We've STOPPED entering the same information into 4 Systems ! I think we were a fairly typical SME. We ran Sage to do our accounting, ACT for managing our Contacts, Outlook / Small Business Server (SBS) for emails and third party providers for Email Marketing and for our Web Site Catalogue. As with any business we are only as good as our data. The perennial struggle is to define the Master Database, the one that will have the up to date information and the basis for the company communications. The problem is that all of the various systems, Accounts, Contacts, Email have some of the same data but none of them has everything that is required. The inevitability is that nothing is ever really synchronised (because it's an endless task and a waste of time) and then systems fall into disuse. The time which has been wasted by us trying to import or synchronise data across what should be integrated systems has been enormous. i-Tr@der has at its core a single Contact Management database. This core is used by all the other integrated modules including, Email, Sales and Purchasing. The central contact system (CMS) manages all the notes, emails (IN and OUT), opportunities, email marketing and Documents for the various contacts, whilst the other integrated modules allow the addition of relevant details required for those parts of the system. The i-Tr@der System cleverly enables the various individuals in the organisation to contribute to cleansing and improving the quality of the company's data, which saves further time and effort later on as well as presenting a far more professional image to Customers, Suppliers and business Partners The i-Tr@der System has enabled us to work towards a single data resource which is of the highest quality, and where all the business processes serve to continually improve it. The golden rule of Databases is that there should only be one, the investment we have made in the i-Tr@der System will be repaid many times by achieving this objective alone! | |||||||||||||
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