Latest Software Articles

IMeye Review

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 23:27:52 -0600

Within this particular review, we will talk about IM Eye - the New keyword research web app built by Tim Godfrey and Steve Clayton together with his team. According to Tim, they at present employ more than a hundred people in order to create, test and even support the completely new software.

What is so great about this web app?

One of the most Remarkable characteristics of IM Eye is certainly it's Query-Based Technique for evaluating and obtaining profitable keyword phrases and also niche markets. It makes use of an impressive approach for gathering investigation facts and thus possesses a substantial data source for information examination and mining.

IM Eye reminds me of a powerful Artificial Intelligence or Knowledge-Based system in which members enter exactly what they Wish and the program supplies intelligent results.

Allow me illustrate via employing an example....

Let's say you intend to establish a lucrative Adsense site...

Obviously, the key to money-making Adsense web sites is definitely choosing the right keywords (for instance. those which can certainly generate the most amount of money!)

Consequently, you would tell IM Eye the following keyword requirements...

1: AdWords high bid estimate greater than $5.00
2: Monthly search volume more than 10,000
3: Competing pages below 50,000
4: In-title competing pages less than 10K
5: Number exact domains exist in the top 10 Serps

Please note that you can enter a good deal more conditions for you to obtain precisely what you want. For this particular instance, We just make use of five conditions.

IMEye should now proceed to work... and within minutes, it will now present All of keyphrases based on the requirements you enter.

An additional very exceptional aspect about IMEye I genuinely like is that you can easily specify the particular industry or category you're considering.

For eg, in the event that I am interested in a "Musical Instruments" category... And I would like to know which keyword phrases are profitable within this industry... who is currently participating in this particular market... and what products and solutions tend to be selling nicely...

I just have to enter that category and also select a number of criteria and IM Eye will spit out ALL the suitable keywords !

Do you see the power of this amazing online tool? Not only will the software help you to analyze and mine information speedily but it virtually shows you exactly what market or goods a person should really be focusing on. It can easily save you enormous amount of precious time simply by supplying you the information for you to come up with the ideal decisions.

There is a whole lot extra features of IMEye and a lot of other ways which you might use this application. Yet, it's beyond the scope of this particular review to describe every bit.

How well are you managing Your Inventory?

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:07:54 -0600

Selling goods in multiple channels means dealing with multi-channel inventory planning. It may at first sound exaggerated, but how well you plan and manage your inventory often determines your customer service level and profits. Right since the multichannel distribution was in its infancy, to a situation called NOW where it is the very need of the product-based companies, the guru mantra of inventory management has been just one: Streamlining and Managing Inventory.

To explain the point mentioned above, let us take the scenario of Company A and Company B, both of which are let us say, in Home Appliance industry. Both A and B would have multiple distribution centers, and the objective of both would remain the same- shorten the delivery time to the customer and earn maximum profit.

While A recognizes the importance of managing inventory in the following ways, it stresses on keeping an automated track on its inventory:

Cost of storage space
Cost of stock movement
Cost of time spent managing the inventory
Any cost of damaged or stolen inventory
Type and quantity of stock in-hand
Type and quantity of stock lying at the secondary and tertiary level
Type and quantity of stock-out and over-stock

So Company A knows WHAT its sales distribution channel has and WHEN. The customer satisfaction ratio hence increases and so does the ROI.

Company B, on the flip side, rests on the idea that it can manage inventory through emails and excel sheets. It sets the Minimum Stock Level (MSL) at every distributor and stockiest level manually. Unlike Company ‘A’, there are no reminders or alerts to upgrade the inventory level, so ‘B’ places a dedicated employee that checks the MSL and updates the sales head. There are also no real-time inventory updates, which company ‘A’ experiences by automating their inventory and sales management. Maintaining excel sheets may also be error-prone, while Company A enjoys 100% error-free and real-time updates about its inventory.

‘B’ thus loses its focus on Inventory Management, which results in ordering too many of one thing, or too little of something else.

What does ‘B’ need to manage effective inventory?

We clearly see the pitfalls that ‘B’ could have avoided with detailed and dynamic automated sales reports. They let you easily track your inventory, see what is on stock, spot sales trends, and use historical data to better forecast your manufacturing needs. These reports also alert you when it is time to reorder for stocks that are running low, or manage the stock that is lying in excess.

Like ‘A’, if you also feel the push to manage your sales processes and streamline your inventory, you ought to know and implement the 2 important things- ‘When to Order’ and ‘How Much to Order’. Give your business a chance to experience excellence by automating your service and repair processes!

Basic Components of Electronic Document Management

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 05:38:21 -0600

Remember how an average office looked just 30 years ago? Chances are there were entire rooms set aside for paper document storage, or because of space constraints and security concerns those important documents were kept at an off-site location, making them irretrievable when needed quickly. File cabinets were the norm, taking up valuable square footage and necessitating entire staffs to keep track of all the paperwork.

Today's offices look and function quite differently thanks to electronic document management systems. The world is run by computers now, so the transition from hard copy to electronic documents has been a natural and absolutely essential one. Electronic systems allow companies all over the world to capture, share and collaborate on documents in mere minutes, if not seconds, greatly decreasing both costs and the element of human error. Here is a short overview of such a system's basic components.

The main jobs of a CED management system are: capturing, storing, indexing and retrieving, although more comprehensive systems allow users to effectively accomplish more tasks such as managing work flow and collaborating on a document from virtually anywhere.

--Meta data recording and storage: Incoming and outgoing documents are automatically tagged as to the date and time sent, who stored it, and so forth.

--Capture: The technology used in scanners allows hard documents to be transferred into electronic format, and CED management captures this data. In most cases, the software also allows for the easy transfer of computer-based documents into the system, so that materials can be processed, retrieved and stored through the company's network.

--Indexing: One of the trickiest parts of electronic document sharing and storing is keeping it all organized. CED management keeps track of unique document identifiers and may also provide quick classification using meta data information.

--Retrieval: Users can either retrieve a single document through the use of a keyword search or an entire index to find multiple documents. This feature is a real time-saver: imagine how things used to be done in the "old days:" it may have taken literally days to search through hard files to find a single needed document.

Basic Components of Electronic Document Management

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 05:37:00 -0600

The Merits of Live Chat Software for Online Stores

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 00:25:44 -0600

With technological advancements rocking the world in all fields, especially on Internet, it becomes mandatory for all the online store owners to think of innovative ways in which they could keep their loyal base of clientele satisfied, retained and still attract a fresh bunch of them. And in order to accomplish the same, what other best way is there than live chat software or email marketing software, or free forum software or even knowledge base software that will help to keep in touch with the customers, learn about what they wish to have and how satisfied they are with your store, as well as help to serve your customers better and more satisfying, finally to close more sales.

Of all the choices that are available to the online store owners, it is the live chat software that has won many hearts hands down. By installing live chat software on your website, you will be able to do scores of things you were unable to accomplish till then. For instance, with the live chat software on your website, you can

>> Get a general idea of customers’ behaviors on your website, such as where they are from, which pages they are viewing, which URL they are referrer to your website etc.;

>> Respond to their queries or questions in real time;

>> Auto-invite the customers who have been on your site for some time, such as 30 seconds and the time can be set by yourself according to your needs;

>> Learn more about their interests and what kind of products or services they are looking for or interested in;

>> By knowing about their interests, you can proactively interact with your customers and convince them into why they should buy a particular product or service from you.

……

All such information will serve as great inputs for you to better your business and services further. When this word about great customer service at your online store spreads around, you are paving the way for more traffic to your website which will translate into more sales.

Customers are god for any business and when their needs are well taken care of, the business grows manifold and that too in less time.Deploying live chat software is an ideal solution to entice and tie down your customers to your online store to reach the pinnacle of success!

Five Ways Your Company Can Save Money

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 01:36:42 -0600

For businesses, big or small, saving money is always important, but it’s doubly important in a time of recession. But finding those many, small ways to cut corners can sometimes be difficult. Here are five ways that your company can save some money in the recession.

1.    Stop providing tea and coffee. This may seem harsh, but it’s really not. People bring their own lunches to work, why shouldn’t they bring their own tea or coffee? And you may think that tea and coffee are not expensive, but if you have a large company, sit down and calculate how much you spend on coffee grounds, tea bags, milk, and sugar (and sweeteners for those dieters—that can add up too!) over the course of a year. You may be surprised.

2.    Turn off all equipment, and switch off all sockets when the office is closed. Lights, computers, air conditioning, heaters, electronic photo frames, televisions, microwaves, toasters. Turn everything off at the wall switch. No excuses, no exceptions other than fire and security alarms. This can save your company a lot of electricity costs over time.

3.    Share printers. Having one printer for a small business, or a couple printers per building for larger businesses, can save you a lot of money. It’s easy to implement a system so that documents are printed at one source.

4.    Reuse and save your paper. Print on both sides of the page, and only dispose of papers that have been used on both sides. Use smaller typeface or print on a lower resolution to save ink.

5.    Implement document management software. Document management software will save you money by saving you time, paper, ink, and office space. And you won’t need as many secretaries. Electronic document storage makes for faster document retrieval, and clients are satisfied faster—leaving time for more new clients. And you’ll save a few trees in the process.

How to Choose a Document Management System

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:02:35 -0600

If your company is preparing to implement a document management system, you may be confused about where to start, and how to choose such a system. Sometimes the sheer confusion can cause people to not bother with the whole thing. But you should remember that a document management system will save you time, money, and a lot of trouble in the long run. And choosing one doesn’t have to be that difficult.

Do some research. Find out what similar companies are using for document management services. If you see a system or program that you like the look of, call them up or email them and ask for more information. Ask them specific questions: how much does it cost? What does it do? What is it capable of ? What can’t it do?

Think about your company’s specific needs. Do you need document management in all departments, or only in one department? This can help you narrow down what type of program you need. Avoid software that requires you to change over your entire computer system. A good document management service should be able to work with your existing computer systems and programs to for the least amount of conversion and change-over.

Consider the cost. Compare several systems to find out what the average seems to be. Don’t purchase a program that looks excessively expensive unless you are positive that that’s what you need. But also, don’t purchase one that looks extremely low in price. Why would a good program cost only a little?

Finally, choose a document management system that comes with unlimited, free help and support. This will save you problems as there are normally some bugs and issues to work through, especially when you first implement a new system. Make sure you do your research thoroughly. And think about your needs. Knowing what to look for means finding it a lot faster.

Free Burning Software From Teeeh.com

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 02:41:52 -0600

Teeeh.com is a site focused on Computer Technology including Hardware and Software. They majorly cover Microsoft and Internet technologies fixing problems that most of the people encounter while using these technologies. They also cover software that are productive for everyone. They offer services like free DVD burning software, Windows registry cleaner and free virus scan and removal.

DVD burning software can be a cause of slowing down the computer when it’s running. People always look for free software that doesn’t take a lot of resources on the system. BurnAware is free DVD burning software that has been used for a long time. Its ease of use and simplicity in design makes it impressive. BurnAware comes with a lot of advanced options that usually free DVD burning software doesn’t include. DVD Burning could mean DVD Copying to someone while it also means creating a DVD out of home videos to another. There are two groups of DVD burning software, the first being standard/regular burning apps that can burn audio/video/data to a DVD. The other group is a much more advanced type of burning software where in addition to the above you can also watch DVD's, Author DVD's, Copy, Data Backup, and Label DVD's. These are called "Media" software because they include a bundle of apps that deal with everything your DVD burner could ever want. Their solution features advanced technologies for enjoying and creating the latest audio and video disc formats that supports task-based operation of burning and creativity features, and provides an easy means to update and enhance products online. Once the movie is made, you can burn it to CD/DVD and make multiple copies quickly and reliably using the included burning and disc duplication software. DVD or CD burning software is actually called a optical disk authoring software. That means that there is much more going on when you try to write a DVD than just burn data onto it. For an optical disk to be written, an image with a full file system of the disk, must be first created. The file system is different depending on the optical disk used, but in the case of DVDs Universal Disk Format (UDF) is used. Another important thing to consider when writing a DVD is the optical disk itself. To create a disk image and file system to write on an optical disk you need authoring software, or, the more commonly named, software that burns DVDs. Burnaware is probably the easiest to use out of the lot.

Best-of-Breed versus Integrated Systems - The Case of WMS

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 03:15:09 -0600

When choosing software for a particular aspect of your business, be it CRM, Shop Floor Management, Quality Control, Point of Sale, WMS Solutions or anything else, the choice between selecting a specific package to address your needs (Best of Breed), or selecting an overall system that will serve your business as a whole is not one that should be taken lightly.

If you do not already have an ERP system in place, you might want to consider looking for a system that covers both the specific functionality you are looking for, as well as being a fully functional company wide solution. For companies that already have an ERP system, try to find out if your vendor offers a WMS option, and even if it doesn't include all the very specific functionality, if it's "close enough" you should certainly weigh it carefully against the integration of third-party options. Let's look at the case of Warehouse Management Systems, or WMS.

Implementation of WMS systems has always been a major challenge even when undertaken with budgets of $500K and upward, so it is understandably a greater challenge within the budgets that small and medium-sized companies can afford. A major contributing factor to this challenge is the integration complexity of a system that is not part of the ERP system. Implementing a stand-alone WMS solution, in addition to the complexity of its integration, could have a tremendous impact on pricing and costs, overall system stability and the efficiency of day-to-day work.

Issues

Following are some of the common problems faced when integrating an ERP and WMS system:

1. Inventory balance discrepancy (or "mismatch"): there are a plethora of issues that could trigger an inventory balance discrepancy between a system with separate ERP and WMS Software. For every part for which a mismatch is detected, there may be hundreds (or thousands) of transactions that should be investigated to analyze the cause of the discrepancy. Selecting the two-system approach mandates the appointment of individual/s who would do the investigation and make it part of their job description.

2. Incremental system initiation is almost mandatory to avoid costly downtime in a warehouse. There are two ways to achieve incremental implementation, both of which are difficult if not impossible to accomplish when the WMS is a separate entity: a. Isolate an area in the warehouse and implement the WMS on that area only. b. Isolate an activity (e.g., "pick") and implement throughout the warehouse.

3. Incremental system shut-down: warehouse management systems (integrated or separate) can suffer from erroneous data definitions that will result in system malfunctions. When working with a third party WMS, there is no way to incrementally isolate the area or operation in which the malfunction was detected. Unless a quick fix is provided, the whole warehouse operation may come to a standstill as the problem spreads and is exacerbated with every additional transaction or activity reported into the system. Incremental shut-down capabilities are a readily available option in a fully integrated WMS/ERP system.

4. Managing assemblies (packing small packages into larger ones, unpacking, etc.): due to complexity, managing assemblies can be a significant issue to resolve when working with two separate systems. But in a fully integrated system, it's an integral part of the ERP system, extended into the WMS.

5. Data synchronization challenges: a. There are a number of inventory attributes that are customer-specific in both what they represent and the business process/rules that they must fulfill, such as customer-designated inventory allocation (quantitative, prepaid, etc.), "ship to/bill to" locations and more. Any mismatch between the ERP system and the WMS when such attributes and rules are synchronized could cause a discrepancy between the two systems, which in turn may result in prolonged work stoppages until the problems are identified and resolved. b. Delivery priorities as set by the Supply Chain Management (SCM) system in the ERP system are difficult to synchronize with an external WMS on an ongoing basis. Tracking and synchronization between two systems to account for other actions in the warehouse, such as "Put", that are temporarily implemented in the ERP system can be troublesome.

An integrated solution

Some ERP systems now include an integrated WMS module and WMS Services. Following are some of the benefits provided by the integrated WMS-ERP solution:

1. Integration: an integrated WMS system enables the warehousing functions to interact seamlessly with other system and corporate activities, be they manufacturing or distribution related. Whether your business is manufacturing bars of soap or providing maintenance for jet engines, the warehouse functions as an integral part of the business, so it makes sense to manage it as an integral part of the core software solution.

2. Visibility: an integrated WMS system provides a greater depth and breadth to supply chain visibility, helping users not only to check order statuses, but also to meet ever increasing delivery standards, manage global operations on many levels more efficiently, and provide customer service reps with crucial information and alerts.

3. Unification: unified data structures (part catalogue, warehouse/location records, etc.). As a result, any authorized user can perform data validation during initial system implementation using a single system and interface.

4. Interface consistency: With a unified user interface, training fees and learning curve times are greatly reduced. Getting new employees up and running on two different user interfaces is always more costly and time consuming than learning a single user interface.

5. Unified system maintenance: Of the many issues that could be covered under this topic, a predominant one is maintaining "user permissions/profiles" in two different systems.

6. Overall benefits of the ERP system are automatically included in the WMS functionality: BI features including Dashboards and KPIs, BPM functionality and more.

If the WMS is part of the ERP system, warehouse operations can interact seamlessly with accounting, CRM, Supply Chain, production processes and more. Purchase, sales and inventory processes can be used to trigger the putaway, picking and replenishment tasks, or vice versa.

Saving Cost on After-Sales Service - An Indirect Profit Stream

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:09:31 -0600

In a scenario where fierce market competition and rising challenges have made the market volatile, winning customer trust has become more important than ever. Talking about the manufacturing companies, effective after-sales are the law of business. According to a survey conducted by PRTM, the leader in Global Supply Chain Management and Customer Value Management, the manufacturing companies that pay attention to managing their after-sales enjoy customer service and operational cost advantages over average performing companies. Their report is backed by the following stats:

• Companies that focus on after-sales experience 75 percent lower inventory per dollar of installed base

• Companies that streamline their post-sales processes enjoy 15 percent higher fill rates

• Companies that manage their service and repair functions benefits from 15 percent more on-time service-parts delivery

Controlling inventory and spare parts with diversified manufacturing units and its regional & central warehouses, often becomes one of the measures in yielding returns. This is because after-sales business processes stock maintenance; repair management and account management are often managed by sales team, product line management and repair centers and not by the OEMs alone. This requires an end-to-end visibility to cover its service costs and exceed the revenue. The driving issue of underperformance in after-sales management is that these entities do not have an automated way to see sales performance at every echelon.

A handset manufacturer for example, looses focus on the after-sales, while devoting all its energies on the manufacturing and handset quality. The entire focus is on manufacturing & sales and is not able to view trends on whether warehouse manager dispatches the stock on time, if service centers are over budgeting the spare parts inventory and the like. This hinders the repair process and increases turn-around-time (TAT) needed to support warranty obligations and to minimize excess and obsolete service-part write-offs. This is a dual loss as the revenues price skyrockets and the end-customer is frustrated with the delayed services.

As long as the process is manual and masked in the veil of excel sheets and email notifications, the efficiency level is tend to decline, revenue streams deteriorate and TAT increases. The solution lies in a robust, automated Service Management System that offers real-time updates on the after-sales processes.

When you get real-time updates, you are able to view and review business performance, parts movement, and thereby also get the ability to take decisions that work in the favor of the efficient after-sales mechanism.