Is It Time To Hire A Tech Consultant?

When your business expands, you will need to make sure that your technology and computers are modern and up-to-date, in order to meet the demands of your customers. In fact you may also need to employ more staff to deal with the increase in your workload, as well as seeking out newer methods of communication. One decision you are going to have to make is to whether to hire a full-time IT consultant, or to hire one from outside whenever the need arises.

In-house versus out sourcing

If you are confused about whether to hire a full-time tech consultant or to rely on calling one up whenever you have a problem then there are a number of things that you will need to think about.

Firstly, you will need to look into the amount of technology you have and rely upon, if your business means that you have to give countless presentations and video conferences then you may want to hire a full-time tech support employee to handle any problems that may occur. However, this is dependent on the size of your business, and if your business is too small, then you may find that the costs of hiring a full-time tech consultant may be prohibitive, and sticking with outsourcing to a private IT consultant is the way to go.

Consider the financial implications

Secondly, you are going to have to figure out the financial complications that can come with adding another full-time wage to the company payroll, especially for such a specialized position. If you decide to outsource your IT then you do not have to concern yourself with health insurance and pensions for an extra employer, that way, you just end up paying for services rendered, for whenever a problem arises.

Do your background checks

Lastly, when the time comes to hire an IT consultant, you need to make sure that you have done some background checks into their proficiency and previous work experience. That way you can decide on which company is the right one for you. Make sure that you do not just settle on the first IT consultancy company that you find, spend some time looking at three or four different companies and ask them to provide references and examples of their previous works.

As technology advances, you are going to need to be sure that the technology you have is up to the job of helping your business to provide the right service and products that the public want.

Hope you find my article helpful! If you’re located in the Los Angeles area and need IT support or computer consulting services, I urge you to contact my good friends at ITwithIQ today! They also offer PC and Mac repair services.

SharePoint Consulting for Healthcare – Improve Collaboration and Real Time Decision Making

Healthcare providers have a lot to deal with besides providing a quality care. The onus of the health care providers also lies on the overall development of a community at large. Healthcare organizations have to make sure they attend all incoming patients, reduce their waiting time, reduce infections acquired per thousands, thus providing a quality service in line with the prerequisites of a business for survival. SharePoint consulting on these areas can go a long way in streamlining your workflows and business intelligence system.

Collaboration in Healthcare Organizations

Healthcare operations involve a lot of communication, collaboration and workflows to make the organization more efficient. Besides, collaboration amid workflows plays a major role in dealing with critical contingencies. For instance, delay in a patient’s discharge process due to time lapsed in getting approvals from several administrative staff owing to enormous amount of paperwork, may increase waiting time of a patient who might need immediate medical attention. Further, due to the absence of doctors availability at odd hours, it would become hard to connect with critical cases that require immediate help. These are just a few examples of the caveat that lies in the collaboration eco-system in a typical healthcare organisation. It would be wise for an organisation to seek SharePoint consulting services from reputed service providers who have experiences in implementing SharePoint across healthcare organisations.

Metrics important for successful functioning of Health Care Providers

Efficiency, productivity, low cost and proper care together build the foundation of a successful healthcare organization. It is important to keep tabs on these metrics to set the organization in the right direction. While the current HIS and EPR systems facilitate information gathering, they lag in providing real-time data visualization of key metrics to make quick decisions. For a healthcare organization it is important to watch metrics like patient’s re-admissions, bed availability, infection acquired per thousands etc.

SharePoint Consulting for Healthcare

SharePoint consulting can help healthcare organizations become more efficient, productive and save time by providing a collaborative platform that leverages employees’ efficiency, mobility and bridges the gap that resides in the system. For instance, SharePoint dashboards can help keep real time tabs on metrics which are critical to the healthcare like bed availability, patients’ waiting time etc. They can also provide analytical data which can display the trends prevalent in the organization. It can provide alerts for an action. Rather than working on multiple excel sheets, it provides a one shot view of trends and drill down, presenting information in a more granular form to facilitate accurate decision making. Thus we see SharePoint works as a wonderful Business intelligence (BI) tool for critical decision making.

Besides, SharePoint renders a collaborative platform that allows healthcare staff to effectively communicate among themselves, work in synergy and manage time even at non-working hours. SharePoint enables healthcare employees like doctor, nurses and administrative staff access to relevant information to expedite clinical processes. It also enables people who are located at dispersed location access to the network, thus making collaboration easy even at odd hours. SharePoint features like document management and co-authoring make it easy for employees to manage documents and allows multiple users to work on a single document. These features can also be operated offline and are synchronized automatically once connected to the network.

In a nutshell SharePoint consulting helps time-challenged health professionals to get right information at right time, making it easier to collaborate effectively across the healthcare eco-system.

How to Choose The Right ERM Consultants?

If you are planning to choose ERM consultants for your team, there are a few important things that you must keep in mind. First of all, you must try to get acquainted with the consultant who will be assigned to the project and see if he is capable of properly explaining the implementation method to you. There might be several things that you may not understand initially, so be prepared to ask questions regarding cut-over approach, data migration, and possibilities of any project risk. You may name the professionals working in the project in your agreement and assign penalties in case they switch out of the project during the implementation procedure.

When you meet the potential consultants in an interview, don’t forget to ask questions regarding the past project experience that you find on their resumes. You may want some specific information to ensure that the professionals are reliable. You may also ask the consultants to summarize the previous employment details to confirm or validate the facts. Thus, you should take all care and ask as many questions as you may otherwise ask before hiring a permanent employee.

When the ERM consultant presents a low quote to you, ask your partner to give you an accurate estimate along with the detailed project plan to get a better understanding. You may ask the professional questions regarding how he or she plans to track the actual project work with the estimate that they have presented. You may use the information to determine the practices that they use in order to control the run rate of the project. You may also consider asking the consultant whether or not they will make adjustments in the project bid on the basis of the estimate provided. The ERP projects are mostly quite risky and you should be able to find a method to balance your total investment plan in order to be able to control cost.

Besides choosing the right ERP partner, you should also determine the basic practices for the successful implementation of the program. The simplest pattern for ERP implementation includes the following phases: configure, develop, design, test, training, migrate data, cutover, and support. This order may not necessarily be the same, and it is subject to change. However, some of the basic steps that you must include are produce, plan, educate, assess, test, refine, and activate. What is more important is that you look for consultants that are able to easily adapt to your culture and meet the specific requirements of your organization.

You should look for an ERP partner that is able to clearly understand the minute details of the project. The more time you spend in understanding the various aspects of the project, there will be fewer risks about something being hidden. You should invest time to understand the risk factors in the project and keep asking questions throughout the implementation process to ensure that the entire project goes trouble free. You may consider talking with peers to discover how they handle moving into a project with lack of information knowledge about the new tools and practices.

Accountants As Consultants

Accounting is a broad topic which encompasses many aspects of a business as well as the personal finances of individuals. Accounting topics range from bookkeeping, cost accounting, fixed asset accounting, tax accounting, auditing, and more.

But accounting is not just about entries into an accounting system. It involves may other aspects not typically associated with accounting. A good accountant not only prepares financial statements, balances sheets, and other reports for businesses. They are involved in many other areas which are typically considered consulting in its various forms.

Accountants many times will offer services such as writing a business plan, creating a business succession plan, asset protection, fraud prevention, detection and investigation; and tax preparation for corporations, partnerships, LLCs, estates, trusts and other entities. They are involved many times in auditing the financial statements of businesses. They could be involved in creating a buy-sell agreement, financial planning and other related topics.

Accountants typically are college grads with a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, usually in accounting or a related field. Many go on to obtain a master’s degree in Business Management, Accounting, Forensic Accounting and other related degrees. Some go on to teach at schools, universities, and colleges. Some start their own business and many times do so after working for either a public accounting firm or work in private industry. Some become Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) who are able to issue opinions on the financial statements of businesses. Not all accountants are CPAs nor are they required to be a CPA.

Over the next 15 weeks and more there will be articles about accounting, but also the various consulting related services many accountants offer. Sometimes accountants are involved in bankruptcy situations and are held by strict rules set by the bankruptcy laws. While these are well known topics, the articles being presented here will offer information about some of the more lucrative consulting fields that accountants, tax preparers and other business consultants might be interested in pursuing. These are tried and proven consulting services that bring in various amounts of revenue. Some require great amounts of training; others require training that is less time consuming. Whichever way a consultant wishes to go, these services are needed by every business in one form or another. Learning how to offer these services will be extremely beneficial to business clients for consultants. Learning how these services will benefit your business or personal financial life will be presented in the articles. Some of these services require a degree others do not.

Along with offering these articles, you are encouraged to participate in discussion forums to ask questions about any accounting or financial topic. If an accounting student wishes to ask a question, an answer will be provided. However, no homework questions will be allowed or answered. In addition, there will be an article about a new designation for consultants which will become very popular over the next few years. The designation is Certified Business, Accounting and Tax Consultant (CBATC).

Accounting has been a profession made up of individuals of all walks of life. Those interested in this field should consider a college education of at least a BS in accounting. In many states one can sit for the CPA exam whether you attended a brick and mortar school or online. This is an exciting field and if you have the aptitude and desire to become an accountant, then by all means you should strongly consider the field.

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