queenschamber.org THIS IS QUEENSBOROUGH CASE STUDY: NYC NONPROFIT IMPROVES EFFICIENCY WITH DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE TECHSPOSE YOUR BUSINESS TO A NEW CLIENTELE BY MICHAEL ZAYAS, Regional Director of Operations Real Hospitality Group Do you ever wish you could magically 14 tap into a new customer base for your business? I’m here to tell you that you can. Every day hundreds of travelers are coming to Queens, New York’s largest borough. They are staying in one of the many new hotels that have popped up across the borough, from Flushing to LIC. There are plenty of ways that hotels can help you connect to their guests, provided the exposure is mutually beneficial. Think about it this way: if you’re a local restaurant owner who is looking to build business during the week, hotels are full of occupants just waiting to experience local fare and hospitality. If you’re a local shop owner and artisan, your products are the ones that tourists want to take home as a keepsake or give to their friends and family as an authentic souvenir. Here are some ways that technology can make it easy to partner with hotels and tap into your true business potential: WEBSITE EXPOSURE Being listed as a preferred business on a hotel’s website can expose your establishment to thousands of new customers each month. Things to keep in mind when asking a hotel for this type of exposure are 1) be ready to offer a mutual linking opportunity on your own website and 2) ensure that your brand or business is a good fit with the brand of hotel. PACKAGES Consider bundling your service or product with a night’s room charge and tax at the hotel. These types of offers are usually displayed on multiple pages, as well as when guests are searching for rates for their travel dates. This provides even extra exposure for your business. Offering the hotel your goods and services at a discounted rate or at cost is worth it for the marketing return supplied. If you can offer the hotel a spot on your website where this package can be sold, it will be more incentive for the hotel to partner with you. EMAIL Hotels commonly communicate with guests at different stages of their booking experience. For instance, a guest could receive an email confirmation for their booking as well as a pre-stay message a few days prior to arrival. In each of these stages, there could be an opportunity to promote a local business partnership. Hotels also communicate with guests post-stay and run email promotions multiple times per year. Exposure through this channel is extremely valuable, and the hotels would expect to be included in your email promotions or have access to your email database to promote their property. Remember, mutually beneficial relationships are key. SOCIAL MEDIA Everyone loves social media exposure, and this is the easiest way to TECHspose yourself to new clientele. Hotels can post on various social media networks about local businesses, tag your business, use your hashtag, or check-in to your location. Tag-teaming your social media channels are the most effective way to get a hotel on board with helping to promote your business. You will be expected to tag, post, and share about the hotel as well, but typically your business would benefit more since hotels have structured and effective social media strategies. Technology makes it easy to partner with hotels and encourage travelers to New York City to spend time and money in Queens. Reach out to nearby hotels today and TECHspose your business to a new clientele! BY BOBBY GIURINTANO TGI Office Automation Like for-profit companies, nonprofits are under pressure to reduce operating costs to focus on their core missions. Often, changing the way documents are managed in an organization can make a significant impact on the bottom line. Enter TGI Office Automation, a leading provider of document solutions that has been in business for more than 50 years. TGI is a family owned and operated business, and its goal is to customize solutions to enable organizations to increase their productivity and efficiency. A large nonprofit in New York City that offers health, social and housing services at many locations throughout the Bronx recently implemented TGI’s document management software, DocuWare, in their Accounts Payable and Purchasing departments. Before DocuWare, packets of invoices were sent to their Accounts Payable department by FEDEX or by courier and the invoices were coded manually. There was no visibility, and the nonprofit could not tell if an invoice was approved. The new process uses Intelligent Indexing and DocuWare Workflow for automation with email notifications sent at each step of the process; now their processes are streamlined. In the Purchasing department, the nonprofit used an Excel spreadsheet to make a request and emailed it to the Purchasing Director who saved it to a network drive. If a Purchase Order was submitted there was no way to know if it had been approved or if an item had been ordered. Using DocuWare’s ability to store documents in a native format, the organization still uses a request form in Excel format, but now the information feeds into DocuWare and becomes part of an automated workflow. The nonprofit was impressed by Intelligent Indexing and its ability to reduce key strokes and virtually eliminate manual indexing. DocuWare’s flexibility was also important because the software easily addresses each department’s specific needs. Because TGI took the time to address all of their concerns and challenges throughout the process, the customer was confident in our ability to implement the system and smoothly transition their large user base. When DocuWare is implemented in one department, the foundation is set to expand to other departments with very little extra cost, and this has given the nonprofit assurance to begin transitioning its HR department in the next phase. If you are interested in learning more about how TGI’s document management
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