ProServe Tech Times - ProServe Solutions

ProServe Tech Times
Bi-Monthly Newsletter
ISSUE 03 FEB/MAR 2015
this issue
Employee Development P.2
Training Specials P.3
Employee Equipment P.4
Upcoming Events P.5
Employee Development P.2
It is now more important than ever
for business to create and implement strategies for employee development. Learn about the impact this
can have on your organization
Creating an Efficient Workforce
For a small or mid-size business one of your biggest assets is your workforce. Your employees can have more of an impact on your organization than any marketing, sales or customer service program. So why do most companies fail to invest in the development of their
employees, as they do in the other areas mentioned?
Investing in the development of your employees is one of the ways you can increase the
Training Specials P.3
Keeping your staff trained on all of
current core concepts of business
can be a daunting task. Let ProServe
and our industry experts help! Learn
about the amazing new specials we
are offering to help keep your staff
educated.
efficiency of your workforce. Many times employees develop inefficient work habits out of
lack of knowledge about the tools they have at their disposal. Training on the use of your
ERP or other software will almost always lead to the discovery of something your employee
did not know was available to them. These “unknown” features and functionality often
times can cut down on the time it takes for an employee to perform a task.
At the same time it is also important to make sure the software and hardware your employees are using are working efficiently. Slow computers with multiple errors can cause an
employee to waste an enormous amount of time each day.
Employee Equipment P.3
Computers have become the most
important tool that our staff uses
everyday. So why do so many companies not see the value in investing
in this area? Learn why it is so important to provide your staff with
tools that will help, not hinder, their
productivity.
The Importance of Employee Development
Newman, Daniel. The Importance of Employee Development Entrepreneur. Retrieved November 30, 2014, from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/77678
Many entrepreneurs seem to view employee training and development as more optional than essential...a viewpoint that can be costly to both shortterm profits and long-term progress.
The primary reason training is considered optional
by so many business owners is because it's viewed
more as an expense than an investment. This is
completely understandable when you realize that
in many companies, training and development
aren't focused on producing a targeted result for
the business. As a result, business owners frequently send their people to training courses that
seem right and sound good without knowing what
to expect in return. But without measurable results, it's almost impossible to view training as
anything more than an expense.
Now contrast that approach to one where training's viewed as a capital investment with thoughtful consideration as to how you're going to obtain
an acceptable rate of return on your investment.
And a good place to start your "thoughtful consideration" is with a needs analysis.
As it relates to training and development, a needs
analysis is really an outcome analysis--what do
you want out of this training? Ask yourself,
"What's going to change in my business or in the
behavior or performance of my employees as a
result of this training that's going to help my company?" Be forewarned: This exercise requires you
to take time to think it through and focus more on
your processes than your products.
As you go through this analysis, consider the
strengths and weaknesses in your company and
try to identify the deficiencies that, when corrected, represent a potential for upside gain in your
business. A common area for improvement in
many companies is helping supervisors better
manage for performance. Many people are promoted into managerial positions because they're
technically good at their jobs, but they aren't
trained as managers to help their subordinates
achieve peak performance.
Determining your training and development needs
based on targeted results is only the beginning.
The next step is to establish a learning dynamic for
your company.
In today's economy, if your business isn't learning,
then you're going to fall behind. And a business
learns as its people learn. Your employees are the
ones that produce, refine, protect, deliver and
manage your products or services every day, year
in, year out. With the rapid pace and international
reach of the 21st century marketplace, continual
learning is critical to your business's continued
success.
To create a learning culture in your business,
begin by clearly communicating your expectation
that employees should take the steps necessary to
hone their skills to stay on top of their professions
or fields of work. Make sure you support their
efforts in this area by supplying the resources they
need to accomplish this goal. Second, communicate to your employees the specific training needs
and targeted results you've established as a result
of your needs analysis.
Third, provide a sound introduction and orientation to your company's culture, including your
learning culture, to any new employees you hire.
This orientation should introduce employees to
your company, and provide them with proper
training in the successful procedures your company's developed and learned over time.
Every successful training and development program also includes a component that addresses
your current and future leadership needs. At its
core, this component must provide for the systematic identification and development of your managers in terms of the leadership style that drives
your business and makes it unique and profitable.
Have you spent time thoughtfully examining the
style of leadership that's most successful in your
environment and that you want to promote? What
steps are you taking to develop those important
leadership traits in your people?
Financial considerations related to training can be
perplexing, but in most cases, the true budgetary
impact depends on how well you manage the first
three components (needs analysis, learning and
leadership). If your training is targeted to specific
business results, then you're more likely to be
happy with what you spend on training. But if the
training budget isn't related to specific outcomes,
then money is more likely to be spent on courses
that have no positive impact on the company.
In many organizations, training budgets are solely
a function of whether the company is enjoying an
economic upswing or enduring a downturn. In
good times, companies tend to spend money on
training that's not significant to the organization,
and in bad times, the pendulum swings to the
other extreme and training is eliminated altogether. In any economic environment, the training
expense should be determined by the targeted
business results you want, not other budgetrelated factors.
To help counter this tendency, sit down and assess
your training and development needs once or
twice a year to identify your needs and brainstorm
how to achieve your desired results effectively and
efficiently.
Your employees are your principle business asset.
Invest in them thoughtfully and strategically, and
you'll reap rewards that pay off now and for years
to come.
EPAK
Deploying enterprise business solutions
and ensuring all employees are trained
on all your business processes and
systems is no easy task. Like most companies in the current economy, you're
trying to do more with less—and the
pressure on your employees to get
things right, the first time is greater
than ever. Add in new regulations that
force you to adhere to strict compliance standards, and the need to document and capture critical business
processes becomes even more critical.
The Infor™ Enterprise Performance
Accelerator Kit (EPAK) can help you
meet these challenges, so you reduce
costs and errors and recognize ROI
more quickly.
Infor EPAK can help you:

Increase employee productivity
fourfold

Create business processes from 50
to 75% faster

Reduce costs and errors
We accomplish these results by simulating your business processes in the
EPAK training environment to ensure
that all of your employees have the
skills they need to succeed in your
business. EPAK can increase employee
productivity by as much as 20%, while
at the same time reducing the number
of transaction errors. So, you get a
more productive, more successful
workforce, as well as lower costs and
higher customer satisfaction rates.
With EPAK and Infor solutions, you’re
ready to do business better so you can
realize ROI faster
View EPAK Demo
Training Specials
For February and March of 2015, ProServe Solutions,
LLC is planning some new training packages as a
special offering for our valued Infor ERP customers.
Offering #1
For your Managers with P&L Responsibilities (nonfinancial professionals)
Offering #2
Offering #3
For your employees who are responsible for
purchasing products for stock
For Newly Hired Employees
Business case: Training on managing your number one financial asset, your Inventory
Business Case: Training in Understanding Financial
Reports
You’re at the company holiday party and the boss
announces, “Sorry folks, there are no bonuses
this year. My cash is all tied up in inventory!”
You’re on a plane and the Pilot comes on the overhead speaker and announces: “I have good news and
bad news. The bad news is that all of our instrumentation is out and we don’t know where we’re heading.
The good news is that we have a great tail wind so
we’ll get there quicker!”
Solution: Commit to having anyone who is responsible for determining what gets stocked, sets
up your products, or purchases your stocking
inventory fully versed in the concepts of cost to
carry, cost to replenish, and inventory turns vs.
service level commitments.
Solution: Everyone does better when they understand how the company’s financial goals and success
is measured and more importantly how they have an
impact in that success. Give your Managers (those
specifically with Profit and Loss responsibilities) a
plain English, easy to understand one day session in
financial intelligence. Do they know what questions
to ask? Do they understand where the numbers come
from? What is the basis for decisions they are making
about buying equipment, adding new products, or
hiring new people? Are revenues growing or declining? The goal of this daylong session is to provide the
attendees with an understanding of the basic foundations of financial reporting, how to read an income
statement and balance sheet so that the numbers can
help them make better decisions in their departments.
We are offering a one day seminar on Inventory
Management. This is for any of our customers,
whether or not you are currently using the replenishment system in your Infor ERP system.
The morning portion of this training will cover
the basics of inventory replenishment and its
impact on your customer service levels, customer
retention and profits. We’ll start with how to set
up your items, your warehouse items and also
teach the basics of the reports that will help you
to have the right product on the shelf in the right
quantity at the right time. The goal of this session is teach you how to use your software to
enable you to become the vendor of choice for
your customers.
This training is provided at our office for a seminar
fee of $ 499.00 per attendee. Lunch will be provided.
We will then move into daily buying activities and
how to manage any exceptions. We will discuss
what to do with dead stock, when to freeze (or
not freeze!) your ordering controls.
And finally we will transition into Advance Inventory Management and see how these concepts
can really reduce your cost to serve (i.e. reducing
freight costs) and at the same time improve your
customer satisfaction and retention rates. This
training is a must for all distribution businesses!
The seminar will be provided at our office location for a flat fee of $ 450.00 per person and
lunch will be provided. Discounted group rates
are available if your company has more than 4
people attend.
How you onboard new employees directly
impacts retention and turnover. And
“employee turnover is a costly problem,”
according to Mindflash.com, “And with 22%
of employees leaving their jobs within the
first 45 days of employment, it’s all the more
important to be sure that your employees
are assimilated into your company with
special care and ease.”
Business case: Training for new employeesStart them off right!
Solution: If you provide our trainers with
what your new employee’s role and responsibilities will be within your organization, we
will train them on how to do their job in
your ERP system (and with any modifications you have). This is something we currently provide as a training service to our
customers and those that take advantage of
it are very pleased with the results. They
have better users right from the start. Some
have even built ProServe Solution’s
onboarding training program into their ISO
procedures. We have many who report
back to us that their long time users are
learning new tips and tricks from their new
co-workers who have been through this
training. The end result is that everyone
becomes more efficient. Your users get
more out of the features of the software
because they know what’s available and
how it works. And they feel more confident
and able to contribute to the organization
sooner.
Please give us your feedback! Are you interested in taking advantage of some of all of
these options?
We will begin the scheduling and planning
phase soon, so if you would like to offer
suggestions or have input into scheduling,
please email me directly. Thank you!
Julie Zindle, email: [email protected]
How a Slow Computer Effects Your Staff’s Efficiency
When we analyze our employees’ productivi-
who isn't?), "overclocking" or adding RAM
ty, one of the main causes of decreased effi-
will let you switch seamlessly between pro-
ciency can be the speed of the main tool
grams without draining your hard drive.
they use to perform their daily jobs, their
computer.
Reliability: Better protection against system
failures, crashes and viruses not only makes
Our workforce has become so reliant on
for fewer interruptions (and less frustrated
computers that we use them to accomplish
employees), but also for less time spent on
almost every aspect of our job. Having to
IT assistance. Whether you're tapping dedi-
wait for a slow computer to respond can
cated IT staff or wasting your own time on
have a direct impact on an employee’s
the horn getting advice, a sound machine
productivity and can also impact customer
means far fewer interruptions.
service.
allowing companies to do just that.
Benefits of Desktop Virtualization

Increase the reliability and security
of the devices

Lower Replacement Costs of each
Device

Stay up-to-date on the newest
versions of Microsoft without having to buy new hardware
Think about the impact that a 20% increase
The results of a recent Harris Interactive
in productivity would have on your bottom
survey showed that 29% of Office Computer
line. So how do we achieve this?
Users Say Computer Problems are the Top
Virtual desktops and Thin clients are
Whether its investing in a desktop virtualization strategy or creating a sched-
Several new advances in technology have
uled upgrade plan for PC’s, it is im-
made it easier than ever for small business
portant to keep the most used tool in
In addition, a recent NY Times article dis-
to keep their hardware up-to-date. One of
optimal working condition.
cussed the topic of computers and how they
these being the development of Thin Client
affect productivity and identified 4 different
technology
Reason for Decreased Productivity.
areas of impact:
Time: The minutes that a faster machine
saves — at start-up, at shutdown and in
managing programs in between — may
seem like small gains. Over time, however,
Keeping your computer up-to-date and
running efficiently can have a huge impact on the productivity of your staff
Virtual Desktops: The Future of the PC
and at the same time improve your
PC virtualization is the new trend for com-
customer service levels.
panies looking to lower their overall hardware expenses.
these minutes can add up quickly. Imagine
Imagine being able to replace a failed PC for
recapturing just 10 minutes a day, Monday
as low as $299! Or imagine upgrading every
through Friday, doing actual work instead of
PC on your network from windows 7 to win-
waiting out that irritating little hourglass on
dows 8 for a low as $999!
your screen. At nearly an hour each week,
this translates to a full week of added work
time a year — per employee.
Thin Client’s for Desktop Virtualization
Speed: Even a basic upgrade can have a real,
immediate impact on your ability to cruise
through the task at hand. Swapping out your
graphics card, for example, allows you to
add a second monitor to your desktop — and
increase your productivity by as much as 20
to 30 percent.
Multitasking: Optimized computers allow
you to multitask, which is essential to getting
stuff done. If you're running several programs at once throughout your day (and
3000 Series
Efficient, easy-to-use thin
client, from the entry-level
3010-T10 and 3050-T50 to the
highly capable dual core 3012T10D for cost-effective virtual
desktop sites.
5000 Series
5000 Series All-in-One
Thin client for virtual desktop environments also
serves as a powerful yet
compact cloud desktop.
Increase security and make
desktop management easy
with a virus- and malwareimmune all-in-one thin client
featuring Wyse ThinOS and a
21.5" display
Starting at $499
Starting at $299
Starting at $699
Professional Development
The FACTS User Group
Every other month the FACTS User
Group holds a meeting to discuss
different topics chosen by the members. The idea is to share information and business practices with
other users, to increase the effectiveness of the FACTS product.
Upcoming Events
FACTS User Group
Date: February 19th, 2015
Topic: How to manage your defective and obsolete inventory
Time: 9:00—10:00 AM (EST)
Location: ProServe Solutions, 2402 North Forest Rd. Getzville, NY 14068
Or GoToMeeting Online
At the end of each session we reserve time so that the attendees
may ask any questions they might
have to the ProServe FACTS expert
attending that meeting. This is an
opportunity for FREE training!
ProServe Tech Times
ISSUE 03 FEB/MAR 2015
What If You Could Wednesday
Date: March 18th, 2015
Topic: To Be Announced
Time: 12:00 PM (EST)
Location: GoToMeeting Online
ProServe Solutions, LLC
2402 N. Forest Rd
Getzville NY 14068
716.635.5080 ph
716.635.5099 fax
www.proserve-solutions.com