Merchants who cut costs to the bone during the downturn and aren’t yet seeing business recover to post-recession levels are taking the unusual step of ramping up spending on innovation in search of the next new thing, experts said at a retail conference this week. It’s a gamble — retail sales aren’t likely to rebound robustly until unemployment eases considerably, said National Retail Federation President and CEO Matthew Shay.  Click on the link below to read the rest of the story.

Retailers invest in innovation – Related Stories – NRF SmartBrief.

Every business has its own terminology. For example, many of us refer to our customers as “customers”. However, professionals tend to refer to them as “clients”, while conference organizers refer to them as “participants” or “attendees”. The list goes on.  As you would expect, products targeted towards a specific industry will use the appropriate industry specific terminology throughout their product. Products targeted towards many different types of businesses will use more generic terminology throughout their product.  This makes sense – right?

As you would expect, products targeted towards a specific industry will use the appropriate industry specific terminology throughout their product. Products targeted towards many different types of businesses will use more generic terminology throughout their product.  This makes sense – right?

The problem is that many people fall into the trap of concluding that just because a product contains their particular terminology, that it must be ideally suited for their needs. I can assure you, it takes a quantum leap jump to reach this conclusion. Avoid being lured in by a product’s industry specific terminology. Instead, look past the terminology for specific features, functionality, and modules.

The benefits of Microsoft Dynamics® GP are clear, no matter what terminology you’re familiar with:

• Microsoft Dynamics GP’s Integration with familiar products, such as Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Excel makes for a streamlined work flow and is a top feature of the product.
• Microsoft Dynamics GP provides functionality to help you compare budgets, forecasts, and plans to actual performance. It also gives you the ability to update budgets and plans on the basis of new data and analyses to help your business stay competitive.
• There are oodles of Modules within Microsoft Dynamics GP . For example, Receivables Management in Microsoft Dynamics GP helps you maintain tight control over Accounts Receivables by providing the capabilities to help you track invoices, process receipts, and analyze customer activity.

InterDyn LANAC Technology is a leading business consulting and development firm, specializing in Microsoft Dynamics GP, that serves mid-market organizations to provide business and information automation to help them drive increased productivity.

By InterDyn LANAC Technology, a leading Chicago, Illinois Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner

In July 2009, more than 1,400 business technology professionals weighed in on their Windows 7 deployment plans. At the time, we saw a general feeling of discontent with Microsoft’s direction, laced with an undercurrent of malice. A vocal minority gave us an earful about Vista’s failure in the enterprise, but what really fanned the flames was XP’s impending end of life. One respondent, in an interesting-albeit somewhat maudlin-analogy, compared XP’s demise with forcing your perfectly healthy 10-year-old Labrador retriever into a doggy nursing home. Such compelling philosophical arguments aside, most CIOs and IT staffers expressed serious skepticism that Windows 7 would deliver real business value.

What a difference a few months can make.

Click here to read the rest of the story on Practical Migration: How To Master Your Win 7 Rollout

Using your laptop to get work done away from your office or on the road is becoming widely accepted. But this rapid growth in laptop computing has made portable systems the target for theft around the world. If your laptop computer is stolen, company information can be exposed, as well as your personal and financial information.

Use these 9 tips to learn how you can keep your laptop more secure when you’re on the road.

1. Avoid using computer bags
Computer bags can make it obvious that you’re carrying a laptop. Instead, try toting your laptop in something more common like a padded briefcase or suitcase.

2. Never leave access numbers or passwords in your carrying case
Keeping your password with your laptop is like keeping the keys in the car. Without your password or important access numbers it will be more difficult for a thief to access your personal and corporate information.

click here to read more of this article of 9 ways to increase the security of your laptop while on the road

While RMS does a great job of handling most retail functions, there are some industries that require extra functionality not available “out of the box”.  One example is liquor stores and bars.  One customer we work with is a wine bar/shop in Chicago.  They were fine with the selling and ordering of wine within RMS, but being a wine bar and hosting events they needed the capability to record tips and handle tabs. 

For tracking tips, we gave them a custom button that printed a receipt that included a tip line, before the sale was complete.  Customers would fill out this receipt then the whole sale could be tendered with the tip included.  For handling customer tabs, we gave them another custom button that used the RMS “Hold Transaction” function and provided a quick, easy to use interface to recall transactions, add an item, and put the transaction back on hold without having to re-enter the transaction reference.  It has been very successful for them.

For more information on this new product, download our documentation here.

For a limited time Microsoft is offering RMS customers re-enrollment into their service plan without having to pay the fees usually associated with letting your maintenance lapse!  Hurry, because it will end on June 25th, 2010!

This is an incredible offer and well-timed because Microsoft will be releasing a major service pack in the second half of 2010 that it is calling “Feature Pack 1″ because of all of the new features it will add.  Here are some of the highlights:

• New KPI reports including inventory turns, GMROI, inventory valuation.
• Key metrics in manual purchasing.
• Centralized Purchasing Improvements
• Partial Shipments and payments.
• Landed cost.
• Global Vouchers managed centrally across all stores.
• Documentation Updates

Being current on your Microsoft Service Plan is critical because if you have lapsed you be unable to receive this Feature Pack.  Contact LANAC Technology today to discuss getting current or staying current with your Microsoft Service Plan!

Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 is a flexible, scalable store management solution that enables midmarket, single store companies to provide outstanding customer service, drive employee productivity and make business decisions with confidence.  

POS 2009 offers an easy to use touch screen interface that can be suited for all users ranging from cashiers to store managers.  InterDyn-LANAC Technologies has successfully implemented the system for numerous companies and can work with your company to offer a personalized solution to fit your business needs.  

With Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009, you can:

• Optimize store performance and help make people—your organization’s most valuable asset—more productive.
• Leverage innovative features and a highly customizable, role-based user interface to gain quick, simplified access to the information you need to drive business success.  
• Easy-to-use wizards enable you to quickly set up your store operations, while a personalized user experience helps people focus on what matters most—your customers. 
• Automate critical processes based on specific business needs, and implement a retail solution that fits with existing systems and can scale and grow with your organization. 
• Gain the comprehensive insight you need to make informed decisions and act quickly on new retail opportunities using powerful, real-time inventory management and reporting tools. 
• Enhance the customer experience with the ability to add functionality for multichannel mobility, provide flexible payment options, and offer instant alternatives to out-of-stock items. 
• Provide role-based, task-centric access to information with the ability to optimize the user experience for each individual—from the storefront to the back office. 
• Work easily from within Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 with familiar Microsoft Office applications, including Microsoft Office Excel® and Microsoft Office Word. 
• Connect to a wide range of hardware, including printers, magnetic swipe readers (MSRs), PIN pads, scanners, cash drawers, scales, and line displays with support for industry standards such as OLE for Retail POS (OPOS) and Microsoft POS for .NET.

Contact us for more information today!

When I work with people in my business productivity practice, the first question I ask them is, “What’s stopping you from being more productive?” The answers that keep coming up are pretty much the same from everyone.

In this article, we’ll take a look at these beliefs one by one, and see how you can turn them around.

1. There’s too much information coming at me too fast
Belief: My e-mail is overwhelming me. I can’t keep up with it.

Reality: The volume of e-mail isn’t the issue. How you process and organize the volume is the issue. Learning how to better manage your e-mail by using McGhee Productivity Solutions’ “Four D’s for Decision Making” will transform this belief.

Each year we receive more and more data from a growing array of devices, which can be accessed from an increasing number of locations. If you’re not careful, the quantity of data starts to drive you instead of the other way around. Learn 4 ways you can take control of your e-mail Inbox. And when you do, you can reduce the number of messages in your inbox by as much as 80 percent.

Read the rest of the article 5 Beliefs that limit productivity – and how to overcome them

Someone in your organization spends long hours on a task that could take a fraction of the time.  Someone else in your organization knows how to do accomplish this… Which one are you?

Join us as we present methodologies for business optimization:

• Fact based decision making

• Utilization of statistics

• Variation control

• Constraint management

• Continuous improvement

Click here to register for this webinar on Business Process Intelligence