How to manage the perfectionist on your team

By Toni Bowers | April 25, 2012, 6:44 AM PDT

When I was very young, I used to think it was clever when asked in an interview about my biggest weakness to say that I was a bit of a perfectionist. Because who wouldn't want someone on their team who wanted to make sure everything was right?

It turns out I wouldn't. A few years later, I was managing a small team in a start-up that was growing rapidly. Much of the early success of this young company lay in the fact that we were flexible and innovative, and that allowed us to develop and create products in record time. This is not to say that we put out shoddy products. They were pretty darn good, but we knew that, in the business we were in, timeliness of delivery was just as important as the finished product.

So I had a guy on my team, I'll call him Biff, who was very committed to the quality of anything he worked on and was dedicated to the company as a whole. But I came to realize that every task I sent Biff's way would come to a screeching halt as he agonized over every detail. He would pepper me with questions that were so minor to the task at hand that the answers wouldn't affect the outcome and therefore were a waste of time to ask. Or he would present to me every conceivable (and some even inconceivable) scenario that could occur and ask how we would handle it if it happened.

His fixation on these kinds of things interfered with his process of setting priorities. His preoccupation with detail would inevitably lead to stalls in every project he was involved in. Also, he was unable to delegate because, on some level, he believed he was the only one who could do the task right.

Now I can hear all the perfectionists out there crying foul. "We need perfectionists to make sure the products or processes are the best they can be!" (For example, you would definitely look for perfectionist tendencies if you're shopping around for a brain surgeon.) But most corporate products, especially those not being physically consumed, don't have to be "perfect."

And there is an issue with the definition of what constitutes "perfection." What paralyzes the perfectionist is that they want things to be perfect, but their standards of perfection are too high to be achievable, especially in their own eyes. It's a catch-22.

So how do you manage a perfectionist on your team?

Appreciate what's positive about the perfectionist. He or she may see details that you won't.

Be careful with feedback. I think sometimes that criticism triggers something in the heads of perfectionists that makes them dig their heels in even further.

Don't give them very complex, strategic tasks, especially ones that require managing others. Assign them tasks that need a fastidious eye, the more tactical the better.

Assign deadlines. In fact, it may be the first question a perfectionist asks you upon assignment of a task because it's one more aspect they need to get right.

Make sure you highlight often the behavior you want to see more of.

Help the person to see how the behavior might limit their career growth. A tendency to micromanage and an inability to see the big picture might limit leadership avenues for a perfectionist.
build-access-manage at dayaciptamandiri.com

New Release ServiceDesk Plus 8.1!

We are super excited to announce our latest release, ServiceDesk Plus 8.1!

We have strengthened its ITIL capabilities with the new CMDB feature to improve

overall service availability. Our CMDB feature is designed to address core usability

challenges. The latest version also includes an enhanced Service Catalog, with a

new multi-level approval feature for service requests, which makes IT easier for end

users to view the SLAs' "agreed upon time," which is displayed before creating the service request.

We have added new capabilities for the self-service portal. With easier ticket creation,

the self-service portal reduces the load for IT administrators. The upgraded user interface

and the real-time streaming of ticket status & history allows end-users to help themselves.

More details on ServiceDesk Plus 8.1 is available here.
build-access-manage at dayaciptamandiri.com

Apakah Managed Service Software itu?

What is managed services software?

Posted March 9th, 2012 by Joe Panettieri

Managed services software is a generic term that can cover many types of software such as:

• RMM — remote monitoring and management software, which allows an MSP to remotely — and pro-actively — manage customers’ PCs, servers, network infrastructure and mobile devices.
• PSA — professional services automation software, which is similar to ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management) software, specially built for MSPs. PSA allows MSPs to more closely track IT projects, IT staff workloads, marketing campaigns, and more.
• MDM — mobile device management software, which is sometimes built into RMM platforms but also available separately in many cases. MDM software allows MSPs to remotely manage customers’ tablets and smartphones, and is most often designed to support Apple iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Google Android tablets. Some MDM platforms also support BlackBerry, Microsoft Windows Phone and Microsoft operating systems — including Windows 7 and Windows 8.
• ITSM — IT service management software, including help desk software and cloud-based help-desk services.

60% dari perusahaan Fortune 500 menggunakan ManageEngine

60% of Fortune 500 Companies Running ManageEngine

Posted April 23rd, 2012 by Joe Panettieri

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More than 50,000 customers now use ManageEngine’s software to manage enterprise IT systems — including three out of five Fortune 500 companies. Zoho Corp., a privately held, self-funded company, has built both ManageEngine and Zoho — a SaaS rival to Google Apps. So how is ManageEngine engaging MSPs? And what are the potential synergies between ManageEngine and Zoho? Raj Sabhlok, president of Zoho Corp., offered some perspectives during a recent conversation at the company’s Pleasanton, Calif., offices.
The story starts during the dot-com implosion a decade ago. At the time, Zoho focused mainly on a set of tools that became WebNMS — a management system mainly for OEMs in the telecom market. When the dot-com implosion upended the telecom market, Zoho Corp. (formerly called AdventNet) looked for new markets to infiltrate. Over time, those efforts emerged as ManageEngine (IT management for enterprises and managed services providers) and Zoho (SaaS productivity and business applications).

Home-grown IT Management

Zoho Corp. built ManageEngine from the ground up, delivering a common dashboard for network monitoring and application management. The company is self-funded with no venture capital and no plans to go public. The idea was to disrupt established IT management players like CA Technologies, BMC, Hewlett-Packard OpenView and IBM Tivoli. ManageEngine targeted enterprise and mid-market IT managers from the start, with managed services providers (MSPs) also a prime customer base. Indeed, 12 to 15 percent of ManageEngine’s customers are MSPs that typically serve mid-market organizations, says Sabhlok.
With ManageEngine, ”we wanted the world to realize IT management didn’t need to be complex,” says Sabhlok. “We built software that can be evaluated over the web.”
A few examples:

• OpManager was ManageEngine’s first offering in the network management market and tends to compete head-on with SolarWinds, asserts Sabhlok.
• More recently, ManageEngine’s ServiceDesk Plus has emerged as the company’s top seller, Sabhlok says.
• ManageEngine has also been focusing on it’s IT360 suite, tying together network, application, server and service desk capabilities into a single platform. “It’s really what the Big 4 promised 20 years ago,” says Sabhlok, referring to CA, BMC, HP and IBM. “But we can get you up and running in weeks rather than months and years, and at a fraction of the cost.”

Meanwhile, Zoho Corp. has also built out Zoho — the SaaS suite for businesses. And there are some synergies between Zoho SaaS applications and ManageEngine’s network management offerings. A prime example: Zoho Reports, released last year, offers reporting and analytics that integrate with ManageEngine’s software. As a result, MSPs can  take all of their IT management data and populate Zoho Reports, producing timely reports for partners and customers.

Unique Business Model

To keep expanding, roughly 90 percent of ManageEngine’s staff focuses on software development, and roughly 40 percent of revenues are plowed back into R&D, while less than 20 percent involve sales and marketing.
Company officials say there’s no need to pursue an IPO (initial public offering) or venture capital because ManageEngine and Zoho have leveraged the self-funding, heavy R&D model for more than a decade.
That R&D will help ManageEngine to support a “renaissance in IT management,” says Sabhlok. And hardly surprising, the company continues to expand its software portfolio.
Among the key additions: ManageEngine’s Configuration Management Database (CMDB) will be on display at this week’s Help Desk Institute (HDI) conference in Orlando. CMDB lets MSPs track and manage customers’ IT assets in a single repository.
Also, ManageEngine has been assisting MSPs in such areas as password management, directory management and vulnerability management.

Next Moves

So what’s next for ManageEngine? The company has several surprises planned for MSPs in the May timeframe. But the overall business strategy — pouring about 40 percent of revenues back into R&D — remains unchanged. With one or more ManageEngine applications running in 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies, it’s hard to argue with the strategy.

MENANGKAN PERSAINGAN DENGAN MEMENANGKAN HATI PELANGGAN

MENANGKAN PERSAINGAN DENGAN MEMENANGKAN HATI PELANGGAN

*Inu Machfud *

Sebagai pemasar profesional, pemilik merek atau profesional dalam bidang advertising, kita semua pasti sadar sepenuhnya bahwa kita berkompetisi untuk memperebutkan pilihan pelanggan. Memperebutkan pelanggan dengan cara yang elegan lebih seperti memperebutkan ?hati mereka' dan bukan hanya memperebutkan ?billing mereka'.

Jadi, sebenarnya saat kita bersaing untuk memperebutkan hati pelanggan, hal ini dapat dianalogikan seperti saat kita berupaya untuk memenangkan hati pasangan hidup kita. Uniknya lagi, proses memilih dan memilah calon pasangan hidup juga perlu dilakukan dalam melaksanakan kegiatan marketing, dalam hal ini adalah memilih dan memilah calon pelanggan.

Bila dalam memilih calon pasangan hidup tools-nya adalah "bibit, bebet, dan bobot", maka dalam memilih dan memilah pelanggan modalnya adalah segmenting, targeting & positioning (STP). Cara kerja metode STP sederhana saja. Ide dasar dari melakukan segmentasi adalah kita melakukan review , atau memilah karakteristik pasar di mana kita akan masuk. Karakteristik itu biasanya tersegmentasi dalam beberapa kategori, yaitu kategori demografis, geografis dan psikografis. Hal yang sama pasti kita lakukan saat memilih pasangan hidup, yaitu memilah-milah kategori 'area perburuan' yang akan kita masuki. Apakah di area pekerjaan/ kampus, apakah area tempat tinggal (= tetangga sendiri), apakah area tempat hang-out, dan lain sebagainya.

Setelah kita memahami peta segmentasi pelanggan, maka tahap berikutnya adalah melakukan targetting atau memilih. Berapa tingkat usia pelanggan yang kita targetkan, kepada status gender mana, di mana area produk kita akan di pasarkan, dan kepada orang-orang dengan kebiasaan seperti apa. Sampai di sini makin mirip dengan proses memilih pasangan hidup kita bukan? setelah mengetahui 'peta area perburuan', maka kita akan menakar target kita. Masalahnya hanya apakah dalam mentarget ini kita objektif, dalam artian disesuaikan oleh kemampuan/hal yang kita bisa tawarkan, atau cenderung subjektif, karena lebih didasarkan pada ego kita.

Proses selanjutnya yang tidak kalah penting adalah melakukan positioning. Melakukan positioning berarti menempatkan citra ciri atau merek kita dalam peta benak pelanggan. Kata kuncinya adalah: seperti apa kita ingin dikenali? Apakah sebagai pribadi kita ingin dikenal sebagai anak baik-baik, anak gaul, sebagai pengusaha atau ahli di bidang tertentu, atau bila produk, apakah produk kita ingin dikenal sebagai produk premium, produk berkualitas atau produk murah meriah? tentunya positioning ini harus disesuaikan dengan target market kita. Jangan sampai kita mentargetkan pasangan hidup yang shaleh dan shaleha, berjilbab, dan taat, tetapi positioning kita adalah anak dugem!

Setelah seluruh tahap tersebut dilewati, berarti saatnya melakukan action. Tetapi action yang sembrono biasanya hanya berarti satu: kegagalan. Untuk meminimalisir gagalnya kita memenangkan hati mereka, kita perlu merancang langkah-langkah action yang sistematis, rapi dan strategis. Secara sederhana, sistematika dari action yang akan kita lakukan harus mencapai urut-urutan objektif berikut: **

*1. Awareness.* Tak kenal maka tak sayang, awareness atau pengenalan adalah kunci pertama memenangkan persaingan. Tidak soal apakah kita atau merek kita dikenal secara luas, atau hanya dikenal di lingkungan kita, selama kondisi tersebut sesuai dengan segmentasi dan target yang telah kita tentukan berupayalah sebaik-baiknya untuk meningkatkan pengenalan terhadap kita atau produk kita. Tingkat awareness menentukan sejauh mana pasar mengenal produk kita dan menjadikannya referensi.

*2. Knowledge/Comprehend. *Diterjemahkan sebagai pemahaman. Setelah kenal berikutnya kita harus mengupayakan agar target kita mengetahui siapa kita dan seperti apa produk kita. Pemahaman atau knowledge ini seringkali terabaikan karena biasanya kita lebih fokus terhadap awareness, alih-alih menjadikan produk kita terkenal. Situasinya dapat dibayangkan seperti cuplikan ini: "Sophia Latcuba? iya saya pernah denger namanya. Dia itu peragawati kan?"

Pemahaman menjadi penting agar target bisa membedakan antara siapa kita dengan siapa competitor kita DENGAN TEPAT. Dengan kata lain, pemahaman yang baik dari target harus didasarkan atas positioning yang kita miliki. Selain itu, hal yang paling buruk dengan tidak adanya pemahaman dari target terhadap identitas yang kita miliki adalah mereka tidak akan mengetahui manfaat atau value yang akan kita berikan untuk mereka.* *

*3. Attractiveness.* Pada tahap ini semua menjadi semakin menarik, setelah kenal dan tahu, selanjutnya kita harus berjuang agar target tertarik kepada kita. Minimal tertarik kepada hal-hal yang kita tawarkan. Dalam aktivitas marketing, di sinilah peran advertising yang paling penting, dengan berbagai macam tools dan pendekatan yang dimiliki. Seluruh daya upaya yang dikerahkan oleh advertising pada akhirnya adalah menciptakan ketertarikan yang kuat sebagai pull factor. Istilahnya, advertising agency adalah makcomblang yang menuntun target untuk dipertemukan dengan kita, dan mereka juga habis-habisan mendekati kita supaya tampak menarik.

*4. Preferensi. *Setelah tertarik? inilah tahap yang menentukan. Mungkin saja target mulai tertarik dan mengarahkan hatinya pada kita. Tetapi jangan lupa, dihatinya juga sudah ada ketertarikan terhadap kompetitor-kompetitor kita. Oleh sebab itu, upaya selanjutnya adalah melakukan, paling tidak kita masuk ke dalam short list dari target, atau menjadi preferensi/pilihan bagi mereka.

*5. Action. *Nah, setelah masuk shortlist tinggal harap-harap cemas dan banyak berdoa agar kita bisa memenangkan persaingan, sehingga action dari target adalah menggunakan/ membeli apa yang kita tawarkan. Namun tidak sepenuhnya seperti itu. Ada lagi strategi yang bisa dilakukan untuk meningkatkan action, yaitu dengan melakukan push factor atau mendorong agar penawaran kita selalu hadir dan mengiming-imingi target di lingkungan sekitar mereka.

Untuk produk, tools yang dapat kita mainkan adalah distribusi, yaitu kita harus hadir pada setiap outlet yang kerap dikunjungi target. Harapannya, lama kelamaan mereka akan luluh, tergoda dan akhirnya selalu membeli produk. Untuk masalah hati, ya pastinya "you must always be there for him/her". Minimal lewat Yahoo Messenger atau Facebook lah.

Satu hal yang tidak boleh dilupakan setelah kita berhasil mendapatkan action dari target adalah untuk selalu menjaga tingkat kepuasan pelanggan sehingga kita tetap memiliki tingkat retain (pembelian kembali) yang baik. Prinsipnya, setelah kita mendapatkan target kita, jagalah mereka, rawat dan setialah pada mereka, sehingga mereka juga dengan senang hati selalu memberikan apa yang kita inginkan dari mereka.* *

--

*Rky Refrinal Patiradjawane* Praktisi Riset Pemasaran dan Strategi

Pentingnya sebuah persekutuan

Kehidupan yg diberkati Tuhan, cirinya kerukunan

Persekutuan org Kristen merupakan perjumpaan dgn Tuhan

Persekutuan Kristen, ditandai:
+ dalam terang
+ diwarnai pengakuan dosa, pertobatan, pengampunan

Kesalahpahaman perlu kerendahan hati. Persekutuan Kristen artinya mau mengampuni, mau meminta maaf.

Injil Yohanes 20, persekutuan murid Tuhan. TYK hadir dan memberikan kekuatan, sukacita bagi murid Tuhan. Tidak semua murid hadir, Thomas tidak hadir.

Thomas, selalu dimunculkan dlm konotasi positif. Thomas yg mengajak murid lain utk mati bersama TYK di Betania.

Yoh 14:5, Thomas bertanya, mengenai jalan kemana Yesus pergi. Bandingkan dgn Yoh 14:6

Ini menunjukkan Thomas bukan seorg peragu, melainkan sebaliknya. Thomas tdk hadir, dan byk terlewatkan berkat Tuhan:
+ kehadiran TYK
+ kuasa TYK
+ damai sejahtera TYK
+ bukti sukacita TYK bangkit
+ pengutusan dari TYK
+ roh kudus dari TYK / karunia

Kematian TYK membuat Thomas menyendiri bersedih.

Mengapa kehadiran dan kesetiaan kita dlm ibadah jgn dilewatkan ?
+ TYK menyediakan berkat bagi kita

Tuhan perlu mendapatkan prioritas dlm hidup kita.

Alasan bersekutu:
+ hadir di gereja bersekutu adalah perintah Tuhan. Kehadiran bukan pilihan
+ melewatkan 1 kebaktian, berarti melewatkan momentum yg tdk akan terulang lagi
+ TYK menyediakan berkat khusus bagi kita
+ siapapun kita, kita adalah anggota tubuh Kristus, sehingga kehadiran kita menyempurnakan ibadah bagi Tuhan

TYK mati untuk memungkinkan persekutuan Allah dan manusia tetap terjalin.

build-access-manage at dayaciptamandiri.com

Extend enterprise collaboration to tablets

By Will Kelly | April 12, 2012, 7:39 AM PDT

Today's model for enterprise collaboration isn't just about PCs and Macs anymore. Collaboration needs to extend to tablets, not only because of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), but because tablets are playing an increasing role in many businesses. You need to implement a strategy and appropriate technology choices to help your organization extend enterprise collaboration to tablets — whether they be BYOD or company-owned — without a loss of communications or productivity.

Bring the tablet to the enterprise

Making corporate or BYOD tablets collaboration worthy requires some standards, training, and potential adjustments to existing processes. Here are some actions to consider when extending enterprise collaboration to your tablet users:

Provide collaboration training and documentation for tablet users. Since enterprise collaboration probably predates tablet usage inside your organization, some end user training on how to use the new apps are going to be in order, especially with document collaboration software. This training is best done prior to mobile users hitting the road for the first time with their new tablets.

Account for tablet users in help desk processes and escalation procedures. If tablets are new to the enterprise, then it's time to provide training to the help desk staff so they can service the new tablets users, including their connectivity and application issues.

Use a standard Office app on your corporate tablets. While Microsoft Office for the iPad is still at the rumor stage at the time of this writing, choices do abound for Office apps on the tablet, such as iWork (iPad only), CloudOn (Android version on the horizon), Documents To Go (iPad and Android), and Quickoffice Pro (iPad and Android). Each of these apps has their strengths and drawbacks, so set your expectations accordingly. Test your documents, like presentation slides, on tablets before you let the users loose out in the field, especially if customers will be viewing them.

Adapt processes for tablet users (if needed): Audit your current business processes to see if you need to adjust them for tablet users, particularly those who might be coming into the corporate network remotely.

Bring the enterprise to tablets

Companies like IBM and a growing list of other vendors are already extending their collaboration apps to tablets, but extending an existing collaboration platform is often possible. Besides general practices at the network access and tablet levels, there's the collaboration platform itself to worry about, including built-In security checks and audits.

Extending enterprise collaboration to tablets in your organization might add some additional requirements to your internally hosted or cloud-based collaboration platform. These include:

SSL encryption for all communications. Look for 256-bit SSL to protect data transport between the collaboration platform and the tablet user.

Strong data encryption. Database protection should be with 256-bit AES data encryption. Limit access to an IP range.

Mobile-specific security settings. Shut down clients by type to allow or disallow web, desktop, and mobile from connecting with your network. Administrators configure in-app settings to control access through IP ranges. Setup password strength requirements.

Directory services support. Look for Active Directory or LDAP support, depending on your organizational standard.

Detailed access logs. Look for a platform with detailed logs per user/device that's fully auditable. The logs should be in a fully encrypted database on the server.

Outside of locking down your enterprise collaboration platform, here are a few other options to pursue for extending enterprise collaboration to your organization's tablets:

Standardize on a SharePoint app (if you are a SharePoint shop). A big question for organizations standardized on Microsoft SharePoint is how to get their tablets to access SharePoint data. I use SharePlus (available for the iPad and Android), but there's also Moprise (another iPad favorite), mDMS, Forms Central, FocusShareEZ, and Filamente Lite. SharePoint apps for the iPad are an interesting lot, because they exist at the intersection of the Apple user experience and, well, SharePoint. My first reaction to using SharePlus was, "It's like they put an iPad wrapper on a SharePoint site." So, I recommend some user training, depending on the tablet users reactions to the apps.

Use third-party cloud services for file collaboration. If SharePoint isn't a standard inside your organization, or you can't justify extending your on-premise collaboration tools to tablet users for budget, staffing, or infrastructure reasons, then look to third-party cloud services like Central Desktop, Huddle, Dropbox, or Box for file collaboration. These services have both free and fee-based offerings with solid iPad and Android clients for tablet users.

Use Unified Communications (UC). Today's UC platforms combine the best of VoIP calling, Video conferencing, IM, and presence for cubicle-bound and mobile users, which is integral for communications and collaboration with coworkers. Going with a UC platform like Microsoft Lync or Cisco Jabber (complete with iPad and Android clients) can provide full communications and collaborative access to coworkers, customers, and partners.

Use cloud-based project management applications. While Microsoft Project is the standard project management application in many organizations, there are some exciting things happening with cloud-based project management applications. For example, LiquidPlanner — which has a robust feature set and clients for Android and the iPad — helps centralize all your project management data and artifacts, making them equally accessible to cubicle-bound workers on their PCs and mobile workers using tablets out in the field.

Of course, the same old basics, like requiring your entire network to create strong passwords that expire over time, still apply when you add tablets to your enterprise collaboration mix.

Tablets, enterprise collaboration, and your organization

Taking extra care with both tablet and enterprise requirements means extending collaboration to your organization's tablet users can be done without sacrificing productivity or security. Have you implemented tablets in your organization?
build-access-manage at dayaciptamandiri.com

ManageEngine Adds Configuration Management to ServiceDesk PlusI

TIL-Ready Help Desk Gains New CMDB, Enhanced Service Catalog

ServiceDesk Plus CMDB frees proactive asset management from the data center for IT organizations of all sizes

Free, 30-day, fully functional trial edition is available at http://ow.ly/9opUP

April 10, 2012 — ManageEngine, the real-time IT management company, announced it is augmenting ServiceDesk Plus, its ITIL-ready help desk software, with new integrated asset management capabilities. ServiceDesk Plus is gaining a configuration management database (CMDB) and several new features including an upgraded service catalog, enhanced self-service portal, automation of common help desk processes and complete integration with other ManageEngine software suites.

Many IT organizations are managing business-critical systems and services completely reactively. They rely on network monitoring tools, help desk software and other solutions to provide notifications about problems and outages after they've already occurred and are impacting the business. These organizations could dramatically improve uptime and overall end-user experience while simultaneously preventing costly, time consuming issues by identifying and managing the relationships and dependencies of all technology assets — hardware, software, services and non-traditional devices — with a CMDB. It doesn't matter if an IT asset is managed inside a formal data center or outside; the pace of modern business can make any technology component become business critical in almost an instant. This means that the visibility and benefits that a CMDB can provide are important for systems and services.

"At the end of the day, our customers must deliver high quality business services to their users, and we are committed to helping them succeed," said Uma Shankar, product manager at ManageEngine. "We have worked on this new version with a great deal of customer input, getting their requirements through the beta release and making the product more user friendly. The all-new CMDB, enhanced service catalog and other features in the latest version of ServiceDesk Plus are all designed to help IT organizations optimize service uptime and end-user experience."

Inside ServiceDesk Plus

ServiceDesk Plus has strengthened its ITIL capabilities with an all-new CMDB to improve overall service availability and mean time to resolution. ManageEngine designed the CMDB in ServiceDesk Plus to address core usability challenges facing typical CMDBs. Most CMDBs are complex and difficult to use, so many IT organizations either 1) fail to implement a CMDB or 2) fail to take full advantage of the CMDB they have implemented. By eliminating complexity and emphasizing ease of use, the ServiceDesk Plus CMDB extends the uptime advantages and business benefits to all IT assets throughout the organization.

The ServiceDesk Plus CMDB is highlighted by a direct visualization map that defines and displays the inter-relationships of each IT asset (aka configuration item, or CI), giving users a complete visual representation of the network. The system can discover relationships between the CIs automatically and populate the details into the CMDB via an Active Directory or LDAP import.

By identifying CI dependencies and their impact on the environment, ManageEngine's CMDB can help IT plan - before performing any changes. Organizations can also integrate incident, problem and change modules with the CMDB to provide a consolidated view of pending issues associated with any CI. The result is higher quality of service delivered by help desk staff with the cost, complexity and expense of traditional configuration management solutions.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus also includes an enhanced Service Catalog, with a new multi-level approval feature for service requests. Now, ServiceDesk Plus makes it easier for end users to view the SLAs' "agreed upon time," which is displayed before creating the service request, making the service catalog customizable to fit the needs of individual organizations.

ServiceDesk Plus also adds new capabilities for the self-service portal. With easier trouble ticket creation, the self-service portal reduces the load for IT administrators. The upgraded user interface and the real-time streaming of ticket status and history let end users help themselves — without intervention from support staffs. The new asset depreciation feature can be configured to assets in ServiceDesk Plus.

Pricing and Availability

ServiceDesk Plus (8.1) is available immediately. A free, 30-day, fully functional trial edition is available at http://ow.ly/9opUP. The CMDB, Service Catalog and Change Module are available immediately as add-ons to the ServiceDesk Plus Professional Edition. The CMDB is $995. The Service Catalog is $995. The Change Module is $1,995. For additional pricing information, visit http://ow.ly/9opLy.

For more information on ManageEngine, please visit http://www.manageengine.com; follow the company blog at http://blogs.manageengine.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ManageEngine and on Twitter at @ManageEngine.

About ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer

Related ManageEngine News

ManageEngine Integrates Desktop Central and ServiceDesk Plus; http://ow.ly/7Sd4X

ManageEngine Releases iPhone App for Help Desk Management; http://ow.ly/7HSzQ

About ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus integrates help desk requests and assets for managing organizations' IT effectively. It helps to implement ITIL best practices and troubleshoot IT service requests faster. ServiceDesk Plus is highly customizable, easy-to-implement help desk software. More than 10,000 IT managers worldwide use ServiceDesk Plus to manage their IT help desk and assets. ServiceDesk Plus is available in 23 different languages. For more information about ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, visit www.manageengine.com/servicedeskplus.

About ManageEngine

ManageEngine delivers the real-time IT management tools that empower an IT team to meet an organization's need for real-time services and support. Worldwide, more than 55,000 established and emerging enterprises — including more than 60 percent of the Fortune 500 — rely on ManageEngine products to ensure the optimal performance of their critical IT infrastructure, including networks, servers, applications, desktops and more. ManageEngine is a division of Zoho Corp. with offices worldwide, including the United States, United Kingdom, India, Japan and China. For more information, please visit http://www.manageengine.com/; follow the company blog at http://blogs.manageengine.com/, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ManageEngine and on Twitter at @ManageEngine
build-access-manage at dayaciptamandiri.com

Leverage your CRM to its full potential

By Patrick Gray | March 29, 2012, 4:57 AM PDT

With the recent technology renaissance that's given us everything from ubiquitous tablets to commoditized datacenter virtualization, CRM seems like a bit of a quaint technology. Even mom-and-pop companies have access to a variety of cloud-based offerings from startups to enterprise darlings. For medium and large companies, rocky CRM implementations and struggles to drive sales force adoption are likely distant memories, and aside from an occasional report request or minor enhancement, CRM is low on the "attention list." If this describes your organization, you may be leaving money on the table and not leveraging your CRM to its full potential, especially in light of recent technology shifts.

Dust off the "we'll do it later" list

One of the biggest missed opportunities that come from large, complex IT projects like a CRM implementation is burying what I call the WDIL (We'll Do It Later) list. As time and budgetary constraints loom over a project as its deadline nears, there are always good ideas that you simply can't get to, which end up on some form of WDIL list. In many cases, there are enhancements or functionality on which you've done 80% of the hard work, but the few extra hours required to implement just couldn't be found at the time.

In particular, with CRM a critical concern, is whether sales and marketing will embrace the new technology, so many companies err on the side of caution when implementing, legitimately focusing on change management rather than fully leveraging the tools. About 6-18 months after implementation is a perfect time to dust off the WDIL list; users and management are familiar with the tools, and items from the WDIL list are not yet forgotten, creating a minor PR coup for IT when you actually deliver on your promise to do something after the fact. With most WDIL lists containing bushels of low-hanging fruit, there's lots of opportunity to squeeze more value out of what was already a significant expenditure.

Getting mobile

Many of the recent CRM innovations have involved mobile technology, both in terms of gathering information about your customers and providing information to your sales force. As your channels for interacting with customers have expanded, most CRM systems have expanded their integration with everything from email marketing tools to social media tracking and reporting. While there's a danger of capturing data and generating reporting for reporting's sake, careful use of these data can provide a more detailed view of your customers and their interactions with your company and products.

Internally, most of the CRM tools are now integrated with mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. There's an obvious benefit to a salesperson walking into a meeting with current information on their customer, insight into product availability, and all the usual information you would expect, but delivered rapidly, in real-time, literally to their pocket. Mobile data delivery was once the province of high-dollar, complex systems, but with the rising popularity of cloud-based CRM, it has become a freebie with even the most basic systems.

Better databases

A more technical trend that could potentially revolutionize enterprise computing is the evolution of the databases that store all the data captured by our enterprise applications. Until recently, database technology had been surprisingly consistent for decades, with advances in speed and functionality but little change to the core technology. While traditional relational databases have been "good enough" for most applications, new generations of databases change everything from the fundamental way data are stored to the ability to rapidly gather and analyze changing data.

Relational databases have traditionally struggled to do CRM-related tasks like analyzing the performance of a massive marketing campaign on different demographics. While this type of reporting is available, it literally takes hours to generate. Some of the new technology promises this type of analysis in minutes, essentially allowing marketing and sales promotions to be tweaked in real-time. This is an area that is rapidly evolving, and worth considering when you get requests for complex analytics that were once impossible.

Where next?

One of the great, largely unfulfilled promises of CRM technology was that it would allow us to predict with reasonable accuracy which customers would likely buy our products, and effectively allow us to focus our sales efforts on those customers. Being able to increase the odds of a sale by a dozen or more percentage points is a lofty goal, but one I still don't think the current crop of CRM tools provides.

Some of the developments mentioned here, however, push us further in that direction. In order to offer this predictive capability, we need to know more about how our customers interact with us, have near real-time visibility into how our marketing and sales efforts are performing with different classes of customers, and deliver that information to the people actually doing the marketing and selling. The recent evolutions in the CRM space are pushing this trifecta forward, and while your happily functioning CRM may not be on your radar now, it's worth investing some time and effort to prepare for this future.
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