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Frontline BioEnergy

New Renewable Energy Firm Upgrades Operating System, Desktop Tools to Grow

Posted: 02/07/2007

Frontline BioEnergy is using the Windows Vista^TM operating system and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system to help staffers meet the challenge of its first major contract with a client in Minnesota. Frontline partners and staff are also using Windows Vista and the new desktop tools to manage a growing amount of customer and project data—with improved connectivity and security capabilities—to stay in touch with the office during client visits.

Business Needs

Based in Ames, Iowa, Frontline BioEnergy’s goal is to become the leader in biomass gasification technology in the United States. The company designs and builds equipment that converts biomass (plant material such as corn stalks) into fuel. Frontline’s proprietary equipment uses a thermal process called gasification that converts biomass into a combustible gas. Customers are companies that want to use a more environmentally friendly fuel source than natural gas for their industrial facilities.
According to General Manager, Norman Reese, Frontline helps customers “turn off the valve from the natural gas pipeline and turn on the valve from the cornfield.”
Recently, Frontline signed its first big contract to build the commercial equipment for an ethanol plant in Minnesota, driving the need for more staff. “We like to use the best tools we can to improve our employees’ efficiency and the security of our computer-aided design (CAD) modeling data, the lifeblood of our business,” says Reese. “We needed to improve how we manage customer, vendor, and supplier data for this big project. Because the new client is in Minnesota, my partners and staff will be on site a lot of the time, and we needed a more reliable, secure mobile platform to stay connected to the office.”
To meet these goals, Frontline decided to work with Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Heartland Technology Solutions to deploy the Windows Vista™ operating system and the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

Solution

Heartland Technologies provided Frontline with a personal computer, portable computer, and a Tablet PC pre-installed with Windows Vista Business and Microsoft Office Professional 2007.
“Working with Heartland through the operating system transition has been great,” says Reese. “We took a chance at such a busy time in the project, but Windows Vista and Office Professional 2007 integrated seamlessly with Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 and really caused no disruptions to our business.”
Frontline BioEnergy is taking advantage of many productivity enhancing features found in Windows Vista and Office Professional 2007 to help its employees meet the growing demands of its expanding business. Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 with Business Contact Manager enables Frontline to simplify the management of its customer information. Using the new graphic capabilities of the Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2007 presentation graphics program, the Frontline management team creates professional looking business communications and presentations for their prospective clients. Finally, staffers manage their business better from new client sites, or when on the road meeting prospective customers, by taking advantage of better connectivity between mobile devices to share important business information at a moment’s notice.
Frontline staff easily acclimated to the new operating system and desktop productivity tools. “Even though I’ve never used a Tablet PC before, Windows Vista is so intuitive and logically designed there was virtually no learning curve,” says Travis Curtis, Design Technician. “With thousands of documents to reference, we also appreciate [Windows] Vista’s improved file search capability which has made it easier to find the right file quickly.”
Next steps include deploying Windows Vista and Microsoft Office Professional 2007 for two mechanical engineers. “One of them uses Microsoft Office Visio®, and he is excited about trying the 2007 release. We are also hiring two more people and we are looking forward to having Windows Vista and Office Professional 2007 on everyone’s desktop, so we’ll have a standard platform and toolset that will maximize our efficiency,” adds Reese.

Benefits

“For a developing company like Frontline, it’s critical that we have the software to help us grow the business,” says Reese. “Windows Vista and Office Professional 2007 are helping us work more efficiently so we can deliver on our first industrial scale project.”
Today, Frontline employees are better able to handle the increased workload stemming from the new contract because they are better managing their customer information, improving remote connectivity to the office, and enhancing data security.

• Improved customer information management, marketing. “Now we have the tools to manage a growing amount of customer data and project information relating to our new contract, including vendors and suppliers,” says Curtis. “Using Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager, we’ve eliminated client data duplication because everyone has access to the latest information in one place.” Reese and his partners are also using SmartArt™ diagrams within Office PowerPoint 2007 to deliver more compelling, professional presentations to new and prospective clients.

• Improved connectivity. Traveling to and from Minnesota, Frontline employees are using real-time communications between their Audiovox 6700 PDA phones and the personal computer running Windows Vista in the office to stay on top of the business.

• Enhanced security. With modeling data that’s crucial for Frontline’s proprietary equipment, Reese finds comfort in Windows Vista security features like Windows® Firewall and Windows Defender. The ability to remotely wipe off data from a stolen phone also safeguards client contact information. Self-serve backup capabilities are good for a small company with only one IT specialist, and Network Access Protection will prevent clients that do not meet Frontline’s internal systems health policies from connecting to the network.

Windows Vista Accelerates IT Consulting, Enhances Client Support

Silicon East, in N.J., has excelled in the IT consulting business for 25 years. Six technicians and three office support personnel make up the highly efficient staff. The firm has participated in the Microsoft Early Adopter Program and has been a Microsoft Certified Partner since 2003 and an OEM System Builder since 1997. The company’s client base consists of small and midsize high-profile businesses in the realty, construction, mortgage and insurance industries. Silicon East has 15 computers.

Summary

New Jersey-based Silicon East is a leading IT consultant, handling small and midsize businesses in the real estate, construction, mortgage and insurance industries. Though small, with only nine employees, the firm has discovered tools that facilitate its rapidly accelerating expansion. Windows Vista is one of its growth ingredients. With new capabilities enabled by Instant Search, Network Diagnostics and Troubleshooting, better and security-enhanced Remote Desktop Connection, the company is seeing a 20 percent increase in billable hours.

Business Needs

Silicon East is a relatively small IT shop with a well-established reputation and a client base of small and midsize businesses in the real estate, construction, mortgage and insurance industries. Silicon East sought ways to address two critical challenges: how to improve remote IT support capabilities, and how to grow the business more proactively.
Marc Harrison, President of Silicon East, knew that one of the keys to growing his business and empowering his technicians to do more, more conveniently — regardless of client location or time of day — was having the right tools in place. Windows Vista Ultimate gave Silicon East the business leverage it was looking for.

Solution

Both Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate provide Silicon East with new tools to better run its business. In a real sense, Windows Vista improves the operations of Silicon East as much as it does its long list of customers.
Silicon East discovered four key features in Windows Vista that accelerate its business: Instant Search, Flip 3D, Network Diagnostics and Troubleshooting and security-enhanced Remote Desktop Connection.
With Instant Search, technicians are never more than a few keystrokes away from locating the files and e-mails they need to solve a customer’s IT problems. This feature, available from almost anywhere within Windows Vista, enables the search for a file name, a property or even text contained within a file. And it returns precise results. The same capability holds true for e-mail.
Searching for the right opened document is also aided by Windows Flip 3D. It gives technicians a new way to multitask and find the information they need. When Start + TAB are pressed, Windows Flip 3D dynamically displays all the open windows on the desktop in a 3-D, stacked view. This is particularly useful when a number of Microsoft Knowledge Base articles are open and all need to be readily available for reference.
The Windows Network Diagnostics tool in Windows Vista helps rapidly solve problems when a computer on the network loses Internet connectivity. A technician can graphically see which connection is down and then use Network Diagnostics to help determine the cause of the problem and find possible solutions. Often when a remote connection is not possible, the information provided to a user is so clear that the issue can be resolved with just a phone conversation.
Remote Desktop Connection gives Silicon East nearly instantaneous, easier and more secure access to solve individual user and network problems without the need for IT personnel to travel to the client’s location. With today’s high gas prices, this has become a critical support element.

Benefits

• Business Growth Accelerates. For Silicon East, Windows Vista has proven to be a boon for business.
  “Billable hours are up 20 percent since we switched to Windows Vista,” said Marc Harrison, president of Silicon East. “We are simply more productive. For us, Windows Vista means money.”
  Silicon East as a business is similar in many ways to the clients it serves. New software must prove itself valuable.
  “We’re no different from any other small business,” said Harrison. “Installing new software must make a difference to our bottom line, or it’s just not worth our time. Windows Vista is having the most positive impact on our revenue of any previous operating system.”
  Most of Silicon East’s technicians are perpetually on the road working from client offices or in hotel rooms at all hours, day or night.
  “Windows Vista helps keep my technicians better connected and in the field solving customer problems,” said Harrison. “For us, Windows Vista means ‘more’—more satisfied customers, techs being more efficient, and more clients handled in less time.”

• Better and Faster Diagnostics. Windows Vista helps keep customer computers running reliably by automatically detecting and resolving many known problems, requiring little or no effort on the part of a user. For Silicon East it means it can concentrate on other IT issues.
  “The bulletproof automated self-patching and self-healing capabilities of Windows Vista enable fixes on hundreds of computers,” said Harrison. “It would be overwhelming to do that manually. Both we and our clients sleep better knowing that critical security updates are automatically and reliably installed.”

• Instant Search Enables Instant Solutions. The Instant Search feature within the Start menu of Windows Vista helps Silicon East technicians find the files needed to solve customer problems faster. The ability to search PCs, e-mails, servers and the Internet is a significant productivity advantage.
  “Instant Search is a huge benefit,” said Harrison. “It searches thousands of our files and e-mails to find the information we need. It even extends to the server, something that was impossible with Windows XP.
  Harrison continues: “Finding that six-month-old e-mail that related to a similar problem can often save hours of research time. A tech can gain back days of work time with just this feature alone. Even better, we can ‘remind’ our clients of what they said, when they said it. Everyone can appreciate what that means.”

Mister Watch Online

Watch Company Boosts Revenue 20 Percent with Seven Hours Weekly Timesavings

Posted: 12/14/2006

Mister Watch Online is a small Web-based business with thousands of customers. The company deployed Microsoft® Office Accounting 2007 to take advantage of its integration with Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 with Business Contact Manager and the PayPal online payment service. Mister Watch Online has reduced administrative work by seven hours a week, leading to a 20 percent boost in revenues, and gained the ability to see revenue sources at a glance.

Business Needs

Mister Watch Online is a Web-based business started in 2003 by Eric Kasper of Akron, Ohio. The four-person company sells thousands of designer-brand watches at discounted prices and prides itself on outstanding customer service. Although most customers place their orders online, many phone in their orders or call to check on status after placing an order. Providing customers with stellar, responsive service and taking advantage of upsell opportunities are top priorities for Mister Watch Online.
However, the staff was collectively spending up to 12 hours a week on administrative work that detracted from quality time with customers. When he started Mister Watch Online, Kasper used QuickBooks for financial recordkeeping. He moved to Microsoft® Office Small Business Accounting 2006 for its improved integration with the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 messaging and collaboration client, which Kasper uses extensively.
“Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 gave me integration with other Microsoft Office programs, but I still spent time jumping in and out of programs,” says Kasper, President of Mister Watch Online. “Also, Small Business Accounting 2006 lacked integration with PayPal and a few key features such as list sorting and filtering, which would have been useful to us.” Kasper’s staff spent three hours each week manually entering PayPal transactions and another five hours sorting approximately 600 bills for payment.
“I would rather use those hours to service customers and make sales,” Kasper says. “I was actually considering hiring an extra person to do many of these administrative tasks, but no small business owner wants to add another salary.”

Solution

In mid-2006, Kasper took advantage of an opportunity to test Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2007 and Microsoft Office Professional 2007. “None of us are accountants, but we only needed a little training for Office Accounting 2007, for the PayPal add-in,” Kasper says. “We started saving time immediately.”
Instead of manually entering PayPal transactions, the staff uses Office Accounting 2007 to automatically invoice and receive payment using PayPal, eliminating three hours of weekly clerical time and providing customers with faster verification and payment. Instead of manually sorting 600 invoices each week, the staff uses the Office Accounting 2007 filter feature to sort invoices.
Employees use Office Accounting 2007 together with Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager in all customer interactions. Kasper uses Office Outlook 2007 to create tasks and assign them to employees, view customer histories and sales records, and record invoices. He is also able to store customer order and financial histories in a single database and save all e-mail messages, phone logs, and reminders in one place. “Office Accounting 2007 combined with Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager gives us full CRM [customer relationship management] functionality, without the need to use an expensive, standalone application,” Kasper says.
If a customer sends an e-mail to the company inquiring about an order, the staff can look up the customer in Office Outlook 2007 and automatically retrieve the customer’s financial information from Office Accounting 2007. The employee can see the customer’s order history, payment history, and any returns, before replying. Staff members also set reminders to get back to customers with answers to questions.
When the company receives bills as Microsoft Office Word documents or a Microsoft Office Excel® spreadsheet, employees can add them to a vendor’s account with a single mouse-click, giving Mister Watch Online the ability to keep all records in a single place for easy access.

Benefits

Through the use of Office Accounting 2007, Mister Watch Online has realized significant benefits:

• Seven-hour weekly reduction in administrative work. Using Office Accounting 2007, Mister Watch Online has been able to reduce the five-hour weekly bill-paying job to one hour and eliminate the three-hour task of entering PayPal transactions altogether. “By using Office Accounting 2007, we’re eliminating 7 of the 12 hours we spend each week doing administrative tasks, allowing employees to redirect that time to selling,” Kasper says.

• Twenty percent increase in revenues. By redirecting seven hours each week to selling, Mister Watch Online has boosted revenues approximately 12 percent. Another 8 percent growth in revenue has resulted from sending e-mail mailers weekly instead of monthly; using the customizable List feature in Office Accounting 2007 makes it easier to categorize customers.

• Quick look at revenue sources. Kasper uses the standard and custom reporting capabilities of Office Accounting 2007 to get snapshot views of his business. “I’ve created a report that shows me which distribution venues generate the most sales,” Kasper says. “I can now easily see where the money is coming from; this helps us fine-tune our marketing on a weekly basis.”

Concludes Kasper, “Office Accounting 2007 has far more functionality than you’d expect in a small business product. It’s one of the best accounting solutions I’ve seen on the market.”

Riverbend Interactive Marketing

Marketing Firm Saves $40,000 by Linking Accounting and Contact Management Software

Posted: 12/13/2006

Riverbend Interactive Marketing is a small print and interactive marketing firm located in Battle Creek, Michigan. Owner Tom Gordon wanted to streamline administrative tasks so he could spend more time on creative work. He’s saving 10 hours a week and gaining a better view of his business by deploying Microsoft® Office Accounting 2007 to integrate his accounting records into Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 with Business Contact Manager.

Business Needs

Tom Gordon has more than 30 years of experience in marketing and advertising, having worked for several agencies and as a corporate marketing executive. When Gordon started Riverbend Interactive Marketing, he supplemented his own expertise with a network of creative and technical consultants. Today, Riverbend provides marketing counsel to more than a dozen local, regional, and national clients from Chicago to Los Angeles.
As a small business owner, Gordon never has enough hours in the day. He’s in continuous contact with clients and contractors across three time zones and moves constantly between his desktop computer and Pocket PC to access files, send and read e-mail messages, create quotes, and perform other administrative tasks that support his business. Until recently, Gordon used the Microsoft® Office Professional Edition 2003 for productivity tasks and Quicken Premier Home and Business 2005 for timekeeping and accounting.
Because his base program was the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 messaging and collaboration client, Gordon found himself continually jumping between Quicken and Office Outlook, Office Word 2003, and Office Excel® 2003 programs to look up information and communicate with clients. “I was probably spending 15 hours a week on administrative and accounting-related matters,” Gordon says.
Constant application-switching to perform financial tasks interrupted Gordon’s primary business activity, which was devising creative concepts for his clients. “People hire me for my ideas. Administrative interruptions were sprinkled throughout every workday, impeding my ability to focus my creative train of thought.”
Also, when clients or contractors called with questions, Gordon had to look in multiple places to find answers. “It was embarrassing,” he says. “My clients expect me to be on top of their projects, and it makes a bad impression when it appears I’m not.”

Solution

When Gordon learned that Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2007 integrated with Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager, he leapt at the chance to test the new program. “I was considering moving to QuickBooks, which has a version for service companies. But Office Accounting 2007 won out because it works with Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager,” Gordon says. “The integration of accounting functionality with the program I live in every day would allow me to see my clients’ complete financial history from within Office Outlook, which was very exciting.”
Gordon installed Microsoft Office Accounting 2007, which gives him the ability to prepare quotes and invoices, manage purchase orders, pay bills, track his own and contractors’ time, and monitor cash flow—all using the familiar Microsoft Office interface. At the same time, he installed Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and the Windows Vista^TM operating system.
The integration of Office Accounting 2007 and Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager saves time for Gordon throughout his day. “Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager gives me instant access to everything I need,” he says. For example, from his Windows Mobile® powered Pocket PC, Gordon receives an e-mail message from a client asking about a recent invoice. He opens Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager and clicks on the customer’s account name. Office Outlook 2007 links to the client’s financial records in Office Accounting 2007, so Gordon can find the needed invoice in seconds. “I have a single point of focus—Office Outlook 2007—with fast access to everything I need to know about my customers, contractors, and projects,” Gordon says.
Additional favorite Office Accounting 2007 features include easy-to-use reports, reliable templates, and the ability to easily transfer documents between Office Accounting 2007 and Word and Excel in the 2007 Office release.

Benefits

The move to Office Accounting 2007 has saved Tom Gordon roughly a day a week—a significant return on investment for a small business owner. He’s using this time to take on more projects and produce higher quality work.

• Timesavings of 10 hours a week. The efficiencies provided by the integration of Office Accounting 2007 and Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager have netted Gordon 8 to 10 hours a week in administrative savings. “Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 has given me 10 more billable hours each week; that’s worth $40,000 of new business a year,” Gordon says. “There’s only me. The only way I can grow my business is to free up more hours in the day, and Office Accounting 2007 does that.”
  The program also gives Gordon an easy way to share financial data with his accountant for preparation of quarterly and annual tax returns. “With Office Accounting 2007, I don’t have to hire a bookkeeper or billing clerk. I can do all the financial work myself,” Gordon says.

• Business health at a glance. Gordon can open Office Accounting 2007, click on a client’s name, and see profit and loss figures, cash flow, outstanding invoices, bills that need to be paid, and the client’s entire financial history with Riverbend. “Office Accounting 2007 will improve my cash flow by making it easier to do progress billing weekly rather than monthly,” he says. “Time tracking is built into the program.”

• Higher quality creative work. With the ability to more speedily dispatch administrative tasks, Gordon has gained uninterrupted time to produce quality creative work for his clients.

• Improved customer service. When customers call, Gordon can find answers faster, making a better impression. “Happy customers are repeat customers,” Gordon says. “Office Accounting 2007 makes me look good every day.”