This is What We Do

We make business intelligence look pretty.

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. 

If you are interested in how we can help you manage your business and give you a competitive advantage over your rivals then contact us today.  You will not be disappointed.

Until next time.

Caress the Cloud

Cloud computing is not something from Star Trek.  It is
real and useful. 

It is always nice to be leading a trend. Last week, I discussed cloud computing and how E₃ systems are part of this technology trend. This week Forbes magazine is featuring Joe Weinman's book Cloudonomics and they discuss the good uses and possible misuses of cloud technology. What struck me was Weinman's uses of the cloud and how E₃ makes that happen.

First, Weinman talks about coordination, currency, consistency and control. E₃ offers its software as a service. This means that software upgrades only need to be applied once and they are to the cloud. You the customer do not have to worry about upgrading your system because we do that for you using the power of the web. We also do this at no additional cost. This gives you a consistent and coordinated platform to run your business.
 
Next, Weinman talks about cross-device access and synchronization. This means that no matter how you use a service it will show the same information independent of how you view the information. This is a central feature of E₃ Systems Sully 2.0. You can use our system on a PC, laptop, tablet, or smart phone with no worries about compatibility. Our company wanted to make sure that you could get your information anytime and anywhere.

Finally, Weinman talks about checkpoints. This means that the cloud, "…can effectively filter out everything from viruses and spam to distributed deninal of service attacks." In other words, since the service is on the web, it is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. This makes it harder for a hacker or thief to steal or corrupt your data. Furthermore we encrypt our applications with 128 SSL certificates and password protection.

Taken together E₃ systems and its Sully 2.0 Business Intelligence Solution provides the many benefits of cloud computing particularly coordination of service, cross device access, and checkpoints for security. If you want to find out more about cloud computing and how E3 can help you use the cloud to improve your business contact us today.  We think you will like what we have to say.

Until next time.

Embrace the Cloud

Embrace the Cloud, you can thank us later.

Technology can be confusing and scary.  I spend much of my time explaining new technology to people and trying to ease their concerns.  Nothing causes more confusion than “cloud computing.”  This week, I want to explain what cloud computing is and how E₃ systems can help you use it to improve your business. 

Slate.com economics writer, Matt Yglesias unveiled a survey from Wakefield Research last week about public perceptions about cloud computing.  Some of the more interesting tidbits of information were, a majority of Millennials believe that stormyweather can interfere with cloud computing and 22% surveyed  confessed to admitting they have pretended toknow what the cloud is or how it works even if they didn’t.  After a good chuckle, I wondered if people had similar feelings regarding microwave ovens or color television. 

Here is the dirty little secret about cloud computing.  Most of us are using it and we don’t even realize it.  If you are using Facebook you are using cloud computing.  If you are using an iPod you are probably using cloud computing.  In fact, any time you are saving documents or files someplace other than your computer at home or work you are using the cloud.

The cloud is nothing more than a metaphor dreamed up by networking professionals and marketing folks.  It represents computing with storage outside your local computer or network.  The data resides in the “internet cloud” on a remote server or database.  This is a positive development because this is a direct result of the explosion of personal computing and the web during the 1990’s.

Today on Gmail, a typical user can have up to Ten Gigabytes of data, which is a large amount of data.  So big that if a single e-mail was two kilobytes in size that would mean that you could hold over 5-million e-mails in your mailbox without having to worry about it filling up.    What makes this figure more fantastic is that the amount of space Google is providing each user is increasing by about 128 Megabytes a year.  In addition to those 5-Million e-mails a user can archive an additional 64,000 e-mails a year. 

Thanks to cloud computing we are dealing with big piles of data and they are stored on remote servers throughout the internet.  The raw power is staggering. 

So what does this mean to you the small business person?  It means that you can have the power and capacity of a large business with an IT budget of millions of dollars for a fraction of the price.  You do not need to spend thousands of dollars for servers and software.  All you need is a connection to the web and the power of the cloud is in the palm of your hand. 

At E₃ systems we take a lot of pride in how we have used cloud computing and the internet to make it easy for a small business to manage their inventory.  With our Sully 2.0 system, you can keep track of Bills of Lading, Invoices, Packing Slips, Shipping Labels, and Purchase orders.  Contact us today and we will show you how easy it is to use. 

The “cloud” is nothing more than a fancy way of saying the “internet.”  Many of us are using it each day and do not realize it.  What makes it so fantastic is that as prices fall, storage increases and raw computing power improves it is going to make our lives easier and more connected.  As a business person you should not be afraid of the cloud but embrace it. 

Until next time.

Full Frontal Business Intelligence

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. 

Until next time.

Fighting Code Bloat

Software Bloat is not pretty so why do we have it?

I have been working as a software developer for over fourteen years.  What surprises me the most is how complicated we make software for the public.  I blame two major constituencies for this trend.  First, software developers need to stop being too clever for their own good.  We need to concentrate on doing the same features better and faster rather than cramming more features into a software program.  This desire to have software do more is affectionately known as feature bloat.  More features are crammed into the same piece of software until it gets more confusing to use. 

The other guilty party is the business people who commission these bloated software projects.  Talk to any developer and you will hear stories of reports written for only one user of a system.  You will also hear stories of features added to systems to deal with one client or situation.  Additionally, features will be added to satisfy the political needs of an organization while not making software any easier to use.  Needless to say, these situations tend to drive software developers and customers batty because these additional features represent nothing but wasted time and money from the developer.  It also represents frustration for the customer as they attempt to use the software which has grown more complicated.

This is why when we founded E₃ systems we have made a point of trying to make the software as easy to use as possible.  Life is too short to spend time in training manuals and struggling to figure out how something works.  Many businesses do not have time to train their people so it is important that software is intuitive and easy to operate.  Most people just want to write out a packing slip or print an invoice.  You shouldn’t need a degree in computer science to make that happen. 

Our Sully 2.0 system makes it easy to do Bills of Lading, Packing Slips, Invoices and purchase orders.  Drop us a line and we will be happy to show you.

Until then I suppose you are going to have to suffer with bloated software.

Until next time.

Olympic Perspective

Technology has grown by leaps and bounds over the last twenty years.  In 1992, you couldn't follow the Olympics online.  Tim Berners Lee who invented the HTML was still pioneering ideas which today we take for granted.  If you even knew what on-line was back then you had to settle for Prodigy service on a 1300 baud modem or if you were lucky on 2600.  Gosh how times have changed with live feeds from NBC, the BBC and countless tweets and updates over the web it was difficult to escape the Olympics.

These changes took place because of the hard work of countless engineers, scientists and shulbs like me who spend their lives creating and taming the digital wilderness.  The change is moving faster all the time and the next great frontier is going to be mobile devices.  What hammered that point home for me was an article my friend posted on Google plus.  He mentions that over 5% of web traffic comes from iPhones and another 3% comes from Android phones.  This is doubling the web traffic of this same time last year.  I anticipate as this trend continues that by the Olympics in Rio in 2016 those figures will be about 25% for the iPhone and 15% for the Android system.  I also think that Microsoft is going to be a huge player with Windows 8 but I just don't know where they are going to fit into this growth. 

All of us at E₃ systems are excited to ride this wave of innovation and have written programs which work on PC's, tablet computers and mobile devices.  We are particularly proud of how we use the Microsoft Tag technology to get your mobile device to communicate with plain pieces of paper to bridge the gap between the digital world and the real one.  Our Sully Inventory Management system makes that possible and you can find out more clicking here.

I can't wait for the next twenty years and what we are going to accomplish.  I hope you will be along for the ride. 

Until next time.

A Logistics Party Like its 1992.

Most fashions from 1992 didn't not age
well.  So why are you doing business like
1992?

I have spent most of my adult life around the world of logistics.  From my early days fresh out of college to my current role as president and chief of development at E₃ systems, I have been involved in the world of moving goods and services from place to place at the best price.

What has struck me is that while other businesses have become more automated and 21st century much of the logistics business seems stuck in the 1980's.  While the 1980's were a great time for music and fashion, it was not so good of a time for moving goods from place to place.  Deregulation cut a wide swath of creative destruction through the industry.  Additionally, rising fuel prices and increasing competition shrank the profits of many of the companies which remained.

Something had to give and that was investment in new and better systems to manage their business.  Computers were slow to be adopted in the industry and companies which did use computers used clunky AS/400 systems.  This became a perfect recipe for inertia and an office in the trucking business today looks very similar to an office twenty years ago.  Scattered PC's are in most offices but they reside next to green screen CRT terminals connected to obsolete mainframe and as/400 systems.  Stacks of paperwork fill countless file cabinets and many of the clerical people spend their time fat finger keying data from those forms into computer systems. 

This was one of the reasons I launched E₃ systems.  I wanted to put together an easy and cheap system which business people can use with existing equipment.  No hardware to install.  All you need is an internet connection.  Feel free to contact us and find out more.

There is a better way to do business in the 21st century.  It means knowing your inventory 24 hours a day seven days a week.  It means being able to generate electronic or paper documents at a moment's notice.  It also should be easy to understand, economical and available everywhere. 

I much prefer the 21st century so why do we continue to do business like it is 1992?

Until next time.