Businesses of all types and sizes find themselves relying more and more on technology.  To stay functional, every modern company needs some type of IT assistance. Running a company is challenging enough without dealing with constant technology headaches. But once you decide you’re ready to hand off some or all of your IT responsibility to a managed services provider, how do you figure out who to talk to when there are so many choices?  It can be daunting to evaluate and select the right technology partner for your business.

Below are three key characteristics to consider when deciding on a managed services provider.

1: Industry Expertise

Start by checking potential MSPs to be sure they’re familiar with your industry. So many generic MSPs really aren’t able to address industry-specific problems that might arise. With industry expertise comes knowledge of the ins and outs of your technology. This means knowing what requirements a particular piece of software needs to operate smoothly or which upgrades are necessary in order continue business as usual. The goals should be to keep your infrastructure healthy and eliminate downtime. When you partner with a managed service provider that knows the platforms your business runs, you gain confidence in the health of your technology.

2: Responsive Hotline Support

This builds upon the previous point, in that industry expertise is also extremely valuable in a hotline support team. A team of technology experts who can answer your calls quickly and efficiently should be another key factor in your evaluation of MSPs. Not all help desks are created equally, and unfortunately some businesses find themselves getting used to long wait times and speaking with people who can’t directly address their issues.

A good technology partner brings a full bench of support to every customer support issue. Whether a request is best resolved by a network engineer, an application consultant, or a software engineer, this program ensures that the appropriate resource is assigned to you. Be sure your new MSP has a proven case management and escalation protocol for timely and efficient issue resolution.

3: Remote Monitoring

Active monitoring and management of your system will keep it running smoothly. Remote monitoring items can include a cloud environment or server hardware, operating system status, and network performance. An MSP can also give you additional support such as database troubleshooting related to system uptime. You also might ask the providers if they can give you timely notice of developing issues, provide security, and perform regular system maintenance.

Providers now need to be able to offer a multi-layered approach to ensure each customer’s success. As with any partnership, you want to be positive the MSP you choose fits your needs and understands your overall business goals.

Because Aktion excels at each point listed above, we believe that these unique qualities set us apart from the competition. Our experience as a technology provider focused on the construction, distribution and manufacturing industries gives our customers complete technology peace of mind. Our goal is to protect your technology, both primary business applications and the platform that they run on.

If you’d like to discuss Aktion’s Managed Services features and benefits, please reach out and I’d be happy to get you started on your Managed Services journey.

 

 

 

The Importance of Mobility

As we’ve seen increasingly lately, being able to work efficiently while also being mobile is critically important. As is the case with technology in general, the construction tech marketplace has seen an increased focus on the cloud.  In particular solutions that are focused on collaboration and visibility into key financials.  Being a long time Timberline / Sage partner, we’re excited to see the Sage Intacct product and offer it as a next generation option for the construction industry.

What Sets Sage Intacct Apart

Sage Intacct sets itself apart from much of the competition.  You get custom dashboards and reporting, streamlined access to your products and projects as well as a unique handling of multi-entity accounting. Many of our customers have multiple companies, and often those entities don’t communicate efficiently.  We often hear how much customers appreciate the automation for financial consolidation activities and how it eliminates the manual processes. The inter-company eliminations are also automated to save time and smooth out the common multi-entity complexities.

Additionally, because Sage Intacct has an open API, you can connect to existing systems through a true cloud platform. This lets you integrate with the applications that are critical to your organization’s success in areas such as:

Technology Built for Construction

Sage Intacct is a cloud product that gives you the capability to see things real time from anywhere, with any device. So, your business grows, you’re truly able to take it to the next level. Technology continues to grow at an amazing pace. I’ve been in the business for quite a few years and I’ve seen many progressions and enhancements within the construction and real estate landscape. But with Sage Intacct, you get a true cloud solution that is constantly evolving with a best-of-breed approach.

Over time businesses makes decisions to grow in new directions which can lead to challenges in the future. We’re seeing three distinct types of companies in our target industries of Construction, Distribution and Manufacturing that have adopted new avenues of growth. We call these multi-industry hybrid companies.

One type is a distribution company that starts a lucrative value-add business to convert lower margin products into higher margin by offering modified or tailored products. An example is a packaging product distributor that creates custom packaging for a product used by an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) looking to reduce its manufacturing labor costs.

The second type is a manufacturing company that reaches capacity in its production operation and decides to add more buy-sell products. Expanding a manufacturing operation can be costly so dedicating some floor space to warehouse consigned or purchased inventory can add margin without a large investment.

The third type is a manufacturer that manufactures and installs a product. Aktion has a few clients that make cast concrete products and also need to install and service their products. This example has combined needs for inventory, manufacturing and project accounting which is an interesting combination of requirements.

Again these are just three examples. There are many more and I will go into a detailed analysis of specific challenges and solutions for these Multi-Industry hybrid businesses.

Of these three types, the majority are running their business using multiple disparate, disconnected software systems or, even worse, using a central accounting system and manually managing these additional requirements using spreadsheets and other home-grown methods.

As an ERP reseller and technology adviser, Aktion receives inquiries weekly from companies who need to modernize their business software and are looking for a single, integrated ERP system that meets the company’s diverse needs and growth capacity.

We anticipated these diverse and evolving requirements and earlier this year invested in adding staff, services, skills, and deliverables to provide these multi-industry companies with the software and support they need to run their business. The Multi-Industry (MI) Division was launched in January 2020.

The MI Division includes application consultants and software engineers focused on servicing the complex needs of a multi-industry company. To ensure the success of the new division, Aktion transitioned senior staff from our Distribution, Construction and Manufacturing practices.

The cornerstone solution of the MI Division is Acumatica Cloud ERP. Four years ago, Aktion became an Acumatica Gold Partner. Acumatica is a modern, cloud-based, integrated ERP solution that delivers everything a hybrid company needs to manage operations. Acumatica developed its own XRP platform which gives each customer control over integrations and upgrades, even in a SaaS environment.

Acumatica offers Construction, Distribution, Manufacturing, Field Service and Commerce editions. Each of these editions may be combined to include cross-over functionality needed for hybrid company requirements making it an ideal platform for Multi-Industry division customers.

In future blogs, I’ll go into more detail about some of the common hybrid business scenarios we’re addressing. Every business is unique and presents its own set of challenges, however; we’re seeing commonality and repeat scenarios to solving these complex challenges.

If you’re a hybrid company that’s struggling to find a solution, just know there is one available – Acumatica.

Office 365 vs Microsoft 365. How do you know which is the right choice? As a Qualified Multi-Tenant Hoster (QMTH) with Microsoft, Aktion is able to offer our customers the use of certain Office 365 subscriptions in the Aktion Cloud.  This is a great benefit, as many Aktion Cloud users need Office in their hosted environment.  Prior to our QMTH status those customers frequently had to pay for separate subscriptions for this.  Now, many of those customers use the same Office 365 subscription for both their workstation and their Aktion Cloud profiles.

Several of the Enterprise Office 365 subscriptions, as well as all of the Microsoft 365 subscriptions, are eligible for this licensing right, called Shared Computer Activation (SCA).  The Office 365 Business products are generally not, with one exception – a subscription bundle called Microsoft 365.  Microsoft’s naming conventions for these products have caused a lot of confusion, and we’d like to help clear some of that up.  See below for more detailed descriptions of the Office 365 and Microsoft 365 products.

Office 365

Far and away more widespread than the newer Microsoft 365 bundle, Office 365 is the original Microsoft Office subscription. It comes with common Microsoft Office applications like Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint with cloud features like OneDrive.  Additional options can add hosted Exchange mailboxes, threat protection, archiving, and more.  There are also subscriptions available for additional applications like Project or Visio.  Depending on number of users and required features, an organization can select Office 365 subscriptions from one of the two main categories described below (or both: product mixing is allowed).  There are also some specific plans for Non-Profits, Government use, and Educational institutions, but we will not explore those here.

Office 365 Business

Office 365 Business is designed for the Small to Medium Business (SMB) market.  Generally more cost effective than the Enterprise plans, the Business plans (Essential, Business, and Business Premium) offer a nice range of core features but come with some limitations, as well.  Primarily, the Business plans are limited to 300 users, and do not include Shared Computer Activation (SCA) rights – making them ineligible for use within an Aktion Cloud Services environment.

Office 365 Enterprise

For those businesses who require a different level of functionality, Microsoft offers the Office 365 Enterprise family of subscriptions (ProPlus, E1, E3, and E5).  These plans are focused on some of the features required by larger organizations, have options focused on meeting compliance requirements and more automated roll-out.  Most of these plans (except E1) also include the SCA rights – which means they can be used in an Aktion Cloud Services environment.

 

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 (M365) is a bundling Office 365, Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS), and Windows 10 licensing.  This makes it a great choice for a Windows 7 upgrade path where needed.  The Widows 10 license also works for Virtual Desktops in Microsoft Azure.  Additionally, all the Office 365 versions included with Microsoft 365 come with the Shared Computer Activation licensing rights mentioned above.  Microsoft 365 subscriptions belong to one of three categories: Business, Enterprise, and Education (we won’t cover Education here).

Microsoft 365 Business

The Microsoft 365 Business plan is designed for SMB deployments.  It includes Office 365 Business, and some EMS and Intune (Microsoft’s Mobile Device Management solution) features.  Like the Office 365 Business products, Microsoft 365 Business may not have more than 300 users. They also don’t support any sort of group policy.  This subscription also includes an upgrade for Windows 7 Professional or Windows 8.1 Pro to Windows 10 Pro.

Microsoft 365 Enterprise

Microsoft 365 Enterprise subscriptions are based off the Office 365 Enterprise plans, E3 and E5, and come with Office ProPlus.  Additional features offered include Advanced Threat Protection, more fully featured versions of EMS and Intune, and other Enterprise focused options.

Office 365 vs Microsoft 365 is all about choosing the right solution for your business.