21st Centry Forum

During the toughest times in the business cycle – a cycle that has been amplified by the effects of the real estate crash in southern California – owners of businesses of all sizes ought to be doing whatever it takes to trim down on the cost of their products, the costs of administering their business, and the costs of holding inventory. Only after a campaign of prudent cost-cutting can businesses afford to begin strategizing for the future.

To cut down on the cost of products, businesses can reduce workforce or find cheaper components for whatever it is they’re manufacturing if they aren’t in the service business. For Hollywood movie producers, this has implications, just as it does for Downtown apparel manufacturers: to reduce the cost of a final product, a producer chooses less expensive actors just as an apparel manufacturer will try to find less expensive fabric and less expensive ways to stitch it together (fewer employees on the production line?) By improving cross margins, pressure on operating margins is greatly reduced and the business is repositioned to really thrive in climates conducive to high operating profitability.

One of the best ways that businesses in and around LA can reduce their administrative expenses is by getting telecommunication expenses under control. This means shopping around for a Los Angeles broadband provider that will be able to integrate VOIP solutions into your package, which can save businesses up to a thousand dollars a year per employee on phone service over a hosted PBX or other phone company solution, depending on how many phone calls you make. Choosing a locally-based provider all makes a fair bit of sense from a service aspect; dealing locally means that there will be someone who is accountable for your service and present to endure your wrath should anything go awry – a great incentive to get things working again quickly. Other ways of dealing locally that can save on administrative expenses are seeking out the best prices on electricity and office supplies like paper as well from smaller, local vendors who are able to supply discounts in return for a large purchase from you.

Lastly, reducing the cost of inventory – the interest or opportunity cost of capital tied up in inventory – is crucial to success. Whether your business is a lawfirm and your inventory is ‘billable hours’ or your business makes shoes, reducing the quantity of inventory you’re holding and not discounting accounts receivable is a smart way to keep cash flow positive.

Of all the methods to save money for small businesses, finding a Los Angeles broadband service to save your money on your phone and internet bills is by far the easiest. Any smart business owner has a fiduciary responsibility to make a change to a more affordable provider.

SpringCM is the most cost effective solution for managing documents delivered as an affordable and easy–to–use service – with no hardware to buy, software to install or maintenance to perform.

SpringCM’s document management features enable increased effectiveness. Regardless of the business challenge, SpringCM users are able to:

• Find information quickly within the right business context
• Include information housed in other systems in search queries
• Revise content more efficiently
• Process documents with increased speed and accuracy
• Securely store your important business documents
• Ensure maximum document security

SpringCM Document Management features include:

Document Revision and Version Control

SpringCM’s document management system delivers everything you need to manage the creation, revision, storage, routing and auditing of electronic documents, including:

• File check-in and check-out
• Viewing, mark-up and annotation
• Version control
• Secure file storage
• Routing and approval of documents
• Full audit trails showing all activities on each document

Search

Once documents are added to the SpringCM document management solution, they become searchable by text, title, author and attribute fields (metadata), and Advanced Search queries allow users to refine their searches to a granular level, returning only the best matches.

File Organization

SpringCM is easy to use because it includes a classic folder-tree structure to display and manage folders and files. When you are browsing documents, SpringCM displays the folder tree on the left side of the application, making it a snap to locate and organize files. You can also link related documents that share common attributes and create virtual document sets. These features are designed to streamline business processes by grouping documents that are referenced simultaneously. If you prefer, you can use keyword tags or metadata instead of folders to organize documents.

Storage

With secure, permission-based access from anywhere with Internet access, SpringCM takes the headaches out of centralized storage and accessibility. To ensure you’re not storing data you’ll never need, administrators can specify how many previous versions SpringCM should retain. Regardless of whether you have a gigabyte, terabyte or even more data, SpringCM will help you grow your organization with its high–grade document management and flexible storage taxonomy.

Reporting and Alerts

SpringCM alerts keep you informed as things change in your system. For instance, when new documents are added to an important folder or when you have work to complete in a workflow, SpringCM will inform you of the changes either in real time or with a daily summary.

Reports are an important component of the SpringCM document management solution, and help you measure the productivity benefits of your organization’s document–centric applications. Options range from Basic Reporting, to Advanced Reporting and Custom Reporting.

Access and Permissions

Controlling access to documents is simplified with easy–to–use tools for setting folder– and document–level access and assigning view, edit and delete privileges. SpringCM even allows you to explicitly grant or deny document access to individuals, user roles or entire groups. You can even limit users’ ability to download, view and leave online-only comments to documents that further enables sharing with large, diverse communities.