Software and Hardware Economics Business

TOBIA RAHASTYA ABRAM

4EA09 - 17212419 

FAKULTAS EKONOMI GUNADARMA

TUGAS BAHASA INGGRIS BISNIS 2 #

Name             : Tobia Rahastya Abram

Class              : 4 EA 09

NPM             : 17212419

English Business 2#

 

Software as a Service?

Software as a Service is an interesting concept. It implies that, instead of purchasing the software, you are purchasing it as a service—which really means the right to use the software.

You are also (usually) purchasing a hosting and infrastructure service along with the rights to use the software. SaaS providers maintain the hardware, perform upgrades, backup your data (sometimes), and otherwise perform all of the “keep the lights on” services and activities required to keep the software running.

Imagine a typical, 1990s style software purchase:

• You buy a source code control system.
• You set up a server and install the software.
• You pay ongoing support costs: providing power to the server, keeping the server cool, applying security and operating system updates to the server.
• You pay costs associated with administering the hardware and labor costs to update and upgrade the software.
• You carry risks—a botched upgrade or a hardware failure—which can cause downtime or lost data.
• You bear the costs of designing and maintaining a secure system. Do you allow your people to access the software (on the server) from other computers on your network? Do you allow them to access the software when they are not on the network (traveling, working from home, etc.)? How do you prevent your competitors from stealing or, even worse, destroying your data?

Now imagine that you’re outsourcing all of the “keep the lights on” activities above:

• You pay an IT services firm to manage the hardware and the software for you, including the security model.
• And you just use the software.

That’s one of the benefits of purchasing SaaS. To really grasp the economics of SaaS you have to contrast it with the economics of software license purchases.

Widespread misunderstanding

There is a widespread misunderstanding about purchasing software. In the last section, we used the word “purchase,” but that isn’t completely correct. You don’t purchase a copy of the software; you purchase a restricted license to use the software.

You probably have heard the phrase “site license,” which means that you are purchasing the right for everyone in your building (or company) to use the software.

Sometimes software is sold in terms of “numbers of seats”—the number of people that are licensed to use the software at any one time. You might have 100 engineers who share ten seats (single-seat licenses) of analysis software. Since each engineer only spends about 5% of his or her time using the software, they can easily share licenses. At any given time, five engineers (on average) will need to use the software. With a license for ten simultaneous users, each engineer is likely to be able to use the software whenever he or she desires.

So, even when you think you are purchasing software, you aren’t. As with SaaS, you are purchasing the right to use the software.

Economics of software licensing

There are infinite creative ways to purchase a software license. The most common situation is that you purchase a license, and then later purchase upgrades.

An obvious example is Microsoft Office (productivity software). Microsoft releases a new version of Office every couple of years. If you own the previous version, you can purchase an upgrade for less than the cost of buying the software for the first time. You are not required to purchase an upgrade, of course, but you may want to in order to capitalize on the latest features and fixes—and to stay current. If the people with whom you work all upgrade, you may want to upgrade, too—so that you can use the documents they create. 

Microsoft does a good job of providing free utilities to read documents from the newer versions, and allowing people with newer versions to create documents that can be used by people with older versions. Microsoft, therefore, gives you a choice. They rely on market forces to create the pressure to upgrade, but you never have to upgrade.

On the other hand, Intuit, makers of Quickbooks (small business accounting software), is a little pushier. Intuit releases a new version of the software every year. Once a new version of Quickbooks is released, support for some or all of the integrated online services is dropped for older versions of the product. You can continue to use your old version, unless you want to use one of the integrated services.

When companies sell software (licenses), they usually sell a version of the software, and then make updates to that software with some frequency—anywhere from daily to annually. Companies also manage those updates as two distinct types of updates:

• Minor updates are usually free and often include bug fixes or features that were intended to be in the major release, but were delayed. Or they might just be the introduction of capabilities with “small” value to their customers. A lot of software will automatically notify you, download the update, and install it for you. That’s great service.
• Major updates usually require the purchase of an upgrade. Major updates are usually more significant; they introduce capabilities that have “large” value to their customers or are intended to make the product appealing to additional markets.

To understand the economics of software license purchases, you have to look at both the value over time and the costs over time of purchasing a software license.

To keep this simple, we’ll assume the model described previously—minor updates happen frequently and are free, and major updates require the purchase of an upgrade to the latest version of the software. We’ll also assume that every new update introduces something valuable to the customer.

A Solution for IT Issues in Hardware Management Software

Even for the most experienced IT manager or network admin, being assigned the task of creating a network inventory list of hardware can be a daunting task. After all, just think of all of the hardware devices in your office, such as computers, routers, servers, printers, and more. The task gets even more complex if you’re asked to collect a great deal of detailed information on each item. Finding the righthardware management software can help to simplify this task. But what should you look for?

Finding the right hardware management software

A good piece of hardware management software can be used to generate a detailed network inventory list in a way that meets your needs. To be truly helpful, the software should be customizable to tell you the information important to you like Windows events, hardware serial numbers, software installed on computers, hotfixes applied, and more. Really good hardware management tools will even help you save time and money by tracking software licenses for compliance reasons, and to maintain control over your bandwidth. What's more, it can even help you with loss prevention.

Hardware management tools work by collecting network inventory data on your behalf by using either a scanning agent or agentless scanner to collect data across the network.

While scanning agents need to be used on each and every computer, the benefit is that they can get around firewalls and antivirus programs, provided you set access at the admin level. In addition to having to scan every computer, scanning agents' other downside is that you have to update each computer as new versions of the software are released.

Agentless scanners can scan your network from one central location. There is no need to collect and maintain inventory data about your company's various hardware devices on your own.

By using a management software program, you can get an accurate snapshot of your network without taking up too much of your valuable time.

Key Features of IT Asset Management Systems

IT managers continually require exact information on the location, configuration, and identity of computer hardware and software. They also need access to contracts, budgets, documentation, training materials, and warranties associated with assets to properly manage them through their life cycle. Keeping up with the myriad records on IT assets can be a time-consuming and error-prone process without suitable tools to assist the effort.

IT asset management (ITAM) systems aim to reduce the labor required to satisfy these requirements while increasing the reliability and completeness of this information. The rationale for investing in ITAM systems includes cost reductions through improved purchasing, better utilization of assets, reigning in of maintenance contract and software licensing costs, and better management of the overall asset life cycle. Asset management systems can also reduce risks associated with regulatory compliance, software licensing, and security vulnerabilities. For organizations adopting IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices, deploying an asset management system coupled with a configuration management database system is often an essential first step in the process.

This Research Byte is a summary of our full report, Adoption of IT Asset Management Systems Reaching Maturity.

ITAM applications provide tools for managing the life cycle of assets, from recording purchase and installation histories, to maintaining inventories of hardware and software assets, to planning for the removal and disposal of assets. ITAM systems can be more than a repository for storing and reporting information. They can also automatically capture information on assets deployed in the environment, help manage configurations, and support monitoring of assets.

But having an accurate inventory of IT assets is not the end goal. Business value comes from fully exploiting those assets through better management. Figure 1 shows the key activities that IT managers must perform to fully realize value from an IT asset management program.

The full version of this report provides an overview of ITAM economics. We review the key activities supported by ITAM systems and key features found in leading vendor solutions. We then assess adoption trends, return on investment (ROI) experience, and total cost of ownership (TCO) experience of organizations in our annual IT technology trends survey. The data is assessed for the composite sample of 200 organizations and by organization size and sector. We conclude with our recommendations on requirements that ITAM systems should meet.

Properly applied, ITAM is usually cost-effective. Knowing precisely what equipment is owned and the current status of each item is essential. Because ITAM tracks all such components, it makes the retrieval of documentation and training easy for all organizational assets. In addition, complete visibility of hardware and software ensures legal and licensing compliance. Finally, the same visibility also simplifies achieving standardization. These benefits of ITAM, coupled with low risk and excellent economic performance, make the technology a wise choice for most companies.

CRM Explained: Customer Relationship Management (Tugas Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2)

TOBIA RAHASTYA ABRAM

4EA09 - 17212419 

FAKULTAS EKONOMI GUNADARMA

TUGAS BAHASA INGGRIS BISNIS 2 #

Name  : Tobia Rahastya Abram

Class   : 4 EA 09

NPM   : 17212419

English Business 2

The S.C.O.P.E. model CRM

The S.C.O.P.E. model of customer relationship management defines the scope of customer relationship management. The central constituency in the model is the customer, (C). The other four constituencies – suppliers (S), owners / investors (O), employees (E) and other partners (P) – must be managed and co-ordinated to ensure that preferred value propositions are created, communicated and delivered to the selected customers.

 Figure 1: The S.C.O.P.E. model

                       

Although the model features customers at the heart, not all companies would agree. Richard Branson and Bill Marriott have both claimed that their most important constituency is the internal customer, the employee. They both believe that if the employee is satisfied in their work they will give excellent service to their external customers – airline passengers and hotel guests respectively. Clearly the role of employee is that much more important in businesses where customer satisfaction is derived principally from the moments of truth, in interaction with employees. Sears, the US retail giant, has recently developed a management model which has calibrated the relationship between employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and business performance. They estimate that a 5 unit increase in employee satisfaction provides an 1.3 unit increase in customer satisfaction which drives up revenue by 0.5%.

There are also other circumstances under which the external customer may not be the most important constituency. For example, a company entering a new market may focus initially on building close relationships with distribution partners who can take on sales, logistics and customer service roles. Similarly, following acquisition there is often a period in which management’s major concern is on building a relationship based on mutual understanding with the new owners.Despite these reservations, the company which fails to deliver customer-satisfying value propositions to its external customers is the company that will fail.

What makes an organization successful?

Today’s workforce is not what it was years ago, but management practices have not always changed with the times. We now know that the strength of any organization depends on how effectively its people are treated and how much good will is created with employees. Managing people with respect, from the time they are being interviewed for possible hire, to the time of their leaving the organization, is the hallmark of modern, successful organizations. Managers should be constantly striving to build good relationships and strong esprit within their organizations. Companies need to consider, what does an employee have the right to expect in today’s workplace? What is a new member of an organization entitled to? What are the kinds of policies and procedures that will maximize growth, harmony, and progress in our organization?

Here are a few examples of policies and procedures that, when implemented, help build strong, up-to-date organizations:

·         When being interviewed for a position, questions of a personal nature are avoided.

·         When hired, a meaningful job description is supplied.

·         New employees are given a reasonable period for orientation.

·         Employees receive equitable benefits, such as health and unemployment insurance, vacation, and sick leave.

·         Policies and procedures are simple to read and understand and readily available so that the employee clearly knows what constitutes acceptable—or unacceptable—behavior.

·         Employees receive regular performance assessments by their supervisors, to identify areas of growth, and areas where improvement might be needed.

·         Employees receive support and recognition from their supervisors for good performance.

·         Fair, competitive wages and regular merit increases are provided.

·         All employees have a clear chain of command in which they answer to their direct supervisors, without interference from higher level management.

·         Employees have easy access to a human resources specialist or higher level manager, for disputes or other problems that cannot be easily resolved.

·         Rules are in place for fair treatment and complete review and documentation of employee performance, before disciplinary action is taken. Employees expect, and in fairness are entitled to, adequate opportunity to address issues and have access to mediation when needed.

WHAT IT IS PROFIT OF BUSINESS ?

Profit is the positive gain remaining for a business after all costs and expenses have been deducted from total sales. Profit is also referred to as the bottom line, net profit or net earnings

HOW IT WORKS (EXAMPLE):

The formula for profit is: Total Sales - Total Expenses = Profit

Here is some example information about Company XYZ for last year:

Using the formula and the information above, we can calculate that Company XYZ's profit was:

$2,000,000 - $1,000,000 - $50,000 - $95,000 = $855,000

WHY IT MATTERS:

Profit is one of the most important measurements in determining the health and success of a business.  However, the measurement of profit can vary and should be considered with other factors. For example, profit varies greatly from company to company and from industry to industry. Because companies vary in size, it is often more appropriate to consider profit as a percentage of sales (profitmargin) when comparing one company to another.  As well, varying accounting methods can greatly influence profit, and these changes may have little to do with a company's actual operations.

Changes in profit are the subject of much analysis. In general, high or rising profits are indicative of a successful business while low profits could suggest a myriad of problems, including inadequacies in customer or expense management.

Increase Customer Satisfaction With 9 Strategies

Jerry Gregoire, CIO of Dell Computers was quoted as saying, “The customer experience is the next competitive battleground.”

In a business world where customer acquisition costs are sky-rocketing, small and medium businesses must focus on building a customer experience to increase customer satisfaction.

Here are nine game-changing ideas to help you on your way:

1. Treat your customers like they are your boss

Jeffery Gitomer speaks about how your customer is your paycheck. With no customers, there’s nobody to pay you! By taking this approach to every customer interaction you can naturally flip the angle on customer service. Picture yourself as the boss… if your employee treated every customer the way they treated you, how good would the service be!  Here are some of the approaches I recommend businesses use:

§  Thank all your customers for their business

§  Go out your way to help customers

§  Try to impress your customers as if you want a pay raise

§  Think about your paycheck every time you talk to a customer

§  Keep your promises and integrity

2. Focus on measuring customer satisfaction

Did you know that 91% of your unhappy customers will never purchase services from you again? Measuring customer satisfaction can help you reduce the number of unhappy customers.

So how do you measure customer satisfaction?

§  Use one of these four Online Survey Tools

§  Focus on these Customer Satisfaction Metrics

§  Use customer support tools with ticket systems (Zendesk, Desk.com or Helpscout)

3. Build customer loyalty to increase customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.
– Jeffrey Gitomer. Jeffery talks strongly about customer loyalty and it’s relationship with customer satisfaction in his book, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless. He believes that businesses should be focuses their efforts on creating loyal customers, that sticky and not easily influenced by competitors. I agree with Jeffery and have included my five favorite ways to build customer loyalty to increase customer satisfaction:

§  Remember special occasions like birthdays

§  Strive to empower and educate customers

§  Invest in a self-service support channel

§  Top level managers must lead from the front with customer service

§  Talk to your customers, tap into what they want and deliver

4. Avoid making these customer retention mistakes

No business is immune to unhappy customers. In fact, even companies with the best customer service in the world will still lose up to 9% of their customers to competitors. The good news is you can do something to stop customers defecting. Here are three common customer retention mistakes that are killing your customer satisfaction:

§  You are ignoring customer feedback

§  You are taking customer feedback to personally

§  You are using long, boring customer feedback survey

5. Set customer expectations early

Setting expectations too high is a common mistake a lot of businesses (and salespeople)make when bringing on new business. How many times has your sales guy made ridiculous promises to push a deal over the line? If you’re like most businesses, you’ve probably had the odd wild over promising salesperson. For those who still have these wild ones, my advice – get them in line! They are killing your customer satisfaction by setting expectations too high! Gordon Tan, Director of Client Heartbeat, recommends under promising and over delivering. There’s no better feeling than as a customer to have your expectations exceeded.

6. Learn how to survey your customers the right way

A customer feedback survey is the best way to find out how satisfied your customers are, find ways to improve your product or service, and identify customer advocates who really love your product. Gregory Ciotti, Marketing Strategist at Help Scout recommends using a customer feedback survey that asks participants to rank (1-10) how likely they are to recommend you. I agree with Gregory and also recommend keeping your survey to under 10 questions. A quick and relevant survey will help increase survey response rates.

7. Email is the best channel to increase customer satisfaction

59% of B2B marketers believe email marketing is still the most effective channel in generating revenue. If it’s so good for marketers, why don’t we use it more to increase customer satisfaction? That’s a good question, and I want to touch on three quick practical examples of companies who are using email to increase customer satisfaction.

§  Mixpanel uses email to stay in contact with customers by sending through follow up emails with links to resources, webinars and support sites.

§  Proflowers uses email to send personalized special offers to specific groups of customers.

§  R&G Technologies uses email to send customer feedback surveys and track customer satisfaction.

8. Tap into social media to track and monitor customer satisfaction so you can keep your customers happy

It costs a company $234 every time they lose a customer. Can you afford to not be monitoring and tracking customer satisfaction? With your customers now using their mobile phones up to 150 times per day, it’s important to recognize that they will turn to social media to leave their customer complaints. Your job is to make sure you use social media monitoring tools to keep track of positive and negative feedback, and resolve them accordingly. In fact, social media provides a great opportunity to actually increase customer satisfaction.

Here’s how you can do just that:

§  Use social media to monitor brand mentions and sentiment

§  Use social media as a customer support channel

§  Use social media to hold Q&A sessions with customers

9. Stats don’t lie, understand the importance of customer satisfaction

If my first eight ideas weren’t already enough, it’s worth reading about why I think customer service is the new marketing. Here are three mind-blowing facts that should motivate you to start focusing on increasing customer satisfaction.

§  According to Bain and Co., a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%.

§  Gartner Group statistics tell us that 80% of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of your existing customers.

§  Lee Resource Inc. found that attracting new customers will cost your company five times more than keeping an existing customer.

Increase customer satisfaction by focusing on the customer experience

The customer experience is where business is won and lost. Whether it be through email, social media, customer surveys or good old face to face, as a business in 2014, you need to focus the on customer experience. Remember, in a reality where your customers pay your paychecks, to increase customer satisfaction – you must treat customers as if they were your boss. Relationships with four constituencies generate cost; it is only relationships with external customers that generate revenues.

Modern Management Theory

Management is one or the other form has existed in every nook and corner of the world since the dawn of civilization. Modern Management has grown with the growth of social-economics and scientific institution. Modern view consists that a worker does not work for only money. They work for their satisfaction and happiness with good living style. Here Non- financial award is most important factor. Modern management theories started after 1950s. Modern management theory focuses the development of each factor of workers and organization. Modern management theory refers to emphasizing the use of systematic mathematical techniques in the system with analyzing and understanding the inter-relationship of management and workers in all aspect. It has following three Streams :

·         Quantitative Approach

·         System Approach

·         Contingency Approach

Essential CRM

Essential CRM is a pay as you go service delivered to the browser. Using Essential CRM to manage your sales team, track customer data, and deliver better service can help you grow your business. Dont spend money on Servers Managing customer information and interactions is easy with Essential CRM.

No more searching through spreadsheets and emails: Everything you and your colleagues need is stored in one place and accessible from anywhere.

·         Improve Customer Support

·         Increase Sales

·         Improve Customer Interaction

·         Find New Customers

·         Have complete customer insight every step of the way

CRM Explained: What is the Purpose of Customer Relationship Management?

How well do you really know your customers, vendors, prospects and others who are involved with your business? If you aren’t using a CRM to manage these relationships, then your business is likely missing out on some valuable opportunities. While the early days of CRM focused on managing relationships with customers, today’s systems are much more complex. A well-designed CRM system manages the details about each of the different relationships that business owners have and manages all of that data in a central location. When business owners can easily access important sales and marketing details about their contacts, it’s possible to develop a clear CRM strategy. Advanced reporting features, easy to use dashboards and other customizable options make modern CRM solutions a smart choice for business owners who want to get ahead. CRM systems are a critical part of leveraging customer relationships. When you’ve got a well-designed system, you can leverage valuable data and track what makes your customers tick, while also identifying pain points and possible roadblocks to creating more meaningful relationships with your customer base. By taking advantage of everything that effective an CRM has to offer, business owners can refine their business processes in order to develop a better customer experience.

Why Do You Need CRM?

If you aren’t utilizing some sort of CRM system, then you are likely missing out on ways to streamline your business, save money and increase your customer base. An effective CRM strategy can help your business control costs while also helping to uncover hidden opportunities for business growth.  The right CRM strategy can also help your business by:

·         Quickly showing which products and services are making you the most money and which ones should be cut

·         Making it easy to track your marketing efforts so that you can refine and update them as needed in order to remain profitable

·         Easily identifying new prospects while also helping you find additional business opportunities that may exist with current customers

How to Choose a CRM Solution

There are some important things to consider when comparing the many CRM solutions that are available. For example, it’s important to choose a system that’s easy to use and that offers the types of features that your business needs. It sounds simple enough, but if you choose CRM software that’s too complicated or that simply doesn’t do what you need, then you’ll just be wasting your money. Many businesses opt for custom-built solutions, which can be as simple or as complicated as you need, or go for out-of-the-box software solutions that can be modified to meet their business requirements. The type of CRM you choose should ultimately come down to which solution has the best features, is easy to use and falls within your budget.

It’s also important to think about what you want your CRM to do. Today’s systems range from the most basic database systems to the most complex marketing and sales tools. There are also solutions that can be customized for specific industries and business goals. Consider what you want to get out of CRM and keep in mind what you might need in the future as the business grows. Finding a solution that is highly scalable and flexible is the best choice when it comes to choosing a CRM.

How are you leveraging CRM to help your business? Share your story in the comments section below.