First week at Neotechnology Business Systems

mwertheimer — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:50:01 +1100

Week 1 at Neotechnology saw me start work on a marketing plan for NBS support services with the goal of growing this part of the business in Tasmania. This has had an unexpected benefit as the market research undertaken has helped to gain a basic idea of the environment in which Neotechnology operates and to gain an insight into some of our key customers and competitors.

Neotechnology and I were introduced through the K2B marketing program. The K2B program is a government funded program designed to keep recent marketing graduates in Tasmania. The selected marketers work full time while also undertaking regular workshops to help develop and expand the skills learned during their marketing degrees. The program also gives Tasmanian ICT companies the opportunity to experience firsthand the benefits of having a marketing professional working for them. I feel lucky to have been chosen by Neotechnology as I get the double advantage of the mentoring of the K2B staff and also the leadership of K2B and marketing veteran Shirly Sareyka.

I can already see some of the other benefits of working in the ICT industry. Already I have started learning about systems software and hardware, in particular Point of sale software and hardware, which I am sure will become increasingly useful as I continue with my career.

With the guidance of Shirly and the K2B program I will begin writing another marketing plan in February for an exciting new product to be released later in the year. Watch this space for more information closer to the release date.

New experience with media relations and communication.

mwertheimer — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:45:21 +1100

Last month on top of day-to-day marketing activities, I was involved in the promotion of the Neotechnology fundraising BBQ for the people of Haiti. This was an exciting experience for me as it provided different and new challenges than my normal marketing role with Amicus. My main role in the BBQ was to design the promotional materials such as an advertising flyer letting people know the reason for the BBQ and the date and time, and another one to advertise a raffle and the prizes.

The main reason for my excitement was the experience of trying to get media coverage for the event. Shirly Sareyka was able to recommend some contacts at the various news stations and instructed me on the process of receiving media attention. The first thing required is to write a media release. I attempted this and sent it to Shirly and quickly found there is a specific format required before it will even be considered. With Shirlyâ€™s modifications I faxed the media release to the news stations and was surprised when both WIN and Southern Cross news arrived.

The BBQ was a huge success, raising much needed money for the relief effort in Haiti, and also for me personally as I gained valuable experience in media relations and promotions. Both news stations ran a short story covering the BBQ so the media release and promotion did the trick.

Learning HTML the hard way.

mwertheimer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:53:49 +1100

Last week I began working on the monthly customer newsletter. This involves writing the introduction, a couple of articles and finding out what improvements and alterations have been made to the Amicus POS system then adding them into an HTML template. At first I thought this task would be easy, and it was, until I had to put the text into the template. I have had a little experience with HTML at university so was familiar with most of the tags, for example . This was ultimately my downfall. For those of you unfamiliar with HTML, say I wanted a part of the text to be bold, I would use the tag then the text I want to be bold and to signify the end of the bold part .

This is where things went wrong. Assuming I knew what I was doing I jumped in and put the code into the template. However, I had forgotten the all important â€œ/ â€ to signify the end of the formatting. This meant that I had â€œopenedâ€ a lot of tags but hadnâ€™t â€œclosedâ€ a single one. Once I had saved, the program I had been using to alter the template freaked out and attempted to close all the open tags. The next time I came back to edit the template there were hundreds of tags throughout the code, making it impossible to do anything with.

After spending a long time combing through the code and removing all the unnecessary tags, and then realising I should have just started a new template, I again saved and the layout of the newsletter had changed and put images in places they shouldnâ€™t be causing the text to be awkward. Wrongly assuming it would be faster to find the cause of the problem than start a new template I began to look for the problem in the code. I searched for ages without success. I was about to give up and start a new template when Shirly spotted that one of the images was missing an alt=â€â€. I have no idea why this should affect the formatting but it did.

So that was my first experience with the HTML newsletters. Since then I have started on the next newsletter and am pleased to say I have learned from my previous experience and so far there have been no problems. I hope you enjoy the newsletters even more after hearing the pain I had to go through to get it sent out!

The modern POS system is so much more than just point of sale!

mwertheimer — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:44:21 +1100

This month while writing an article for the monthly newsletter about the additional benefits of a point of sale system I was surprised by the number of ways a POS system can help a business. In the article I was restricted by the word count so I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss the additional benefits of a POS system in greater detail. The most obvious advantages are the point of sale advantages:

- The POS system speeds up customer checkouts allowing a greater number of customers to be served in a shorter time helping to make the customers experience more enjoyable.
- The POS system can allocate discounts to specific customers or customer groups.
- Can help to deliver orders promptly and accurately.
- The POS system can produce professional and personalised invoices and receipts.
- Makes it easy to manage customer credit and orders at the point of sale.
- The POS system allows the user an easy way to update prices and discounts from one location.

The POS system can also help with customer relationship management by providing a place to store the customerâ€™s details along with information about purchase preferences and activities. This information can then be used by the marketing department for a variety of different marketing functions such as:

- Undertaking personalised and targeted direct marketing efforts. For example, sending out specific discounts and offers to different segments of the customer base encouraging the price sensitive customers to buy while not losing profits from the less price sensitive segments.
- The sales information can be used to keep track of large purchases in order to send out a thank you letter or reward.
- The POS system can also give upper management the tools to determine the effectiveness of a specific marketing campaign. For example, management can determine the increase in sales after a television advertising campaign.

Another function the POS system can help with is inventory management. As most retail owners and manages will know, successful inventory management is extremely important. By having too much stock on hand you are tying up money and storage space and by having too little you are missing out on potential sales. A POS system can:

- Provide your organisation with detailed information on what products you have on hand and the popularity of specific products. This allows management to only order the products that sell and to discontinue products that are not selling.
- The POS system can also provide information on the speed with which inventory is turning over. This allows businesses to order stock to arrive just before the organisations inventory runs out.

This can save the business a large amount of cash by decreasing the need for storage space, decreasing the possibility of goods becoming out of date or out of fashion and decreases the need for cash to be tied up in inventory allowing it to be spent on other business activities.

- The POS system can even help with the reordering by allowing â€œreorderâ€ levels to be set in the program. Once a products stock on hand level falls below a defined number the POS system can automatically reorder those products.
The final function a POS system can help with is aiding your organisations book keeping and accounting. The POS system can provide your organisation with timely and accurate reports that allow greater accuracy and efficiency with your book keeping. A POS system can provide:

- A range of reports such as the amount of sales for a period, the amount of receivables for a period and the amount of debts accrued for the period.
- The POS system can alert you to when your accounts payable and receivable come due.
- The POS system provides a clear audit trail.

As you can see the modern POS system offers an organisation much more than just a point of sale facilitator. The modern POS can save you a huge amount of time and money and increase the efficiency and accuracy of your organisation.

4 Ways Your Point of Sale Software Can Help You to Reduce Fraud

mwertheimer — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:30:00 +1000

Fraud presents a challenge to every business owner and you need to be continually on your guard against fraudsters and scam artists. Fortunately, having a point of sale software system installed can give you added protection and minimise the likelihood of your business suffering any unnecessary loss.

The larger your business, the more it is likely to become a target for fraudulent activity, but if you have the right systems in place you can make the job of the fraudster that much more difficult.

Whilst you may never be able to completely eliminate the possibility of loss from fraud, there are a few things you can do to tighten up your security.

Limit the Spread of Information. Your point of sale software system allows you to centralise the control of pricing and you can eliminate the capacity of individual staff to negotiate or change prices at the checkout. Putting these controls in place eliminates the likelihood of staff fraud.
Make sure the inventory orders are authorised by the business owner or manager. Your point of sale software system can automatically generate an order when stock levels reach certain levels at the signing of purchase orders or cheques should only be allowed by senior staff after checking with the software system for accuracy.
Control Product Returns. In some instances of fraud, customers purchase items and then return them for a full refund soon after. In some cases the customers have used the item and returned it claiming it is faulty; whereas they never had any intention of keeping the item in the first place. One extreme example is where a food processor was used to prepare some food items for party and then returned two days later for a full refund claiming that the item was faulty. Although it is impossible to completely guard against this, some customers develop a track record for regular returns and you are completely within your rights to refuse future sales to these people. Your point of sale software can be set up to record instances of frequent returns so that customers can be identified accordingly.
The greatest control that a point of sale software system allows you to implement is instant checks on credit cards and bank account funds. Where there is insufficient funds you will be alerted instantly and the sale will not proceed. Credit card and direct debit accounts can be set up in this way so that instant approval from the bank is obtained prior to finalising the sale.

These four simple checkpoints can be implemented by any business owner to protect against the incidence of fraud. Although not an exhaustive protective mechanism, your POS software gives you an added advantage in protecting your business.

If you are experiencing an unusual amount of theft or other types of fraudulent activity, you may find it easier to pinpoint this once you have these systems in place and then consult with a security firm to add further security checks.

7 Ways To Get the Most of Your Point of Sales Software

mwertheimer — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 09:30:00 +1000

If you are still deciding whether to purchase a point of sale software system for your business, you might be interested in some tips on how to get the best out of your software.

With most large retailers already using a point of sale system to their advantage, it is time for small businesses to catch up by implementing some simple technology that can boost sales, decrease fraud, and maximise profits. By tweaking your system in small increments you can leverage huge results that will propel your business to maximum sales performance in a very short time.

Let's take a look at some of the things you can do to maximise the impact of your point of sale software.

Set Profit Margin Goals. Every business needs to maximise profits and a quick discussion with your accountant will easily establish your optimum or minimum gross profit margin. With your point of sale software you can regularly analyse sales during the day and obtain an instant picture of your gross profit margin to that point. It is then a simple step to make a small adjustment to pricing to ensure that your target is met.
One of the most overlooked benefits of point of sale software is the customer information you can gather with each transaction. You can generate a profile of every customer and implement some sales prompts at the cash register which will appeal to the customer's previous sales history. By offering special discounts you will be surprised at how much you can make through extra sales.
With the same customer information, you can start snail mail or e-mail campaigns to individual customers offering the same special deals and create a customer loyalty program in the process.
You can improve cash flow by making sure that credit card and direct debit transactions are approved instantly through your bank prior to the finalisation of the sale. This ensures that all sales are credited to your account the same day.
Improved Inventory Control. As each sale goes through your system, you can track inventory levels and set up re-order points to ensure that your stock is always kept at optimum levels. You can even ensure that seasonal trends are catered for by reducing or increasing orders as you determine.
Decrease the Incidence of Fraud. By implementing controls within your system you can limit access to sensitive data and disallow staff capacity to adjust pricing or stock requirements. This lessens the incidence of fraud and protects your valuable business investments.
Staff Training. You can track the performance of every individual employee as well as each cash register and assess the efficiency of both. Trends can be recorded and remedial steps taken through specific staff training modules which will further enhance sales.

These few points should be enough to convince any small-business owner of the efficiency and benefits of POS software systems. The gap between large retailers and small is being narrowed all the time and these software systems can boost your business to new levels.

CeBIT 2010

mwertheimer — Mon, 31 May 2010 14:27:29 +1000

The major project I have been working on during May has been the organisation of the Neotechnology stand at CeBIT. This involved ensuring the stand would be set up correctly and on time, that we had marketing and promotional material available for the exhibition and to advertise our involvement in the exhibition.

The promotion of the event involved several different media channels, including the internet, email and snail mail. By using multiple channels we were able to offer all our customers and partners free entry to the exhibition.

One of the other major tasks for the event was to organise the hardware systems to display our software. We used five different hardware set ups which needed to be delivered all around Australia to ensure the software could be installed and the hardware and software were working efficiently together. Thankfully, the support and implementation department were able to get all the systems up and running in a very short time frame with only one minor issue.

With CeBIT now over I am turning my attention to several other marketing campaigns. The next few months are already shaping up to be an exciting and busy time for the marketing department at Neotechnology!