Actillion

A Poor Customer Experience With Supermarket Reward Cards

2015-06-29T10:25:00.001+10:00

I have never paid too much attention to the reward cards from both Coles and Woolworths until recently. Coles is a more traditional model where you earn points for spending at Coles and related outlets. The Woolworths model is somewhat more confusing with various offers and discounts being offered to members.

The rewards programme should be simple enough; use the card when you are making purchases and you should get rewarded either through points or by being given an additional discount or special price or discount. It couldn't get any simpler than that.

But oh no, what both companies put their "members" through could only have been concocted in the bowels of a marketing department. Why do they insist on requiring members to go through a tedious process of activating offers via the internet. I can understand promoting offers of services such as insurance which you do not purchase in the supermarket as well as promoting special offers to members. But these promotions quite should be just a simple notification via email, which is the way they do it currently. But instead, they require you to go through an additional step to activate each individual offer.

I am struggling to understand what additional information this provides. After all they already have a detailed profile of what individual items you purchase at checkout when you present your card.

But if this wasn't bad enough, there are annoyingly frustrating inconsistencies even in respect to implementing the same or similar offer. For example, Woolworths offered a $5 discount on purchase s of greater than $30. In order to qualify for this discount you first needed to register for the offer via the internet. At checkout, upon presenting your reward card, the additional discount would be applied. A few weeks later, with an similar offer along the same lines, instead of simply applying the discount at checkout, a voucher is printed on your paper receipt for a $5 off the next purchase.

Seem like this is an exercise by the marketing departments of the major supermarkets that simply make it a poor user experience. If they are intending to reward their loyal customers, jumping through additional steps to qualify for an offer is simply unnecessary. It is just a frustrating experience.

The Loss Of Balanced Objective Social Debate

2015-06-03T13:35:00.001+10:00

We live in what is supossed to be an open society in Australia but listening to the political and social reporting and debates leaves me wondering what happened to open objective engagement. With almost every issue, what we are being exposed to is a daily dose of one sided dialogue, often with each side of the opposite ends of the argument sliging mud and misinformation.

Is it any wonder that extremism and polarisation is on the rise when even our political representatives choose to adopt such an approach whenever they appear in front of the media. Conflict and agression is the norm these days and it is difficult to determine whether the media cherry picks its 30 second sound bites, often out of context, to support the one view that they have chosen to support.

It does not seem to matter whether the issue is gay marriage or Adam Goodes traditional dance on the sports field, the manner in which the issue is reported and supposedly discussed in the public is one of polarised views. This is not discussion and open debate.

We, the public, do not get presented with objective information and national debates are forced to occur in a climate of biased and manipulated information by both sides of any issue. No wonder the younger generation are getting more apathetic and disconnected with the political scene and with the social issues confronting us.

Australians deserve to hear both sides of any debate presented without the accompanying grand standing, exagerrated claims and over reactions by both sides. We cannot have an objective debate when both sides resort to name calling and emotional blackmail.

Just look at the fracas over the recent Adam Goodes on field actions. His actions were reported and commented upon by his supporters and detractors from oposite ends of the spectrum. But no where did we find a single reporter or commentator who presented both sides of the story in one single article. He is either hero or villain depending on which report you read. And then we wonder why our society is becoming more polarised when we are fed this polarised reporting on a daily basis.

If we cannot learn to engage each other with dignity and respect, our society will eventually disintegrate into an increasingly intolerant and self centred one. We cannot regulate or legislate our way out of this. Our political leaders and media need to be leading by example instead of displaying the kinds of behavior we are now seeing on a daily basis.

Paper Just Got Better

2015-05-22T11:44:00.001+10:00

Those of you that have been using or are considering using your iPad for drawing, the Paper app just got a whole lot better. The newest update introduced smart shapes which automatically creates the most common shapes simply by drawing them in a single stroke.

But is it not just the shapes but the ability to fill and connect them which suddenly turns Paper into a perfect tool for drawing diagrams.

One of the things that prevented me from using Paper extensively in the past was the difficulty in making corrections. Apart from the Undo and erase function previously, it was difficult to simply some something around. You had to erase it and start all over again. The new cut function addresses this issue simply and effectively.

Although I am both and IOS and Android user, this application which is only on IOS is truly an example of very good user design and ease of use. Paper has continued in it tradition of a beatiful app, simple intuitive interface and easy to use.

Retail Stores Missing The Point About Online Shopping

2015-05-22T10:30:00.001+10:00

Now that the "noise" about online shopping has abated, it would be useful to look at where we have arrived. Ebay and Amazon are the dominant but not the only players in town and prices in places even like Australia have started to normalise. Retailers in Australia cannot continue to just charge the prices it used to when there were no other alternatives.

Just look at the number of book stores that have been decimated in recent years due to outmoded business practices in regards pricing.

All major retailers like Coles, Woolworths, Harvey Norman and the like now offer online shopping which is a good thing. The primary advantage they have is that have physical presence and shoppers can actually order online and go and pickup from the physical store.

But this is where these players are missing the point. The prices on the online shopping site is the same as what you get in store apart from a few online specials. This is where the pure online retailers are their mark and the major retailers are blindsided. At the heart of this is the fear of canibalisation of their own sales. Essentially they are reluctant to impact the physical sales or their high street outlets.

The point they are missing is that if you do not canibalise your own sales someone else will. What I don't understand is you have lower priced online competitors who are clearly competing on price and their delivery performance isn't too shabby either. Why are these retailors so afraid to offer lower prices on their online store? Part of the answer lies, I suspect, with their continued reluctance to fully embrace online trading. This shows in their online services being hobbled by business practices which more closely resemble physical stores.

There is no reason to treat their online stores as if they were completely independent and let them loose to compete on price and any other service criteria that matters.

ABBOTT'S SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

2015-02-02T00:24:00.001+11:00

The PMs referece to socal media as electronic graffitti is astounding. Whether he coined the phrase himself or whether it was put together by his media advisors is unclear. The PM is facing intense pressure from a number of shockingly bad decisions compounded by completely misreading the Australian electorate.

His performance and falling popularity is already the subject of much media reporting and I have little to add to it. What I cannot understand is how poorly he appears to be served by the team managing his media and communications, or more appropriatly lack of it.

Not once in the past 6 months has the PM been able to clearly get across, in simple terms what the benefits and impact of his proposed policies were. Instead what we got was political speak and blame spread around generously.

Look around and see how poorly Liberal MPs are able to take the message to the people. For supposedly media trained people our MPs are doing a very poor job of articulating the benefits and costs of key policy proposals to the people of Australia.

The Australian people are sick of being treated like mushrooms. Is it beyond the realms of possibilty that our politicians communicate with us honestly and clearly. Surely all those media and communication consultants and assistants who make their living from spin could be directed to clear and unambiguous communication with us. the folks who voted them in.

Microsoft Plays Nice with Dropbox

2015-01-31T21:37:00.001+11:00

The latest update to Office for the iPad contained a nice enhancement, the ability to link to and access documents on your Dropbox account. Many user adopted Dropbox during the earlier days when Microsoft lagged behind on developing internet based applications and services. When you already have a significant investment in a specific service like Dropbox, it is hard to changeover completely to the OneDrive service that Microsoft now offers.

That Microsoft recognised this is no small thing and if this is another sign of the new Microsoft then things are indeed looking up for small businesses. While Google has gained some traction with Google Apps and their equivalent Office offerings, the majority of small businesses still continue to be committed to Microsoft simply because they really do not have a sufficiently compelling reason to make the change given that most of them do not fully comprehend the advantages that they could reap through adopting Google's offerings.

But the new Microsoft isn't just relying on enertia to keep them going, This latest update is another in a line of new products and updates that Microsoft has been delivering over the past 12 months. Although I struggled to see it 12 months ago, I am slowly seeing the bigger picture that Microsoft is weaving and it is starting to look good.

What A Mess Of A Political Process

2015-01-30T00:29:00.000+11:00

As an ordinary Australian, I am dismayed at the sad toxic state of our political process. Labour self destructed under the Rudd-Gillard era and Abbott looks destined to do the same in the not too distant future. I believe that Australians deserve a strong, honest leader which we have not had for some while.

Is it because we lack leaders with the strong leadership qualities or has our political process degenerated into an unholy mess. Based on the last two federal governments and numerous state governments recently, one can only conclude that is it a case of both these factors combining to create a perfect storm.

The current state of political engagement is nothing short of stupidity being played by imbeciles. Both major parties are guilty of perpetuating the process of saying "no" to anything proposed by the other regardless of the merits and whether they have any real basis for doing so. The most amazing thing is this approach which both parties cling to as if their survival depends on it, is ironically the very process that renders them impotent.

This "don't bother asking because the answer is always no" leaves the govenment of the day no choice but to negotiate with the fringe parties to pass legislation. This hands the balance of power to a few MPs who can hardly be said to represent the majority of Australians.

I cannot understand whether it is stupidity or ignorance that causes both major parties when in opposition to continue to persist with a strategy that renders them irrelevant while in opposition until they next get into government.

While the party in opposition may view this self serving strategy as appropriate, the problem is that it is detrimental to the country as a whole. It means that they too will be similarly paralysed when they eventually get into power for the other party merely adopts the same approach.

Neither party has the courage to have dialogue and meaningful discourse with the other and all that happens is continual and horrendous waste of public funds on projects that get totally reversed from one administration to the other.

We, the voting citizens are equally to blame by keeping silent while this is happening and therefore letting both major parties off the hook to continue on their merry destructive way. Isn't it time we sent a clear message to both major parties that we, the Australian voters whom they are supposed to represent, actually expect them to be talking and working for the country.

Whatever Happened To Just Making A Good Old Fashion Phone Call

2013-11-15T13:01:00.001+11:00

Everyone is using a smartphone or a tablet of sometimes sort these days. For those who a not Tech savvy, it would seem that the basic function of making a phone call can get terribly confusing. Ok you can still make and receive a good old fashion phone call or least that is what you thought. Sure that familiar dial pad is clearly evident in your smartphone but then, depending on what apps you have installed you can now call and receive calls in what can be a confusing number of different ways.

This problem was drawn to my attention when I witnessed the confusion my aging parents encountered with their tablet. Ok it's great that they can now have a teleconference and see their grandson thousands of miles away in glorious high definition. But here's the catch. My sister uses Skype, I use Apple Facetime and my children use Google Hangouts. So when she wants to call anyone of us, she has to remember which app to use otherwise she simply will not see us to be able to make the call.

For the non tech savvy and especially those more advanced in years, dialing a phone number whether on a mobile or landline was, well yes, very simple and universal.

Apple, Google and Microsoft (who now own Skype) would love everyone to use their native app but it is unfortunately not universal. While Google and Skype have made it possible for you to make old fashioned phone calls from within their apps, it is for this demographic at least, not as simple as picking up a traditional phone and just dialing a number.

Ah but you are probably thinking that we now have at our disposal a veritable plethora of choices to communicate including online chat. But for this group of people, the same problem persists. You need to be on Hangouts, iMessage, Facebook Messenger or whatever to connect to the person.

Don't get me wrong, I love all the new capabilities and the choice but I guess for my mother and many, possibly most of those of her age, they will continue to wonder why they need so many different means of just making a phone call to just speak to someone.

Consumption Device? What Is It

2013-11-08T00:01:00.002+11:00

Someone somewhere sometime in the early days labelled tablets as mere consumption devices. This reminds me of the early days of laptops when I heard someone comment that they would never take off.

This label sounds more to me like a marketing ploy than a usability assessment. What exactly does "consumption device" actually mean. How difficult is it to create content on a tablet and just what kind of user are we talking about? These are the kind of questions that are very pertinent but which are never actually clarified whenever the term is used. So as a defensive marketing play by PC manufacturers and Microsoft, it was intended to confuse and mislead and to some extent worked but in practical terms means very little.

There is now little doubt that common tasks like word processing are easily done provided you are not writing a dissertation. Spreadsheets and presentations are more cumbersome. However somewhat unexpectedly, tablets started gaining widespread adoption in some unexpected places involving reasonably complex activities.

More and more photographers are not just viewing photographs but also editing them using apps that are good enough for the majority of their editing requirements.

Musicians found in tablets an intuitive, easy to use and highly portable composing and mixing device.

The problem is that many who use the term do not associate these kinds of usage as content creation. In fact to make matters worse, in many cases what they are referring to is content cretion that involves typing, which I accept is slower on tablets than on a full size keyboard.

So to talk about consumption vs creation devices is absurd. This is not a mutually exclusive, zero sum game. Tablets and PCs are both clearly capable creation and consumption devices. There has also been an awful lot of applications that have been developed for smartphones and tablets in recent years which are cheaper and easier to use and cover just about every conceivable use case you can imagine.

What is clear is that users have real choice today to pick a device and applictions that best suits their circumstances. Everything from smartphones to 7 or 10 inch tablets all the way to Chromebooks, ultrabook laptops and power laptops.

Ironically, at the end of the day, it may not even come down to hardware and devices. In case no one has noticed, it's the applications that make those devices come alive.

What Tablet Should I Get?

2013-05-25T20:53:00.001+10:00

In a casual conversation today, I was asked by a friend the question "what tablet should I get?". While a totally understandable and valid question, I paused for a moment before replying and had to resist the typical answer which would have been to extol the virtues of the iPad, Nexus, Samsung Note or Surface.

I even paused long enough to ask what need did she have for wanting a tablet. After our conversation it hit me that the hype surrounding this "war" between Google, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung has made us all casualties in that we all were enticed into becoming unwitting fanboys. If you need any proof of this just look at any of the social networks and forums.

It also caused me to reflect on Larry Page's recent keynote address at Google I/O 2103 where he argued that this was a zero sum game and the destructive negative activities that the big players were waging against each other.

Reason is the first thing that goes out the door at the mere mention of tablet or smartphone and antagonists just line up faster that you can blink an eye. So what would reason dictate. Well how about what are you trying to do and what are your needs. Let me also upset all the various fanboy groups. Folks from a user perspective, and I mean normal consumer not technology geek, there really isn't that much difference between them in terms of major functions. Oh my goodness what heresy!!!!

Even Google fanboys have to admit that if my reading of Larry Page is right, he wants to make Google services the best that they can be on every platform. Yes all applications even if they are available on multiple platforms will have some differences due to the technical constraints of each platform.

So what what advice would I give. Simple make a list of the things you want to do and the applications that you will probably need. Then just go play with them on the different tablets. it would also be good to get some advice of related things that you may not have thought of and try those out was well.

if you still cannot narrow it down to a single tablet, well then try styling and looks......

#google #tablets #nexus #ipad #apple #samsung #Microsoft

Is It Time You Look At How Email Is Being Used In Your Business

2013-03-16T22:33:00.001+11:00

The fact that you are using email extensively is hardly surprising. But have you considered that over and inappropriate usage is hazardous to the health of your business. Consider the following scenario that is common to every business.

Staff members create Excel Spreadsheets which can be used for one off purposes or updated several times a day. Reports are written in Word and sometimes two or more people work together on a single report. Some of the Word and Excel documents are needed by external parties.

Managing documents

Word and Excel files are typically created and stored on the laptop or PC of the individual creating it. When necessary, they would send it to other individuals in the business by email. If that file is sent to just two individuals, there would now be 3 copies of the file. Now think what would happen if all three individuals make changes to the file and one of them emails their updated copy to another two individuals. So which is the valid copy now? Almost every where I go I hear the cry "please send me an updated copy".

Knowledge Management

I hear the comment "Let me search my email and I will email you the answer" very often these days and it occurred to me that many individuals, myself included, search their email as if it were a knowledge repository. The search capability is great but it does mean that people are using their email as a store of knowledge that is not only unique to them but also isolated and not accessible to anyone else in the business.

Privacy considerations dictate that most individuals do not share their email boxes with other people hence trapping the knowledge contained in the content and attachments of their emails and isolating it from fellow workers. Ironically access to an individual's email is only ever granted to their managers when they leave the organistion.

Security

Email is without doubt widely used and most people consider it easy to use and therein lies the problem. From a business perspective, it is scary that it is so easy to just send an email with an attachment. This is not to say that email is sole or even primary security risk. Even if files are not transmitted to unauthorized individuals by email whether deliberately or not, they could just as easily be copied unto USB drives.

The real problem is that the ease of use means that workers gravitate to using it for just about everything without giving it much thought

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH - Commoditisation of the smartphone market

2013-03-16T00:13:00.001+11:00

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH

Today Samsung unveiled its new flagship Galaxy S4 and already the inevitable claim and counter claim, Android and IOS lovers and haters have already been making just about every comparison and comment you can image favourable and otherwise. I could not help but think how irrelevant all this is.

I think that we have reached a point in the development of smartphones where we already ...
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What Works Is More Important Than What's New

2013-01-15T17:35:00.003+11:00

When I read about how smartphone and tablets are moving towards two new devices per year, it makes me want to shout "STOP". I have been as guilty as the next person in listing after the new whatever gadget it is. But it made me think about small business owners who have to make decisions about equipment for staff.

The truth of the matter is what does it matter. Let me take tablets as an example. In Australia at least, the moment a new model becomes available people just can't wait to upgrade their device. So the question I will ask is why and what does it matter?

For business use, tablets are used primarily for email and searching for information on the web. Their in online chat, calendar and addressbook and you have the things that people use their tablets for. Maps are used by sale s staff who are constantly on the go. Some more savvy users would use perhaps a note taking application like Evernote.

Access to online business application, mainly CRM is probably another good example and maybe product catalogues. None of these actually require any of the new capabilities being totted out with each new model update in the past 12 months.

I have the original iPad and the new Nexus 7 and guess what, I can do all those things more than adequately on the either device. NFC LTE and any other acronym that they can throw at you does not radically change the productivity of the person using either of these two devices.

The real kicker is that a new entry level 4th generation iPad costs $499 in Australia compared to $399 for the 2nd generation one. Yes I know that the new one has a higher resolution screen and a faster processor, but does any of that really matter. This same argument goes for mobile phones. Does the more costly Galaxy SIII actually do anything I listed above any better than the Galaxy SII?

Especially with technology, newest really has to be evaluated on the cold hard facts of what you are using the device for, not for what new capability it may or may not have. Those capabilities do not matter especially if you don't even know what it does.

Keeping Up With The Technology Joneses

2013-01-03T18:25:00.001+11:00

2012 has been a whirlwind year for technology. New smartphones, tablets, laptops of all shapes and sizes were brought to market at a breakneck speed. New tablet and smartphone applications and uses seem to be popping up all over the place. And 2012 also saw the launch of Windows 8 in its various forms.

This can be so beneficial and also confusing at the same time for small businesses and we are in danger of falling into technology equivalent of the "keeping up with the Joneses" syndrome if we are not careful. Never is this more evident than in the mobile, laptop and tablet space where new models are popping up at cycles now approaching every 6 months.

Small businesses are always forced to be more practical so for mobile phones, the logical time to consider replacing units is at the end of the typical 24 month plan. Tablets are almost too new for any norms to be established yet. PCs and laptops are typically replaced every 3-4 years.

What has changed in the past few years is the number of different computing device form factors. Whereas in the past the only viable computing devices were desktops and laptops, this is no longer the case today with the increasingly widespread use of smartphones and tablets.

The next time you are faced with approving the replacement of computing devices, it might behoove you to go back to the basics and consider some of the following.

What activities do your employees really perform on their existing devices ?- What added capability or benefit does an upgraded smartphone or new laptop provide. Other than the case where it is a normal wear and tear replacement, we really shouldn't be getting the new shinny model just because it is available. This is particularly so for mobile phones where the new models seem to be made available coming out once every 6 months. Also bear in mind that with every new device that there is time lost getting familiar with the new machine.

Would your employees work better and more efficiently with a different device than what they are currently using? - Given the breadth of different computing devices these days it is worth considering carefully whether a different device would be better suited to the employee. This is particularly so when considering replacing laptops which when adding the cost of PC applications results in a significant price difference when compared to say a tablet. The PC or Laptop is a general work horse that will do most, if not all functions, but it also means that you are carrying the cost of all the unused or under utilised capabilities. Do they really use the full range of Microsoft Office applications. How many of them actually prepare and deliver presentations using PowerPoint. Do they really create or modify complex spreadsheets. Especially for remote workers, I often hear that most of the time all they do is get and send email and search for information and read documents.

How has the business and work environment changed since the time the device was last replaced? - SMS is looking increasingly costly when compared to services such as Skype, Google Talk and Facetime. Video conferencing is now a practical and viable option compared to the cost of flying people around for meetings. Online chat is more effective for short brief exchanges than long telephone calls. Yet none of these actually require you to be upgrading your devices or replacing them more frequently than when you need to. They are existing functions that do not get perceptibly better just because you have the latest smartphone, tablet or ultra book.

What has changed is choice in that you have a wider range of devices to suit specific work profiles of your business than ever before. When it comes time to replace existing equipment do so with your eyes wide open. Don't just replace like for like and this applies not just for equipment but for everything from printing services, telephone and data plans. Ask the right questions and you may be surprised with the answers you get.

At the end of the day it is about buying the latest equipment but about providing the right tools at the right cost.

Complexity For Better or Worse

2013-01-01T17:51:00.000+11:00

Just today I heard someone say that he used to be able to operate his TV but now requires the help of his 16 year old son because it has gotten too complex. I can relate to that. My son gave me a super dooper remote control that allowed me to switch on multiple devices to listen to music, watch a video or watch TV. By the way I had to download some software be able to complete setting up the remote to get it to work but then I am in the IT industry and that is a relatively simple thing.

But the majority of people do not and that I think is where there is a disconnect. Smartphones and computers (tablets included) are not simple for the majority of people. Apple has done an incredible job of making it simpler and the folks at Google are coming along nicely too. But the fact is that underneath all the lovely interfaces lies a complex set of technologies.

Simplicity is about minimising the number of steps it takes to do something. Take my example of the TV and the home entertainment system. For the majority of people getting to watch something on the box should be a matter of pressing the button on the remote and finding an interesting program and that is it. The problem today is that we want 7.1 or 5.1 surround sound so we have another box and if you haven't notice another separate remote with it. Add cable TV and that's another device and another separate set of controls and yup another remote. Throw in connecting your TV to the Internet and you start to wonder why we are now getting pretty close to needing an engineering degree to watch TV.

No matter where you look, things are actually getting more complex. We may be able to do things faster with technology but it assumes that you have a minimum level of knowledge of technology. What is happening is we are making devices that were once the domain of "experts" more like consumer electronic devices but have not fully taken the complexity of out if.

This is no different in business. As we introduce new systems, processes and new ways of working, the question we need to be constantly asking ourselves is whether we are taking more steps to do the same thing or whether the increase number of steps actually achieve more. There are good reasons to increase the number of steps and these could include, better control, reduction in errors and waste. But the problem is that these get forgotten in the heat of implementing a change and people don't know why a change is being made which logically leads to people perceiving the change as increasing complexity and work steps without any perceptible benefits.

Leading From The Front

2013-01-01T17:10:00.000+11:00

The small business owner is in a unique position when it comes to making change in the business. Actions as we know speak louder than words. I have seen far too many implementations of technology fail for the very simple reason that the owner is not seen to be part of the change.

I have been a big advocate of small business adopting Google Apps and it would be easy to list the many reasons for doing so. But for many employees who have grown up in the Microsoft dominated era this is not an easy transition. It is not my intention to go through the reasons why Google Apps makes more sense for small businesses but more to explore how the involvement of the owner makes the change stick much quicker.

Comparing two companies whom I have witnessed going through the transition, the difference in the speed and apparent ease of adoption is stark. Although both successfully transitioned, in one business the owner started using it immediately. Despite the learning curve, he was using gmail and the calendar appointments immediately. Staff started receiving meeting invitations in Google Calendar and share started sharing (not emailing) documents authored in Google Docs. In the other, the

In the other all although email was rolled out immediately, the owner continued to use and send Microsoft office documents for a couple of months. An energetic and passionate manager took on the role of evangelist and really drove the deployment. But it really wasn't until the "boss" started using it that the rest of the organisation took it on seriously.

The message projected in the first case is clear and unambiguous. The boss is doing it so should we. The boss is experiencing the same challenges so we really should not be dragging our feet. Within a week the owner was not just using Google docs but was using Google chat for quick messages from his iPhone instead of sending SMS messages. By the way he choose to do this because he could see if the person he wanted to message was online rather than just seen being the SMS and wondering when they would respond.

Sharing documents was next. In the other company, people were slowly changing over to Google docs but were printing out documents to take into meetings and people were still asking whether they had been emailed the latest version of documents.

None of this is new but all I am pointing out is that small business owners have a unique advantage. They are more engaged directly with employee and hence anything they do has a direct impact on the employees. Leading by example goes a much longer was much faster in small businesses than in large organisations so take advantage of it

The Business Problem Is The Starting Point Not Technology

2012-12-10T17:19:00.001+11:00

It is amazing how many times I come across small business owners asking what systems or technology they should be looking at. It is not altogether surprising given that they are bombarded daily with the latest news about new shiny gadgets or systems.

But the truth is that the real question they should be asking is what business problems or challenges they are facing and only then to consider what technology options are available that are practical and cost effective. Technology and systems should be evaluated in the same way they consider every business decision and not treated differently. Unless there is a business problem to be so solved, looking at technology is an exercise in futility.

There is more that sufficient workable technology around looking for a problem to solve. The issue is not the technology but making things better for the business. The problem with leading with the technology decision first is that it has no context.

For example, tablets have fallen in price significantly, so the question that is often asked is should a business consider providing its employees with tablets. But that is the wrong question. The better question is what business process is hurting the business most because it is inefficient or broken? What does the business gain from resolving this problem. This provides business context for going out to find a solution. No one goes out to buy a new piece of plant or equipment before considering how the business gains first and the same should apply to technology.

Without doubt technology enables things that couldn't be done or be done faster but to what end. If your sales force needs access to a product catalogue that is best served by images or video and is continually changing and it helps you project a better market image and hence improve sales, then having your sales reps showing off your products on a tablet may be the right way to go. And yes tablets are a convenient and professional way of achieving this. But this presupposes that showing your products in electronic form, especially if video can show how it performs, makes sense. But this decision to deploy tablets is arrived only if you start by asking the right business question.

There are many problems and challenges that small businesses face and this should always be the starting point. If you start here, the technology answer almost always logically follows much more easily.

#tablets #smallbusiness #SME #smb

Smartphones Tablets And Data Plans

2012-11-20T23:46:00.001+11:00

We have reached the point today where there is such a choice of mobile devices and yet telephone carriers do not appear to have fully appreciated the needs of their customers. With each new device announced, one of the usual comments is whether they are 3G or 4G enabled which is largely associated with their being able to access the internet when not near a wifi access point.

The way many commentators talk about this, you would think that the device would be completely useless. But this overlooks another thorny issue for businesses that have or are going down the path of providing their employees with smartphones and tablets.

The cost of data plans can easily get out of hand. A typical capped mobile phone plan in Australia with 1 to 2 GB data allowance costs between $50 and $70 a month. This data allowance would be sufficient for most business usage and here I mean not downloading and watching video but performing the most common day to day business activities such as email, chat and accessing and updating business applications such as CRM.

Assuming that most employees have a smartphone of some sort, this should mean that they already have some sort of data plan. If they are now carrying with them a tablet do they really need to take out another separate plan? The telephone companies require that you do. In Australia this means on average another $20 our so for a 1GB data allowance just for that tablet. The problem is that until the telephone companies allow you to consolidate allowances, you will end up with two lots of unused data allowances. Believe me, I did that for more than a year.

So now not only do you pay for more unused allowances but also more for the 3G or 4G capability on the tablet. So the question really is whether you really need pay the extra for a 3G or 4G enabled tablet for your staff. The truth of the matter is that if your staff already have a smartphone which the tablet can connect to then the answer is that they can very easily connect to the internet via the smartphone.

I have both my iPad and my Nexus7 configured to connect to my iPhone and it works just fine. The tablets are also configured to connect to my office Wi-Fi so that it uses the office Wi-Fi when I am in the office instead of my mobile phone. It is worth noting that the tablets may not always switch automatically so it is good to develop a habit of checking that you are in fact connected to the office Wi-Fi if you are going to do work that involves significant downloads. But from a day to day practical usage point of view, it is not as terrible experience as you would imagine.

For most of the time I will have my phone with me whenever I am out of the office so I always have a wireless access point always with me. For small businesses this means avoiding the added costs of multiple data plans and also means you do only have to provide the cheaper tablets that do not have 3G or 4G. It also means no less wasted unused data allowances. These savings can be significant. If telephone carriers companies are really consumer conscious they would make it simple for small businesses by having consolidated plans for mobile calls, SMS and data for the company. Until then this approach will have to do.

Charging Posts What A Great Facility

2012-11-15T16:20:00.001+11:00

Having a transit in Incheon (Seoul) international airport was such a pleasant experience. The whole airport is blanketed with high speed wifi and if that was not sufficient power charging posts were evident in every gate.

No more hunting around for awkwardly place power points. These were placed right by the passenger waiting seats and even equipped with USB ports.

The Koreans really have done their homework and the result is a truly seamless experience for the business or holidaying traveller. Well done Korea now lets hope that other airports take note

Signing In Should Be Simple

2012-06-10T19:05:00.000+10:00

It easy to forget that the simple act of signing onto an application or online service can easily become a headache for a small business. We are only all too familiar with the problem of the ever growing list of passwords that everyone is faced with today.

Add to that pin numbers of your credit and ATM cards and you can see how this can really become a problem for individuals. I was reminded of the problem lately on when I was dragged into a project meeting of a large company where business managers were strenuously arguing with IT that they were not prepared to go to their users to ask them to cope with yet another login ID and password even for a period of two months while IT sorted out the problem with their Identity Management system.

It gave me reason to revisit this one area of Google Apps which is often overlooked simply because it just works the way users in a small business expect it should. You only sign in once and then you just get on with using any function in the Google ecosystem without being challenged further for yet another ID and password. This single login applies not just to applications by Google itself but also to any application obtained through Google Apps Marketplace.

This is a very real practical benefit to small businesses. Having a single user ID and hence a way of providing and managing your employee online presence and identify especially when you have a number of differing applications from different software developers each controlling access via an ID and password.

The environment at a customer whom I had helped adopt and deploy Google Apps is typical of many Australian small businesses. With 25 employee, they had their internal email server and several core applications including accounting from different software vendors which were installed and hosted in servers in their office. Yes you guessed it - each separate individual system had its own security and access. Without a full time dedicated IT resource, one of the senior staff members took on the responsibility of creating the same user IDs for users on all systems leads to an ongoing maintenance problem of ensuring that they were all in sync. They simply did not have a budget to acquire and implement any sort of User and Identify Managent system.

4 months after going live this manager was so grateful that he just has to add a new employee to Google Apps only once and any application that the company decides to implement via Google Apps no longer needs a separate ID to be created.

This really is actually a real time saver for a small company and this is the way a identity management system should work for a small company - simple, practical and easy to understand and run.

The CRM DNA of Small Businesses

2012-04-09T23:54:00.000+10:00

We have way too much technology for our own good and this is especially true for small businesses contemplating CRM. The truth is that small businesses are actually quite good at customer relations otherwise they would quickly be out of businesses. It's in their DNA. The problem starts when they start to grow.

Unless the founders make a conscious effort to embed good customer service as embodied in their own behavior into the culture of the business, it can soon be lost as standardized processes are introduced to help managed the growth of the business.

This is not to say that process or systems are unimportant because they are. What is critical is that a culture of commitment to service is ingrained into the culture of the business.

The Contact Centre is the classic place to see this problem in action. Remember the time when a business was small and the contact centre was literally whoever it was who picked up the phone and did whatever they needed to do to help the customer. Recently, I had reason to get a tradesman in to fix my garage door. The primary reason I picked the tradesman which I did was because they were treated me well and with respect and the price was reasonable. It was just a partnership of 3 people.

One person handled all the customer calls and scheduling, another did all the fixing and the third did all the estimating. I received SMS confirmation of the appointment and email confirmation of the estimate and on the morning another SMS that the workman was on the way. Whether they were using a CRM of some sort is debatable but all three of them worked in tandem and seem to know what each had done previously. Contrast this with the "sorry I can't help you, please hold while I transfer your call to someone who can..."

Before you even contemplate deploying or changing your CRM systems pause for a moment and consider what you customer relationship culture is like in your company and how it contrasts with where you what it to be. Implementing any system without an understanding of where your employees stand will simply lead you no where ..... Probably faster

Google Docs Viewer - Hidden Gem

2012-01-19T17:43:00.001+11:00

Every Gmail User is so familiar with Google Document Viewer opening an attached document that they hardly ever think about it. Few people even realize that they are viewing a document such as Word or Excel, even though they may do not have MS Office or for that matter PDF viewer.

The thing is that it will open most commonly available formats and does so admirably without fuss is terribly useful. I find it particularly useful when I am using my iPad which obviously will not have most of the applications which may have been used to create and email attachment in the first place.

The viewer also happens to support not just the viewing of the document but also the printing of it. Granted that the printing features are somewhat limited but it will get the job done more often than naught.

Remember all those times when you needed to grab an email attachment but did not have you own device on hand. Well worry not because you can easily signin to your Gmail account from just about any device that has an web browser running, open the document and read or print it as required

What a refreshing win for simplicity and applications that just do a few things and do them so well

Small Business And The Challenges of Social Networks

2011-11-18T15:00:00.000+11:00

If large corporations struggle to come to grips with social networking what chance has small businesses got? With restricted manpower, small businesses simply do not have the ability to even examine the issue. But before one gets carried away with all the new jargon that has comes with the territory, it is worthwhile considering what all this fuss is about.

Simply put, social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and now Google+ is all about conversations and the influence that these conversations exercise. These services have transformed the concept of "word of mouth" to new levels never seen before. People give more weight to what friends and other customers say about a product or service and this has always been the case. The thing with social networking today is that an individual's opinion can be transmitted to more people and at a fraction of the time it used to take, magnifying the influence of these electronic conversations both positively and negatively.

Small businesses are not immune to the reach of social media. In fact they are more vulnerable especially since they are unlikely to be monitoring what is being said about them in social networks. Negative sentiment about the products and services of a business that are not responded to will impact the business sooner or later.

The irony for successful small businesses is that they are actually good at listening to customers. The problem is that because they are not familiar with this new medium, they miss the signals simply because they are not monitoring it.

Creating a page for your business has never been easier. Facebook and now Google+ allows small businesses to have one up and running in no time. The real challenge is not simply creating a page but ensuring that you have new content and also responding and engaging customers who post comments to the page. Having virtual conversations with your customers is another means for keeping your customers engaged

Younger employees are more apt to make use of these facilities so make sure that you tap into them. Business owners would also do well to make posts regularly. It goes a long way to putting a human face to your business

Google Apps Marketplace - The Sleeper

2011-11-16T14:00:00.000+11:00

I have to wonder why large software companies struggle engage effectively with small businesses and the the current battle between Google and Microsoft is a good example of this. Microsoft describes Office 365 as productivity applications and Google describes Google Apps as communication and collaboration tools. Visit the web pages for both these services and you will find descriptions of IT related benefits and features and of choice of device, of access anywhere, anyhow and anytime.

But when you speak to a small business owner their eyes start to glaze over when you try to be passionate about email and realtime collaboration. It's not that they are dismissive but its not something that is in their vocabulary and it does not give them a blood rush. And let's remember that Australian small businesses almost never have a dedicated internal IT person.

If this wasn't bad enough start talking about "the cloud" and now you have really lost them. And this is at the heart of why small business uptake of cloud services has not lived up to expectations beyond the early adopters. The early adopters get this whole cloud thing so its preaching to the converted. However mainstream small business owners simply do not get that excited about technology, not when they are struggling to deal with challenges such as increased competition, rising costs and interest rates to name but just a few. Just telling them about "productivity" or "collaborative" tools is just going to cut it.

And this is a tragedy because Google Apps is perfect for small businesses provided we can start talking to them in their language. A recent assignment I completed with a small Australian business with 12 full time employees is a good example of this. Migrating their email to Google Apps was not seen to be a big thing after all it is just email. Ok Google Talk and Google Docs was useful too but not earth shattering for them.

It was only when they started using Google Docs did it become more clear to them that the collaborative features of Google Apps would significantly help them get their customer quotes better managed. Whereas they had to email each other to work though revisions to a quote done correctly for a customer now everyone was working on the same up-to-date version of the quote.

It also quickly twigged that simply creating and sharing the spreadsheet which they use to track material shipments in Google Docs would give everyone up-to-date status on where everything was. And all this was done using standard Google Docs.

And just as quickly, they soon started to explore the business applications available on Google Apps Marketplace and are now looking to select and implement a simple CRM application. Google Apps Marketplace is a hidden gem for small business owners. Not only does it make it easy and simple to find relevant applications, they can try it out before buying all in one place.

Solving business problems is the language that small business owners understand and appreciate. Google Apps is the underlying foundation and piping that enables them to get on with addressing their business process problems. Google and its partners do a really good job of helping them migrate to Google Apps taking care of all the technical issues but it is identifying and solving their business pain that is going to get them interested enough to look at Google Apps.

Why Small Businesses Should Consider Google+

2011-11-08T10:40:00.000+11:00

Does the world need another social network when we are already inundated with Facebook and Twitter? And to make matters worse, business owners are now being told that they need to get going with social CRM. Is it any wonder that businesses owners are getting overwhelmed with the confusion and complexity.

Let's firstly be clear that Google+ is a social network. It is a place where people post views and comments and holds electronic conversations. At this point, the business owner is thinking "so what". Some of these conversations are about products and services. Ah ... getting warmer now. These conversations in social networks are going on whether a business likes it or not. The real problem is that it is visible for all the world to see and thats why a business should need to know.

Businesses have been increasingly active in social networks so why should small businesses have any reason to be interested in Google+

Google+ is best understood when taken together with Google Apps, the productivity, communications and collaboration suite of services. In this context Google+ serves two primary functions:

Acts as a gateway linking the Google ecosystem to other social networks
Provides a simple means to link various Google App content repositories

Gateway to Other Social Networks

No single social networking service has a monopoly on online conversations which means that businesses need to active in all the major social networks. Google+ allows its users to share posts in Google+ as well as Facebook and Twitter. This is great to post in one place and share in the other networks.

Links Apps Productivity Environment

While Google Apps users have had a number of services for engaging its customers such as Google Sites, Blogger and Google Groups which serve a variety of purposes. Google+ adds social networking capabilities similar to Facebook to this growing arsenal at the disposal of small businesses and in some ways allows you to pull together content from all these and other sources for sharing both within and external to your organisation.

What is different about Google+ for Google Apps users is that it naturally and seamlessly adds social networking capabilities to the productivity and collaboration functions available to Google Apps user making it easier to incorporate into ones daily activities. For a small business with limited resources this makes it so easier to incorporate social networking into the normal business activities. Google Apps users will notice that their organisation is an option that is available when sharing a post in Google+

Google+ uses a concept of placing contacts into Circles and sharing content with one or more Circles. Google have wisely made it easy to not just share a post to the members of your Google+ Circles but also share the post to Twitter and Facebook at the same time.

Google are in the process of creating a variant of Google+ for businesses and this is going to bring more specific capabilities for businesses in the near future.