Rob Wilson, Business Unit Director – Microsoft Applications at Keller Schroeder, was recently selected as a Community Champion by INETA for his contributions to the SharePoint User Group in Evansville and to other communities in our region.  INETA is a non-profit, independent organization, chartered with supporting all user groups interested in the Microsoft .NET platform.  Keller Schroeder has been a long-time supporter of technology user groups – including coordinating, hosting, sponsoring and speaking.

Vendor Managed Inventory Replenishment

Have you been approached by one of your customers about starting a Vendor/Supplier Managed Inventory (VMI or SMI) relationship, or are you considering implementing one with your suppliers? While there can be benefits to both parties in a VMI relationship, there are pitfalls to avoid in order to establish a successful partnership.

Potential benefits include:

• Shorter lead time
• Reduced inventories (for both parties)
• Greater manufacturing efficiencies
• Stronger relationship with your customer/supplier

Potential issues include:

• Accuracy of data: Without accurate and timely reporting of current inventory quantities and planned consumption (planning schedule), it is impossible for a supplier to keep their customer properly stocked with inventory. 
• Exchanging data: Are both partners “on the same page” with the transmission methods (traditional EDI, XML, spreadsheets, proprietary formats, etc) and frequency? 
• Managing the data: Depending on the number of products a supplier provides to a customer, the volume of data to be managed on a daily basis can be staggering – current inventory quantities, month’s worth of planned consumption data, min/max inventory levels, etc. As a supplier, are you going to add to your staff to manage this additional data, or will you be looking for a software solution to help your existing staff manage all of this new data? 
• Consignment inventory: Some companies implementing VMI are also wanting to convert the inventory to consignment – meaning that they don’t own (or pay for) the goods until they pull them out of inventory and send them to the production floor (or sell them in the case of a final product). This relationship model adds more overhead to the supplier, in addition to the data exchange between the two parties.

Properly implemented and managed, VMI can strengthen the relationship between a supplier and a customer, and provide tangible benefits to both parties. However, if not properly implemented, this relationship can cause issues for both parties, driving up costs, causing production downtime (due to a lack of available inventory), and can ultimately damage the relationship.

Keller Schroeder can assist you with the process of planning and implementing a successful VMI relationship. Please contact Dan Ehrhart at (812) 474-6825 to discuss this topic in greater detail.

Cisco’s Unified Contact Center Express (UCCX)

Do you use the telephone to communicate with your customers? If you said “Why, Yes we do!” then Cisco’s Unified Contact Center Express (UCCX) can help you deliver superior customer service.

“How can we do this?” you might ask.

We can answer that in two words, “Call Flow”…

Specifically, the Unified Contact Center Express (UCCX) system allows for complete customization of call flow. Applying techniques such as “Skills Based Routing” and “Call Queues” we can get your customer to the right person the first time. A call can be routed based on the time of day, the dialed number, or from an interactive selection made by the caller themselves.

If your customer does need to wait to reach an employee they can listen to pre-recorded information about your business, information regarding their hold time, or even a selection of music. If you would like to gather information about your caller, the system can be configured to prompt and collect that information from them and make it available to your employee when they answer that call. If your business application allows, the system can even “pop-up” customer information preparing the employee with information about the caller before the call is answered.

The reference to a “Call Center” often conjures up images of enormous rooms, spanning for miles, full of people at small desks taking calls. While those environments do exist and often exemplify the various needs for managing the call flow of customer calls, don’t let size fool you. Cisco’s UCCX product is not just for large businesses with large call centers. It can be used to improve efficiency, boost productivity, and enhance responsiveness in businesses, departments, and branches of all shapes and sizes.

With a little internal investigation, most businesses will find they have a group of employees (ranging anywhere from 2 to 200) that manage incoming phone calls from multiple phone lines, often using multiple line appearances on their phones, and currently juggle those exponential combinations by hand. If this sounds like a group within your business, we have news for you. You already have a “Call Center” in place, it’s simply being managed manually and although those individuals likely do a fantastic job of juggling all those callers, this situation can often result in a stressful and inefficient environment for both the employees and your customers.

Cisco’s UCCX product allows you to consolidate multiple line appearances on a phone into only one for each employee to manage. If your business has multiple numbers, they can be directed to a variety of “call queues” all represented by one line appearance on the phone. Rather than managing multiple calls and placing callers on hold, the system can do this for you. Employees can manage one line appearance (reducing their stress level) and be provided caller information on the Cisco Agent Desktop. This information can include caller id, dialed number, and information collected from the caller.

Not to worry, there’s something for the supervisors and managers as well. This system can provide them with real time call information, historical data and other advanced supervisory features. A supervisor can monitor live calls, barge in, or intercept calls to ensure a high quality level of service for your customers. Historical data allows you to track trends and help forecast the staffing needs, even by skill-set.

For more information or to see a demonstration of Cisco’s Unified Contact Center Express please contact your Keller Schroeder Senior Account Manager.

Keller Schroeder, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, is now a certified Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner. For more information about Dynamics CRM and our practice, see our Dynamics CRM page.

Information technology companies can be creative in the use of white papers, webinars, and ad campaigns to tell their success stories.  But, “Nothing speaks more credibly about us than the very words of our clients”, says Keller Schroeder President Larry May.

Those words came through loud and clear from Keller Schroeder clients in this year’s customer satisfaction survey, administered by Microsoft and required of all its leading Partners.  Keller Schroeder received an overall performance rating of 94 percent, compared to the average score for all Microsoft Partners of 65 percent.  Loyalty ratings for Keller Schroeder were 100 percent, compared to 86 percent for all Microsoft Partners.

As part of an ongoing qualification process, Microsoft Gold Certified Partners participate in an annual evaluation which includes a customer satisfaction survey completed anonymously by active clients.  “We are passionate about seeing our clients succeed,” says May, “and it is gratifying when they tell us so resoundingly that we are impacting them in a positive way.”

Since becoming the first Evansville-based Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in 2007, Keller Schroeder has seen its Microsoft business grow faster than any other segment.  While some firms specialize in infrastructure-related Microsoft tools (such as server and data management software), and others specialize in applications-related tools (such as SharePoint and .Net development), Keller Schroeder’s expertise includes the full spectrum of Microsoft solutions for businesses of any size. 

The firm’s reputation for excellence extends well beyond the Microsoft space.  Keller Schroeder received the 2007 Cisco Outstanding Indiana Customer Satisfaction Award, the 2008 Cisco Outstanding Growth Award, the 2008 Spirit of United Way Award, and was named as one of Indiana’s “Best Places to Work” in 2006.

For many years, companies have struggled to find a data collection technique that crosses platforms, facilitates data analysis, handles both structured and unstructured data, and enables business processes. In contrast to many IT challenges where there are an abundance of tools but no clear approach, in this case the tools were just not up to par. Sure you could create forms using Word and/or Adobe PDF’s – you could even allow users to fill in the blanks online and print or email the form – but actually validating that data, extracting the data out of the form for analysis or launching workflows has proved to be both cumbersome and expensive. As a result, custom web pages have often been used to facilitate simple data collection – requiring specialized programming skills and valuable IT resources for what seemed to be rudimentary requests.

Enter Microsoft Office InfoPath – Microsoft’s answer to data collection challenges. InfoPath is a power user/novice developer tool that enables forms development based on an open XML format. The benefits of InfoPath are numerous:

By integrating with SharePoint, InfoPath offers an enterprise-level forms solution complete with business process automation and legacy software integration. Additionally, you are able to build your project teams with professionals of varying skills and levels of experience.

The InfoPath client (designer and viewer) is available as a stand-alone product or is part of the Microsoft Office Professional Plus, Enterprise and Ultimate suites. The client version integrates with Windows SharePoint Services which is included free with the Windows Server operating system. InfoPath Form Services is part of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Edition.

Contact your Keller Schroeder Senior Account Manager to learn more or discuss the benefits of implementing this technology within your environment.

SilverLight Has No Place in Business…or Does it?

You’ve heard of Microsoft SilverLight.

It’s that cool technology used by NBC to show videos of the Olympics and by CBS to stream all the action of the Final Four this year. So, what’s that got to do with running your business? Well, maybe more than you think.

Internet usage has risen sharply since 2000. This means that more and more of your customers, business partners, and employees are using the internet every day, and interacting with sites that provide not only high definition media, but empower the user through rich interactive applications (also known as RIA’s), such as easy drag and drop interfaces, real-time feedback with no reloading or jerking in the page, and personalization capabilities. (See Hardrock.com for some examples of RIA’s in action.) It’s all about user experience. Using the same techniques within your business gives your customers, partners, and employees familiar tools that not only provide a great user experience, but a more productive interface. That means efficiency and time savings, which lead to cost savings for your business.

SilverLight is being used every day in businesses just like yours to:

Microsoft defines today’s SilverLight as “a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web and for mobile devices.” The next generation of SilverLight (out in beta now and due out for production later this year) will include support for browser-less web applications, meaning your applications can live anywhere and you may not need to be online all the time to use them. The ability to create a genuinely seamless workflow for your in-house and mobile workforce is within sight!

Keller Schroeder can help you discover ways to unlock the power of SilverLight in your business too. Contact Jill Epperson or Rob Wilson at (812) 474-6825 to get started today.

You have a web site, but is it working hard for you? Do you know how much of it is being used and by whom?  

Many web site hosts offer statistics you can access to answer some of these questions — be aware that some include web crawler activity in their numbers, which skews the results. For crawler-free reporting and additional answers, there are other tools. One, which is free, is Google Analytics. It has a nice user interface.All you have to do is sign up and add a little script, which Google provides, to your common page footer. Analytics will then start collecting data and you can start viewing information. Once you build some history, you can get answers and then take steps to optimize your site for your offerings and your target market to make it work harder for you.Click here for a couple of quick, slacker-revealing things to try, as well as information about Keller Schroeder’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services. If you are not responsible for your organization’s web site, consider forwarding this article along.

Contact Ray Pritchett at (812) 474-6825 ext. 348 for assistance in setting up Google Analytics or optimizing your site for search engines.

We welcome the opportunity to work with you.

One of my favorite quotes is: “Nobody likes change but a wet baby!” How true…We all have some area of our life that we just do not want to change. As a project manager, we can like change or hate it, but one thing is for sure — we better manage it well. Managing change requests is a commonly mishandled area in the project lifecycle. Let’s take a look at some considerations.

Sometimes a project team member will forge ahead with changes to the scope of a project, large or small, wanting to “super-please” the change requester or a stakeholder. This is great until the project comes in late and over budget, with no documented change requests. No one likes working hard for weeks or months only to be under-appreciated because changes were not documented. So the next time you manage a project, coach your team to engage you to handle change requests or teach them how to handle the requests and report them to you.

TIP #1: Initiate change control
In addition to the actual request, document the date of the request, the requestor, and the priority and business considerations. Explain that the team will look at the request and that the request will be approved, postponed, or rejected by the stakeholders. And that they will be informed of the result.

To properly discuss a change order with stakeholders, you must determine the impact on such things as the schedule, resources (i.e. dollars), quality, and risk. For instance, you might say that Joe in Accounts Payable wants to add a report, which will cost $800 and will not impact the go live of the project. You will want to convey to the stakeholders the priority and business considerations gathered at the time of the request.

TIP #2: Have stakeholders approve or reject change requests
Stakeholders should make the decision. As a project manager, it is your job to equip them with the additional cost, change in schedule, etc., and then let them decide how they want to proceed.

TIP #3: Make a list of small items
When asked for multiple small changes (together or over a period of time), write them down and batch them together. Multiple small changes can wreak just as much havoc on schedule and budget as a large item, and yet they often are the culprit of overages because it is just one small change, then another, then another. Let the requestor(s) know that you are building a list of small changes that will not be overlooked, but avoid the temptation to address them immediately.

TIP #4: Include a change order log in your status reporting
I am an advocate of weekly status reporting to stakeholders for most projects. I include things like progress vs. plan (schedule and estimate), key items, and a change order log. The change order log should list each change requested, the date and who requested it, the estimated effort, and whether it has been approved or rejected, so that all stakeholders see the changes. This greatly reduces missed expectations at the end of the project, as well as that lousy feeling of being under appreciated.

Dan Ehrhart
V.P., Application Solutions

Are you faced with the challenges associated with propagating information to your remote workers or business partners? Does your organization struggle with organizing or finding valuable information? Are you tired of dealing with multiple versions of a document floating around in your organization? Are you in need of a corporate knowledge sharing and collaboration strategy? Maybe you should consider SharePoint, the most widely adopted portal and collaboration product on the market today.

Keller Schroeder is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with competencies in Advanced Infrastructure Solutions, Data Management Solutions, Custom Development Solutions and Information Worker Solutions. In addition to our years of experience with .NET, Office development and SQL Server, we are also your local SharePoint expert – having staff who have specialized in SharePoint since late 2005. Our SharePoint experts have recently created a blog to share some of our SharePoint insights. On our blog you will find information suited for SharePoint developers, administrators, power users and information workers. Our SharePoint blog is a great way to stay in touch with things we have recently done with SharePoint and to find information that is useful to your organization.

Please visit our SharePoint blog at the following URL: sharepointblog.kellerschroeder.com

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