Mobile
Sage Sponsor Building Brics: The IIA Annual Conference 2012
Sage will be exhibiting at the Irish Internet Association Annual Conference which will be held Thursday May 10, 2012 at the Aviva Stadium.
The conference includes 8 interactive workshops running throughout the day with lots expert speakers and case studies at each. This year the theme of the conference is “Enabling Business Expansion” and will focus on social media, localisation and mobile.
The conference is amined at;
- Tech Business Owners strategizing for international growth in BRIC countries
- Business Owners localising their business proposition for international markets
- Business owners selling via mobile and taking advantage of mobile enabled technologies
- Marketing Professionals using Social Media in International markets or for Online PR and Brand Management or to optimise Search
The conference will equip Irish firms waking up to the online opportunity with the know how to target opportunities in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries, IIA chief executive Joan Mulvihill explained recently on SiliconRepublic.com.
Posted under: There’s An App For That – Sage 50 Mobile App
By Simon Bell, Product Manager at Sage
There is no doubt about it wherever you look these days the Smartphone is everywhere – slowly but surely becoming the ubiquitous mobile device type across most sectors of society. Webpages are generally designed for consumption on a larger screen, with the best will in the world, mobile web browsing can be a tedious job of pinching and scrolling etc and this is where apps come to the fore.
Apps are designed to enable simple user interfaces to access data or information, many standard apps simply add a presentation layer to a website interface. This is not coincidence, have a look at the heritage of most app design firms and you will quickly discover that many are web developers that have found new life in the app space. The really great apps do more than provide a website repurposed however, they add real value, by leveraging device capabilities to provide a mobile intuitive user experience and more importantly they add value for the user.
At Sage we have a dedicated mobile team that understand this idea who have worked to produce great applications on different platforms to give our customers a means to harness the mobile opportunity to add flexibility to their working experience. The latest addition to our mobile app family is Sage 50 Mobile for iPad offering a tablet specific user interface that is simple and intuitive and complements perfectly our desktop software.
BYOD – Bring Your Own Device and Sage 50 Accounts
By Simon Bell, Product Manager at Sage
We recently featured a blog post on how to make the best use of your iPad by using this to access your business applications. The iPad provides you with the ability to not only get out of the office but also gives you greater flexibility within the office to access your data and business critical information (or show your colleagues your pictures of your kids!) without having to run back to your desk or carry around your laptop. It helps you to get access to the information that you need immediately and as a result improves your productivity by giving you great immediacy.
All that said, if you are in a medium sized business or have complex business accounting needs it is simply not practical to do very complex business activities from your tablet either as advanced accounting processes require a qualified individual to spend time on a computer with sufficient processing power and access to a variety of files in various formats to put together the business critical financial data that helps your business move along. You still however need to be able to process some simple accounting procedures on the go and also get a reliable picture of your position.
How To Run Your Business From An iPad
By Beatrice Whelan, Social Media and Content Specialist at Sage Ireland
Now here’s a big statement: you can run your entire business from your iPad. It’s true! And I don’t just mean a light and nimble small business with streamlined operations. Thanks to the wonders of cloud software, and some clever thinking from Sage, you can run ventures of all shapes and sizes – even big business – from the comfort of your own iPad.
It’s all possible because cloud technology literally lightens your load. The action happens in the cloud, not on your overworked server. Your information gets stored in a safe place where space never runs out, hardware never becomes dated or erodes and there are no breakdowns or viruses. The only capability you need is good cloud based software with a simple user interface.
That’s all very well, you’re probably thinking, but real business can be real complex. It’s not just wheeling and dealing – or even good old-fashioned production. It practically takes a business to run a business. There’s communications, accounts, project management, staff issues, CRM and so much more. Would you be surprised to know that it’s all in the cloud and all accessible from the iPad?
Information overload?
Work life is creeping into home life more and more. As smartphones get smarter and laptops get lighter, it’s all too easy to take the office back home with you and keep on working
It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but there sometimes comes a point when the deluge of information coming your way can start to look overwhelming.
So what do you do? Adopt the foetal position and wish it all away? Throw your phone out of the train window? Jack it all in and join a circus?
Don’t panic!
Thankfully, there are some simple and sensible strategies to help you take control of this information before it takes control of you.
- Step back. When you start to feel overloaded, the best thing you can do is get some perspective. Step back and invest some time in working out what needs to be done so you can actually get on and do it.
- Avoid delay. Avoiding the issue can make information overload worse. Get cracking! Determine exactly what each task entails, and work out a realistic timescale.
- De-clutter. Take a few minutes each day to keep on top of your admin and filing: both electronic and paper. Aim to leave each day with a clear desk, and an up-to-date inbox.
- Delegate. Is it your job to do all of these tasks? Is there someone in a better position to get them done more efficiently? It’s not about passing the buck, it’s about finding the right person for the job.
- Don’t overload other people. If you’re getting too many emails, then are other people? Aim to send out fewer emails by concentrating on quality, not quantity. Consider the rest of your colleague’s workload rather than passing on unnecessary information.
- Make prioritising a daily practice. When information arrives, put it into groups, for instance, Urgent, Important, Useful, Nice to know and Bin. Then go through each category and put it into priority order.
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Can we ever be truly mobile?
With the announcement of Apple’s umpteenth app being downloaded for their “life changing” iPhone, and the follow up coverage of the Android community following suit in terms of apps available, we began wondering if it was a myth that people live their lives, both professionally and personally in a truly mobile environment. Discussions over the last decade (!) has been around the “paperless” office = the utopia. No paper on the desk. No paper through the letter box. No paper on a Sunday morning. All content would be delivered electronically and on demand. Now we are getting towards that vision, (there are commentators who believe we are already there), is there any area of a business that could not be truly mobile.
Take a Managing Director for example. What is it that MD’s or CEO’s need to be able to see on a daily basis so they can make decisions for their business? The obvious answer is in the title, they “manage” the direction. It ranges from sales, operations, financial figures and analysis, marketing, support and possibly the administrative areas of the business.
All these functions can be truly mobile.
The Sales Director can report on sales activities of the business through a CRM system that either uses the internet as a portal or is held in the cloud.
The Marketing Director can view, assess and develop online strategies using their laptop and the information held in the CRM, showing successes or marketing campaigns, with real time cost v. benefit analysis.
The Operations Director can extract information from the MIS systems to include LEAN statistics, stock availability or depletion, raw material usage and even employee efficiency.
The Customer Services Director can view call complaint statistics, average call waiting time, customer satisfaction and availability all through online apps.
Most importantly, the Financial Controller can run a full set of business accounting process by using the accessibility of the company’s financial accounts package from any internet connection, including monitoring purchase orders, suppliers and customer aged debtor lists.
If all this is available now, it does beg the question, why do we need paper at all? And if we don’t need paper, then why do we need to pay rent for an office that potentially we don’t need to run our business? Why are we not all sitting on a beach or in a Malibu apartment running our side of the business?
The answer clearly lies in a number of areas including human interaction, control and legality, but even with these reasons, everything we need to be truly mobile is there with the range of software, apps, hardware, smart phones and convergence on the market. Embracing these areas is an important step to adoption and the major brands in the market are working hard to make sure that if you have a smart phone, you can run your empire wherever you are….and whatever you are.
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