Last week Pat Scherz, Eric Alexander, and myself were able to attend Sage Sessions Atlanta. Between Sage employees, resellers, customers, and ISVs, there were approximately 500 people at the event. We were able to see all kinds of familiar faces, tons of old friends, and plenty of soon to be friends!

Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect on May 25th, 2018. Stronger rules on data protection mean EU citizens have more control over their data.

Let’s start with a short disclaimer. We are not lawyers. This blog post is not legal advice and is for informational and/or educational purposes only. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.

Essentially, please seek legal advice about GDPR compliance if you haven’t already done so. Only qualified legal professionals will be able to give you and your business the best advice.

With that out of the way, let’s dive into what GDPR is and what CIMcloud is doing in response to it.

The great thing about e-commerce is that it’s easier than ever to grow your business beyond your borders—but when you’re selling in multiple countries, you need to know a bit more about how they do business and what's required to comply with their laws.

There’s a new regulation coming to the European Union in 2018, called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The rest of this blog outlines important information on the GDPR and what this new regulation means to your business.

Earlier this month, Pat Scherz and I traveled to Portland, Oregon as sponsors of Connections 2018, the Bennett/Porter & Associates, Inc. user conference. The educational event was celebratory as well: this past February, Bennett/Porter celebrated 30 years in business – and it was made clear to us last week that the group has mastered the components of an excellent conference!

April proved to be a fantastic month for connecting with our partners! With two events the same week, we were able to answer questions about CIMcloud in person, and we of course left time for fun as well. 

We are pleased to introduce the first episode of our new podcast: CIMcast - The B2B Software Podcast. This episode covers what we call "the B2B dilemma", which addresses the fractured state of software solutions available to SMB companies that work in the B2B space.

On October 25^th, Vrakas/Blum Computer Consulting, Inc. (VBCC) held their 2017 User Conference in Waukesha WI. CIMcloud had a wonderful time taking part as a sponsor. Dinner the night before, informative sessions, lunch with customers, and a fun happy hour and raffle provided ample opportunities for us to network with VBCC employees, Sage representatives, fellow sponsors, and of course attendees.  

Attention CIMcloud (and Website Pipeline) site owners! We’ve got a security update in the works that we wanted to share, and more importantly, describe how it could impact your website.

In a nutshell, the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI-SSC) recently released FAQs ahead of changes to their data security standards. Among their recommendations, the Security Council heavily encouraged hosting providers to upgrade their Transport Layer Security (TLS) as soon as possible.

CIMcloud CEO, Brian Seidel, joined the Enterprise Software Podcast as their guest for this week's episode titled "Citizenship and CIMcloud". The Enterprise Software Podcast is hosted by our good friends Darcy Boerio (DAB Partners), Bob McAdam (Dynamic Communities) and Todd McDaniel (Dynavistics), giving their audience an opportunity to hear valuable insights and information on various Enterprise Software topics.

We've all been in a situation where you are placing an order and think to yourself, "I'm not sure they're going to get my order right". Regardless of industry, customers now have more leverage than ever due to the amount of competition in the market and therefore won't settle for subpar experiences. When you mess up a customer order, or even leave them thinking you did, their perception of your organization will be changed and you may have lost a customer for life. 

Businesses, and particularly ones that sell B2B, need to do everything in their power to proactively remove any doubt customers may have about their ability to deliver on expectations. An easy way to accomplish this is to offer self-service alternatives (like a Customer Portal) that empower customers to order whenever they want and places responsibility for the actual input of the order in their hands, not your employees. Giving customers the ability to order online can be a massive differentiator for your organization and goes a long way towards protecting your business from the pitfalls of unavoidable human errors.