The Ekaru Gazette   Vol 3-2. May 2003

Welcome to this month's issue! Our mission is to provide technology information you can use to grow your business.

Ekaru has a new look!
Check out our new web site at www.ekaru.com. We have added several new features including client testimonials, and a technology assessment for small business. Learn how businesses just like yours have eased their technology distractions and found the right technologies to grow their profitability.

Technology - Contact and Opportunity Management
Are you able to quickly access all customer and prospect contact information? Can you find your notes from your last conversation with a customer or prospect? Do you know how many new opportunities are in your pipeline? Think about what it would mean to your business to have quick access to this vital information. It's time to put a technology plan in place to more effectively manage your contacts and opportunities.

Excel and Outlook - these products are the most simple to use, and are already included in Microsoft Office. Using a simple Excel spreadsheet, you can track information such as customer and sales information. Within your outlook address book, you can conveniently keep contact information and use folders to track projects and opportunities. If you're just starting to get organized, this is usually the place to start. Advanced users can even synchronize Outlook folders to multiple users for collaborative sharing of information with a simple email connection.

You can quickly outgrow the basic contact management capabilities of Office-based tools when you start managing hundreds of opportunities and need tight control over your sales pipeline (and who doesn't?!). The next step is an entry-level desktop CRM (customer relationship management) solution such as Act or Goldmine which can be purchased for hundreds of dollars for single-user licenses. These applications provide more detailed opportunity and pipeline tracking in addition to basic contact management, but implementation and management costs can grow very quickly into the thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars when you grow into a multi-user, multi-location environment where some customization may be required. In addition to Act and Goldmine, there are many industry-specific vertical applications that perform many of the functions for your business that a horizontal CRM package could perform.

Historically, the next step up from an Act or Goldmine was an enterprise-class CRM solution such as Siebel, J.D. Edwards, or one of several others that are out of the budgetary reach of most small and medium businesses, costing many tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for the licensing and implementation. Recently, however, new products that deliver many of the same capabilities as the enterprise-class applications have become available at a fraction of their cost. One leading example is SalesNet, an ASP application which enables "anywhere, anytime" access with full configurability for a monthly subscription fee. Another innovative approach is offered by GoDEC who offers a turnkey "appliance" CRM solution in a box for small and medium business.

Questions to ask when forming your contact and opportunity technology plan:

1. Do I need to track contacts only?
2. Do I want to track opportunities and communications?
3. Do I want to track multiple contacts linked to a given account?
4. Does only one user need to access information or do multiple users need to collaborate?
5. Do I need local on-site access or "anywhere, anytime" access to data?

Take a look at your current practices, and start to identify what it is costing your business to miss opportunities with new and existing clients. This will help you establish a budget and take steps to manage your business to achieve the results you want.

Ekaru knows that your customers are the lifeblood of your business, and having great data on them is essential to managing your sales process and revenue. We can work with you to design the right strategy that fits your budget to take control of your sales pipeline. In addition to being a reseller of Salesnet, GoDEC, and other CRM applications, Ekaru can help you build a simple Excel template, organize and set up synchronization for Outlook folders, implement Act or Goldmine, and work with you on identifying and deploying industry-specific vertical applications.

Middlesex West Chamber of Commerce - Business Breakfast
Don't miss Ekaru's upcoming Seminar at the Middlesex West Chamber of Commerce Business Breakfast Series, May 14 at 7:30am at the Holiday Inn Boxborough Woods - "Technology: What Business Owners Need to Know to Increase Profits and Decrease Stress". Topics to be covered include using the right technology to improve your marketing, sales, and financial management. Also, tips will be provided to reduce technology distractions in your business today. Contact Bonnie Cameron, Executive Director, at 978-263-0010 to register (pre-registration is required). The Business Breakfast is a great opportunity to learn and network. Non-members are always welcome! Ekaru has been a proud member of the Middlesex West Chamber of Commerce since 2001.

Technology Tip - Sending Attachments in MS Outlook
Did you ever try to send someone an e-mail attachment and they just can't receive it? If you don't have virus protection and they do, it could be that the attachment has a virus you didn't know about and their antivirus software is stripping off the file and quarantining it. If your attachment is very large, it may exceed the allowable capacity on your or their e-mail hosting or Internet gateway service. But another common cause is you may have your e-mail configured for "rich text", and they have their email configured for "plain text". Change your message to "plain text" format by selecting "Format" and "Plain Text" in the menu bar of your Outlook e-mail message, and then re-send.

Enjoy Spring!  We hope you had a virus-free Winter!

Sincerely,
Team Ekaru

  ©2003 Ekaru, LLC. All Rights Reserved.