Kelsey Group analyst Michael Boland has been a big believer in the “Webification” of small and mid-sized businesses. Webification is about making it easier for small business to establish and expand their a web presence. I have spoke with Mike in the past about trends in the small business space and shared with him what I saw as the three stages of Webification.
Web Presence Services focused on establishing a web presence for small businesses and helping them distribute information.
Web Commerce E-commerce application focused on selling products and services.
Web Applications Back-office applications that help businesses improve productivity, efficiency and cut cost.
LongJump is very much about meeting the needs of small businesses in the areas of web applications. Most business today, both big and small, have already solved their web presence problem! Others have made progress in enabling web commerce (selling products or services) on their sites or through third parties, but only recently have small businesses began to focus on leveraging web applications to take their business to the next level. I talked about this in my previous post on LongJump and Enterprise 2.0 Evolution were I conclude that:
By making Web 2.0 technologies accessible to small and medium-sized business from a cost, value and time-to-market perspective, LongJump is trying to deliver on some of the business benefits of Enterprise 2.0.
If you are looking to cut your operating costs, open source may seems as a viable option but here are a couple of things small business should consider when evaluating such a decision. Open source software generally refers to software that is available (usually in binary and source code form) at “no cost” to the user. Although a broad range of software is available as open source, consider the following:
Open Source Does Not Mean “Software as Service” Open source simple means the software itself is available at no cost. The software still needs to be installed, deployed and maintained – which is usually the real cost associated with any business software service. Many small business simply don’t have the time or resources to host and maintain complicated business applications.
The Quality of Open Source Software Varies The quality of open software varies from package to package. Because most open source applications are built by unpaid volunteers, bug fixes or complex features are sometimes not a priority. Most small business are better off using a reliable, world-class business application suite they can depend on.
Understand the “Hidden Cost” Associated with Open Source
Installation, support, integration and customization are the real costs behind running and maintaining business application. An all-inclusive services like LongJump removes these “hidden cost” from the equation and delivers business application functionality at an affordable and predictable cost.
While open source maybe an options when it comes to desktop applications, business applications require a level of reliability, security, performance and quality that is best delivered through a world-class enterprise-grade business application platform.
Sales force management (SFA) systems allow companies to automate sales and sales force management functions and serve an important customer relationship management (CRM) function within the firm. LongJump’s Sales Force Automation (SFA) is a enterprise-grade application that provides a full-blown SFA solution to small and medium-sized companies. This includes many advanced features found only on high-end systems. Some of the key components and features that businesses will find extremely useful in managing the sales pipeline include:
360º Sales Visibility: The ability to view all aspects of your prospects, accounts, contacts, and opportunities.
30–Second Call Log: The ability to log calls quickly (usually in under 30 seconds) with complete access to customer records, call details, and follow-up tasks and reminders.
Built-In Prospect Manager: The ability to manage your potential sales leads collected through your website and assigning them to sales reps based on rules and policies.
Built-In Deal Tracker: Ability to store product and price information, track deal status, and maintain key live metrics on activities related to deals.
Built-In Contract Manager: Ability to track and maintain contract information for licensing or services as an integrated part of your customer management.
Microsoft Outlook Integration: Ability to quickly log emails sent to contacts, and synchronize appointments, tasks, and contacts all with Microsoft Outlook.
If you have a sales organization in your company and need an effective way to manage your sales force, be sure to test drive the LongJump Sales Force Automation today!
When SalesForce launched a couple up years ago they came up with a cute marketing campaign called “Just say no to software”. At LongJump we have twist on that statement: Just Say “Know” to Software! A lot of business simply don’t know the true cost and benefit associated with the services that they use. Where are a couple of things to take a look at:
Know Your Cost: Cost is always important, especially for small businesses. Many solution promises to be a complete turnkey package, but usually this “one size fits them all” promise is a mirage – hence the need for customization or integration. This is where the real “hidden” cost comes in. Because LongJump is focused on enabling codeless customization, applications can be customized effortless by customers themselves. Key components of core application also come pre-integrated, eliminating additional integration cost.
Know Your Service: A lot of online services come without support or provide minimalistic online support. Support is important and shouldn’t be overlooked. LongJump, on the other hand, is committed to providing world-class support to its business customers. We provide online customer and technical support via our support link and are committed to responding immediately to your support needs during business hours with a resolution (or explanation) of the issue within two business days!
Know Your Upgrade Path: Before using any service, it is always a good idea to understand your “upgrade path” and upgrade options. There is always some level of “lock-in” associated with using any online service so be sure you understand how a service can grow with your business.
Bug Chilla is a bug and issue tracking and reporting application aimed engineering organizations to both track bugs and prioritize feature requests. Most bug tracking solutions focus purely on eliminating software bugs, but how can you track bugs without also considering product management, marketing, and other factors in the product development process? Bug Chilla focuses on both resolving issues as well as helping manage feature prioritization. Additionally, its easy to customize Bug Chilla to meet your entire team’s needs – which means engineering as well as QA, documentation and believe it or not marketing. You can find out more about Bug Chilla and test drive it today on our Application Catalog.
Last Thursday, I mentioned how LongJump is trying to empower and accelerate businesses to succeed. In the spirit of accelerating your business success, we are offering unique personal coaching sessions to help make your business ideas a reality!
Maybe you’ve got a great idea of how to improve your business processes, but you’re not quite sure how to get there. Or maybe you have a challenge, and need a solution. If so, sign up for a 30-minute session and so we can do the following:
Understand your business
Help you hone in on processes and data needs
Get you building an application that fits your needs
You can also click the Support link and add a Coaching request. Be sure to include a few days and times that would work for you, as well as some basic information about what you’d like to accomplish.
Last week I touched on the concept of Enterprise 2.0 and how it describe the web-based technologies and models that are enabling companies, both big and small, to move businesses to the web in a collaborative way in an online environment that leverages some of the same notions associated with Web 2.0.
These cut across both technology and philosophical lines. From a technology perspective, these include things are interactive and dynamic user interfaces (AJAX, i.e.), on-demand applications, collaboration and productivity features. From a philosophical perspective, Enterprise 2.0, like Web 2.0 embraces ideas like openness and sharing, user-generated or contributed content, syndication and distribution as well as the use of rich media within applications.
LongJump embodies many of these technologies and concepts in its offering but more importantly tries to evolve the concept of Enterprise 2.0 into something that is more meaningful to business – cutting cost, increasing revenue and improving productivity. One of the powerful emerging trends on the Internet is the ability for companies, especially small ones, to avoid the cost associated with conventional “enterprise-style” software, focus on making money (aka revenue for those who don’t know) and better compete with the “big guys”. This business perspective may be one of the most exciting and long lasting effects of the “Enterprise 2.0” trend.
For many small businesses the cost of investing in online technology can be steep, but the price for falling too far behind the curve could be fatal.
This post by Keith Girard starts by rightly lamenting that “the learning curve is rapidly shifting away from [small businesses]”
By making Web 2.0 technologies accessible to small and medium-sized business from a cost, value and time-to-market perspective, LongJump is trying to deliver on some of the business benefits of Enterprise 2.0.
Earlier this week I took a look at the Recruitment Agency Solution and how it (along with other LongJump applications) can be leveraged by both internal and external recruiters as part of the hiring process.
Today we look at some of the other applications in the HR category. These include:
Employee Manager You can use the Employee Manager to securely store important employee data, and streamline time-off requisitions and approvals. It gives you the ability to securely maintain information on employees including hiring dates, review cycles, training, PTO requisition, and benefits data. Like other LongJump applications, the Employee Manager can share information with other applications to relate employee information to other areas of your business.
Recruitment Agency Solution
As I mention in my previous post, the Recruitment Agency Solution provides a complete solution for internal and external recruiting teams that helps them maximize their matchmaking skills! It not only stores candidate information, but matches it to job openings as well as allows you to manage hiring companies and contacts. Recruiters can use it to create candidate and company assessment profiles and obviously store resumes in a central location. The Recruitment Agency Solution also integrates with email, calendar, and task activities to provide a complete picture of candidates and companies.
Job Leads This application provides a simple way to capture job leads from your website. Using a single line of HTML, you can embed a web form on your existing website or blog that collects information from job leads and stores it directly in LongJump! Job Leads also provides email notification and tracking capabilities.
You can find these and other business application in LongJump’s application catalog!
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, roughly 50% of small businesses fail within the first five years. Research indicates that poor planning is responsible for most of these business failures. According to the SBA “Good organization of financials, inventory, schedules, and production can help you avoid many pitfalls.” LongJump is designed to help small to medium size business master many of these disciplines.
LongJump provide a suite of applications in our application catalog that help address small business needs in these areas including financial applications like the Vendor Manager, business and project management solutions like OfficeSpace, human resource management applications like the Employee Manager and Job Leads, and others are aimed at helping small business owners be more successful.
LongJump’s versatility is one of the more challenging aspects of introducing people to the platform. After all, it’s easy when people know you for “one thing.” When people hear Oracle, they think enterprise databases. When people hear Google, they think web search engine. Everyone knows they do more, but in today’s rush to message and judgement, who has time to absorb all the nuance? (more…)
