Business productivity software is the key to having everyone working off of the same “page” as it were in your business. Being able to have an integrated set of packages that works together means data can easily shift from one program to the next, data can be shared and collaborated on, and all of that flexibility has led to a certain amount of confusion about exactly what business productivity software is, and what it isn’t.Here’s a list of things that good business productivity software is:* It works off of a common data platform giving everyone a common standard to work with
* It allows for collaboration through IM and other services
* Reporting software works flawlessly through all the different modules
* Modules that work together covers every aspect of the enterprise including accounting, marketing, sales and production
* Everything works together in real time without time lag including all phases of the enterprise.Part of the confusion, aside from being clear about how well everything works together is the fact that there’s one lie about well done business productivity software* It is hard to implement and maintain.This is actually as far as it gets from the truth. Well designed business productivity software is actually easier to install, set up, configure and maintain than any other set of packages could be. If the software is designed properly, then all it takes is one install on the server and one install on each client unless the implementation is web-based. Then all it takes is the server side setupMaintenance is easy as well. From a single point password and profile setup through apply once patching and upgrading, the best business productivity software reduces labor costs for IT dramatically. Instead of having to dedicate IT staff specifically to doing system upgrades and software patching, having the right business productivity software means that all the labor is centralized in a single process. No longer do techs have to track down salesmen and marketers to update their laptops, updates are handled automatically once installed server side.Between the flexibility business productivity software offers your accounting, sales, marketing and senior staff and the ease of setup and maintenance for the IT staff, having the right package enables your entire enterprise to work more smoothly than ever before. Check out the packages available and see which gives you the flexibility you need and the ease of use your IT department will appreciate.
5 Truths and 1 Lie About Business Productivity Software
New Perceptions In Art Through Neuroscience Research
THE PERCEPTION OF ARTIf we go to an art gallery, we react to the artwork in many ways. We may feel mildly interested, quite interested, entranced, inspired. Or we might feel bored, disinterested, mildly disturbed, upset, aggravated or even, enraged. Without knowing about how to look at art, its history, or what is behind the meaning of what we are looking at, our reactions are subject to our own personal feelings. If we had taken an art appreciation class or studied about art history, we would have a different perception; a knowledge of how the art developed and where we could place it in the timeline of art development today.Art education– knowing art movements, timelines, developments, what motivated artists of the past personally and sociologically, will alter our perspectives and change the way we see art. For example, if we know nothing of Picasso, looking at one of his Cubist paintings may cause us shake our heads and walk away, perplexed. How could that chopped up vision of a human being be attractive and meaningful? But if we had read about Picasso during his Cubist period and knew that the colors he used were monochromatic and architectural for a reason, that Picasso was dealing with translating natural rounded forms to geometrical, flattened forms and that these images would inspire a new era of contemporary painting-then would we see Picasso’s Cubist paintings differently?Yes. For many of my Art Appreciation students, a paradigm shift and expansion of their skills of perception occurred. And in most cases, they learned how to enjoy art within a new context of understanding: a broader visual and historical, information-rich understanding.But now, there is additional knowledge in neuroscience that has shaken the foundation of these studies of Art Appreciation and Art History.A NEW ART APPRECIATIONVery recently, within the last decade, the perception of art has been studied by scientists and, especially, neuroscientists, that look at how neurons in our brains respond to various stimuli, including the visual, and especially, art.These studies are just surfacing to the public through various publications, and altering our ideas of how we perceive art. Those of use who were linked to their own personal perceptions of art, as well as those (like me) who have studied and taught the subjects of Art History and Art Appreciation, have been altered indelibly by these new neuroscience studies.Is this research making Art Appreciation and Art History so very different? Yes. From a neuroscientist’s point of view, we are, indeed, hard wired in our brains for seeing things in a certain way and the art we have manufactured for thousands of years, has been gauged to our neural response to the images we have created.The ultimate realization of this new neuroscience research is that the global art market has its roots in this understanding-not that anyone selling art since the Jurassic has gauged their sales on neuroscience, but has been inadvertently in line with the knowledge that some visual images appeal more than others. How many other global markets can begin to equate and calculate their sales according to this new technology?WHAT IS NEUROAESTHETICS?A new and interesting science is developing in the perception of art why we like what we see, and how the art market responds to our visual desires. Neuroaesthetics, is a new definition of perception which V.S. Ramachandran, a noted neuroscientist, writes about in his recent book, “The Tell-Tale Brain,” As a scientist researching many areas of neuroscience, he says, “Science tells us we are merely beasts, but we don’t feel like that. We feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, forever craving transcendence.” And he adds, this is the human predicament in a nutshell. He responds to our need for a higher being and sees that our ancient profile as human beings gives evidence to this.Ramachandran offers a new perception on what makes art, why we like what we see and what the art market uses to develop the value of artistic work. He establishes a premise that looks at how we see art in a new way. Through his research in brain-response situations, he has developed a profile of how and why art is attractive to us.WHAT ARE MIRROR NEURONS?Mirror neurons in our human brains are unique in that we can empathsize (feel the way they do) with our fellow humans in a way that animals or any other species can’t. In the development of our brains over thousands of years, we have become aware of not only ourselves as an image we keep in our brains (the knowledge and image of self) but also how we can manufacture a trail of history, make our own personal data album and autobiography that we can play back for our reference to relive tender memories, anxious moments, challenging situations, and terrible, sad events. Because we are knowing our own selves, we can record our personal histories in great detail in our brains and use these historical memories as resources for our development (or demise, if we get depressed or chronically affected by our negative past.)A NEW PERCEPTION OF ARTV.S. Ramachandran’s research and creation of neuroaesthetics has entered the world of Art History and Art Appreciation and is changing the perspective of art history.. Prior to his studies, art historical research, which became the study and research of Art History, was established in the early 19th century. A profile and timeline of art development was developed which gave credible history to the development of painting, and sculpture basically in the Western world.These studies gave a picture to the academic community of the development of art from the cave paintings to contemporary art in Europe and America. In the American academic world, Art History 101, the child of Art History development and has been the prime educational subject on the history of art until the present.THE GLOBAL COMMUNITYThis Art History outline presently taught in most academic environments, rich with documentation, often has a narrow view of historical creative endeavor in that it is not global and so to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding world, the study of Art History has to be updated to include many the creative cultures of many other civilizations including Africa, Indonesia, Asia, China, Russia and beyond.The view from the science community echoes an interest and need for many areas of study to go ahead into the future. What studies in neuroscience define for us is our global link as humans hard wired to see our creative development in a new and different way. For all of our accumulated wealth in the sciences, the link to other cultural resources has been a detriment to our development as a nation and a global linking with other cultures. Science has always had its strengths in objectivity, observation and empirical judgment. Within an ever-expanding world of knowledge, it is necessary for every source of research to spread unrestricted into other sources so that the total spectrum of knowledge will be enriched and therefore, benefit the global community.
Custom ERP Software Development: Is It Worth It?
Most business organizations today are quickly adopting the use of custom ERP software solutions because as opposed to the common use of manual procedures and legacy applications, ERP programs are cost-effective and efficient. The Enterprise Resource Planning program is a system of integrated applications that are designed to automate different department/office operations (product planning, development, manufacturing, sales and marketing) to a single database.Nevertheless, not all ERP software will meet to every requirement of your organization. Therefore, when deciding on the ERP software to adopt, you need to choose the most reliable one as far as your business needs and processes are concerned. In turn, here are the two types of ERP systems:Off-the-shelfThese are systems easy to implement due to the fact that they are developed out of the experience of other organizations (user groups) other than yours. From the discussions on how each of those companies’ best use the system, you acquire information on how best to adopt the system for your business.Custom ERP softwareWith custom ERP, the system is developed based on your company’s experience. A programmer gets to design the ERP system in accordance what exactly you want the software to be able to do and ideally, the process it should follow in order to do perform and facilitate your operations.WY COMPANIES CHOOSE CUSTOM ERP SOFTWARE
There is a greater chance of a company meeting its user requirements when it goes for custom-built ERP software other than a generic system solution. This is so despite the high upfront costs and time consumption to get the system started. You can always start small and add the essential layers as you go by and in the end meet, the target software for your business. Plus, it is also a way to spreading the initial expenses throughout.Custom ERP software is also designed to fit your business processes instead of the business fitting into it, this is somehow relieving since as far as training of the company’s staff is concerned, there will be less of it. All they have to do is make little adjustments to coordinate with the system.A good example of such approach is Tesla, who carefully evaluated all pros, cons, and risks and decided to build custom ERP solution having above mentioned benefits in mind. Tesla CIO Jay Vijayan calculated the costs of SAP implementation in “millions of dollars” and a year to perform all the required integrations. Tesla managed to achieve same functionality within 4 month and much lower budget with custom built ERP. As the result, they’ve got independence from third-party vendor and Enterprise Resource Planning System that is tailor-made for their established internal business and manufacturing processes.HOW MUCH IT WOULD COST TO BUILD CUSTOM ERP SOFTWARE
It is obvious that the cost of custom ERP software development would depend on what you require, the number users and its complexity. For instance, if you are going for a sophisticated custom ERP system, you might not find complete designs that fulfill your needs. Therefore, you will have to incur extra cost for complimentary products to ensure the software fully functions.Nevertheless, the general cost of the ERP system will range between $25k to 75k. The extra incurring costs for future modules or top-up services and tools would go for $5k to 25k.RISKS OF DEVELOPING CUSTOM ERP SOFTWARE
The solutions and services that custom ERP software development is meant to provide, is usually not in box therefore, it requires a lot of time and finances to initialize the design resulting to high upfront fee.Since development of a custom ERP software is on basis of your requirements, to get a high-quality system that maneuvers around future changes easily despite it being a first-time project, you require a developer with experience. Such resources are hard to come by as you are outsourcing.In addition, your contact with the developer who initialed the system needs to be consistent. This is because they would understand the system better during the development cycle: design, testing, QA/ testing, and training. This may be hard to do especially if the developer is not reliable.Despite that, custom ERP software helps to save an enormous amount of money in long-term perspective. You may ask how is that possible. Each company counts on continued growth, including the number of employees, field force, and offices. In many cases, a bigger number of users means the continually growing expenses for the licensed ERP solution. Enterprise support packages are often sold as extra services and are way more expensive than support from the custom software development provider whose support is often included in the contract. Also, it is worth to mention that your organization will be the only one supported for the product which means better and faster communication.So, the expenses for the existing user licenses, new licenses, and support of the off-the-shelf solution is growing exponentially and completely overlap custom ERP software development costs in a couple of years. In its turn, custom ERP software will justify its high upfront costs, because your enterprise won’t be locked to the provider, will own the solution and all the data stored in the cloud as the result, and won’t pay for licenses when new user accounts will be needed.CUSTOM ERP SOLUTIONS EXAMPLES IN DIFFERENT INDUSTRIES
From the advantages of the existence of a software that can meet your business requirements and solutions, most companies have been seen heading to custom ERP system development for the management of their operations. Below are a few of such companies:Oil and Gas Companies
Oil and gas companies have a great plus with custom ERP software development but, it is usually a tragedy if the system does not support the operations efficiently. Therefore, when going for a tailored system for such a massive company more considerations are put in place other than the obvious; meeting the user needs.Custom ERP software for gas and oil companies should most importantly have applications to handling the environment safety. Energy companies are known to be hazardous to their environment and if not taken care of it would cause damage and to some extent shutting down of the organization. Therefore, the system should be able to provide data to the technicians as warnings in case of any threat so that they can mitigate the risks.Also, other than facilitating the operations of the company, a custom ERP software development should be able to open up opportunities for high profit returns investments for the business. That is, it should have a cost management application too.Finally, oil and gas fields are known to be really massive and some are usually in dense remote areas but since it’s business, every asset should be accounted for. In turn, a custom ERP software with good networking is essential to integrating and managing all the company’s operations regardless of the location. Such location difficulties are curbed with high-tech optimization tools to managing all labor and resources throughout.Manufacturing companies
With manufacturing firms, custom ERP system are saviors when it comes to saving costs, eliminating office paperwork, tracking business performance and improving customer experience. This is made possible by integrated custom applications platforms for management of its operations.Nevertheless, managing a national or to some extent international business operations can be a challenging task. A centralized custom ERP software can however, bring light to all your businesses processes as it enables management of creation of product, marketing and availing of the product across all the decentralized outlets. In addition, it integrates all that data thus incorporating workflow and control automatically.Education (schools)
Schools that are going for complete computerization of their functions and processes have custom ERP system development to opt for. A great number of schools have been seen heading to this direction with use of highly tailor-made programs to handle the school management and they are known to be very successful.Whether it is nursery/ kindergarten, high school or colleges, custom ERP systems have proven to provide efficient management of the institutions.WHAT ADVANTAGES WILL YOU GET IF DECIDE TO DEVELOP CUSTOM ERP
A custom ERP software is more of a prototype system whereby you can start designing the most basic and important features and function that you have in mind then later, during testing and maintenance, you can add other essentials bringing you to a very efficient software.
With a custom-tailored system, you are likely to achieve the solutions or attain the services you are going for from a software seamlessly.
The staff is usually at an advantage of comprehending how the system works easily because it was designed in accordance to the business practices and language. In turn they have little to adjust on their side.
Custom ERP systems are usually flexible in terms of future technological or even business changes. There is always a capacity for incorporating any developing trends.
Unlike the offshore system, you get to own the custom ERP system and its design is made specifically to meet your needs. Therefore, you need not to wait for feature requests and enhancements as you are in complete control of the system.
In summary, the basic things you need in hand while planning to adopt custom ERP system is you have to budget for high upfront fees. You will require a team of tech-experts from programmers, quality controllers, database engineers to designers and probably more. Then there is patience needed too, developing software that uniquely fits your business, just like Rome cannot be built in a day. It will require a lot of work which will consume time months or even year.In addition, you need to be fully aware of the company you have set your eyes on to work with because that would be a tragic decision as well as a blessing even before you start. The expertise, as well as a software development company’s stability, is very essential to check while assessing them. Have they done this before? Do they understand your business needs? Are the type of questions you should have answered before moving forward with them.