How You Can Use And Abuse Social Media

Every now and then I hear a presentation that is spot on and extremely valuable.

This week I saw Mark Lee do a talk titled “How Accountants Can Use And Abuse Social Media”. But the talk could easily have been for anyone in business.

He looked at three leading US-based worldwide systems (LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter) plus Ecademy based in the UK. He made a number of excellent observations from a business standpoint:

1.  Understand where existing and potential customers, clients and partners “hang out”

• Forums
• LinkedIn etc

2. Social Media is about building relationships, over time

• Firstly know,
• Then like (preferably),
• Then trust,
• Only then do business

3. So social media is unlikely to provide a quick business return, but can do sooner or later if used well. It’s easy to expect too much and give up too soon.

4. Social media is a “con”

• CONversation
• CONtent
• CONsistency
• CONnecting
• CONsideration
• CONgratulating

5. To that end:

• Enlighten,
• Educate
• Entertain

and

• Ask questions
• Answer questions on forums
• Reply to what you are sent

6. Bear in mind that people:

• “Use” LinkedIn for professional purposes
• “Play on” Facebook principally for friendship and fun, so more suitable for marketing B2C than B2B
• “Tweet on” Twitter for personal or business through separate accounts (though some  people are successful doing  both on one account)
• “Belong to” eCademy, typically if they are small businesses or solopreneurs

There are a lot more in the talk, and he is giving another talk focusing on LinkedIn this next Thursday 28th near Regent’s Park, London. I'm sure it will be well worth attending.

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Escaping Excel Hell - Unlocking Business Growth

Excel's a great way of making simple lists. So if you are trying to track sales orders or purchase orders, it's tempting to do it in Excel if you only have an accounting system.

Then the business grows a little. Two people are now trying to share a spreadsheet. That proves impractical so it is split into two halves. Then they are pulled together to report. Then a third person is needed ....

Before you know it there is a spider's web of spreadsheets, with links that sometimes work, and a whole raft of manual processes to control the business. Sound familiar?

That's what I found just before Christmas one year when I walked into a small quoted company's admin room to be greeted as if I were Father Christmas. The team leader had threatened to resign, and the Financial Controller had done their best without making any real progress (lack of time as much as a lack of experience).The Group Finance Director had spoken to a client of mine and had been given my name.

I had previously managed the implementation of an order processing system that had allowed the business to grow 10 fold with minimal increase in staff. This linked sales orders back to back with purchase orders. So when one supplier offered a discount for equipment supplied to certain cusetomers, it was simple to make the claim. £600,000 a year, doubling profits. Now that's a return on investment!

We worked with this second company to define their needs, including resolving disagreements between the senior management that an outsider could do far more effectively. The system implemented not only transformed the admin team, but meant that when the company was taken over, unusually it was this team and this system that was used by the enlarged group. The other team  were made redundant. It could so easily have been the other way around!


There's nothing like happy clients!

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VAT Rate Increase in January 2011 – Why's it Different?

With the “Comprehensive Spending Review” ringing in our ears, it’s easy to forget that there will be an increase of standard-rate VAT to 20% on 4 January next year.

This is no doubt painful for you if you live in the UK. But for businesses trading in the UK, it’s easy to think this is just a repeat of the last increase this last January. It’s not. There will be several different consequences for systems and commercial arrangements, such as: [...read more...]

Choice in Multi-Dimensional Planning and Reporting

There are a great number of multi-dimensional OLAP (OnLine Analytical Programming) software tools. These are changing all the time. At Softworld on Tuesday I was talking to various vendors to keep up to date with the leaders.

Cognos bought Applix and their TM1 OLAP tool just before Cognos was bought by IBM. Cognos already had a suite of planning and reporting tools they had brought together, including what was Adaytum Planning. Now they are taking the best of each to produce a new set of tools.

Microsoft's SQL Server database is commonly used in business packages, and is a popular tool for custom development. SQL has a facility called "Analysis Services" (AS) which provides multi-dimensional reporting. As each version of SQL appears, so AS improves.

Microsoft also had planning functionality in PerformancePoint. But that was lost virtually overnight when the product was rolled into SharePoint early last year, leaving users high and dry.

Other tools such as PowerOLAP (developed by a former TM1 reseller) also provides multi-dimensional reporting, but is better for planning than AS.

Whilst these tools can be used in SMEs and corporates, there are Business Intelligence tools priced for larger organisations that also provide multi-dimensional functions.

The right tool depends on use, the number of items in each dimension (such as the number of products) and the number of rows of data (such as sales transactions). Horses for courses!

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SaaS Cloud Computing - The Security Question

Earlier today I attended a session at Softworld about Cloud Computing. This had a panel of users and vendors (providers). What was clear when they contradicted each other was that even these "experts" don't know all they need to know about cloud computing - and I mean "need to know", if they (and you) are to gain the benefits without excessive pain at some stage.

That's not a criticism of these people, as the cloud is a relatively new fangled thing. However for those of us who have been using SaaS (Software as a Service) applications in front line business for over ten years, we have had our parts bitten, and know first hand what matters.

One of the comments that remained unchallenged was on the matter of security, in terms of access. This was along the lines of that old chestnut "We've been using internet banking for years, so SaaS is safe." We've also been using SaaS ervices such as Hotmail, and every now and again it and similar systems get hacked.

The difference? Like GoogleMail and many others, Hotmail relies only on a userid and password, where the userid is public knowledge - typically the email address. Many business SaaS systems similarly only use a userid and password. At the other end of the spectrum, the banks have at least one extra level of security, such as random digits from a PIN or second password, and/or the need for a physical device. Chalk and cheese.

So what does a confidential application like payroll use? Dennis Keeling gave the opening keynote address at Softworld this morning. Turns out he is an HR and payroll specialist, as part of a broad knowledge of the packaged software market. He tells me that for larger organisations, remote access to payroll services is typically by userid and password, but always in combination with a "private cloud" secure internet pipe. Without that, he would expect some additional level of security, such as random digits from a pin number (like some of the banks do).

For smaller businesses, here are a number of internet payroll services. These talk about various security methods, such as 128-bit SSL (secure socket layer) encryption, as is used by the banks. Nonetheless.here are some incidents of web payroll systems being hacked, to try and make immediate fraudulent electronic payments.

In an ordinary accounting system, there is often an equivalent mechanism for supplier and staff expenses payments. Good access security in these systems is therefore vital.

IN CONCLUSION

A simple user id and password is not as secure as the internet banking systems, nor as secure as the better payroll systems.

There will be many applications in a business where a userid and password combination is adequate, given the low potential consequences of unauthorised access. But there will also be applications, such as Accounts Payable, where some additional level of access security is a must.

For more "myth busting", see last week's article "SaaS Cloud Computing - The Hype, The Truth and The Wardrobe"

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News Update - Monday 18/10/10

Here's the pick of the last week's news stories that are likely to impact your business:

Cloud or Linux Chalk and cheese perhaps, but having started to run a Linux laptop with MS Office 2007 and other Windows apps, interesting that larger organisations are taking a shine to Linux rather than the cloud. The new Ubuntu10.10 release of Linux is getting good reviews

Using social media in the workplace  Balancing social medai use with time-wasting and security issues

Facebook Credits (global virtual currency)  How can your business leverage virtual currencies like this?

"Everything Everywhere" The new name for the combination of Orange and T-mobile in the UK, who have just amalgamated their voice networks (#importantbutstiflesyawn)

Windows Phone 7 launches I feel duty bound to mention this, even though Windows Phone 7 has nothing to do with Windows 7 for PCs . How well will it compete with Android, iPhones and the rest?


P.S. Apologies for the delay in this edition of the news update. I upgraded Norton AntiVirus on Sunday morning 17th, and with hours of technical help, finally got use back to the PC at 6pm Monday evening. I had to monitor what the technician was doing (and deleting!) on the PC, so couldn't do anything much else. In any case the reserve PC also suffered a similar but different problem with Norton 360. C'est la vie, or time for a change would you say?

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