Welcome to the June Edition of "that's Correct!"

• We've received some amazing feedback on our Virtualisation series. This month we wrap it up with a real life example of how Virtualisation has helped one of our clients deal with their network issues.
• What goes into planning an effective CRM, why would you need a database plan? We look at the advantages of "whiteboarding" your CRM's direction.
• Microsoft has recently released Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista. So, should you install it?
• New Team Member profile; meet Dominique Vella...

We’ve received some amazing feedback on this series of articles and it’s only fitting to wrap it all up with a real life example of how we’ve used Virtualisation technology to help one of our customers move their IT systems forward.

Stemar Electrical Products has been in operation for 40 years now. Sten Maraldo is the founder and Managing Director, with his son Marcus being the Assistant Manager. Stemar designs and builds electrical transformers that are used in a wide variety of applications from street light poles through to power station and overload protection. The business has been built over the years based on excellent customer service. In these current financial times, Stemar is projecting double digit growth over the next few years. Their long term business plans have withstood many financial cycles however, their IT systems have at times frustrated them and lately, had threatened to become an obstacle in meeting their customers’ requirements.

Typical of most Correct Solutions clients, Stemar came to us by a word of mouth referral. Initially they contact us because they were having massive performance and stability issues with their five year old SBS 2003 server. We were able to assist them in stabilising the existing server and then discussed with them their business plans for the next few years. As part of this discussion we realised that in order to achieve their business objectives they would need to revamp their IT infrastructure. To do this effectively would require quite a major change in the way things were structured and the associated capital costs were something that was not within their budget.

The solution we proposed would normally require four physical servers to run, however we decided on using Microsofts Hyper-V technology to virtualise all four servers on a single physical box. This netted them an immediate capital saving of over $26,000, which brought a smile to their faces! In addition to the capital savings, the virtualisation makes backup and restore of the entire system a lot easier than it would be for four individual servers. Overall it is a far more dependable system from a disaster recovery point of view; the virtual layer means the servers can be restored to just about any computer with a suitable spec, greatly reducing downtime should the unmentionable occur.

The solution involved moving them to SBS 2008 Premium Edition, this gives Stemar access to SQL 2008 on a separate virtual server. Their business accounting and production system is now able to fully utilise the capabilities of the latest technology. Marcus told us that previously payroll would take a minimum of 5 minutes per entry to process, with the new server configuration it now takes 30 seconds per entry, a massive saving in overall time. It’s not just payroll processes that indicate the system performs better, it’s all other areas of daily operation and reporting that will add up to productivity improvements for their entire team.

In addition to SBS 2008, we implemented a Windows Server 2008 Terminal Server. This allows them to deploy a single icon to each of the computers on the workshop floor that will provide access to a remote application on the terminal server. When updates need to be applied to the application, instead of visiting all the shop floor computers, we only need to update one central computer.

Finally and by no means last, the central point of the network is the SBS 2008 server itself. This provides Stemar with the basic functions such as email, file and printer sharing as well as more advanced functions such as Remote Web Workplace. RWW has allowed Marcus to access all the functions of his office while travelling using nothing more than Internet Explorer. This means that he can keep tabs on the business while away without the hassles of normal VPN connections.

Stemar is not the only client benefiting from Virtualisation. We are in the middle of a few Network projects revolving around this exciting technology; and it is not just the big end of town who can benefit. One of the current projects we are working on is for a five user company. Virtualisation technology is assisting them to share resources with a sister company and cost effectively give their system a long awaited upgrade.

If you've been thinking about your Network infrastructure lately, wondering if it is time to position it for the future growth of your business, then give us a call today to find out what Virtualisation can do for you!

Last month we introduced Legrand CRM, a comprehensive customer relationship management tool.

A CRM is not just a program; it needs to be viewed as a broach approach to the way your organisation deals with clients and other contacts such as vendors and business partners – from the top down. CRM initiatives, if they fail, usually do so because the implementation was limited to software installation. It is important to realise that without planning and training, it is difficult for employees to take full advantage and make the most of the system in place.

"Why do we need a Database Plan? Can’t we just install and start using it?”

Legrand CRM is a sophisticated CRM program that allows administrators to add new users, set permissions for users, delete or deactivate users and customise the majority of the field names so that the information being stored in the database is relevant and specific for their company. But without proper planning, the power of the program is not entirely realised.

Once you’ve installed a CRM such as Legrand, there are a number of things the administrator(s) needs to consider. These things will no doubt call for some workshopping with the people who are intending to use it:

Ensuring the integrity of the information entered into the Database and keeping it clean. Setting user permissions regarding who can access data, enter and delete information is very important.

Creating conventions for the way data is entered and stored – even simple things like phone and fax formats (country and area codes etc), address formats (consider how mail mergers will require the use of capitals etc). These conventions should be documented and provided to users during the training process and enforced in the production environment.

The types of information that need to be stored and what is relevant information concerning your clients. For instance, the information that a Medical Practice would gather about their patients will be very different to the information that a real estate agent keeps in their Database. Even the way they refer to their contacts may differ – for example “Patients” vs “Clients”. Spend time white-boarding all the different things you need to know about the people you do business with.

Making the Database “Enterprise wide”. A CRM works best when it is adopted with a company-wide approach. If it falls prey to departmentalisation then you have disparity across the company. Regardless of whether your company is 5 seats strong or 1000; if one department is using it and another is not, your CRM will fail to deliver its full potential. Ensure that all departments are consulted in the planning process and that their needs, concerns and suggestions are addressed.

Setting goals and time-lines and rolling out in stages. A good CRM will not be built in a single day. Creating a plan also means establishing timeframes for the rollout and adoption of each part of the system, planning the implementation and training staff on how to use it.

For more information on Legrand CRM, or assistance planning and implementing your CRM, call us to discuss your requirements further...

Microsoft has recently released Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista. So, should you install it?

Most of you will recall that the release of Windows XP SP2 caused a lot of concern for many people. This was because Microsoft introduced many new features with the service pack. Some of these were incompatible with various applications and it took quite some time for the dust to settle and for Windows XP SP2 to become main-stream. We have seen this to not be the case with Windows Vista SP2.

Windows Vista SP2 has gone back to the more common idea of being primarily a patch rollup along with support for newer hardware and only a few small functional changes. Changes like improved wireless operation, slightly better power management, being able to burn files directly to a Blu-Ray disc and Windows Search is updated to version 4.0 for improved indexing and searching.

In the past, Microsoft service packs usually included the updates from all previous service packs. This is not the case with Windows Vista SP2. Therefore your system must be running Windows Vista SP1 before you can apply Windows Vista SP2. If you want to manually install Windows Vista SP2 you can download the 350MB update from Microsoft. Alternatively you can wait and it will be automatically delivered to you via Windows Updates if you have it enabled. Whilst Windows Vista SP2 can be uninstalled it is a always a good idea to have a recent backup of your system before installing any major update.

For those clients under our Network Care Plans or Patching Service, we will be deploying these out to your network automatically or as required, as we normally do with other patches and updates from Microsoft.

After completing my School Certificate in 2008, I decided to leave school and to try and find a Traineeship in Business Administration. After 5 months of non-stop searching for jobs I finally discovered Correct Solutions in Castle Hill through an online job ad that they had posted.

They were offering a 12 month Traineeship for a role in their Administration Team; I became very interested in this position and after participating in a second interview I was selected as one of two successful candidates to join Correct Solutions.

Apart from everything else I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, going to the movies, out to dinner or just getting together, its always enjoyable.

I am currently on my Learners Licence and enjoy driving around to new places, every road is a new challenge and a new direction in life. I hope that Correct Solutions can put me in the right direction and kick start my career in Business Administration. I look forward to getting to know you all and learning new things through my time at Correct Solutions.

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