NOS is a minority owned company and many of our solutions are Made in America and readily available on GSA Contract.
The Case Study Survey: Surprising Storage Tech for Today & Tomorrow

The Case Study Survey: Surprising Storage Tech for Today & Tomorrow

Experience informs all stakeholders about the outcome of their decisions. In the case of storage technology, those stakeholders include design consultants, manufacturers, and end users in fields from manufacturing and mining, to museums and medicine.

When prospective users are considering upleveling their storage technology, theories are all well and good, but the proof of the pudding is in the real world. Nothing beats a case study to demonstrate real-world experience. With that in mind, here is a selection of storage tech case studies that decision-makers can relate to:

  • Government Agency Document Storage – Lack of storage space made organization and timely retrieval of documents an extreme challenge, deflecting the agency from its primary mission. A better storage system offered an answer.
  • Electrical Utility Asset Management – Keeping adequate quantities of operational tools and supplies on hand was difficult, and left the utility unprepared for standard maintenance or emergencies. An inventory technology solution proved to be the management key.
  • Museum Archives Storage – A continuing stream of artifacts and archival materials was straining this museum’s storage capacity. The solution took its storage in a new direction, doubling the museum’s warehouse capacity without expanding its footprint.
  • Professional Association Document Archiving and Preservation – With many of its research documents in a fragile condition, this association had difficulty giving document access to its members. Twenty-first century technology created access for all, without endangering these one-of-a-kind books.

These are just a few of the many case studies of various storage technology solutions collected on the NOS site. If you’re considering a change in your storage systems, we encourage you to take a look at the possibilities and envision your organization’s future.

 

Photo © BullRun / AdobeStock

Your Business Relationships Will Thrive with the 5:1 Ratio

Your Business Relationships Will Thrive with the 5:1 Ratio

By now every successful business has learned the most important branding lesson: Relationships matter. A well-managed brand practices relationship selling. Its people support the brand when they provide customer service, when they work hard for customer success, when they communicate personally and add the human touch to organizations large and small.

It’s easier said than done, however, when everything from supply chain failures to personal difficulties seems to sabotage those all-important customer relationships. If you’re feeling that your business relationships are on shaky ground, start checking your 5:1 numbers.

The 5:1 ratio – 5 positive interactions to 1 negative interaction – was developed by researcher and interpersonal expert John Gottman, known for his ability to predict divorces with 90% accuracy. Decades of observation supported his theory that a healthy relationship could survive some conflicts as long as the positive behaviors outweighed the negative by a ratio of 5:1.

Gottman’s recommendations for positive interactions apply just as much in business as they do in marriages. His suggestions include:

  • Be interested – Listen to your customers.
  • Demonstrate they matter – Look for ways to show your customers they are valued.
  • Intentional appreciation – When your customer does something noteworthy, compliment them.
  • Empathize and apologize – Walk a mile in your customers’ shoes. If they’re uncomfortable, apologize and make it right.

None of this is new, but you have to do enough of it – 5 times over – to make up for a negative experience.

And it’s always easier to keep up the number of positive interactions if you have taken steps to make those positive behaviors easy for everyone. For example, if you have added RFID to your inventory system, you can quickly and accurately assure a customer that their purchase is ready for pick-up. If you have digitized your paper documents, you can give a patient instant access to their medical records or other secure private documents.

Keep track of your 5:1 interactions, and use the technology that makes it easy to maintain the golden relationship ratio. Your business relationships (and your personal ones) will thrive.

 

Photo © fizkes / AdobeStock

Another Reason to Digitize Your Documents: Your Customers

Another Reason to Digitize Your Documents: Your Customers

Document digitization is often valued for its back-office benefits. Digitization – also called digitization –  provides security for confidential data that paper documents cannot offer. It provides simultaneous access to in-house and remote workers. It saves an exceptional amount of storage space, creating long term cost savings (scan it once, reduce storage space for years).

But the benefits aren’t confined to internal operations. Customer-facing activities can benefit too, particularly if your business’s brand is oriented toward customer success. Like other brand-supportive activities, customer success is proactive. It builds relationships with customers rather than merely reacting to customers’ questions or problems. Planning for customer success includes setting up ways to deliver quick responses to customers’ information requests.

Response time is important to customers. Slow service is a common reason for customers to leave a poor review or abandon a vendor relationship. In a highly-competitive environment, the organization that provides speedy responses is likely to win the business.

One example: A recent McKinsey study showed that insurance companies that provided best-in-class customer service enjoyed new-business growth two to four times greater than their peers. Fast service is part of the positive customer experience.

A database of digitized documents delivers customer service with electronic speed.

Let’s say a customer needs a copy of a damage appraisal from their insurance company. How much time does it takes for a staffer to leave their desk, find the right filing cabinet, locate the customer’s records, make a copy of the original document, and deliver the copy to the customer? Compare that to the speed of an online customer portal locating a digitized version of the document and delivering it immediately, as a digital document. The latter is a winner every time. And that’s just one example of the many ways document conversion improves the customer experience.

Without a doubt, digitization allows an organization’s internal teams to operate more productively, and use space more efficiently, with a resulting financial benefit. Even more, digitization helps businesses serve their customers better, and that too is worth money. Convert your documents, convert more customers, and watch profits grow.

 

Photo © Krakenimages / AdobeStock

Who’s Here? RFID for Hybrid Workplace Safety

Who’s Here? RFID for Hybrid Workplace Safety

We don’t like to think about it much, but workplace safety is just as important to a company’s strength as fiscal soundness or modern operating equipment. Prudent business managers have a disaster management plan that includes employee safety: evacuation routes and responsibilities, mustering locations, and safety alerts and communications.

The hybrid workplace, however, has thrown a monkey wrench into the orderly emergency-management process.

  • How do managers maintain an accurate headcount of occupants when people come and go on independent schedules?
  • Who is in charge of evacuations if the designated emergency captain is working remotely?
  • How are employees’ emergency contacts found when the HR department is working from home?

Risks increase whenever accurate information decreases. This is true in any aspect of business. And any wise business manager knows that employees, like any other business asset, can be protected by the application of good information.

RFID is an information technology that your business may already be using to manage inventory and locate assets like equipment and documents. RFID excels at answering the questions of What, Where, and How Many. It is fast and accurate, and a proven productivity and asset management tool.

In some industries, particularly manufacturing, mining, and chemical processing, RFID is already in use to track personnel as well as products and equipment. Some industries use RFID in process management, tracking parts and products through the manufacturing process, and tracking workers to determine efficient and safe process paths.

With the advent of hybrid workplaces, office managers are extending their RFID capabilities into emergency management. Paired with doorway readers, RFID-enabled personnel badges or wearables keep a tally of who’s in the office, and where they are working – particularly useful in hot-desking workplaces. RFID tags can contain vital health information such as allergies, medical conditions, and emergency contacts, without compromising privacy.

Every gain in speedy, accurate information delivery represents a reduction in risk, not just for a business’s productivity, but for its personnel too. Employees are a company’s greatest asset. Doesn’t it make sense to protect them with the reliable information technology of RFID?

 

Photo © PixelShot / AdobeStock