Driving with a model

You could drive your car by facing backwards and steer it by observing the road changes directly behind you. When the road is fairly straight with only gentle bends you could drive this way, as long as you are not going too fast. This is of course a stupid way to drive, but that is how we tend to drive our businesses, with an “accountant” as a co-driver!

In the current financial climate the road ahead for business is far from straight and gentle, even forward visibility is very poor, almost like driving in a narrow tunnel where you can not see the surrounding landscape to anticipate the bends, hills, potholes and weather hazards.

You can go a fair way with the analogy of driving a car and driving a business. Before starting a long journey you will consult a map, you may check the road reports and even the weather. In fact you plan the journey and often create a model knowing how long each stage should take. Driving a business is not really that different.

No one can just jump into a car and drive, they have to learn, they have to pass a test to show they are proficient (to a level), but they do not have to prove they can use a map. Owners of small businesses are driving their businesses every day; unfortunately we do not have a map or model unless we create it ourselves.

In turbulent times we need to review our own business models (maps), we need to understand the inputs and outputs, know what we can influence and change and identify risks (the things that are beyond our control). In fact if you could not do this you would not be in business for long, but now is the time to get better and attempt to look ahead.

If you know the route you can adjust it and your destination when things do not go to plan. So get out your IT Tools, spreadsheets, accounts programs, sales and CRM databases to see what information you have to create your models.

What patterns can you see? What can you predict? What should you measure? What are significant risks? Work out how stable you really are and create a model to help anticipate and forecast the future.

For any business this is not the time to hold back, we all need to create our own business and financial models; we have most of the information, if not we can work it out.

Nurturing your workforce pays

Sometimes a report only confirms what you already know. I think this is the case for a recent report from the Cranfield School of Management with Learn Direct.

They conclude that almost 80% of organisations believe there is a greater benefit in developing employees over external recruitment. We think this is even more important for us smaller organisations, we have to recruit carefully and develop our staff.

See a video summary
Download the report

I have seen clear evidence of this in one of the organisations we work with. The business moved forward significantly after a change in approach to nurture their staff and develop the business with them. This is the thinking that sits behind Hassle Free Training; improving people's IT skills gives them tools to both help the business and develop themselves.

System monitoring - are you checking the oil?

Your IT system needs to run reliably all day and every day. This is particularly the case for your infrastructure, email communications, file storage and important business applications; any deterioration or failure can have a significant impact on people both inside and outside of the business.

An engine needs the temperature, fuel, oil and water levels to be checked to ensure reliability. An IT system is no different, services, memory, disk space and the network need to be monitored; any changes outside of the expected operations envelope need to be addressed to maintain reliability and efficiency. Systems often present some form of warning before they fail, but you will only pick this up if your monitoring systems are in use and people know how to respond.

Monitoring is a "part time" activity with a high level of automation to give alerts. You do not even need to see the people who do this as practically everything can be done remotely, but you do need to know it is being done.

What is a virtual machine - what will change?

We started using virtual machines over 2 years ago and have just finished a project using the technology in a small business, but what is a virtual machine?

Until recently there was strong link between the hardware and the operating system in the world of PCs. In the early days you needed the power of a new computer to run the latest software. This is no longer the case; in fact even the most basic hardware has far more power than that needed to run many business applications, the computer is "idle" (doing nothing) most of the time.

The virtual machine breaks the link between the PC hardware and the operating system, allowing several PCs to run on one computer. One computer can look like and behave like many individual computers. Each individual PC is a "virtual" PC, it looks like a PC to the user but only exists inside the larger host computer as software program.

This has many implications for the future, but for now it means that we can make better and more efficient use of the computing power available. We can continue to use the PC and server platform which has been developed over almost three decades. We will have greater flexibility and be able to deploy new systems more easily with fewer hardware constraints, resulting in greater efficiency and lower costs.

All good teams should have a substitute server

A server is a key part of a small business, it can also be an Achilles heel. If the server stops the business stops, potentially causing significant disruption and loss of money.

After talking about it for some time we have put together a package to minimise the disruption and loss if a server stops. To achieve this we will undertake to have a substitute server available that we can use replace the failed server until it is fixed. The basis of this service is a real demonstration of the recovery process so that we can test it and be confident that the process will work when needed.

The process requires a daily server image that can be used on a substitute server. If the main server fails the business can continue to operate after only a short delay to bring on the substitute server.

While with good IT management the risk of a server failure is low it is still significant and we believe a substitute process should be an important part of your systems built in resilience. Further details and the case for this service can be found on this substitute server link.

A further challenge is to make the service available at a price people are prepared to pay. After all is said and done, while we will regularly demonstrate the process no one wants a server to stop.

As an alternative we can set up the process and equipment and the business takes on the responsibility for maintaining readiness. The advantage of this is single set up cost and no ongoing commitment to an external organisation.

Working in partnership, IT is very important to business

Sometimes as an IT services supplier you can feel like the enemy, people only see you as a cost and not as someone who wants to help and add value. We set up in business to bring the small business what the big business has. When I tell people this I nearly always add the rider "we did not realise that small businesses do not know what big business have, so it is very difficult to give (sell) people something they do not know they need." While I say this partly in jest, we did underestimate the gulf in approach between people in small business and those who work in larger corporate style businesses. They are very different environments, with different priorities and levels of money to spend, requiring different styles and approaches. Despite the differences, the need for IT is just as great in small business as in a big ones and our original aims are still relevant.

Hence, we were very pleased today when one of customers said he recognised that IT was very important to his business and the future. He wanted to raise the level of service and support to ensure the systems they had would work for them; in other words he was looking to change the type of relationship from just "supplier" to "partnership". This was music to our ears, the basis on which we want to work. All we have to do now is make it work, we want to establish a strong relationship where we can help to design, plan and maintain the IT systems to meet the business needs. Being valued for advice and design, not just fixing things that break.

Create a model - draw your business process

I have just been working with a colleague on a short project to pick up, record and monitor the status of people as they completed a stay in hospital, not quite as simple as it sounds. Several attempts had been made at putting a simple recording system in place without success. The real problem was that no one had analysed and drawn the process, once this was done we were able to determine what people wanted from the system and what had to go into the system.

We created a simple process model using a flow chart and constructed a simple database model to suit. We could then invest time in the programming secure in the knowledge we had the process right.

Previously I have used Visio to create diagrams, but on this occasion I used SmartDraw. Give it a go, I can recommend it because it is simple to use, creating the flow sheet does not get in the way of your thinking.

Office 2007 compatability

More people are now using Office 2007 and coming up with a number of issues. This TechRepublic link gives information on some of the common issues and provides links to the more pertinent issues you are likely to come across.

Are you getting enough quality information?

How do you measure your business performance. This is currently more important than ever and we have had a rise in requests for business information. In this difficult economic climate your customers and suppliers may be changing their behaviour and seriously affecting your business. There may be early indicators which might show there are opportunities which you can take advantage of, equally with the right information you can look forward and make decisions (however painful) now when you may have some options.

How do you measure your efficiency, can you redirect peoples efforts to better advantage if things are slow in some areas?

Now is the time to think hard on what information will help you and your business. A lot of things are being collected as you use your IT systems (not just in accounts). If you can gather and analyse this information will you be more in control?

Are you getting reports that are useful but are late, e.g. many businesses have management reports which are presented up to 2 weeks after the period end. Would up to date information be more useful, even if it is not wholly accurate?

If only I had this? Ask, the answer may be easier than you think.

Fire Drills avoid complacency

The more we optimise and increase the efficiency of our businesses, the more we can increase the risk of a simple failure effecting everyone. A business server is a good example of this, if the server stops the business IT system can stop; a single failure stops everyone.

After a long period of calm and smooth operations at our customers we have had a couple of small but significant failures, where the "Fire Drill" has been called for. Some have worked better than others, but those that have been practiced worked best.

When there are no problems you tend to sit back and enjoy life, but after a few problems you tend to look around to see if there are any more coming. We have had cause to do this, any false sense of complacency has gone, things always go wrong when you are least prepared.

Do not put off the fire drills, practice them as you planned. This is a discipline worth keeping, you will be grateful you did.

Hard Times- make your assets work for you

The business climate is very uncertain and we don't know how long this will last. One of our customers reported his worst week of sales for over 20 years. One thing is certain, most people are going to batten down the hatches and spend as little as possible for some time.

"Make do and mend" will be the watch words, we will have little money available for new investment . In the short term this could be a good thing for all of us, if we can survive, by forcing us to take stock and look at what we have and use our assets better.

Practically every business with an IT system does not make use of the tools available, the time is right to make your investments work harder for you. Now is the time to find out what you can do for yourself or with the minimum of help from others. We should challenge each other to find ways to make the tools we already have work harder, for now and the future.

Servers down, the "Fire Drill" pays off

One of our customers recently arrived at work to discover no one could get access to the Internet or print. Not a life and death situation, but very inconvenient for all 150 people in the organisation.

Fortunately in this case backup systems were available, and after a short period of trying to diagnose and fix the problems two new servers were up and running inside the hour. Normal service was resumed with minimal disruption to people and the business.

This was a short lived inconvenience because the risk had been anticipated. The quick response was possible because a routine "Fire Drill" had been practiced with virtual servers on Virtual Iron.

Disappointing to have a failure, but success in getting back to normal, well done to the IT team.

Buying and Selling, project approach

One of the hardest jobs we have is to give a "competitive" quote for work when the person or business buying is not clear on what they want or need. In fact most businesses have little expertise in buying IT systems and running projects of this type. IT project overruns are legendary and often do not deliver quite as intended.

There are many steps that a business can take to improve the chances of success; the first of these is to have a clear idea of what you want and ensure the people delivering know how to do it and have the right approach. I will return to this theme “of knowing what you want” in the future but for now I will concentrate on achieving the right result by using a structured approach. Organisations that deliver projects should be able to tell you how they will go about delivering the work. In many cases they will have some form of procedure they can show you and talk through, you should be able to discuss who is responsible for the different parts of a project, the deliverables and the timescale.

We have a generic project approach for installing Small Business Server which we have found to be very helpful and often use as a project starting template. Many of the large project and consulting firms have similar processes and templates, although they tend to be more complicated and more expensive!

Thin Client Portable Training System

Today we rebuilt our portable training system for a new series of courses on Office 2007 with Microsoft Exchange. With this kit of six bags, including a projector, we can set up a training room for six people in a matter of minutes. This is possible because current PCs are very powerful, in fact one PC has sufficient computing power to run a whole office.

We achieve this by using "Thin Client Technology" where all the work is carried out on one laptop (PC) and students use low specification laptops as simple terminals. Each terminal is basically a screen, keyboard and mouse communicating over a wireless network to the main PC. The courses can be set up and prepared in advance and the tutor has the ability to monitor and control each student session from his master PC.

This is only one example of Thin Client. We have a number of customers who use this technology successfully every day, often with staff completely unaware of the technology being used. There are many advantages to this approach, particularly as we have found the support costs are about one third of similar offices with standard PCs. Anyone can log on to any screen and keyboard in the office, they always see their own desktop and are able to pick up where they left off. In addition offices in different towns can be connected via the Internet, so people in the remote office can use the same information and resources very easily and conveniently. We have found this technology is very successful for the vast majority of office users who tend to use the mainstream office applications. We now believe that Thin Client should be considered as a first option for most office environments.

Resilience - flexibility to cope with system failures

What happened the last time you had a power cut, were you able to work? The answer is probably no, without power your business can not operate. You will probably lose your light and heating as well. Fortunately power cuts tend to be rare and short, the damage is small and most small businesses do not have a contingency for this. You are more likely to suffer a computer system failure that could disrupt one or more of your business processes.

What happens if your PC stops, your internet connection fails, you cannot send or receive email or your server breaks? All of these failures are predictable and can be mitigated in a number of ways so that business can continue. We like to design systems that have levels of resilience built in to take into account some component failures. These measures can be quite simple; can you log on to another computer and carry on working, can you collect your email direct from the internet or use web mail. If your server stops do you still have access to recent shared files? These are examples of resilience; measures put in place to enable people to continue working when elements of the system go wrong.

The level of resilience you need depends on what level of disruption you can tolerate, the likelihood of failure and cost of measures to mitigate the failure. Can you survive without email for a day? What happens if you accounts program stops? What if the payroll needs to go out? Have you considered how resilient your systems are, do things keep going wrong through no fault of your own?
We have found that with a little thought and preparation procedures can often be put in place (at a minimal cost) that will reduce the impact of a fault. People can continue to work, reducing stress and allowing time for a fix to be made.

Once you know what to do, you can practice for system failures (carry out a “fire drill”), but that is a topic for another day.

Giving Small Business what big business has

We set out (some time ago) to give smaller businesses the tools and advantages that larger businesses have. One major problem was that small businesses did not know what is available and how IT tools can help them; this is now rapidly changing as people come to use the internet and email every day. We are now starting to forget how we worked before these tools were in everyday use.

Small business owners, managers and employees do not yet fully appreciate the infrastructure and skills that are needed to run and maintain their IT systems. They cannot afford the overheads borne by larger companies but they need the same functionality, with better support and reliability.

Over the coming weeks and months I hope to explore and comment on topics of interest to people who use IT as part of their everyday business. Our aim is to help people improve their lives at work and as a result the services and products they supply to their customers (who pay the bills and hopefully keep coming back for more).