Free CRM - a great tool!

Keeping Contacts up to date, tracking your Sales Team Funnel and doing email marketing campaigns are all challenges for companies in the SME sector. There are alternatives: from stand alone or groupware software like ACT from Sage through to online systems such as SalesForce.com

Recently I discovered freecrm.com an online alternative that comes already configured with all the things a business needs. There is a Pro version that has no advertising and better guaranteed uptimes as well as integration to Outlook and others. The advertising I have seen on the free version is unobtrusive.

With the free version you get: Calendar, Companies, Contacts, Deals, Tasks, Cases, Email and SMS campaign managment. As well you can manage documents stored and setup Surveys and forms for customer satisfaction. Lastly, you get about 55 reports preconfigured. Need anything else.....for no cost to you?

Yes it is software as a service and you are entrusting your data to a 3rd party. But, if you export from the system regularly, you will get the backups of where you are at. Keep your reports and run those weekly as well.

To get started you can import your lists of contacts from Excel or however you are doing it today.

Advantages:

• you do not have to maintain an infrastructure of computers and servers dedicated to this task
• free.....I said Free!
• already comprehensively setup, no setting of forms or reports
• they do backups
  

Disadvantages:

• you do not have the data in house unless you export and save
• if company fails you dont have a stand alone copy of the software to keep running

Overall, these days we trust our email to Google (Gmail), we store our photos on Facebook or Flicker, we trust so many "Cloud Computing" applications.

If you are starting up or you are looking for an alternative to reduce your costs have a look at feecrm.com

theBizWiz

http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/

Developing a Functional Organisation Structure

InFormGroup has just released a new E-Book to our range of books available from the InFormGroup site. This new release is from Wayne Moloney.

"When organisations are built around people and personalities, when multiple lines flow
into individual boxes, the structure will be non-functional.". Wayne describes the:

• Dangers of non functional organisation and management
• what a functional organisation looks like and how it should operate
• use of authority
• lines of accountability and working relationships
• how Org charts fit in to the models

There is a full range of Free downloads as well as products for purchase in at the site.

theBizWiz

http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/

Netbooks - Dell Inspiron Mini 9- Asus EeePC 901-Acer Aspire One 270-Lenovo N270

Gee, It wasn't too long ago when I started the journey of seeing if one of these devices could work for my daughter starting University next year. Has the job gotten easier?

Nope. This afternoon I opened the latest Harris Technology catalogue. Page 4 has a host of Netbooks. The Del, Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba and Wind versions are all there sporting essentially the same specifications. Mostly they differ in the hard disk drives and the battery life and most importantly price.

The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 does not come with a hard disk drive and so has higher battery life. To get extra data or applications you would use a 8GB Flash drive or attach a USB powered external drive. Of course with that attached and sucking power it will reduce the battery to the life of the others.

It might be good to look at the details closer.

Feature	Dell Inspiron Mini 9	Acer Aspire N270	Wind U100	Lenovo N270 or Netbook S10
Processor	Intel Atom 1.6GHz	Intel Atom 1.6GHz	Intel Atom 1.6GHz	Intel Atom 1.6GHz
Memory	1GB	1GB	1 GB	1GB
Hard Drive	16GB SSD	160GB SSD available	120GB	160GB
Screen Size	8.9"	8.9"	8.9"	8.9"
Integrated Webcam	Optional	Yes	Yes	yes
USB 2.0	3	3	3	3
Bluetooth	No	No	Yes	Yes
WiFi	g	a/b/g	a/g/n+	a/g/n+
Price	$549	$529	$699	$699
Weight	2.28lbs	n/a	1kg	2.65lbs

Over all so far the Acer Aspire One 270 looks the best. It has a low price, a real HDD so you can put some data on it. I assume it weighs the same as the others which is about 1KG.

Next stop is to go and have a look at the shops. I would get the Windows XP version as it is easier to understand. If I bought one for myself it would have Linux, of course.

If you have one of these I would love to hear more.


theBizWiz

http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/