A Productive Bidding and Estimating Process for Electrical Contractors

Bidding and estimating are challenging tasks for the electrical contractors as the search for information is lengthy and expensive. You cannot afford delayed responses in business and if you are unable to quote competitive prices or provide accurate information to your customers you will have to shut your shop very soon.

Comparing prices from thousands of electrical manufacturers’ catalogs and browsing through their websites is not a very practical approach. Time and money is wasted and you will not find relevant results also. Prices change rapidly. You have to be completely sure that the information that you get are latest which will help you to prepare a convincing submittal.

You need to invest in the construction submittal software that provides you a complete library of electrical contractors tools with over a million products. The software helps in reducing your time and costs. It alleviates the burden of paperwork and helps you prepare submittals quickly with the online facilities.

The item lists are automatically uploaded and the corresponding catalog pages are directly added to the submittal. Templates of most frequently used items are created to facilitate you to copy them into new submittals. The software helps in classifying the documents as per the standard formats followed in the industry.

The software provides you with various options to add job information, company logos, headers/footers and numbers to each page. You are provided with real-time pricing lists and product information. It helps save 75% of your time for preparing submittals. It is a web-based solution that can be used anywhere with an internet connection. The database is always up-to-date with direct information from manufacturers.

The software helps you to keep track of the items by generating a checklist. The submittals are archived for instant accessibility whenever required. You are granted complete control to change the names, sequences and categorization of documents. It also permits you to authorize users for editing purposes. The submittals can be easily emailed which helps in reducing costs on paper, printing and shipping.

The electrical contractor bidding process can go completely haywire if you do not have a structured process and you will lose potential customers. The construction submittal software streamlines your bidding and estimating process and helps to save time. It leverages accuracy and provides you with opportunities to earn handsome returns. If you take precautions and employ strategies wisely your business will earn a credible status in the market.

Also read on - Product Tours, electrical distributor

Deploying Practices for an Effectively Secure Cloud Environment

There has been a rapid increase in adoption of new and innovative technologies, right from hardware platforms to mini-computers, personal computers, smartphones and scripting languages specific to a device or network. The recent technology in high demand is the cloud computing or virtualization model. With the evolvolution of technologies it has become imperative to even revamp the IT architectures for security purposes.

The mainframe platforms are secure with the maintenance of firewalls and closed networks. A reliable firewall system and anti-virus software provides fairly good security for the client/server models. The current cloud environment provides you a variety of security measures such as firewalls, intrusion prevention processes, network access control and web security, endpoint protection and vulnerability assessment services, email security etc. It is a good practice to capitalize on these facilities for a successful cloud migration operation.

As the pressure mounts for increasing the efficiency, reliability, flexibility and disaster recovery capabilities of your business it is extremely necessary to provide security to every cloud environment that is in operation such as the application hosting clouds, the web hosting clouds, the infrastructure clouds, custom application clouds and security as a service cloud. Each of these cloud environments is replete with risks that can exploit the weaknesses in your entire business operation and cause you immense damage. The applications and the users are now vulnerable targets for the hackers as the\operating systems have become impenetrable.

The security policies, the CA and LDAP directories that are used for storing keys in the cloud environment are still vulnerable. You must have security systems that can be customized for individual clouds based on their specific roles, and the security systems must leverage interoperability and distribution of information on the potential threats. To achieve this objective you must implement the encryption technology for real-time detection and remediation of the threats. Data that travels from one cloud to another and through various devices must be competently secure.

Encryption adds value to your security vulnerability assessment tools and enhances their effectiveness.  It provides real DLP remediation when it is combined with content awareness. When combined with the security policy engines it provides evidence of data center compliance that is aligned with the latest requirements. When combined with federated ID and authentication it provides an exhaustive audit trail of the data that has been accessed with the user’s details and the time when the data was accessed. Another vital factor that you must consider is to have a comprehensive and scalable infrastructure for facilitating authentication of people, processes and technologies amongst themselves.

The cloud technology is relatively new and it will take some time to develop security systems that will deliver its optimum results. However, you can take a positive step to start building a secured infrastructure and a safe future for your business.

Also read on - data center infrastructure management, virtual resource management

Wise Investments with the Cost-Saving Cloud Infrastructure

Cloud management has become the primary need of every business today. The cloud based applications facilitate automation; enhance integration, customization, visibility and controls. They provide prompt services, reduce costs and enhance efficiencies. No wonder everybody is ready to adopt this new model into their existing policies to leverage business prospects. However, there are some concerns that can upset the entire operation.

Although the deployment of the cloud infrastructure may look easy and give you the impression that it can fit into your existing infrastructure easily the truth is the process may take a few hours or even longer. There is also another risk. You cannot be certain whether the cloud process will be able to meet the requirements of your business while collaborating with your existing infrastructure or whether you would have to completely rip out the existing one to make it conducive for the cloud model to work.

You have to ensure whether the cloud platform that you choose will work with the present tools and future systems without affecting the investments that you have already made and without posing a hindrance to your future strategies. Here are some pointers that can help you assess whether the cloud automation choices that you make are in agreement with your existing IT infrastructure so that your operation does not become redundant due to hidden costs.

1. Deployment of Technology
You must ensure whether your cloud platform is compatible with the current resources in your data centers and in the public cloud. Does it have the capability to integrate with the current operating systems, desktop and server virtualization tools as well as the ones that will be used in the future?

2. Infrastructure Management
In a typical private cloud environment you need particular tools to carry out each function. Will your cloud platform be able to work with these tools or do you have to replace these tools completely?

3. Effectiveness of the Process
Improvisations in the processes entail some changes in the environment. You need to ensure that the cloud solution does not impose any changes which do not fit your business policies otherwise you will have to bear additional costs unnecessarily.

4. Self- Service Customization
If you have the self-service facility in your existing infrastructure it does not make sense to have an additional one that may come along with your cloud solutions. The cloud platform that you select should be able to integrate with the existing service without the need for investing more time and resources.

Many cloud solutions are meant for specific functions and have limited capabilities. A complete makeover in the existing tools means heavy costs. Secondly these solutions will be incapable of meeting the diverse needs of your business and provide effective savings. The cloud solutions that provide automated processes can be a serious handicap because the solutions are customized which cannot be implemented throughout your enterprise. The process of customization is also time-consuming and can make your costs rise.  Making upgrades can be difficult and costly too due to customization.

Now that you are aware of the hidden costs associated with the cloud management solutions you need to choose the one that provides you with an automated and comprehensive life-cycle process. The tools must facilitate multi-vendor support that helps in incorporating the private cloud tools as well as the public cloud resources. The cloud solutions that can be customized according to your business policies will give you rich and cost-saving results. The solutions must facilitate cross-group integration to meet the individual needs of each unit in your business. The cloud solutions must provide simple customization facilities and automate additional tasks other than making simple modifications.

Before you undertake the cloud migration decision try to investigate the hidden costs by evaluating the capabilities of the solutions. You need a tool that will propel your business forward not maim it by loading an expensive burden.

Read on - Security Configuration Management, server manager application

IT Compliance Automation for Continuous Compliance

Compared to the less connected past, organizations today face a tough time in handling and managing business activities. Though advancements in technology have helped to make business processes faster, smoother and easier, it has increased security risks at astonishing levels. This has forced governments to enact various regulations and the companies to comply with these regulations and policies. Let’ look at some of these regulations and how companies can achieve continuous compliance easily and effortlessly.

HIPAA
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted to protect the health insurance coverage of employees when they lose or change their jobs. With the growing number of incidents of fraud and abuse within the healthcare system, this act stressed the importance of protecting the integrity and confidentiality of personal health information of employees and workers.

FISMA
The Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) was enacted to protect government information, operations and assets against all kinds of threats. This law emphasized that attaining information security translates into economic and national security.  

PCI DSS
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was enacted to prevent the misuse of credit card data. All organizations that store, process and transmit credit card information must comply with the comprehensive set of requirements provided in this act.

SOX
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires all public company boards, management and public accounting firms to comply with its set of standards to make them accountable for their actions. In the wake of major corporate and accounting scandals, federal government decided to come out strong against low standards and false profits and thereby protect investors’ money and improve their confidence. 

GLBA
The Gramm Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) requires all financial institutions to design, implement and maintain effective measures to protect the personal financial information of their customers. This act applies not only to those financial institutions that collect information from their customers but also to those institutions that collect details from other financial institutions.

ISO 27001
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001 is an Information Security Management System (ISMS) standard detailing requirements for the establishment, implementation, monitoring and review, maintenance and improvement of a management system for managing an organization's information security risks. 

These are just a couple of regulations that companies need to comply with. Like these, each country has their own set of rules and regulations that all companies that intend to expand their business activities in other countries must adhere to. Hence, companies must invest in IT compliance automation solution that can guarantee security through continuous compliance with various regulations and acts.

Also read on - cloud automation, data center compliance 

 

Persuasive Tactics to Lure your Global Customers

Business development has largely been influenced by the use of advanced technology. Communication has become easier, simpler and faster. The requirement for large investments has decreased as the internet provides inexpensive means to operate a business feasibly. You can make decisions faster due to the instant web services that help you connect with your customers and the partners in your business network. You must also be aware that there are some areas that need a specialized process such as the translation of content into different languages.

The business principles and objectives must be clearly and concisely conveyed so that the customers do not face any inconveniences or they are not misled. An incorrect interpretation can cause negative impacts on your business. You must ensure that you project an image that does not violate the social, religious or cultural sentiments. This can be achieved with the help of the translation software that delivers accurate translations without any delays and errors. Software localization is a wise investment that provides you with enhanced returns as opposed to manual translations which are erroneous and costly.

The translation software provides you with an automated, streamlined and efficient translation process that saves time and costs with quick turnarounds. It provides trusted, qualitytranslations that help you develop a compelling rapport with your customers. It provides fluent, crisp and meaningful website translations of the content that is usually available in the community websites with grammatical errors, improper structure and informal language. The information is provided in real-time to customers in their local language and this increases the potentials of attracting larger numbers.

The software provides solutions for effective capturing, controlling and distribution of important phrases, terms and brand names. It helps you to deliver consistent content and upstages your brand in the global market. Helping you follow the compliance standards and ensuring the protection of the registered names and trademarks, it also stores the necessary terminologyin a single location to facilitate easy search and accessibility using a desktop client or a web browser. It also helps to reduce time and costs spent on translating the same sentencesrepeatedly by reusing previously translated content.

The translation memory software boosts team collaboration and provides increased visibility. The streamlined process provides you with opportunities to reduce time and costs and implement practices that help to improve the revenues. Effective communication with your customers can help attain greater success with the right strategies.

Read Also On: Translation Technology

Unique Benefits of HPC Clusters

The significance of high-performance computing (HPC) clustering is growing at a faster speed today. This is because more and more technical and scientific concerns are being analyzed on computer simulation. HPC clusters offers engineers, scientists, and technology analysts the required computing resources for making crucial decisions. This is required to promote product innovation, accelerate the pace of development, research and minimize the time to market. Leading service providers in this domain are supporting the R&D community by offering validated integrated solutions with optimized cluster configuration for certain applications.

Use your High Performance Computing Cluster Efficiently

The phase from concept to solution has been a critical challenge faced by developers and researchers. This requires advanced levels of performance on a daily basis. This is applicable to an engineer and researcher and the tools they use as well. Irrespective of the task that needs to be completed, you would always prefer the best software package. Many service providers are working in order to offer their customers with a customized high performance computing cluster catering to their diverse needs. Eminent market players in this category believe that expertise is synonymous to being aware of the full potential of your software. As a result, they are coming up with solutions to cater to this end.

Industry Offerings in High Performance Computing Clusters

You can apply High performance computing clusters on the Line of Business. Due to its effective planning customers are able to get a good target and experience high performance computing platform.  Recently, numerous IT companies dealing in storage servers and data center solutions have introduced built to order high performance computing clusters.

Irrespective of the fact whether your workloads requires an office cluster or a huge difficult cluster, leading HPC solution providers today have been working hard to help you in establishing a well-incorporated, dynamic high performance computing cluster infrastructure. They also ensure that the computing cluster is simple to manage and implement.

Simultaneously, market leaders in HPC solution are associated with hardware providers and HPC middleware technologies. This makes it easy for the customers to have a one-point contact for a complete cluster application with very less risks. Leading brands offers cost efficient personalized HPC clusters that gives scalable performance and helps in leveraging high speed interconnects industry standard servers, open source infrastructure or software. Furthermore, the design benefits various application platforms that comprises the ones optimized for manufacturing, financial services, government, industrial design, education and life sciences.

Read Also On: Data Centre Solutions, Custom Computer

Intelligent Social Analytics Tools for Increasing Revenues

The social media platforms have catapulted prospects and opportunities in business by increasing the communication and collaboration quotients. Now you can easily communicate with your customers and interact with them to know about the products that they are interested in, the changes that they would like to see and how to make the products effective. The responses of your customers give you an idea of the strengths and weaknesses existent in your business. It helps you perceive why your business is unable to earn increased profits and how to make your products more viable and popular. All these information is essential to understand your customers and provide products that cater to their demands satisfactorily.

 


Collecting information is not a challenge. The challenge is in finding relevant information that will help propel your business growth. You need tools that provide you with reliable and compelling social intelligence insight and help you make the right decisions at the right time. The tools provide you with vital engagement metrics such as the products your customers are interested in by tracking their online activities persistently. The social intelligence tools provide you with critical information regarding the changing trends and the growing demands in the market so that you are in alignment with the current trends and do not encounter poor results.

 

The social media is flooded with information. It can be extremely easy to get misled with the inaccurate information and lose potential customers. The tools are equipped with advanced analytics capabilities that helps you find your niche audience by studying their purchasing patterns and continuously monitoring their movements on sites, forums, etc. They provide you with relevant updates promptly that helps you to make decisions without wasting any time. The business environment is extremely competitive and you have to always be alert so that you can recognize the opportunities and maximize them to the fullest.

 

The social media games have become a rage with unlimited varieties available on the web medium. However, you cannot expect to keep earning revenues with the same games. You have to make innovations and improvements so that the customers’ interest is maintained and you can keep earning with their prolonged visits. The social gaming market is increasing and those who have the capability to implement strategies that provide customers with unique experiences are the ones that will survive the cut-throat competition. You cannot achieve success by providing customers with unlimited services. You can only achieve success when you deliver as per your customers’ requirements with something new to appeal them each time they use your services.

 

Learn more about :- Facebook analytics

 

A Resourceful Compliance Risk Management Process

It is uncanny that despite the awareness of security lapses and the use of expensive technology   IT compliance results are far from satisfactory.  This is because the risk management solutions or tools are incapable of addressing the security vulnerabilities existent in people, processes and technology, and also while implementing comprehensive strategies that provide end-to-end security.


The IT risk management challenges become more arduous due to the demands for better quality, and consistent and effective compliance management policies and strategies that help increase the revenue earning potentials while minimizing the costs. There is no other option but to find a way to meet these demands.


In meeting this challenge effectively, you need to adopt an automated compliance management solution.   Such a solution provides an integrated and automated framework that supports all compliance requirements. It addresses all security, compliance, audit, and risk management needs of your business effectively, and lowers the total cost of ownership.


The information security and compliance management solution is a cost-effective model, which gives you the option to either avail the on-demand cloud based service with a low investment and enhanced returns. A streamlined and centralized repository is created for collecting data from various sources and mapping them with the extent to which they meet the requirements of the regulations. The processes are simplified and optimized that helps in reducing the time required for staying compliant. It provides you with built-in templates that can be customized for deployment of best practices without any additional costs. An intelligent dashboard provides you with prompt reports and valuable online insights to help you to take critical decisions and an exhaustive audit trail of all actions taken relevant to compliance throughout the entire process.


Automated compliance management solution will help your business to carry on despite the challenges.


Also read on - HIPAA and HITECH, Vendor management

Online Effectiveness and Social Media Analytics

A decade back the word “online” or the phrase “being online” meant logging into individual mail accounts and checking mails or chatting through a messenger. Though the meaning still holds true, but it has added to it a new dimension. Being online today also refers to whether you are present in any social networking platform, either through an individual or a corporate account. This means whether you are present in any of the popular networking groups and participating in trending topic discussions with your valuable feedback. Hence, going by the recent changes, one can say that today it is essential to be actively and “socially” online. 
 

Need for social media analytics

 

Gradually with the expansion of internet technology and social media networking every corporate brand is available online. The principal objective is brand awareness and online PR activities. Brand today want to establish a personal connect with their target audience and be at the top recall value. Being present in the social networking sphere also enables them to keep in tune with the latest happenings and also manage any crisis that results. Therefore, this social intelligence helps companies to come up with smart marketing and branding strategies.

 

Every business organization hence needs to concentrate on the expansive capacity of social media analytics. It is an essential tool for any kind of social media campaign and helps to evaluate an organization’s online effectiveness. Social media analytics provides users with a new platform for evaluating interactive marketing by incorporating, estimating and enabling enterprises to act on the social intelligence gained extending their reach and maximizing retention. This ultimately helps in generating more revenue.

 

Innovative Social Media Analytics Tools

 

With the rapid development of social networking with sites such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs markets are re-thinking about innovative analytics requirements in today’s web 2.0 platforms. Leading companies specializing in social media analytics tools have come up with efficient solutions catering to a client’s diverse business needs.

 

The solution:-

  • Offers trending views and drill-down capacities

  • Offers insights that help to make smarter, faster operating decisions across huge amounts of social data

  • Helps in revenue acquisition

  • Helps users to get quicker insights into the principal influences on the K-Factor and viral campaigns

  • Helps to understand as to what keeps customers engaged, and uncover the levers that can most impact revenues.

Furthermore, it offers quick results for businesses and helps to track social media behaviors real-time. You can also get instant feedback on what will work for a particular product.

Learn more about :- Facebook analytics

Benefits of Rack and Stack Integration

Today’s business world of technology has made computing mission critical and complex than before. As a result there is a need for efficient data management that would assist in smarter decision-making and comply with other essential regulations. Also a high end performance is a result of enhanced operational efficiency, productivity and organized agility that is associated with storage movement and data retrieval with minimized risks.

 

Why should you opt in for Rack and Stack Integration?

 

Data centers are of utmost importance in today’s expanding business world. With the huge amount of data that keeps on moving across various networks, it is imperative that organizations systematize this floating bulk data in proper racks. It would be beneficial if organizations are able to come up with solutions that would bring down the foot print and simultaneously improve the equipment density by opting in for cloud-based solutions. If this innovative network framework is implemented then it would help enterprises to expand and generate greater revenues from order fulfillment services. Equipped with a high-end and complete frame level set up, the devices help in systems integration services with personalized solutions, quicker execution and a reliable quality that meets the ISO regulations.

 

Industry Offerings in Rack and Stack Solutions

 

Simply put stack refers to a group of switches customarily set up as Ethernet based or rack mounted ones with a single fixed data port on the front. The common configurations are 24- port and 48-port models. The stacks have their own features such as deployment flexibility, scalability that provides streamlined network connections.

 

Eminent solution providers deliver rack integration services as on-site professional solution. Such professional systems of rack and stack integration incorporates up to thousands of servers for establishing a high end computing cluster. Some of the main elements of rack and stag integration solutions offered by leading service providers are:-

 

·       Material planning and procurement

·       Network cabling, customer supplied materials, server components or a mixed model

·       Extensive, automated information captured that includes MAC addresses, asset id's, as

·       well as serial numbers

·       A comprehensive rack integration, testing and imaging

 

This is not all. Leading market players in rack and stack integration houses a group of expert engineers and professionals who manage widespread designs for network devices. The comprehensive integration service portfolio comprises of electro-mechanical assemblies of rack and stack, optics and electronic integration, regulatory compliance tests, assembling of cables and regular checks done for power and communication. All this leads to an effortless execution of cloud-based solutions.

 

 

Learn more about : Retail Distribution & Retail Packaging