Work at Home Call Centers – Make that Extra Dollar

If you are stressed out from your regular job hours, wanting to be at home to look after the kids or are physically handicapped, but are worried about financial stability, there is a new line of work in the offing for you it's called the "work at home call center" jobs. You no longer need to work those bizarre hours staying out of your home now you could do the call center work, from the comfort of your home itself.

Work at home call centers have become very popular today and technology has made it possible to work from almost anywhere. Work at Home Call Centers; have fluid business opportunities, requiring dynamic scaling to accommodate spikes in demand. They hire temporary and contract work force that can work from home. However, ensuring compliance and making corporate resources available to this work force are two major challenges call centers face.

To become a call center agent, skills vary depending on the type of work. Though many prefer experience in retail or other positions, others look for qualities like; Dependability, professional phone presence, basic  English, math and writing skills or knowledge of word processing systems. Companies that employ such agents benefit immensely as they are not only creating jobs for people but also can save from shipping jobs offshore.

The overhead costs associated with operating a call center are greatly reduced or eliminated when an agent is employed from home. Moreover, money can be saved in areas such as hardware and other infrastructure and electricity.

According to Gartner, 41% of enterprise call centers plan on employing "Work At Home" agents in the near future.

With today's modern workforce using mobile telecommunications and technology, your call center phone agents can work from your call center, from home, from a remote office or even while on the road. Virtual call center technology allows people to work from home instead of a traditional, centralized, call center location, which increasingly allows people with physical or other disabilities from leaving the house, to work.

When considering the transition to an outsourced, home-based call center solution, companies need to find a partner who will work with them to adapt their existing processes to a remote situation. Agents only need Internet access, a computer and a phone to become completely indistinguishable from a company’s internal workforce.

Call centers create and provision secure virtual workspaces with the call center applications in a central location for distribution to all contract employees where needed when needed. In addition, it divides a home machine into two logical places, one to hold the unmanaged contractor’s home desktop and another for the managed virtual workspace hosting the call center applications.

The work at home call center can be far more productive and cost effective than a traditional center. By distributing your workforce and letting technology unburden your agent's routine tasks, you can effectively reduce infrastructure requirement, increase productivity and improved Employee-employer relationship.

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Desktop Virtualization for Small and Medium Businesses

Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are increasingly adopting virtualization that has transformed enterprise data centers around the world. Desktop virtualization refers to technologies that separate a personal computer desktop environment comprising hardware, operating system, applications, data, and personal settings independently of each other. It holds the promise of solving many of the desktop management problems that have been plaguing IT since PCs first began to multiply in corporations in the early 1980s.

Enterprise IT is under immense pressure to centralize desktops and increase productivity while also reducing costs and ensuring control over information assets, complying with security regulations, and standardizing data sharing practices across the enterprise. This apart, another major challenge for traditional desktop computing, is the question of mobility. Statistics reveal that 50% of business workers are mobile at any given time (International Telework Association) and that by 2010, over 70% of US workers will be mobile.

While this is the scenario, traditional desktop centralization models cannot accommodate mobile laptop users and they also present challenges in terms of overall end-user experience and application compatibility. Enterprises also have growing concerns about endpoint security and data leakage.

IDC analysts state that 60% of enterprise confidential information resides on the endpoints and 42% of data breaches are a result of a lost device, including laptops and mobile phones.Desktop Virtualization software increases business agility and continuity and helps organizations to reduce their total cost of ownership (TCO). It enables anywhere access and improves security and compliance. The biggest challenge faced by SMBs is resources i.e. fewer staff and lower budgets, for them desktop virtualization is a big boon.

Desktop Virtualization offers a broad selection of solutions that allows companies to preserve their existing IT investments while choosing the right technology that best address their unique business and IT challenges. It delivers a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution that allows organizations to centrally manage desktops in the datacenter while providing a personalized desktop experience for end users. It is a more secure and flexible way to deliver Windows desktops and applications to business users in any location, using any device.

As customers of all sizes move to desktop virtualization, they need simpler, more scalable solutions that integrate software, hardware and support. The ideal solution should deliver the Desktop Workspace to users the way Web applications are delivered:

  1. User desktop/workspace is independent of OS and HW device, delivered to any machine with no installation on demand. i.e. the desktop was never installed on any machine but follows you like faithful dog, where ever user goes whatever machine he/she uses and gives the same experience of running on his/her own machine.

  2. Software isn’t installed on PCs, but rather lives as a single copy on the network, accessible to millions of users, a world in which one single system administrator supporting that one copy would also be supporting those millions of users.

  3. It should also enable the new software delivery models like rent or subscribe for one’s favorite application like adobe photo shop, or a delightfully graphics rich game for an hour, a day, or a week, just the exact time you need, and run it on any machine anywhere, with all the speed and availability you are used to from a program installed on your own machine.

  4. Simplify management of user desktops/workspaces to the bone like web applications management.

  5. Successful desktop virtualization empowers enterprises to reduce the high cost of ownership and security risks of maintaining individual PCs, enables improved desktop management through standardization and optimizes the storage and infrastructure required.

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Reputable Results with ERP solutions for the Agro Industry

The agro industry has not been able to harness maximum potentials due to challenges in supply chain and resourceful planning. There is lack of understanding regarding the customer requirements, and the complete benefits are yet to be uncovered. The growers and planters do not have any practical business model, nor do they have the know-how of their products or the requisite technological aptitude to help invigorate their processes and transform their non-productive business into a high revenue one.

The agro business can expect cost-saving benefits and richer returns with intelligent enterprise resource planning solutions that can help convert any mid-sized business or an enterprise into a beneficial project. Any business that runs on the basis of outdated and inaccurate information will experience a stunted growth. The enterprise resource planning solutions can provide the agro businesses with solutions that facilitate procurement of relevant, quick and precise information. The solutions help the businesses to communicate effectively with customers and suppliers.

Now growers and planters can avail the best strategies from Microsoft’serp solutions. The solutions help them resolve issues correctly without any adverse effects. A structured process is deployed which helps in effective inventory and storage management, sales and distribution, procurement and production functions. There is neither any loss nor wastage of resources.

The model is a flexible one and has been developed specially for the agro business possessing unparalleled capabilities. It has the aptitude to handle processes from the basic levels such as tracing the batch levels to more complicated levels such as production, processing and distribution.

Microsoft’s erp provides the ideal Growers solution that provides a comprehensive database for the growers and can link them to individual field coordinators. It deploys a field order monitoring and management system and executes a quality management system right from the seed sowing stage up to the point of sales. It provides analytical reports on the growth of seeds and keeps a track of payments for the supply of seeds. It also provides compensation facilities to recover losses incurred due to any natural calamities. It also has a date control system for expiration of seeds.

The solutions provide a clear picture of the demand and supply and provide information about the stocks and inventory to the agro businesses. Tracking of batches is easier. Businesses are able to perform better and reduce their costs. Intelligent decisions are implemented and better margins can be expected. Microsoft erp solutions render the best consulting, maintenance and support services and can be rated as the most suitable Grower solution with undisputed performances.

Solving complex issues with Enterprise Video

In today’s fast paced world multi-national corporations have their expert workforce functioning from multiple time zones, geographies and disciplines. Owing to factors of distance and diverse locations such corporations are often bothered about issues concerning ways to educate, train and keep their employees informed. According to IDC Research, knowledge workers spend 15 - 30% of their time seeking specific information and these searches are successful less than 50% of the time. Issues of knowledge sharing without wasting too much time on packaging knowledge plague senior managers at different global enterprises. The fact remains that the vast majority of knowledge in any organization is conveyed informally, in meetings, conference calls and other verbally conveyed forms that are never captured or even recorded and reused by the organization.


Enterprise video can be an effective tool for such enterprises and can help them capture huge amount of knowledge that is locked in the heads of subject matter experts and making their knowledge accessible to the organization. With such enterprise searchable video mechanisms in place global organizations can capture verbal knowledge and make it a definite part of their corporate process. By digitally recording different sessions of sales meetings, training sessions or corporate communication sessions can make knowledge available to all sections of the corporation. With the help of video or audio recording, verbal knowledge can easily be captured and made available to everyone in the organization. This means that subject matters experts need no longer learn new software or create additional documents, all they need to do is simply present their knowledge in a traditional manner – via meetings or web conferences which can be recorded and kept for usage even at a later date.


Armed with a rich media repository organizations can have a single place for media where users can find the audio and video files that meets their needs. Effective media repositories can easily deliver streaming content to anyone in the world through global content delivery networks to ensure smooth playback for all users, regardless of how far they may be from the corporate office. Also with reusability being an important aspect using video can be an efficient knowledge transfer mechanism. In some cases video can be fully transcribed into data.  Searchable video can make corporate knowledge fluid and more accessible throughout the whole organization and ensure that the same can be delivered via a myriad of platforms and methods. Therefore by optimally using enterprise video can certainly turn around things for  global organizations and make them more productive and knowledgeable.


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Inspiring Solutions for Impressive Results in the Lending Business

The lending industry deals with different types of finance schemes. It provides various short and long term loans, hire purchases and leases through banks, insurance companies and financial institutions. The finance business is a very delicate one and any incorrect assumptions or unreasonable conditions can be disastrous. The institutions have to offer viable loans and competitive rates to the customers or else the schemes may not be acceptable. At the same time they also have to maintain their own profitability. The lending industry has to operate under trying conditions and also maintain the expectation levels of the customers.

The lending industry faces numerous challenges as the market is a dynamic one and constantly changing. There is tremendous pressure to display intelligent aptitudes and deliver outstanding performances. The maintenance of compliance regulations is an added burden in an already restrictive environment. The industry requires highly competent IT systems to support the operations and make convincing progress amidst the presumptuous challenges.

An IT system that offers discreet lending solutions can help the financial institutions to continue delivering optimal services along with strategies to enhance profits. The financial software solutions should demonstrate laudable technology research capabilities and should have a responsive architecture. An aggressive pursuit is required to enhance ROI quickly, reduce the total cost of ownership, reduce transaction and administrative costs and offer solutions which are customer-oriented.

The lending software rovides customized solutions keeping in mind the dynamic nature of the business and the developmental prospects that affect the future of business. It duly enforces compliance standards that address the security issues effectively and establish a compelling risk management system. Employing flexible solutions enables the business to carry out the end-to-end processes comprehensively, accurately and efficiently without any errors or threats. Due to its accommodating attributes the solutions can be used to suit any business irrespective of its size.

Normally small businesses suffer in implementing an effective financial management process as they are incapable of affording expensive solutions which may also be complex. The lending software is an affordable solution as it provides complete and the best financial assistance for any loans, hire purchases, leases and customer contracts. The small business financial management solution is the ultimate weapon that can help small businesses leverage their performances and profits. The lending software adds more power, precision and confidence to the IT system of the lending businesses.

How to Leverage Rich Media Content within the Enterprise

In the hope of addressing their information transfer challenges, several organizations are turning to media rich content. The reality of today’s globalized work environment is that the people you need to reach may not always be available when you are. Consequently, valuable information does not always make it through in a timely manner to the people who need it most. Typically all workers are to handle real time communications with core business tools that includes telephone, cell phone, and email. These days, many organizations have also empowered their workers with advanced communication and collaboration tools like web conferencing, videoconferencing, unified communications (UC) and centralized messaging platforms. Rich media content creation within the enterprise is no longer restricted to the TV studio or the training department with the availability of an extensive range of content creation tools ranging from encoder appliances to software-based solutions.

As the volume of rich media content created has amplified, the challenge of managing, tracking, indexing, and accessing those assets has also grown tremendously. There are instances when a user is forced to watch through the entire enterprise video to find the exact information they seek, even when they have found the specific content item. And as a result of this, valuable content is often lost and buried after it is created. As this is a problem that did not exist a few years ago, there is now a need to centrally manage rich media assets due to the ever-expanding volume of rich-media content within the enterprise.

For efficient Enterprise Content Management it is necessary to follow these elements

Storage of Content on a Single central database
Content centralization is necessary in order to economically and competently manage rich media assets, basic information about each content item. It need not necessarily be stored in a single location, but preferably a pointer to the specific content item must be created within a central content database.

Classification and Filing of Content
The key to making content as locatable as possible is proper classification of the content. By associating as many tags of metadata as possible to each content item and making make each tag as complete and contextually valuable as possible, it is possible to make content item available to the interested parties.

Easy accessibility of content
Effective content management also requires that each content item be accessible only to authorized viewers. By automating the process, content access can be made possible based on the existing enterprise directory systems.

Efficient Tracking of Content
An enterprise content management system should track all content-related activities within the system. The system needs to allow the usage information to be sorted on the basis of date, user, department, type of content to facilitate system administrators to suitably manage the overall content platform.

Any enterprise content portal needs to provide security, customization, advanced video search, playback facility, downloading etc., to maximize content accessibility. By making an item easy-to-find by the intended target audience, the value of content can be enhanced. Providing the right information, to the right people, in the right way, and at the right time is the key to proper information transfer.

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Importance of Retail Solutions

Retail Enterprises are always looking out for solutions that can help them minimize their risks and meet new challenges with equanimity. The Retail industry is a vibrant one where in all the players are always on the lookout for ways to integrate core processes and yet offer avail of business intelligence to help their critical applications. Retail Solutions can offer retail enterprises plenty of benefits with their specialized know-how of handling retail operations be it front-end or back end processes. These solution providers understand the functional requirements of different retail enterprises and can ably cater to them.

Retail software solutions can cover a whole gamut of aspects connected with the retail chain. So everything connected with issues of planning of assortments, or management related issues concerning the store, stock or even back-office operations. Equipped with a huge source of tools and processes, these software solutions can ensure optimized utilization of both on-site and offshore workforce. With experts guiding such software solution providers, enterprises can be rest assured of availing best and experienced understanding and assessment of the requirements of any retail enterprise.

The retail experience is driven by customers, therefore retails solutions undoubtedly need to cater to such needs. Retail enterprises can definitely opt for solutions that are tailor-made to suit their unique retail requirements and are solely focused on being customer-centric. From getting analytical reports on inventory stock to purchase orders, to providing enhanced access to customer information, retail software solutions can offer all this and much more. These flexible and customized solutions come equipped with an easy to install user interface for greater integration even with highly complicated payment solution systems as well. Such solutions save precious time and money for retail enterprises and also ensure enhanced productivity.

Quite a few retail outlets look for such solutions that can cater to local tax, multi-lingual requirements. And there are indeed such specialized solutions available that are not only easy to use but are scalable and are economical as well. The importance of such solutions can be felt when retail enterprises see the vast improvement in their customer service and see the benefits of enhanced operational efficiency. Such solutions guarantee better returns management and enforcement of better operational processes in a completely systematic manner even as operating costs are reduced. These solutions help in driving repeat purchases and also aid enterprises in taking critical decisions in a better manner.

Companies offering retail software solutions may also offer packages for other functional areas such as small business financial management, chemical manufacturing,human resource management, financial management etc.

Going the virtual way to hike sales

Every global enterprise dreams of having an idyllic situation of hiring sales persons, training them with the right skills and educating them and relaxing thereafter with the knowledge that these sales executives will be productive for the next decade or so! Clearly that’s not the brightest nor is it the best sales strategy since the effectiveness of any training program because the business world doesn’t remain the same it’s constantly evolving. The thing that worries most people is that generally trainings and presentations involves the investment of a lot of time and money including travel expenses that are incurred to bring remote sales team members together. Therefore the challenge for most enterprises is to ensure that all the attendees are present for these presentations and training programs.

Depending on using the virtual medium has definitely emerged as quite a lucrative and effective medium since it can easily combine live and on-demand sessions. These virtual events can be so used to ensure that some elements such as the CEO’s address, product or solution sessions, pricing and packaging overviews, etc., can be delivered as on-demand over the Web. Such on demand videos provides sales representatives the chance to revisit any information they require. Also it allows those individuals who couldn’t attend the live event benefit from the wealth of insights and information that were shared.

Using such mediums can easily increase sales productivity since such on demand virtual events can definitely save time and money for enterprises. These virtual events can also be read since a searchable transcript of every talk can be sought as well. So for instance if sales representatives want to review the clip of a new product announcement, or read on tips on how to deal with a given competitor or learn about a new pricing model, all they need to do was to type in appropriate search terms and go right to the part of a given presentation that dealt with those topics.

Such virtual online meeting tools used by enterprises can definitely improve sales productivity. For example, even after attending any virtual meeting/conference/training, sales representatives who may be situated anywhere in the world, can search and easily access any of the content they feel they need to re-review, thereby enhancing the likelihood of not just remembering the skills and insights but also using the same to kick off more sales. These tools are simple cost-effective methods wherein in sales trainers can get quick access to subject matter expert content to ensure that new employees can be productive as fast as possible.

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Effective Management of eDiscovery and its Solutions

Effective E-discovery management plays a key role in easing electronic Discovery burdens and cutting costs. With an enormous increase in ESI, or electronically stored information, the importance of electronic documentation has significantly gone up. Organizations need to have suitable resources to manage all the processes of handling eDiscovery effectively. eDiscovery is no longer a choice but has fast become a necessity. Effective management of eDiscovery aims at facilitating clients in addressing and successfully completing tasks correlated with processing data for investigation and assessment. Hence all organizations need to manage eDiscovery efficiently to save time and money. Here are a few tips that could help ensure the effective management of e-discovery:

Ensure affordable and flexible eDiscovery tools – All solutions pertaining to eDiscovery should be flexible so that employee productivity is not affected. All solutions adopted should be cost effective to ensure an enhanced ROI.

1. Evaluate search capabilities – Effective eDiscovery management should be able to provide sophisticated and rich search capabilities. It should be able to cull documents and maintain an audit trail that increases defensibility. Using specific keywords can give better insight into how to progress and how to make the process more effective.

2. Estimate time – Some solutions take several weeks to be deployed. This could lead to a long wait before you can begin accessing, categorizing or reporting information. Effective management should ensure that all eDiscovery solutions are self-contained and are very easy to deploy.

3.Select a practical solution – An automated and proactive eDiscovery solution not only goes a long way toward protecting the company, it also assists in early case assessment. Where most solutions in the market are capable of organizing and managing unstructured information or identifying and preserving usable data, a good eDiscovery tool is one that can completely integrate into your business processes and perform well without disrupting core business activities.

Ensuring technical know how - Experts in legal departments, including attorneys, may not be well-versed in the technicalities of the IT environment. It is possible that they could require technical support to understand its systems and functions, like email servers, shared network drives, archival repositories and systems, instant messaging systems, records management, knowledge management, etc. Effective eDiscovery management will ensure the appropriate technical help is available to attorneys to comprehend the world of technology and use its components advantageously.

Effective eDiscovery management is all about comprehending limitations and working within these limitations to provide better case outcomes. With innovative and effective eDiscovery tools, taking care of loose ends, such as building a strong team, allocating a budget, assessing the risk profile or preparing the ground for an early case assessment will be made far easier. An efficient eDiscovery management would elicit credible and favorable contributions to settle cases.

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Future Trends in eDiscovery

eDiscovery is essentially dependent on today’s growing technology to provide various tools for handling the intricate tasks involved in litigation. The mushrooming business fraternity is a target to many a lawsuit, thus creating a need to implement various ways to collate tangible evidence. Organizations are interested in law firms that go beyond legal representation and also provide overall customer service. The litigation practices that are most likely to survive in the future are those that can provide exceptional services in terms of guidance on the choice of the best legal disclosure practices. It therefore becomes imperative to uphold and store this data that  is accumulating at such an uncontrollable rate.

Organizations are on the look out for effective discovery methods that can not only help in locating data, but also bring up pertinent data for a specific legal matter. The key to sustenance and survival is adaptability to change. And it is indeed a grueling challenge to balance costs, expenditures and reserves with competition moving at a fast pace. As the legal profession is fast adapting to eDiscovery, there are new strategies and practices that need to be kept in mind.  While these changes aren’t going to be very dramatic, there is going to be a focus on the way eDiscovery is managed and how it is organized. Here are a few top trends that are likely to prevail in 2011.

Top Five eDiscovery Trends for 2011

1. Sound Means of Data Collection –  Automated processes as a best practice for data collection are likely to be more prevalent in 2011. Automated processes are more reliable, accurate and affordable when compared to the manual processing of data. Manual processes used to be deemed more legally defensible, but better technology has proved that automated methods are more prone to better reliability. eDiscovery’s Acceleration Platform is designed to provide a solution to rising costs and stringent litigation deadlines.

2. Ongoing Mergers – As we expect to see more acquisitions in the coming year, it is inevitable that such consolidations will impact the marketplace. A good number of corporations are acquiring smaller pure-play eDiscovery companies. These acquisitions could add further enhancement to its already considerable archiving and record management products.

3. Large Volumes Are a Certainty - It is becoming increasingly necessary to process large amounts of data in a short period of time as scalability is in high demand. There will be a huge transformation in terms of the review and analysis of data in large volumes, and there is bound to be an alignment of realistic expectations with the proportionality of data.

4. Collusion of Cloud, Social Media and eDiscovery – Most companies are fast learning to embrace social media, and many have almost accepted cloud computing as a storage substitute. It is becoming increasingly important for companies to start paying closer attention to the benefits and challenges that these growing technologies pose.

5. The Advancement of Global eDiscovery – The legalities of data storage and global communities are bound to develop faster than expected as more countries are adopting e-Discovering methodologies. The main challenge of global eDiscovery is that enterprises involved with cross border litigation are subject to strict rules and regulations. Hence, the complexity of international eDiscovery will be purged, and there will be a reduction in the cost and risk associated with processing and exporting electronic evidence across multiple countries.

 


Today eDiscovery is one of the largest information governance drivers. There is an ability to create solid business cases for refining information governance practices, thereby reducing the volume of records flowing into eDiscovery systems and resulting in real cost savings.

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