Measuring Social Impact for Charities

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform from Microsoft.

Its single integrated platform aims to support any type of organisation and give them a customer-centred system with enhanced quality and availability of data. The highly flexible platform can be fully customised to meet any business environment, small or large, commercial or civil.

That’s an attention-grabbing headline! What’s happened?

There are many different forms of software licencing provided by Microsoft, and the whole system is quite complex to understand. However, many ‘Third Sector’ organisations, like charities, social enterprises and other not-for-profit organisations, have historically been able to benefit from so-called ‘Education’ discounts by virtue of being defined as ‘not-for-profit charitable organisations’. This particular price band means the cost of Microsoft Office 2010 Professional under an Open agreement for example has been around £60 instead of the full commercial rate of around £350.

Everybody in these days of cutbacks is very cost-sensitive and has to make savings wherever possible. One area where there might be a false economy though is in cheap toner for laser printers.

We’ve recently noticed a spate of low-price ‘refill’ toners resulting in very poor quality print and worse actually leaking into the printer, causing irreparable damage. The experience won’t the same for everyone of course, but we can say that you just don’t get these problems with the manufacturers own toner cartridges.

Mobile bills stacking up? Do you want to ‘pool’ your minutes or make free calls between your mobiles? Maybe your current contract is due for renewal and you want to get the best price? If the answer to any of these is yes, then why not talk to ESP? We have links with an independent mobile specialist who can help ensure you are on the best package for your needs – whether your priorities are to save money month in, month out; or to get the latest smartphones up and running – the choice is yours.

ESP Projects is delighted to announce that we have secured a deal to take over the Digital Umbrella website design portfolio. The nationally recognised brand was previously run by High Peak CVS and found a new home at ESP Projects on 21st Feb. We extend a warm welcome to all new clients and trust that you will find our commitment to excellent customer service to your liking. ESP Projects will be continuing to offer support and website development based on Digital Umbrella’s I-CMS software and can, of course, provide those customers with other IT services such as supply and installation of networks/PCs and our comprehensive IT Support Contract.

BPOS? It’s not exactly a catchy acronym, but this is one service that may well catch on. Microsoft have recently launched themselves firmly into the cloud with the Business Productivity Online Suite, a collection of familiar services – SharePoint, Exchange, Communicator etc. – which they will host for you, backed with an impressive SLA which includes rebates for any downtime.

As you might have seen from our recent tweets, Microsoft announced back in the spring that they would be launching a tailored version of their Dynamics CRM software for UK charities later this year. This follows hot on the heels of its release in the US.

CRM systems (CRM meaning Customer or Constituent Relationship Management) are much in demand in the sector and we have a steady flow of requests for recommendations in this area. In the past, we have always made people aware of some of the existing software in this field, ranging from commercial products like SalesForce, to open source solutions like CiviCRM. There are also several sector-specific programs like VC-Connect, ContactLink, ThirdBase and AIMS. It will be very interesting to keep an eye out for the Microsoft offering later in the year.

It was, at first, hard to think of a reason to write about a new version of the global workhorse and workplace essential that is Microsoft Office but with Office2010 it must be said that the giant-on-the-block is truly developing into the go-everywhere suite of applications.  Using the application and its other web-supported features at ESP, it has been interesting to see how much this new version develops and extends previous versions while also assisting some new ways of working.

Success! Friday 20th November will go down as the best ESP Projects Knowledge Sharing Day yet!

We had presentations from every member of the ESP Projects team and practical demonstrations throughout the day. Technology topics included Virtualisation with Hyper-V, advanced features in Symantec Endpoint Protection, a Comparison of Imaging Tools and an overview of web programming languages (and what they are all used for) for non-programmers. We also discussed some crucial new operational procedures at ESP Projects, looked at an improved method for providing Remote Support to smaller clients and had a glimpse of what ESP Projects might be doing in 2019! Phew! A long – but highly productive – day indeed!