SWK Blog

Recently, the entire SWK staff converged at our New Jersey headquarters for a series of planning meetings and strategy sessions. Among other things, we announced our 2012 company-wide goals. These were established after each department met and set their own priorities.

Setting goals and priorities is essential for any management team. It shows respect for one another and reinforces the message that each member of the staff has a role that affects the total.

I thought I’d share our 2012 goals with you. They might inspire you to set your own goals for your company, or perhaps one of them might strike a chord in some other way. Please note that all of these goals have a particular “champion” assigned to them and a specific date for completion. All of your goals should, too. I have omitted this detail intentionally.

Setting 10 company-wide goals is aggressive; however, we have a staff of 46 and have placed the responsibility of achieving these goals on the shoulders of many. Here they are ….

GOAL #1: Establish employee stock option plan.

GOAL #2: Top-line sales increase of approximately 25-30% from organic and inorganic sources.

GOAL #3: Establish formal cross-training plan for staff.

GOAL #4: Establish a mandatory collaborative exchange/meeting of all SWK departments when taking on a new project.

GOAL #5: Create a formal plan for identifying new sales opportunities by the entire SWK TEAM.

GOAL #6: Create a new model for the inside sales team, including new TEAM members engaged; include specific tasks and goals.

GOAL #7: Create an automated process of collection.

GOAL #8: Create an enhanced and streamlined billing system.

GOAL #9: Complete three acquisitions.

GOAL #10: Create an SWK Hosting Business Unit.

Throughout 2012, I’ll address our progress on meeting these goals. In the meantime, I’d love to know what you think of these. Please give me a call at 973.758.6110 or send me an e-mail at jeff.roth@swktech.com to discuss. Here’s to great goal-setting and more importantly, great goal-achieving during 2012!

Sage ERP X3 – The new way to ERP, is looking to make 2012 another great year for this mid-market/upper mid-market ERP solution.  After an amazing 2011, our SWK Technologies Sage ERP X3 team is excited to share several new add-on solutions for our existing and future clients.

These new add-on solutions are just the beginning to what will hopefully be many new extensions offered by SWK and other solution providers in the coming years.  Today, SWK is thrilled to offer the next level in the area of EDI, Business Intelligence Reporting, and Document Management.

MAPADOC EDI for Sage ERP X3

MAPADOC EDI is now available for Sage ERP X3; in fact, MAPADOC for Sage ERP X3 (MDX3) adds a fully functional EDI suite to the standard application tools.

MDX3 is designed for companies that have anywhere from moderate to sophisticated EDI requirements, and allows any level of transaction volume to be more easily managed. MDX3 is built on the X3 SAFE development platform, so it seamlessly integrates to the application. As a result, even smaller or lower-volume EDI environments can benefit from a greater ease of use and faster processing times. In addition, MDX3 is a fully integrated EDI solution that sits inside the X3 product.

Nectari Business Intelligence for Sage ERP X3

From Tangerine software, Nectari is a comprehensive self-service Business Intelligence (BI) solution designed to provide all organizations real-time access to any data source, in an intuitive and efficient manner. Fully integrated with Sage ERP X3, Nectari provides advanced, easy to use analysis and reporting capabilities, and includes an Excel add-in component that supports dynamic access to any, and multiple, data sources directly from within Excel.

ACOM EZContentManager for Sage ERP X3

ACOM’s EZContentManager is a powerful Sage-integrated document management and process automation solution. With EZContentManager, you can control the document lifecycle; capture information in any form; store, instantly retrieve and share all of your information electronically directly from Sage ERP X3; and set up one or multiple unified electronic repositories for managing all of your organization’s documents, files and business records. In addition, you’ll have immediate access to your vital business information from your Sage ERP X3 screens, or from anywhere via secure web browser. Here’s a PDF with more information.

Coming soon Sage ERP X3 version 6.4

As always, SWK can help provide these and many other solutions. Contact us today at 877-979-5462 or info@swktech.com!

Data Volume
Buyers and suppliers will be reviewing EDI data to plan for the 2012 season. EDI providers will be offering solutions, one being an 852 product sales activity report. 852 data can give weekly sales and inventory by SKU, sell thru and supply on hand. For example, if you are in fashion, you can see how well your units sold by style, color or size between retail stores. You can also view which parts of the country are driving your sales to increase. With the successful 2011 season, suppliers have gained confidence to do more and increase their data visibility.

Out With the Old, In with the New
EDI providers will need to increase their integration capabilities due to ERP software upgrades and switches. With some ERP software providers, support will cease for old systems, forcing a shift in the market. Moving data from one system to another, while keeping up with current EDI transactions, will be a challenge. The right EDI system with flexibility and a proven support team will make these changes be less painful.

Faster Sales Cycle
With increased sales and higher EDI transaction volumes, suppliers are always looking to reduce steps for a faster order to cash flow. Rip and read manual entries are common with growing companies and can be very costly due to the nature of human errors. The right EDI solution will significantly reduce the steps to process multiple line items EDI Purchase Orders, ASNs (Advance Ship Notices) and Invoices. In some cases, a 50% to 70% reduction of time spent processing orders is plausible.

MAPADOC EDI
MAPADOC is a powerful, flexible, yet remarkably easy-to-use EDI software solution built especially for Sage MAS 90, Sage MAS 200, Sage MAS 500 and Sage ERP X3. Since it’s a scalable solution, you can start at any point and add the functionality you need – when you need it. No matter what the trend, MAPADOC is the right EDI solution for your business.

More info? Contact Hellen Thurston at 973.758.6137 or hellene.thurston@swktech.com.

It may be true that there is strength in numbers. On one day not too long ago, two of SWK Technologies’ Network Services (NWS) clients were able to save their own provider-customer relationship by offering superior, uninterrupted service.

“A true backup and disaster recovery solution is a business strategy that allows for continuous operation, even when a client’s hardware, software or data fails,” said Matthew Hahn, vice president of NWS. “This is the only type of solution we offer.”

Bad things can happen to great companies, but on this day, the SWK NWS team was able to quickly identify that both clients had experienced a catastrophic hardware failure.

“The NWS Backup and Disaster Recovery solution allowed for our clients to be functioning in a virtualized environment in less than 60 to 90 minutes,” said Hahn. “Each company would have had to endure at least 24 to 48 hours of downtime if they did not have our solution.”

SWK Technologies provides comprehensive network services designed to eliminate the worries. Businesses can focus on their core strengths rather than technology issues. We adapt our solutions for virtually any type of business, from large national and international product and service providers, to small businesses with local customers. SWK’s Network Service offering assists business owners throughout the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut Tri-state area develop the best IT strategy to ensure continuous operation and give a competitive advantage over the competition.

“Many companies confuse just backing up their data as strategy to keep their business operating,” said Hahn. “When something goes wrong, our BDR offering will have you covered in any situation.”

For over three decades, the U.S. manufacturing sector has slowly been shipped offshore to China. A stunning report predicts that trend may be slowing and, in fact, might reverse significantly over the next five years.

According to a report published by the Boston Consulting Group, the overwhelming cost competitiveness might soon be a thing of the past in China, a country that has seen double-digit growth for the past 30 years – perhaps as soon as 2015.

This is just another example of why it is important for your company to maintain flexibility in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable business environment. You need an ERP system that allows you to move across the global landscape seamlessly regardless of outside pressures. You need an ERP that will not break the bank and allow you the necessary freedom to move your business to wherever you can ensure your competitive advantage.

There is only one choice: Sage ERP X3, a nimble, yet cost-effective ERP that helps you run your business when and where you need it to keep you one step ahead of the competition.

Sage ERP X3 is the international ERP solution for the midmarket.

• It is used in 53 countries, worldwide.
• Sage ERP X3 allows you to control information with external partners, including customers, suppliers and subcontractors.
• It is simple to use, rapid to implement and cost effective.

More than a tool, Sage ERP X3 forms a solid foundation for safeguarding and further developing your company’s competitive edge, regardless if your scope is local or across the globe.

Contact us today for more information. Visit our website, call 877.979.5462 or email info@swktech.com.

I’ve talked with quite a few of our customers to get a handle on the most in-demand benefits and features of Sage BusinessWorks 2011.

Packed with powerful features and enhancements, Sage BusinessWorks 2011 can give your business the edge it needs to compete more successfully. Because the improvements in each version of the program are made with customers in mind, this edition offers increased efficiency and productivity.

Sage BusinessWorks simplifies and streamlines operational processes and daily activities. The 2011 version takes those capabilities to the next level, improving performance and intelligence.

1. Improve employee satisfaction with expanded direct deposit distributions, which let employees choose to distribute funds to an unlimited number of bank accounts.

2. Easily select invoices to pay from a list populated with available customer invoices, all on a single screen, even selecting multiple invoices for the distribution of a payment.

3. View more bank deposit or reconciliation transactions without scrolling, since the screen size changes based on the number of transactions in the list, as well as the monitor size and resolution.

4. Grant new users all access or no access to the system, saving time and reducing the likelihood of a security breach.

5. Search for employees by the last four digits of their social security numbers in Custom Reports, Custom Exports, and Crystal Reports, while still protecting sensitive employee information.

6. Filter State Tax reports to optionally exclude employees with no YTD activity, eliminating the need to print extra pages, and saving paper and money.

7. Create new reports from templates more easily using the User Reports Manager New button, which prepopulates a blank design screen with tables and links based on the selected report.

If you’re not familiar with what Sage BusinessWorks 2011 can do for you and your company, we’re here to help. Whether BusinessWorks is the beset fit – or another one of our offerings is more suited – a short meeting can help us assess your situation.

Contact us today by calling me at 973-251-0061 or by e-mail.

Do you make New Year’s resolutions for your business? Whether you write the list down on paper or put it together in your head, one of your priorities for 2012 should be technology – not only staying up to date on your processes, but paying attention to the way you manage your systems.

SWK offers a number of IT infrastructure services designed to make your systems efficient and secure.

NetUp™ Remote Monitoring offers round-the-clock server support, network management and preventive care. NetUp by SWK supports you with antivirus updates, spyware removal, temp file and debris clean up, and Microsoft patches and updates, with full access to SWK Technologies’ team of certified professionals.

Network Design and Review is a must. In this age of instant communication and “on-demand” service, network service outages and interruptions are unacceptable. SWK will design a cost effective, reliable and safe network scaled for present needs and future growth.

Network Integration
Network Integration, Deployment and Management are some of our key services. Integrating the network infrastructure and deploying a Windows-based network requires knowledge and practical experience. We work closely with your staff to deploy your network quickly with minimal interruption to the daily operations of your organization.

At the beginning of the each new calendar year, I find it a time for both reflection and forward-thinking. 2011 was an incredible year for SWK; we exceeded our sales goals, built our Sage ERP X3 practice at an incredible pace, solidified customer relationships, added nine full-time staff members, reinforced our ties with key strategic partners, and hit new all-time highs in our customer satisfaction surveys!

But that was then and now it’s 2012. Resting on our past accomplishments is a sure recipe for failure and disaster, so we’re certainly not looking back and doing that. Instead, we’ve conducted some strategy sessions, prepared budgets, closed on a first-of-the-year small acquisition, and positioned ourselves with the right staff and technical tools necessary for continued growth and success! It is a very exciting time to be in the technology business, yet the changes all around us occur so swiftly and dramatically; if you blink, they can be missed!

Our expectations are high, to be sure. We have outlined additional markets for expansion, as well as created several new revenue streams that are sure to keep us ahead of the pack. Our staff resides in close to 15 states, although our Sage practice is concentrated here, in the northeast. Our partners and our MAPADOC customers are located nationwide. In past years, we’ve made small acquisitions in our own backyard; this year, I have a feeling that will change. I say this mainly because our primary publisher and partner, Sage, is evolving and changing – and we must as well.

The world has changed and the days of relying on such a partner, exclusively, are over. Software-as-a-Service, hosting and Sage’s own revenue goals have all contributed to this new reality, but our SWK team embraces these new challenges. Creatively and carefully, we avoid allowing such partners to become enemies or competitors. We simply continue to reinvent ourselves annually. This is what keeps us moving forward and upward. It keeps us strong. It keeps us relevant! It maintains our high level of creativity and critical thought!

If you are facing new challenges in your business, give me or one of my colleagues a call. We can help you sort things out with great solutions and sound advice. After all, we’ve earned your trust and respect over the years and we possess the skill sets to advise you and your team properly.

I look forward to hearing from you and to a prosperous and meaningful 2012!

The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament” – Steve Jobs

What’s your bottom line? All Steve Jobs ever wanted to do was innovate – and, of course, he succeeded.

Do you innovate? Better yet, can you innovate or are you hindered by your current accounting systems and processes?

At SWK Technologies, a spark of an idea turns the ho-hum, outdated and out-classed into something exciting. We are technologists who help create the kind of accounting system you need. The kind of system you need to innovate.

Here’s a free white paper, “Reports That Are Simply Dashing.” Knowledge that you can use, so you can innovate in your world, today!

Contact us today for more information. We’re here to help.

Jeff McLeod
973.758.6118
jeff.mcleod@swktech.com

Most employers are planning to have employee holiday parties over the holiday season. It’s hard to find anyone without at least one holiday party nightmare story to share about a fellow employee – and possibly themselves.

Holiday parties are a great way to boost morale and show employees just how much they are really appreciated. With the holiday spirit in mind, we, as employers, also need to keep our employees safe, especially if alcohol will be served at your party. Let’s not forget we’ve got to protect ourselves and employees from any unnecessary sexual harassment issues, too.

Here are a few tips when planning your company’s holiday party:

1. Set expectations and communicate. Let employees know what is expected of them and what is and is not inappropriate. Pay special attention to those inexperienced employees who may not have attended many office parties yet in their career. Post your policies in the break room and via email as a friendly reminder.
2. Limit the amount of alcohol served. Have plenty of non-alcoholic drinks available and make sure they are easily accessible. For example, you may have an open bar, but if possible, have a separate table with soda, juice and water available as well.
3. Define the party’s start and end time, and stop serving alcohol at least an hour before things wrap up. Parties with an open-ended end time are a big red flag.
4. Consider the Distance. If employees are driving themselves, try to plan something close to home to minimize the distance they have to travel.
5. Provide transportation. Consider providing transportation from the office to the party and back, or a cab ride home in the event an employee has had too much to drink.
6. Serve lots of protein rich foods and limit the salty snacks that may increase thirst.
7. Keep them occupied. Some companies have a gift exchange event, team building or scavenger hunt, or other contests. Our company, for example, always has some type of sharing of positive thoughts about our fellow co-workers that has evolved into a great moral boosting event.

As a final thought, you should know that only about half of all company holiday parties will be serving alcohol this year so feel no guilt if you decide to forgo the spirits.

Happy Holidays to all! Be safe.

It’s the end of the year, which means our minds are on the holiday season with an eye toward 2012. I think this is a great time to share with you a few customer success stories, prepared from viewpoints of the SWK staff. They shared these during the past few weeks while we conducted our performance reviews and set goals for next year.

Monica Byrne, Senior MAS 90/200 Consultant – Customer: KMG Digital, Rochester, NY:

KMG Digital sells Kodak branded products and has very specific royalty reports they have to submit. It was taking them days to produce them quarterly. We were able to capture the required information with user-defined fields in MAS 200, and then I wrote some very complex crystal reports. It now takes them minutes instead of days, and Kodak liked the reports so much, they’ve required their other distributors to use the same formats.

Michelle Paparo, Vice President of Client Services and Support – Customer: Amdex Computer, Inc., Rochester, NY:

When we first starting working with Amdex, receiving goods would take the better part of a day and delay the shipping of anything out. By working with Amdex to implement a scanning solution with multi-bin, the company was able to streamline its effort and resources so that receiving would be completed in less than an hour, salespeople would know exactly what was on hand at any point during the day, and shipping could be performed as orders were ready to go. Amdex saved time and money, and improved internal and external customer satisfaction. The company also has have since upgraded its software to take advantage of new features such as paperless office, and has save a lot of time and money by emailing invoices.

Adrian Carranza, Senior MAS 500 Consultant – Customer: Electrical Distributing Inc., Portland, OR:

Electrical Distributing, Inc. is an electrical components wholesaler with a large portion of its business coming from Internet retailers, including Amazon.com and Buy.com. Using MAPADOC for MAS 500, SWK created an automated process to import sales orders into MAS 500 and send an order status response back out for each transaction that runs 24/7 for the Amazon.com order process. Electrical Distributing has been able to leverage the work we did in automating the Amazon.com order process and apply it to all EDI-based customers to make productivity gains in order processing accuracy and turnaround time.

Alec Smith, Senior MAS 500 Consultant – Customer: Van de Vries Spice Corporation, East Brunswick, NJ:

Van de Vries Spice Corporation is an example of how SWK took over an existing Sage customer who was not pleased with its previous consultant. Van de Vries Spice was also not feeling positive about the service it was receiving from the publisher and thought this may have resulted in having a poorly designed system that did not provide strong internal controls. We performed business process reengineering, reconfigured the company’s entire ERP system and revamped system workflow that dramatically improved visibility into the company’s operations, as well as relevant and reliable financial/managerial reporting.

Tim Flynn, Senior Sage ERP X3 Consultant – Customer: Allied Metals, Troy, MI:

Allied Metals purchases, processes and sells pounds of scrap metal bar. The finished metals are placed on pallets, scaled for weight and stored in a very large warehouse facility. Allied Metals did not manage warehouse locations and did not identify pallets using license plates, which made it difficult for the pickers to locate pallets of metal and know the number of pounds on each. This made the picking process very cumbersome. In addition, all warehouse inventory movements and adjustments were recorded manually on paper and sent to the office to be entered into the Sage ERP X3 application. This was causing a delay in inventory accuracy and possible discrepancies in their inventory balances.

In order to better manage the company’s finished good inventory, SWK defined zones within the warehouse that provided visibility to the pickers as to where the pallets are located. We also set up pallet IDs that are recorded in Sage ERP X3 off of the production line. The new pallet ID now identifies the finished good, the lot (heat number) and the number of pounds on each pallet. Now, when Allied picks a pallet, the picker knows the exact number of pounds being picked for an order.

SWK also implemented barcoded automatic data collection on the production floor and warehouse to provide real-time inventory transactions, eliminating the manual recording of inventory movements. This, in turn, minimized discrepancies in the company’s inventory balances.

Lori Boarman, Senior Sage ERP X3 Consultant – Customer: American Thermal Instruments, Inc., Dayton, OH:

American Thermal Instruments, Inc. and its subsidiary, Microtek Labs, have a high volume of Research and Development services that make up a large percentage of revenues. The company did not have visibility of the costs by individual R&D projects, and used multiple tracking methods. SWK created a process flow menu specific to ATI’s process, in addition to setting up the projects functionality in the system. This allowed the customer to gather all sales, purchasing, manufacturing costs and labor related to the individual projects. In addition to visibility of project costs and revenues, this solution gives everyone involved the visibility to see the status of the projects as they are tracked through the various stages. Prior to this, someone manually created an Excel report, updated it weekly and distributed to everyone for an update.

I think you can easily see how proud we are of our work, regardless if it is with MAPADOC, Sage ERP X3, MAS 90/200/500 or any one of our new cloud-based solutions. The bottom line for us is to bring you the best-fit solution for you and your needs, along with unparalleled service.

I want to thank you for all of your support, continued business and long-term commitment to SWK. Best to one and all!

Based on performance and sales for the 2011 business year, SWK Technologies was once again named to the prestigious Sage Chairman’s Circle and President’s Club.

The two annual award programs recognize the top-producing business partners for Sage. This year, 60 Sage business partners earned the company’s prestigious President’s Circle designation for Sage business partners generating top sales revenues across a variety of product award categories.

“We are very proud to work with business partners who are among the best in the industry,” said Tom Miller, VP of Channel Management for Sage. “Our thanks and congratulations for exceptional service to our customers go to our Sage President’s Circle and Chairman’s Club members for 2011.”

Chairman’s Club membership is earned by Sage business partners who develop an exceptional level of new business through defined sales and marketing programs. Chairman’s Club winners receive a variety of benefits and attend the President’s Circle retreat with Sage executives to hone business strategy and skills and to celebrate their accomplishments.

SWK was also honored by Accounting Today as one of its 2011 Technology Pacesetters for performance and sales.

“For years, the members of our Technology Pacesetters’ list of topflight accounting and ERP value-added resellers remained nimble, often adapting to change sooner than later, said Technology Editor Seth Fineberg. “More recently, they’ve begun to usher in one of the larger evolutions in the sector – prompted by the sluggish economy and the onset of new technology platforms – by offering expanded product lines, including cloud or hosted solutions and, in some instances, providing more consulting services than traditional software reselling.”

Are you buried in paper? Are there bottlenecks in your processes and flow of information? Do you have time-consuming, manual procedures that could be simplified or automated?

You know your limitations, but your software doesn’t. That’s when it’s time to upgrade to something more robust and much more functional, without any loss of productivity or output.

Take inventory, for example. We offer business management solutions designed to help manage inventory for small- to medium-sized companies who have outgrown basic accounting programs. Without the big price tag, you can get a high-powered business management system with double-entry accounting and a solid audit trail for every transaction.

By making the move to a business management system, you can put information vital to the success of your company at your fingertips. A fully integrated system with multi-user networking capabilities will give you the power to run your growing business with maximum return. You know if your current basic accounting system is holding you back. If that is the case, the time is now to speak with us.

Steven Plisk

SWK Technologies

steven.plisk@swktech.com

973.251.0061

ASK ABOUT OUR SAGE BUSINESSWORKS SMALL BUSINESS SOLUTIONS!

At SWK, we hold quarterly staff meetings. Those who are local or nearby make the trek into the office, while many more of our team dial in or connect via video chat. Historically, the meetings are divided into presentations by department heads: financial, sales, marketing, technical support, development, projects and HR. There are PowerPoints and a significant amount of data, statistics and other information, much of which is important and valuable. There is always time for Q&A, but it’s fairly routine as these things go.

At our recent meeting, though, I decided to mix things up a bit. Sure, we had a few minutes of financial data from Chip Melvin, our very capable CFO, who shared some very favorable SWK sales trends and financial statements with the group. Afterwards, however, we continued a discussion we had started two days earlier at our executive strategic planning meeting. There, we challenged each other to describe what SWK would look like two years from now. We chose that timeframe because we wanted our executive team to think forward, but to remain realistic. This avoided “pie-in-the-sky” hopes and dreams; instead, we focused on attainable goals.

At the staff meeting, instead of leading the audience, we allowed everyone a chance to share their two-year visions with the team. Although I could talk about the results (maybe next month), it is the process that I’d like to share.

In a group setting, there are always a few who are comfortable to speak. Everyone else tends to just listen. At the staff meeting, I had given everyone a hint at the beginning that this meeting would be different and that I was looking to inspire deep and creative thinking. I shared something that I learned from a recent event where AmyK was the keynote speaker. She spoke about different states of mind that allow us to relax, to think superficially, or to think deeply and brilliantly. At our meeting, I was, of course, looking to extract from our team the latter.

Since we weren’t sharing deep personal issues, this wasn’t as difficult as I’d feared, even for those I refer to as the “listeners.” I offered some keywords/themes, such as ERPX3, Sage’s enterprise-level application that is a big part of SWK’s future. Additionally, mentioning “being the best” sparked some thoughts, but I pressed for details. A HA, I thought! That did the trick! I determined that if I led just a little bit, but didn’t do the thinking for the group, we’d make some progress … and we did!

Many who rarely speak up at the meeting really enjoyed thinking deeply, while focusing on some specific aspect of our business and what it would look like to them. The “regulars” spoke up, but we had a greater degree of participation than ever before.

I asked Kathleen Weiss, our HR Director, to take notes and then asked everyone for their comments through a follow-up evaluation. The results were positive, and everyone who responded was enthusiastic about this meeting format.

The bottom line: Take something you do with your team and rethink it! Recreate it! The results will surprise you and you will effect some very positive changes in your business while making meetings more interesting and participatory.