Category Archives: Business Solutions

Get Your Employees Engaged!

Posted on by
Reply

Who do you want working on your front line, an engaged employee or someone that may have one foot out the door? Employees need to be aligned with the organization’s vision which increases their motivation to perform and exceed expectations. Right Management conducted a survey recently and discovered that only 43.6% of employees are fully committed to their position and organization (Hartford Business, 2010).

A Gallup poll suggested that 72% of U.S. workers are “sleepwalking through their day.” Here are three ideas to facilitate superior rates of engagement. It will improve the bottom line as well as office morale. Keep in mind that genuine engagement starts at the top through modeling the desired behavior and providing support for middle management that will then be reciprocated to all employees.

  • Employees need to know they matter.

This one sounds obvious, but often in the hustle and bustle of deadlines and KPI’s we forget to thank the people that matter most. How do you increase your gratefulness? There are a few ways to show employees that the organization is thankful for their daily efforts. An employee appreciation day is a fun way to incorporate a little fun alongside gratitude. Another way is to promote personal growth, on the job training and fostering an environment of lifelong learning.

  • Corporate culture has to reflect the vision and values of the organization.

Branding is externally important, but it is also just as crucial on the inside. Leadership needs to walk the walk. The mission statement isn’t just on the wall in the front office; you can feel it in the air. Pick the three most essential aspects of your culture and focus on them at all levels. For example, Company XYZ decides to concentrate on communication, education and innovation. Now incorporate those values in everything you do!

  • Provide flexible work options.

This one is a challenge. Workshifting is the new buzz word and basically means using the web to get your work done anytime, anywhere outside of the traditional office space. It is part of the modern business model based on the amount of time we spend on our computers. According to Telework Research Network, workplace flexibility can save organizations up to $20,000 per employee a year, help recruit quality talent, and increase productivity by 27%. To top that off, work shifters are 55% more engaged than non-shifters.

Here’s the big take away, make sure your employees feel appreciated, ensure your organizational culture reflects the vision and values of the company, and start thinking strategically about where and how your employees work. Can they work 20 hours a week outside the traditional office? Give it a try and see if they become more engaged, increase their productivity and enhance the corporate culture.

“Sir, Do You Know How Fast You Were Going?”

Posted on by
Reply

If you’ve been driving for a while you probably have been there.  You’re cruising along and out of nowhere there are flashing lights in your rearview mirror.  You’re being pulled over.  You roll down the window as the policeman walks up to your car and asks for your driver’s license and registration.

And then the question comes:  “Sir, do you know how fast you were going?”

Most of the time, you know the answer to the policeman’s question. Why? Because cars come equipped with a conveniently placed array of dials and gauges that tell us at a glance all the most important information we need to understand what’s happening in car: engine temp, RPM, mileage, location (if you get the NAV package) and of course, our speed.  This is the car’s dashboard.

Cars are pretty complicated and we need to know what’s happening with them quickly and accurately so we can make necessary adjustments as we’re driving:  shift gears, stop, get some gas, speed up … and of course, slow down (I have a hard time with that one.)

Running your business can be a whole lot more complicated than driving a car, yet I find that most businesses are operating without dashboards!  With the technology readily available today, this simply should not be the case.  Applications like Microsoft Dynamics CRM and GP all contain customizable reporting that can be placed on an internal site and made available to any decision-maker in your company from virtually any place in the world.

Some things we’ve learned at Pinnacle about dashboards:

  • Dashboards should be different for the various roles in the business (CEO, COO, CFO, etc.) and their specific requirements for business data.
  • Dashboards usually contain 7 to 10 dashboard components.
  • Dashboards should NOT be manually created – that just uses labor and increases the odds of not being correct.
  • Dashboard should NOT USE FINANCIALS THAT ARE IN EXCEL.  This is just very wrong to me. the breakdown begins and the spreadsheet abyss gets bigger (too much $$$$ is wasted in this situation).
  • Any system to be fully utilized and to recognize the ROI of a system must be accurate with all the data sources coming from as few data bases as possible.

Dashboard are here and now and are best practice.  So, if you’re going to win the business race, I suggest you look further into implementing dashboards into your systems and processes.

Almost any format can be created.  Here are just a few examples:

Microsoft Licensing Changes May Impact EA Customers

Posted on by
Reply

A quick follow up on my earlier post and promise to provide an update for EA customers impacted by the upcoming licensing changes in Server 2012 -

To recap:

  • EA Customer with Enterprise Server licenses will have their licenses automatically converted from a single Enterprise Server license to two (2) Standard Server licenses when the new Server 2012 licensing become effective.
  • Standard Server 2012 licenses are functionally equivalent to DataCenter Server 2012 licenses.
  • DataCenter Server 2012 licenses provide for access to unlimited VMs.
  • Standard Server 2012 nlicenses provide access to two (2) VMs per license.
  • Standard Server 2012 licenses may be “stacked” on a single server to provide for. hosting additional VMs

Most customers will have no issues with Enterprise Server licensing as:

  • Standard and DataCenter Server editions are functionally equivalen.t
  • The conversion of one Enterprise 2008 R2 server license to two Standard Server 2012 licenses provides for access to the four VMs previously provided via Enterprise Server 2008 R2.

It is worth noting, however, that a Step-Up license is available for EA customers to upgrade existing Enterprise Server 2008 R2 licenses to Data Center Server 2008 R2 licenses. The Step-Up license must be executed before October 1st, 2012. Cost for the step-up license varies depending on the actual Enterprise Agreement, but should be in the neighborhood of fifty (50) dollars for each Enterprise Server 2008 R2 license being upgraded to a DataCenter Server 2008 R2 processor license.

A two processor server requires two (2) Data Center Server 2008R2 licenses, one per processor, whereas the current Enterprise Server 2008 R2 product is licensed per server.

$100 and two Enterprise licenses increase licensed VMs from 8 to unlimited.

Please contact your LAR responsible for your EA and ask about Enterprise Server Step-Up licenses if you are interested in taking advantage of this licensing opportunity.

Should I try to CONTROL the Uncontrollable?

Posted on by
Reply

Financial management professionals are given job titles such as “Controller” – yet when I talk to these people – their #1 complaint is that things are “out of control” in their organizations.

Control is about having the power to influence or direct peoples’ behaviors.

Usually when someone does something that isn’t desirable, the reactive organizational response goes something like this:

  • An emergency meeting is convened to discuss the matter.  The goal is to determine “what went wrong”.
  • After the determination has been made, options are discussed as to what can be done to insure that the situation doesn’t repeat itself in the future.
  • New process “rules” are put into place to prevent the situation from happening again – and these new rules are communicated to the appropriate personnel.
  • The situation happens again because people aren’t following the rules.

One thing that I notice consistently is that many of our clients are trying to develop processes that control events that have already taken place.  For example, once an Accounts Payable invoice is received from a vendor, it is given to a Department Manager for approval.  After this, it goes along with the check to a higher ranking employee for final review – and check signature.  The problem is that when it is determined that the order should have never been placed with that vendor, there is very little that can be done about it – because the event took place 30 days ago.

In effect, we are trying to control something that has already taken place.

Process definition is very important to the life of a Controller.  Requisitions should be approved PRIOR to the order being placed with the vendor.  More time should be spent controlling things BEFORE THEY HAVE ALREADY TAKEN PLACE – RATHER THAN AFTER!  So once a good process has been developed, how do you implement it – and make sure the rules are being followed?  Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM – combined with SharePoint – provide the platform and tools to accommodate and enforce the process.  Let us show you how it works!

Don’t Forget the “I” in IT

Posted on by
Reply

I think people have forgotten what the “I” in IT means:  information.  When you put the “I” and the “T” together, people usually think about computers, servers, networking, and so on.  For me, it’s about data, which is the information.  And when you bring information and technology together, you have something powerful, something more than just making things run faster (of course newer computers, networking, Internet, do make things faster.)  When I talk with clients and prospects during systems whiteboard strategy sessions, I usually start by asking this question, “Where is the data?”  Usually, I find data in several places: in an accounting system, in a CRM system, in some type of Line of Business (LOB) system, and then of course, you have the spreadsheets.

This is where the danger lies for companies but also where some real opportunities can take shape.

Yes, we usually conduct a detailed whiteboard, complete with pictures, visio diagrams, etc. with some recommendations for improvements we call a Technology Roadmap, but for purposes of this article, let’s just focus on the data that lies within the BIG 4:

  1. Accounting (makes sure you are making money and staying out of jail)
  2. CRM (now called XRM)
  3. LOB (applications usually specific to your industry)
  4. Spreadsheets (all the stuff you don’t know where to put)

There are always improvements that can be made to any of these systems, but something everyone should perk up and start paying a lot of attention to is the duplication of effort by employees to maintain data accurately across the systems.  Fortunately, most of the time, you can setup integration points between the systems, which we do a lot at Pinnacle; but more often than not, we find companies are paying people money to maintain data manually.

The risk here is inaccurate data which leads to reports that are inaccurate and that don’t match across systems.  IT departments can’t control this because it is in the end users’ control.  This is usually where the breakdown occurs and why companies fall into the spreadsheet abyss.

Spreadsheets have their place.  I see them as good analytical tools for pivot tables, quick sorts, groups, graphs, and so on, but the data should be delivered TO the spreadsheets – not maintained IN the spreadsheets.  The systems we implement allow us to “live link” the spreadsheets and refresh on demand.  This is a one way to securely pull the data and refresh the spreadsheet with the current data.

I could go on and on about this, but watching out for what is being entered into spreadsheets vs. pulled would be something I would keep my “right” eye on.

So what should you do?  Below are just a few items to consider, but conducting a whiteboard session to layout where your data is would be the place I would start.  I simply love doing that because it’s almost like going hunting or solving a mystery …

Quick Technology Tips to get on your Technology Roadmap

  • Discover where your data is – we have a four step data discovery process we use
  • Whiteboard (process map and diagram the interconnectivity of your systems
  • Determine how open your systems data is and what kind of tools you may have
  • Centralize your data into the BIG 3 (The BIG 4 minus the spreadsheets)
  • Integrate across the BIG 3

Sounds easy right?  If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, hire someone to whiteboard your system for a day.  It is a great investment because then you will know where the DATA is.  Then you can rough in your plan to integrate your data, reduce duplication, and gain insight into your business through graphs, dashboards, key performance indicators, and business alerts.  These tools will save you time and help you make accurate decisions about where the business is REALLY.

Virtualization 3.0

Posted on by
Reply

A lot of changes are happening in the IT space right now, with many of the conversations taking place in some Cloud context. What is not always clear is how much of the conversation is hype, and how much has real impact. A growing number of centralized information and information resources are shifting from Corporate Data Centers to both Public and Private Data Centers accessible over the Internet – so called Public and Private Clouds. As the shift grows, each major vendor ties marketing literature to their future “Cloud” strategy for dealing with the changing landscape, creating confusion in the market place.

The confusion becomes even more intense as the term “Cloud” is applied to technologies that have been developed to support large scale Internet accessible infrastructures becomes available to traditional IT organizations. Some may feel it safe to believe all of the Cloud talk is still just hype – but it turns out there are some real gems coming into the market place that can be lost in all of the marketing around Cloud solutions. As a result, I have stopped calling, or even thinking about, the new capabilities as Cloud capabilities  - instead talking about the new technologies as Virtualization 3.0. A process which seems to make previously tenuous and shifting conversation a bit more concrete.

Virtualization 1.0 and 2.0

From my perspective, Virtualization 1.0 was mostly about hardware consolidation. As many companies who conserved resources during lean years began to consider hardware and software upgrades, conversations about consolidating hardware resources through virtualization became the accepted norm. Discussing the opportunity to reduce the amount of hardware required to support small, medium, and large organizations who were upgrading from older software and equipment became a fairly comfortable conversation – particularly as the process was proven by more and more companies. Some organizations also took the opportunity to improve reliability by relocating centralized resources to large scale datacenters or hosting platforms, but not many. So Virtualization 1.0 was mainly about hardware consolidation.

I have spent much of the past 18 months discussing the veritable Recovery Time and Recovery Point objectives I used to plan large scale datacenter environments 10 years ago – but now in the context of virtualization. Discussions often involve not only the virtualization of physical servers, but also the approach to the spectrum of infrastructure availability, ranging from High Availability, to Backup and Recovery, to Disaster recovery and Business Continuity. I now see this discussion and planning about leveraging the capabilities of virtualized environments to meet business requirements – a conversation focused on ensuring IT resources are available when they are needed dispite the unexpected – as Virtualization 2.0. Which means Virtualization 2.0 has been mostly about IT support for Business Continuity.

Virtualization 3.0

Conversations around the third wave of virtualization are just beginning, focusing on two specific areas: Automation and architectures required to support the increasingly large number of virtual machines being supported on fewer, more powerful hosts. Many vendors are using “Cloud” to describe these solutions: vCloud, Private Cloud, etc. primarily because the technologies now available are a direct result of investments in research and development that were required to build large, successful Public and Private Cloud infrastructures. Microsoft, VMWare, and Citrix were forced to explore new technologies in order to provide the support massive datacenter environments with thousands of individual servers required; while at the same time looking for ways to drive down costs for public and private cloud solutions supported by Advertising, Freemium, or pay-as-you-go revenue streams. The fruits of the research and development dollars are now beginning to hit the mainstream in some surprising and exciting ways. It looks like the third wave of virtualization technologies, or Virtualization 3.0, will focus on Automation and Virtualized I/O, or Virtualized Networking – both of which become much more important as Virtual Machines and hosts are able to access an ever increasing amount of RAM and CPU resources.

We will explore some of the more interesting and recent developments over the next few weeks in this series entitled “Virtualization 3.0″.

I SEE YOU – let’s talk transparency!

Posted on by
Reply

Transparency has become a hot topic for all of our clients “Not for Profit” and “For Profit” alike.  But, what exactly is “transparency”?  The definition of transparent from Merriam Webster online is:  “Characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices”.

In laymen’s terms, most people desire financial data that is “easily understood” and “readily accessible”.  This seems pretty straight forward.  However, putting the concept of transparency into practice is not quite as easy as it sounds.  We have a new client who is very interested in financial reporting that is “transparent” and we spoke to three “C” level personnel – the CEO, CFO and COO in order to obtain their financial reporting desires for their transparent environment.  Here is what we learned:

CEO – We want to provide financial statements with KPI’s and BI tools used as a primary communication tool.  We do NOT want to provide too much detail – as I don’t want to answer a bunch of questions pertaining to where we are spending our money.  For example, I don’t mind them knowing what our total Travel & Entertainment expenses are – but I don’t want them to see how much the Company pays for my membership to the Country Club.

CFO – In order to be totally transparent, we must provide detail as to every single transaction that takes place within our environment.  We should show who our customers are – so that everyone knows we aren’t just generating revenue numbers from related parties, etc.  If we are spending $10,000 a year on a Country Club membership for our CEO, that information should be presented and shown.  In a world of transparency, if we are afraid to show it – than we probably shouldn’t be doing it.

COO – I want people to have access to data pertaining to workforce productivity, operational investments that are being made – and the ROI that accompanies those investments.  I really don’t have an opinion as to what financial information we show – or the level of detail that we provide – as quite frankly, I can’t control those costs – so I don’t worry about them.

The determination was made within this Company that “one solution” would NOT solve the transparency consumption needs for the consumers of the data.  Therefore, it was imperative that a Financial Management and Reporting system be implemented that can readily serve up data in multiple formats.  Microsoft Dynamics GP and the accompanying reporting tools provided the necessary flexibility and scalability to solve this challenge.  Maybe it’s right for your organization also?