Category: Design

Web based applications need to be maintained for several problems and issues. This can be done by an in-house team or you can choose to outsource this, without worrying about what you should and not do. Outsourcing has several advantages like not having to worry about rising licensing costs, hiring troubles, difficult technologies and investment in licensed software. When you hire an outsourcing agency for any task, you are essentially saving yourself time and money. With this in mind, we shall focus on the need for maintaining web applications and why you must outsource them. Before we discuss why you should outsource web apps, let us understand the kind of troubles that you may encounter with web apps: Performance monitoring It is something to design a great app and launch it to the users. However, it is something else to monitor the app’s performance 24 x 7 and ensure that users are not affected by its lack of performance even for a short while. This may include errors, outages, slow loading and a lot of other problems that occur time to time. These issues cannot be wished away and a dedicated team has to constantly monitor web applications in order to ensure that they are working well. With this in mind, it makes sense to ensure that there are enough technical and financial resources to ensure constant performance monitoring of your web technologies. Software upgradation While this may seem like an easy task, it quite isn’t. Any web application, website or mobile application needs to be upgraded time to time. The platform it is built on may change, there may be bugs that need to be fixed and new features may be added. For all these changes to occur, timely upgradations are very crucial. A dedicated team that takes care of performance may also be involved in software upgradation. Cost reduction Web applications are expensive to run and they are even more expensive to maintain. The contestant attention that they demand may require you to hire in-house professionals who are well versed with challenges that these applications pose. With that in mind, you will end up spending more money and time on web applications than you initially intended to. It may be a better idea to outsource these tasks to people who are already taking care of web app performance. Error fixing Every web app will pose errors now and then. It is impossible to expect that a web app will run smoothly always. Sometimes, it may have got something to do with the software and at other times, it may just be a virus. All these issues point towards the importance of hiring outsourced teams that are specialized in web application maintenance. Feature addition Sometimes, an existing web app is just ain’t good enough. You will need to introduce new features, new quirks, designs and often change the layout as well. This forces you to ensure that you have a design and development team ready at hand. That means, you will again have to spend unnecessarily on in-house professionals just for the sake of maintenance of your web apps. It can become a huge burden in the long term if you do not cut short expenditures in the beginning. Moreover, customers and users will constantly send feedback and error reports which need to be addressed. For all these issues to be solved, it is quite well implied that outsourcing these tasks will reduce cost burden and increase effectiveness. Web applications are very useful and they can be used both on computers and mobile devices. Still, many people hesitate to launch web apps of their own because of lack of information. When web apps are already released, their maintenance is equally important as well. Whatever your core business functions are, they can be prioritized and maintenance of your web applications can easily be outsourced. In the long term, this will not only save costs and increase productivity but will also build a good reputation among users. Any web app that constantly poses problems to users will be ignored. By ensuring that your web app is in top condition, you will be able to avoid unnecessary embarrassment and expenditure as well. All this will lead to a better ROI as well.

It is a never ending argument, trying to figure out which CMS is the best, Drupal or WordPress. However, the answer is not that simple. Some people will be perfectly happy using WordPress, while others would want to use Drupal. If you do not understand the difference between the two, it is quite simple to understand. Drupal is more complex and has a lot more built into it than WordPress. WordPress on the other hand is easy to use, flexible, looks good and there is hardly any time required to learn it. In fact, WordPress is the CMS of choice for small websites and those who do not have time to learn something new. However, enterprise level websites that look for powerful solutions may want to use Drupal in the end. Drupal is not only powerful, but is also SEO friendly, flexible and comes with an array of options to customize. However, you will need professional help to set up a Drupal page, whereas WordPress does not require professional help often. WordPress has a number of readymade themes available and all that one needs to do is go ahead and install WordPress on someone’s site and begin to use it. Still, let us take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of both Drupal and WordPress and see for ourselves if the two CMS platforms can be compared. Why comparing Drupal and WordPress is futile Before you jump into the WordPress or Drupal bandwagons, consider what you are really looking for. If you are looking for a custom template that looks very different from what others have, and is also robust and powerful, you will probably require Drupal. Thus, consider how many page templates you need and what content type you are going to publish. For instance, if you are going to publish a lot of images and videos, WordPress is better option as it offers amazing albums and thumbnails. If you plan to provide different permission levels to different users, WordPress does it the best. You can make someone a commenter, a subscriber and someone else, a contributor. If you trust the person, you can make him or her an editor which gives them editing power as well. If you want serious changes made to your website, you could go and make the person an ‘administrator’. However, if you need enterprise level security and if you wish to be as safe as possible, you probably will be better off with Drupal. Like they say, you cannot have the cake and eat it as well, when it comes to CMS. However, the gap is not way too much and the lines are blurring anyway. Also, for Drupal, you will need to have a good budget in order to develop it. It costs money to hire developers and professionals who will be able to tweak Drupal to suit your needs. On the other hand, WordPress does not cost anything and you can begin to use it straightaway, as long as you use a free theme and not make a lot of changes. Drupal also takes a longer time to develop than a WordPress site. A WordPress site is quick, easy and efficient. However, it lacks the security features that Drupal provides. If you are a small company and are looking for a blog or a magazine, WordPress will serve all your needs. However, if you are a large company with a substantial web development budget, you might want to go ahead and use Drupal. Conclusion At the end of the day, we discourage people from engaging in ‘ultimate showdowns’. While it is easy to list all the advantages and disadvantages of both the platforms and extrapolate the differences to our convenience, it would be a biased and prejudiced commentary. It is important to ensure that we do not engage in favoritism for any particular technology and use whichever suits our needs. If WordPress serves your needs, go ahead and use it by all means. However, if you are looking for something more complex and need a bit of security (and also have time and money to spend), go ahead and use Drupal. Neither is better than the other and such comparisons are futile.

Application development is a game changing phenomenon for many businesses existing today as it comes with plenty of benefits. The basic function of application development is to streamline management role, provide better governance and modernize application portfolios for business expansion. Outsourcing application development plays an essential role in strategic decision-making process. Undeniably, cost benefit is one of the essential reasons for it as it offers improved process efficiency and distributed service with excellent delivery models. It gives you an opportunity to reduce your application environment cost while your business is continuously evolving. Your in-house team can easily collaborate with the remotely-based outsourcing team with a sharp focus on satisfying your IT applications need. Besides this, it facilitates improved process efficiency and resource optimization. Technological advancements are such that you get greater visibility with real-time access to the development process. Your application requirement may vary a lot depending upon the type of sector you belong to. Fortunately, there are specialists with excellent skills with an acute focus on niche technologies and domain areas. Businesses are increasingly facing permanent cost pressures with rising expectations from customers. Ultimately, IT executives expect more from their outsourcing service providers. Business partners are expected to deliver a product that can actually translate the IT savings into business advantage. Various companies offer application outsourcing services ranging from application management, development and maintenance. The requirement for mobile and cloud-based applications has increased tremendously. Application development comes with numerous capability enhancing features like providing end-to-end support for managing applications. They provide you smart solutions that help you optimize performance and reduce the cost of your valuable business-driven applications. Outsourcing partners are much more concerned than ever to help you clearly identify the areas for improved business value, increased returns and accelerated outcomes. Let us know why it is important for you to outsource application development: 1. Save your cost Cost saving is one of the major factors while outsourcing application development as you only employee people on a short-term basis. So you only pay when the requirement for application development arises. Furthermore, there is no infrastructure investment required in the form of building or renting office space, software or hardware purchase and training your employees as the service provider takes complete responsibility of delivering you the end-product. To add to it, we cannot deny the productivity benefits derived and near-term cost savings benefits offered by outsourcing application development. 2. Save your time Most of the service providers you engage, give you time-bound delivery and their team is dedicated towards the application development all around the clock. Moreover, you get real-time updates about the progress of the project through various cloud-based platforms so that you don’t spend time in traveling. And, it keeps you at par with your competitors. Thus, there is a considerable saving of time which you can devote to other crucial activities like marketing and sales. 3. Limited experience within your company Application development is a highly technical field with continuous evolution. You must outsource this activity to expert developers so that you get a perfect business application suiting your needs. Unfortunately, it is not your in-house expertise and taking a chance with it may turn out to be a disaster causing money and time wastage. It even reduces your employees’ productivity in other day-to-day tasks. Even if you think from a global point of view, it is essential that your application is usable across different countries and in different languages. By hiring experts who have already worked with clients across the world, you can ensure that the product developed is up-to-mark as per your expectations. 4. Flexibility of work It offers a great opportunity of hiring a virtual team which works flexibly to meet your needs. Their only goal is to serve you. If you happen to outsource your services to an Asian country, they readily work in the same time zone as your local time so that there is no time-gap in the working hours. 5. Hire talented IT professionals Countries like India, China have a reservoir of IT professionals, all credit to the youth with keen interest in information technology followed by massive support from the government, private companies and educational institutions offering professional training. The result is that developers ultimately are very well equipped and aware of the latest technology in software development. So you don’t have to worry about your knowledge deficiency in this technical field. But make sure that you know what you want. 6. Fine tune your business strategy Application development has turned around businesses across the world and helped them give new dimensions and devise new strategy to keep up with the time. You could be running any kind of business in manufacturing or services, applications have become a part and parcel of the game to reach out to customers spread across the globe. Moreover, population of mobile customers is on rise which has made quite easy for them to access your services. It is imperative to streamline your business processes to serve this growing class of customers. 7. Ease your regulatory compliance Applications developed should be secured especially when it involves transactions of money. Privacy of user account information is the primary concern for developers to keep hackers at bay. With automated systems in place, it gets easier for your service provider to follow standard set of rules set by your company. It helps in keeping quality in control. Furthermore, it reduces pressure on your in-house employees to do manual follow-ups with the service providers. 8. Technological advancement Undoubtedly, we are noticing a frequent change in technology which is getting efficient, user-friendly and resourceful by the day. Companies are working hard to gain first mover advantage. It is always recommended to outsource your application development to gain a competitive edge over your peers. 9. Alleviate risk factors It is always advisable that you work with a developer with proven credentials as there are many new bees in the market who would try to fleece you with limited

In today’s cut-throat market environment, companies must empower their sales force with automated sales process to help the sales executives increase their efficiency and convert more prospects into customers in a much lesser time. The sales representatives are the first persons of the company to get in touch with the customers and coincidently they are the most important people as they generate profit and revenue for the company. The customer is not bound to purchase from a single company, it is his loyalty which stimulates him for repurchase from the same company despite uniformity of products across the competitors. So whether it is an old customer or a new customer, your company becomes disposable when the customer is not satisfied with your services. In such a scenario, no company affords to have a sales force which acts late than its competitors. Technological advancements and more Off late, the technological advancements have introduced CRM solutions on mobile devices to let your sales force manage the customer efficiently and effectively thereby increasing productivity at work. Fortunately, most of these applications come with a cloud based platform to avoid double entry across different devices. These modern day applications let you sell, service and market from your mobile device. And there are loads of sales force automation applications available in the market with secure and password protected sign-in option for salespersons. Therefore, the time is ripe to use these technological benefits for sales executives, by using sales force automation on smartphones, tablets, PDAs, laptops and other Java, Windows, Android or iOS powered devices to streamline the tasks related to sales and achieve higher return on investment. Lastly, they have been tried, tested and adopted across various industries including FMCG, healthcare, insurance, confectionaries, financial and banking industries. Key features of mobile sales automation solutions Generate invoices and automatic reports – Mobile sales force automation systems equip the salesperson to generate instant invoices. It even helps them to generate automatic reports and dashboards on monthly sales pipeline analysis, sales opportunities by lead source and much more. Direct customer feedback to management – It enables the management to have an instant review about customer feedbacks straight from the field. So when a new product is launched, you immediately get to know about first-hand customer response for your products. Real time data sharing among salespersons – Mobile sales force automation arms your sales team with information about new salespersons joining the team and higher versions of these systems also facilitate automatic field updates, task assignment and email sending. What’s more, you can build mobile social intranets to connect your employees with RSS feeds, files, applications and important published information so that employees can stay up to date, aligned and more productive. Route management – A sales executive is mostly in the field tracking down the appointments with its customers. Mobile sales force automation solutions help the sales reps to easily route their daily, weekly or monthly appointments. In case, there is any change in schedule of the meeting or appointment cancellation, it can smoothly reroute the appointments. Inventory management – Customers are often impatient and expect quick response from sales persons. It is practically impossible to keep a track of inventory if the SKUs are huge. Not only this, it is extremely important not to book an order if the product became out of stock even a few minutes ago by another sales deal in a different territory. The central inventory database keeps all the sales persons alert about the current stock available and booked, right on their mobile. Client management – Customers do get irritated when there is overlapping of communication by various sales persons. Most importantly, they get discouraged if they are asked to share the same information which they did last time with a different salesperson. Besides reflecting a lack of co-ordination among the salespersons it may turn into losing a potential customer. Mobile sales force automation maintains call records, history of previous purchase, client’s needs and remarks if any thus, keeping complete information handy for a new salesperson contacting the customer. Precisely, it rules out massive load of individual communication among the huge sales team. Take orders and sales returns – Mobile sales automation system makes it easier for the salesperson to book the orders on-the-go and the same information can be accessed by the back office instantly that starts processing the order delivery. If there is any sales return by the distributors or dealers, the same can be updated in the mobile CRM software. Significance of mobile sales automation solutions For field sales force Customer calls and order recording – Salespersons are better prepared to take customer calls and have instant access to complete customer information on mobile. It also gives them more time to be in the field than in the office. Orders booked are automatically recorded giving a comprehensive view of order history. Monitoring dealers and distributors – Salespersons have a different set of understanding and relationship with different dealers that requires on their part to be careful while offering specific discounts and margins to them. All such credentials can be administered via mobile automated system. It even helps them by storing contact information of the dealer. Managing sales territories – To shed the load of managing numerous territories, a salesperson is better equipped to access and manage information about different territories and customers, right with the tap of a finger. Assists in generating proposals and quotations – As soon as the customer gives the requirement, the salesperson is expected to present the proposal with the relevant quotes. The software negates the manual formation of complex proposals. Suggestions about product promotion – A company with a long product line catering to different market segments require the salesperson to use appropriate promotional campaigns. It gives a fair idea to the salesperson by suggesting a suitable option. Update about new stores opened in the corresponding areas – The system is well-managed to alert the salesperson about new stores added in the area. It

As a small business owner, you are often loaded with managing your business operations through multiple applications including client relationship, project management, address books, task list and many more but having a resourceful cloud-based CRM application for your mobile devices or laptops will make lead generation, selling and opportunity management fairly simple. Now get rid of any apprehensions of expanding your business as it is going to streamline the information exchange and augment your relationship with the ever increasing list of customers. There are many feature-rich CRMs available in the market today but we have chosen 5 CRM applications of the many • Insightly Insightly is an easy to use application that links together your clients, projects, tasks and any other custom field you wish to add on a single dashboard. It has an integrated search feature which enables you to search email attachments as well. It smoothly organizes your emails on the basis of clients, projects and teams so that all your interlinked information is grouped together. Apart from that, it integrates with Gmail & other Google applications, social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter. • Nimble Nimble is a social media oriented CRM tool which integrates all the mediums of interaction with your client including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Skype, phone or email. Identify the contacts looking for your products through search on social media websites and track their activities to know them more. Besides this, it automatically searches for your client’s profile on social networks and lets you update status or send messages to anyone. Nimble also integrates with Hootsuite which increases social selling and engagement opportunities. The Unified inbox interface listens to all the relevant communication occurring in social networks and present it on a single platform. • Batchbook You can easily import all your contacts into Batchbook by mapping the relevant fields. It gives you the freedom of merging records and tagging your contacts. Drag vcards and spreadsheets from your PC to any screen on Batchbook and it’ll be saved in an appropriate location. Get complete information about your customer, as it coagulates all sorts of communication including tweets, follow ups required, blog comments, at one place. Assign tasks to your team members and manage your leads & deals. Create custom fields to keep a track of important data in Batchbook. Like Nimble, it too integrates with Hootsuite and social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. • Greenrope GreenRope is a simple to use cloud-based platform to combine all your business operation and marketing needs. You can send emails and newsletters, manage events and set automatic reminders. Its social media marketing tools help you integrate with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc and you can view all the activities via social dashboard. GreenRope integrates with Zimbra to streamline your business email inbox and enhance productivity by collaborating with your team members through shared folders, documents and calendars. This CRM system even allows you to do SMS marketing by easily sending SMS to your contacts. Its real-time tracking feature allows tracking your marketing campaigns and knowing who is reading what. GreenRope easily synchronises with Microsoft Dynamics to quickly send the contact details from latter to former. • SugarCRM SugarCRM’s modern web calendar keeps you on time with your schedules and meetings. It also maintains the history of meetings with your clients which is easily searchable. SugarCRM email syncs with Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and IMAP based email servers. Its call center kit enables the call center agents to have a comprehensive view of customer information on a single screen. Like Insightly, it too integrates with Google apps including Google docs, maps, calendar, Android etc. Sugar Project and Activity Management helps the users to manage their tasks and enable seamless integration among the team members. Its reporting tools help you generate reports on market analysis, performance of sales reps, sales forecasting and much more. It offers quick search for data located anywhere in the CRM. And like many other CRMs, it integrates very well with leading social media networks. All the above mentioned CRM tools can be run on mobile devices, a great advantage for salespersons to save time while being on field. But one must chose the CRM system best suiting his business needs.