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(available stories below)
WebPower 2007 ROI
Do you remember Joe Friday, from the old TV series Dragnet? I'm probably dating myself if you don't, but one of his recurring lines in that detective series was, "Just the Facts Please". That line is the keynote to the following report on how well some of our AutoPower clients did by investing in WebPower technology in 2007.
Many of you have asked where the payback is. Well compare these facts to some of the other business investments you made last year.
Average WebPower ROI in 2007 = 244 %
Fact 1: $9,747,972.37 Total Sales moved through WebPower Sites in 2007
Fact 2: 70471 Total Online orders in 2007
Fact 3: $350,923.00 Savings realized (Manual orders vs. Online Orders)*
Fact 4: 244.07% Average ROI by moving customer orders online.
AutoPower believes that a Web site should be viewed as an investment and the decision process about a web site should be subject to the same level of discipline you use when evaluating other types of investments. My guess is that had WebPower been one of your investment decisions last year, it would have rated as the one with the largest ROI, just based on the savings it produced.
Keep in mind that the above savings is only the tip of the ROI iceberg. There are also facts and research that show that because e-commerce provides easy access to your inventory and information; both you and your customers can easily identify new business opportunities, product availability and pricing. According to researchers e-commerce typically increases revenues 5% to 10%.
Microsoft did a study looking specifically at small to medium size companies that implemented E-commerce. The study found that not only do these companies see revenues increases but on the average grow about 30% faster than companies that have not embraced E-Commerce.
Fact 5: If I added in revenue increases to the above ROI calculation you wouldn't believe me!
You'd be ill-advised not to invest in anything offering a guaranteed ROI of over 200% in a single year. The fact is that WebPower is not only one of those investments that has a quick pay back, but is also an investment that plays a major role in determining whether a company will ultimately continue to purchase from you. (See my related article "The Barreling Freight Train ")
If you would like more facts about WebPower call Ross today (800) 229-2881
(Or you can wait for the Train to hit you!)
* University of Illinois and an IBM Parts Distribution Case Study on B2B e-commerce concluded that you can expect a substantial reduction in the imbedded costs of an order that you convert from an internal manual process to an external online process. The IBM study indicated that internal "Manual order processing can account for 12 to 18 percent of a transaction's gross margin." This study went on to conclude that "With online ordering, that number can drop dramatically to 1 percent or less."
The Internet Express
It is still moving like a barreling freight train! For years now you may have ignored it. You've probably delayed decisions involving it. You intuitively know you may be missing opportunities, but may have stubbornly claimed it can't be justified. In fact, the Internet and your company's web-site now and forever more, will play a major role in determining whether your customer's continue to do business with you.
Here are some of the reasons why:
- 43% of all sales are expected to be influenced by or made on the Internet by 2012.*
- 83% of businesses use the Internet to research and find potential suppliers.**
- 75% of web users admit making judgments about the credibility of an organization based on the design of its web site.***
Those are just some of the facts that are fueling the momentum of the Internet train. Why are these figures significant to you? Because they validate something that most of you know, but have not yet fully adopted in your business planning.
Your web presence is a strategic asset worthy of serious investment.
The sad truth is you probably view your web site and the people who design, build and operate them as part of the "cost" in cost center. But let's compare the costs and sales ability of WebPower to the costs of the people at the tip of the spear who generate revenue for your business. You probably have a super salesman or counterman at work for you right now. You know he or she costs you money to find, foster and maintain but that is more than justified by the revenues they generate. But how many people can even the best salesman or counterman speak with in a give month? 50? 100? 200? While the super salesman or a dynamite counterman may see or talk to an impressive number of customers and influence how they view your company in a given month, the fact is WebPower can be viewed and used by 1000's of customers every day, 24 hours at day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. And, can do this at no where near the cost of a single salesman or a single counterman.
The point is not to disparage salespeople or countermen, but to help you prioritize the increasingly influential role that the Internet and your web-site has in shaping how your organization is perceived now and into the future.
The WebPower's 2007 Report Card article proves that a web-site can be a low-effort, low-risk, high-return investment not a cost. This is particularly true when it is fully integrated into your AutoPower system.
The vibrations you feel in your feet, the loud whistle you hear, the facts you see about how the Internet is influencing sales in our world, they are all signs that you should be laser-focused on your web presences.****
Don't let that barreling freight train run you over. Call Ross Baldwin (Our head Internet locomotive engineer) for your ride into the future. Call Today! 800-229-2881
* Forrester: "The Web's Impact on Sales: US Cross-Channel Sales Forecast, 2006 - 2012" and the US Department of Commerce.
** Enquiro: "Business to Business Survey 2007"
*** Fogg, B.J., Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility. Persuasive Technology Lab. Stanford University , 2002 (revised November 2003)
**** Loveday & Niehaus: "Web Design for ROI 2008"
AA Wheel and Truck Supply, Inc.
Truck Pride Member, AA Wheel & Truck Supply, Inc., joins the AutoPower family. Founded in 1990, AA Wheel & Truck Supply, Inc. began in North Kansas City, and Springfield, Missouri, distributing heavy duty truck parts and wheels. They now have two additional locations, in Omaha, Nebraska and in Wichita, Kansas.
On March 3, 2008 AA Wheel & Truck Supply, Inc. went live on the AutoPower system. Later this year they will also be offering their customers online purchasing services with WebPower.
Their philosophy for success.... "AA Wheel & Truck Supply, Inc. has flourished from a small family business to a multi-store operation. Despite all of our growth throughout the years, one thing has remained: satisfied customers account for the foundation of our success. Without our customers support, our goals would not be continuous and change would be lateral.
One of the many ways we sustain customer satisfaction is by diversifying our product lines. With over 250 product lines stocked in our warehouses, we are sure to have the right product for whatever the job may be. AA Wheel & Truck Supply, Inc. doesn't just cater to one type of patron; we take the needs of manufacturers, dealers, repair shops, fleets, parts stores, and individuals to heart.
Providing the highest quality truck parts efficiently is our main objective, and our loyalty and proficiency is guaranteed. At AA Wheel & Truck Supply, Inc., we understand in this industry that time is money and accuracy is crucial. We guarantee our best endeavors for accuracy and timeliest on all customer orders"
We thank AA Wheel & Truck Supply, Inc. for the confidence they have shown in picking AutoPower to help manage their business. Welcome to the AutoPower family!
When you change out your DDS Tapes on the server you need to be doing more than ejecting the tape from the night before, putting in the next tape then going home, thinking everything is going to run smoothly without complication. Are you sure that you got a tape backup at all? The time to find out is now, not when you need to do a restore because your system crashed. The responsibility for ensuring you are getting a good back up rests with no one other than you.
While we can assist you in understanding how to use the CA Brightstor ARCServe software to perform your backups, all the training in the world will not solve an attempt to restore files and find the tape is empty. Data recovery failure can hurt your business and your ability to remain a viable business. If you lost your data records and had no recovery process where would you be shortly after the event? My guess is you would not be a happy camper.
Many pay lip service to this important daily process. Don't be caught unaware. The process is simple and takes about 15 minutes daily. Spending these 15 minutes daily can save you a tremendous amount of aggravation and angst, should the need arise to restore your business data files.
Steps to Backup Verification
Log on to the Brightstor ARCserve Backup Manager. You should have an Icon on your desktop called Backup Manager. Right click this icon to launch the CA application.
You should see the following screen:
Click on the Job Status Icon under the Quick Start menu on the left side of the screen. This will take you to the Job Status display shown below.
In this window you can verify if the backup job finished, is incomplete or failed. You can also see at what time the next scheduled backup job will be executed. Please notice the status of your next job is 'READY', the current job had a status of finished, meaning it completed without errors. If you have a status of incomplete, you will need to view the activity log to find out what files did not backup. If the job failed, you will see a red circle with an X. This means you did not get a backup and that there was a problem attempting to run the backup job.
It is important to look at the 3 green job, tape and DB engine lights shown in the top task bar above the job queue information. If any of these engine lights are red your backup will fail.
Looking at the job queue insure the date that displays is for the next day. The system will automatically schedule your next backup job. If this date isn't correct your backup will fail.
To determine why you might get an incomplete or fail you should click on the Activity Log next to the Job Queue that is currently displayed. This will change the screen and list a box that shows errors, warnings, information grouped by jobs.
If a job status was incomplete you can display the related activity log to find the reason why certain files did not get backed up. The most common incomplete is that spooler files are being backed up and a file cannot be found because it is no longer on the server.
When you have a FAILED status the most common error shown in the Activity Log is Unable to read media. This usually means you have a bad tape or the tape drive cannot read the tape.
When you have a failed job then it's important to find out the cause and resolve the problem. If you are not certain what to do, then call the AutoPower Support Desk to get help. If we can't solve it then we can call CA Support as you have a maintenance contract to get their help in resolving backup software related issues and/or IBM for Tape Drive related issues.
As a friendly reminder, your business server is the life line of your operation. Without it operating at 100% efficiency could spell disaster for your business. A few pointers on checking on your servers operating health will keep you out of trouble.
All IBM Servers have an Operator Information Panel. This panel contains LED lights that provide you with a quick diagnostic ability to check the health of your server. The panel should look like the one shown below and is located on the front top of the server (except for Rack Mount).
You should pay attention to the System Error LED. Everytime you walk past the server you should look at this light to insure there are no critical problems with the server. If this LED is lit then there is an indication that there is a problem with your server requiring attention. If you dont know the next step to further diagnose the reason for the error LED being on you should call AutoPower support for assistance.
Another critical set of lights to pay attention to are the lights on the hard drives themselves. The diagram below shows the general location of the drives on an IBM server (except Rack Mount).
The Drives are located to the bottom right and you may have 2, 3, 4, or 5 drives installed. Each drive has LED lights that display Green, Amber or Red. In most instances, if you have 2 drives the system is operating under a RAID1 Mirrored setup. This means that the 2nd drive mirrors the data on the first drive. When you have 3 to 5 drives then this is usually a RAID 5 configuration meaning that the data saved on the disks is across all the hard drives.
Whenever you see an AMBER or RED light on any of the Hard Drive Lights there is a problem. This is the SECOND item to pay attention to daily when changing out your daily backup tapes on the server.
If you discover an amber or red light on any drive you should immediately call AutoPower support so that a service call can be placed with IBM. An Amber or Red LED means that there is a problem with the drive and it is either not functioning correctly or not functioning at all (crashed drive). This is bad for your business as you could lose all your business data.
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