Hall Street Storage has been a Brooklyn landmark since 1931, when the multi-building warehouse, nearly a city block in size, was built. They’ve remodeled and updated in some exciting ways. They’re now the biggest green business in New York City, using 100% renewable energy for their self-store division and taking recycling to new heights, but one thing stayed the same until very recently.

There was one woman who knew everything. When a delivery arrived at the warehouse, she would sit down with the customer, a calculator, and a piece of paper, and work out all the details and the costs. Without her, that process couldn’t be done. Even with her, it was a lengthy process, but it was part of the experience.

Hall Street used a computerized system, a DOS program that required that everyone key in commands. Again, only the experts who knew the commands could use it, and it was a lengthy process, but it worked well enough.

Until February 15th. The system stopped working, and Hall Street couldn’t send out the February bills. They called Clevertech.

We went to visit them. We looked at their operations, listened to their concerns, got to know their business thoroughly, and in less than a month we built them a warehouse management system that takes care of their inventory and accounting.

Now, when a delivery arrives, anyone can key in the details on the warehouse receipt form. The shipment is assigned a lot number and a location according to its need for refrigeration or freezing or dry storage, the weight or number of items is entered, and the costs are automatically calculated. When customers come to collect their inventory, a delivery ticket shows how many items have been removed, and automatically recalculates the charges. Recurring costs are automatic, too, and every customer has an account with a running total.

Hall Street can check on a given item, on a particular room, or on a customer. If there is a recall of an item, they can easily see where each item is and when it arrived. They can see how much space is available in each room so deliveries can be routed to the best place for optimum use of their storage. Customers coming to examine their inventory or to retrieve their goods can be directed to the right place immediately.

The process was painless. We met with them weekly during development to get their feedback and to move the system ever closer to their ideal.  We replicated what was familiar and comfortable: “Things are called what they wanted it to be called, ” as developer Brad Newman puts it.

We fixed what they didn’t like. For example, it used to be impossible for Hall Street to see a customer’s account information without printing out a statement. For this green company, the waste of paper was an extra frustration added to the time spent. Now, they can pull a customer up on the screen.

We fixed some things, too. Better reporting has made a difference for Hall Street already, and will continue to do so. Clevertech was able to export the historical data from the antique software system and migrate it into the new one, so Hall Street now has a wealth of data which they can analyze in ways that haven’t been possible before. The expert’s intuitions are still important, but now data-driven decisions are possible.

Hall Street Storage is a perfect example of a case in which an expert’s specialized knowledge could be incorporated into a custom software solution, thereby adding value to the business. Processes are more efficient and less frustrating, costs are reduced, and the entire workflow is streamlined in ways that improve life for the staff and for the customers.

As for the expert, her intensive knowledge of the business can be directed toward more creative tasks, instead of the routine business of calculating the costs of each delivery. Clevertech worked with her to get her knowledge into the warehouse management system, where it now constitutes valuable capital for the business, and she is freed up for more challenging work that takes better advantage of her years of experience.

Clevertech can do this for you too. Call us to begin the conversation.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy, Expert systems, Technology Tactics

You need to keep in touch with colleagues, clients, prospects, and customers. If you had all the time and all the staff you could ever need, then you could do this with paper and pen. Or a spreadsheet and email. But you don’t have unlimited resources, so you choose a a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. The object is to stay organized, to document your contacts with all these people, and to make sure the contacts actually get made.

There are essentially three web-based options for CRM.

First, there’s Salesforce, ubiquitous among enterprise companies. Salesforce is a cloud-based CRM system that does an impressive assortment of things. It collects and sorts your sales leads, routes them to the appropriate member of your sales team, offers a variety of dashboards for each department  that integrate with other online applications so you can see Google maps of all a prospect’s locations and their credit info, maintains a content library which allows you to update Power Point presentations –

Most companies aren’t using all the features. In fact, most of the companies we’ve spoken with who are using Salesforce are frustrated with it.

What’s wrong with having a system that does more than you need?

• It increases the learning curve. Most of us use about 15% of the capacity of ready-made solutions — but we still have to learn all of that software before we can tell which 15% is the part we really need. What’s more, the entire staff needs to learn it. Add up the training hours — more for the less tech-savvy in the company — and you’ve got a sizable investment of time.
• It leads to hacks and workarounds. We end up trying to fit the way we work to the software, instead of working in the way that’s best for us and for our company. Salesforce is designed for enterprise-level companies, with multiple departments which may not be well integrated. Using it can force smaller, more agile companies to think like big corporations, which may not be what they want.
• We have to pay for all of it, even though we don’t need all of it. Salesforce runs $65 per user, per month. In a year, your growing company can pay $30,000 to $50,000. And you won’t own anything.

Compare that with Solve360. Solve360 combines CRM and project management capabilities in a simple system of shared virtual whiteboards in a shared online workspace. Sales leads are kept where everyone can see them, not routed to the executive in charge of that division. The main screen lets team members keep track of everything that’s going on, instead of doling out information according to departmental membership. You can upload files, use Google Docs and other familiar systems, and hold discussions right there in the shared space.Your company can use the service for a year for a couple thousand dollars.

We also like the fact that, when we went to get acquainted with the system, the CEO of the company walked us through it. That says something about the company.

Highrise is another nimble tool from 37signals, the outfit that brought you Basecamp. Combining a way to keep track of contacts with clients and prospects and a way to keep track of scheduled tasks, Highrise meshes with your personal GTD system as well as with other tools and systems your company may already use. You can use it on your smartphone to check a client’s previous interactions with your company while you make a call, review all the interactions between two companies, or see where everyone is with assigned tasks related to an individual. You can set up text reminders for future contacts, too. The cost is a small fraction of the cost of using Salesforce.

Highrise and Solve360 are alternatives to Salesforce. They’re more nimble, and give more flexibility. They’re less of an investment, too. Are they going to be perfect for you and your company?

Possibly not. You know a lot about how to make your business successful. What if you could get that information into your CRM? Not only would that improve your immediate workflow and systems for greater productivity and efficiency right now, but it will also increase the value of your company. Integrating that intellectual capital into your software systems makes those systems into assets for your business.

And that’s where the third option comes in. Clevertech can customize the functionality of any of the solutions we’ve discussed to make them perfect for your company’s needs now and in the future. This is one of our services: building things just the way you need them.

If your company is prepared to spend $30-$50k (the cost of using Salesforce for one year), then you should have us build exactly the right thing for you. Need a smaller customization? We can make your CRM work just right for you with that special application. Call us at (516) 869-4970, or contact us with our simple contact form and we’ll call you.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy

Businesspeople, according to a recent post at the Harvard Business Review’s blog, don’t like to work with IT.

Here’s proof:

• 75% of business leaders recognize the critical importance of IT.
• 30% identify IT needs when developing strategies
• 8%  are held accountable for IT  success.
• Internal technology is one of only four items that measurably affects firm performance
• It’s #16 out of 20 on a survey of the things business leaders believe will improve performance.

Is it really that business leaders dislike IT? We think that the negative feeling toward technology stems from not knowing how to work with it.

Here’s another number for you: only 27% of business leaders feel smart about IT. How much do you enjoy doing things that make you feel stupid?

At Clevertech, we have tech people with top business school degrees. We know how rare it is to be equally proficient with both. Our marginal utility is in translating the management and financial speak into technology.

We do this for our clients with custom software and systems. But we’re planning to share our proven abilities in this area in a seminar in the near future.

We’re currently preparing the seminar, “How to Get More Out of Your IT,” for the New York City area.We’ll be focusing on both personal productivity and business productivity, through technology.

First, we’ll be looking at ways that readily accessible technology can increase personal productivity, reduce stress, and improve your work life:

• Why the browser you choose matters, and how extensions can amaze you.
• Ways your phone can be something you swear by — not at.
• The inside tricks that make your computer your partner in productivity.
• Free tools and services that enrich your workday.
• Things your mail program can do for you that you never knew it could.

Then we’ll be looking at business technology — whether you do it yourself or go to your IT department and say, “Why don’t I have this?” — that will supercharge your company’s productivity:

• How defining processes properly can fast track the rest of the process.
• The difference the user interface makes.
• What iterative processes and exception handling can do for you.
• Why your IT department should be using Javascript to make your life easier.
• How data visualization can revolutionize your systems.

And much more. If you’d like to stay in the loop on the details of this event, contact us and we’ll make sure you get the word.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy, Technology Tactics

One of the things that is most challenging for the human brain is to keep track of situations in which there are a lot of interdependent variables.  We can really only keep about seven things in our minds at one time. So, give us something like a wedding reception, with the need to keep the menu, all the participants, the space, the flowers, the music, the photographs, the drinks, and the thousand and one tiny details all straight in our minds at once, and the result can be extreme stress.

Put the wedding reception onto a calendar filled with similarly complex and important events, add a large staff and numerous different venues, and you have the situation faced by RAM Catering, an elegant kosher caterer in Manhattan.

We’ve said that this is a challenge for humans, but the truth is, in many ways it’s more difficult for a spread sheet. No wonder many caterers rely on a barrage of Post-It notes, files bristling with notes, and a lot of extra time to sort everything out.

Ram took a different approach: they called Clevertech.

We built them a rich interface application that solved the problem. The interface has multiple screens that suit the way RAM’s managers like to work. Each manager has a dashboard — you can see an example at the top of this post — that shows the events coming up and has a project management element allowing a quick check that the contract has been sent, the contract and deposit have been received, etc.

From this dashboard, the manager can go in and set the menu:

The menu screen contains all the necessary details right where they’re needed, and it has drag-and-drop functionality connected with RAM’s extensive database of recipes. The manager can see at a glance how the dishes work together and how they’ll be served. A sudden change from chicken to lamb is no emergency: a click to bring up the lamb dishes and the manager can drag a new option into the menu.

Details of the arrangements are available from the dashboard.

Beyond the individual events, it’s also easy to pull out particular information RAM often needs, from the newest dishes to the valet info for the upcoming week’s events.

There are lots of little extra touches in this RIA that make it fit perfectly into RAM’s workflow. The calendar screen below highlights a few.

At the upper left, you can see that it’s possible to filter the events by location. At the upper right, notice that you can print the calendar, and choose to filter what’s printed in some useful ways. These features prevent information overload and allow staff to zero in on the information they really need.

The calendar shows the current month at the top, and the following two months in thumbnails. On the lower right, the search box — like all the search boxes — gives suggestions. Type in the first few letters of a client’s name and choices pop up.

There’s a lot of information on this one screen, but since it’s been designed and arranged with the specific company’s workflow in mind, it makes the whole process easy. Even so, the Legend at the side reminds users of the color coding so the learning curve stays gentle.

While this looks like a luxurious solution –and it is — the reality is that the savings in time, reduction of errors, and increased staff and customer satisfaction give an excellent return on investment for a custom solution like this one.

A RIA may be just the solution for your business, too. Call Clevertech at (516) 869-4970 to discuss the challenges your business faces. You may find that our technology offers the perfect solution.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy, Technology Tactics

David Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done) system is designed to bring peace of mind as well as productivity. Recently, after sharing this information with a client, I got the most interesting phone call. “Kuty,” he said, “I’m sitting on the train and something amazing is happening. My mind is at peace. I’m juggling tons of tasks, but my mind feels unburdened.”

A phenomenal benefit of this system allows you to free up your mental bandwidth and as a result handle more with less stress.

GTD step by step

1. The first essential habit is what David Allen calls “ubiquitous capture.” What does that actually mean? Grab the task as  it goes by. E-mails, letters, information, phone calls, ideas — all of it needs to be collected somewhere. Once you trust yourself to capture everything, you won’t need to waste mental energy on remembering, “I need to answer that letter” or “Where did I put the notes for that meeting?” or “I wonder whether the Cincinnati office has solved that problem with their database.”
2. The second essential habit is thinking in terms of next actions or project lists. If a task is more than one action, then it is a project and belongs on a project list. When you review all the items you captured –  file them as a project or as a next action. If an item is a project, add the next action to move that project forward.  If it’s a next action, attach a context or due date so you know where and when this task can be done. (Read more about contexts below).
3. Third, you need to ensure regular processing. If you can’t trust yourself to process all the things you capture on a routine basis, then you’ll have your urgent tasks in the back of your mind, affecting your concentration, or you’ll stop one task to deal with things that arrive, affecting your efficiency. Instead, set aside time to process everything you’ve captured. The flowchart above shows a method for GTD processing. Ask yourself these questions:

• Is this actionable?  That is, does it require action? If not, file it or toss it. If it requires action, move on to the next question.
• What’s the next action? If there’s more than one step involved, then the item is a project, and it should go to its appropriate project list. If it’s a single step, then do it if it will take less than 2 minutes, delegate it if it would be a better use of someone else’s time than yours, or add it to your to-do list or calendar if it should be done at another time.

By this time, you have nothing left but action items. You don’t want an enormous to-do list to plow through, so you’ll need to identify contexts for your actions. The context of an action is its setting. Some things need to be done at home, some at the office, some online, some by phone, and so on. Sort your action items according to their context by labeling them “@office,” “@computer,” as the requirements of the task demand. Labeling them with @ means they’ll be listed and sorted together automatically if you use electronic tools for this step.

Here’s the beauty of the context sort: next time you’re waiting somewhere, with your phone but no computer, you can check your @phone list and take those essential next actions, instead of getting stressed over having to wait. Next time you’re doing intensive work online and need a break, or have to wait for a response before continuing, you can choose an item from the @online list.

You can use web 2.0 tools to make this process accessible and practical wherever you are. Remember the Milk is a tool that we like. Here are a few of the benefits of using RTM for GTD:

• Capture, sorting, delegating, and processing can all be taken care of directly in RTM.
• RTM can be accessed from your iPhone or your Twitter account, your Android or Blackberry or your Google account, as well as from the website.
• You can rely on RTM to text or email you when a deadline or meeting is coming up, so you don’t have to keep things in the back of your mind.

RTM and GTD fit with the big picture of how we do things at Clevertech:

• Let technology improve your life.
• Work in ways that fit the way you like to work, instead of making your work habits fit the convenience of your hardware or software.
• Use smart systems to make your workflow more effective.

Recently, we’ve been working on a system that allows companies to have hundreds of people input data immediately for processing by Sage accounting systems. Instead of sending data from multiple users to a central user who then has to input that data — with multiple points along the way at which miscommunication, human error, and data loss could take place — we’ll allow ubiquitous capture and regular processing. It’s like the difference between carrying buckets from a well and having central plumbing. But a little higher tech.

In other cases, we’ve added sms texting functionality to allow access on our client’s terms, improved user interfaces to streamline the GUI experience, and created rich applications that are aesthetically pleasing. In every case, we’re making the systems work better for the people who use them.

Contact Clevertech to discuss how we can bring these principles to your company, to make life better for your staff, stakeholders, and clients.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy, Technology Tactics

When we’re all in the same office all the time, it’s easy enough to collaborate. In the real world, we’re on the go, or in different time zones to begin with.

Collaboration can be synchronous, with everyone sharing a screen and chatting. It can also be a matter of giving everyone access to a file so collaboration can take place over time as each member of the team adds and adjusts. Too often, though, it ends up being a matter of multiple iterations and emails, .27 of which get lost.

Take advantage of the technologies that make remote collaboration work better.

Here are some options:

• Adobe Share (Acrobat) and ConnectNow are easy to use and have an interface familiar to Adobe users.
• GoToMeeting is another way to share screens, with voice or chat.
• Dropbox is an easy way to send files. FileReplicationPro is the powerhouse alternative.
• Google Docs can feel clunky compared to some of the others, but it’s free and everyone has access.
• SimpleGroupware is an open source option with email, CMS, and other components. There’s a mobile version now, too.

If you try out a few possibilities and they don’t fit your needs precisely, we can build something that’s exactly right for your workflow and setting.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy

Every company has at least one: the experienced manager we all like to go to for advice and decisions. He knows it all, because he’s seen it all. He listens, thinks… and gives us the wisest course of action. It looks like magic – or, if not magic, at least an amazing and inexplicable insight into situations and people.

In fact, the wise manager is using rules. From his experience, he has learned that if this happens, that will probably follow. Multiply this simple pattern by dozens or even hundreds of rules in multiple situations, and it all happens so fast in his brain that he isn’t even aware that he those rules operating.

The rules are trapped in his head, as tacit knowledge. He couldn’t explain how he makes those decisions – so he can’t pass on that knowledge to another manager.

And yet, that knowledge is part of the the capital of your company. We recognise that information is an asset. You know that your data, your special processes, your innovative ideas are part of the intellectual capital of your company, creating value that’s potentially negotiable. Read the artilce »

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy, Technology Tactics

We’ve completed another piece of a hypothetical trading system, Overcollaterization Ratios, for the Clevertech Portfolio Management System.

In today’s market, we need to give  our clients the ability to make safer and stronger decisions in their businesses. The add-on tools we’re working on right now are allowing our clients to gather the kinds of data they need to simplify the decision-making process while making it stronger and more certain.

As developers, we find it exciting to see a system start in its infancy and grow into the trusted foundation of a business.

It begins with listening to the client’s needs. With our business training and problem-solving skills, we can see into the heart of the challenge our client is facing, and reframe that challenge in a way that allows us to meet the need in the most cost-effective and efficient way, saving the client time and money. Let us do this for you. Contact us today to begin the discussion.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy, Technology Tactics

While we have discussed the many flaws of human data management, the troubles of excel and the many advantages of custom databases, we now have the data to back it all up. No pun intended…

In a survey of fund administrators conducted by the software company “Confluence”. 115 respondents were polled on their data management habits. A whopping 84% of fund administrators are worried that manual processes are hurting their ability to control errors. As a result, senior management at these companies wisely invest in all sorts of technology solutions, all in an effort to eliminate the risks of manual error.

Manual data management in excel files or through other means is certainly more time consuming than the automatic nature of a custom database. 77% of respondents expressed concern that manual processes affect their ability to meet reporting deadlines.

Yet manual data management is still pervasive. 26% of respondents said that they use spreadsheets for more than half their fund administration processes. Another 25% said that they use spreadsheets for a quarter to a half of all processes.

Perhaps what is most striking is a Coopers & Lybrand study that found that 90% of spreadsheets with more than 150 rows contained errors. With that level of error, the risk in fund management becomes exponential. Most managers recognize this and 52% of respondents planned to centralize fund administration within the 12 months following the survey, with 62% of respondents selecting “replace manual process with technology” as their goal within the next 2 years, all in an attempt to reduce operating costs, improve scalability, and minimize risk.

A custom database that integrates data flow with data providers sounds pretty good about now, doesn’t it?

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy

In life, you have to make very important decisions. When you make important decisions in your business, you often need the answers to complex questions based on your data. How is one fund performing as compared to all my funds? How much money do I expect to bring in over the next three months based on existing contracts? Based on a multitude of variables, how can I determine which investments are at risk and therefore need my attention? Using your current data management tools, can you produce the answer to these questions? Without having an analyst spend all day trying to find the answer? Custom databases allow you more control by providing the answers to these and more complex questions instantly.

Database: The Movie

Databases have many advantages. For one, it becomes easier to access data in more complex ways than are possible in Excel. In Excel, all your data is displayed on one big spreadsheet. Relationships between data subjects are clearly discernible, and business forecasts based on the changing of a single variable can be instantly produced.

But if your data grows to be more complex, and you want to see the relationship between three or more data subjects, excel cannot handle that sort of a broad view.

An Excel file is like taking a Polaroid. It’s fast, easy, and gives you a quick snapshot of the data. But if you want to view data relationships over time, to get a better sense of your information so that you can make more accurate decisions, you need to get a broader view. Using your Excel file is like piecing together Polaroids to create a slide show of your daughter’s piano recital – something that looks laughable to the father next to you who is using a video camera. Databases reflect the constantly changing nature of your information and display data relationships in real time.

Have Your Data Manage Itself

Perhaps you are interested in tracking an investment and its relationship within a larger context. You may want to group your data into funds, display two, three or maybe all your funds at once. Data therefore needs to be stored properly on the investment level and grouped into separate funds.

Databases make it possible for you to store your information by using a complex data structure. This allows you to specify data types and relationships, organizing your information for easy retrieval and preparing it for accurate manipulation. When you take a hand in customizing your database, your business rules are the blueprint for your data, categorizing and funneling your information so that your data interprets itself. A custom or semi-custom database therefore allows you to be more in control of your business.

Multiple Users

In Excel, many users store or access data in a single file. This leads to possible errors and overwrites. However, Databases can handle multiple users. They can cause users to take turns and to track changes to ensure that these mistakes do not occur.

Perhaps the most important feature of databases is that the nature of their storage allows data to be recorded once and then repurposed in many different forms. One can view the data, edit it, or produce reports through the web, email and other outlets restricted to internal use, or edited for external reporting.

Make Your Business More Valuable to Buyers

An added bonus of using a custom or semi-custom database is that if gives you a piece of intellectual property that you now own. Since you encoded your business logic into the database, its special nature increases the value of your business if you ever want to sell. Furthermore, it instills buyer and client confidence when you display such control over your own data.

Have it your way

Maybe a custom-built database is the right tool for you. You gain more control over your data, moving from seeing things in two dimensions to 3D. Databases can save you time and money, cutting the number of analysts you need to maintain your information, and producing accurate reports on complex matters instantly. Where it might take you days or weeks to compile the data contained in different Excel files, because the structure in a database is arranged correctly, your data will be pre-arranged for fast manipulation and reporting even in complex situations – something that is impossible in Excel.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy