America’s Most Trusted Companies in Privacy
Traverse City, Mich. and San Francisco – September 16, 2009 – Comprehensive analysis of the privacy practices of America’s largest brands found eBay, Verizon and the U.S. Postal Service to be the winners of the 2009 Most Trusted Companies for Privacy Award, commissioned by Ponemon Institute, an information security research company, and TRUSTe, the most widely recognized privacy trustmark company on the Web.
The Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe conducted a two-stage survey to gauge the privacy policies and practices of leading consumer brands. First, the companies were rated as “most trusted” in an unaided survey of 6,486 adult-aged U.S. consumers. Second, an expert review panel at the Ponemon Institute judged the companies based on rigorous criteria, including the clarity and readability of privacy statements, notice, access to account information, cookie management, in- and out-of-network data sharing practices, as well as the availability of customer service staff.
According to the 2009 survey results, eBay is the Most Trusted Company for Privacy, proving that the e-commerce site can protect consumer privacy, all while handling massive volumes of sensitive data across the globe. Verizon earned the ranking as the second most trusted company, while the U.S. Postal Service, WebMD, and IBM rounded out the top five.
Verizon and the U.S. Postal Service became the very first telecommunications and government organizations, respectively, to crack the top three. Also of note, Facebook made its first ever appearance in the top 10, despite a tumultuous year for the social network’s privacy practices. This jump signifies Facebook’s commitment to implementing privacy practices that are approved by both their user community and privacy experts.
The rankings reflect a picture of today’s uncertain but evolving consumer reality, with long-standing brands making a strong showing alongside newer online properties, which ultimately comprised four of the top-ranked companies. IBM’s continued presence on the list shows the power and durability of its brand with both business and consumers.
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2009 Award Winners
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| 1 eBay | 6 Procter & Gamble |
| 2 Verizon | 7 Nationwide |
| 3 US Postal Service | 8 Intuit |
| 4 WebMD | 9 Yahoo! |
| 5 IBM | 10 Facebook |
E-discovery of E-docs
E-discovery of E-docs – By Dennis McCafferty – 2009-09-16
Tracking documents across devices is a full-time job.
On any given day, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based American Document Management (AmDoc) assists its thousand corporate and government customers by tracking down their e-documents with the tenacity of a TV sleuth. Its customers are dealing with litigation and compliance cases large and small—from divorce proceedings to major corporate lawsuits—which means accessing e-docs is often key to a case’s outcome.
“With today’s wealth of electronic devices, so many documents are stored on laptops, cell phones, digital cameras and GPS systems that there could be enough [information] on each device to fill a 4-foot-long filing cabinet,” says Karen Unger, AmDoc’s president and CEO. “We find the critical files for our clients and get them organized, even if they’ve been deleted. We’re like a CSI for computers.”
Given that AmDoc’s business is based on content and documents, the company has taken its own advice by maximizing efficiency when it comes to generating and tracking its own sales reports. In the past, however, Unger and the sales teams often found themselves buried beneath solutions that required excessive personnel resources. There was also a glut of customer-related contracts to stay on top of manually, and contract-renewal deadlines were sometimes missed.
“We dealt with several vendors that offered automated solutions for these needs,” Unger says, “but when it came to the basic things we wanted—like finding out how many calls a salesperson made in a week—we couldn’t automatically retrieve it. That should be part of the basic package, shouldn’t it?”
AmDoc found a better way through a solution called QuickBase from Intuit. Unger no longer has to manually retrieve and send sales reports: An e-mail-based application now automates that process. There’s also a template that allows Unger to see whether sales tasks and goals are being met in real time, versus having to wait until the end of the quarter. This allows for quicker corrective action, if needed.
Similarly, reports relating to sales lead generation, calls and meetings are produced electronically for easier retrieval and oversight. Sales teams now save four hours a week on time that used to be spent manually producing these reports. The solution also sends e-alerts to staff members when customer contracts need to be renewed and when payments are due, so there are no more missed lease payments or contract renewals.
AmDoc is even expanding its use of QuickBase to serve its HR and inventory needs. “Now, when employees are hired, we’ll be able to track their hiring date, the date when their evaluation and raises are due, and when their tax status changes,” Unger says.
“With inventory, when a computer maintenance agreement is expiring, we’ll find out about it two months in advance. That way, we can budget for the renewal ahead of time instead of being hit with it by surprise.” —D.M.
Web-based applications that adapt to your business
INTUIT QUICKBASE |
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Quickbase Case: ProPoint Graphics
Filed under: Intuit, Intuit QuickBase, QuickBase, QuickBooks, SaaS
Profile
ProPoint Graphics specializes exclusively in PowerPoint and Flash presentation production on a project and ongoing basis. ProPoint Graphics has completed thousands of presentations for over a thousand clients of all sizes across most industries throughout the United States. The company meets the needs of its client base by delivering high-quality, professional presentations quickly and cost-effectively. ProPoint Graphics is a privately owned company and has successfully leveraged the right technology to maximize productivity among its employees, which include full-time, part-time and contract workers.
Challenges
QuickBooks Enterprise 8.0
SendToQuickBase for QuickBase – Product Demo
The gap between Outlook and QuickBase has been bridged for the first time with a single click of the mouse using SendToQuickBase. This new product from SoftTech allows Outlook email messages, contacts, calendar entries, tasks and notes to be easily saved into QuickBase. Upon saving, the information is automatically related to any existing QuickBase record such as a customer, sales lead, or project record.
What’s new in QuickBooks 2009
Check out the cool new features of QuickBooks 2009 that will help you work smarter, not harder. Go to http://www.quickbooks.com for more information.
Intuit Selects Constant Contact as Email Marketing Provider for Small Business Customers
Intuit Selects Constant Contact as Email Marketing Provider for Small Business Customers
QuickBooks 2008 users now able to easily move customer contact information to Constant Contact through new integrated tool
WALTHAM, Mass. — Constant Contact([R]), Inc. (NasdaqGM: CTCT), a leading provider of email marketing and online surveys for small organizations, today announced that its email marketing service was chosen as one of the tools featured in the Intuit([R]) Marketing Tools Center. This online center is designed to provide millions of small businesses with the marketing tools needed to grow their businesses.
Constant Contact is featured on the Intuit Marketing Tools Center along with other industry-leading products and services for small businesses, including Google Adwords[TM], Yahoo! Search Marketing([R]), and Intuit Websites powered by Homestead, an Intuit company. Through the Intuit Marketing Tools Center, businesses and organizations can sign up for a free trial of Constant Contact’s SpeakUp!(SM) Email Marketing tool, where they can create and send professional email newsletters, learn more about the value of email marketing, and even try out other great tools, including Constant Contact’s online survey service, ListenUp!(SM) Survey.
“We are excited to be part of Intuit’s Marketing Tools Center and to be aligned with some of the top marketing leaders in the industry,” said Gail Goodman, CEO of Constant Contact. “Intuit and Constant Contact are like-minded companies, both focused on meeting the needs of small businesses and committed to helping them learn and grow. Our target audience aligns perfectly with Intuit’s core customer base, which makes this relationship such a good fit.”
As a part of the new relationship with Intuit, Constant Contact has also launched a new integration tool, the Constant Contact InfoTransfer Tool, that enables QuickBooks([R]) Pro and Premier Edition 2008 users with Windows XP to transfer their existing customer contact list directly into Constant Contact from QuickBooks. This ability to instantly build a target list saves small businesses time when creating their permission-based contact lists to send email marketing communications and build targeted campaigns.
“Aligning our small business resources, expertise, tools, and services with Intuit is a fantastic opportunity for Constant Contact,” said Len Bruskiewitz, director of partner programs, Constant Contact. “This new relationship helps broaden Constant Contact’s reach to small businesses and organizations, all of which can benefit from the power of email marketing to help them grow their businesses.”
To help small businesses and organizations learn more about email marketing, Intuit and Constant Contact are offering a series of online webinars. The upcoming webinars include email marketing best practices, how email marketing can help grow a small business, as well as a demonstration of the Constant Contact InfoTransfer Tool, and can be found at: http://www.quickbooksgroup.com/qblibrary/radio/webinarSignup.html.
About Constant Contact, Inc. – Launched in 1998, Constant Contact, Inc. is a leading provider of email marketing and online survey tools for small organizations, including small businesses, associations, and nonprofits. To learn more, please visit www.constantcontact.com or call (781) 472-8100.
10 Tips for Using QuickBooks
Filed under: Accounting, Intuit, QuickBooks, Small Business
10 Tips for Using QuickBooks
ARTICLE DATE: 03.25.09 PC WORLD
By Kathy Yakal
The point of using business finance software is to make accounting easier and more reliable. And QuickBooks—in all versions—is an easy program to use. But you can make it easier. Read more
