If you can imagine working on your business projects while moving from your home office laptop, to your business office computer, to your iPad in the field, on to a plane, and then to your hotel room without ever having to install software, backup files, transfer or email files to yourself, or close an application only to open it on another device, then this may be the best 15 minutes you’ve ever spent.

If you would like to know how you can leverage Citrix technology to improve your business processes and save on costs, then please take a look at this easy-to-understand video from Citrix TV: http://www.citrix.com/tv/#videos/3426

Ready to make the future now? Call us at 805.389.0229 Option 1.

Compass Consulting, Certified Citrix Solution Provider

As a former manager of customer service, I know the importance of having a clear vision of how you want your customers treated, and I know the challenge of getting all your employees on the same page. This is why I especially appreciate and admire the great job these folks are doing. Regardless of who I spoke with, from the owner to the office manager to the various techs that helped me, they were friendly, positive, and accommodating. Most importantly, my computer was fixed quickly and competently.

Thank you Darin, Kate, and Pete—because of you, I know my computer will always be in good hands!

~ Julian P.

Q: Is it advisable to dismiss the glut of mobile consumer services, collaborative and social sites as trendy and not relevant to your business?

A: It is not advisable.

Why? Our world is in the process of rewiring itself with a new nervous system. If you aren’t tapped into this system, it will become increasingly difficult for your business to participate in the world’s commerce future. Even a stubborn refusal to use the latest gadgets, apps and social media sites will not stop the current generation of digital natives from moving forward. To them there is no choice. And they will be your customers – and your employees.

This all means that you must apply THEIR expectations to your next IT projects/systems. If you are feeling held back, then what is causing that? Well, you may be viewing IT through the lens of data processing. Those of us who have been in IT for some time (whether by choice or fate) have spent our years building systems that handle every dimension of our businesses, from financial, human resource and inventory transactions, to customer relationship, supply chain and product lifecycle management. These are our systems of record. And they are, to some extent, complete. One could argue that they have become a circumstance of doing business and no longer a source of competitive advantage. Like an interstate highway system, the great build out will eventually come to an end, and maintenance will take its place. That is precisely what has happened with our collective IT enterprises.

So what is the next step? We need to be able to get people to engage with us using the devices they hold in their hands, and the consumer and social services where they spend their time – and their money. Instead of perpetuating a system of record, we need to be maintaining them with new systems of engagement.

One of our outstanding clients, the Automatic Transmission Rebuilders Association (www.ATRA.com), engaged us to build a geographically-aware Mobile Shop Finder app for their heavily accessed national consumer website. Why?  Because they realized that creating a lightweight and mobile “system of engagement” was the best way to make finding an ATRA shop easy. What could make more sense than giving users a fun, quick and easy way to assist consumers in finding their members’ places of business?!

Go ahead and check it out on your mobile phone at www.atra.com/shopfinder. It’s developed with the latest mobile technology, no need to download or maintain an app, and it will work on any device. And remember, Compass Consulting is your source for mobile application development and we’re here to help.

Citrix virtual and remote computing solutions are a big part of our network service offerings. If you have business IT challenges brought on by branch offices, mobile workforces, or security concerns, Citrix may be for you. With over 75% of internet users and more than 230,000 customers using Citrix solutions every day, it may be time for your company to jump in!

For our clients that don’t want to change the way they do business to fit an off-the-shelf  software package, our software engineering department has been busy creating robust web-based business applications and websites to service our expanding list of clients.

We expanded our Microsoft Partnership and became a Microsoft Cloud Services Partner. Doing so allowed us to expand our service offerings to include Microsoft Office 365 (Office, Exchange, Lync and CRM Online products). We also became an Apple Developer and produced several new iOS and mobile business applications.

Our network engineering team has continued to provide the managed and onsite services that keep our clients’ networks running smoothly. Our belief in proactive maintenance and service prevents the kind of costly incidents that reduce productivity, or worse, shut down business altogether.

Our Citihosts data center operation continues to grow, and we are now servicing hundreds of websites, virtual dedicated servers and networks, providing remote backup services, proactive network monitoring and hosted Exchange. One of the most significant growth areas for our hosting operation is our hosted DiVA Document Management Solution. As more and more companies jump on the paperless, or as we like to say, “paper-limited” bandwagon, they are finding that DiVA is a full-featured, secure and economical solution to all their document management needs.

Yes, 2011 was defenitly a year of expanding operations and offering more services. We hope to continue on this path and are excited for new projects and new clients in the new year.

Here’s to…

Compass Consulting is a Microsoft Certified Cloud Partner with the expertise and experience to get your organization up-and-running quickly with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

As an experienced IT consulting firm with both commercial-off-the-shelf and custom software consulting services, we are often asked to provide recommendations for the best-fit solution. Our broad experience with software evaluation, selection, project management and implementation, gives us valuable insights in the COTS software arena. Our in-house software engineering experience and enterprise-level custom solutions add the perspective – and the objectivity – necessary to give a credible recommendation.

Whether COTS or CUSTOM, there are lots of questions that must be asked, and many of these questions are relative to either solution. Here’s the short list:

• Where do you start?
• Will it satisfy your requirements?
• Are your requirements valid now and moving forward?
• Which solution is more cost effective?
• How long will it take?
• Will it be adopted by your employees?
• What if you want to make changes in the future?
• Will the software keep pace with the latest technologies?

With this many questions and so much riding on the outcome, professional IT guidance is a must – it is simply too big of a decision to go it alone.

“It is not logical to make a decision based upon so few facts, sir,” ~ Spock

Compass Consulting welcomes you to our 5-part series, “COTS vs. Custom”, where we will discuss the decision points and share our experience in answering these questions, and more!

Part 1 of 5: Two Examples

Consider these two actual examples …

1. A large supplier of real and replica weapons to the entertainment industry is making a decision to buy or build a new rental software solution. Aside from a basic accounting software, this is their only other software system and it will be used exclusively for the daily business operation. They consider their method of operation to be unique in the industry, and it is driven by a very customer service-focused approach and related procedures. They currently use an outdated yet usable system and want a solution that will support the distinctive way they do business, which they feel keeps them competitive in the industry.
2. A large, multi-store retailer is replacing their current timekeeping, payroll and human resources software. With existing systems that support thousands of union employees with complex pay rules, this will be a significant undertaking regardless of their choice to buy or build. With upcoming legislative changes that will be unsupported in the existing systems, they want to have a relatively short project deployment timeline. Whatever the new software, it will require extensive data conversion and integration into other legacy systems.

“Humans have a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for them.” ~ J. K. Rowling

The big question for these two companies – COTS or CUSTOM?

Before we answer the questions at hand, we will first have to further define COTS and CUSTOM.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of 5: “Defining the Definition”. By the end of this 5-part series, you will have a clear idea of how to choose COTS or CUSTOM, and where to turn for guidance.

ROT is Redundant, Obsolete and Trivial content that increases storage costs, lengthens the time to locate relevant information, creates extensive re-work or even new authoring, creates an invironment of inefficient knowledge sharing, and ultimately causes staff to become disillusioned with the process. In short, ROT is a significant cost to your company.

Compass Consulting has the experience, business process knowledge and technical know-how to undertake a full assessment of your company’s content. We specifically focus on duplicate and obsolete content. Based on the results of this assessment and discussion with key stakeholders, a cleanup phase is implemented to remove targeted content. The typical result of this exercise is a dramatic reduction of storage and maintenance costs, and tangible improvement in overall content quality and end-user experience. In addition, Compass Consulting will review the benefits of our enterprise-class DiVA Document Management Solution, and can implement low-cost, high-return integrated document management and SharePoint solutions.

Help reduce server and content storage costs
Remove duplicate content
Remove misleading content
Improve content relevancy

Contact us for more information on saving on costs with ROT Removal.