POST CATEGORY : Information Technology

How to Maximize the Benefits of Your CRM Software

Investing in a customer relationship management (CRM) software package can be one of the best ways to enhance your business relationships and boost profitability. CRM software is a powerful application that, when used to its full potential, can not only mean better customer relationships, but also more streamlined processes, increased sales, and happier employees.

CRM software

However, many companies miss out on these benefits by not using the software to its full potential. Here is a start-to-finish guide for how to maximize the benefits of your CRM software.

Choose the right software package

Getting the most out of CRM software starts by picking the right application to meet the needs of your business and of your employees.…

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Why a Simple POS System Means More Customer Confidence

Customer confidence is all over the map these days. With worries about identify theft and security breaches constantly the news, it takes something to convince customers that your store is the place where they should drop those dollars and scan that card.

If you want to get ahead in this market you have to beat out the competition not just in prices or incentives, but in confidence. One security breach can set a company back a dangerous amount, forcing them to rebuild or try to woo back their customer base when they’re under the pressure of a lot of stress.

Point of sale

With that in mind, the answer is not a complicated point of sale machine or bristling firewalls and security.…

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Best Practices to Avoid a Data Breach This Winter

The expected rise in holiday sales this year is good news for small businesses— and for hackers attempting to steal sensitive customer information. While headlines have focused on security breaches at big corporations like Target, Neiman Marcus and most recently, Home Depot, small businesses are not immune to such attacks; in fact, an alarming 71 percent of all security breaches target small businesses.

Cyber security

Cyber-attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and frequent each year. A 2013 technology survey of small business owners conducted by the National Small Business Association (NSBA) shows that 44 percent of respondents have been victim to cyber-attacks. While respondents said “security issues” was the second biggest technological challenge in their businesses, almost 30 percent had little to no understanding of cyber security.…

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Server Security: Why to Consider Colocation Over Managed Hosting

The popularity of cloud computing has led to increasing demands on servers and networks around the globe. As more people and businesses migrate to the cloud, servers face greater stresses. Companies are expected to provide tight security for cloud services, constant uptime, and reliable performance. Investing in the full IT infrastructure needed to support your business’s online activity can be prohibitively expensive, especially for small businesses.

Server security

If you want to create or expand your company’s online presence without breaking the bank, server colocation is the best option. Never heard of server colocation? You aren’t alone. The concept of server colocation is still relatively new to most companies, so we’ll explore the concept a little to offer you some peace of mind about the process.…

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Tips for Small Businesses That Want to Use Automatic Speech Recognition (Infographic)

Automatic speech recognition technology (ASR) and its complementary technology known as IVR (interactive voice response) are both systems you’ve almost certainly used before in a personal or business context.

Apple Siri

These are the technologies that allow machines to interact with humans through audio communication and anybody who’s ever used an automated telephone customer service system, a voice powered text editing program or a smartphone interface like Siri on the iPhone has come into contact with one kind of ASR/IVR software or another.

The possible business applications of these systems are numerous and your company could definitely benefit from using ASR technology in a number of contexts.…

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Is Your Growing Business Secure? 5 Tips for Keeping Your Customers’ Trust

As your small business gains momentum, you’ll undoubtedly juggle countless tasks at once, so when it comes to data security, it’s easy to put it on the back burner. But the fact is that if you suffer a data breach, the costs could include customer erosion, financial losses, and regulatory fines. The reputational fallout alone can continue months beyond the incident and translate into upwards of $5 million in losses.

Business IT security

And don’t think you get a free pass on security simply because your business isn’t large or well known. According to Verizon’s 2013 Data Breach Investigation Report, 72 percent of data breaches affect small businesses, making it clear that cybercriminals and automated attacks don’t discriminate on company size.…

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How Developers Can Secure Their Apps in the New Age of Web Attacks

Ensuring app security is a basic necessity for app development and should not be just an afterthought. Cyberattacks on mobile devices have increased over the years with the growing popularity of web-enabled smartphones and tablet computers. As such, there is a clear need to actively protect apps from various types of web attacks. There is also a need to be dynamic with the kind of security measures to implement. The nature of attacks has changed so the techniques and strategies used in the past may no longer be as effective at present.

There is no perfect formula in addressing the evolving nature of web attacks on apps.…

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Online Entrepreneurs: Are you Working in the Toilet with Your Smartphone?

Have you tried living without your mobile phones for, say three days? I did. And it was awful.

You see, as a Founder-slash-CEO of an online marketing company and several online magazines (including blogs), I practically live in the cloud: I am connected with the Internet 18 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Cloud working

I run my business online – literally, and although I work at home, I can practically work in any places I want, anytime. As long as I can get a good Internet access, I’ll be fine.

I blog, manage articles, talk and negotiate with clients, assigning work to my virtual team members, fixing broken things on my websites, promoting, etc.…

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3 Useful Tools for Delivering Highly Quality Online Training

So, you are most probably a teacher or a trainer if you are reading this and you may want to know how to provide quality training to your students. You will have most likely exhausted Google search options by now and have, fortunately for you, landed here.

Online training

We all know how hard it can be to get students understand something over the web, not to mention, when you are trying to explain a complex calculus function and your video keeps stopping or your software keeps giving you that annoying upgrade to premium pop-up. Your sessions become a disappointment quickly, especially in a well-developed class environment.…

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How to Mitigate Unpredictable DDoS Attacks and Protect Your Digital Business Assets

Over the last year, distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks have gotten stronger and evolved in strategy and tactics as cyber-criminals get smarter. With increased reports of “smoke screening”, where attackers use DDoS attacks to distract IT staff while inserting malware to breach confidential data such as bank account credentials and client data. Over 50% of attacked companies reported theft of funds, data or intellectual property. These types of attacks are more powerful but short-lived and more precise than prolonged strikes whose goal is extended downtime.

Protecting your digital assets from DDoS attacks

DDoS attacks vary in both sophistication and intensity. Attackers typically make fake requests that look like random garbage on the network, or more troublesome; make the attack traffic look exactly like real web traffic.…

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