Tech Tools - Google Docs

Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the Financial Leadership Team,

In response to your recent inquiry pertaining to the functionality, usability and accessibility of Google Docs and Google Drive as well as its impact on the resources of our business, please see the analysis below. As requested, I will explain what additional features and functions of Google Docs will make this a more valuable business tool.

Our users have been utilizing the Microsoft Office Application package and we are now facing a decision whether to upgrade the software or make a chance to Google Docs. The estimate cost per license of Office Professional 2013 is $399.99 per single installation that includes Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/). As you are aware, our users do not utilize all of these applications. As informed by Microsoft sales representative, we can obtain a corporate discount based on the number of licenses purchased as well as one year support and training materials included in the price. We have also been offered Office 365 option that contains all of the above applications as well as 20GB SkyDrive storage, 60 minutes of Skype calls per month per user and automatic updates. The cost of the additional features will be calculated when we provide the exact number of potential licenses needed. At the current size of our division’s workforce (12,000 people) we are looking at an approximate expense of $5 million.

Google Docs usability and functionality is very similar to the one of Microsoft Office applications and therefore I anticipate minimal to no learning curve associated with the implementation. Hence, you can expect virtually no disruptions to the timing of our current projects and processes. As a matter of fact, I can assure you that our productivity will improve with the implementation of the collaborative work space. The application will fully support the flexibility we offer to our employees. We will no longer be limited to the Windows and Mac OS platforms supported by Microsoft as Google Docs works just as well on them as on Linux, Unix and other. System requirements are also much more flexible with Google Docs. The estimated cost of Google Apps for Business with Vault, advanced security and e-discovery features will cost us $10 per user per month (http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html), or approximately $1.5 million. This represents an estimated savings of $3.5 million that we can invest in growing our business, should we favor this option. Key features of this package would include 25 GB of inbox size, 5 GB of custom email address memory per user, unlimited number of users, video chat, calendar, document editing, business controls, 24/7 support, business-critical data archiving, data retrieval for investigation, company-wide data discovery and export. I have reviewed the security features of associated with the options and I am convinced that they are robust enough to support our needs (please see the above referenced link for the details).

There are a few reasons why I am convinced that Google Docs would suit our business structure better than Microsoft Office. We have a highly decentralized workforce that often needs to collaborate on creating documents while working on projects. It is my opinion that our marketing and sales teams would greatly benefit from the transition. Google Docs file sharing and collaboration will enable them to work more effectively and efficiently on the assigned project eliminating the need for multiple versions and thereby making the process much less convoluted. The accessibility issues we have lately been dealing with will also be minimized with the use of that application. Our employees will no longer need to connect to our network since the only requirement of Google Docs is an Internet access. We will also minimize the risk of data security as our employees will no longer need to use storage devices such as flash drives (you may recall the recent Legal exposure we faced when one of our sales representatives lost a USB port with confidential customer information).

Another feature that will aid our employees is the autosave embedded in all Google Docs that saves any changes made to a document instantly. Power outages or application crashes will no longer sabotage our work. We will also have additional flexibility with the ability to save documents in any format when downloading them without the need of additional application to do that.

To summarize my research and further substantiate my recommendation I would like to highlight the impact of the decision to utilize Google Docs and Google Drive from the value framework perspective. It is my opinion that the teams will benefit from time compression and be able to work more efficiently, by accelerating business processes, and effectively, by reducing the information float. They will also become more innovative, which will attribute to creating service excellence to our customers. By implementing Google Drive and Google Docs we will also overcome the obstacle of geographical distance between our teams by recapturing scale, ensuring global control and penetration of new markets that will become more feasible with elimination of connectivity issues. We will also be equipped with tools that will ease relationship building with our customers. We will no longer rely on intermediaries and replication of scarce knowledge. We will be able to share information with our customers more efficiently and effectively considering that they already utilize the applications we are contemplating on implementing. Last but not least, please consider the capital savings we will achieve with this option. We could allocate those savings to grow our business and ensure that we build a sustainable competitive advantage that will differentiate our company in the marketplace.

Thank you for the time to consider my recommendation. Should you have any additional questions or require and further information, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best regards,

MKO

Blog about Blogging

Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the FLT,

You have assigned me with a task of researching the subject matter of blogging and how it may impact our developing business. Let me begin by going over a few blog related terms.

Blog, short for Web Log,  is a Web page that served as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect personality of the author. Related to blogging is a term of blogosphere, which is an expression, used to describe a ‘world of blogs.’ Taking the process further, users can utilize blogging to push an event or subject to mainstream news creating a blog storm. There are many common or slang terms that explain various phenomena that occur in the world of blogging. A blog storm is when the blogosphere collectively writes thousands or more posts about a particular subject, topic or event, and as a result, the story is picked up by mainstream media and carried over to newspapers, television and radio.  Blogs can also be used in various situations. A crisis blog is a blog created only to handle a business public relations crisis. Crisis blogs enable a company to immediately respond to an allegation or rumor. This type of a blog would also be considered a b-blog, although b-blogs, short for business-blogs, are mostly used by a business to promote itself. They can also use blog and ping, an online marketing term applied to a system that utilizes blogs and pings (short for pingback) to deliver content and/or sites for indexing in search engines with the ultimate aim of profit. It is also called blog ping. Individuals, as well as companies, can also utilize astroturfing, a slang term used to mean ‘artificial’ blog buzz. In the blogosphere people can blog about a new product, which in turn prompts others to blog the product’s message. When the original blog(s) have been started by a PR company, it is called astroturfing.  A v-blog, or video-blog, it used to describe a blog that consists of video clips. It is also known as vog. Stemming from the definition, similar to blogosphere, a vlogosphere is an expression used to describe the ‘world of video blogs’. If you are interested in searching the blogosphere, you can use Technorati or Google Blog Search – an Internet search engine that indexes and searches blogs. Technorati tracks blogs and other forms of citizen media, including video blogs (vlogs), podcasts and amateur movies and videos in real-time. All this activity is monitored and indexed within minutes of posting.

Now that we are familiar with the blogging methodology lets look at some statistics gathered by Weber Shandwick, a public relations firm:
- 81% of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs.
- 37% watch online videos about someones experience with products the are considering.
- Average buyer consults 11 consumer reviews on the path to purchase.
- 61% of U.S. online consumers made a purchase based on blog recommendations.
- 77% of Internet users read blogs.
- 57% of companies with blog have acquired a customer from their blog.
- Keywords i blogs drive traffic from search engines.
- 23% of total Internet usage time is devoted to social networks and blogs.
- Blogger is the leading blog site in the U.S. with 46 MM unique monthly users.

Let us now go over some of the effects of blogging on businesses in order to help us understand, whether we should consider devoting time and resources to development of blogs related to our business.
Increase Our Reputation - if we provide a blog with high-quality, informative content, we can establish our Company as a knowledgeable leader in our industry. By taking advantage of the high blogging traffic and public interest we can address common concerns and problems faced by our clients and show our expertise as well as understanding of the industry and customer needs. We can thereby build faith in our Company's ability to help them. We can show our customers that we care about helping them by offering helpful tips and advice through our blogs. 
Attract New Clients - as stated in the research note above, 57% of companies with a blog have acquired a customer from their blog. The Internet makes it easy to share information and experiences with products, services, places etc. Utilization of blogs can give us exposure to potentially clientele we were unable to reach using the traditional methods of advertising. 
Pre-Screen Prospects - by answering the concerns and responding to inquiries posted in the blog, we can address commonly asked questions in-depth, and pre-screen our potential clients before the call or make an appointment to come to one of our offices. This will help our sales force i targeting people that are truly interested in our products and services.
Improve Customer Relations - interacting with customers, whether it is face-to-face or via various media, helps build and cultivate relationships. As stated above, 77% of Internet users read blogs. We can again reinforce our interest in customer satisfaction by utilizing blogs.
Increase Online Presence - we operate our business in the world of free information flow and constant technological changes. Updated information about the products and services we offer will help us get ahead of our competitors. Google, the largest search engine, will re-index our blogs every time we update them with new content, thereby placing our site higher in the search engine rankings. Getting better traffic will enable us to reach more potential clients.

Based on the information above, it is my recommendation to devote the effort of two members of our IT team to develop and maintain a customized blog. We can then designate team members from our sales and marketing divisions to provide updated information on our product and service offerings. I recommend utilizing our customer service team to respond to customer inquiries and complaints. 

Should you require any additional information I will gladly research the subject matter and further report my findings. I am convinced that setting up a blog will benefit our company by increasing customer awareness of our products and services. 

Best regards,
MKO 

Welcome

Hello everyone!

My name is Magdalena K. O'Mahony - Mags in short. I am working towards earning my MBA degree with Finance concentration at Montclair State University. Here is a little bit about me.

I was born and raised in Poland, lived in Ireland for a wee bit and then moved to the 'land of opportunities'. I started my education at Middlesex Country College earning an Associate Degree in Business Administration. I then continued my education at Montclair State University, or the place of enlightenment as i call it, graduating in 2007 with a Bachelor of Science with concentrations in Accounting and Business Management. Shortly after starting my carrier with Ernst & Young I passed the CPA exams and got licensed as a Certified Public Accountant in the State of New Jersey. Working for an Big4 public accounting company allowed me to get exposure to various industries, different aspects of the balance sheet, P&L, and cash flow statement, as well as control environment. I gained experience of the other side of the spectrum when I worked in the internal audit department at C.R. Bard, Inc., a medical device company. I was able to test various systems and IT general controls, visit domestic and international business units as well as get to know the manufacturing process of some of the company's product lines. I was also involved in compliance testing and some training activities. After a few years spent at  C.R. Bard, I took an Accountant III position at Hess Corporation. Some of my most valuable experiences at Hess include working in heavily outsourced environment in a supervisory function. I also got familiar and assisted in end user testing during application implementations and upgrades. One of the most interesting activities at the Company included projects outside the scope of my work that allowed me to get to know the industry and network with other employees. As I always wanted to continue my education, I decided to go back to school in pursuit of MBA degree. I am looking to graduate in the Spring of 2014. I set up this blog to share some experiences pertaining to the Strategic Information Systems course and work on developing my skills and knowledge about information technology, new trends and applications. 

I am always looking to better myself and my surroundings, whether it's by gaining knowledge, new experience or volunteering. I strongly believe in the meaning of this old Latin proverb: PER ASPERA AD ASTRA!