The role of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems has expanded over the last few years from specific areas such as manufacturing, procurement, or HR to software packages for the entire business. In part, this means executives to end users involve themselves with the process of implementing and operating ERP software, not just IT. With the added complexity, many companies…
How to Select an ERP System in Eight Simple Steps An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a software application (or series of software applications) that collects information from sales, purchasing, finance, inventory, supply chain, manufacturing and quality functions into a common database. This allows your company to share the data, coordinating activities and, with some products, analyze data…
The following guest article is by Marshall Atkinson, a 20-year veteran in the decorated apparel industry, Chief Operating Officer of industry leader Visual Impressions out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, long-time user of OnSite, and owner of Atkinson Consulting LLC. Read his popular decorated apparel business blog at atkinsontshirt. Whether you are new to Shopworks OnSite or a grizzled old…
As a small business person, one question you should always ask yourself is, “What is my target market? Who are my ideal customers and how can I reach out to them?” Let’s look at the most popular markets within the promotional products industry. The decorated apparel market is one of the most popular promotional product…
Wearable tech comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, ranging from 3D printed shoes that promise to match your feet exactly to bracelets that make you feel hot or cold (regardless of what the actual room or body temp is) to a watch that’s a simple phone and includes a GPS tracker–intended to track your…
One question that comes up often in decorated apparel circles is, “What are heat transfers and screen printing and how are they different?” Today, we’ll answer that question. Heat Transfer To start off, let’s discuss what heat transfer is. Heat transferring is the process of applying an ink-based design (usually one printed on a sheet of special transfer paper) to…
Upside! Wearable tech–mobile electronic devices worn on a user’s body or attached to their clothes–is upon us. Or so analysts at Morgan Stanley believe (and companies like Apple, Google and Samsung hope). The Morgan Stanley group is convinced it will become a $1.6 trillion industry in the near future. “Wearable devices will far surpass market expectations, and become the…
If you’re like many small business owners, you’ve been running your business at least partly out of Excel spreadsheets. And why not? Excel makes it easy to browse, add, edit, copy and present data—not to mention simple formulas, flexibility and integration with other office software. However, Excel soon hits limits once you start using it…
How do you know when you’ve outgrown QuickBooks? Your business is growing. Like most small businesses, you probably rely on QuickBooks to run your business. You’ve been tracking your expenses, staying in sync with your bank, emailing professional invoices and paying your employees with QuickBooks for some time now and all is balanced. Even syncing with your accountant for taxes. Still, you…
The Wearable Social Network: Social Fabrics CNN recently released an article on a startling new apparel technology – a wearable social network. In a nutshell, a group of students from the MIT’s Tangible Media Group and the Fluid Interface Group wanted to expand social networking technology beyond the computer or smart phone screen into the real world….
