Digi Increases Its 4G LTE Network Covering 60% of Malaysians

Digi recently increased its 4G LTE network covering 60% of Malaysians and what this means for most users:

• 99.9% accessibility to Digi's 4G LTE services
• 2x faster web page loading
• 2x faster latency
• 3x more stable connections
• 80% more than 5Mbps speed consistency
• 10x faster LTE relative speed

How is this an opportunity for SME Business in Malaysia?

Digi's response to increased network coverage indicates a potentially strong relation to Malaysian's mobile penetration rate. Indication that there is a strong user usage of mobile phones and increasing more opportunities for SMS Marketing initiatives.

How to build an advantage?

Strong mobile penetration in Malaysia provides a strong argument for a SMS Marketing Channel to be used alongside tried-and-tested marketing methods. There are strong arguments for the profitability of participating actively with target customers through their mobile phones and in return providing additional incentives and exclusive deals to push them to continually engage with your business.

What to avoid?

Misplacing customer trust. Customers expect transparency and honesty when companies approach them. What this means is periodic and limited broadcast of text messages would be more than welcomed as it was a self-initiated request, but over excessive message sending may lead to a strong negative response instead of the desired effects. Simply put; don't spam.

EVERWORKS provides a reliable and robust SMS Delivery Service that caters to your SMS Marketing Campaign needs and more. Contact an EVERWORKS Expert now.

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Case Study: Text Messaging Recruiting Example (Target)

Previous posts addressed the various methods on how SMS Marketing can help to spur increased sales and provide as an important variant to the tried-and-tested marketing channels. Much sales can be obtained with a strong and robust platform to help support your broadcasting needs, a solid marketing strategy and the understanding that customers are more likely to participate with provided incentives build into the offer.

Question. SMS Marketing is an alternative marketing channel, but does it apply to other parts of the value chain too? The answer is yes. A lot of focus has been placed on the end-user or customer indicating a downstream approach to improving the value chain. However, there are places further upstream that can further enhance your competitive product offering as well. 

An example: SMS Marketing used when recruiting new employees, a Target case study. Doubts may be cast on this, but some of the largest brands are already doing it. 

The recruitment poster at Target instructs prospective employees to submit keywords and email address to a short-code to learn more about potential seasonal opportunities. After texting a prospective employee receives a text message in return with a link directing them to target.com/careers and also telling them to look for an email about job opportunities. One day after the potential employee receives an email in their inbox as indicated from the message that they have sent a day prior. 

This example illustrates that text messaging can be used to increase recruitment efforts, especially during seasonal times.

Looking to find a service provider that will help you establish your SMS platform to reach potential new employees please contact experts at EVERWORKS for more information.

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Case Study: Kiehl's Experiences 73% Redemption Rate

SMS Marketing draws a fair bit of competitive pressures with arguments that SMS is a thing of the past and in the growing digital age of apps may prove to be surplus to requirements today. This post won't address the advantages and disadvantages of SMS Marketing compared to having an application on the smart phone but rather, look at providing either a strong alternative marketing channel to consider or a reliable cost effective solution to start with from the get go.

We will look at Kiehl's, an American cosmetics brand retailer that specializes in making premium skin, hair, and body care products.

To raise awareness about the new marketing campaign Kiehl's was involved with, they used in-store signage, email marketing and social media to promote the use of their SMS Campaign; which they called Kiehl's Alerts. The cosmetic company had two opt-in methods, one was signing up online, or through SMS by texting the SMS Keyword "KIEHLS" to the SMS short code 25687. 

Part of their geographic marketing approach to determine the closest store to their customers they were asked to agree to share their location with Kiehl's so that the cosmetic company could send up to three location based text alerts a month; this was triggered when the customer was within a certain radius of one of Kiehl's 45 test stores.

After the 6-month program, Kiehl's found that 73% of customers that had signed up for their SMS Marketing Campaign had made a purchase, and 81% of respondents in a survey sent out remembered the SMS marketing messages from Kiehl's, meaning that 90% of customers made an in-store purchase during the 6-month program!

How does this apply to your SME Business in Malaysia?

Geofencing a fancy term for Geographic location based anonymous tracking, might be something that your business may not require yet, but the core idea was how effective SMS is in providing incentives to your customers and serve as a valuable reminder of the special products and services you can offer to them as a means to provide instant information for them to make a decision.

A clear consistency is how companies' disclaim the number of text messages they will send to the users giving them ample notice and expectation reducing the likelihood of regarding messages sent by the company to be considered as overly excessive; a prevention method for a negative emotional response (spam).

Are you interested in launching your SMS Marketing Campaign, that produces similar results to what Kiehl's has experienced from their campaign? Contact the SMS Marketing Experts at EVERWORKS and let us help you get similar results that Kiehl's experienced through a robust platform for your own SMS Marketing Campaign.

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How to Grow Your SMS Subscribers Faster

Previous case studies have indicated that SMS Marketing is a powerful alternative money generating activity. Growing your SMS Subscribers faster leads to an increased potential to meet growing sales requirements or to maintain customer loyalty.

A study conducted by HipCricket found that 44% of consumers were willing to provide personal information like their mobile phone number in exchange for a reward or coupon deal. By encouraging your customers with a reward, coupon or a deal to join your SMS campaign, much like Kohl's, as you can see below, you will be able to grow your SMS Subscribers at a much faster rate.

Pitfalls to avoid

First, do not pursue cold customers that have little interest in what you offer to them as the additional marginal costs involved with having a not effective subscriber list adds up over time, and may prove to be an inefficient measure for customer adoption with SMS Subscription against customers without SMS Subscription.

Willing consumers demonstrate a need for the product or service that you offer, but more often than not just require convincing to choose your product or service over existing competitors. This can be provided through incentives that fulfills their desire for exclusivity or incentives to push them to action.

Second, avoid overwhelming your customers' with too much information. Periodic text messages help to remind and provide incentive for your customers to respond and relate to the exclusivity offers you offer, but over enthusiastic (spam) wards a negative response from customers that would put an otherwise effective SMS marketing campaign rendered to be more damaging than good.

How to deal with worried customers?

It is important that you always provide worried customers an option to unsubscribe if there ever reaches a point that they may feel the need to do so. However, from research conducted there is an average of only 2.3% of SMS subscribers unsubscribing after receiving the initial opt-in promotion, as they were initially willing to receive and gave acceptance to the clear indication of the number of messages sent to their mobile phone from your business; as provided in the example above.

Conclusion

As previously stated there is a strong indication that with 44% of customers willing to provide brands personal information like mobile phone numbers in exchange for a reward, coupon or deal, plus an average subscriber retention rate of 98% for SMS campaigns after they have received the initial offer, is a sure fire way to grow your SMS Subscribers faster than ever. Need help growing your own SMS subscribers contact EVERWORKS experts to provide you with a robust platform to discuss about how you can go to market now.

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Retailer Makes $2.5 Million in Sales with Mobile Marketing Campaign

There is fierce retail competition in Malaysia and with increase in costs of late, an increase in sales doesn't sound like such a bad idea. 

Are you looking to increase sales but have already tried various marketing channels? Do those marketing channels provide little return on your investments? Have you tried mobile marketing? 

If not, partner with a local expert in Malaysia to provide you with a robust platform to go to market. 

Results of the retailer's mobile marketing campaign (according to Vibes) are:

• Started mobile marketing campaign in the summer of 2014.
• Customers were sent a welcome offer indicating preference to subscribe, along with a discount, as long as they spent a certain amount in-store.
• Retailer grew their mobile marketing database by more than 250,000 customers since launching.
• The retailer generated $2.3 million in sales from their mobile marketing campaign during a 3-month period.
• On average, each new mobile subscriber generates $10 in annual sales for the retailer.
• Retailer is projecting to hit 1 million mobile subscribers within the next 10-months.

A surprising fact was that the fact that this retailer compared their website visitors that were SMS subscribers to their website visitors that were not SMS subscribers. The results? Shocking. What the retailer found is that visitors to their website were also SMS subscribers made 32.4 purchases for every 1,000 visitors. However, when compared with visitors that were not SMS Subscribers, their website only made 5.4 purchases for every 1,000 visitors, hard to believe but true.

This reveals that although tried-and-tested marketing campaigns serve an important role for driving customers to your business, an alternative method would be to stay involved with customers and to provide relevant information to customers to enable a more interactive response to your customers' demands and desire for exclusivity; VIP Status.

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Announcement - DiGi Planned Maintenance Notification - 11th November 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

Please be informed that there will be a planned system maintenance by DiGi that will be carried out during this time:

11th November (Wednesday) 2015

00:01 ~ 06:00 hrs (GMT +8)

Activity: UMB Upgrade

Impact: USSD intermittent service during maintenance window

DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd will be conducting a planned maintenance activity during the period indicated above. This is to ensure that we provide the highest quality of services to our valued customers.

Contact DiGi's Fast Recovery Center if there is any issue regarding this matter, through this number +6 (016) 300 3000 - Available 24 hours.

For EVERWORKS management inquiries please email us at info@everworks.com

For EVERWORKS technical inquiries please email us at cvs@everworks.com

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

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Announcement - DiGi Planned Maintenance Notification - 14th September 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

Please be informed that there will be a planned system maintenance by DiGi that will be carried out during this time:

14th September (Monday) 2015

00:00 ~ 06:00 hrs (GMT +8)

Activity: CPA VPN FW migration (Lot 43) - CRQ000000249099

Impact: CPA services will be unavailable

DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd will be conducting a planned maintenance activity during the period indicated above. This is to ensure that we provide the highest quality of services to our valued customers.

Contact DiGi's Fast Recovery Center if there is any issue regarding this matter, through this number +6 (016) 300 3000 - Available 24 hours.

For EVERWORKS management inquiries please email us at info@everworks.com

For EVERWORKS technical inquiries please email us at cvs@everworks.com

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

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Announcement - DiGi Planned Maintenance Notification - 27th August 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

Please be informed that there will be a planned system maintenance by DiGi that will be carried out during this time:

27th August (Thursday) 2015

00:00 ~ 06:00 hrs (GMT +8)

Activity: MPE Software upgrade - SHT - CRQ000000246701

Impact: No service impact

DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd will be conducting a planned maintenance activity during the period indicated above. This is to ensure that we provide the highest quality of services to our valued customers.

Contact DiGi's Fast Recovery Center if there is any issue regarding this matter, through this number +6 (016) 300 3000 - Available 24 hours.

For EVERWORKS management inquiries please email us at info@everworks.com

For EVERWORKS technical inquiries please email us at cvs@everworks.com

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

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Announcement - Maxis Planned Downtime Notification for MPG/BMG/EWIG - 14th August 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

Kindly be informed that ECP/BMG services by Maxis will be unavailable as per below details:

Duration: 6:00 hrs

14th August 2015

2:00AM ~ 8:00AM GMT +8

Impact to users:

1. SMS/MMS MO will not be delivered to Content provider.
2. SMS/MMS MT will not be delivered to Maxis users.
3. SMS/MMS DN(Delivery Notification) will not be delivered to Content provider.
4. EWIG charging will not available.
5. BMG ECP/CRM portals will not be available
6. USSD system will not be able to do charging.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.

For urgent inquiries please contact this hotline 017-382 8028 or drop an email to mpxg@maxis.com.my

For management inquiries please email info@everworks.com
For technical inquiries please email cvs@everworks.com

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Announcement - Maxis Planned Downtime Notification for MPG/BMG/EWIG - 7th August 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

Kindly be informed that ECP/BMG services by Maxis will be unavailable as per below details:

Duration: 6:00 hrs

7th August 2015

2:00AM ~ 8:00AM GMT +8

Impact to users:

1. SMS/MMS MO will not be delivered to Content provider.
2. SMS/MMS MT will not be delivered to Maxis users.
3. SMS/MMS DN(Delivery Notification) will not be delivered to Content provider.
4. EWIG charging will not available.
5. BMG ECP/CRM portals will not be available
6. USSD system will not be able to do charging.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.

For urgent inquiries please contact this hotline 017-382 8028 or drop an email to mpxg@maxis.com.my

For management inquiries please email info@everworks.com
For technical inquiries please email cvs@everworks.com

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SME business ideas: Develop an online presence cheap

Here is why you will love this guide:

It is beginner-friendly, up-to-date, fast to set up, and best of all free. :-)

Step 1: Choose the best website hosting platform.

Before you start worrying about color schemes and domain names you have to first decide what platform you are going to build your website with. 

The objective of this guide is to give to you an easy guide to building your first website regardless of what you choose to start with; well almost all of the available services out in the world today should incorporate basically the same principles.

What do I mean by a "platform"?

Back in the days creating a website required prior knowledge of fancy codes (prerequisites: HTML, CSS and even Flash) and they require a great amount of investment in time to learn and were very challenging to master.

HOLD IT! Today much of it has changed and the past has contributed to much of what is today's conception that creating a website from scratch is difficult or requires a lot of coding and design skills - but rest assured that is no longer true!!

IN 2015, there have been a plethora of content management systems (CMS) like WordPress that have been making website creation accessible to almost anyone who have an interest to do so.

A CMS is a user-friendly platform for building websites and managing your own online content, instead of using a bunch of complicated HTML pages, constructed using pure code.

Amongst the most popular website building platforms are Wordpress (50.07%), Drupal (17.07%), and Joomla (6.44%). Just from those you can see that half of the internet is running on WordPress.

Why choose WordPress?

FREE. There isn't any other reason that beats that! The other part to it is WordPress is beginner-friendly, powerful, mobile-friendly, and a massive support community. There are others too such as Drupal which is popular with web developers and experienced coders but comes with a steep learning curve that makes it a terrible experience for beginners, and Joomla which still requires a little bit of technical coding to make it work the way you want, but this works fantastic for online stores.

For beginners, WordPress is a good place to start.

You won't need to install or set up anything because in Step 2 will explain choosing a domain name and finding a great hosting plan for your website;

and in Step 3 you will be guided through a step by step process to install and customize a WordPress website.

Step 2: Choose a Domain Name & 

Website Hosting for your website.

To get a new website online you are going to need two things:

1. a domain name (www.yourname.com)
2. hosting (a service that connects your website to the internet)

As you are already aware the WordPress platform itself is free, but a domain name and hosting will cost you a fee. For a more targeted approach to your Malaysian SME business obtaining a www.yourname.com is relatively inexpensive and should cost you from RM55 onwards a year depending on the availability of the domain name.

Having your own hosting will ensure that your website loads quickly and won't go down for hours at a time (this is really important for everyone who visits your pages).

Where to get a domain name and hosting.

You can get your domain name from here and hosting from here.

It is affordable, has good customer service and comes with some good deals. When you get a domain name you will also get a personal email account(s): you@yourname.com which is more professional sounding than a generic Gmail or Yahoo Address.

Step 3: Set up your WordPress Website.

Once you have setup your domain name and hosting you should be well on your way. Now is the time to get your website up and running. The first thing you will need to do is install WordPress to your domain.

Installing WordPress.

Some hosts provide 1-click-installation. But to install WordPress Manually. All you have to do is:

1. Download WordPress from here.
2. Create a new folder on your desktop and unzip WordPress in it
3. Look for a file named wp-config-sample.php and rename it to: wp-config.php
4. Now open the wp-config.php (with notepad for example) and fill the following lines: (1) define ('DB_NAME','database_name_here'); - Database name (if you don't know it ask this from your hosting support), (2) define ('DB_USER', 'username_here'); - Your hosting username, (3) define ('DB_PASSWORD','password_here'; - Your hosting password. After you have filled the gaps, save the file.
5. Now log into your hosting ftp (download FileZilla for that). The FTP address is usually ftp.yourdomain.com, username and password are the same that you used to register your host.
6. If there is any file name "index" - delete it. After that upload all the files from your WordPress folder to your FTP server. (You should be able to use "drag n drop" function in FileZilla.
7. Once you have completed the previous steps go to your URL: yourname.com/wp-admin/install.php

You should see a form and fill it in and you are ready!

Choosing a theme/template for your website

Once you have successfully installed WordPress to your domain, you will see a very basic yet clean website:

But you don't want to look like everyone else now do you? ;-)

This is why you need a theme. Go to your name.com/wp-admin and you should be able to find over 1500 free themes, along the side bar on the left for "Appearance" and then "Themes".

If you want something more professional you could find a professional website designer or head over to ThemeForest.net where there is a really big library of themes to choose from with varying costs!

But before you do that take time to browse free themes as they are very professional.

IMPORTANT: Changing themes won't delete your previous posts, pages and content. You can change themes as often as you want without having to worry about losing what you have created previously.

How do you add content and create new pages?

Easy just look along the sidebar in the WordPress Dashboard for "Pages" > "Add New" and once you have clicked on it you will find a screen that looks a lot like Microsoft Word. Add text, images and more to build the page you want and then save it when you are done.

Adding pages is similar to adding new postings. Click "Appearance" > "Menus" in the sidebar of the WordPress Dashboard and find the page you have created and add it to the list by clicking the checkbox next to it and then "Add to Menu".

Setting up a static front page.

Some people have frustrations where they say that their frustrated that their home page looks like a blog post. You can fix that by making your home page "static:.

A static page is a page that doesn't change as the name implies, and unlike a blog where the first few new articles show up at the top every time, a "static" page will show the same content overtime someone comes to the site - very similar to a home page you have designed.

To set up a static front page:

Go to "Settings" > "Reading" and choose a static page that you have created. "Front Page" denotes your home page, "Posts Page" is the front page of your blog (if your entire site isn't a blog).

If you don't choose a static page on your own, WordPress will take your latest posts and start showing them on your homepage.

Installing plugins to get more out of WordPress

"Plugins" are extensions that are built to expand WordPress capabilities, adding features and functions to your sites.

Basically shortcuts to add to your website without having to build the feature from scratch.

How to start installing a new plugin?

Go to "Plugins" > "Add New" and simply start searching. There are over 25,000 different free plugins so you have got a lot to choose from!.

Installation is easy - once you find a plugin you like just click "Install".

Congratulations - you are ready to launch!

If you have followed the steps in this guide, you should now have a fully-functional WordPress website!

I hope you have found this guide useful.

Share this page if you like it and if you have any issues leave a comment and I will try to solve them for you!

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Alternative Option for SME Growth Driver Diversification

More people today use mobile devices as compared to years before. This has been driven with the sudden drive and demand for greater functional use and portability. This is heavily driven by growing global demand for more flexibility to perform daily tasks. The advancement in technology has made the smartphone indispensable to every modern person's daily life. Diversify your business and develop a unique proposition with proven results that drive greater profitability.

It is important that you look for a SMS Payment Gateway with these features:

1. Unlimited MO and MT. There should be no limitations to the amount of ingoing mobile originated and outgoing mobile terminated traffic providing you with the necessary scalability requirements;
2. SMS Helpdesk support. It is always integral to any operation to have available support to help with any payment-related disputes and management of your managing your sms business's reputation;
3. World-class datacenter with dedicated high speed fiber optic channels to ensure secure connections;
4. Easy API access with an emphasis on a short-integration method;
5. and flexible payment schemes to ensure adequate cash flow management to accommodate different payment terms of differing Telcos.

Small Business Diversification for Growth

Diversification options can be costly for most small businesses and therefore choices are not many but with EVERWORKS SMS Payment Gateway solution it can give small businesses opportunity to diversify with an affordable entry.

Transaction Costs

It is also important to identify with a provider that will not be charging you too high of a transaction costs. You can refer to EVERWORKS SMS Payment Gateway breakdown of revenue sharing here.

How it works

This method of diversification looks at fulfilling the key driver: adaptation as the business seeks to less risky and quicker deployment of an alternative localised internationalisation strategy. This would represent to be a more cost effective solution when compared to other vertical value chain involvements. 

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How to create a winning online marketing campaign

Have you come across a website and noticed it hasn't been updated for the past few years, pictures look outdated and the layout of the website isn't very appealing; giving the impression that the website has been neglected. When navigating to a competitors website it looks fresh, graphics are crisp, content is current and there is consistent communication through their social media; chances are people are likely to choose their competitors.

On the Internet you have less than 8 seconds to make an impression on a customer, and dependent on the impression you have imparted on them it gives them motivation to continue on. A website should load quickly, and should have features that can give your business scalability and flexibility, because anything less would likely lead an internet customer (potential lead) to move on before any of your carefully prepared content has been presented.

For any small business owners, the internet can be a powerful marketing tool as there is a great pull factor with the attraction of the ability to reach millions of potential customers with one advertising campaign. However exhilarating it may sound it can also be overwhelming. One burgeoning question is how do you make sure that you are seen in the thick of the crowd? Why are there clear distinctions between companies where some are very effective online, but others aren't? Like most advertising plans there are multiple methods to creating great online marketing campaigns.

Unfortunately it won't be a simple task and I won't be giving you false promises to say that it will be. Creating an online advertising campaign requires effort and dedication like most other traditional methods of advertising. 

In this article we will look into:

1. What are the pre-stages to planning required;
2. Tools required;
3. the importance of having the right management;
4. and choosing a good hosting provider.

The pre-stages to planning required before you create an online marketing campaign.

1. Before beginning any marketing campaign it is important to find out what is the purpose and goals to the campaign;
2. You will need to identify what resources are available and ready to be allocated without proving to be too much of a burden to ongoing business operations and constraining cash flows;
3. identify where your customer bases are and what habits they perform daily;
4. conduct a risk analysis on the target positions, and risks involved in the inherent venture;
5. consider the nature of your competition, and what they are doing;
6. and identify the characteristics of your product/service (whether it would be beneficial to demonstrate the product/service through video or an image?)

Develop a brand name and image before starting communications.

Develop a fixed image that reflect your company ideals and culture of your company;

combine your ideas, with your company name and logo so that you can use them in your online marketing;

and there should be a certain degree of standardization to allow for potential leads to continually meet preconceived expectations.

Tools required.

Social media - the peer pressure provided through key social media influencers adds weight behind a product, service, or cause as current users are dependent on provided reviews (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube, and etc.;

SEO - this tool isn't dead and still provides a great deal of amount of relevance in your online marketing campaign, it will help greatly to have your online marketing campaign to search for on major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing;

Less intuitive point - choosing the right hosting provider for your website.

Advertising campaigns and marketing initiatives however innovative they are won't be effective without a reliable central reference hub that directs all customers and leads to participate in the product or service your small business wants to sell. Choose an external hosting provider to outsource your IT needs to reduce your overall business overheads, and pay one flat fee with unmetered data transfers to avoid any surprise fees.

Final point: Track your results.

Performing any activity or task should be fully reflected upon to learn and provide an accelerated growth curve for the company in its future endeavors. Launching an online marketing campaign can be either rewarding or costly. It requires attention to detail and a great amount of planning, but the upside could extend potential company growth.

© photo by Yahoo

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Why should SMEs choose to host externally?

Technology over the years have influenced and shaped the business world. There is a large amount of users and especially small business owners that have turned to the Internet to help them to deliver some type of service or function as it is evident that the Internet can help to perform a lot of operating business activities. There has been a rise on the need for external hosting. Why? The attraction of outsourcing business activities and directly saving costs is among one of the big factors in influencing this change.

The reality is that external hosting is customizable to fit almost any budget and project - as shown through these hosting packages on offer. When working with an external hosting provider it is important to know which features you really need and how they will help your small business grow. Once these goals are aligned, the options which are on offer become very attractive to any business.

For business managers the relation in choosing outsourcing as a business strategy should be reasoned with alignment of business goals and objectives, available resources, push factor; whether there is an internal need to pursue hosting or pull factor; due to attractive external propositions and proactive environmental scanning to determine what best fits your current needs.

What you should look for when outsourcing your hosting needs:

1. a dedicated 24/7 phone & email support deployed to help you with your day-to-day IT needs. This comes with no additional human capital requirements on top of the service fee charged.
2. Unmetered data transfers; no hidden terms that would severely limit your business potential and not reflect on your investment and prove to be expensive poorly reflecting on your return on invested capital.
3. Allows you to try without fear of commitment, on offer should be a 30-day money back guarantee with no questions asked to accommodate the notion that not all services provided, although designed with good intention, fits everyone.
4. One other important distinction that you should look for is the ability for your outsource hosting provider to be able to accommodate your infrastructure extension requirements. A big misconception is that an externally hosted environment once deployed becomes an island that is independent/isolated from your businesses future expansion requirements. 

As more and more small businesses are seeing the benefits of moving towards outsourcing their complex IT needs. Your business will be able to enjoy both the cost benefits and ability to adapt to an ever changing business environment that is highly influenced by a hyper-competitive IT integrated ecosystem.

photo by © Brennan

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Use Email to Transform The Way You Work

Email is now part of our everyday life and is going to remain to be for a long time to come, backed by research at IBM email isn't dead. Email has gained widespread popularity as it has reliably provided a quick, instant, 'formal', way of communicating through the widely available internet today.

Email can be overwhelming, and instead of managing email, what we needed was a better way to communicate, ultimately engaging in deeper engagement and better outcomes.

EVERWORKS Web & Email Hosting solution is a platform where the focus is on the communication between people bringing together messaging with web access to allow greater accessibility and flexibility, and here are the concepts behind the design of EVERWORKS Email Hosting solution:

A) Better value: A system that integrates website, email, and database hosting to provide you with scalable options. Business class email allows you to build you business identity, filter for spam to keep your inbox free of clutter, with an internet connection and any internet browser grab your email anywhere, and access to 24/7 expert help.

B) Clarity over clutter: An intuitive control panel helps users to take quick action on content previously scattered across multiple applications.

Here are some intuitive ways you can use email to ensure effective communication between internal and external networks:

1. Keep your messages brief

Reading from a computer screen isn't easy, use shorter paragraphs and bullet points; cut straight to the chase. Avoid using capital letters as it sends unintended interpretations such as the appearance of being bossy (ICAEW 2008).

2. Stay organised

There is an age old saying that staying organised allows you to get more things done, stay more focused, and remain in control over most situations. Take this approach to email and invest 2 hours of your time right now to go through your inbox, create filters that give automated actions to specific email to reduce repetitive tasks and allows you to manage and attend to the most important emails first. Find out how I keep my personal email organised by just using Gmail, and the Mailbox app.

3. Advantage: Email as evidence

The advantage of email is it is a stored accepted form of instantaneous form of communication that is applicable in many ways. For example emails can be used as evidence, that there exists proof of communication between the sender and the recipient, although there are issues in the form of relevance, authenticity, hearsay, original or duplicate documentation, and unfair prejudice (Sarah, 2010). Consult a lawyer to develop an email framework to follow to fully utilize the advantage of using email as evidence. Is there a need to consult a lawyer? Yes as laws differ from place to place and it is highly recommended that you find a representative lawyer that is familiar with domestic laws.

photo by Caden Crawford

References:

1. ICAEW 2008, 10 ways to use email effectively, ICAEW <http://www.icaew.com/en/archive/library/subject-gateways/career-and-personal-development/communication-and-presentation-skills/small-business-update/10-ways-to-use-email-effectively>
2. IMB Smarter Planet 2015, How To Use Email To Transform How We Work, Forbes, <http://www.forbes.com/sites/ibm/2015/02/19/how-to-use-email-to-transform-how-we-work/>
3. Sarah 2010, Legal consideration for electronic evidence, Part 3: Applying the rules of Authenticity, <https://crlgrn.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/legal-considerations-for-electronic-evidence-part-3-applying-the-rules-of-authenticity/>

Note:
If you like articles like this please bookmark this blog as there will be more similar and other topics regarding technology, business, telecommunication, and EVERWORKS related updates. Feel free to leave your comments on this topic below.

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Announcement - Maxis Planned Downtime Notification for MPG/BMG/EWIG - 1st July 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

Kindly be informed that BMG services by Maxis will be unavailable as per below details:

Duration: 0:15 hrs

1st July 2015

7:50AM ~ 8:05AM GMT +8

Intermittent failure of charge related to prepaid MSISDN for below listed services.

1. EWIG Charging
2. SMS MT
3. MMS MT
4. SMS MO

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.

For urgent inquiries please contact this hotline 017-382 8028 or drop an email to mpxg@maxis.com.my

For management inquiries please email info@everworks.com
For technical inquiries please email cvs@everworks.com

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Keeping Email Organised

In the age where email is an inevitable tool and essential to our everyday life, I went about a personal mission to solve the behemoth problem, the email inbox. Tough, resilient and ever present the problem of having an uncharacterized amount of email stored in the inbox can be frustrating when there is a need to find a one specific thread for an important use.

Here is a personal tip on how to keep email organised.

I use a combination of the Mailbox App, the standard Mail Application on iOS and Gmail. You can adapt with different combinations of services, but for me these services are the most effective combination that keeps me productive.

I will be splitting this article into appropriate action steps that you could break up into chunks to either perform it all at once, or periodically. Keep this in mind, keeping email organised is a lifestyle and a habit. Change some small habits and you can have your email inbox "free" from clutter which keeps you notified of the most important things that need done.

You will need to know of the existence of the All Mail function in Gmail, which is basically an Archive of all of your read email.

Outlook.com has the same "Archive" feature which Google Mail has, you just have to make sure you update your Mail service by finding the button that says "Archive" at the top of Outlook.com and click it.

First actionable step:

Filter through your inbox manually.

Firstly, find email that are junk to you by using the search function that comes with most email clients (select all and delete). I suggest only family threads, travel tickets, receipts, keeping conversations that have indication of use or insurance for verbal contractual agreements, and other important things.

Secondly, the fastest way I found to filter through bucket loads of email is to find similar email threads and add filters to it. A detailed how-to add filters is detailed here.

Filters help you to find "topic" related emails that have been archived making it easy to find when the time comes. You could start with applying filters such as a specific Person/Service name, even activities such as "Soccer", "Coffee Networking Session", and etc.

It took me around 2-5 hours of organizing to filter through my inbox and you don't have to do this all in a marathon, but do it a few times in a week and you will have this done in no time.

Second actionable step:

Applying automated filters. 

This article from Mashable gives a good guide on automatic filters.

Like the above first actionable step. Applying automated filters to your frequent incoming email will ease the process of receiving email in the future. This so that you don't have to go through the entire process of manually filtering out a large bulk of email again in the future. All you will need to do is to manually filter emails that are infrequent.  

Third actionable step:

Downloading Mailbox app.

The Mailbox app integrates well with Gmail. (I have yet to try this app's functional use Outlook.com) It helps me make full use of the All Mail (a.k.a an archive feature) service on Gmail to its maximum potential.

The theory behind it is your inbox should be a place where you should only keep email that is of immediate importance and require your attention and action, emails that have been read and need to be kept for future reference or to signify completion should be stored away in an archive. This keeps your email inbox free of clutter and allows you to receive only the most recent email that needs your immediate attention.

The app comes with a whole lot of other features that allow you to put it off for later, remind at a later time, and etc. The best part of using the Mailbox app is it comes free. Other advantages include integration with Dropbox for backups and more (Mailbox has been acquired by Dropbox).

Using native email apps

Reasons why I still use the native Mail client that comes with iOS.

I receive a lot of email to my Gmail, but there are times where I have other accounts like specific work email, university email, hotmail accounts and other subscriptions that I would like to be notified for. Mailbox currently only allows connection to one email account, and does not facilitate other mail clients.

Other self-hosted or custom services need to be connected to the traditional Mail client that comes with iOS which I have found to be very good for notification across different accounts.

Mailbox + Gmail + Native Mail App

Why should you consider doing this?

Keeping organised allows me to respond quickly and effectively to inquiries that require my most immediate attention. Although the Mailbox app does not solve every mail client that I own, but it allows me to filter out, that is of most importance to me, my personal email, Gmail.

Stormtrooper photo  Some rights reserved by Jim Bauer

Note:
If you like articles like this please bookmark this blog as there will be more similar and other topics regarding technology, business, telecommunication, and EVERWORKS related updates. Feel free to leave your comments on this topic below.

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Announcement - DiGi Planned Maintenance Notification - 25th June 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

Please be informed that there will be a planned system maintenance by DiGi that will be carried out during this time:

25th June (Tuesday) 2015

00:00 ~ 06:00 hrs (GMT +8)

Activity: LG220 Patch Installation ON NGBSS (CRQ000000235763)

Impact:
1) For GPRS, SMS, MMS, UCB, CPA, VOICE service, there will be intermittent interruption for 30mins
2) During CBP module restart, offering subscription, renewal, query balance and voucher reload will be not available, the duration will be 15mins (3PP service to be halt before the CBP restart) 
3) CRM GUI not available for 1 hour during CRM restarts.
4) All File for LBI and BI will be delay. 

DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd will be conducting a planned maintenance activity during the period indicated above. This is to ensure that we provide the highest quality of services to our valued customers.

Contact DiGi's Fast Recovery Center if there is any issue regarding this matter, through this number +6 (016) 300 3000 - Available 24 hours.

For EVERWORKS management inquiries please email us at info@everworks.com

For EVERWORKS technical inquiries please email us at cvs@everworks.com

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

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Announcement - DiGi Urgent Corrective Maintenance Notification - 16th June 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

Please be informed that there will be a corrective maintenance activity by DiGi that will be carried out during this time:

16th June (Tuesday) 2015

0:00 ~ 06:00 hrs (GMT +8)

Activity: CRQ000000234277 – CPA Lot30 gateway IP Relocation
Impact: Total Downtime on DiGi/CPA Services/MVNO. All MO and MT from all short codes 3xxx, 6xxxx, 2xxxx will be failed during this period

DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd will be conducting a corrective maintenance activity during the period indicated above. This is to ensure that we provide the highest quality of services to our valued customers.

Contact DiGi's Fast Recovery Center if there is any issue regarding this matter, through this number +6 (016) 300 3000 - Available 24 hours.

For EVERWORKS management inquiries please email us at info@everworks.com

For EVERWORKS technical inquiries please email us at cvs@everworks.com

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

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Announcement - DiGi Planned Maintenance Notification - 8th June - 9th June 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

Please be informed that there will be a planned system maintenance by DiGi that will be carried out during this time:

8th June (Monday) - 9th June (Tuesday) 2015

22:00 ~ 08:00 hrs (GMT +8)

Activity: CPA CSDB Sync (CRQ000000230628)
Impact: Total Downtime on DiGi/CPA Services/MVNO. All MO and MT from all short codes will be failed during this period

DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd will be conducting a planned maintenance activity during the period indicated above. This is to ensure that we provide the highest quality of services to our valued customers.

Contact DiGi's Fast Recovery Center if there is any issue regarding this matter, through this number +6 (016) 300 3000 - Available 24 hours.

For EVERWORKS management inquiries please email us at info@everworks.com

For EVERWORKS technical inquiries please email us at cvs@everworks.com

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

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Announcement - Office Close - 29th May 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

We would like to inform you that our office will be close for our EVERWORKS Company Trip on 29^th of May 2015 (Friday) . We will resume our operation on 1^st of June 2015 (Monday).

Kindly please do not hesitate to contact us if you need further clarification.

We can be contacted at admin@everworks.com or cvs@everworks.com

 Thank you for your continuous support.

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Announcement - Planned Downtime Notification for MPG/BMG/EWIG - 22nd May 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

Kindly be informed that BMG services by Maxis will be unavailable as per below details:

Duration: 6:00 hrs

22 May 2015

0:00AM ~ 6:00AM GMT +8

Impact to users:

SMS/MMS/EWIG

Intermittent failure of charge related to prepaid MSISDN for below listed services.

1. EWIG Charging
2. SMS MT
3. MMS MT
4. SMS MO

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.

For urgent inquiries please contact this hotline 017-382 8028 or drop an email to mpxg@maxis.com.my

For management inquiries please email info@everworks.com
For technical inquiries please email cvs@everworks.com

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Announcement - DiGi Planned Maintenance Notification - 14th May 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

Please be informed that there will be a planned system maintenance by DiGi that will be carried out during this time:

14th May (Thursday) 2015

00:00 ~ 06:00 hrs (GMT +8)

Activity: CPA Capacity Upgrade (CRQ000000225866)
Impact: Total Downtime on DiGi/CPA Services. All MO and MT from all short codes will be failed during this period.

DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd will be conducting a planned maintenance activity during the period indicated above. This is to ensure that we provide the highest quality of services to our valued customers.

Contact DiGi's Fast Recovery Center if there is any issue regarding this matter, through this number +6 (016) 300 3000 - Available 24 hours.

For EVERWORKS management inquiries please email us at info@everworks.com

For EVERWORKS technical inquiries please email us at cvs@everworks.com

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

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Announcement - Planned Downtime Notification for MPG/BMG/EWIG - 13th May 2015

Dear Valued Customers,

Kindly be informed that ECP/BMG services by Maxis will be unavailable as per below details:

Duration: 4:00 hrs

13 May 2015

2:00AM ~ 6:00AM GMT +8

Impact to users:

1. SMS/MMS MO will not be delivered to Content provider.
2. SMS/MMS MT will not be delivered to Maxis users.
3. SMS/MMS DN(Delivery Notification) will not be delivered to Content provider.
4. EWIG charging will not available.
5. BMG ECP/CRM portals will not be available
6. USSD system will not be able to do charging.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.

For urgent inquiries please contact this hotline 017-382 8028 or drop an email to mpxg@maxis.com.my

For management inquiries please email info@everworks.com
For technical inquiries please email cvs@everworks.com

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EVERWORKS GST Announcement

2015 EVERWORKS GST Implementation

Please be informed since 1st April 2015 there has been a nationwide implementation of 6% goods and services tax (GST). 

All invoices from EVERWORKS will have an additional GST charge of 6% reflected according to government requirements. 

For existing contracts that are more than 1 year which surpasses the 1st April 2015 GST effective date, two invoices will be issued one with GST and the other without.

Important Note: GST is only applicable to Malaysian based companies and customers only. International customers and companies will not be charged the additional 6% GST.

*****

For further inquiry on this matter please email your inquiries to either your dedicated account manager or the EVERWORKS finance department at admin@everworks.com 

Kind regards,
Management.

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Increase your MAIL Server Performance Process

Dear All Valued Customers, 

In order to better serve you and improve our MAIL Servers' performance processes, we take account security very seriously. There are a number of things you can do to help increase our servers' performance. To ensure that your important email accounts remain safe and to prevent email accounts getting hacked, we strongly recommend following these steps regularly:

To keep your account safe, here are a few tips on how to create a strong password:

1. Use a unique password for each of your importants accounts

Use a different password for each of your important accounts, like your email and online banking accounts. Re-using passwords is risky. If someone figures out your password for one account, that person could potentially gain access to your email, address, and even your money.

2. Change your password often

If someone has figured out your password, they might be accessing your account without you knowing. Regularly changing your password helps limit this type of unauthorized access.

3. Use a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols in your password

Using numbers, symbols and mix of upper and lower case letters in your password makes it harder for someone to guess your password. For example, an eight-character password with numbers, symbols and mixed-case letters is harder to guess because it has 30,000 times as many possible combinations than an eight-character password with only lower case letters.

4. Don't use personal information or common words as a password

Create a unique password that's unrelated to your personal information and use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. For example, you can select a random word or phrase and insert letters and numbers into the beginning, middle, and end to make it extra difficult to guess (such as "sPo0kyh@ll0w3En"). Don’t use simple words or phrases like "password" or "letmein," keyboard patterns such as "qwerty" or "qazwsx," or sequential patterns such as "abcd1234" which make your password easier to guess.

For Technical Enquiries, kindly contact our Critical Velocity Support Team at our :-

Office: +603-7806-3550

E-mail: cvs@everworks.com

Hope you have a good hosting with EVERWORKS Solutions.

photo of girl  Some rights reserved by Baba G

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