Tag Archives: business

Consultancy

Top 10 Business Resolutions

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When your company is developing and growing it is too easy to overlook some of the less exciting elements of being in business. However, my experience has shown that paying attention to these elements will help your business be more stable, more profitable and easier to run. At the beginning of this year (2007) I sat down to write up the official KDR-EBusiness Top 10 Business Resolutions, and the reasons why you should consider them. If you would like our assistance with putting some of the ideas below into action, then please get in touch.

1. Have a backup plan

Vital business information is stored on your computers. Make a point of checking that your backup plan is up to date and that you perform a recovery test at least once this year. When your computer hardware fails, you need to know that recovery is possible.

2. Update your business plan

Once a year, revisit your business plan – if you don’t have one you’ll find it is worth the effort to make one. There’s a good starting point here

3. Streamline your administration

Well run administration can make a huge difference to a company. You can always find room for improvement. Examine the way that work flows through your company, find and remove the roadblocks first, employ IT technology second.

4. Sort out your email

Make plans to deal with timewasting SPAM. Depending on your business sector, there are legal aspects to email use and storage that must be considered. Create an email management plan.
Oh, and sort out your inbox, you know you need to.

5. Watch the cash flow – carefully

get your accounts up to date, and keep them as close to real time as you can. If you don’t have an accounts package, then you should consider purchasing one this year – but don’t do it without skilled support and advice.

6. Train your staff

Focused training for staff will contribute to the success of your business, but make sure that the training matches a business goal.

7. Don’t maintain the status quo

The business environment changes all the time, your business needs to change to match it.

8. Update your website

If you do, make sure that it is standards compliant this time around. Your old website probably doesn’t work in many of the new browsers that have been released since it was last updated. A well planned Search Engine Marketing campaign might also help to improve the effectiveness of your website.

9. Don’t ask how much it costs, ask what value it adds

Work out the value to your business before making a purchase. If the value is greater than the purchase cost, then go ahead.

10. Tidy Up the workplace

Because you know you should.

And finally, please let us know what your top ten business resolutions are…

About the Author:

Rob Mercer is a Director of KDR E-Business Limited, which provides IT Management services to small and medium sized enterprises. Rob has a Masters Degree in IT and is also a member of the British Computer Society. He has over 25 years experience in a variety of IT roles and industry sectors. Despite this he can still converse in English, a fact much appreciated by his customers.

Quality, work

Working with others

Business relationships are just like any other sort of relationships. I have heard it said many times that that people do not mix business with  pleasure or say may I introduce a colleague. We may think that we have to work less hard on our realtionships with colleagues because we are being paid to do a job. Nothing could be further from the truth. If one wants to be successful at work then they are going to have to develop relationships. What kind of relationship you choose to develop will give a fair idea of how you feel about your work. From a purely mathematical point of view. A person will probably spend more of their time with their colleagues than anybody else. What kind of relationship would you like? Would you mix business with pleasure?

business, development, E-Commerce

Web 2.0 Business and Product Development

The number of adverts that I see for a business development manager, or a relationship manager in the papers and on job boards I find to be amazing. It would seem that every company has something to develop; even my local butchers spent half an hour telling me how there has been no free range chickens sold in this area for the last 20 years. Now he may be right, but it does not solve my problem. I tend to eat very little meat nowadays as it is so damn hard to tell where it came from, how was it kept, what it was feed etc… Was it allowed to wander around outside? Has it been properly hung etc? Of all the businesses, that I can think of my butchers would do very well with some product development.

I cannot think of any reason at all why do not think for the life of me that our butchers is going to employ a thirtyish looking business developer, dressed in a suit to explain his products to the customer. This is something the head chopper feels he can do perfectly well. How much more custom would he get? At presently he is the only butchers in the village… Developing a relationship with your customers is difficult, especially in a highly competitive world as the one we live in, where every corner you turn there is somebody ready to quote a better price, do it faster, guarantee for it longer.

Why would anybody want to employ somebody just to go and talk to potential customers? Well the truth is they may not want to just that. But if there was that golden touch business developer who could go out and bring back the golden eggs, with the use of his or her persuasion, then you have got a foot in the door and you would have been able to open the box to much greater business and all for less than 40,000 a year. Surly though, the true role of a business developer will always remain with the MD. You may have many skills in your organisation , from people that can program computers underwater, to scientist who know how to calculate rockets landing on the moon but if you cannot get the money to pay you staff, you will all have go home.

It is possible that business developers have the most to lose from Web 2.0. as their means to and end is generally undefined. Imagine having something tangible for a process for business development. Web 2.0 can document that process. Not just for one customer but for all customers providing a backup and a status report, from the start of a product, to customer interest, to selling products, to customer feedback.

business, development, E-Commerce, Marketing

Web 2.0 for every Business, this Christmas?

It has puzzled me why the uptake of Web 2.0 in certain industries and places has been so slow. On one hand I can understand it, effectively web 2.0 can represent a loss of control. If your company engages in open communication with its customers and employees one may perceive a loss of control. No longer are topics discussed by a few individuals with in close proximity of each other. They can be discussed by whole departments across continents. What one customer may write about an employee or product is no longer a conversation with two or three people but can be seen and read by a hundred times that number.

Sherrilynne of Strive Pr  pointed me to this recent blog “ Social networking could turn out to be a costly “white elephant” for businesses that rush to invest in the technology. ” While some companies may be debating the merits and the cost of web 2.0. Can one really run the risk of not implementing and engaging your company in what is effectively the most important communications medium since democracy.

 

Yes there is risk that your business could suffer, but can you afford to dismiss it. If you have a service to offer and you work in competitive industry than you have to compete. I have listed some of the positive and negative advantages of web 2.0 below. 

 

Positive Advantages:

Direct Communication medium to customers, and employees.
Increased web visitors – potential increase business.
Increased web presence – lower cost of marketing.
Business and product development.
Content is Timeless – With any other form of communication the life span is limited. 
Real Time Statistics – Measure the Success of a promotion campaign.
Saves Time – Implementing projects correctly.
Lower advertising cost.
Generates marketing information for use in offline media.
Provides transparency for companies.
Can be used to make part of an assessment of an employee’s performance.

Disadvantages:

Reputations can be damaged and business lost if not properly implemented and handled.

There might be some more disadvantages but I cannot think of them now. This is what Wcx does, also I notice have given myself 13 topics to blog about over the next couple of months.

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How many opportunities for Business

I am always amazed at just how many possibilities there are for businesses. If I walk down my local high street I often lose count of things that I think could be done better. In fact if a company was just to provide good customer service they would be putting themselves in the top 20 percent of companies. Answering the telephone and doing what is agreed is a good start for any business.

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Organisation profile the mini Business website

Work Connexions can get your organisation on the internet quickly, just by Registering your Organisation. Once you Register, your Organisation will get it’s own profile page, your very own corner of the world-wide-web. Link to this page from your emails, your own web site, display the URL on your company stationary, such as your business cards and letter-heads. Your Organisation Profile will also be Search Engine accessible by virtue of our Search Engine friendly site. Your Organisation Profile not only gives you a great opportunity to publish details of your organisation it also allows other users to leave feedback for your Organisation and give your potential customers further proof that you offer a quality service. That’s not all, if you have any promotional material you have already prepared, just upload it it your file area in your profile and get it on line too.

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Increase your Business

There is no better way to increase your business then talking about what you know. If you have a business the best way to promote is to occasionally blog about it. Talk about new ideas, changes with staff, launch of a new product. We will be very shortly launching our blogging advantage scheme, where industry professionals can gain extra work and payment by blogging on our site. We provide a professional platform that is free from distraction to allow the reader to focus 100 percent on what you are writing about. Google updates our pages very quickly and from our site you will be able to increase traffic to your own business website. The best part about it is that it is free.