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Data Taming for Small Businesses |
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How do I select the best software for my business? Should I use cloud software? I have a program my business has been using for several years. It won't run on the newest computer we bought. What should I do? What's the best CRM software? I'm using an old database program that still works for me. I'm afraid I can't keep using it because it's no longer supported, but I don't want to give it up. What should I do? I see there are programs that claim to be easy to use for creating your own database. How easy are they really and which ones do you recommend? How to split names into first and last names in Excel and Google Sheets How to remove duplicate records in your data Article: Before You Buy Your New System Article: How to Move an Access Database to the Web How do I select the best software for my business? First determine the features and functions you need and want. Think magically. Pretend you can have anything. Then look for software that comes the closest to what you determined you need and want. When looking at prices be sure to think about implementation costs and cost of ownership. Don't only look at the initial purchase price. This is a good article on mistakes to avoid when purchasing software for a business: Six Mistakes to Avoid When Purchasing Software for your Small Business The mistakes it covers are: - Not thinking ahead - Overlooking additional costs - Favoring features over functions - Relying on opinions of others - Going for too many options (and complexity) - Ignoring product life cycle - Downplaying data security This list is really seven - not six - if you include relying on opinions of others. The article briefly mentions getting employee buy-in. I would add NOT getting employee buy-in early in the selection process as an eighth mistake. It's an important one. Should I use cloud software? The smaller your business is, the better cloud software will be. It generally frees you from big upfront purchase costs and your data is more secure than you can keep it in your office. The same advantages can be applied to larger businesses as well. One downside to cloud software can be the difficulty in moving your data to another service if you need to. You also need to be prepared for unexpected outages which you will have no control over. The better services do a great job at uptime, but even the best can have a service outage once in a while. I have a program my business has been using for several years. It won't run on the newest computer we bought. What should I do? There are a couple of options. If you can install the program on a new computer, but it causes an error when you try to run it, you might be able to get it to work by setting the compatability mode for it. Here is a video that does a good job explaining how to set compatibility in Windows 7: Making Older Software Work in Windows 7 If you get an error when you try to install it on the new computer a good option would be to set up a virtual machine. This might require help from your computer support tech. What's the best CRM software? CRM stands for customer relationship management. CRM software helps businesses manage the relationships with new and existing customers. It often includes marketing and sales tools. There is no single best CRM software package. In order to select a package that will fit with your business you should examine your current customer relationship processes, including sales and marketing. CRM software should be used to automate your processes so you can reduce the time managing this part of your business. CRM software is typically advertised as a solution that will automatically do your sales and marketing for you. This is hype. You have to work out your sales and marketing processes yourself. The software is only a tool for streamlining and automating those processes. If you don't already have clear sales and marketing strategies and processes in place, CRM software won't do you much good. I'm using an old database program that still works for me. I'm afraid I can't keep using it because it's no longer supported, but I don't want to give it up. What should I do? Many businesses end up in this situation. They've been using a perfectly good desktop database management program that has met their needs for several years. They've added functionality and captured a lot of data over time. But the software company that produced it drops support and lets it die after it's shifted its focus toward other products. A good example of this is IBM's Lotus Approach, which was part of the Lotus SmartSuite office software suite. It was a competitor to Microsoft's Office. Lotus Smartsuite included Lotus 123 for spreadsheets. Lotus Approach was a database management tool like Microsoft Access. It was faster and easier to create your own database with Approach than with Access. Many people used it for job tracking and other core processes for their small businesses. It worked well enough that now many don't want to give it up. But they're concerned that it won't work on the next incarnation of Windows, and will be forced to migrate to something else. I believe that if a program has been doing the job you shouldn't be forced to abandon it for something else. I would recommend that if the program won't install or run on a new computer system, see if there's a way to use a compatibility mode that will work, or explore running with a virtual machine solution. According to some forums out there Lotus SmartSuite 9.8.2 will run on Windows 10. I see there are programs that claim to be easy to use for creating your own database. How easy are they really and which ones do you recommend? For many years Microsoft Access has been popular with businesses to create their own custom databases. But many people have found it difficult to get started with. Over time the program has added template databases to get you up and running quickly. In addition to Access there are now cloud-based database programs that claim to be easier to use than Access. All the current contenders claim that you can get a database application up and running for your business in minutes. They claim you don't need a programmer or programming skills. One way this is possible is with templates. Many database management packages come with a set of ready-to-go database templates to choose from for common business needs. They also include the ability to use databases that have already been created by others. It is true that you can get your own database up and running on your own without technical or programming skills with these programs. However, sooner or later you run into a scenario that requires some special customization. The advantage to using these programs is that they allow you to get much of your own system put together without having to hire a programmer to create a custom database. Potential issues include functionality that has to be specially programmmed, and vendor lock-in. Cloud-based subscription databases lock you in to storing your data on the vendor's servers and you have to hope they don't go out of business or deliver unsatisfactory service. The best choice for you depends on your unique circumstances. There is no one best choice for everyone. You'll want to look for a program that comes closest to doing everything you need out of the box, that's easy to use, and that's delivered by a vendor with a solid reputation. You might want to call on a consultant to help you evaluate some of the choices. A consultant would need to help you determine cost of ownership, cost of migrating any existing data you have into a new database, and vendor reliability. Here are reviews of some popular choices out there: Caspio Zoho Creator Microsoft Access Intuit Quickbase FileMaker How to split names into first and last names in Excel and Google Sheets If you have a spreadsheet with first and last names in cells, and want to split them into separate cells, here's how: - Excel (WikiHow) - Google Sheets (YouTube video): How to remove duplicate records in your data This is a big topic. Duplicate records can get into spreadsheets and all kinds of databases. One of the most common types of duplication is contact names and addresses. This causes problems when doing mailing campaigns and the same contact receives more than one copy of a mailing. It also presents an issue with finding out just how many contacts and customers you really have. I'm going to talk here about the simplest scenarios. Let's start with duplicate contact data in an Excel spreadsheet. The latest versions of Excel make it easy to remove duplicate rows. You select one of the cells in one of the rows and then click on the "Data" tab of the ribbon menu. Then click on "Remove Duplicates". You'll get a dialog box which is simple to use. It lets you select and deselect columns to include, as well as lets you specify if the top row has headings for the columns, and therefore to ignore. A good illustrated guide is here: How to Remove Duplicates in Excel Of course, this simple method only works for exact duplicates. Identifying duplicate names and addresses is often considerably more complex because they can be entered multiple ways. More thoughts on deduping contacts are here. |