Trust your instincts

Few company owners have got to where they are by being stupid!

However many companies start with modest beginnings and invariably the skills that are employed are the skills of the founding directors. As the company grows however, the number and breadth of skills required can quickly swamp the founding directors.

This is not necessarily a problem as you hire and outsource to fill those gaps in your knowledge and ability.

I am working with an organisation at the moment that has grown from modest beginnings into a multi-million pound operation. The directors understand the deliverables of the business and the underlying products it is selling.

However the directors have very little Technology knowledge. Unfortunately in the case of this company, it turns out that their suppliers are little wiser.

This brings to mind the old quotation

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. “

The reason a number of project are running and running, is because their suppliers are barely a page ahead of the directors themselves.

After a short brainstorming session, it turns out that the directors instincts were absolutely spot on, however they were being smoke screened by poor suppliers.

So the moral of the story, “TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS”!

 

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-02-19

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-02-12

  • If you have monthly, regular accounts with suppliers, keep an eye on your statements, the big guns are sneaking through substantial rises. #
  • Have just spent 90 mins on #RBS support and got no where. Any thoughts on getting decent service from a bank:) #
  • A study of thousands of top employers worldwide reveals that 96% picked mindset over skillset as the key element in successful hires #
  • #AptekKelso10K we can announce Aptek is again sponsoring this running event on Sunday 15th July 2012, all levels welcome #
  • @timbarlow Excellent. I love the fact that they used your image URLs how fortuitous for you:) #
  • CRM, Contact Relationship Management or Customer Relationship Management? Depends on your viewpoint! #
  • "Our strategy is to score goals and win matches" quote from a football manager today! What a cunning insight he has :) #
  • An interesting eCommerce model – http://t.co/MkZhf0uN #
  • Windows 8 Start button – GUI, more link the smart phone! http://t.co/4Kp9xR7q #
  • Does anyone have first hand experience with ekmpowershop? #

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Camera integration with your back office systems

Nikon Camera IntegrationThis client is a bricks and mortar retailer with an eCommerce website.

They are very active in both producing high quality product photography, but also location photography showing the products in use.

The photography team have been taking a huge amount of time when they get back to the office after a shoot, matching the photographs against individual products, uploading the images and then updating the back office systems to link the product to the image in the database.

The solution is to integrate the camera to the back office systems.

We have developed a system that has allowed the photographer to select a product, using both barcode scanning and product searches.

Once the product is selected all the photographs that are taken are displayed against the product on the tecthered PC. Using a wireless transmitter linked to the camera the images are transfered to the PC.
The images are reviewed and marked as appropriate. The image may be marked as the main product photo or a product in use photograph. Any unmarked photographs can be discarded is wanted.

Once the photographer is happy, he completes the process.

The process completion involves the PC resampling the images so they are suitable for the target environment e.g. Web and the database is updated.

Once a good communications link is available to the internet, the images are moved to backup, website and the central system database is updated.

Watch those monthly accounts

Something I have noticed recently, both myself and with clients.

A number of the bigger companies are starting to hike their prices. If you look online, their headline pricing may be competitive. However if you pay monthly, a number of the companies are hiking the monthly fees.

Two good examples:

  1. Intuit – Quick books.
    A number of years ago we switched from paying annually, for the Payroll and on an adhoc basis for program updates, to paying monthly. There was no real cost saving, rather the security that the program was up to date and you had the latest PAYE data files.

    We have been paying £40 a month for a number of years now. However at the start of this year, I noticed that the last couple of direct debits had leapt to £70. It truns out that the company had decided to apply a price hike to its existing loyal customers. Interestingly as soon as I queried it, I was transferred to the “people annoyed about the price hike” team. Within minute the figure has been dropped to £50. Unfortunately I could not get the figure back down to what it was (25% increase), but managed to avoid the bigger increase (75%).

    So keep a close eye on those recurring payments. The Intuit rise was initially £360 a year, I have managed to grudgingly reduce it to £120 a year.

  2. EcoLab – Environmental Health
    A client has been using EcoLab. We noticed that last month they have just had a price hike of 10%. On querying it, again they were put onto the  “people annoyed about the price hike” team.

It appears that a number of the bigger players who have people on regular payments are slipping increasing in under the radar. I can see that they maight be wanting to increase prices as we all would, but when they have a team in place to handle the complaints, that is for me getting a little fishy!

It also shows a flagrant disregard for the ongoing downward pressures that many companies are still facing.

 

 

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-02-05

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-01-29

  • These phone calls for loft insulation, claim to be government grant led. As I am receiving several a day, are we paying for them? #
  • RT @BBCRoryCJ: Apple posts record quarterly revenue of $46billion, record profits of $13bn, sells 37m iPhones, 15.43m iPads #
  • Backlash over Google privacy move, what are your thoughts? http://t.co/NGd44bLY #
  • EU confirms data penalty proposal http://t.co/5fKwd6zg #
  • Government loses appeal on solar, with these tariffs at 4* the retail price, why were they ever offered? http://t.co/pN0l3zle #
  • Vimeo launches major site refresh http://t.co/RBphiZFp #
  • Apple loses tablet design appeal. Where is the balance between spoiling and protection? http://t.co/AXrEF4FA #
  • Man did not notice nail in brain, and we thought our jobs were scary:) http://t.co/Su29rXIM #
  • Facebook 'protected by own users'? http://t.co/3LO9m0e5 #
  • Jubilee cooking contest 'illegal', for goodness sake are we going mad? http://t.co/ewYqflDw #
  • Price, Ferdinand tweets inquiry, are they advertising and the role of the ASA http://t.co/KrYEoy7T #
  • Disable software, warns Symantec, thieves have stolen the source code and understand its weaknesses http://t.co/bvJyh4lN #
  • Android tablet market share jumps, a straight race between Apple and Android? http://t.co/h3wDS2Gi #
  • BBC News – The battle over your data http://t.co/wys79Afy, are you happy for your data to be shared? #
  • Do people really want tablets? Or are they just after an ultra portable (light) notebook? http://t.co/oiZalaso #
  • Web economy 'to double by 2016' http://t.co/38ihB2vh #

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If you lose it in the cloud, you may have lost it for good.

In principle I love the cloud. I use it all the time. When I am away from the office I use it all the time to access documents that I have prepared.

However I was away a week ago and thought I would get ahead of myself and started preparing a training course that I am giving in a couple of months. The material and concepts were flying the outline was looking good. I worked on it for a number of days.

I returned to my office happy that I had broken the back of the task.

I was then horrified that I could not see the document when I connected to the cloud from MS PowerPoint. So assuming that I was just loosing the plot, I went onto my Google Documents using a browser. Fortunately the document was there. However when I open it, I get an error message. For some reason the document will not open.

As it is in the cloud, I do not have a back up. I cannot go to the document and try to open it with another tool. I have tried contacting the help desk and nothing.

Time to start again. Fortunately I have only lost half a day.

When using the cloud, think about how you are going to be supported.

Compliance notices – undertone

Are you like me, fed up with the round of notices from Companies House and HMRC and in particular their tone.

I have today received a notice as I am required to file an annual return for a date in the future, which I have no problem with.

However at the bottom of the page a large banner in red telling me what they will do to the comapny and me if I do not do it.

Can you imagine how succesful you would be if you put that on your invoices! As business is a major revenue stream for the Government, it would be nice to be treated as a valued customer!

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-01-22

  • Virgin Media UK broadband failure, how resilient would your business be to loss of connectivity. http://t.co/zMNcGo50 #

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thomas davisthomas davis