Tag: IT

All You Wanted To Know About Warehousing Or Warehouse Management System

    admin

In the era of IT where everything is controlled by software programs, warehousing management systems are also getting very popular. Typically, a warehouse management system or WMS should include the task of controlling the material movement and storage. These are the basic functions of WMS; however, now most of the WMS are designed to manage planning, order management, transport management, supply chain management, and integration of all these systems with accounting system.

What A Warehousing Management System Should Include

The Basic Requirements Of Any WMS Are As Follows:

*It should have a flexible location system
*It should be able to easily integrate with various data collection devices
*For storehouse tasks, it should be able to offer user-defined parameters

The fundamental purpose of any WMS is to control the storage and transportation of materials.

Who Will Require Warehousing Management System

Each storehouse will benefit from some or the other function of the WMS; however, it is not necessary for each and every storehouse to use WMS. This is because WMS is quite complex, requires a lot of data, and consists of many high end applications. As such, installing and maintaining the WMS is very expensive and requires careful planning. Also, the initial setup as well as the continuous functioning of the WMS requires a lot of planning and resources. In a large organization, it may also require to set up a different department to monitor the warehousing operations. So if the operations of the storehouse are incessant with many transactions every day, then it makes sense to invest in WMS.

How A WMS Would Help A Company

WMS, For Any Storehouse, Enables Automatic Data Collecting. This System Will Help

*Reduce the cost of labor (with proper storehouse management, less number of laborers will be required to perform tasks)
*Increase the accuracy of the data
*Reduce the cycle time and provide effective customer service
*Reduce in inventory
*Increase the storage capacity

How WMS Is Setup

It is quite a daunting task to set up a storehouse management system. It requires categorization of similar items and similar locations. The details regarding products and raw materials, such as weight and exact dimensions, are maintained. There are several industry specific parameters also that need to be maintained in WMS. The origin of the product (location from where it needs to be picked up) and delivery location are also important and must be properly entered in the WMS. For doing these, the information regarding the item needs to be combined, including the order, quantity, and location.

Above all, the basic aim to install a warehousing management system is to improve the services offered to your clients in a way that was not supported by your earlier management systems. With more and more organizations opting for WMS-focused ERP solutions, it is becoming quite natural to install such software solutions. With an effective WMS, it would be easier to combine all the functions of storehouse management, including resources planning, distribution planning, transportation scheduling, and supply chain scheduling. Installing an effective WMS will certainly enhance the efficiency of any large organization, and it will also help improve their customer services and offer better business prospects.

Professional Business Project Management Services

    admin

Most of the businesses hire managed services Chesterfield VA providers on per project basis, which remains same for computer related projects as well. With this, you cannot expect a temporarily hired business project management professional to hover around for your company after the completion of the project.

Professional services play an important role in establishing a business, no matter how dedicated, experienced and reliable workforce you hire, but for any project management professional services are must to make it sure shot success. No matter whether the project is big or small, relying on self management methods is the worst thing that one can think of doing while working on business project management. You can hire managed services Chesterfield VA to look after or oversee the work with their experience and knowledge to make every project a success.

Finding managed services in Chesterfield VA is not as easy as it seems to be because there are several companies offer business project management solutions, but what you have to understand is that you also must be having experts who can deal with external sources while working as collaborators on a project. However, there are professional business project management service providers in Chesterfield VA that have marked their specialization in offering managed services according to the individual requirements of a business.

Business project management services can be availed for all sorts of businesses like construction, IT, FMCG, etc. because a professional project management company can offer end to end project management solutions despite the nature of business with their excellent analytical skills and expertise. However, such companies have specialization in computer related fields because these days no company can work without a strong IT support that also forms the backbone of the organization. Computers is an ever-growing and diverse field, wherein the chances of bugs to be fixed are very high, in such a scenario the importance of an experienced manager increases many folds, who can give deadlines to the developers and tell them how quickly and accurately they have to fix the bug if they want their project to see the day of light.

Most of the businesses hire managed services Chesterfield VA providers on per project basis, which remains same for computer related projects as well. With this, you cannot expect a temporarily hired business project management professional to hover around for your company after the completion of the project until and unless you have negotiated these terms before signing the contract. So, make sure you clear all the terms as per your requirement in the contract before signing it to avoid any repercussions in the future. So, outsource your business project management service provider to give boost to your business while making the best out of their experience and knowledge.

Successful Html Email Marketing Campaigns And Lotus Notes Issues

    admin

As the online world changed in the nineties from informational to commercial and highly competitive, marketers embraced the new technology and the need has arisen to send graphically appealing newsletters and marketing messages. You have only seconds to capture attention, and the right picture will grab quicker than the right copy, as they say, “a picture can be worth a thousand words”. Just ask your clients if they would use plain white paper, rather than letterhead, to send an offline message to prospects and customers.

Today, the vast majority of all email clients can render (that is, display) HTML emails fairly well. Notable exceptions are older versions of Lotus Notes and pre AOL pre version 6.0. So whereas a few years ago the answer to the question was rather complex, today it really comes down to message purpose, subscriber preference and multipart messaging. Studies show that roughly 95 percent of commercial messages sent today are sent as Multi-Part MIME.

Multi-part MIME is an older protocol that allows you to send both text and HTML versions of an e-mail in a single package, kind of like a sandwich. The recipient’s e-mail program then displays the HTML version, if it is capable of reading that, or the text version, if it is not.

MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions and is an internet standard for the format of e-mail. Virtually all human written Internet e-mail and a fairly large proportion of automated e-mail is transmitted via SMTP MIME format. SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and if nothing else, you’ll learn a few more acronyms if you stick around. Internet e-mail is so closely associated with the SMTP and MIME standards that it is sometimes called SMTP/MIME e-mail.

Folks, while nobody can really agree on numbers and stats, we all agree on this: HTML Email Doesn’t Work Properly for Millions of Recipients.

HTML email breaks in a wide variety of email inboxes. This isn’t due to your creative abilities or lack of HTML knowledge – it’s due to the fact that the email client your recipient views your email in routinely breaks your message.

I feel like this is worth defining, as I know a lot of people get very scared when we talk about clients and servers, but will not admit it. An email client (some “big picture” folks also call it Mail User Agent) is nothing but a computer program that is used to read and send e-mail, such as Outlook, Lotus Notes, Thunderbird, etc. A mail server (also called a Mail Transfer Agent or MTA, or a mail exchange server) is a computer program that transfers electronic mail messages from one computer to another. Most of the time, since nobody has time to learn all the acronyms and terminology coined by those “big picture” people, we are used to know a mail server as the entire contraption (wires and all) that runs the program.

Depending on the email system, your HTML images may be blocked so recipients see a blank white box and/or your live hotlinks may not work properly. AOL 9.0, Outlook 2003, and Gmail are most infamous for blocking and/or breaking HTML, “for security reasons”.

Another big offender for not letting HTML through is Mel, the guy that works in the corporate IT department. Many corporations have IT departments who can’t wait for the day when all attachments and all HTML emails are eradicated. That is because in their world, anything that is not pure text is spam, virii, worms, trojans, spyware, adware, pure evil(ware) that makes mailboxes grow and users growl. As a consequence, most of those cubicle inhabitants – the end users – who have to sign a hundred page policy before they start getting busy on those corporate e-memos, are unable to view and/or send HTML messages, whether the feature is turned off at a server level, or on their computers.

Everything else aside, there is no bigger offender here on Earth than Lotus Notes. Lotus Notes is notorious for its refusal to handle Multi-Part MIME the same way the rest of the civilized world does.

For your amusement, here is a definition of Lotus Notes that was created by one of those “big picture” executives: “Lotus Notes is a commercial workflow and groupware software package that also provides application developers an environment for quickly creating cross- platform client/server applications”. Still with me? Don’t be scared. For the purposes of this article, Lotus Notes is an email client. Ok?

If you work for a company that uses Lotus Notes as the email system, don’t even think about sending newsletters other than in text form from it. Besides the fact that as a general rule, I always recommend to marketers the use of a professional permission based email marketing service, in the Lotus Notes case you just have to.

If you communicate to the B2B market, particularly large professional services firms, large lawfirms, many Global 2000 companies, HTML email compatibility will be a thorn in your side, as a lot of these companies use Lotus Notes.

The issues include:

– Older versions of Lotus Notes (under R5) convert HTML emails to a Lotus Notes Rich Text format. Lotus Notes versions under R5 also do not recognize Multi-Part MIME messages (HTML and text combined in a single email).

– Some companies may be deploying later versions of the Lotus Notes client, i.e., R6, but using an older version of Lotus Notes/Domino server such as 4.6. In this example, the recipient’s email client would also render an HTML message incorrectly.

So for a recipient to view a properly rendered HTML email, a company must use both the Lotus Notes client and server of R5 and above.

Here are some quick tips you can take if you have a significant Lotus Notes subscriber base:

1. Include a link at the top of HTML emails named “View Web Version” or something similar. The link sends recipients to a web hosted HTML version of the email (either on the email technology provider’s server or the sender’s server).

2. Also include an “Update Preferences” link and provide a web site update form that then enables recipients to choose to receive Text rather than HTML.

3. Create complete Text versions for those who prefer not to receive HTML or cannot view HTML.

4. On opt-in forms, include an option to receive a Text version and potentially list tips (i.e., “If you are using Lotus Notes versions below R5, select Text”).

In conclusion, I will say it again: Folks, don’t try this at home. Instead, always outsource email marketing to one of the many professional services. Advantages are: No blacklists and established relations with the major ISPs, ensuring maximum deliverability (plus, you don’t want to be called a spammer and banned from everywhere). They also make it easy to create, send, and track permission-based email, have advanced reporting, message scheduling, the ability to create unlimited lists, bounce back handling (extremely important), subscription management, newsletter templates and many other major industry-standard features. The service I use for my company can be tried free for 15 days, here: http://www.bsleek.com/emailmarketing/

Key Areas To Aligning Performance To Corporate Strategy And Goals

    admin

It used to be that performance management was managed in one department. Today, performance management has spread throughout the entire organization, where almost every division must focus on performance management to some degree in order to be successful. Despite this wider range of performance management, enterprise-wide performance initiatives are not widely practiced. And without an enterprise approach, it is extremely difficult to align your performance to organizational goals and objectives.

According to software vendor SAS, a recent survey of 1100 businesses revealed that performance alignment was the PRIMARY benefit companies hoped to receive from their performance management efforts. Aligning performance to your organization’s goals and objectives is critical to your organization’s success. On the other side, lack of alignment increases inefficiencies and risks and prevents optimal execution of the organizational strategy.

Think of this scenario as a model for linking corporate strategy to business objectives:

The executive board collaborates high-level strategic planning and identifies goals for the CEO and organization. The CEO then meets with his/her senior executives who in turn develop objectives derived from the CEOs goals and integrates those goals into the strategic plan. In turn, those executives meet with their managers who develop objectives derived from the strategic plan, and so on. Then, each subordinate goal is tied to one or more goals of their manager. Ideally, the final result is that every tracked goal in the entire company can map back to a corporate objective developed by the board.

Chances of organizational success are greatly increased by translating each high-level objective into a cascading series of focused performance measures. Using our previous example, the CEO may focus on net cash flow while the CFO looks at debt-to-equity ratio. The controller may focus on liquidity ratio, while the accounts receivable manager looks at days sales outstanding, and the accounts receivable clerk worries about percent of collections over 30/60/90 days.

This article discusses aligning corporate strategy to four key areas: departments/ divisions, workforce, finance, and systems.

Departmental Performance Alignment

Departmental performance alignment can be difficult when business processes within an organization span across multiple business units and functional support groups. To avoid bottlenecks, finger-pointing, and redundancy of work, shared performance measures that align people across organizational boundaries must be identified and responsibilities accounted for. For instance, a performance measure that includes percent of collections over 30/60/90 days might be applied both to accounts receivables clerks and sales representatives, thus sharing and integrating performance measures, encouraging collaboration and boosting overall performance.

Workforce Performance Alignment

When workforce performance is aligned with corporate objectives individuals in an organization develop a stake in that organization’s performance. Employees at every level are measured by something they understand and control, and that same measure is clearly linked to the goals of their direct supervisor and the organization as a whole.

Financial Performance Alignment

In an economy where results need to be achieved fast and investor confidence is low, CFOs and finance organizations are implementing integrated performance management to improve information quality and visibility. One challenge organizations face aligning performance is finding financial measures that are meaningful to those responsible for carrying out the work. Using the previous example net cash flow is a critical performance measure for executives, but it probably means very little to the accounts receivable clerk who has no idea of how their contribution improves net cash flow performance. Stick with simple financial metrics that employees can understand and control.

System Performance Alignment

The IT/IS department’s role is to provide technical support for the entire organization. While we know that this alone is a complex task, today’s business model requires systems to not only support users, but to align technology to meet the business needs of the organization. Understanding business unit objectives and translating them quickly and accurately into IT priorities is essential today. So how does an organization measure how well their systems are aligned to organizational objectives? By implementing vehicles for aligning and measuring IT performance, such as service level agreements, performance-based contracts, and products and services catalogs to generate reports that illustrate how well they are measuring up to business objectives.

If you can move closer to aligning performance in these areas your organization will be well on it’s way to surpassing all of it’s goals and objectives. While the goal of a performance initiative is to align performance to organizational strategy, it is most important to maintain flexibility and adapt to organizational changes quickly.

About Victor Holman

Victor Holman is a business performance and growth strategy coach, consultant, international speaker, entrepreneur and creator of the Business Performance Portal. He has provided his expertise to over 50 government agencies worldwide and hundreds of corporations of all sizes. His goal is to help small businesses outperform their competition by applying business growth strategies and assessment tools that work for large, successful businesses.

He provides business consulting for small and large size organizations, business coaching, team performance workshops, and in-depth on-site business assessments for business owners trying to take their business to the next level. His highly acclaimed Insider’s Secrets Club delivers fast, simple, easy to implement strategies for growing your business fast!

You can access his FREE business assessment tools, business management kits, business training programs, videos, templates, and more at http://www.lifecycle-performance-pros.com

How Cloud Computing is Useful for Retail Industry

    admin

Internet has expanded its horizons and cloud computing is one such internet based computing system which meets the requirement of the user on demand basis, involving the duration of the service used. Retail industry which is growing at a fast pace is embracing this concept of internet computing. Cloud Computing India is a pioneer in this field providing service and support to its clients, eventually leading to a drastic reduction in their operation and IT cost.

Cloud Computing

The word cloud has been derived from the cloud symbol that represents the internet in a programmed flowchart. Cloud computing is a form of internet computing where shared servers provide resources, software and data to computers and other devices on demand. Cloud computing can be classified into software as a service (SaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). One has to subscribe for cloud computing for organizing installations and data customizations. Software giants like Google, Microsoft etc. have embraced cloud computing.

With cloud computing a retailer has to just purchase rights to use software’s on a need basis instead of buying a copy of the software for each computer in the firm. This is referred to as SaaS.

Retail Industry and Cloud Computing

Retailers are always on the lookout for increasing their efficiency and reducing the cost. Retailers are constantly faced with ever increasing applications with overlapping functions. When retailers enter new market segment complexity increases and the cost of IT also goes up. India Cloud Computing comes to your assistance in this scenario.

Retailers can save a lot by subscribing to cloud computing. A lot of our expenditure on IT management can be cut through this. We see retailers trying hard to maintain ten and thousands of computers in different locations. We can completely avoid the complexity of keeping and managing individual system through this. The traditional model of computing in the retail industry included buying software’s and its license, high end servers with high computing powers. By subscribing to Cloud Computing India services administration and networking of computers can be avoided, there is no requirement for storage units and no need to install firewall and antivirus protections.

A cloud computing provider can give analytical results to its retailer by identifying the trend, seasonality component of each product, brand or category and identify and monitor the performance. A retailer collects large sales data from the point of sale which if analyzed can give us an insight about the trend and demand of the customers. Due to the incompatibility between volumes of data and the processing power of the system these sales data get underutilized. Cloud provider uses high power computing resources to analyze these sales data in a much shorter time. Cloud Computing is definitely a boon to the retail industry as it not only reduces IT management cost but also contributes significantly towards inventory management.

Plan an Electrifying Start to Your Information Technology Industry Career

    admin

It seems that most people these days have a friend, relative or neighbor in the Information Technology industry. One could be forgiven for concluding that this popularity is a product of a well known process supplying the Information Technology industry with rejuvenated stock year in and year out. Nothing could be further from the truth, approximately 70,000 searches a month for the keywords Information Technology Career or similar variances on Google alone validate this claim.

Even with a University degree many graduates find themselves lost and confused about their career path. The problem that graduates face is that Information Technology is a broad description encompassing any and all industries involved with the storage, processing or delivery of information. Telecommunications specialists and hardware technicians alike call themselves “IT” professionals despite very different training and skill sets. As do developers, business analysts, help desk consultants, web designers and database administrators just to name a few others.

In an industry where knowledge is rewarded, opportunity awaits savvy students and trainees who focus their training sooner rather than later. Take our two example students whom Ive very imaginatively called Student#1 and Student#2.

Student #1 wasnt sure where his IT education might take him. He is bright and cruised through his course producing the following impressive results.

2007 High School Graduate
2010 Information Technology Degree (6.1 of a maximum 7 GPA)

Good results are great. But can we raise the bar without improving on the GPA?

Student #2 researched the industry very early into his degree; he spoke with appropriate parties including recruitment agencies and other IT professionals. He even volunteered for three weeks of work experience in his field of choice. He continued on a focused career track throughout his time at university and at the end of his degree his final portfolio of achievements looked like this;

2007 High School Certificate
2008 Systems Administrator (3 week work experience) Company XYZ
2009 Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) Self Study
2009 Professional Membership AITP (Association of Information Technology Professionals)
2010 Information Technology Degree (5.6 of a maximum 7 GPA)
Major Infrastructure Technologies
Major Network Technologies

Student #2 focused his efforts towards a Systems Administrator role three years before he was scheduled to finish his degree. Apart from the additional experience he was able to get a first hand insight into the industry and learned that an MCP certification would be a valuable asset to his job hunting arsenal. Additional research also led him to join a professional association. Even his university degree shows clear intent and when you compare his achievements with Student#1 he looks a much stronger candidate despite a lower University GPA.

This is an example of well planned career development. The Information Technology industry excels in presenting unique opportunities and this is no exception. Forward thinkers and innovators stand up and get noticed Will you cruise through your studies or are you taking the bull by the horns?

The Importance Of A Marketing Plan!!

    admin

Marketing plans are important to successful businesses. Your marketing plan will lay down all the important pathways by which your business will market its products and thereby earn. Marketing plans are essential if you’re seeking financial backing, bank loans, or partnerships. Marketing plans are simply an element of your work plans. In most cases, a committee can create a marketing plan.

Marketing plans are crucial to banks wishing to retain existing customers while targeting desirable ones. However, many banks mistake a business plan for a marketing plan and others have ambiguous marketing plans which are ignored. Marketing plans are floated. IT gets new hardware and software. Marketing plans are proactive rather than reactive to budget cuts.

Marketing plans are useful for putting your thoughts to paper, and helping you to allocate your time and resources towards a predetermined ?Path to Success.? All labels have marketing plans (if you get signed, you should always ask to see yours), and sharp enterprising unsigned artists or artist managers should also have a working marketing plan as well. Marketing plans are detailed strategies of how to go about successfully marketing a product or products and earning a projected amount of return from the effort. A comprehensive marketing plan will consider such important elements as distribution costs, production costs, advertising expenses and any expense related to identifying and marketing the products to the consumers in the targeted markets. Marketing plans are critically important tools for marketing executives. If you can’t create a strong marketing plan, it is unlikely that you will be successful.

Cloud Migration Strategy For Enterprises

    admin

Most of us use the cloud services without even knowing it. If you are using any internet service like Facebook or a smartphone app where you give out your information or upload your pictures and other information you are most probably using a cloud service. So, what is a cloud service? .Services offered by companies who store the information of various business organizations and even the information of an individual who uses the services of internet based companies like job websites, social networking websites and other services using data center, which is a centralized location for the storage, management and circulating data and information for a particular business.

Benefits of Cloud Computingfor Enterprises

Cloud computing provides enterprises with services in the form of software,platform and infrastructure. Cloud computing service providers make sure that your data is secure and is accessible to the authorized persons. One of the best benefit of cloud computing is that it provides scalability, so if you plan to grow your business you dont need to worry about the infrastructure to accommodate the workload. The employees of the enterprises can work from any location using the internet with their security access credentials. This makes enterprises to work more efficiently without worrying about the data loss due to power fluctuation or natural calamities. One of the biggest advantages of using cloud computing is that it is cost efficient. It lowers the company IT expenses and you dont need to worry about upgrading and maintaining the IT expenses on your own. It provides enterprises with unlimited storage space for their data

Drawbacks of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is dependent on the internet connection. You need to have a fast internet connection to access the services. If you have intermittent internet connection or slow internet speed issues, you might want to fix them before switching to cloud services. One of the major concerns with the cloud services is the security. Storing the valuable company data using a third party cloud service provider puts the information at a great risk. Also the enterprise data is vulnerable to threats and attacks from hackers which hesitate some of the enterprises to switch to the cloud based services.

Effective ways to use Cloud Computing

Using Cloud service has both advantages and disadvantages based on the strategies implemented by the enterprises. An enterprise requires a Cloud service provider which ensures the security and scalability of the data. More importantly if the data can be migrated in the future, if the company decided to use the service from other cloud service providers. Enterprises need to choose a service provider that takes the security of the data seriously and updates their security sensors regularly to protect the information from the latest threats and hacks. All the data must be classified according to the importance of each section. All the data must be stored in correlating manner to prevent the data from being manipulated and avoid redundancy. But with more and more improvements in the cloud services, many Enterprises and mostly the startups are switching to cloud based services.

Know Why Pune Properties Wakad Are The Wisest Investment Decision

    admin

There was a time when Pune was known solely as an educational hub and a post-retirement city for government and Armed Forces personnel. But the scene in Pune today is far from laid back; it is vibrant and cosmopolitan to the core. After several IT and ITes giants chose Pune to set up shop, they attracted a large talent pool from across the country. Pune has always been a hub for automobile manufacturers and this business has also grown in the last few years. All the factors had a cascading effect on the real estate market on the city and there was a sudden property boom. Pune properties Wakad, Baner, Aundh, Kalyani Nagar, Viman Nagar etc witnessed great demand. In fact, the growth story in these pockets still continues.

The advantage of the property boom was that a number of players now offer residential projects with international standards. There are several real estate developers who have been offering 1 and 2 BHK flat in Pune since the last decade and more. These builders have emerged as the preferred option for buyers because they have a competitive edge over the new entrants in the market. In addition, those who have been around for a long time have their superior projects as a proof of their high construction standards. This is not the case with builders who have just one or two projects to their credit. Many reputed builders have a wide array of 3 BHK flat for sale in Pune.

When you are looking for a 2 or 3 BHK flat for sale in Pune it is advisable to choose a builder with enough experience. By doing this, you can be assured about investing your money in the right place. After all, buying a home is the culmination of years of hard work. There are ample flats in Pune for sale, but there are only a few classy projects.

In the last 2-3 years, Pune properties in Wakad have witnessed immense appreciation. They are still a great suburb to invest in. Wakad certainly tops the list when it comes to flats in Pune for sale. Following are a few reasons why Wakad is the preferred choice for many investors:

This area has a vibrant community of IT and ITes professionals. This has lent it a lively atmosphere as a lot of young working professionals are settled here. Most of these people work in the neighboring Hinjewadi IT Park.

The Municipal Corporation has been consistently working to develop wide roads in this area. This area also has a good supply of water and electricity. There are a number of good schools and hospitals in close vicinity, so it is convenient for those who have children.

Pune properties Wakad offers easy and quick access to the Mumbai-Bangalore national highway as well as the Pune-Mumbai Express Highway. If you are looking for a 2 BHK flat in Pune, Wakad is the best choice.

There is a new world-class cricket stadium coming up very close to Wakad. This stadium is sure to open to new avenues in the sporting arena.

All these reasons make Pune properties Wakad a preferred choice.