Many manufacturing business in Toronto and the world are finding themselves struggling with technology. Is it time to consider custom software? Are you struggling with the following?

For example:  

Your new client requires your business to provide up to the minute updates on your supply chain or requires that your system communicate directly with their system. Do you lose the client or try to make the adjustment?

You can find yourself in the predicament that business essential hardware is breaking or malfunctioning but the suppliers no longer produce these crucial pieces. How much longer can you continue with pieces breaking?

You attempt to remedy a problem by trying to integrate a new piece of software or hardware to compliment your business process but find that your existing system is not compatible. Do you stop upgrading at that point?

Legacy Software: can you continue to wait?

Issues such as not meeting client requirements, discontinued hardware and incompatible systems are a very real problem for many manufactures. Both big and small companies will find themselves struggling with these demands if they wait too long.

If your business is unable to meet these new set of demands you will slowly see potential clients go with your competitor. As these new requirement goes from being a one off to a standard your existing clients will slowly request for this new services and if not addressed move to your competition. How many clients and potential clients can you lose before crippling the growth of your business?

The information age has caused technology to move rapidly. Causing a gap between your system and the new industry standard. This gap only gets bigger as time passes and can cause a ripple effect of losing clients, productivity to a point that your business can’t recover.

With this sudden shift your staff can find it difficult to source hardware such as scanners, servers, printers etc. that can directly interact with your existing systems. The lack of parts to continue the use of your current systems can paralyze your business from making money.

Custom Software: Addressing the Problem

How can we address this problem before your business gets brought to a halt? The options are migration your existing systems into modern technology or building middleware that exists between your new requirements and the existing systems.

Migrating To Custom Software:

Migrating software can be very time consuming and costly. Legacy systems have a tendency to lack documentation, hidden features and processes. the migration process needs to be handled with care. As it can cause issues in production, bringing everything to a standstill for a few hours to a few days.

Middleware: Custom Software:

Middleware software attempts to build a line of communication between the existing system and the new set of requirements. These new requirements could be software or hardware base. Middleware is usually easier to build and deploy. Custom Software does require a fair amount of time to understand both the new requirements and the existing system.

Middleware software can be used as a temporary short term solution or a long standing solution, though it’s not suggested.

Lemonade Software Inc. is a Toronto base software firm, specializes in providing manufacturing business the ability to grow. Whether it’s through full custom software solutions or custom middleware solutions, Lemonade Software Inc. is here. We help your business not be left behind because of legacy software. Give us a call for your free consultation, you have nothing to lose.   

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Custom software development can seem like an expensive and large undertaking for any business of any size. Custom Software development plays a big role in areas where a business process does not match up with an off the shelf solution. It can also be applied in areas of repetitive and/or time consuming work. Many business leaders rely on a “Secret” recipe per say. You know that thing that makes your product or service unique in the market compared to your competition. Usually this unique approach to your business requires a custom touch that software that is available in your local store just doesn’t get right. Custom software gives you the flexibility to clearly define the process that makes your unique.

Off the shelf Software vs Custom Software

Off the shelf software is software that can be found in your local stores eg: Best Buy, Staples etc. These software solutions are marketed for general consumption and attempt at solving the majority of the problems in a niche market. For example Microsoft office provides tools for day to day business such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc. What if you had a large excel sheet with well over 25,000 rows and 10 columns that requires you to compare it against a file you have? This is where custom software development comes in.

Custom software development is the process of defining the clearly what the business pains are and designing a solution to address that issue. In our example above a developer could potentially create a piece of custom software that quickly and efficiently finds the records for you. A process that previously was partially done manually is now automated. This process of “automation” reduces errors, increases productivity and in many cases provides clarity in what your business is doing.

Who can utilize custom software?

Business small or large can utilize custom software. The most common reason for having custom or bespoke software developed is because existing software in the market does not align with your business process. Often off the shelf products can be challenging to integrate into your existing business work flow only server as a Band-Aid solution to your problem and don’t normally solve it. Initially the investment into bespoke software might seem high, but it can save you a lot of time and money in the long run.

So when should you consider custom software? When you find yourself asking some of these questions.

• Is one more of my critical process unique?
• Is internal communication between department technologies breaking down or non-existent?
• Are some of the business processes slowing you down or repetitive?
• Do my current applications feel outdated or require too many steps?
• Is analysing data from the departments, processes and clients hard to gather or not disposable?

If you answer yes to all or any of these you are are a candidate for custom software.

Advantages of Custom Software Development

There are many advantages to have custom software developed. Here are a few when considering your options:

For Custom Software Development Cycle

A common question I receive is what does your development process looks like. For example Most people think a software developer just sits and writes code until the program is complete but the truth is there is a lot more to it than that.

In conclusion I hope that this answered some of your questions and if you find yourself still unsure contact us and we can see if a custom application is for you.

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Technology is inescapable. It pervades every facet of our life. From how we work, play and live our lives, technology has created a revolution that will grow for as long as humans continue to advance in their capabilities.

As the days, months and years go by, technology just gets better and better. What was once the latest and greatest yesterday, is old hat today. The bottom line is, technology doesn’t wait for you and if your organization isn’t keeping up with it, you will surely be left in the dust by one of your competitors.

Most articles you read about that discuss the importance of remaining current with technology will merely give you suggestions about how to keep up, this article will discuss what will happen if you don’t.

Fall behind:
Most people are on the internet nowadays. They access the web through their PCs, laptops, tablets and mobile devices. Most of us have a Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn and some even have a website. There are over three billion people on the internet today; as an organization, it’s important to remain current on technology or face closing shop. With as many people on the internet today, with more and more coming online every day, keeping ahead of technology is a necessity if your organization anticipates long term stability and growth.

Become Irrelevant:
Becoming irrelevant is considered a death sentence by any company’s standards. To stay relevant, especially when it comes to technology, means keeping up with what is trending, technology wise, in your industry. It’s important to know the extent of your customer’s technological expertise and stay on pace with them. If your clients cannot find you, your products or your services because of technological deficiencies, your business is destined for failure.

Missed Opportunities:
If your company has not invested in the proper technology, there is a chance it may have missed opportunities to connect and interact with its customers. Technology has allowed people and businesses to communicate with each other on multiple levels. Be it through email, text, instant message, and social media, there are many forums with which to communicate a message to client. If an organization is not keeping up with technology to stay in front of its clients, then it will continue to miss many more opportunities to close a sale.

Additionally, when properly harnessing the latest and most effective technology, you are dramatically reducing the cost of doing business. By employing the right technology, not only will you increase productivity, you will also be reducing processing fees and other significant overhead costs.

Disorganization:
Advanced office systems, contact management, and secure cloud servers are now commonplace in order to help businesses stay organized, while at the same time protecting client’s confidential information. Technological innovation has been instrumental in assisting companies streamline their processes and significantly reduce the need for paper files. Companies that resist progress and function in a disorganized fashion don’t stand a chance of competing at the same level as other companies that embrace technology.

Obscurity:
Technology will continue to advance and customers will find new and exciting ways to use it. If an organization continues to resist progress and decides not to keep up with technology, they are likely to fade away into obscurity.

At Axis Technical Group, we do not want to see your company experience any of the aforementioned setbacks. That is why we offer Systems Modernization services and software solutions to reduce costs while increasing worker productivity. Keeping up with the latest tech will also enhance your company’s success in the industry by staying relevant and competitive in the market. Getting more functional means getting more competitive, so call us today and let find out what we can do for you.

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When was the last time you took at look at your Server? You know, that thing that’s probably in a dusty old closet, that your business has had since before you joined. Every once in awhile, like your car, you have someone come in and do ‘a tune up’. The individual suggests upgrading to something newer but in the board meetings everyone agrees, if it isn’t broken why fix it. But just like that old trusty car that always seemed to start until that one day. Your server and infrastructure is very similar with many more hidden dangers and very high risk factors that can result in big problems, even hazardous to your business, and just like your trusty old car it will stop working when you least expect it.

They are watching

Old technology is vulnerable to security threats. The rule of thumb goes something like this, the older the operating system, application, hardware or software the more time the cyber criminals have had to find exploits and less likely that the vendor is still creating and supporting the technology. Your old SQL server that you felt was working just fine or maybe that old FTP server that no one uses but is still active on the network or even more common those old Windows XP desktops that the budget hasn’t been allocated to be upgrade are all risking the security of your network. These older applications and pieces of hardware are putting all your data at risk. Everything from your phone system to your financials can be accessed and exploited. Can your business survive a serious attack?

RIP: the hard drive

The most common part to fail on a system is the hard drive. Why the hard drive you may ask, it’s one of the few pieces of hardware that has moving parts. A faulty hard drive or a hard drive that no longer works usual results in severe data loss. There are things that can be done on newer technology such as using Solid State Drives (SSD), these have no moving parts and will provide you with a performance boost.

Something smells rotten

Yes, Bits can rot. From the pages of Wikipedia, “With ever-growing disk capacities, file sizes, and increases in the amount of data stored on a disk, the likelihood of the occurrence of bit rot and other forms of uncorrected and undetected data corruption increases.” What is your plan B? With the popularity and accessibility of hardware and cloud based solutions you can quickly move critical data to a more advanced and secure storage system.

At a second glance

When it comes to old technology, any of the issues above can strike at any time. This could mean loss of business, lower productivity, angry clients or worse…compromised critical data! But what about the organizational impact on your business? While less noticeable at first, old technology and infrastructure can actually hold your business from retaining and staying competitive in your market.

Are you in front of the pack?

Lets be realistic, your competition wants your market share, in other words they want to destroy you and are looking for an edge. They are slowly, like ants, building their IT department to more quickly and efficiently share information between departments and use the latest technology to automate, integrate and disperse their products and/or services. Why would you let them take that advantage when it’s at your finger tips.

Things just don’t mesh together

Older technology simply does not have the synergy to work with modern technology. You will become limited in your ability to bring in new technology and will begin the process of ‘just patching’ things together, like a sinking ship. The quicker you move forward the more cost effective the process will be.

Technology that meets your needs

How quickly can you have an employee up and running? How quickly can you see who your clients are, how many sales you have made in the past week? When something goes wrong, how quickly can your IT provider solve it? These are all things you can address simply by improving your current Technology and infrastructure.

So let’s add up the risks and dangers of holding on to old technology:

your business is vulnerable to cyber criminals
your hard drives can and will fail causing your business data loss
Bit rot leads to data corruption and or loss
loss of competitive edge
not able to quickly integrate modern technology
the technology is working against you not for you
Lets reconsider that “if it isn’t broken why fix it” mentality. Can you really afford not to fix it?

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Many small businesses fail to see the value of establishing the basic digital footprint on the internet. 93% of all purchasing decisions start with a web search. Whether it is to find the best restaurant in their area or to find a supplier of gadgets. Websites and the internet have become an essential part of your marketing tools and in many instances, much more inexpensive than traditional marketing avenues.

The ability to quickly reach and relay your current products and services to a dynamic audience has become crucial as your competition is keeping the market aware while you are not.

Websites vs traditional marketing
Flyers, on average, require a designer, printing time and proofing. Then comes the hard part, delivery methods. This process can quickly become costly with a return of less than 10%! Why is that? Well, you are sending flyers blindly to homes or business that more than likely don’t want or have use for your service or product.

The initial cost of building a professional website, registering a domain like yourcompany.com, can be costly. Let’s take a closer look. At any given time you will be exposed to more than 20 million buyers! Yes, just like flyers many of these buyers are not qualified but it will quickly paint a picture of who is going to your site, their ages, what product they spent most of their time viewing, how many continued to through the order process and many other benefits. Hidden in these abundance of numbers we find the key to a successful marketing campaign. We can clearly and quickly identify your niche market and tailor more marketing towards that segment.

You will also have the ability to quickly create promotions during slow periods and relay that information to existing clients to help you weather the storm.

How can Lemonade Software Inc help you:
Register your domain (www.yourcompany.com)
Precure web hosting (where will your site live)
Design the website
Create web content
Analysis of data gathered

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Why you should consider A consultant

You may be asking yourself, why hire a consultant? Or telling yourself, we can figure this out without a 3rd party getting involved. But there are many reasons why your company may benefit from our consulting services.

If you are considering hiring one, read a little more below about how we can help your company out.

Borrow another set of eyes:

Companies often develop tunnel vision when presented with a new project. This could be from years of repeating the same process or using the same technology. Having an ‘outsider’ will give you a different perspective. This new viewpoint can help you quickly arrive at a final product and remove many of the roadblocks that might have been holding your project behind.

This qualified viewpoint that we bring is more than just an opinion. We often work with a variety of companies and have worked through extensive projects allowing us to bring you experience that you may not otherwise be able to quickly and cost effectively acquire. We can often bring new and innovative ideas or spot possible challenges that your company wouldn’t have otherwise seen on their own.

One man short:

Very often, the issue your company is attempting to solve is critical, but the workforce is not there to allocate. Your company has to continue running day-to-day operations. Often new projects require reshuffling employees’ responsibilities which can become an issue with keeping things running smoothly. Hiring an employee will require time for qualifying and training, but how long before this new person can actually fill the gap? Plus many projects are one-offs so hiring someone might not make sense.

In situations like this, we can help by providing a perfect, highly skilled temporary solution. We are not a full-time employee of your company, so it’s often cheaper to use us than it is to hire someone new. Due to the nature of consulting we are accustomed to switching in between companies and are able to adapt to the learning curve of your business.

Specialized Skill set:

Possibly the most common reason we are hired as consultants is to gain a skillset that their existing staff does not posses. By engaging us, you get access to a group of professionals that posses an array of skills. These professionals would not only be expensive for a company to hire full-time but the company might not have enough work to keep them busy.

Lemonade Software, can help you keep cost down by providing you our experience, knowledge and network of people to help your project conclude.

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At the heart of any successful business lies a very important aspect called marketing. What is marketing? Marketing is an umbrella term that covers advertising, public relations, promotions and sales. Marketing is the process by which a product or service is introduced to your potential customers. Lets face it, if individuals do not know your business exists, how can you provide them with your services or goods? Marketing also plays a key role in keeping your business present in the mind of potential clients.

If you built it, they will come:
Once your potential customers become aware of the existence of your company, it increases the chance of increased consumption of services and/or goods. As your campaign begins to flourish, it creates a snowball effect as your new clients spread the word about your business. Building a strong marketing campaign should be one of your top considerations during the building of your business.

Who are you again?
A successful company often has a solid reputation. Marketing helps solidify the brand and product recognition of the company. As your reputation grows your sales will also increase. Individuals will feel more secure of whom and what your business stands for. The reputation of your company is built through effective use of communication tools and quality products and or services.

Cost:
With the advent of modern technology, marketing your business has become less expensive and attainable by small businesses. Social media, as well as email campaigns, have made reaching out to potential clients easier. Social media as a whole gives your business the ability, in real time, to gage the current marketing campaign for the cost of simply having an internet connection.

Food for your business:
Marketing sustains a company’s presence in the lives of its existing and potential clients. It is essential to maintain and manage a healthy relationship with your customers. It allows a business to maintain a long-lasting and ever-present relationship with your audience. It’s not a quick one time fix, your business should continuously be reviewing and revising how your clients see the business.

While your existing customers should always be your main priority, marketing can assist your business in growing your current customer base. Small efforts such as social media posts and email campaigns can not only engage existing consumers, but also help build awareness to new and potential customers. Marketing helps secure your business’s future through continuous engagement with new and old clients.

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There are a huge variety of computers available in the market with the difference being,
operating system, RAM capacity, graphics card, hard drive capacity, laptop or a PC, and certain other features. Getting a new computer is of course a great experience, but not able to choose the right one can be a daunting task as well.
While deciding which computer to buy, consider the following features:

1. What do you want to do with your computer?
The choice obviously depends on the work the device will be put to. Of course, the functionality guides the kind of computer. Which of the following tasks will your computer be performing?

• Only to check emails and browse the web.
• Important office work.
• Playing games.
• To create music, videos, and images and show your talent.
• Only for entertainment.

2. Decide between PC, laptop or a notebook
• A notebook is a small notepad with small screens ranging from 10 to 12 inches. It generally comes with a slow CPU, Ram of about 1 to 2 GB and not much hard drive space. They are extremely portable and have a battery life of about 1 to 4 hours depending on the task it is being used for.

• A laptop is portable, good for students and office goers but with limited gaming abilities. It is heavier than a notebook and with a battery life of only about 3 -6 hours depending on the tasks being handled.

• A desktop is more powerful and less expensive than a laptop and also easier to upgrade but it takes a lot of space and requires purchasing of a monitor, keyboard and mouse.

If you want something on the go, a laptop or a notebook is the right choice for you, otherwise, consider going with a desktop.

3. Decide the required technical specifications
• Memory requirements: Decide how much memory you will require depending on the complexity and volume of tasks you will be using your computer for. Nowadays, budget PC’s come with 4 or 6 GB of RAM which is quite good for day to day use. If you just wish to check emails or browse the internet, 2 GB should be enough but 4 GB will provide better performance and less lag between switching tasks.

• Choosing operating system: Decide whether you will like Macintosh or Windows or the less common Linux operating systems. Among all these, Windows is the most common which means software as well as online help exist more widely.

• CPU: CPUs with multiple cores helps perform better by allowing you to run multiple tasks at the same time. So, look for something with more cores for better performance. Even the less expensive PCs these days come with at least 2 core CPU.

• Graphics card and LCD: To play the latest games on the PC, choosing the graphics card becomes very crucial. Most graphic cards include on board memory. The on board memory helps render images onto your screen and free up your local ram for other tasks. You should try for 2GB and greater. Also, the quality of LCD monitor is very critical because if you are planning on long periods in front of the computer this could really affect your eyes.

• Hard drive: Choose whether you wish to go for solid-state drives, SSD, that have low capacity but can deliver high performance or traditional hard disk drives,HDD. Asides from the performance between SSD and HDD the other barrier is price. HHD though slow at times provides you a great deal of space for the fraction of the cost of a SSD. In recent years the introduction of Solid State Hybrid Drives, SSHD, has helped provide a hard drive with a partial performance upgrade of an SSD, with the space of a HDD and a price point between the 2.

Choosing the right computer from the huge range of choices available can be a difficult task but by steering your decision towards the technical requirements, the task can be made easy. Decide what you need, follow the above tips for choosing the right hardware and feel confident in choosing the right computer for yourself!

If you still feel overwhelmed by the process of buying your computer, feel free to reach out to us and we will gladly give you a hand.

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It’s 7AM and you’re having your morning coffee and you’re ready to continue working down that massive amount of work that is presented on your desk. You begin like every other day by turning on your computer. The computer screen doesn’t turn on. You press the power button on that dusty box under your desk but you can’t hear it turning on.  You keep pressing the power button but nothing happens. You follow all the cords to the wall and confirm that it is plugged in, and it is. You decide to call that young coworker, because they must know what is going on.  Your coworker leaves their stack of work to see how they can help you. They do exactly what you did.  He tries turning it on and checks if the system is plugged in. By now you are on the phone calling your IT support person and hoping this won’t turn into another $400 bill just for 2 hours like last time. The IT person on the other side says “I’m sorry I won’t be able to make it for another 3 hours”. You’re in panic mode!  You have wasted 2 hours so far, you have clients waiting for orders to be processed, your pile seems to be getting bigger by the minute. You know that you will have to work late today to catch up with the work you haven’t been able to do.

This scenario plays out far to often.  The system not working, no onsite IT, offsite IT is expensive and slow to respond.  

As an Offsite IT provider, we don’t believe in the bandaid method of just fixing the current issue. We believe in providing an ongoing solution and with a retention plan. For this scenario, by providing a full temporary backup system (screen, keyboard, mouse, CPU(box)), you could have been up and running within minutes.  Thus saving you the whole day and helping you to meet your deadlines. Your coworker would not have had to stop and help, interrupting their work flow. All you would of had to do is call, follow the instructions on how to switch systems and wait for the IT support to arrive. This is a simple solution which addresses the issue with longevity and planning. 

By now you are probably wondering who I am. I am Juan Boniowski or John to my friends. I am the owner of Lemonade Software Inc. We provide no frills  IT solutions without all the technical jargon. We believe that you should have access to quality help without the expensive fees.

All our services come with an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) keeping all your confidential data exactly that…confidential. We provide detail invoices so you know who and what was done, no hidden fees and no surprises. We provide documentation of what has been done, when needed and in case  you need to reference it in the future.

We provide you quick responses as well as preventative measures so that we can limit the impact that technological issues have on your company. We help you stay current with the ever evolving technology so that your business can run faster and smarter. We help you save on over head by only paying for our services when you need them versus hiring an inhouse IT person.

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