Archive for Business Performance
July 8, 2008 at 3:12 am · Filed under Business Performance
Ondeck Sailing Group are one of the most established sailing and yachting organisations in the UK presently, with more than five years of knowledge under their hats they have deserved that title. The yachting business itself was not initiated until 2004 where they then converted to Ondeck Sailing Group. The main plan was to enlarge the charter sector to individuals, teams and firms. The outlay they chose to make in obtaining Farr 40 has really paid-off really well for them, they have built on what they had in the past & just developed on it. They have brought in a full array of sailing lessons on board their yachts & ay present supply skippered charters, corporate sailing race charters, mile building opportunities, cruising, adventure sailing trips, ocean passages & Caribbean charter. Find the best Corporate Sailing Day with Ondeck.
Ondeck Sailing & Yachting offer Business & Group yachting options to all of their yachting clients. Ondeck Sailing Group aspiration is to aid all its customers to form stronger more useful teams and commercially continuing customer associations via a unique choice of corporate sailing & yachting day activities which are a challenge but are also enjoyable & there is as a minimum something for each and everyone.
The Corporate Sailing occasions are offered to anybody with a group scaled from 6 to six-hundred and the choices of what can be offered to you are countless, it actually does count on what kind of thing you need. It is imperative to take into consideration that corporate sailing & yachting is for one & all & it is not always about spectating and racing at all of the key races in the yachting calendar, they also provide for any festivities, networking and team or leadership trainings that your organisation may wish to be included in.
July 7, 2008 at 9:19 pm · Filed under Business Performance
You don’t have to be a genius to recognize that a lot of money is tied up in MRO inventory ….especially if your business requires the use of capital-intensive equipment. Literally millions of dollars are tied up in spare parts for day-to-day Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO).
Historically, no one ever really ‘owned’ inventory, so stocking another item “just in case” had very few, if any repercussions. Inventory was often seen as a necessary evil of doing business. The term Inventory Management was almost an oxymoron. There were few procedures for setting up an item, no standard structure or format. Item information was written in the manner of each individual….first onto cards, which were later transcribed into a computer system. More often than not, there were no stock review processes. The only ‘management’ of inventory came with its annual physical count undertaken for financial reporting purposes.
Typically over time, Stores inventory grew… and grew… and grew… to the point where the numbers were just too big to ignore. That’s when inventory gets the attention of management: when the numbers are just too large to ignore any longer. After all, that’s real money tied up in parts. Good money… paid out to suppliers… for maintenance workers’ peace of mind.
The ironic thing is that maintenance workers do not often have much confidence in Stores inventory. They do not trust that parts are really there in the quantities stated, or that they are still usable. They might even keep a private cache of parts hidden somewhere for their own use. Or they might by-pass Stores altogether and just order the part directly from the supplier. These scenarios are real and they add further to costs.
When a formal inventory review is undertaken, we often find that unfortunately, many item descriptions are inadequate, with spelling errors or missing manufacturer names and/or part numbers. Often the part descriptions are unrecognizable by a tradesperson.
Before any inventory analysis can take place, inventory item description data must first be cleansed. Any sort of benchmarking activity requires that you know your starting point (i.e. what you currently have on hand). Once data has been cleansed, we typically find duplicate items ranging from 5% to 15% within a given site. The percentage of commonality of items across multi-site companies can range as high as 25%.
Inventory can then be sorted into typical commodity groups: Bearings, Industrial Supplies, Electrical, Instrumentation, Fluid Power, and Pipes, Valves & Fittings. Commodity groups can then br segmented into categories: required active, excess active, and inactive. Required Active inventory includes commonly used parts that must be stocked. Excess Active inventory is the overstock of Required Active items (i.e too much of a good thing).
Inactive items can be further segmented into critical spares, slow-moving, and obsolete materials. Critical spares are items essential for the business to run…stocking out would significantly impact production quality, safety, or costs. Slow-moving inventory includes parts with long lead times, parts which might affect plant efficiency, “recommended spare parts” for a piece of equipment or “emotional” inventory (i.e. parts that are kept to satisfy risk aversion).
Optimization or rationalization of each inventory category is serious business and can return serious dollars.
Typically we find that Required Active inventory ranges from 25%-30%. Excess Active inventory ranges from 10%-20% and Inactive inventory ranges from 50%-60% of inventory… of which Critical spares represent 15%-20% of inventory, Slow-moving inventory represent 20%-25% and Obsolete items represent 15% of inventory.
The opportunity for savings predominantly comes through the elimination of duplicate items and the rationalization of Excess Active and Slow-moving inventory. These items can be used down through attrition, sold back to the Supplier for credit, or sold to a third part for cash. Obsolete items may also offer some opportunity for generating cash.
Let’s look at a case study example to illustrate typical findings when an MRO inventory analysis is performed. A multi-site manufacturer with eleven locations decided to undertake a pilot inventory analysis project at their four Wisconsin sites only. If the project created enough value, then it would be extended across the entire organization.
MRO data was cleansed consecutively for all four sites. Item descriptions were standardized into a noun/modifier format, using industry nomenclature. A Corporate Catalog was created consolidating all items from the four sites.
Site by site, the cleansed data was first sorted for duplicate identification, then it was segmented by commodity group into categories and analysed by usage and supplier.
The results were impressive enough to attract the remaining sites:
duplicate items represented approximately 9% of inventory. Item bins were consolidated. It was determined that the overstock would be used down through attrition;
about 20% of inventory items were found to be at excess stocking levels (Excess-Active). They were returned to the Supplier for credit, yielding cash savings of $1.1 million;
obsolete materials were identified and disposed of, generating $100,000 in cash;
a long-term plan was designed to address Slow-Moving inventory items to determine the value/life of the part and its appropriate stocking level;
and at the same time, the company decided to share highly valued spares within the regional area, further reducing stocking levels at all four locations.
With a return of more than $1.2 million, the pilot project was deemed a success and plans are currently underway to implement MRO inventory analyses at each of the remaining sites.
MRO inventory ties up a lot of money for capital-intensive, multi-site manufacturers. It takes a proper inventory analysis project to reveal the opportunities for transforming some of that inventory into cash. With a little effort, you too can turn your necessary evil into a corporate good.
Mary Cenedese currently heads up Marketing & Sales for I.M.A. Ltd., a private company specializing in Data Scrubbing, Catalog Management, Inventory Analysis and Inventory Exchange for MRO items. Mary has a Bachelor of Mathematics (Univeristy of Waterloo) and an MBA (University of Western Ontario) and has over 18 years experience in Supply Chain Management and Information Technology.
June 6, 2008 at 9:53 pm · Filed under Business Performance
Internet Faxing is one of the advantages the World Wide Web has brought to the common man. As the term indicates, it is the way of sending faxes through the internet, without the aid of complex faxing machines. And more importantly, internet faxing is cheap, fast and easy to use. Let us see how it can be a big time and money saver.
The infrastructure one may need so as to use internet faxing is quite simple. A PC, a reliable internet connection, and an email id provided by the service provider. That is, no more dabbling with the complex fax softwares or operational procedures to perform faxing, and that itself saves a lot of your quality time. Further, as one can send or receive fax messages from his/her desktop, there is no need to walk up to where the fax machine is placed and wait for one’s turn to get the job done. In fact, waiting in front of a fax machine if you are to receive a particular fax is the most time consuming of the exercises, and that is completely eliminated with web faxing.
On the economic front, the only payment one has to cough up is the monthly fee for the service provider. And that won’t exceed $20 a month. Rest of the services is free, and the customer can receive the fax messages in his/her mailbox like any other email. Given the total expense on email faxing, if to consider the average expense per page, it will be as low as 30-35 cents per page, and that is the lowest possible on any counts.
To conclude, online faxing, to a good extent, has effectively bridged the gap between traditional fax machines and web-based communication. It circumvents the complexity of a fax machine and those never-ending paper jams, meanwhile embracing the flexibility, quickness and money saving aspects of internet communication. After all, that’s what one expects from technological innovations!
We have tested dozens of internet fax services to find the best one. Find the results only on the Internet faxing research. Find more internet fax info on http://www.leandernet.com
June 3, 2008 at 4:31 am · Filed under Business Performance
In addition to knowing the difference between a lan and a laptop, to be a successful IT consultant, you need to have the personality traits that will permit you to work well with your clients, employees and vendors. Read on to evaluate if you have what it takes to be a successful IT consultant.
IT Consultant Traits: Can You Exhibit Candor?
You can’t be afraid to tell people the truth - even if it hurts. Be very confident, because if you aren’t, people are going to see right through it.
You are going to need to come across as very confident when going out to networking, sales calls and even service calls. If you don’t, people will sense fear and take advantage of it. It is very important that you work on displaying confidence.
IT Consultant Traits: Can You Work With Uncertainty?
You should be able to work with uncertainty; as a business owner, there really is no sure thing, ever. You can do some things to lessen the risk, but is impossible to eliminate all of the risk so you need to be able to cope with that and cope with a certain degree of uncertainty.
IT Consultant Traits: Are You Decisive?
You need to be able to know which battles are worth fighting. There is a lot of things that are going to come up with clients, especially long time clients, that will get on your nerves. You are going to have to take a couple steps back in your mind and figure out is this something worth fighting for or if you should just let it roll off your back.
At the other extreme, you are going to have to figure which prospects, are completely wasting your time and which clients have gone bad. Which are becoming time vampires and sucking all your blood, your energy? You need to be decisive enough to recognize that and take action. You also need to be able to decide which employees and contractors to hire.
Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consultants Secrets. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}
Joshua Feinberg helps computer consultants get more steady, high-paying clients. Learn how you can too. Sign-up now for Joshua’s free Computer Consultants Secrets audio training.
June 2, 2008 at 8:17 pm · Filed under Business Performance
May 16, 2006
From the desk of J. Robert Gentry(senior reviewer)
Wouldn’t it be nice to make a bundle of money quickly, with little effort and within the comfort of your own home? It certainly would. Personally, I would love to only work a few hours per week and have more time with my wife and son without a boss looking over my shoulder.
Whether it’s filling out surveys, real estate investing, investing in the stock market or affiliate marketing, we’ve all seen the websites that show us how to make lots of money and how easy their particular program is. About 99% of those programs are complete frauds. You may have fallen into these fraudulent traps. I can honestly say I have too. I can’t count how many get rich quick schemes I have fallen prey to. I tend to look for the positives in people and was sold by many of these marketing schemes. I finally got tired of being used and abused.
After contacting all of the get rich quick websites, I found there was only one honest website that offered only the best business opportunities on the market today. In fact, there were three businesses on this particular website that stood above and beyond the rest from anything else I’ve ever seen. I have tried each one and I can say that they are the most honest business opportunities on the internet today.
They do charge a minimal fee for access to their services, which is legitimate for any business that has people on their staff that wants to help you succeed in your business. What a nice group of people! Anyway, if you do decide to go to this website, I advise you to join as soon as possible because the owner has informed me that they are getting members by word of mouth referrals and they will be closing off membership completely in the next month. (You didn’t hear this me!) They don’t have enough staff to accommodate more members and still provide excellent customer service.
I was thoroughly disappointed by most of the Get Rich programs I’ve tried and failed with which is why I strongly advise that you do not take any chances joining any other programs other than the one I have listed. Whatever you do, I wish you a healthy and wealthy year for you and your family.
All the best,
Signed,
J. Robert Gentry
Here is the link for the program I recommend
www.thekingsriches.com
June 1, 2008 at 2:16 pm · Filed under Business Performance
For many years I new that today’s technology was able to fully automate our marketing systems, but it seemed that nobody was using it to its full extent. Recently I came across a system that was so beautifully automated, I just knew immediately that this was going to work, and it did.
Why is it then that so many people miss it, I asked myself. It is right here under our noses. But hey wait, “What is Full Automation”
Full Automation to me is when your marketing system is so fully automated that it will sell, advertise, promote, appoint downlines, train them, and motivate them all at once. Does your site do that? If not then you do not use technology to the full extent.
Here are the 10 factors you need to fully automate your system:
1. You need to collect you opt-in lists
2. Promote by giving your surfers a well developed tour
3. Let them automatically sign up
4. Set Auto responders to follow up if they don’t sign up
5. Set Auto responders to train them when they do sign up
6. Use voice recording to motivate through conferencing
7. Use Conference software to have group discussions
8. Use your website to act as an training facility
9. Have a well developed duplication system
10. Setup an automated traffic generating system
With all the free script flowing over the net, it is easy to set up a system like this, and if you can’t create it, make sure you join a fully automated system.
There is nothing more rewarding for me, than to leave my office for a day or two, just to come back and find a bunch of new marketers signed up, and busy with their training.
The vast array of web opportunities makes full automation difficult; because each web page you open distract you to implement a new angle into your business. Full Automation requires attention and attention to detail. You need to think like the next customer and not like a high tech junky. Concentrate and stick to one income stream until you make it work.
Test each idea that you get on the internet against your fully automated system. If it does not fit in, leave it and move on. You can’t use all the gadgets on the net. Very soon your website will be cluttered and full of other people’s promotions.
What makes the internet a bad place is the impersonal way of trading. I like to spend time with students, chatting about what work and what don’t. My fully automated systems give me the opportunity to do just that. It makes my internet marketing an opportunity to spend some time with fellow marketers and to build relationships. In the end they are more important than the money we make.
What is the use of time saving methods, if we just use the time to run around. Use your fully automated system to take that walk in the park, to sit under a tree and to play with your kids.
Reproduction of this article is allowed with an html link pointing to http://www.netbiz.ukwaka.co.za
Christo Fouche is an online marketer who specializes in free online training. His motto is If you help enough other people to get what they want, you will end up with what you want.
Christo Fouche
CEO
Ukwaka Netbiz
www.netbiz.ukwaka.co.za
chris@ukwaka.co.za
June 1, 2008 at 1:39 pm · Filed under Business Performance
Vic, Jacob and Kee - friends of mine - have something in common. They lost their jobs at different times over the last three years. All of them were highly qualified, hard-working, nice family men in senior positions. They gave their all to their respective companies and made sacrifices beyond the call of duty thinking they would be duly rewarded for their loyalty and hard work. These gentlemen walked into their offices one day and were asked to leave. The reasons for their lay-offs ranged from policy change to down-sizing. Neither of them expected it.
Vic and his family had grown accustomed to the good life and losing his job was a huge blow. Jacob didn’t have time to panic. He had a family to feed and since he had been dipping into his savings for two years because of three prior pay cuts, he had very little left. Kee was more fortunate. His wife was already running a day-care center and they at least had some form of income even though losing his job meant losing sixty percent of their gross monthly earnings.
While Vic, Jacob and Kee struggled to recover lost ground, their bosses continued to live the good life, oblivious to the suffering of these men and their families who contributed to their wealth. When my three friends found themselves dangling at the end of their ropes, one thing became apparent - they regretted that had given the best years of their lives and sacrificed so much to make their bosses rich. What they probably regretted more than that was neglecting their own financial well-being while MAKING SOMEONE ELSE RICH.
Statistics reveal a frightening fact that more than 80 percent of the global workforce will experience down-sizing directly or indirectly at least once in their working life. Many people are simply at the mercy of market forces and corporate decision-making. We’ve been conditioned from our childhood to study hard, get a good job and work hard. But just where does the hard work stop? Do the rewards justify the time and effort that we put in? Are our bosses getting rich while we struggle to feed our families?
If you’re experiencing one or more of the following, then you may need to re-assess your goals in life and consider if it’s worth your while working your heart out to make someone else rich.
•You’re spending more time at your job without any significant rise in salary or benefits not because you love your job but because you HAVE to.
•Your relationship with your family is deteriorating because you’re giving your quality time to your job.
•Your family has to make do with less because your salary isn’t enough to cover those little extras that help to make life more enjoyable.
•Your health is affected by the pressures and demands of your career.
•You’re taking pay-cuts and extra work because you’re company is in a financial crisis or you’re at risk of losing your job.
If more than one of the above describes your current situation, then maybe it’s time to open your eyes. See the whole world as your oyster instead of harvesting it for others. Money making opportunities are plentiful, but only for those who dare to try. You do NOT need to spend your daily existence fearfully holding on to a job that you hate. Why envy others who have more than you when you have the potential within yourself to achieve all that you desire?
Nobody’s asking you to quit your job this instance, but sadly, many people end their careers with very little to show for their effort. They’ve spent their entire working lives, making someone else rich! The first step to breaking free from this cycle is to realize that you DO have a right to MAKE YOURSELF RICH!
Andrew Shim is the owner and editor of PositiveMoneyIdeas.com a website which offers FREE Money Making Ideas for those interested in starting their own freelance or home based business and PositiveTones.com a FREE resource website for Positive Living.
June 1, 2008 at 1:24 pm · Filed under Business Performance
The internet is a wonderful place to find free mystery shopping jobs and related information. This $600 million industry offers professional shoppers with the opportunity to work flexible hours and earn money while doing it. A wealth of information on free mystery shopping jobs is just a click away. In fact, not only information, but also links to free mystery shopping jobs and associations are readily available.
Mystery shoppers are freelance, independent contractors who agree to evaluate certain businesses before completing a findings report. This report will contain such information as customer service, employee courtesy, product selection, merchandising and more. If there is an area that needs improving, this will be noted in the report and give the business owners an independent look at what could be improved within their franchise.
Free mystery shopping jobs resources may contain such information as listings for local jobs, message boards where professional shoppers may interact, upcoming conferences and special events for shoppers and more. Mystery shoppers are paid for each business that they evaluate and, while some resources require a fee, there are many free mystery shopping jobs guides that can be found with minimal research.
While this industry is popular and steadily growing, many are still unfamiliar with the process and even wonder if it’s legitimate. The truth is that business owners actually appreciate the industry because it gives them an edge in knowing which areas need improving. During a known inspection, everyone will be on their best behavior. However, a mystery shopper who poses as a customer gives no clues that he/she is evaluating the business and, therefore, is provided with an actual picture of daily operations.
Major chain stores and hotels hire mystery shopping jobs professionals to work directly with them. In fact, they are happy with the industry and use it to conduct regular visits to their various franchises. Not all mystery shopping evaluators are in-house professionals, however. There are individual companies who organize, and hire, mystery shoppers to evaluate businesses. These individuals are compensated on an individual basis at a predetermined amount for each mystery shopping jobs job that they complete. This type of assignment classifies the shopper as an independent contractor, which is also known as being self-employed.
Mystery shopping is a very large industry and can be very competitive, especially if you live in a large area where everyone is competing for free mystery shopping jobs information. If you are interested in seeking work as a mystery shopper, an internet search may provide results for free mystery shopping jobs information your area. In addition, local marketing firms or radio commercials may reveal information on free mystery shopping jobs in your local area.
Terry Dunn is webmaster of www.mystery-shopping-online.com a free informational resource for those who want to know more about Mystery Shopping and Mystery Shopping Jobs.
May 29, 2008 at 2:49 am · Filed under Business Performance
There are several things that are important about procurement that you should consider. In a business standpoint, timing is virtually essential. If you are like many business owners, the best time is the time when prices will be low enough to handle. This can be quite difficult to call and even more so, it will be difficult to manage. But, when procurement is used effectively, your business truly can reach new heights. What should you consider in procurement?
• You will want to consider the timing. If you take delivery of the product now, will you have to pay additional inventory costs? If you wait another week, will it be less likely to cost as much? This would be quite vital information in a large organization that is using procurement for large quantities of items.
• What about the cost? One of the most difficult things to call is pricing. Will it be lower today than it was yesterday? Or, will prices begin to rise soon? Knowing when to make your move is quite critical.
• Also, you’ll want to consider the procurement as in how much risk you are taking on. Companies that can not afford risk in finances shouldn’t look towards large, risking procurement options. Instead, a safer option is necessary. But, the opposite can be true as well.
• The bottom line in the procurement process is making decisions. In order for you to be effective at purchasing at the lowest prices at the right time, you need to be able to make a decision. Oftentimes people miss their chance because of the what ifs. In business, a what if will cost you big time.
Taking the time to analyze the procurement in order to determine whether or not it is a good move is up to you. You can find reasons to wait, of course, but if you are to get anywhere with the procurement, a decision to grab it and go with it has to be made as well.
For more information please see www.procurement-info.co.uk
May 19, 2008 at 1:32 am · Filed under Business Performance, Living With Management, Living With Telecommunication
There are many websites one of them being FreeConference which offer services for making telephone conferences to businesses, homes and the like. Take for example business conference call which is a phenomenon used by countless young business associates to communicate and carry out their businesses. High popularity can be attributed to extremely low rates of 0.1$ per minute or even lower! In fact, free conferencing also an option which is available nowadays. Now that is something which is really great, I mean really great!
All that is required is logging into such a website and paying for their service and get going. With more and more entrepreneurs coming into the market, the growth of the business conference call industry could be likely, after all how else can they find cheap and easily accessible methods of communication. Giants like PC World also support conference calling. Such methods like business conference calling just might end up gathering pace in developing nations like India and China in the future. So if you are new and want a good start in your business career, you can choose conference calling as a cheap and viable option for communication. Surprisingly, conference calling doesn’t require internet access, it is based on just regular telephone lines!
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