10 ways to simplify your business and save on costs

Simplifying business operations increases productivity, reduces costs and heightens efficiency. This allows entrepreneurs to free up and manage their time better, so they can pursue their hobbies and other passions. “Whether you have a big enterprise or a small and medium business, Globe Business has solutions for you. Our services simplify a company’s processes and operations to give entrepreneurs more time to focus on their business’ prime objective and their personal pursuits,” said Manny Aligada, head of corporate and SME segments of Globe Business. Here are 10 ways to simplify business operations using products and services from Globe Business: • Monitor your business anytime, anywhere. Thanks to Globe Business’ WebEye, an online video surveillance system, activities in one’s business premises may be monitored, at any time, through the Internet. The surveillance video is viewable by the business owner or top management on any Internet device: a desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone or tablet. Any business that needs to secure its premises — hotels, restaurants, bars or resorts; factories; warehouses; retail outlets; government and law enforcement agencies; financial institutions from banks to lending businesses; moneychangers or pawnshops, etc.; hospitals and clinics; and schools — will reap tremendous benefits from this service. • Stay connected. The Internet plays a crucial role in businesses development as it helps companies increase their visibility as well as make their production and promotion more efficient at lower costs. Globe Business offers Direct Internet that provides high-speed Internet access for SMEs. This reliable broadband connection provides up to 10Mbps to help businesses accept product orders, communicate with their employees and customers, send reports in no time, and address their marketing and website needs. Direct Internet also provides a 24/7 support system to ensure that the Internet connection is reliable. This service is usually availed of by businesses with provincial or international offices and those which are into business process outsourcing and financial services and professional services. Globe Tattoo Broadband, meanwhile, gives an entrepreneur and his employees access to the Internet anytime, anywhere. Wherever they are in the country, they can check their e-mail, teleconference with their business partners and clients, and do their business online with this fast, “on-the-go” wireless broadband. They can get a Tattoo Plan for as low as P499 per month. • Access your secured network anytime. Two Globe Business products, Virtual Private Network (VPN) Express and the Multi Protocol Label Switch (MPLS), allow business owners (or authorized personnel) to remotely access business data and connect a company’s branches and company sites. VPN lets one read company e-mails, upload and download files, check reports, and do other business tasks — even outside the office. This business solution ensures private, secure communication between two or more multi-site companies. It provides real-time connectivity and access to a company’s secured network. Business owners may access business data and assist colleagues, all in real time live from home or anywhere with Internet access. VPN Express provides highly secured and efficient networking. It is useful to financing institutions and government agencies and practically any business where the head office needs to connect with company sites. The MPLS allows interconnection of systems and applications among business branches within a scalable and reliable network. It’s most useful to franchised food or retail outlets, and any businesses whose branches need to coordinate with one another to ensure quality service to customers. A sporting goods chain, for example, may network its branches so customers are able to find a particular athletic, exercise or gym product that may be available in some branches but out of stock in others. The MPLS has three levels of quality of service — Standard, Business, and Premium — to manage network traffic in a cost-effective manner. • Manage your phone call expenses. Globe Business offers postpaid plans that allow businesses to choose the mobile services that best address their needs. With the packaged unlimited talk and/or texting features, subscribers can save as much as 70 percent per month on their mobile phone bills. These plans include: Globe Business Plus, which offers unlimited talk and texting features for as low as P499 per month; Globe Business Company Capped Plans, which sets a flexible cost ceiling for a business’ mobile lines; and AutoloadMAX Corporate Edition, which helps manage, schedule, and automatically reload prepaid credits directly to employees’ cellphones and includes the option to reload employees’ lines individually or in bulk; it may even track down the mobile phone spending of a department or individual employees. • Make text messaging easier and cost-efficient. If a business involves high-volume text campaigns, TxtConnect can help it send SMS blasts to its employees and customers in just one send. This service is Web-based so it’s easier to send SMS than regular text messaging or phone calls. TxtConnect is also cost-efficient as it charges lower text message fees with a plan that starts at P1,500 per month. Subscribing to TxtConnect results in as much as 35 percent in saved cost compared to the regular text messaging service charges. • Secure your business data. Organizing and securing a business’ vital data and ICT resources is now possible with Globe Business’ Data Center — a technologically advanced, highly secured facility built for data storage. The Data Center offers a wide range of services, including co-location, dedicated service hosting, LAN-based Internet, media storage, disaster recovery seats, recovery services, and e-mail hosting. Any business that relies on and processes huge amounts of data — especially confidential information — like financial institutions, government agencies, hospitals, schools, hotels, resorts, restaurant chains and the like will surely benefit from this service. Losing data in this day and age, whether due to a computer virus, deliberate hacking, spying or data theft, or computer hardware/system failure, is disastrous for business. Globe Business’ Data Center prevents such a catastrophic loss of the confidence and trust of clients and investors. • Install a trunkline that needs no operator. Globe Business’ Integrated Services Digital Network-Primary Rate Interface (ISDN PRI) is an innovative solution for business voice. It provides fast, accurate data transmission over existing copper telephone wiring. The ISDN PRI is composed of 30 channels with corresponding subscriber numbers capable of both outgoing and incoming calls, providing direct connection without the need to pass through an operator. The ISDN PRI provides clear, digital transmission for voice and data communications. This service is ideal for businesses that need constant communication between personnel in various departments and their customers, including hotels, hospitals, insurance companies, shipping offices, government agencies, financial institutions, call centers, mass media offices, franchised retail or food outlets and the like. • Keep track of your supplies. The Fleet Management service offered by Globe Business is a real-time tracking system that ensures the delivery and security of products and supplies. It uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) to monitor the precise location of assets like trucks, cargo and products and determine if these arrived at their destination/delivery point on time. Fleet Management is easy to use and accessible through any computer with Internet connection. This tracking system increases the efficiency of deliveries, helping reduce fuel and vehicle maintenance expenses when used to determine faster routes. Manufacturing, retail, distribution and other businesses that rely on the transport of goods will benefit from this service. Fleet Management is one of three products under Globe Business’ M2M (machine-to-machine) Solutions — a high-tech system that allows computers, machines, equipment and assets to remotely communicate and share information with other machines, people and computers. M2M Solutions are connected to the computerized Globe Business M2M Management System. • Manage your fixed assets remotely. Globe Business’ Fixed Asset Management service allows one to monitor the functioning, operation and maintenance and security of a company’s fixed assets — i.e., freezers, vendo machines, factory machinery, ATMs, computer servers, etc. This way, the productivity of such assets may be determined through their status; output projections may also be made based on the data collected from these assets. Fixed Asset Management enables one to monitor the condition of fixed assets — whether these are working normally or showing signs of malfunction. One can also track if there are attempts to tamper, sabotage or steal these fixed assets. Alarms and alerts may also be integrated with the monitoring system. Through Fixed Asset Management, companies minimize machine downtime by undertaking preventive maintenance based on the collected data on the machine’s status. Operating costs due to frequent on-site inspections are reduced — the state of the machine may already be determined through the data obtained remotely. There is also increased protection of off-site machines. This service is ideal for restaurants and fast food chains, vendo operators, banks, factories and other businesses engaged in manufacturing. • Pro-active security. Globe Business has a Security and Surveillance service that gives owners greater control over securing company sites. Security and Surveillance installs security devices (such as motion and door sensors, panic buttons) that are linked to the Globe M2M Management System. When an intruder breaks in to the secured site, for example, the M2M security devices send out alerts through the computer network. This signals the system to deploy an emergency response team to deal with the threat. The M2M Security and Surveillance system is pro-active and preventive; the security devices are always ready to activate alarms and trigger an emergency response. All in all, Globe Business’ M2M Solutions optimize the functionality and productivity of a company’s machines/assets. They make business operations less costly yet more efficient. They also provide greater security and control over a company’s mobile and fixed assets. M2M Solutions are ideal for a wide range of businesses, including the food and/or service industries (restaurants, resorts, hotels, etc.), financial enterprises (banks, pawnshops, etc.), manufacturing, distribution, practically any business that benefits from machine-to-machine networking and pro-active security. To learn more about what Globe Business can do for businesses, visit http://business.globe.com.ph/ or call (02) 730-1288.

Cisco Linksys X3000 review

Cicso's Linksys X3000 router is designed to be as easy as possible to set up, whether you have an ADSL or cable connection. The router comes with a setup CD which walks you through the process of getting online. You select whether you're going to use a separate modem (for cable connections) or use the router as both a modem and router (if you're on ADSL). Unlike most router setup programs, the X3000's assumes you're going to connect wirelessly, even during setup. It searches for the router, prompts you to enter your broadband username and password, checks the broadband connection is active and then takes you through setting up a wireless password. We managed to get up and running with an encrypted wireless broadband connection within minutes, and the whole process was far easier than on most routers we’ve seen. The setup CD also installs the Cisco Connect software, which is a friendly interface for some of the router's basic functions, including setting up a separate wireless guest network for up to ten people, so they can access the internet but not the files on your network, and parental controls to restrict time spent online and access to websites. Cisco Connect can also create a USB key containing the software to run on other PCs - the key will connect the other computers to the network automatically without you having to enter a wireless password. Cisco Connect is simple to use but rather limited While Cisco Connect is easy to use, we feel it's rather limited; we would have liked an easy way to set up port forwarding or shared storage with the router's USB port. To set up these functions you need to go into the router's web interface. This is well-designed, fast and simple to use, so setting up more advanced features such as port forwarding and QoS is easy. We managed to share a USB flash drive full of media files over the network as a standard network drive and also in UPnP media server mode, where the router appeared as a media server in Windows Media Player and let us browse our music. There was one problem with the web interface; it insisted on searching for devices to connect to using Wi-Fi Protected Setup at regular intervals, during which time we couldn’t use the web interface. It's nannying and incredibly annoying. The router managed fast speeds during our file transfer tests; with a Centrino 2 laptop we saw 43.4Mbit/s at 1m range and 30Mbit/s at 10m, which is above average. At 25m we saw 2.82Mbit/s, which isn’t anywhere near other routers in this price range. Things were slower with Cisco's own Linksys AE1000 USB adaptor; 38.3Mbit/s at 1m is reasonable, but 10Mbit/s at 10m range is poor. Turning on channel-bonding made no difference in our tests. We're fans of Cisco's web interface, but it does bug you about WPS all the time Cisco's Linksys X3000 is admirably easy to set up and its web interface, WPS nagging aside, is fast and easy to use. It's a hugely expensive router, though, and we'd have liked to see more features in the Cisco Connect software.

Fitch affirms PLDT credit rating

Fitch Ratings has affirmed Philippine Long Distance Telephone's (PLDT) Long-Term Foreign and Local Currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) at 'BBB-' and 'A-' respectively. The Outlook is Stable. Fitch said the ratings reflect PLDT's improved market position post its successful acquisition of a 51.55% ownership interest in the third-largest telco – Digital Telecommunications Philippines, Inc. (Digitel) in an all-equity deal. As of end-September 2011, PLDT boasted dominant market positions across the wireless (revenue market share: 64%), fixed-line (subscriber market share: 56%) and nascent broadband (subscriber market share: 56%) segments. Fitch expects that PLDT's leverage will deteriorate marginally in 2012 as average revenue per user (ARPU) continues to fall as a result of increasing popularity of bucket or "all you can eat' tariff plans and a change in its revenue mix towards lower-margin data services. However, the agency does not expect PLDT's leverage to breach 2.0x, the threshold for negative rating action on its Long-Term Local Currency IDR. Fitch also expects PLDT's free cash flow to turn negative in 2012 due to higher capex requirements for data services and limited flexibility to cut dividends which have historically remained at 100% of prior year net income.