Business IT and cloud computing

IT executives, in organizations of all sizes, are growing more familiar with “cloud computing”, the made-up expression which illustrates a particular phenomenon where companies can run almost every information system they rely on without owning any tech equipment.

Businesses can therefore rent access to applications and IT infrastructure that reside on the internet, paying for them on either a subscription -or- a per-use basis while providing employees with access to information from anywhere, at any time, with nothing more than a connected device.

Wether IT folks are for the cloud or not, the very idea sounds great. No more headaches for software updates, no more server farms to monitor, no more growing storage requirements or any such “technical” worries. The cloud is sold as infinitely expandable so a typical “cloud-enabled” company can focus on what it does best while leaving the data management to the cloud-centric professionals.

In itself, this is a significant shift in the way the internet is used but the cloud story gets even more interesting when you consider it may hold the promise for transforming the role of IT within the business. Letting an external service provider sweat issues like server capacity, networked storage and bandwidth means the internal IT staff (on the company payroll) may shed some “hands-on” weight while filling new positions with IT strategists who worry more about data accessibility than adding more hard drives to the company data center.

This colossal shift isn’t going to happen overnight and chances are IT’s more technical bunch will likely leave companies to go work for the service providers, catering to the growing crowd of cloud-minded companies.

While we usually think of business computing as a desktop computer thing, cloud computing may also prove to be an ideal strategy for reaping the full benefits that mobile devices, when properly used, can deliver, namely by allowing companies to essentially push their IT environment out to employees rather than employees having to get access to the IT environment.

The cloud computing future may hold many promises but theory can sometimes hit a brick wall named “reality”. When it comes to cloud computing, just because it holds promises doesn’t mean it’s going to translate in practical solutions for real business tech challenges — at least, not anytime soon.

If anything, cloud computing serves as a reminder that computing models constantly evolve. As companies face increasing pressure to be more agile than the competition, they’ll be forced to adapt to changing computing models to stay competitive… and profitable.

For those who feel like cloud computing is their thing, there are security risks which can’t be swept under the proverbial rug. For instance, how would you feel if your companies’ data was dumped alongside other companies’ data? What happens if a technical glitch grants another company full access to your data? Will you even be warned it happened? Relying on strangers to handle your data is a typical C-level decision and it’s not just about the money savings, either.

Nevertheless, some companies are happy to deal with the glitches in exchange for the potential benefits of cloud computing. Big players like Salesforce (think: SaaS) and NetSuite (ERP, CRM, e-commerce), Amazon with its S3 and Elastic Compute Cloud offerings as well as IBM and Google (Google Apps, anyone?) are paving the way for a more dynamic cloud computing future.

The final on cloud computing might be that in the event this cloud thing sticks, it’ll help IT transform from a perceived technology cost center into a strategic business asset as companies likely apply hybrid models that lie between the proprietary data centers (for highly critical data) and the cloud (for everything else).

If anything, we’re seeing the cloud computing phenomenon unfold before our very eyes and for many venturing entrepreneurs, this, among other things, could come to be known as yet another web-related, big and fluffly cumulus-sized, opportunity.

Tags: cloud computing, outsourced hosting, servers, storage, saas, erp, crm, e-commerce, infrastructure

SugarCRM helps your customers

If you’re looking to make your customers happy by always calling them at the right moment, by planning ahead of their needs and by accompanying them in their projects, then using the SugarCRM Suite should make perfect sense to you.

Either hosted by Sugar or downloadable as an Open Source PHP / MySQL script, many experts consider that this Cupertino-based company is offering the next generation of CRM, today. For anybody managing customers, that’s enough to write home about.

In a nutshell, SugarCRM is rethinking how technology can help companies manage customer relationships.

More specifically, Sugar delivers a feature-rich set of business processes that enhance marketing effectiveness, drive sales performance, improve customer satisfaction and provide executive insight into business performance. This already sounds good but two new much anticipated modules are available and they’re bound to further help manage your customers.

First, the Knowledgebase helps customer support and engineering teams better manage and share structured and unstructured information. Knowledgebase allows users to create frequently asked questions (FAQs), manage files and search (and rate) content – all in one easy-to-use interface.

Secondly, the Customer Self-Service Portal allows companies to provide self-service capabilities to customers and prospects for key marketing, sales and support activities. Customers can log cases, upload relevant information and track cases to resolution without ever having to pick up a phone.

The SugarCRM Suite delights customers of all sizes across a broad range of industries. If you’re already one of them, now would be a good time to take a good look at how these new offerings can integrate with your business objectives, customerwise.

Tags: sugarcrm, crm, customer relationships, customer management, knowledgebase, self-service portal

SugarCRM manages your customers

The open source scene dedicated to customer relationship management (CRM) offerings is fortunate to the SugarCRM team of developers pushing the limits of what a (rather large) PHP-based CRM script can accomplish.

If you’re in business and you still find yourself fighting off the daily onslaught of customer requests with Post-its, perhaps it’s time for you to use your computer for more than just E-mails and web browsing.

If you’re familiar with PHP, MySQL and web hosting accounts, you’re welcome to download SugarCRM’s open source edition and yes, it’s free.

If you prefer to stick to the non-tech part of your work, the nice people at SugarCRM also offer comparitively affordable hosted accounts, called Sugar Professional On-Demand, so you benefit from the features without having to get under the proverbial “hood”.

The instant you enter the huge CRM feature set SugarCRM offers, you know this particular script means business. Fine grained contact management, agendas, projects (including their budgets), E-mail integration and document management for you -and- everybody else in your company make working with SugarCRM quite a blast, mainly because you get so features in one cleanly displayed package, portal-style.

A monkey with a little spare time might find his way through the intelligently layed out screens so there’s no doubt in mind any average user will get productive within the first five minutes of clicking around, in SugarCRM.

Over and above the obvious customer relationship management uses, the collaborative environment should please both the workers -and- the bosses. On the other hand, maybe the bosses don’t really need to know “the secret” behind your sudden productivity hike!

Seriously, this PHP script should impress even the hard-to-impress so make sure to take a picture of that gleeful grin in your face the first time you mouse around this professional CRM offering.

Tags: sugarcrm, crm, customers, management

Essential IT projects for modern organizations

Modern organizations usually find it easier to build on their current information system processes to meet tomorrow’s business challenges. Building everything from scratch, all over again, can cost a bundle.

As such, IT spending is spread across a rather varied selection of initiatives that help profit from the current infrastructure while pushing towards the latest trends in technology deployments.

Organizations need to protect their assets, understand what their information stream contains and analyze it thouroughly, expand to new markets without hurting their domestic business model all the while become ever more mobile and accessible, especially through the web.

In this light, here’s a quick list of projects your organizations might want to look into in order to get the most from the hottest business technology trends. Wikipedia links were added for easier access to complementary information regarding each theme.

• Application integration – legacy meets the newest gear
• Business analytics – finally understanding what the market is saying
• Enterprise portals – the ultimate team-building bridge
• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) – links your helpdesk to the customers
• Intrusion detection and prevention – lock the thieves out
• Data management – get a feel for more powerful databases and bigger storage
• VoIP (Voice-over-Internet Protocol) – the phone as yet another internet appliance
• Mobile devices – anything without a wire
• E-commerce – electronic transactions from all over the web
• BPM (Business Process Management) – eliminate inefficiencies across every layer of any organization
• Web services – that’s where the customers expect to get a hold of you

In most organizations, these initiatives are the ones already being alloted the most money and for a good reason, they enable new levels of performance across a extensive array of key features of any forward thinking corporation.

Fortunately, credible open source projects (look at SourceForge) exist for all of these projects to be successfully initiated and realized in every organization, even the smaller ones.

Tags: modern organizations, e-commerce, it, mobile web, voip, crm, open source, enterprise portals