e-Advantage Solutions Ltd

Be more mobile with the ‘pocket desktop’

Eilish — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:21:38 +0000

Phones really are becoming smarter. We depend on them for the smooth running of our daily lives and when we are without them we can literally feel like our right arm has been cut off. As phones become smarter we expect more and more from them and now the gap between phone and computer is closing even further.

Canonical are set to release Ubuntu for Android. So, all of you with Android phones will be able to run a full desk top computer from your phone. All you need is a docking station which you use to connect to a monitor (via HDMI) and then a keyboard and mouse (connected via Bluetooth or USB) and voilà, you have a desktop computer coming straight from your phone.

In practical terms this is amazing as you can take your desktop computer with you in your pocket. This gives you real flexibility to work how you want to. Now you don’t have to boot up a separate desktop computer just to edit a spreadsheet on a big screen or open a file attachment you can’t normally work with on the phone. Logging into a normal computer takes time and then you need to log into your email, just way too much time wasting. Instead dock your phone and see your phone screen on a monitor immediately, yes it really is that simple!

You could be editing and writing away and a phone call comes through. You would think that by undocking to answer you would lose anything not saved, which would be a disaster! But Ubuntu for Android has this covered, when you re-dock your device it resumes from where you left off. The same goes for text messages which you can actually reply to from your desktop. Give your thumbs a rest from text cramp and type on a full size keyboard on a screen that you actually read without squinting, your eyes and your thumbs will be very grateful for this.

Work can be made so much easier as you can have your phone and your computer together on one device and your whole life in one place. Now, wouldn’t that be nice?

The ‘pocket desktop’ looks to be a flexible and quick solution to many mobile working issues. It balances the need for miniaturisation of devices and the productivity advantages of big screens and desktop software. One to watch we think.

I say good business is where you find it – with Efficy CRM

Eilish — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:30:54 +0000

Efficy CRM is constantly improving and now there’s a great new feature we’ve called Efficy Places. Efficy Places makes it easy for you to keep track of clients and contacts and even to source new ones.

Efficy already stores all your contacts in one place but how much easier would it be if you could then see their location on a map or even better, on Google Earth?

When opening a company card simply click on Locate on a map in the tool bar and the position will appear on Google Maps using address information. This is great if you just need the location of one company but Efficy places is one step ahead and actually allows an overview of other companies that are in the same area. So, next time you arrange to meet a client, you can arrange meetings with several in the same area, in the same day. Efficient!

Efficy = efficiency even for acquiring new clients. Google Earth allows you to virtually walk down a street and view your surroundings. Hunting out new clients this way could be beneficial to many companies. Imagine you are a commercial window cleaning company and you see a building covered in windows, that’s a potential client and what’s even better is that it’s just around the corner from an existing one. So, you’re able to visit more clients in less time with less travel costs meaning profits are up.

It doesn’t stop there. Efficy Places is international and groups contacts in ‘clusters’ in regions or countries. So you can spot areas where your products are popular and perhaps allocate more resources. Or, alternatively spot the gaps where you may need to expand and then open a new area office, meaning more clients.

Efficy CRM helps you do business by making use of the customer relationships and data you’ve built up within your organisation. This new tool is sure to make doing business that little bit easier and quicker for you.

Motivation needs Drive

Eilish — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:20:21 +0000

During my academic career I have been made to read theories about motivation over and over again until the point of exhaustion. When I heard about Daniel Pink’s book Drive I assumed it would be another dull explanation of Herzberg’s hygiene theory. I literally couldn’t have been more wrong.

Pink is a real enthusiast for really ‘driving’ business productivity by using our most valuable assets- people. But how do we get people to do things? We offer incentives, often in the form of money. Money’s great, it can make the most painstakingly boring tasks bearable but Pink highlights that money is not the best way to improve business performance.

What Pink states is not new as professionals like Herzberg have been telling us for years that these extrinsic factors are damaging to employee motivation. However, Pinks charisma and ability to match this research to recent trends make you really think about your business and what matters for you.

It’s no secret that we are in a tough economic climate at the moment and small businesses are finding it harder and harder to survive. So why is there a mismatch between what science knows and what business does? Pink simply says ‘stop doing things wrong’. Seems simple to me.

Motivation goes beyond reward and punishment and it’s time for businesses to update their ‘operating system’ towards one of autonomy, mastery and purpose. What better way to be motivated than having your own time to complete a task of your choice? We all want to do what we love and being given this control at work is only going to improve productivity. Pink uses Googles 20% time as an example. All engineers are allowed to spend 20% of their time on a project of their choice – absolutely anything! Gmail and Google news are results of this method. An easy method with amazing results, not bad hey?

Drive certainly highlights that creativity is best when autonomy, mastery and purpose are allowed. Extrinsic rewards could be restricting the genius in you, there might even be another Sergey Brin among us!

Drive really is an inspirational read even on a personal level. Pink asks you to think about your sentence, a few words that define you and then to ask yourself each night ‘was I better than yesterday?’ It might seem like a ridiculous self-indulgence thing to do but in actual fact it will give you purpose and clear direction.

Renowned for his excellent insights and trend watching Pink’s words of wisdom can be used by entrepreneurs to tap into the energy of their employees from the beginning and get ahead on what is sure to be an organisational trend. In a time of economic uncertainty Drive offers a creative and inspirational way of doing business and doing it easier.

Get a glimpse of Daniel Pink’s inspirational thoughts from this TED conference talk:

We ‘see’ an easier way to do business on the move with Project Glass

Eilish — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:24:59 +0000

Glasses have fast been making a comeback in the fashion world and it seems that even the geeks at Google are bang on trend. With the announcement made earlier this year about their augmented reality glasses, there has been much speculation as to how they will work and if they are as revolutionary as they seem.

The project known as ‘Project Glass’ is currently being worked on in the very secretive Google X lab. Using Android technology and a built in camera it ‘augments’ your reality to show you information relating to your surroundings. Imagine walking to the tube station to find it’s closed. The glasses will immediately lay out an alternative route right in front of your eyes. Amazing if you’re running late for a meeting.

Rather than a smartphone it is really is an ‘eye’ phone controlled solely by eye movements and voice activation. This obviously poses an abundance of advantages for personal use but more importantly it will facilitate easier business.

You wake up and while drinking your morning coffee you can check your day’s schedule right in front of your eyes. This is multi-tasking at its best even for the average business person.

At any time of the day receive emails and text messages straight to your eyes. This way you will never miss an important message again and you can even reply by simply talking as though you are having a conversation. This is a great advantage if you don’t mind walking through the streets seemingly talking to yourself, wearing terminator style head gear. However, it definitely beats walking into people or even lamp posts as you desperately try to text or write back whilst on the go.

Seems too good to be true? Well this next advantage is truly the cherry on the top. Business inevitably involves networking and meeting a lot of people and if you are like me, (which is rubbish with remembering names) next time you are stuck simply scan your contacts list and using facial recognition you will appear to remember that clients name. Brilliant!

Apart from personally helping you in business these glasses pose a genius opportunity for advertising and marketing of your company. As mentioned before, the glasses recognise your surroundings and Google will send adverts relevant to what you are walking past. Great if your office/place of business is nearby.

Posters and other outdoor advertising could prove invaluable ways for businesses both locally and nationally to advertise. Your glasses will direct you to the company site or in the case of an advertised event you can make a note of it in your diary hands free.

Though smartphones already allow social interaction at the click of a button, now imagine doing it by a nod of the head. Enabling check-ins and photo uploads to be done faster and boosting your businesses profile all over the world in a matter of seconds!

Whatever your thoughts about Google’s Project Glass it is without a doubt an amazing concept which, if implemented as it is currently suggested, could change the way we live and the way we do business.

Efficy 2012 Spring launched v7.0.2115

admin — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:28:29 +0000

We are very pleased to announce that the new version of Efficy CRM has just been launched. This version is called Efficy 2012 Spring (v7.0.2115). We are now testing this version internally and will be offering it up to our existing and new clients shortly.

Superb new features include:

Efficy Places
Integration with Google Maps and Google Earth: View Companies’ location, export Query results and any list of entities containing addresses to Google Maps or Google Earth.

New User Selection Dialog
The selection window of users, groups and resources has been entirely reviewed. This feature includes the long-awaited for Expandable Groups.

Editable MAILS.TITLE field
The Subject of E-mails that you upload from your mail client, is read-only. The new field Title now remedies this.

Multiple Content Security Inheritance
Content entities (Actions, Documents, E-mails) can inherit the Securities from the Project they are linked to. This feature has been extended: any given module (e.g. Opportunities) can be configured to allow passing on its securities; and any given entity can be specified as a content entity (e.g. Products).

HighCharts Integration
The HighCharts graphical library is a light-weight component for creating nice, interactive graphical elements (line charts, pie charts etc) on the Efficy desktop or in any other Efficy page. The Efficy Administrator can create a number of graphical widgets that the end-users can activate in My Day in Efficy.

Better compatibility with Internet Explorer 9 and Safari
The upgrade to Mootools v1.3.2 enhances the compatibility with IE9 and Safari.

64-bit Sidebar and Outlook Add-Ins for Office 2010
The Add-in for the integration between 64-bit Office 2010 and Efficy is available.

Outlook Web Access for Exchange 2010
The Add-in for the integration between Outlook Web Access for Exchange 2010 and Efficy is available.

Apple Compatibility & Integration
The integration between Efficy and Entourage and Apple Mail has been enhanced.
Integration with Outlook 2011 SP1 for Apple.
Support for OS X 10.7 “Lion” and Firefox 10.

Maintenance Mode / Save and Load Web Server State
The Admin Console has a new Maintenance Mode with Save State/Load State functions, allowing maintenance on the web server without causing any data loss for the users.

Remote Efficy Monitoring (REM)
All Efficy applications now write not only to log files but also to a central REM database that can be consulted locally and remotely. Error conditions can be sent to a centrally monitored REM server.

EfficyProxy.dll
This separate web server extension is meant for handling the requests that are not directly related to the Efficy database requests. Using a separate web server application for these requests will prevent Efficy from being slowed down by them.

Reset Default Security utility
Changing a group’s default security settings in the Efficy Designer only affects newly created records. The new Reset Default Security utility forces the new settings onto existing records.

200+ improvements and bug corrections
Besides the major features, over 200 improvements and corrections have been applied to the Efficy code base in all areas. See the document Efficy 2012 Spring List of Updates.

Time flies when you’re having fun as an apprentice

Ross — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:23:28 +0000

Wow. 6 months as an apprentice at e-Advantage Solutions. Pete and I were saying at our monthly meeting this week how quickly the time has gone. I couldn’t believe it has been six months of me working for e-Advantage Solutions already.

Everything has gone really well. I’ve learnt so much to do with all our services we provide, and my ability and my confidence has grown loads.

The main roles in which I’ve being developing my skills include email hosting, VoIP, Efficy and website creation. I’ve been creating email accounts through our email hosting platform and then helping a few of our clients to set up their email accounts such as IMAP, POP3 and Microsoft Exchange. This has been in MS Outlook and even on mobile devices such as iPhones and Blackberrys.

I’ve been setting up VoIP systems. This could be a phone system from scratch for a new client, or setting up additional VoIP phones and tweaking settings to how existing clients want their VoIP call flow to work.

I’ve been setting up Efficy CRM systems. I’ve been helping our clients log in to Efficy by tweaking the settings of their web browser configuration and setting up the Efficy Sidebar and MS Office Integration.

I’ve also been creating websites for our clients by using WordPress, and frequently editing sites where the clients wanted some updates and new widgets. I feel my WordPress skills have developed a lot since I started here.

As well as the day to day work, I’ve been progressing well with my NVQ. This is going to be a nice qualification to add to my other work related qualification which I have achieved since working at e-Advantage Solutions (which is the Gradwell Approved Professional Certificate).

I’ve had some lovely compliments from our clients over the last 6 months which has been really nice. Pete is always to happy to see me get compliments.

I’m enjoying coming to work and feel myself and Pete have got a great way of working collaboratively. Outside of work we get on well as well, we have a laugh and tell a few bad jokes.

Pete has said that he is keeping me on when I finish my Apprenticeship, which I’m absolutely delighted about. I’m looking forward to being a part of the on-going progression of the company.

Ross

Efficy will be at the CeBIT technology fair 6-10 March 2012

admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:32:27 +0000

The largest technology fair in the world takes place from 6 to 10 March 2012 in Hannover, Germany. You can find Efficy CRM in hall 6 stand D35. Drop by and ask any questions about our CRM system.

For more information: http://www.cebit.de/home

STEM Blue Environmental Management Certification Achieved

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:33:07 +0000

We are very pleased to have worked towards and achieved STEM (Steps to Environmental Management) Level Blue Certification.

In this process we reviewed all the areas where our business impacts upon the environment, from waste and recycling to energy usage and business travel. As well as assessing current impact levels and investigating ways to minimise their impact STEM Blue has enabled us to add a system to take into account environmental issues as they crop up in future too.

We’ve also updated our environmental policy as a result too.

Festive acronym competition – Win dinner for 2 at the fantastic Hove Kitchen

admin — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:32:51 +0000

Would you like to take your loved one out for a romantic dinner for two? Then enter this competition.

What can you win? A two course meal for two including a bottle of wine at the excellent Hove Kitchen

What’s the competition?

At e-Advantage we want to have some Xmas fun, and we want to get the name of our Efficy CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software to be better known. So, we would like you to come up with the funniest festive word combinations that CRM could also stand for. i.e. Carols Regularly Mangled.

Send your efforts to us on twitter by tagging them #EfficyCRM
or
Email your efforts to EfficyCRM@eadv.co.uk
or
Paste your efforts into the comments on this page*

Competition rules:

The competition is open until noon on Monday 5th December. Please don’t come up with anything illegal or ridiculously offensive, we’re not into censorship but we do want to be able to publish the winning response!

I will be fair and equitable but will have the casting vote and my word will be final in any dispute.

* entries will be vetted first and then published, so don’t worry if your comment does not appear immediately

25% increase in sales in our latest financial year

admin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 09:59:54 +0000

I’m pleased to say that e-Advantage Solutions enjoyed a 25% increase in sales to our financial year end of 30th June. This followed a period of substantial re-investing in the business. Margins held up and we still made a profit too.

We haven’t quite finished the 5th month of this financial year but we are already at sales levels reaching 70% of last year’s total. So, we’re on track for another great year.

Best regards,
Pete Jenkins
Managing Director