News Release  

For Immediate Release

Introducing the Latest Release of ForeMost,

Adaptable Business Systems for Manufactures, Distributors,

Commercial Businesses, Government, and Not-For Profits  

CINCINNATI – October 2017 –  Ashwood Computer, Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio continues development of their ERP solution to help take your business software to a new level with ForeMost v3.0. ForeMost enables improved processes, planning and controls, utilizing a complete, customizable suite of applications that easily integrate with accounting, payroll, reporting, business intelligence software, .NET, Web Services, and SQL based Systems. Developed utilizing the best kept secret in the database industry, adaptable, affordable and cost-effective, ForeMost can be implemented in as few as 90 days.

ForeMost includes impressive new enterprise resource planning (ERP) functionality for growing businesses and operations of all types. With ForeMost’s enhanced controls, your inventories are better managed, traceability and accountability is improved and your costs are better managed at all levels. ForeMost dramatically improves your information systems and business processes providing a significant competitive advantage.

“Our latest release of ForeMost includes improved MRP functionality, improved financials, real-time dashboard reports and updated documentation, all this for less than half-the-cost of comparable offerings,” said Doug Owens, MultiValue Systems integration specialist for Ashwood Computer. “Our personal relationships with our customers help to differentiate us. Our staff provide prompt personal responses to requests for assistance as we have since 1989 and our customers appreciate this.”

About Ashwood Computer
Located in Blue Ash, Ohio, Ashwood Computer, Inc., specializes in custom software development, systems sales and support for their national customer base. Ashwood is a VAR and systems integrator with extensive experience assisting Unix, Linux and Windows based legacy MultiValue computer systems users and in optimizing those systems to provide peak performance.

For more information on ForeMost and Ashwood Computer, visit www.ashwoodcomputer.com

CONTACT: Doug Owens (513) 563-2800/dougo@ashwoodcomputer.com/www.ashwoodcomputer.com

Recently a major credit bureau, Equifax was hacked and many millions of records of personal data were stolen. The President of Equifax was warned of aging and inadequate cyber security measures, but did not act. He is now testifying in front of a congressional committee.  You can measure the lifespan of an organization with an egg-timer once customers find out that the systems were compromised. Would you trust Equifax with your personal information today?

Hackers have also breached the inner sanctums of National Security in the United States and have made off with advanced cyber weapons. If you think you are safe, if you think the hackers will not bother with you because you have nothing of value, you are mistaken. The hackers search the entire internet by sequentially walking through every IP address there is.

They can catalog what sort of firewall you have, what sort of servers you have and the type of clients you have. If they can breach you systems, they will at a minimum be able to catalog and identify possible exploits on your network. They may be able to convert your workstations into ‘bots’ to perform nefarious tasks on command. They may be able to extract your emails for spearfishing campaigns or to try to break into systems you have received emails from.

It is not a matter of if you have anything of value, you do. The hackers may not be to clean out your bank accounts, but your systems are a valuable resource to hackers. I was asked once to break into a number of systems that were owned by a company that had fired a system administrator who locked them out of their own systems. I found a program on the internet. I loaded it on a workstation and within 30 minutes was able to access every server on the network and change the passwords so that the systems were once again available. This was not due to any special skill on my part, but the power of the program freely available to anyone with an internet connection.

This cautionary tale must end with some ray of hope to be of any use. I would like to offer the following advice.

1. Train your employees to never click on a link in an email. Always hover over the link, inspect the URL and contact IT if in question.
2. Never bother to open emails from people you do not know or are not expecting to hear from.
3. Make sure you have a good firewall facing the internet with the latest software and signatures.
4. Turn on software firewalls on local workstations and only open up those connection necessary to perform the job.
5. Keep all workstation and server software patched and up to date.
6. Keep antivirus software up to date.
7. Remove any Kaspersky products from your systems.

Training is often overlooked in most businesses. We value education when we hire a new employee but do not continue the education process after the hire. Literature on the best run companies always place training of their staff high on the list of priorities. Losing key employees for a week or two of training, the cost of classes and T&L can be reasons why employers are adverse to training their staff. Another issue is finding the right classes covering the right topics your staff needs to be effective on the job.

Obviously, allowing key employees to attend off-site training classes provides the highest return on investment. It also carries the highest cost. The next rung on the training ladder is to bring the training in-house. This sometimes can be at a lower cost that off-site training. But, off-site training has the advantage of the key employees not being disturbed during the training.

The lowest cost training is what I like to call the “Power Lunch”. By providing your staff training, one hour per week during a lunch hour can provide about 40 hours of training a year. This presupposes that during a 52 week year an employee may have to miss some of the power lunch training session. I would always recommend that a free lunch be provided for the power lunch. Having successfully provided power lunch training sessions, I can attest that providing a lunch improves the attendance of the training session dramatically. The cost of a lunch, like pizza or sandwiches, at $10/employee over 40 weeks comes to $400. This is substantially cheaper than off-site or on-site training for a week.

The advantage of the power lunch, aside from a lower cost, is that the one hour training session can be tailored to exactly what your staff needs to know. I managed a small team of developers and asked them for topics that could be covered in an hour. I received a long list of topics that could be covered in an hour and would bring relevant training to the staff. I then asked the person requesting the training to do the training.

At first, this idea was wildly unpopular. But, as the training sessions continued, it became more popular. The fear of public speaking can be overcome. Who among you would like to have your experts being able to talk in front of an audience with confidence? Also, by preparing the one hour training session teaches the employee more about the subject matter and solving problems in general.

If you have no process in place to continue the education of your employees, I’d like to suggest putting together a power lunch program at your company.