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ERP Moves into the Cloud: Hansaworld Introduces New Cloud Services

February 2nd, 2012

Cloud computing continues to demonstrate that the advantages it promises are consistently delivered. These advantages of reduced cost, improved efficiency and greater flexibility have always held great appeal for the enterprise technology user, since, in simple terms, it means reduced capital and operational expense.

HansaWorld, established in Sweden in 1988 by founder Karl Bohlin, has introduced a number of Cloud Services to help businesses run more efficiently. The new functions, including Credit Card purchasing, SMS sending, Exchange Rate Lookup, Electronic payments, Credit History and Address Lookup are built into the program and need no additional software.

“The process of ERP moving into the cloud has already started,” says Johani Marais, South Africa country manager for HansaWorld. “Like many other cloud services, it starts with the most common services or modules, which are also the most mature and are somewhat commoditised. That sets the scene and lays the groundwork for further services to migrate into the cloud.”

Where ERP differs from consumer cloud services such as Facebook, Google or YouTube, is that there are serious consequences when there is any interruption to service. “System unavailability means lost income. This, together with security concerns, is perhaps the biggest inhibitor to market acceptance of enterprise cloud services,” notes Marais.

The question of what becomes of the ‘traditional’ enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems is a natural question to be asked as the era of cloud computing unfolds. The answer is likely to change the ERP landscape, both from a vendor and a user perspective. The larger ERP vendors will continue to purchase smaller vendors to gain their niche expertise, technology and staff. Users will demand easier implementation, better disaster recovery, improved online assistance & training and mobile capabilities. The battle between traditional ERP and Cloud based services has just begun and promises to be an interesting battle. The likely winners will be vendors who are able to deliver both traditional and cloud based offerings.

For more information on Hansaworld ERP or Cloud services, contact Heidi Feemster at Mandatek.

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Tags: cloud computing, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP, Hansaworld, Heidi Feemster, Kark Bohlin, Mandatek, SaaS
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Social Media can’t be used by B2B companies?

February 3rd, 2011

I hear it all of the time, “My company deals with other businesses, not consumers, so social media won’t help me”. If you tell that to Gary Fruchtman of The Kent Group, a Toledo based steel company, he will laugh. Gary created the Steel Industry Networking group on Linkedin, and over 1200 steel industry experts have joined since its inception in July 2008. Gary reports that his business has definitely increased because of the group and that the steel industry in general is starting to embrace social media

Another B2B industry that has embraced social media as a way to increase awareness is the commercial aviation industry. Boeing, one of the giants of the commercial aviation industry, started to utilize social media back in 2005. Randy Baseler, Vice President, Marketing Commercial Airplanes, created a blog as a way to increase awareness of commercial aviation on the web. By 2007, Randy’s Journal, as the blog was named, saw more than a half million individual visits. Currently, his blog receives over 500,000 hits a year.

Oracle, the software giant that provides integrated business software and hardware systems to more than 370,000 customers, including 100 of the Fortune 100, is a huge believer of social media. Oracle launched their own social media network called Mix in 2007. Justin Kestelyn, editor-in-chief of Oracle’s Technology Network, wrote: “Although members of the Oracle community have long had the ability to directly interact/collaborate with employees as well as each other, it’s always been in a one/off manner: you ask a question, and I answer it….With the wiki, the community can now collaboratively create and share content (as well as rate and comment on it).”

Why did these B2B companies engage in social media? The answer is niche marketing. Each of these companies created a social media strategy based on the interests of their target audiences. Each company has seen a compelling response to their strategy. Niche marketing is only one of the reasons why B2B companies should be utilizing social media. Over the next several blog posts we will examine other compelling reasons B2B companies engage in social media.

Link Locally, Connect Globally

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Tags: b2b, social media
Posted in Digital Marketing, social media | View Comments

Simplifying Social Media: Getting Focused

November 5th, 2010

You’ve got the Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts. You’re getting followers, friends, fans, connections. You’re tweeting, posting, and updating like a crazy person. It’s taking up more and more of your time, but you’re not sure if it’s helping your business, or… just taking up more time.

Pause. Take a deep breath and…simplify.

Get clear about why you’re on social media. Sure, most of us want to get more business and make more money. But, why are you really using social media as opposed to more traditional marketing methods?

To use social media effectively, you must become laser-focused about your brand message and your target audience. You must also understand your unique selling proposition. Yes, this sounds like marketing blah blah blah. But being focused about your brand message is even more important in social media than in traditional marketing. Why? Because without a clear focus, social media has the potential to become a huge, ineffective time sucker.

In the overwhelming world of social media, one word describes the feeling most people get when they get clear about their brand, target audience and unique selling proposition.

Simplicity.

All of the noise fades away and the picture comes into focus.

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Dominate Your Personal Digital Presence

October 2nd, 2010

I was asked to be a guest blogger for Folk Media. The following is the post that I wrote for them. Thank you, Folk Media and Eric Alpin! – Michele Rempel

I recently spoke to a group of university business students and asked them, “How many of you believe that your personal presence on all social media accounts is ready for scrutiny by recruiters, potential employers or potential clients, right now?” Only a few of the 80+ students in the audience raised their hands. Of course, I wasn’t surprised, given that they had only begun the school year and most of them were not yet seniors.

I know that I would get more raised hands if I were to ask a group of business professionals. However, my experience has been that most business owners or employees are thinking about that question superficially and not in the way that is going to benefit them the most in this age of social media. If you are looking for clients, customers or a new position, it’s a good idea to own, manage, monitor and even dominate your personal digital presence.

Your Personal Digital Presence- Own It:
This may sound crazy, but do you own your own domain name, such as www.danielstoica.com? One of the best ways to get your personal brand and content out there is to have your own website or blog site on your own name. Of course, some of you have a really common name, so you may have to find a variation, but consider purchasing your name as a domain if you can. I heard Nathan Latka, a young social media phenom, tell his audience a couple of months ago that his future children will only be named whatever he can purchase as a domain. Although that may seem a bit extreme, I understand his point. With social media, it’s easier to become your own brand than ever before. See if your name is available at www.godaddy.com or www.1and1.com.

Your Personal Digital Presence- Manage It:
The best way to ensure that your personal digital presence represents the real you is by producing your own content on the web as well as associating yourself with other people’s good content. Consider writing your own blog posts and then linking them to your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts. You can set up your own blog site at www.wordpress.com, or consider having someone help you start a blog site with your own domain name. If you have a tough time writing, then you can out other people’s content (giving them credit, of course) about subjects that interest you. Find a blog post that you would like to share and then send the link to that blog post (with your own quick introduction) using an application such as www.ping.fm. Your name gets associated with the information that you’re sending, even though you didn’t have to write anything. The idea is to have your name and brand associated with appropriate content, over and over again. When people search for you on the internet, they’ll see listings of good content associated with your name. Keep in mind that every Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blog post, etc., gets indexed on the search engines.

Another way to manage your digital presence is to check up on your social media accounts regularly. I don’t mean just send out Facebook or Twitter posts; I mean check and update your personal information wherever you’re being represented. Is your information current and correct? Have you changed your tagline, brand message, or job responsibilities? Do you have a good photo?

Your Personal Digital Presence- Monitor It:
How do you know what is being said about you or your brand? Do you Google yourself or your brand on a regular basis? Better yet, do you have your Google alerts set so that you get an email when you’re mentioned on the internet? Set up a Google alert by going to www.google.com/alerts and you’ll get an email whenever your search term gets mentioned. Even if you don’t think anyone is talking about you or your brand, you may be in for a surprise.

Your Personal Digital Presence- Dominate It:

The goal of owning, managing and monitoring your personal digital presence is to ensure that you are being represented the way you want. Posting content that represents you, your brand, service or product on all of your social media accounts will help you dominate the search engines and ensure that you can be found. And when you are found, your name or brand will be associated with good content in listing after listing.

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Tags: blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, personal brand, personal digital presence, recruiters, Twitter
Posted in Digital Marketing | View Comments

“Friends of Sue” Event

September 14th, 2010

Mike Boehler says, “Have you ever met Sue Keener? You should!” For those of you who don’t know Sue, she is the CEO of Keener Associates http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sue-keener/1/7a2/960 . She has networked extensively in the Schaumburg area as well as in the healthcare industry. These days Sue has been assisting the Advisory Board of the Linked Local Network to develop our new mission statement as well as our future growth plan.

Sue has invited the members of the Linked Local Schaumburg group to meet her and all of the networking friends she has developed over her years networking in the Schaumburg business arena. This event will be held on September 27^th from 5:00 to 8:00pm and there will be a cash bar for those who want to toast Sue. The venue for this event is detailed in the discussion area of the Linked Local Schaumburg group on www.linkedin.com. In order to attend you need to be a member of the Linked Local Schaumburg group.

The Linked Local Network Mission Statement: The Linked Local Network uses evolving technologies to connect business owners and professionals with each other to expand awareness and create opportunities for lasting growth and profitability

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Tags: Keener Associates, Linked Local Network, Linked Local Schaumburg, LinkedIn, Schaumburg, Sue Keener
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Twitter Lists and a Time-Saving Application

August 30th, 2010

The List is one of the often overlooked Twitter features, especially for those starting out on Twitter. The List feature allows you to group Twitter users into your own lists and then check out the activity on that list. For instance, if you want to focus on what recruiters are saying, you can put people who identify themselves as recruiters on a list, open it up and then read their tweets exclusively. Twitter allows you to put up to 500 users on one list.

Avid Twitter users generally like it when they get added to someone’s list (unless it’s a negative list, which I haven’t seen very often). Adding people to your list tells them that you took the time to investigate them a bit. You will often see such lists as “Top Followed” or “Awesome Tweeps” or geographic lists such as “Chicago”. I will often thank someone for “listing” me. Listing adds to the social aspect of Twitter and allows you to focus on certain people without getting bogged down by your message stream.

I just stumbled across a cool little application called ConversationList (http://www.conversationlist.com ). ConversationList allows you to easily see who you’ve been interacting with on a daily basis. According to the ConversationList website, “a ‘conversationlist’ is a Twitter list of the people that you talk to (and about) on Twitter. The list is automatically updated daily, so that it always reflects the people that you are paying attention to right now. If you @reply (or @mention) someone, they’re added to your list. If you stop talking to that person, they drop off your list.” The ConversationList is a time-saver for me because it helps me quickly focus on my interactions for the day.

-Michele Rempel

Mandatek

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Tags: conversation, conversation list, Twitter, twitter lists
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Linked Local Network Presents “Takin’ It to the Links”, a Golf Event to Benefit Habitat for Humanity of Illinois

July 13th, 2010

On August 11th, 2010, the Linked Local Network will hold its first golf outing and silent auction to benefit the Habitat for Humanity of Illinois at Klein Creek Golf Club in Winfield, IL. Golfers and networkers alike will have a chance to experience why both Chicagoland Golf and Golf Digest have identified Klein Creek as one of the area’s premier public courses, as well as support a terrific cause!

Golfers can participate in foursomes, twosomes or as individuals. Companies and individuals can also help by being primary sponsors of holes, golf carts, refreshments, or lunch for the event. Items for the silent auction and raffle can be donated as well. Non-playing individuals can attend the Open Networking and Barbeque, which begins at 6 p.m.

This year’s event is sponsored by Mandatek, and such businesses as Hinckley Springs, Ballydoyle, Chicagoland Signs, Morris Graduate School of Management, Chicago Blower and Citibank have already contributed generously to this event..

For tee time registration go to http://taking2links4habitat.eventbrite.com. For BBQ only sign-up, http://bbq4habitat.eventbrite.com. Sponsorship information, contact Patty Neuswanger at patty@mandatek.com. General questions, email: habitatlinks@mandatek.com

The mission of Habitat for Humanity of Illinois (Habitat Illinois) is to work in partnership with Habitat affiliates, developing communities by building houses with people in need. Habitat is dedicated to eradicating poverty housing. Life in poverty housing crushes dreams. But decent homes transform lives! Renewed hope is built into each new Habitat home.

Linked Local Network provides area LinkedIn members with greatly enhanced opportunities to build their connections, network with a more regional focus, and improve results in all aspects of their lives. Membership on www.linkedin.com is the cornerstone of any serious networking effort with its huge database and ease of use. The most important network that determines your success both professionally and personally is your local network. We welcome all LinkedIn members who are committed to active participation and therefore superior results from their networking efforts.

If you’d like more information on upcoming events presented by Linked Local Network go to www.linkedlocalnetwork.com or contact Michele Rempel at mrempel@mandatek.com ph # 630-888-8571.

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Tags: Ballydoyles, benefit, charity, Chicago Blower, Chicagoland Signs, golf, golfing, Habitat for Humanity, Linked Local Network, Mandatek, oris Graduate School of Management
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Mandatek

Simplifying Social Media: Getting Focused

Dominate Your Personal Digital Presence

“Friends of Sue” Event

Twitter Lists and a Time-Saving Application

Linked Local Network Presents “Takin’ It to the Links”, a Golf Event to Benefit Habitat for Humanity of Illinois

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