Appia Communications believes it is. The provider of managed communication and networking services reports that its customers are increasingly deploying “virtual” call centers — in which agents are located at home or in small offices — rather than traditional centralized call centers.

“The ability to locate agents and supervisors anywhere results in significant savings in operating expenses,” said Victor von Schlegell, Appia’s president. “The most obvious savings are in office rent and in commuting time and costs, but there are both hard and soft advantages to the flexibility decentralization provides. It enables call center managers to hire the best people, regardless of where they are physically located, and makes it easier to schedule resources to meet time-of-day and day-of-week peaks and valleys.”

Von Schlegell noted that this flexibility is one of the natural advantages of a managed service.

“One of the reasons our customers are able to move in this direction is that they use a managed approach to their call center technology,” von Schlegell said. “By hosting that technology ‘in the cloud,’ it doesn’t matter where the agents and supervisors are located, as long as they have a reliable connection to the Internet.”

But von Schlegell warns against deploying a dispersed staff without robust internal communication capabilities.

“The challenge of decentralization is to keep everyone on the same page, which can be a serious problem without the right tools,” von Schlegell said. “With Appia’s managed call center service, remote workers have access to exactly the same real-time statistics, reporting and communication tools as office employees.”

For more information about Appia, including its full suite of communication and networking solutions, special call center offers, customer case studies and more, please visit http://www.appiaservices.com or call 877-277-4297.

About Appia Communications

Appia Communications is a leading provider of managed communication and networking services, with a focus on small and midsize companies and organizations. Appia’s solutions help customers minimize capital investments, reduce costs, enhance employee productivity, improve customer care, and compete more effectively against much larger enterprises.

Headquartered in Traverse City, Michigan, Appia serves markets nationwide, with operations in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis.

Appia has been recognized as one of America’s fastest-growing private companies (Inc., 2007, 2008 and 2009); one of the fastest-growing solution providers in the technology industry (CRN, 2009); and one of the top five managed service providers in the world (MSPmentor, 2008-09).

For more information, please visit http://www.appiaservices.com or call 877-277-4297

GrowCo Factoring & Financial, a company that offers creative financing solutions to help growing small businesses meet their cash flow needs, has announced the launch of a new program designed to facilitate the factoring process for new clients. A company accepted under the new “Light Documentation Program” can borrow up to $100,000 monthly against unpaid invoices.

Invoice factoring, receivable factoring and purchase order financing are becoming increasingly popular sources of alternative funding now that the credit market has dried up and business lending has effectively come to a halt.

“Times are tough,” says Roger Snyder, managing director of GrowCo and commercial lending veteran. “Many businesses rely on a credit line from a bank or credit union to cover fundamental operating expenses like payroll, rent, supplies and more. Suddenly, and often without warning, the credit line is capped or pulled altogether.” According to the National Small Business Association, 38% of small businesses reported a decrease in their lines of credit or credit card limits in the first half of 2009.

“Losing credit can be devastating to a small business,” Snyder explains. “You may be turning a profit, landing new deals, and doing everything right. But the bottom line is that banks have scaled back drastically on commercial lending.”

GrowCo’s program is aimed at helping businesses quickly and easily secure financing to make ends meet. Applications can be processed in 24 hours, and funding is typically completed within 3-5 days. Although the program was created to simplify the factoring process for first time applicants, businesses who have engaged in factoring before are also encouraged to apply.

“What makes our program unique,” Snyder asserts, “is how easy it is to get started. Applications can be completed over the phone in a matter of minutes. We only need to ask you a few questions about your business, how it’s structured and who your clients are. Depending on the type of financing you are seeking, we may request copies of your invoices or purchase orders for verification.”

Businesses in virtually every industry are eligible for financing of up to $100,000 monthly under GrowCo’s new program. “We have a solution for everybody,” promises Snyder. “We empathize with today’s business owners and the difficulties they face.”

If your business is experiencing cash flow difficulties and needs a reliable source of working capital, factoring could be your best option. GrowCo’s new “Light Documentation Program” offers a streamlined application process that puts fast, secure financing within reach.

CustomerGauge, provider of a hosted software solution for automatically surveying customers and calculating Net Promoter® Score, today announced a new tool designed for small and medium enterprises. The new tool, “CustomerGauge b2b Edition”, allows companies to survey their customers or channel partners using the enterprise-standard Net Promoter Score, quickly, easily and at a breakthrough cost.

In response to the recent trend of companies announcing a Net Promoter Score without qualifications, the new CustomerGauge tool features a Net Promoter Score “Document of Record” listing the relevant information. This document acts as a certificate, and can be published internally within the organisation, or displayed online publicly to support press releases and act as a benchmark.

“We have been collecting company scores on press releases for our Net Promoter News site for over a year,” says Adam Dorrell, Managing Director, CustomerGauge “and we have seen a wide variety reporting methodology, using different scales or with no sample size detail. To help the growing Net Promoter community, we have developed a Document of Record, which lists the relevant information in a certificate format. Using this certificate will allow companies to establish a new credibility with their Net Promoter Score reporting”.

CustomerGauge b2b Edition also features HTML branded emailing with reminders, surveying in multiple languages, a real-time dashboard, advanced reporting showing scores for customer companies and individuals, segmented scoring and classification of “voice of the customer” comments. It also includes many features found on high-end systems – for example, results for separate divisions can be rolled up on to a single dashboard for internal comparison.

CustomerGauge b2b Edition is available immediately. Clients can be surveying within a few days, with results usually with 24 hours. System pricing starts at €3900 (approx US $5490), including three month subscription.

CustomerGauge
For product details and online demo, please contact info@customergauge.com.

About CustomerGauge

CustomerGauge measures loyalty and collects feedback to help companies to understand customer sentiment, centered around the Net Promoter Score standard. It is optimized for e-commerce and can be rapidly deployed anywhere in an organization, without investment in capital equipment or IT assistance. Customers include Philips, Canon and CMC Markets. The company is based in Amsterdam, NL.

About the Net Promoter Score:

Net Promoter® is both a loyalty metric and a discipline for using customer feedback to fuel profitable growth in businesses. Developed by Satmetrix, Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld, the concept was first popularized through Reichheld’s book The Ultimate Question, and has since been embraced by leading companies worldwide as the standard for measuring and improving customer loyalty. Details: www.netpromoter.com *Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld.

To address these challenges, you need a wide range of information concerning the efficiency and status of your vehicles (location, engine on/off, idling, speed, doors open/closed etc.). Paperless Trail Inc., a systems integrator and applications developer specializing in digital mapping and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) recently launched Perspective Mobile Asset Tracker – your Philippines based tracking solution. Paperless Trail is a member of Quadra Alliance – the premier full service IT solutions provider in the Philippines.

Perspective Mobile Asset Tracker is a vehicle tracking solution that provides information concerning the efficiency and current status of your vehicles. Perspective Mobile AT (Asset and Vehicle Tracking) provides the infrastructure to track mobile assets using GPS devices. The assets can be vehicles, plant, equipment and personnel.

Perspective Mobile Asset Tracker comes complete with digital (GPS correct) maps of the entire country, including major roads nationwide, down to tertiary level roads for NCR, Rizal, Cavite, Pampanga, Cebu, Cagayan De Oro, Davao and the rest of the Philippines.

Some of its features include GPRS/UDP based communications – for lightweight communications, higher fixing frequency – decisions are based on operational needs as opposed to costs, web service API’s – allows data extraction for integration with other corporate applications, and Globe/Smart support – enroll in a packet-based billing plan as opposed to a time-based.

Perspective Mobile Asset Tracker optimizes vehicle use, reduces vehicle and driver downtime, improves driver behavior, reduces fuel, maintenance and repair costs, and improves overall customer service. Soon it will even cover fuel level monitoring in real time, and driver identification. Find out now how Asset Tracker can optimize distribution, route planning, location management and more.

Paperless Trail and the Quadra Alliance provide free consultation services on Asset Tracker and all other products and services.

For more information on Perspective Mobile Asset Tracker and the Quadra Alliance:
Visit their website: www.quadraalliance.com
Call us: (632) 896-9315
Skype: quadraalliance
Mobile: 63918-552-59-57
Email: marketing@quadraalliance.com

Small business owners are all plagued by the same challenges. How can they find enough hours in the day to get all their work done and keep their business profitable?

They know that Internet marketing, in some form, should be part of their overall marketing strategy but they don’t have the time to figure out which initiatives would work best for their specific business needs. They know that the Internet offers an absolutely overwhelming amount of information but are at a loss for how they will find the time to sift through the enormous variety of readable resources in order to focus on the most valuable and most helpful ones.

Small Business Internet Marketing shares meaningful, relevant, helpful and even some comic relief posts/articles to help the small business owner save time. Learn about how article marketing can help you promote your brand, how to integrate social media into your marketing plans, and see examples of how the little guys can compete with the big guys using social media tools like Twitter.

Let Small Business Internet Marketing save you time by doing the research for you. Subscribe today.

About New Horizons 123

New Horizons 123 is an Internet marketing company for small businesses to help them integrate the Internet and social media marketing into their overall marketing strategy.

For further information, please contact us at info@newhorizons123.com

Language Services Associates (LSA), a leading language services provider for nearly two decades, announced today it has been named one of the top businesses in the United States by DiversityBusiness.com, the nation’s leading B-to-B Web site. LSA is proud to receive the following five diversity awards for 2010:
Top 100 Hispanic American Owned Businesses in the U.S.
Top 500 Diversity Owned Businesses in the U.S.
Top 500 Privately Owned Business in the U.S.
Top 100 Diversity Owned Businesses in PA
Top 100 Privately Held Businesses in PA
“We are honored and delighted to be recognized by DiversityBusiness.com as one of the top businesses in 2010,” said Laura K.T. Schriver, President and CEO, LSA. “We continue to attribute our rapid growth and success to our talented team, who are dedicated to delivering to our customer’s professional linguistic services through cutting-edge technology solutions. We look forward to continued success for years to come.”

LSA will be honored, along with the rest of the award nominees, at the 10th Annual National Multicultural Business Conference, taking place April 27- 29, 2010 at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel and Convention Center in National Harbor, MD. The event is designed to recognize and honor the award nominees while bringing together America’s top business owners.

About Language Services Associates

Since 1991, LSA has been helping facilitate foreign language communication in a variety of settings and industry segments, including healthcare, government, utilities, insurance and financial services. Founded by Laura K. T. Schriver, LSA is committed to providing innovative technology solutions, including Over-the-Phone Interpreting (OPI) with real-time reporting and Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) services. With a network of more than 5,000 global linguists, LSA offers exceptional interpretation and translation services to more than 2,000 clients worldwide in over 200 languages. The company delivers a full suite of premium language-based solutions, including OPI, VRI, On Location Interpreting, Document Translation and Localization, American Sign Language (ASL) and Intercultural Consulting. For more information on LSA, please call 1-800-305-9673 or visit us on the Web.

Follow LSA on Twitter!
http://twitter.com/LSAWeb

Fan LSA on Facebook!
http://facebook.lsaweb.com/

Kofax plc (LSE:KFX), the leading provider of document driven business process automation solutions, today announced a new release of Kofax Express, an all in one scan to archive software package for image capture applications. Release 2.0 offers new features that enhance the application’s ease of use and expand its functionality, thereby increasing productivity and significantly reducing operating costs.
“Kofax Express 2.0 reflects our ongoing commitment to invest heavily in document driven business process automation applications across all market segments, from basic image capture to advanced enterprise level solutions,” said Jim Nicol, Executive Vice President of Products at Kofax. “Demand for Kofax Express continues to accelerate, especially among small and mid sized organizations. This release strengthens the software, enabling customers to scan and archive documents more quickly and at lower costs.”

“Our business depends on our ability to efficiently and effectively automate our clients’ paper heavy processes, and Kofax Express helps us do that,” said Jennifer Van Hart at Micrographics, Inc., a leading information management service bureau based in Florida. “The software provides a single, turnkey capture solution that is fast, effective, reliable and easy to use and deploy.”

Automatic Image File Importing

Release 2.0 optimizes the FolderScan function, which allows the automatic import of image files (TIFF, PDF, JPG, and BMP) from a folder directly into Kofax Express, better enabling capture from sources such as MFPs, fax servers and saved images. This provides users with a time and cost saving single interface to their back end repository for images from all sources.

Improved PDF Support

Now supporting both PDF and PDF/A formats, Kofax Express 2.0’s compression maintains crisp, clear color images delivered in file sizes associated with black and white images, leading to quicker downstream processing and improved efficiencies. The software also extends its OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to expand its searchable PDF capabilities, allowing users to more easily and accurately search for data within PDF documents.

Advanced Database Support

Kofax Express 2.0 offers advanced database support capabilities. This includes the ability to connect to any ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) compliant repositories such as Microsoft Access, SQL Server or Oracle to instantly look up and then populate an index field value, thereby accelerating indexing tasks and improving accuracy. In addition, the software now features an export API that enables the creation of customized export connectors to virtually any repository, allowing users to increase efficiency while cost effectively leveraging existing infrastructure.

Kofax Express 2.0 is now available. For more information about Kofax products, go to http://www.kofax.com.

About Kofax

Kofax plc (LSE: KFX) is the leading provider of document driven business process automation solutions. For more than 20 years, Kofax has provided award winning solutions that streamline the flow of information throughout an organization by managing the capture, transformation and exchange of business critical information arising in paper, fax and electronic formats in a more accurate, timely and cost effective manner. These solutions provide a rapid return on investment to thousands of customers in financial services, government, business process outsourcing, healthcare, supply chain and other markets. Kofax delivers these solutions through its own sales and service organizations, and a global network of more than 1000 authorized partners in more than 60 countries throughout the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.kofax.com.

“Kofax” is a registered trademark in the US, the EU and other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks belong to their respective owners.