versions of a document as you like, and all of them will be neatly organized and readily accessible.
• Knowledge management. Knowledge is power, and there is hardly a company that will not benefit from a company wiki or other form of knowledge management system.

The collaboration technologies listed here are just a sampling of what’s available. There are literally hundreds of collaboration technologies and depending on your particular needs you may choose one or another. Of course, it is best if you can find an all-in-one solution, such as Windows Small Business Server (SBS), which includes many or all of the technologies you need.

Seven years ago, INK, Inc., a pay-for-placement media relations firm, needed a way for its staff to quickly share information about potential opportunities for clients. E-mail was too awkward and restrictive, especially where images or video materials were concerned. The answer was for INK to create its own intranet.”

• Read the story on Inc Technology