Major Zimplu Update for 2013

There were a lot of questions for Zimplu CRM regarding the updates we will make to our web application and it is time to announce some future changes that will take place at the begining of 2013. These changes will make Zimplu stronger and a more reliable application for entrepreneurs and managers within companies.

Specific access rights for Users
Companies organise their salesmen and sales teams different, and most of the time they have to hide information from the database between their employees. This feature is required not for the security of the database but for organising employees better, for keeping suspicion out, and for keeping a fair relation between salesmen. Starting from 2013 you will be able to create more detailed rights for your users, which means that every employee can have a set of specific rights when using Zimplu.

Exporting Database
If you have a Zimplu CRM account and at some point you decide that Zimplu is not the right application for your Business, there will always be a way to leave us without any damage to your database. We have been working for the past few months for the coming updates, and exporting your database will be one of the features we will implement in short time. Not only that you will be able to export your companies, contacts, or tasks, but you will also be able to export all of your deals (opportunities).

Importing Opportunities
One other issue our clients encountered was that even if Zimplu CRM can import your database, there was no way of importing your deals from other CRM applications you have used until now. Once this update will be ready, you will be able to import all of your opportunities from other web applications you used until now, and continue with your sales pipeline using Zimplu.

Advanced Filtering
Sorting your database has never been so easy. After the Zimplu update in 2013 you will be able to select companies, contacts, tasks, opportunities from your database depending on the existing fields in your Zimplu account, and using the advance filtering you will be able to generate reports by exporting the filtered list you just created in Zimplu.

We hope these changes will make our clients even more happy for working with us as we will continue to update Zimplu while keeping it an easy to use application for Small and Medium Businesses.

Happy Anniversary Nexus Electronics SRL

6 Years ago Nexus Electronics SRL was founded by Florin Subtirica, a company with a great story behind even from the beginning. What Florin Subtirica would say is that this company didn't start with a big financial investment, it did start with a big emotional investment

Nexus Electronics SRL is well known for Nexus GPS Trackig and for Zimplu CRM, but there are not too many people who know that Nexus Electronics started by selling mp3 devices.

According to StartupPlays, there are 4 stages when founding a business, Idea - Launch - Growth - Optimize. Nexus Electronics case is more like Idea - Launch - Growth - Idea 2 - Launch 2 - Growth 2 - Abandon 1 - Optimize 2.

After the company got successful in the gps tracking market, the mp3 players were abandoned. So Nexus Electronics success was a lot more about intrapreneurial initiatives than entrepreneurial initiatives, serving today over 800 Companies.

We will not stop here, Nexus Electronics SRL will continue to provide the best Applications for lowering companies costs and for improving their productivity.

Our New Office

It's been a while since we moved to the new office and everybody is excited with our new "home". Our company is growing day by day and the last place we used to stay was too small for us.

View Larger Map

Very quiet , close to Bucharest city center and green. All these things make this place wonderful.

The Building

Entrance in the Building

Front Desk

As you enter in our office, the first thing you will see is the front desk.

The Hall

Our Sales and Marketing Department

Motivational Quote

The Tech Team

"If you wait for the right time, those who don't wait will surpass you"

The Balcony

The Meeting Room

Manager's Office

The rest of the Manager's Office

View from the Manager's Office

Manager's Office Balcony

3 Best Options for Businesses in Online Advertisement

This decade was a real revolution for the Marketing that we used to know, people don't watch TV as much as they used to and they don't read Newspapers like before, we all watch movies, listen to music and read news on the Internet. All these interactions with the Internet make the Internet Marketing grow stronger every day and the way we promote our Business is considerably changing, commercials are now moving on Youtube and all newspapers have an online version.

The biggest question these days is "What is the best way to promote my business online ?" and here are some of the most known options.

Google Adwords
Google Adwords is the most known and pretty much the main tool businesses use for advertising. The main advantage of using Google Adwords is having an extremely detailed advertising campaign with lots of options to choose from, especially starting from the last year.

What I also like about Google Adwords is that it spends as much money as you want to, of course everybody has this option now, but spending more money on advertising than you wanted to is not something that will make you happy. You can choose the location, languages and even age, but unfortunately, the people's age that click on your link is not that accurate, at least not as accurate as it would be if you used Facebook.

The bad thing about Google Adwords is that you actually need to watch your Adwords Campaign, otherwise you risk to pay too much or your ads won't show to the right people in the place where you wanted to, it is pretty tricky. Key words are also a problem, some key words are way too expensive or too close to other words that you don't want to be associated with and you get big Bounce Rates because of this.

Facebook Ads
We just started to look over Facebook as a tool for our Business but I don't know if people want to hear about business solutions (if you are B2B) while reading their friends stories. I think this is an excellent B2C tool but people say that it can also be used as a B2B since you can target, for example, business owners, or you can target people that work in a specific company.

Facebook Ads are very close to Gmail Ads, but when was the last time you clicked an ad when you were reading your emails from your Gmail Account ? Me myself, I can't remember.

Another problem is people's age that use Facebook. I am pretty sure that there are people in their 80s that use Facebook, I even met some, but when you think about Facebook and people that use it, the first thing that comes to your mind are probably people in their 20s, especially in Europe. You might say that you can only target people with a specific age, but if you want to target people in their 50s, you won't find too many on Facebook.

The good thing is that, like Adwords, you only pay for the clicks, so if someone is not interested, it's ok, but if someone is interested you can pay less than you would pay for a Google Adwords Click.

AdRoll
If you want your marketing to work, you have to deliver your message through as many channels as possible. What is the logic in this ? "Studies" say that a person is a lot easier persuaded and, more important, he gains more trust when he sees ads from a product in different places, at different times and in different formats (internet, flyer, outdoor etc.). That's how Marketing Campaigns started and that's the main principle when launching one.

This is actually the main idea of AdRoll, bringing you back what you saw before and what made you a little curious. If yesterday you saw a banner with a nice pair of headphones and you clicked on the banner but for some reason you started to do something else the very next moment, Adroll comes back to you with the same banner the very next day, on a different website that you are visiting. Not only that it reminds you about the headphones you just saw, it actually makes you think about them intensively.

I believe that this is the perfect tool for converting website visits into sales and it is cheaper than Adwords so this can lead to a better ROI.

The main disadvantage is that it might not work that well for a B2B, businesses that sell shoes or headphones will probably get better results with AdRoll than you will.

Use a FREE CRM

Nexus Electronics announced that Zimplu CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is now Free for any kind of Company. If somebody wants to use this service for Free, all he needs to do is visit Zimplu CRM website and create an account, after the account was created you can use Zimplu CRM for an unlimited time. This announce comes after one month ago Nexus Electronics said that any NGO can use Zimplu CRM for Free for an unlimited amount of users.


What is Zimplu CRM ?
Zimplu CRM is a web tool for Companies that want to streamline their sales and customer support activities, helping departments to organize daily activities, discussions and contact database.

The main advantages of using Zimplu CRM are lower costs and mobility. Zimplu CRM can be used anywhere in the world, from any computer or smartphone, as long as they are connected to the Internet.

The CRM offered by Nexus Electronics has a friendly interface which makes it extremely easy to use by any employee, it is fast to increase employee efficiency and flexible for the taste of any manager.

Principles for creating Management Systems

Creating IT Systems is possible by covering methodological steps with a defined content that should be based on several methodological principles that need to be respected starting with the analysis stage and ending with the commissioning of each System.

The methodological principles are outlined in the following sequence:

1. The System design must start, according to the System concept, from its output and from the content of the final information. The System projection takes place according to the next logical sequence of activities: analyse outputs -> establish the models for the strategic and tactical Management -> develop appropriate techniques to organize and administrate the database -> establish the hardware configuration.
2. The approach to create the future Management IT System should be done from a global perspective while pursuing to satisfy the requirements of its components. The global approach allows to give a fair share of the strategic and tactical objectives of the company's activities. Compliance with this principle assures the integration of IT Systems in a company by creating opportunities for establishing an unique database where the information is gathered only once and it used by all Software Applications.
3. Ensuring the independence of the IT System Structure from the organizational structure. The main way of achieving this relative independence.
4. The implementation of the new System should always start from the strategic level that assures the maximum economic efficiency. This approach allows the guiding of the implemented activities at later stages because of its ability to simulate the behavior of the IT System in the next phase.
   
   
   
   

Zimplu CRM is now FREE for NGOs

Starting from today, any NGO can use Zimplu CRM for free. To use Zimplu CRM for free, visit  http://www.zimplu.com/, create an account and let us know you are a Nonprofit Organization so we can provide you full access to the service.


If you ask yourself how can an NGO use Zimplu CRM, the answer is pretty simple. If a company needs Zimplu CRM for the Sales Team, an NGO can use Zimplu CRM for the Fundraising department. In this case we are not talking about Customers anymore, we are talking about Sponsors.


Nonprofit Organizations are part of our every day life, even if most of us don't realize this and we are more than happy to help them.

Zimplu CRM now has a Time Clock

Time Clock was added to Zimplu CRM application. Users can now Clock in when they start working and Clock out when they are off.

If you are in a company where the sales activity is the most important, then you will probably use Zimplu CRM all the time. This feature was added as a result to our customers request who needed this kind of feature to track the employees work time.

Enjoy the Time Clock from Zimplu CRM !

Inventory Management Systems

Inventory Management of raw materials, parts, or finished products by an organization requires a set of rules and conventions, under which a bar code system is being used. Developing an IT Module aimed to manage the Inventory starts, basically, from assigning to each item an unique code. Ensuring a uniform and consistent coding is in fact a mandatory prerequisite for automatic processing of information.

The goal is to improve Inventory Management activities, to reduce costs incurred by all domain-specific operations (storage costs, purchase and transport costs, additional costs related to lack of Stock, etc...)

Another important premise in building an IT Module consists in necessity of using multiple methods of Stock assessment and calculation of prices, such as LIFO, FIFO, SP (Standard Price), LP (Last Price), AC (Average Cost). All these methods are useful for understanding the Stocks level, or in case it falls below safety Stock, or when it exceeds the maximum level.

Developing the IT Module must start from the importance accorded to ensure flexibility of production, meaning more accurate knowledge of what and how much is being produced to ensure market performance of the organization. Thus, an efficient Management of Stocks of raw materials – supported by appropriate IT tools – is the "key" to avoid a large chunk of disturbances recorded in the production flow.

The IT Module's utility for Inventory Management can increase significantly if you choose to use the JIT method ( Just in Time) also known as "zero Inventory". The basic principle of the method is to reduce inventories of raw materials that need to be brought from suppliers in the exact moment the production process needs to start so the final products will be delivered on the date stipulated in the contract with the beneficiary. Obviously, implementation of such methods can lead to methodological changes in the programming and manufacturing production itself . In addition, it can lead to an integration of a powerful IT infrastructure with components for Production Management, Commercial Management, Financial Management and Accounting.

The direct users of this IT component are those responsible for Management activities of the various categories of existing Stocks in the organization. The general functions of the IT Module are:

• Managing the entire flow of Stock, meaning reception, bookings, consumption, transfers, adjustments so you can monitor the evolution in time of material consumtpion, based on the transactions made;
• Tracking costs on different administration levels and in different location;
• Tracking Inventory by multiple criteria (different prices for the same item, serial number, cell manufacturing, supplier, etc..);
• Issuing reports in real time (balance of Stocks etc...);
• Provides the support for purchasing decisions, programming, production launch and sales planning.

Automate Inventory Management brings certain benefits for all operations, but we also have to highlight the effects on other related activities, whose efficiency increases when Stock tracking is optimized. These are some of the most obvious advantages for using the IT Module:

• Access to information in the database is controlled by the mechanism of passwords and access rights, structured by users;
• Estabilishing the necessary products and achieve an optimal supply, based on a model provided by the system;
• Daily update of Stock levels and accurate movement tracking in correlation with accounting records, ensuring a better base for decisions;
• Tracking the dynamics of inventory costs associated with the posibility of adopting measures to reduce them.

Knowledge Management System

Knowledge Management System ( KMS ) consists in a set of methods and techniques with which Knowledge Management processes can be operated, including document retrieval solutions, expertise databases, discussion lists and search engines.

Knowledge Management is a systematic process of collecting, organizing and storing employees Knowledge so that it can be accesed and used by other members of the organization.

The growth of the innovative Management in an organization is dependent to the use of intangible assets of the company. Thus, in the recent years there was an increase of initiatives in Knowledge Management, resultated in significant investments in IT. The early efforts in this direction consisted in developing "data warehousing" applications and building intranet networks to allow unrestricted access to resources regardless of physical location of the user. In this context, along with the improvement of tools associated to Knowledge Management, the first KMS have been developed.

Any KMS must fulfill two fundamental requirements: to facilitate collaborative work between users involved in developing Knowledge Management processes and to manage information from the System. In order to meet these requirements, KMS use a series of tools that allow integration of Knowledge in the form of database Knowledge or collective memory. Within these, the data is structured in units of Knowledge that are found usually in the form of documents, the Knowledge units must be organized so as to allow interconnection of Knowledge.

Organizational Knowledge is the result of phase mixing browsing, internalization, socialization and externalization. This dynamic process involves the definition of rules for communication between groups of individuals within the organization. Even if sometimes there are different perspectives among groups because of the meaning and terminology used, communication ensures resource sharing and acceleration of innovative processes.

The effects of implementing a Knowledge Management System over the learning processes, innovation and development of expertise are difficult to quantify. Considering that, generally, experience plays an important role in organizational learning, the benefits on KMS is growing as it is more used by the employees. In the long run, organization's members will expand their experience in obtaining and using not only explicit Knowledge but also silent/implied Knowledge who require a greater effort to be accessed.

Considering the above arguments, we conclude that KMS use can lead to both positive and negative effects. An organization can gain efficiency in the short term, by standardizing the access to Knowledge, but gradually may lose the ability to innovate. Therefore, an effective Knowledge Management System is to ensure a balance between operational processes and the Knowledge to explore new solutions.

To implement a Knowledge Management System you must start from locating the Knowledge who determines whether a user will be directed to a document or to contacting an expert and from defining the Knowledge organization level that provides problem transformation in a form that meets a certain logical structure. Either way, the implementation of KMS differs from one organization to another and what matters most is the number of employees in that organization.

How can Social Media Influence your Business ?

We can consider Social Media to be a form of communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages and other content (like videos).


Forms of Social Media that are well known until now:

• Forums;
• Social Networks ( like Facebook or LinkedIn );
• Blogging;
• Microblogging ( like Twitter );
• Video Sharing ( like YouTube or Vimeo );
• Social Bookmarketing ( like Digg );
• Broader Content ( best examples are Slideshare and Scribd);
• Social Gaming - this concept has just been recognized even if it exists for a long time, even before some of the ones listed above.

Most of the Businesses perceive Social Media as a good thing, as an opportunity, but there are not many Executives that think about the negative effect Social Media can have on their Business. Before Social Media existed, if you had a problem with a company or a business, the information would have stayed in the circle of your friends with a very small chance to move forward to other people. With  Social Media, your information will circulate faster and more persons will know about it.

Social Media is what makes Word of Mouth more powerful, a lot of businesses acknowledged this effect and as a result today we are using concepts like Social Media Marketing, we didn't even imagined it would exist years ago. Nowadays, one in seven companies have a formal process for Social Networking in their business and one in five companies have established policies about the use of Social Media in their Company.

Email Dropbox in Zimplu CRM

There was a time when Sales Managers were asking employees to forward him all the Emails they sent to Customers, that's ridiculous and it might be hard to believe that some of them are still doing this. Either way, there is a simple reason for asking this thing, Sales Managers and other co-workers need to know what they talked to a customer and more important than that is how they talked to the customer, how was the message transmitted.

Zimplu CRM will help you solve this problem, all the Emails you send to your contacts can appear in Zimplu too so all your co-workers will know what Email you sent and what does your contact know until now.

Watch our Tutorial to learn how to use your Email Dropbox in Zimplu CRM:

Shortcuts in Zimplu CRM

When Nexus Electronics created Zimplu CRM, the first thing that they had in mind was to create a simple and fast CRM that will make salesmen work faster and more efficient.

Shortcuts help users use Zimplu fast and finish their job quick. Instead of browsing through all the tabs and sections to get somewhere, you can simply press a small button (a shortcut) that will get you directly where you want.

Find out more about the Shortcuts in Zimplu CRM by watching this video:

Virtual Organization

Virtual Organization is a group of manufacturing companies located in different places, working together in a distributed environment to achieve a particular objective, substantially remodeling its involved activities , focused on the generation and use of knowledge which takes place between intense communication processes corresponding to certain standards and using substantial new information and communication technologies.

It is not the same thing that most of us thought it is in the first place, isn't it ? When most of the people talk about a Virtual Organization they actually think of a Virtual Business or maybe something else.

The term Virtual Organization, released in the 90's, began to be used with a relatively high frequencey only in recent years. Connotations and meanings of this concept differs appreciably from one specialist to another.

A Virtual Organization is established and it is based on several precepts:

• begins with identifying by a company or a group of companies, usually small, an opportunity of innovational nature, which involves a considerable amount of knowledge and other kind of resources that can only be provided by several firms;
• complementarity of the firms involved, which allows obtaining a synergistic effect on the generation of new knowledge;
• speed in decisions and actions of the companies involved is a Sine Qua Non for its capability to identify and capitalize the opportunity;
• acquisition of economic mass that facilitates obtaining profitability, even when there is a big competition;
• basis for carrying out activities on a fluid organization, which is able to adapt to specific participants along with the effective focus to achieve the forecasted objective;
• optimizing the use of knowledge and other resources involved in the project, given the fact that participating firms share the infrastructure they own, the knowledge, risks and business profits;
• completion of activities that result in new competitive products, on the one hand because of the intense processes of generation and use of knowledge and, on the other hand, because of various processes to reduce costs due to the technical and special skills possessed, plus a rational labor division between partner companies.

Considering what we presented, we can think of a Virtual Organization as a type of evoluted Cluster which possesses specific characteristics determined by its focus on production activities, the high share of innovative processes and the use of advanced informational and communication technologies.

Virtual Organizations will probably proliferate as their foundations are experiencing a rapid growth, causing them to obtain competitive performances on the domestic and international markets

Business Environment and Entrepreneurship

Systemic approach to Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial phenomenon reflects itself by taking in consideration of the interferece with the Business Environment involved. Starting points in this approach is generally knowing and understanding the concept of Business Environment. When we talk about Business Environment we designate all the company's exogenous elements of economical nature, managerial, technical, demografics etc. that marks a significant progress and results of the activities.

According to some experts, contemporary Business Environment has 3 main features:

1. Turbulence, which means numerous, fast and unexpected changes, mostly of low magnitude, that generate many flows and economic, social, technological impacts. The main factors are generated by economic changes, social changes and mutations in the relation between market and customers.
2. Fast evolution of  Business opportunities that represent at least two major components. The appearance of numerous economic opportunities, appreciably more than the prior periods, which are combined simultaneous with their succession at a reduced time interval compared to the dynamics of earlier decades.
3. Amplification of uncertainty, which is a result of the many changes that can not be predicted and quantified with sufficient precision. The fact that in the economical activity are involved more local variables, national and international, of very different nature, in an increased proportion of new situations is reflected in multiplying risk and uncertainty, increasing difficulty in collecting, directing and controlling economic actions.
   
   
   

Entrepreneurial enviorenment has a partially different content from the corporate Environment, as we will reveal below. In fact, in recent years there were detected and analyzed two types of entrepreneurial/business Environments: real and perceived.

         Real Business Environment

Real Business Environment designate all the contextual elements that influence the Entrepreneur's efforts in all phases of its activity, inducing change in the decisions, actions, behaviors and performances. Its main characteristics are:

• incoporates both exogenous and endogenous elements of the organization but only those that singificantly affect the starting and running of the entrepreneurial processes;
• varies from one Entrepreneur to another, depending on the type of the entrepreneurial initiative, geographic area, location and involved resources;
• differs for the same entrepreneur over time, depending on the stage of company's life cycle and its economic power; As the company grows the Business Environment field widens and its size increases.

There are a lot of exogenous elements that can influence your Business activity but the elements that usually have a more direct and substantial influence are: taxation, acces to credit, law, inlfation, national economic strategy and population attitude towards Entrepreneurs.

Depending on the parameteres of the mentioned elements and how they combine, it can result for Entrepreneurs, in a particular country, three real Business Environments:

a) Unfavorable Business Environment that is characterized by the fact that entrepreneurial actions are prohibited or restricted. Therefore, there are no small to medium private firms or their number is very low in the economy.


b) Permissive Business Environment provides the ability to initiate and carry out entrepreneurial activities, but the actual existing conditions are heterogeneous, some of them having a temporary or inhibitory influence on private initiatives. Economic and administrative initiatives face quite a few difficulties that Entrepreneurs have to overcome.


c) Favorable Business Environment, which by all or most of his behaviors, stimulate entrepreneurial activity, establishment and development of private enterprises. It is the type of Environment which, from political and cultural elements and ending with the economic and legal elements, aims to create as many as possible strong private companies.

          Perceived Business Environment

The perceived Business Environment designs those elements of real Business Environment which the Entrepreneur appreciates and feels as having a significant influence on its actions and performance. It is specific to individual nature of the Entrepreneur, because each Entrepreneur characteristics are reflected in its ability to perceive the context and define the Environment that he consideres to have a greater impact on his entrepreneurial activities.

The perceived Business Environment has a dual dimension: cognitive and affective.

          a) Cognitive dimension refers to contextual information which the Entrepreneur identified and reviewed in the entrepreneurial processes that he initiates and carries. Cognitive dimension is even more evident if the Entrepreneur has high level of training, a good sense of observation and it invests more time in the entrepreneurial aciton.

          b) Affective dimension reffers to the background information of the Entrepreneur that he considers to be really important with which he gets attached or even afraid, they are significant and deserve a special attention. Also, it is an indirect reflection of the entrepreneurial spirit and native talent that the Entrepreneur possess.

Contact Groups

We like Zimplu CRM to be easy to use but we also want it to be flexible, that's why we created Contact Groups and Custom Fields.
Nexus Electronics used to work with other CRM and we had a problem differing the existing Clients from the contacts who were not our Clients. To solve this problem we used to write in the Contact Name "Existing Client" so we could know if the Contact was already our Client. We always wanted to Group our Contacts so we won't have to write other stuff in the Contact Name Field.

Contact Groups will help you assign your Contacts to different Groups and it doesn't have to be Existing Clients or Potential Clients, it can also be Banks, Transport Companies or anything else.

This video will show you how to Create Contact Groups in Zimplu CRM.



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Support Tickets in Zimplu CRM

One of the features that Zimplu CRM offers is Support Tickets.
Support Tickets are used to inform your employees or your co-workers about a problem that appeared for the Company or for one of your Clients.
Lets say that you own a Software Company and a Client has a problem with the product he just bought, he will probably contact the salesman who offered the product in the first place. It's obvious that the salesman won't be able to solve an IT problem so what the sales person will do in this situation is to write a support ticket and assign it to the right person or a group of persons in the company that can solve this kind of problem for the Client.
You can also write a support ticket and assign it to yourself, this will help you remember you have to solve a problem.

Learn How to Create a Support Ticket in Zimplu CRM:

Simplify your Business

Today is a regular day at the office. You sit down, you start drinking your coffee and you thought that today you will finally get to work on some new projects, think the strategy for your products and plan the Company's activity for the rest of the year. You were wrong. You start to get phone calls, you need to solve some problems that you were just been told about and you have some new meetings today that you didn't expect to come. The next thing you know is that outside is dark and your watch says 7 P.M.

Sometimes you have to agree that doing things by yourself makes sense but it should not be a habit. As some people might say, Management is all about delegating activities.

Always make sure to Manage well the Communications in your organization and make sure the information gets to the final destination fast and in good condition, this is vital to the management performance. If you fail to do so, you will end up doing someone else's job all day and you won't even know it.

Finances

If you remember old movies or TV Series like Dallas and the scenes in the office, the first thing that probably comes to your mind is a big pile of paper. Think about how to lose as much paper as you can, keep only what you need and go Paperless.

Consolidate your bank accounts, make your financial records as simple as possible, arrange as many automatic transfers you can, this will also help you stick with the monthly plans.

Financial Crisis

You probably start to feel a headache when you hear these two words. You hear the Financial system is going down, market is going down, nobody can sell as much as they used to sell, politics, terror, everything goes wrong. It's the perfect time to make Money. Think outside the box, the crisis is a big problem for most of us but some companies pray for the crisis to stay as long as possible.

We have a problem ? There are no problems, only opportunities, so be the first one to take advantage of these changes.

Computerization

It all started not so long ago when the computer era began, new ideas came along for making work easier and the best example is software solutions. It was a good thing to start from, most of the companies still use a software for their activities and they will probably use them for a long time but what really breaks through right now is SAAS (Software as a Service).

Companies used to buy and maintain an IT infrastructure which proved to be very expensive. SAAS brings a lot of benefits, the software is now shared on the internet and companies don't need to install anything, you can even use the service wherever you are as long as you have an internet connection.

Custom Fields in Zimplu CRM

When you create a new contact or a new Company in Zimplu CRM, you have some fields that you need to fill before introducing the specific item into your Zimplu Database. Sometimes you need more information about a contact. For example,  if you are a Company that sells GPSs you may need to know how many cars does a potential Customer have and a good Custom Field would be "Cars" or "Number of Cars".
You can also add Custom Fields to Tasks, Support Tickets or Opportunities.

Learn how to create your Custom Fields in Zimplu CRM:

Your Database in Zimplu

We want our customers to be able to work with Zimplu as soon as possible and the database they already have can easily be imported in their Zimplu CRM account.
Imagine you have a spreadsheet with all of your contacts and information. You just created an account but you have a big problem, your database is empty. Thanks to this feature, all of your contacts from the spreadsheet can be in your Zimplu CRM database in just a few seconds.

Learn how to Import Your Database in Zimplu

Users in Zimplu CRM

In Zimplu CRM after you create an account you have the choice to create new Users depending on what kind of subscription you have. The New User can be an Administrator, just like the main User, or it can be a regular User with basic rights.
Why do you need more users ? A new user means one more person that can access your database. You can assign User Names for all of your employees.
As you probably know, in Zimplu CRM you have 3 kinds of  Subscriptions: Lite, Pro and Premium. If you choose Lite, you can have 5 Users maximum, if you subscribe to Pro you will have 20 Users maximum and 50 Users for Premium.

Enjoy the new Tutorial.

How to create Contacts in Zimplu

Zimplu CRM is an easy web application but we thought that this tutorial will be useful for anyone that is using Zimplu CRM for the first time.
In Zimplu CRM you can add a contact, a task, an opportunity or you can add a ticket no matter what you are viewing. We thought our CRM this way, so users can work faster without needing to push too many buttons and load lots of pages to do a simple thing.

Enjoy !

History of CRM

    
CustomerRelationship Management (CRM) is one of those magnificent concepts that swept the business world in the 1990’s with the promise of forever changing the way businesses small and large interacted with their customer bases. In the short term, however, it proved to be an unwieldy process that was better in theory than in practice for a variety of reasons. First among these was that it was simply so difficult and expensive to track and keep the high volume of records needed accurately and constantly update them.

How it started ?

     The 1980’s saw the emergence of database marketing, which was simply a catch phrase to define the practice of setting up customer service groups to speak individually to all of a company’s customers.

     In the 1990’s companies began to improve on Customer Relationship Management by making it more of a two-way street. Instead of simply gathering data for their own use, they began giving back to their customers not only in terms of the obvious goal of improved customer service, but in incentives, gifts and other perks for customer loyalty.

     In the beginning there was PIM, or Personal Information Manager - a limited use, all purpose electronic diary with basic database functionality, that you could use to start organizing your names and addresses, and time, amongst other things. These PIM's are good personal productivity tools, but they tend to fall over when applied in a business environment with a more demanding requirement.

The PIM slowly morphed into the CMS, or Contact Management System, as a result of its increasing take on by people in sales and marketing, incorporating a more specific set of requirements to help them scale the coalface. Contact Managers are fantastic, flexible productivity tools for most anybody or organization. They are also more robust, with improved industrial strength database engines, that are better able to manage larger volumes of data.

Contact Management software became SFA, as in Sales Force Automation systems, what now forms the cornerstone of modern CRM applications. CRM is short for Customer Relationship Management, which is the industry term for the set of methodologies and tools that help an enterprise manage customer relationships in an organized way.

Not to mention that some mutated into ERM, sometimes referred to as eCRM(electronic Customer Relationship Management), PRM, with Pro and Lite versions of everything to take products in and out of their respective weight divisions.

Nowadays CRM

    Real Customer Relationship Management as it’s thought of today really began in earnest in the early years of this century. As software companies began releasing newer, more advanced solutions that were customizable across industries, it became feasible to really use the information in a dynamic way.

Instead of feeding information into a static database for future reference, CRM became a way to continuously update understanding of customer needs and behavior. Branching of information, sub-folders, and custom tailored features enabled companies to break down information into smaller subsets so that they could evaluate not only concrete statistics, but information on the motivation and reactions of customers.

     The Internet provided a huge boon to the development of these huge databases by enabling offsite information storage also called SAAS(Software as a Service). A good exemple for nowadays CRM is Zimplu CRM which is able to store companies database in cloud computing. Users are now able to access their information wherever they are.
    SAAS is not a new concept, in our days using a CRM software will slow you down. Creating and launching a CRM software in 2012 it's even worse, it will be a big failure for any company. What is really coming from behind is Mobile CRM, experts expect that Mobile CRM market will boom in 2012, an opportunity of billions of dollars. 

E-Commerce as an Internet Business

Components of an Internet Business

    Every era of business yields new strategies and new ways of doing business. With the advent of radio and television came the first mass-market advertising. Now, the Internet has so radically changed business that the rules for corporate strategy that held for the last 50 years (since the dawn of television) have begun to crumble, says Business Town

   There are some literal elements of commerce that are necessary for any transactions to take place, which are as true for regular bricks-and-mortar commerce as they are for e-commerce. First, whether you are doing business online or in the real world, you have to have a product to sell or a service to offer. Then, you must have a place from which to do business. In the traditional world of commerce this can be a physical store or, in a more figurative sense, a catalog or phone number. In the world of e-commerce the place from which you do business is your Web site.

   In both regular commerce and e-commerce you need to find a way to attract customers to your place of business. This is embodied by your marketing strategy, and everything from advertising to word of mouth fits into this category.

   In order to do business, you also need a way to take orders and process payment. In a retail store there are no orders. Customers simply find the products they want, get in a line at the register, and pay the cashier. In e-commerce, orders have to be placed and items shipped.  Orders are usually handled through interactive, online forms. Money is another issue easily handled in traditional commerce. Customers in a retail store pay by check, cash, or credit or debit cards. Online customers cannot pay by cash or check, only through electronic means. Also, there are issues of security that surround online payment that do not come into play in the traditional bricks-and-mortar world. E-commerce transactions have to take place through secure electronic connections and special merchant accounts for accepting payment.

Once payment is collected, delivery of the product must take place. Fulfillment in traditional stores is as easy as putting the item in a bag and handing it over to the customer. Fulfillment in the world of e-commerce is more difficult, requiring shipping and transportation similar to catalog and mail order businesses. For businesses that integrate e-commerce into their existing business plan, fulfillment is as easy as hiring an extra employee to ship online orders. In Internet startup businesses, fulfillment must often be outsourced to a facility that can handle order processing and shipping in a more timely and professional manner.

What is E-Commerce ?

   Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, ecommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks says the definition at Wikipedia. It also includes the entire online process of developing, marketing, selling, delivering, servicing and paying for products and services. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at one point in the transaction's life-cycle, although it may encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail, mobile devices and telephones as well.

E-commerce can be divided into:

• E-tailing or "virtual storefronts" on Web sites with online catalogs, sometimes gathered into a "virtual mall"
• The gathering and use of demographic data through Web contacts
• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), the business-to-business exchange of data
• E-mail and fax and their use as media for reaching prospects and established customers (for example, with newsletters)
• Business-to-business buying and selling
• The security of business transactions

The Necessities of E-Commerce

   Businesses that choose to engage in e-commerce have to remember the primary principals of commerce:

• Providing a product or service to be purchased.
• Customers need to know how to find the product or service, so marketing is necessary.
• The exchange of money for the product or service.
• A delivery mechanism.
• Customer service and communication.

These fundamental aspects of commerce are then modified to suit the e-commerce environment.

Successful E-Commerce Operations

   Companies like eMarketer have made it their business to study the trends of e-commerce and generate information on the topic.

Their studies have found the following to be successful e-commerce opportunities:

• Apparel
• Books
• Computer hardware, software and accessories
• Electronics
• Entertainment
• Financial services
• Flowers
• Gifts
• Information
• Music
• Travel services
• Toys

This is not to say that your venture won't experience success by the standard e-commerce definition; it's just that consumers have grown accustomed to purchasing these products and services online.

  To build your business through E-Commerce develop a good understanding of the Internet, how Web sites work and the components that make an effective e-commerce Web site. This doesn't mean you have to design the site yourself, but to have an underlying comprehension of terms is always helpful.

There are a variety of books available to help you learn this, including:

• For the novice: Internet for Dummies by John R. Levine, Margaret Levine Young and Carol Baroudi. The Dummy series breaks things down into simple terms and tip references.
• For the advanced: Designing Easy-to-Use Websites by Vanessa Donnelly. A handy guide for those with more technical knowledge.

   Next, ramp up your Business plan to include an effective e-commerce position. Working in the world of e-commerce can upset the apple cart of traditional business models. That is often a positive thing, but if your current business plan doesn't include e-commerce, or your product or service needs to be amended to enter into e-commerce, you'll have to create a new plan.

   Finally, cultivate an awareness of how marketing for an e-commerce enterprise is different from the traditional retail store front or small business arena. A helpful resource for this might be the book Streetwise Lost-Cost Web Site Promotionby Barry Feig.

   An e-commerce definition need not be complicated, but it does ebb and flow with changes in the electronic age. While the foundation is rooted in standard commerce principles, e-commerce will more than likely continue to revise elements that apply only to its practice is what Love to Know Business says.