This week marks a special anniversary of sorts. Three years ago I became a Microsoft BizSpark member. This week I graduate from the program. It has been a peculiar journey but I feel that I have learned a great deal. I would like to discuss my experiences with the program.
I was between consulting jobs and was attending an ALM conference in Chicago when I asked if there was a program for a Microsoft professional to get Visual Studio in order to start building a software start-up. I was quickly directed to the BizSpark program and I have not looked back. I was provided with software licenses for Office and Visual Studio. I was also given a network to share ideas and solicit for help.
It has not been perfect. Sometimes I have felt alone in the wilderness of business. The clients I thought I would get just by putting out a shingle have been elusive. Still, I have been able to migrate from Visual Studio 2010 to Visual Studio 2013 and keep up on all the latest technologies. I am now comfortable with MVC thanks BizSpark. I have embraced Microsoft Tag until Microsoft decided to abandon the technology and thanks to NuGet was able to generate my very own QR codes to manage my business.
Plenty of ups and downs and BizSpark has been there for me. Now I am officially an alumni of the program and I hope that I get an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of another member WhatsApp. I understand that this is pie in the sky thinking but that was why I wanted to be an entrepreneur in the first place.
Feel free to contact us and learn more about our business. I want to take time out to thank Doug Crets and the BizSpark team for sharing my work with others and keeping my focused on the end goal which is quitting my day job and putting other people to work. I look forward to letting everyone know when that happens.
Last week, I discussed a few trends you missed. I want to follow up on that blog post because we are depending on technology more. The technology with the most influence is mobile technology and it grew last year by 115%. This week in the blog I want to remind you why you should pay attention to this.
In 2013, mobile application use increased by 115%. The use of smart phones and the dominance of data means that as a professional and business person your business is going to depend more on how you view your information. This means, that systems should not be tethered to desk top computers and clunky systems. Today, it should be possible to follow up on invoices, bills of lading and other important activities inside your organization via your mobile device. So software vendors who sell you solutions which do not work on mobile devices are not doing their job correctly.
At E3 systems we have two major releases which work on both a laptop, tablet, and mobile device. Our Sully 2.0 system helps you keep track of bills of lading, invoices, and purchase orders from the desktop to the phone. We have also made the transition from Microsoft Tag to QR coding which gives us way to connect pieces of paper to the web. We are also proud to announce the release of our Tony software which makes managing your fleet of vehicles easy. Now drivers and upload documents via their phones, receipts are accessible and you can track the maintenance of your vehicles. This will help you with your insurance premiums and when accidents happen protect you from liability.
At E3 systems we saw this trend years ago and it has shaped how we have created software ever since. Contact us today and find out more. This is one trend you should not miss.
The life of an entrepreneur is lonely and filled with rejection. I spend my time alone working on products and placing the finishing touches on code. I find myself using my free time to solicit customers and finally I am making hard business decisions which I thought I would never make. It is a life of sacrifice which often ends in failure and only a rare few make it. I would not trade it for anything in the world. This week our blog post is about why E3 systems continues to chase entrepreneurial dream.
It took personal sacrifice and hard work but I think that we are going to be in a very good position for 2014 providing three services for our customers to subscribe to. Sully 2.0, Tony 1.0, and our continuing services make it possible for us to help the small to medium sized business achieve its goals. We also have plans in the near future to continue development on our ever expanding line of products.
We also had a very good conversation with a local enterprise customer and hope that this will expand our exposure with business people in more rural communities.
We started this firm to chase a dream. That dream was to help small and medium sized businesses grow and reap the benefit of cloud based computing. If you would like to know more about us contact us here. We think that we are close to meeting that goal. When things are darkest is when people discover the light which will guide their way. We have endured the darkness and we are ready to light the way.
Hopefully will will not have remorse like
the woman who received this tattoo.
Lots of big news from Redmond this week, I will save my thoughts about Steve Ballmer for a more private forum. When news arrived in my mail box on Monday last week that Microsoft was going to discontinue Microsoft Tag Support, I received a flurry of instant messages from friends and colleagues. They wanted to know about how it would affect E3 systems and my personal feelings on the subject. In this blog post, I want everyone to know where we stand as a business and what this news means for the QR industry.
My first reaction to this was anger. Why would Microsoft pull this service when it could be a great way for enterprise operations to have paper documents communicate with mobile devices? It then occurred to me that I had written a blog on the subject a almost a year ago discussing how advertising and marketing firms were not using QR codes correctly. Then I read the following article in the aftermath of the announcement and anger quickly mellowed into a vinegary vintage of disappointment.
Because QR code support and MSTag are not built into phones people do not scan tags. Because people don’t scan tags marketing firms do not create suitable mobile marketing content for discourages scans and further undermines the technology. I was hoping to use MSTag and QR codes for a manufacturing and regulatory compliance purpose. Now Microsoft was pulling the plug and we would have to find some other technology or means to fill the breach.
Our reprieve was that Microsoft would not kill the service right away. They provided a two year window and offered the services of a third party ScanLife to provide hosting for QR codes and MSTag. They even sent an e-mail and phone number to contact someone as I migrate the service. The plot thickened when I received an e-mail from ScanLife saying they were very excited about how we used the MSTag service and that they would like to speak with me personally. That appointment is scheduled for Monday afternoon.
I am disappointed that Microsoft is making this decision. Looking at the trends and how the technology was misused I understand why that made this choice. This profoundly effects how E3 systems Sully 2.0 and Tony Platform operate. I am also concerned that this change may effect the profitability of the organization. If necessary, we will have to do something different at this time. We are just not sure what the future holds. We will keep you posted.
This has been an amazing week of transition for E3 systems. We have formally been in business for three years. We are also on the cusp of a new software release. Today I want to talk about our new product Tony and why you will have to wait a little longer before it goes live.
Early in 2013, a potential client called us out of the blue and wanted to know if we could put together a simple contact management system for them. We rushed a prototype out and demonstrated it to the client. They seemed enthusiastic until we gave them a contract and said that they would have to pay for us to finish the project since it was done on spec. We never heard from that client again. I suppose this was a good development because if they were not going to return our calls or honor a contract I am sure that getting paid would have also been a serious problem.
The months of March and April were gloomy as we continued to sell our main product Sully 2.0 and assess the failure of our prototype project. Some good did come out of the work because; we developed experience in MVC 4 and Entity Framework code first for rapid project turn around. By May, we had come up with a new project and idea which we nick-named Tony after a famous Fiat mechanic.
Tony would be an easy to use system to track maintenance for vehicles in any sized fleet. Trucking companies, rental firms, and even car dealerships could use the system to keep track of when and where work was done. It would become a living record and best of all it would obey the philosophy of all products at E3 systems. It would work on a smart phone, tablet, and personal computer. We also leveraged the power of Microsoft Tag so someone in the field would scan a code on their phone and get instant information.
We had scheduled that Tony would launch in July of 2013. It was a hectic schedule made even more dramatic by the server migration we did to upgrade our software and databases. Something had to give and it was clear that the migration took precedence and that we would have to push back the release of Tony. We also felt that we needed to do more work on the product before it was ready for release and sale. I am deeply disappointed about this but as the president of the company I would rather ship quality software that release something and then expect my customers to find bugs and act as our quality assurance team.
So we are planning to release our Tony software in mid-September. I felt that you our customers deserved and explanation. We had been dropping hints about Tony for the last two months and felt you needed an honest explanation of why it is not here. As a young start-up we are not in the business of vaporware so please forgive us for the delay. If you have any questions or concerns please drop us a line and we will have an account executive contact you directly.
Hard work and we are ready to help you rock your business
We are currently in the middle of an upgrade and finishing up a major release which we are going to unveil next week. I am pretty proud of the direction we are heading. This week’s blog post we talk about some of those changes.
I founded this company because I wanted to provide tools for small and medium sized businesses to help them run their businesses for effectively. This meant web based systems where you could track invoices, inventory, and manage bills of lading. I worked my day job and at night and weekends began building my software empire. It was really just a software developer and a dream. That was nearly three years ago and I am just as dedicated to the cause now as I was then. Our Sully 2.0 system is a fine cloud based platform to make it easy for you to have a state of the art shipping and receiving system for the price of cable television. We have mercilessly tested it with professionals inside and outside the trucking industry. If it can meet their approval then we are sure it will meet yours.
Next week we are unveiling the release of Tony. This software helps you track the vehicles in your fleet and the maintenance they have undergone. No longer will you have to rifle through piles of paperwork or try to sift through receipts to know how many times you changed oil or had to repair breaks. Now you have a simple means to view the information with your smart phone, tablet computer, or PC. We have also folded Microsoft Tag technology into the system so you can place a simple bar code on the dash of the vehicle and scan it to receive up to the minute information. We think that something like this is going to make life much easier for your safety and compliance departments.
E3 also offers other services. We will be happy to provide agile project management training for your organization. We also offer web site design and construction to make your company web sites respond to the mobile web and drive more business to your organization. Finally, we can consult on how to use social media like Facebook and Twitter to spread your message.
We offer all of these services and as we head into our third year we are looking forward to a break out year with customers, new challenges, and lots of stories along the way. Contact us today and find out how you can join us.
You might have missed the other revolution going on this week.
It has been a rough week. Chechen criminals bombing the Boston Marathon and the fertilizer factory explosion in Texas have sucked all the oxygen out of the national media. What you might have missed is the more quiet and insidious revolution taking place under your nose.
This blog has been very vocal about the revolution. The evidence also continues to mount and if you don’t get involved you and your business will be swept aside; this is the cloud computing revolution and the continued acceptance of the smart phones by the consumer market.
Your customers are using smart phones with increasing frequency and they are using them in way which is disrupting small and big business with equal ferocity. One of these trends is called “showrooming” where customers go to appliance, book or electronics stores and window show. Then they scan the bar codes and price check those product in an effort to get a better deal. This is great for consumers but it is strangling the margins of many businesses. Showrooming is not only a threat to retail business but in diverse fields like automotive insurance and philanthropy.
Furthermore social media is being used to sell products and formulate opinion about those brands. So now unless you devote yourself full time to staying on top of social media the good name of your business could be tarnished. They were even joking about this trend on this Sunday’s Doonesbury strip.
Finally your business needs a web presence which not only looks good on a standard web browser but it needs to look good on a tablet computer or smart phone. For a small business, it gets to be overwhelming. This is why I helped found E3 systems we help take care of the many considerations you need to make when constructing a web site which needs to look good on major web platforms including smart phones and tablets.
We also understand the growing technologies of mobile bar coding and cloud computing so that you can benefit from the same technologies used by the Fortune 500.
We would love to tell you more so feel free to contact us.
Most business people I speak to have one wish. They want more time. They want to spend more time with their families. They want more time to manufacture better products. They want more time to better service their customers and they want more time to learn new skills. There is never enough time in the day because there is always one more call to take, one more e-mail to respond to and one more customer who you need to make a sale. I understand that wish because I say it at least every day. It would be great if someone could give us the gift of more time.
One of the reasons, I started E3 Systems was to help small businesses win back a little more time. We spend hours a day doing paperwork and chasing down calls. We struggle with obsolete and expensive software because it is “good enough”. Many of the tasks we do in our business lives are nothing more than a colossal time suck. I understood that and knew that I could help write software that would help. Today, we have online systems which help you manage your inventory without having to install expensive hardware or software. These systems also work on mobile phones, tablet computers, and laptops. As long as you have a connection to the web they will just work.
Now, instead of calling into the office to see if you have product in stock you can just make a few taps to your smart phone and find out instantly in real time; this should save you hours of labor. We also understand that gathering documentation together to meet regulatory requirements is a time consuming hassle. We understand and make it easy to generate documents and reports at a moment’s notice. Finally, with the help of Microsoft’s Tag technology we have a way for every piece of paper to communicate with the web and your smart phone so that important documents are just a click away.
These kinds of services make it possible to save time because you are no longer riffling through paperwork and obsolete computer systems. It also saves you payroll because you need fewer administrative professionals to manage that paperwork. That gives you a chance to free them up to meet with clients and sell to new ones. That is what is in it for you. More time to manage your business and less payroll for administrative staff.
I am sure it is a luxury any business person would want. So contact us today and ask about how we can give you the gift of time.
The life of a technologist is spent relearning there job every eighteen months. It is just the nature of the profession. This week I spent my week receiving training as a Certified Scrum Master. While I was at training, I broke out of my shell of meetings, code, and sales calls to talk with other technologists who share the same passion for Agile business practices that I do. In spite of all technological skill in the room we still swapped business cards like we were part of the cast of Mad Men.
I firmly believe that the business card will help archaeologists understand the operation of the contemporary corporation five hundred years from now. They contain personal information about a person, how to get in touch with them and their relative position within the organization. They will also chronicle how businesses have tinkered with the English language as Sales People have transformed into Account Executives. It is a universally accepted custom in business that when you meet another business person there is an expectation that you will receive their business card. It is such an accepted custom that it was brutally parodied in the book and film American Psycho.
It is always nice to hand out business cards and to network however in this age of smart phones and Google Glass why does it have to be so cumbersome. When I receive a business card, I want to place that information into my smart phone right away. The sad reality is that I can't. I either have to go on my e-mail program and enter the information in my contacts or I have to go to an online service which will sync the information with my phone. It just seems wasteful.
It would be nice if a technology exists which makes it possible to instantly scan a business card and place it in our phone's contacts. The good news is we already possess this technology. It is courtesy of Microsoft and it is called MS Tag. Thanks to MS Tag you now have an easy means to allow people to enter your business card into their smart phones. The application is free from Microsoft and once installed easy to use. Just point the camera from the smart phone at the square code and it creates a contact for your phone. That is it. No muss and no fuss.
E3 systems will provide this service free to you or your business. We offer lots of other services to our customers but this is our way of introducing ourselves to people who may not be familiar with business automation or using technology to streamline their business. Contact us today and we will show you how.
In spite of being a technical professional and owning and operating my own software company, I still can't do my own car repairs. This gives me an opportunity to spend some time at the local car repair shop talking with other people who can't fix their cars. The conversations inevitably turn to our careers and when others find out that I run a technology company they ask what they can expect from the world of tech. I tell them that my opinions are not gospel but that I have a pretty good idea about what is coming up in the immediate future. This week in the spirit of looking forward to the New Year, I want to make some predictions. Hopefully, I will not look too foolish when some of my predictions don't come true.
In 2012 there were two major trends which could not be ignored; first, the rise of mobile computing and finally the ascent of the cloud as a computing platform. When I first discussed the subject in earnest back in December 2011, I was looking at a trend that was just starting to grow. Now you cannot go anywhere without hearing the term cloud. People have even started developing myths about cloud based computing. For 2013, I continue to see this trend grow and it is a perfect opportunity for a firm like mine to help small and medium sized businesses learn to compete with the big boys.
Next the line between mobile computing and desktop computing is blurring. This has driven all sorts of changes in 2012. More and more of us get our information over phones and table devices so web developers, technologists, and even CIO's and learning if they are going to survive they will have to adapt to this mobile world. Again, this major trend in the industry finds this firm perfectly positioned to deal with the situation. Our applications have to work on computers, smart phones, and tablets otherwise we are doing a disservice to our customer. I also feel that young people are even more comfortable with mobile technology than current business leaders so if we are going to tap this customer market we are going to have to build software they are going to use. Microsoft with Windows 8 is a huge gamble on this front and while the news wasn't good early going I think they are perfectly positioned for a renaissance in the coming year.
Here are some other predictions that I think might take place in the New Year.
Cash is not going away: We have all seen the articles about how debit cards, NCF, and Google Wallet are going to make cash obsolete. Don't count on it. We are going to need cash for night clubbing, casinos, children's lemonade stands, and groceries. Cash will become less important but it will not become obsolete.
Agile will continue to grow in the startup community and face obstacles in established businesses: I am running into this problem now in my day job. It is clear that business leaders for large firms are frightened by the cultural changes and organizational changes necessary to make Agile work so it will take startups and big dogs like Facebook, Google and IBM to show them how it is done. Until a company fully embraces Agile and starts squashing the competition there will be a deep reluctance on the part of other large firms. Then it will be up to us to deal with the copy cats.
QR Codes and MS Tag will find a home- in logistics and manufacturing: QR codes and Microsoft tag came from manufacturing and they will return to their roots because marketing firms have been horrible at using these technologies. I am pretty proud that we are leading this trend.
E3 systems will be expanding our focus: We will continue to support and market our Sully 2.0 software but we are branching out with other software offerings. We are also going to start providing Business Solutions Architecture for small and medium sized businesses. I am going to talk more about Business Solutions Architecture in our next blog.
Finally, E3 systems will continue to be a partner in the Agile Community on Google+ and a member of the Microsoft Application Lifecycle Management community: We learn so much from these groups and in exchange it is nice to share my wisdom with them so we will have a continuing partnership with them.
This last year has not turned out like we expected. However, I am deeply grateful for the experiences and support we have received from the community. I hope that 2013 is a breakthrough year for us and that you will be along to share it with us.
Many people outside the technology industry wonder how companies make any money building web sites and providing services. During the first dot com boom, it was a simple strategy. Generate lots of web traffic and buzz. When that happens sell advertising to clients who are paying for those eyeballs. It was a great strategy but it burned through millions of dollars of venture capital. It also created spectacular failures like Pets.com; which generated loads of attention but lost eighty cents for each bag of dog food it sold online. I still keep a few trinkets from the company to remind me how not to run a business.
More recently companies like Groupon have done a similar dance with death. They have lots of attention but in doing so they have not figured out a means to make money with all that attention. With the advent of cloud based computing and companies like E3 systems, we have turned to a different model for making money. It is a subscription model. Servers, technical professionals, and infrastructure cost money and in order to pay for it we charge a low monthly subscription. Google does the same with their Ad words product and the numerous numbers of services they provide. Now they are treating Google docs just like any of the other for-fee services they provide.
Being a Microsoft partisan, I still think that Office and Office 365 are superior products to Google Docs. However, if you are a business person who is struggling to pay for licenses from Microsoft then Google Docs is a good option. What Google is doing is keeping their product in line with the Microsoft and providing another stream of revenue.
I am not surprised by this. Google became the 600 pound gorilla of the web by providing and fantastic search engine and charging customers using the old model of revenue during the glory days of the dot com bubble. Then something changed. They started diversifying with their Android mobile phone system. The Chrome browser is now an accepted standard on the web and they have made tentative steps into social media with Google plus. What this creates another means to generate revenue and sell advertising. Google Apps are different because there was no really good means to sell advertising. So they could give the product away as a means to destroy Microsoft or they could charge a nominal fee and increase their profits. If I am Larry Page, I know what I would choose and that would be more money for my organization.
So what you are seeing is business people using the web in a much more sane fashion than during the dot com days. Gone are the lavish parties and millions of dollars in corporate losses replaced with slow and boring revenue growth as more people use the web as the backbone of their business. As someone who owns his own business and is following that model, I think this is a positive development.
We are in the middle of the holiday season and this is the time many businesses rush to meet their sales goals or take stock of the year. At E3 systems it is a chance to take stock. We are prospecting for customers, doing market research, and keeping people up to date via social media. I am confident that when the New Year arrives we will be in a good place to grow our business.
This week I noticed an interesting article from Farhad Manjoo about how retailers deal with the crush of customers which come out during the weekend after thanksgiving. The interesting part about the article is that more traditional retailers appear to struggle compared with more technology oriented retailers like Amazon.com. After reading the article, it is clear to me that the reason for the success of technology firms is that they focus on the management of their business from the most fundamental levels while more traditional ones struggle to adapt more modern ways of customer satisfaction.
So as you attempt to better serve your customers, wouldn't it be nice if you had tools to answer simple customer questions. This is why cloud based Business Intelligence platforms like our Sully 2.0 system should be something you should investigate. Being able to see inventory via a tablet computer, laptop, PC or smart phone would be a huge advantage over competitors. Having Microsoft Tag technology for your products makes it possible for you to avoid spending thousands dollars for bar coding equipment. Processing purchase orders, invoices, and packing slips over the cloud frees up time for focus on your business instead of paperwork.
This was why I founded E3 systems because I want to help make other small business more successful by giving them technology which helps them to better serve their customers. If you are a small business you cannot take your customers for granted. I feel that we give you plenty of tools to better serve those customers. Drop us a line and we will show you how.
You have to be a survivor in business
just like Requle Welch
Being a business person makes you manic-depressive. Some days you are riding high on success and then during others you are filled with darkness because of a failure. Entrepreneurs I have spoken to say that this is natural until you get an established client base. This week we released a new web site to the public to make it friendlier toward sales. We also made improvements to Sully 2.0 to make it possible to search address information.
We do things like this because one of the founding principles of our organization is Agility. Market conditions are moving so fast that it is hard to catch up. This is why your systems and services need to change with the dynamic environment. Twenty years ago Fuji and Kodak were locked in a fierce battle for consumer attention. Today both of them are struggling thanks to digital cameras. Today, General Motors is concentrating on its manufacturing businesses because its GMAC Financial Services was killed during the start of the great recession in 2008. If you want to survive then you must adapt to changing market conditions.
This has been a difficult lesson for me as I have been drumming up sales and working on means to drive business to our firms. I have had to drop old notions of how we do business and create new ones. I have also had to embrace the messiness of being an entrepreneur. Some days I am taking calls from Mississippi and others I am speaking with a woman from Columbia who wants to use our system. It is very liberating but it is also like washing windows without a net.
Business is a difficult activity. Each day you are grubbing for customers attempting to improve profits and build better services. So why are you spending your time rifling through paperwork? This week we want to discuss paperwork and how we can help.
If you are selling goods and services you have to generate invoices. If you are shipping goods you need packing slips and bills of lading. Finally, all the goods and services require labels in order for them to make it to their customers via the mail. Wouldn't it be nice if you could take care of all this without having to hire additional staff?
At E3 systems with our Sully 2.0 system does make this possible. We also use Microsoft Tag technology so that you don't have to purchase expensive bar coding equipment and you can stay on top of what is going on from your office via a mobile phone, tablet computer or laptop.
We want to give you more time to spend on your business and your family. That is why we created this system for you. Business shouldn't have to be difficult.
The key to any successful organization is to do the most amount of work in the least amount of time with the maximum level of profit. It is one of the first principles they teach you in business school and it says with you throughout your entire career. This week at Dirty fingers we want to discuss one of our newest features for Sully 2.0 which makes this possible; label printing.
I have discovered that many businesses which do shipping and receiving spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to print shipping labels for their products. This usually requires a mail merge using Microsoft office and trial and error with Avery forms. We were speaking with a business group and one of the topics which came up was how difficult it was to print Avery shipping labels.
It took us over a year to come up with a good approach but we finally figured out a way to do it and now we support the printing of Avery 8160, 8164 and 22805 forms directly from the web. You do not need Microsoft Office or know how to do a mail merge. Now you just print your labels directly off the web and on to your forms.
This is a huge time savings because now you just point and click. This way you can place Microsoft Tags on products and shipping labels on packages with no effort.
I have spent over a year promoting and blogging about my company E3 logistics systems. What amazes me is as people get to know about my company they always ask me the same questions about what we do. This week, I want to explain what E3 systems does.
We help you stay on top of paperwork. If you have any inventory we help you track the number of items coming and going from your stock with no need to keep track of paperwork. Our Sully 2.0 system helps you keep track of all your items in our web based system. You will never have to go searching around the office for a piece of paperwork again because you can pull up the Sully 2.0 system type in a search and find all the information you are looking for. Not only does this apply to inventory, but to bills of lading, packing slips, invoices and purchase orders. So in one place you have all the information you need to run your business.
Next, we make it easy to gather business intelligence about the progress of your business. Fortune 500 companies have entire teams of people who sift through pies of data to gather information about what products are hot and which ones are not. They can track shipping costs to the penny and find out if they are making a profit with each sale. At E3 systems we give you that ability to make you competitive with big boys. We have a full set of reporting tools so you can track inventory, sales, and other pieces of regulatory compliance documentation. We included this because many software packages make easy to gather data but difficult to make decisions based on that data. Now, at a glance you know what you have in stock and if you are making money selling it.
Additionally, we make it possible to track your information via any type of computing device connected to the web. This means if you have a tablet computer, smart phone or laptop as long as you have a connection to the web you can use our systems in a secure fashion. No more dialing into company virtual private networks or portals. No more messing with synching your data with company systems. All you need is an account and mobile device and you can see your inventory, purchase orders, and invoices 24 hours a day seven days a week. This gives you more time to interact with your customers and less time tracking down paperwork.
Next, we bridge the gap between the world of paper and web with Microsoft Tag technology. Thanks to Microsoft Tag technology, you can scan documents and products. This gives you the ability to instantly communicate with the Sully 2.0 system. Now expensive bar code scanning equipment is obsolete. If you have a smart phone you have what is necessary to track your inventory and systems just like a major corporation. We offer this service free of charge and make it possible to print up these Microsoft Tags with Avery 22805 labels. No more mystery about what is on the shelf now you print out a tag stick it on a product and you have an electronic record.
Finally, we offer this system at about the cost of digital cable television. If you can afford $120 a month subscription fee we can make it possible to manage your inventory, purchase orders, paperwork, business intelligence and make it available 24 hours a day seven days a week on any device with a web connection. There is no software to install. All you need is a web browser or smart phone to access our systems. The data is secure in our server farm located in the Pacific Northwest and you can reach us via e-mail or phone 24 hours a day.
Smart and Good looking systems are what we
are all about.
This week was a milestone of sorts at E3 systems. We had our second board meeting and it was a serious sober affair where over a few bottles of water and some store bought cookies we plotted out our path for the next year. I do not know where I would be without the guidance and support of my board and it was nice to talk about our accomplishments and challenges over the last year.
As always we talked about marketing and sales. Any small business person will tell you that this could always be better. After some back and forth among the board members it dawned on us that our Sully 2.0 is more than a logistics platform it is a business Intelligence Platform. This makes it possible for a small business to manage themselves just like a Fortune 500 company for a minimal cost.
One of the biggest headaches of a business is keeping track of how much you have on hand. Our Sully 2.0 system does this by saving all your information on the cloud and then pulling it down for reporting purposes. This means no matter where you are; at the office, meeting with a client, or on vacation if you have a connection to the web then you can see your inventory at the drop of a hat. Not only do you know how much you have on hand but how much you paid for it and what type of department of transportation regulations cover that material.
We make it possible to print up packing slips, bills of lading and invoices based on this information. We are also proud to announce that it is now possible to print shipping labels with Avery® label technology. No more typing up peal and stick labels for your products Sully 2.0 can print out 5160 and 5164 Avery® labels right off the web without having to use Microsoft Word or a third party program. This speeds up the business and makes it easier to manage shipping and receiving.
Furthermore you get more full frontal business intelligence when you leverage our Microsoft Tag technology which makes it possible to do bar coding without expensive equipment. Now every piece of paper you have can communicate with your mobile phone. This is a free of charge service and we include it so that you can view information about your products anywhere in the world on any smart phone.
Finally, we make it possible to put together purchase orders and incorporate them into your business with our purchase order piece. You order an item and you can e-mail it or fax it out to your vendor and when you receive it they can add it inventory with a click. No more lost faxes. No more playing phone tag with vendors and no more double counting when you get it into the office.
In spite of our board meeting being a very sober affair most of us were pretty excited when it was over. We have a great product. We have a marketing plan. We also have an easy to use and economical business intelligence package which can be used everywhere. We have full frontal business intelligence and we are not afraid to show it off. Contact us to learn more.
I have been following QR codes and Microsoft Tag for the last two years and I can say that they are just not the correct tools for advertising. This is because advertisers just think that QR codes are an easy way to generate mobile engagement. What I am discovering is that there is no easy way to generate mobile engagement. Just because you slap a QR code on a flyer or poster does not instantly give you an inroad to someone's mobile phone.
It does not help that the content behind these QR code is poor to begin with. Most web sites are not optimized for mobile browsers so when you scan a QR code they do not look good on the phone. Also the content is not unique so they can access this from their desk top. It would be farcical if it wasn't so sad. I was speaking with a fellow company at a trade show and they complained about this and I told them if they linked their QR codes to YouTube videos or special coupons they would get more scans. Simple advice but people are paying thousands of dollars to advertising agencies and are getting poor return on their money.
I see QR codes and MS Tag differently. These technologies make it easier to track paper documents and share them with the digital world which means they are perfect for the world of logistics. Naturally, they are part of E3 systems application Sully®. Scanning a QR code or MS Tag should make the traditional bar coding application obsolete and that is what I intend to do. So I dare you to scan that MS Tag above and check out our video and learn a little more about Sully®. I also hope that advertising agencies get a little smarter on how they use QR codes.
Windows 8 gets my attention like a great pin-up girl.
If there is any constant in the technology industry it is change. Seven years ago Mark Zuckerberg was a misfit Harvard dropout with a clever PHP application. Today, he is the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company and a newlywed. In my lifetime, telephones have gone from being dumb devices tethered to walls to portable computer weighing ounces which can call from anywhere.
I spend much of my time struggling with these changes; Enitity Framework, MVC, and HTML5 are just some of the monsters I grapple with to stay current with latest technologies. I feel like I am being pulled like taffy. As a technologist, I have to do this because if I don't I will relegate myself to unemployment.
One trend I have been noticing is that mobile phones and tablets are becoming more powerful. This power means that tasks which used to require a bar code scanner and a computer can now be done with a mobile device. This is why to ignore mobile application development is something that developers do at their own peril.
This is one of the reasons why I am so excited about JQuery Mobile and MS Tag. The former makes it possible for a web developer to build mobile applications and the later makes bar code scanning obsolete.
In the next ten years, you are going to see smaller and smaller devices doing more and more. Personal computing is going to resemble carrying around a notebook or clipboard. If you have any doubts about this just look at the gamble Microsoft is taking with its Window 8 operating system. While it works on a desktop or laptop it is really made for tablet devices and phones.
Tracking Purchase Orders on Your Mobile
Phone is now a snap.
A purchase order should not betray you. It is a simple piece of paper you fill out and within a few days you should receive the product requested. The reality is that faxes get lost. Vendors can be unreliable and you are stuck explaining to your boss why the purchase order has not been filled.
This is a common frustration for business people. Somehow, there needs to be a better way to track purchase orders. This is what guided E3 systems when we created Sully. Instead of thumbing through catalogs, filling out paperwork, and praying the vendor gets your message; you fill out a simple form and then automatically email the purchase order to the vendor. If the vendor does not have email you can print up the purchase order and fax it. The beauty of the system is that when you e-mail a purchase order you will receive a message in the Microsoft Outlook telling you when they opened it. Now, there is no doubt about a vendor receiving a purchase order.
Better yet, when you receive a purchase order you can instantly place these items into inventory with a mouse click so you have a fully updated record of all the products in inventory. You can also track a purchase order via a mobile phone or a tablet computer with the help of MSTag.
A purchase order should not betray you and at E3 systems we understand that.
