Article | Briscoe Network Solutions

Whose Network is it anyway? Notes for business owners.

January 7, 2010 By Phill Briscoe

It is a good practice for business owners to outsource technical support to keep their minds focused on their primary responsibilities. Outsourcing saves not only time and money but also provides valuable expertise not necessarily available in-house… so good technology support should be your trusted technology advisor.

Every business owner should take the time to understand the fundamentals of his/her computer network; after all, whose network is it anyway?

1. Know your passwords: Passwords are the first line of defense against external and internal intrusion into your computers or network, and a lot has been written regarding the security aspects of using passwords. Passwords to computers, servers, and network devices are the keys to your critical business information and the security of your network but if your office manager becomes sick or leaves, do you still have access to your QuickBooks database, client list, inventory list, pending projects, etc? Who knows this information? Your office manager? Your tech support? Do you? The time spent discovering the password to the accountant’s workstation or finding device information for a new technical support person is money wasted. You should make it your business to know all of the passwords to access critical information and devices on your network.

2. How to properly start and restart your server: I received a call several weeks ago from a client requesting the password to restart a server that had shut down after the building lost power. I gave him the password but suggested that to turn on the server he needed only to push the button. A lot of network administrators don’t like the idea of someone on site having administrative access to the server but they can’t be available all of the time, sometimes starting or restarting a server or workstation is the solution to a problem. Do you know how to safely shutdown, restart, or start your server? This can save you time and money.

3. Add or disable a user: When that disgruntled employee walks off the job, how quickly can you disable that person’s user account and deny him/her access to your network? If you have to call your tech support person to do this task, you are not only wasting money but you’re compromising the security of your network. The same holds true for new employees. Add them as you hire them to allow access to your network. Your tech support can make sure they have the correct security permissions after you make your call.

4. How to change a password: As that disgruntled worker walks out the door, how quickly can you change the password to your server? Computer passwords should be changed frequently to increase the security of your network. When was the last time you changed your password? Do you know how to change your password?

5. How to check to make sure your backup is running: You bought a new external hard drive and pushed the button to backup your computer and/or server. Now you can rest. How do you know that your backup is running properly? Is there a backup log or report? Are you checking that report daily to make sure that backups are running as scheduled? Is there a pattern of repeatedly missed backups?

6. How to restore a file from backup: OK, so now your backups are running daily but what happens if you need to restore a file? Being able to quickly restore an accidentally deleted file or folder saves you time and money; plus ‘test restores’ should be a standard part of network maintenance to ensure that the backup is working beyond reviewing log files.

7. How to check if your antivirus is up to date: Not only should virus scans run on a regular schedule but business owners should know more than when the subscription is due. They should also know if the virus definitions are up to date.

8. How to run a virus scan: In addition, business owners and staff should know how to run a virus scan. This is particularly true for laptops. Increased mobility also means increased responsibility. If scans are scheduled to run at 3 am, it does no good if your laptop is shut down or asleep. Worse still is only running a scan when you suspect a file might be infected.

9. Is your system security up to date? Are you only relying on MS updates?: Updates are at the core of the security for your system (computer); antivirus and other applications build on this core. At first, many complained about Windows needing update patches, so Microsoft automated the critical level of this process; then people assumed that this would take care of the process. Although critical updates are automatically installed, there are other updates, including Office 2003/2007 application updates, driver updates, and other options that are not part of the critical update process. I have a policy of manually updating servers to control what and when updates are installed.

10. Could you start over again if you had to?:
Starting again is a little more than just having a plan; it is also an attitude. There are at least three components in planning that help with this attitude:

Do you have up to date network documentation for your existing site?
Does your tech planning for the future and/or disasters include a budget?
Does your recovery plan include where to start first? Who to call?

As business owners, we are always working to maintain our foothold while looking for that next step up. I don’t expect small business owners to be technology mavens but I do think that they should have a good functional understanding of their network.

Outsourced IT support may be the solution for your continued maintenance and growth but the final decisions are yours. With that in mind you should always keep your hand in maintaining a functional understanding of how your investment is protected. Because, as we come full circle, whose network is it anyway?

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Filed Under: Network Maintenance Tagged With: Article, Basics, computer maintenance, Network Assessment, Network Maintenance, small business

Are you ready for Windows 7.

October 9, 2009 By Phill Briscoe Leave a Comment

In August I started using Windows 7 on my laptop and one workstation in our office and to date we are pleased over all. My laptop is my office and goes with me every where, including my recent vacation. My biggest complaint regarding Vista was it was slow to sometimes impossible to connect to new networks (wired or wireless). To my joy, this problem was resolved and going through several networks a day was no problem. Mossberg found the HomeGroup function confusing but since I function in domain networks i didn’t test this function; although, my network “visibility” only included the Windows 7 machines. In this case UNC (universal naming convention) worked fine and in an SBS 2008 domain I maintained my mapped drives. I see that Thursday’s Walt Mossberg’s WSJ article also thought Windows 7 was great. I’ll never go that far because times and needs change but it would seem that we are both pleased.

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Filed Under: Microsoft, Operating Systems, Technology News, Windows 7 Tagged With: Article, Busines networking, computer maintenance, Networking, Review, small business, Technology News, Walter Mossberg, Windows 7

Maximizing Profit through CRM and Networking!

May 25, 2009 By Phill Briscoe Leave a Comment

Although the term CRM is now synonymous with software it is a concept that has been utilized for decades by companies that operate customer centric policies. It basically involves the processes and methodologies employed in managing the relationships between the company and the customer.

Customers are fickle creatures. They want to be looked after, nurtured, and made to feel special. A typical customer’s basic instinct is to be loyal. It’s like any relationship. It may not be everything you want but it’s familiar and comfortable. But just like a relationship, if you ignore and neglect your customers, they may get a roving eye… and your competitors are always out there trying to snap them up.

If you only have a few customers, it’s possible to remember and manage them with a minimum of technology. Provide a good service, keep track of their orders, call them every now and again to see that they’re happy, send them thank you cards and so on. That’s effectively customer relationship management.

But what if you have ten customers, fifty? Will you remember every aspect of every transaction? Will you remember to follow up on every call?

The purpose of CRM software is to enable you to manage multiple customers personally. To automate processes that ‘touch’ your customers on a regular basis and then to remember every instance of every conversation, email, appointment, or transaction of any kind. All of these transactions are stored directly in your customer’s unique record so that your total relationship with that customer is always available.

Good CRM systems feature ‘Activity Managers’, which can automatically create a sequence of tasks and events.

Let’s say you meet a bunch of people at an event who express an interest in your service. You’ll enter them into the CRM system and then apply an ‘Activity’ from the Activity Manager Library. A typical activity (series of tasks and events to be posted to the client’s record) would be:

Do immediately: Send an email to express how happy you were to meet the person
In 1 day: Send a flyer or brochure of your services by mail
In 3 days: Make a phone call to reconnect and confirm that your flyer was received and is there anything more you can do at this time.
In 10 days: Send eNewsletter (and add to monthly newsletter mailing list)
In 21 days: Invite to your own network meeting
And so on…

Multiple activities can be created and applied to existing customers, new prospects, network partners or anyone else in your database. The whole series of events is immediately applied to the customer record and the system updates all the relevant task lists, to-dos and appointment schedulers.

No matter how many customers or prospects you have, the CRM system will be managing the relationship, sending out reminders and thank you cards, scheduling phone calls, remembering renewal dates and so much more. And all of these events and transactions will be neatly filed against the individual customer records.

Good CRM systems offer full synchronization with portable devices like your PDA, Blackberry, iPhone or Windows Mobile device. Synchronization works both ways so that if you’re at a meeting and enter an appointment into your Blackberry, it will synchronize and update your CRM system. If you constantly use Microsoft Outlook to schedule appointments, then it too joins the party and synchronization becomes a 3 way process.

CRM software has evolved over the years to accommodate new technologies and methodologies. It used to be the preserve of big companies but nowadays, highly intuitive but hugely powerful systems are affordable by the smallest of businesses.

In my experience, a fully utilized CRM system typically increases business by over 30% because it encourages you to treat your customers the way they expect. Where, in the past, you may have neglected to follow up, thank, send out renewal applications, cross sale and up sale notifications, special offers, anniversary cards, newsletters and so on, your CRM system will methodically churn out personalized materials and your customers will continue to love you and do business with you.

CRM software has become an incredibly important category. How well you know your customer will determine how much business he or she will do with you. As Sir Francis Bacon once said, “Knowledge is Power”. That knowledge can be contained in your CRM system.

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Filed Under: CRM in Business, CRM Software Tagged With: Add new tag, Article, CRM Software, Networking

CRM Software can Double your business!

May 25, 2009 By Phill Briscoe Leave a Comment

Despite the pressures of an economic recession this year, along with indicators reporting technology spending taking a downturn, the market for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is expected to continue steady growth. One of the reasons for this is that a CRM system can be a valuable tool for companies to leverage to turn the trend.

In a recession, CRM can be viewed as a Company Recession Management tool, providing ways for companies to guard against the typical pitfalls of recessionary thinking. In fact, the value of CRM has recently been proven by AMI-Partners, a research firm specializing in market intelligence for small and medium-sized businesses. Their research shows that companies with CRM systems out-perform those that don’t by over 140% higher revenue per employee. With this level of performance, CRM is clearly a must-have during a recession to get more out of every staff person.

Our research and case studies reveal exactly the same as the market research so to illustrate this I’m going to describe the experiences through one of our CRM clients.

Our client, which I refer to as XYZ Corp, had a good business but was running their prospect to client processes through a series of Excel Spreadsheets, a homemade Access database, Large White Board, Outlook and Paper Forms. It worked up to a point but failed miserably when it came to managing the relationship and following up. The system even managed to lose track of jobs resulting in forgetting to invoice.

We came in and backed up their entire system. We exported everything we could out of the Access Database and Spreadsheets, and then installed the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. Next step was to import all of that data into the CRM system and create a system to manage it.

We created relevant User Defined Fields so that every prospect could be ‘profiled’ correctly. So in addition to collecting Name and Address, Phone Number etc, we also entered details of: Service Required, Date of Inquiry, Source of Inquiry (Web, Word of Mouth, Yellow Pages etc), Sales Representative, Detailed Description of Job, Special Instructions, Date Job Required and a more… Every inquiry, every prospect became a potential customer whose relationship was going to be managed.

Once the details had been taken, often a site visit would be scheduled. This would simply involve a mouse click in the CRM system to match a scheduled time for the prospect with the appropriate XYZ Corp representative. The CRM system manages the schedules of all Staff Members and as well Company Resources. A Company Resource can be a Board Room, Vehicle Work Bay, Computer or anything else that can be booked or time/service allocated.

The next step was to send out a quotation. This would go directly from the CRM system, and a copy would automatically be saved to the Prospects CRM record. At this stage an Activity Plan would be activated to ensure that follow up was scheduled. This could be that an email was sent 2 days after the quotation, followed by a phone call. A week later and information package could be sent by mail. The CRM system automatically scheduled all of these events to take place.

Incorporating this practice saw immediate results. More prospects were turning into clients but we wanted more. So if a prospect hadn’t ordered after 30 days despite the follow up and nurturing, the CRM system would flag these prospects for a Special Offer. This offer usually took the form of a letter which regretted that XYZ Corp had not managed to win their business for whatever reason, so perhaps they would like to go onto a special Standby Program whereby if they made use of the service with 48 hours notice, an additional discount of say 25% could be offered. This pulled more of the prospects in!

By taking meticulous details of the prospects from First Contact, we were able to analyze key data such as where the leads were coming from. With the click of a mouse, XYZ Corp was able to see the Return on Investment from General Advertizing, Networking, Direct Marketing, Bill Boards, Advertizing on Buses, Sign Writing on Vans and more.

At the end of first month after installing the system, we looked at their Prospect to Customer conversion ratios and then did the same after 12 months. The figures speak for themselves.

Month 1:

Total Inquiries: 111417.61
Total Unconverted Inquiries: 79151.61
Total Orders: 32266.22
Percentage of Converted Inquiries: 28.96%

Month 13:

Total Inquiries: 99302.01
Total Unconverted Inquiries: 44875.34
Total Orders: 54426.67
Percentage of Converted Inquiries: 54.81%

The automated follow up processes definitely secured more business but invaluable data was also being stored. XYZ Corp began to understand its customers much better. If there were any Customer Service issues, the Customer Service Rep. had the whole relationship in front of them through the CRM system. They could see every communication, what products or services were purchased, how much was paid for them, who sold them, what add on products were bought, which fitters/technicians provided the service and so on.

The key to long term relationships with your customers is to know them well and provide excellent service. CRM systems are available to all businesses, large and small. Companies that are not utilizing CRM Software are losing business. Period.

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Filed Under: CRM in Business, CRM Software Tagged With: Article, CRM Software

Network Maintainence is Crucial

May 25, 2009 By Phill Briscoe Leave a Comment

Don’t leave network maintenance to chance.
There will be consequences!

What effect it would have on your business if your computers were removed? How would you go about your daily business if you arrived at the office and your computer system was missing and all the data was lost? A major computer network breakdown can cause untold damage to a business since daily business transactions and communication (both intra and intercompany) are managed and maintained through these networks.

Many companies don’t take, or don’t have, the time to manage the security and integrity of their computer networks and, for many, the consequences have been alarming. The network server is the heart of the business neural system. It’s the brain that controls the network and stores the business intelligence. It has to be looked after.

As a computer network support technician, I see the trauma of failed computer systems all the time… and it ain’t pretty. The cost of preventive maintenance is a fraction of the cost of repair and restructuring. It’s a little like health care. Look after your body and it’ll cost a lot less than a night in the ER. My advice is to ensure you have adequate network support to guarantee your computers stay running… but failing that, at least have regular backup so that if the worst does happen, you can get back to where you were.

IT (Information Technology) support means different things to different people! When my services are called upon, I look at several aspects of the business and computer network before I plan my next step. The primary reasons people seek outsourced IT support is to solve a specific problem or replace their existing support person. Whatever their reason, my focus is twofold:

1. How does the business use or integrate technology in its daily business life?

2. What is the state of its existing computer network?

How a business actually utilizes its technology can be quite complex and very different from how it perceives itself using that technology (or how it may affect the business in future). A stable and secure network is the spring board for minimizing problems and exploring technology advances for the future. What follows is my list of components for a stable and secure network:

Computer Operating System

The operating system is the foundation for running all of your programs and connecting to the Internet. Modern operating systems are Windows XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003/2008, and Small Business Server 2003/2008. They are all supported by Microsoft with frequent security and program updates; updates are automatic. There are other options including: Windows 98, Windows ME, Macintosh, and Linux. Our objective for stability and security requires that we establish a standard foundation for ease of integration and implementation which is most compatible for the majority of business users at a competitive price.

Hardware-Workstation/Servers

Businesses must understand that all hardware will eventually fail. My question to business owners is: is it cost effective to maintain failing hardware considering down time, cost of repairs, and labor costs? The average life for a computer should range from 3-5 years; my question then becomes: is there a technology budget?

Preventive maintenance tip: One of the most common problems experienced is when the computer starts running slow. Adding additional memory, running disk cleanup and defragmenting the hard drive quite often resolves the issue.

Business Productivity software

Writing a document, sending email, and creating a spreadsheet requires basic productivity software and Microsoft Office is the dominant player in the game. There are many other basic productivity software packages, including MS Works, OpenOffice, Google Apps and more. The market is changing with the introduction of ‘Cloud’ computer and online resources (aka Software as Service) but as of now, Microsoft Office (in its various versions) is still king. As a computer technician who craves uniformity and stability, I lean towards MS Office because it integrates easily with the other Microsoft products, and is supported by so many 3^rd party vendors. The key to stabilization is standardization… if everyone in the office is running the same software with the same features then there are fewer opportunities for software conflicts, common problems are recognized more easily and remedied more quickly.

Generally speaking, I don’t recommend one browser over another, so long as you can access the Internet successfully and enjoy surfing. However, I do recommend using the latest version as browsers which incorporate many security features to prevent your computer being compromised. The major browsers are:

Microsoft Internet Explorer
Mozilla Firefox
Apple Safari
And a potential player in the ‘Browser Wars’ has to be Google Chrome

All are excellent browsers and have unique features that benefit different users. They are free to download so can be tried without risk or cost.

Line of Business Software

Does your business require specialty software to manage customer contacts, maintain inventory and supplies, bill patients, develop loan portfolios? If so, do you maintain a service agreement with the vendor? Is the vendor responsive and helpful? Does it integrate easily with your operating system and existing productivity software?

Antivirus, antispyware, and spam filtering

Do all the network computers have antivirus software installed? Is it managed locally or do you have group policies? Are the virus definitions current?

Having antivirus software is an essential part of business computer due diligence but too often in the course of our busy days we forget. It is common for vendors, when distributing new workstations, to include trial antivirus software which must not only be activated but the subscriptions must be renewed when the trial period ends. Most antivirus vendors are pretty good about informing you when it’s time to renew.

My recommendation: Pay them and stop closing the renewal window. Once a virus gets onto an unprotected computer system, untold damage can be done not only to the infected machine but other network computers are also at risk

In a server scenario we have the benefit of centralizing not only the antivirus and anti-spyware removal but also spam filtering. This centralization not only provides a central monitor but also standardizes the updates, the virus scans, and subscription renewal.

Firewall
Simply stated, a firewall is an anti intrusion device. For small businesses, firewalls normally come in packages: either a hardware device designed to prevent intrusions or software that is installed on a laptop, server, or web site.

For the small business office, a Firewall device serves this function. Firewall devices (also often incorporated into network routers) start at about $50 and can serve a number of functions including connecting remote offices, blocking certain websites, denying certain workstations or users from accessing the Internet, while allowing external access to a network database. They can also filter out spam, malware and viruses.

Although most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) now provide modems which often provide some firewall protection, I recommend that businesses utilize a more powerful device. A $50 device for a home or small office is probably adequate depending on the nature of the business but I recommend business class firewalls for all small to medium sized enterprises as a method of adding more control and security to the network. Sometimes it’s good to be paranoid.

Summary

Your business is reliant on computers, computer networks, communication, digital storage and the Internet. Too many businesses are somewhat cavalier about computer maintenance and are taking risks on a daily basis. Briscoe Network Solutions offer a number of affordable computer and network maintenance / security packages that can take the worry out of your business lives. A little preventive maintenance now can save big trouble in the long term.

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