AUTHOR ARCHIVES :

How to Optimize Safety Stock to Improve Supply Chain Performance

Business developments can be hard to predict; for instance, a customer could place an unexpectedly large order for one of your products. That should be great news for you–but only if you’re prepared to fill the order on time. That’s where safety stock comes in.

Warehouse worker managing safety stock

Forecasting precisely how much inventory you’ll need is always a difficult proposition; safety stock, by acting as “buffer inventory,” allows businesses to build up some margin for error. The downside, of course, is that holding inventory–let alone extra inventory–is expensive.

Some studies have pegged it at 20–40 percent of the cost of stocked merchandise. Making matters worse: That’s an ongoing, recurring cost, not a one-off purchase.…

Continue reading →

5 Factors Every Business Website Owner Should Consider

Is your business website producing the results you want? You may be losing website visitors, business leads and potential shoppers and customers simply because you haven’t taken some simple actions. Below are five of the main factors every business website owner should consider.

Business website

SEO

Search Engine Optimization has the potential to send huge numbers of website visitors and shoppers to a business website for many years to come. However, if you don’t do the groundwork when your website is being developed, it becomes much more difficult for search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing to find your website.

One more thing: You should consider focusing on local SEO.…

Continue reading →

5 Proven Ways to Leverage The Power of Print Marketing

Although the days of the print industry appear to be in jeopardy at the hands of a digital age, the effectiveness and power of physical media is far from gone. While the continuing uprise of the online world has created a marketing platform larger than marketing strategies can keep up with, this country has shown the age of physical promotion isn’t in fear of being at an end.

Woman reading newspaper

Billboards to brochures that draw the eye have been seen supporting businesses worldwide for decades, defining a company’s voice to connect with passers by and prospective buyers alike.

Appeal to your demographic

Considering where your promotions will be and who you are hoping to engage with is the first step toward success in print media.…

Continue reading →

How to Choose the Perfect Company Car

When you have the responsibility for buying a car for your company, the choice can be even more difficult than when you buy one for personal use. Whether you run your own small business or are in charge of an extensive fleet of vehicles for a larger company, the basic elements are still the same – you need to get good value for money and you have to make sure the vehicle will be up to the task.

Businesswoman and her business car

Business professionals can find it difficult to access reliable advice on how to choose the perfect company car, simply because manufacturers and sellers can make confusing claims, which might not always be able to be taken at face value.…

Continue reading →

Careers: The Most Popular College Majors

High school seniors certainly feel the pressure when it comes time to decide upon what colleges they’ll be applying to and what majors they’ll be declaring upon receiving those acceptance letters and completing their enrollment at their chosen colleges and universities. But, as with everything else, when it comes to college majors, there are those that are certainly more popular than others and that attract the most students for a variety of reasons.

College students

If you’re on the hunt for a great college, but you’re not quite sure what major to declare yet, read through the following list of some of the most popular college majors today.…

Continue reading →

4 Ways to Make a Small Business Feel Like a Big Business

Many people dream of owning small businesses. Unfortunately, not all of them realize that small companies often have a hard time competing with larger businesses. Perhaps that isn’t such a serious concern, since you can use these four tips to make a small business feel like a big one.

Hipster workspace

Build a Professional Website

It doesn’t matter whether you own a farm or a travel agency, your company needs a professional website that gives visitors valuable information about your business, products, and services. If you don’t have a website, a lot of consumers will assume that you’ve gone out of business. Despite this, about 60 percent of very small businesses don’t have websites.…

Continue reading →

Freelancing Tips: Building Long-Term Relationships with Your Clients

So, you’ve decided to be a freelancer, and you’ve successfully acquired your first set of clients. You were able to negotiate the payment rate that you want, and you’ve worked on a contract and terms of conditions that detail the responsibilities of both parties. Give yourself a pat on the back, you’re well on the way to independence.

Freelancer working on a cafe

Of course, things don’t stop at this point. Successfully closing a deal doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be plain sailing for you from here on in. You’re just about to get on with some real work, so it would be good to learn a few pointers on how you can forge long-term relationships with the people you’ll be working with.…

Continue reading →

Using a Meeting Room Manager for Increased Efficiency

Do you think of meetings as a waste of your company’s time and energy? Meetings can be the backbone of any well run organization. They can also be a time waster that leads a good business down the pathway to disorganization and lost opportunities.

Meeting room

How you as the captain of your small ship use the time spent in meetings can have a huge impact on the entire organization in the long run. Having the right tools to keep meetings on topic, on time and a way to solve problems instead of creating them goes a long way towards turning meetings into a key part of your business instead of a time waster.…

Continue reading →

The “Drilling Down” Principal – Do One Thing Well

Steve Jobs quote on doing one thing well

Do not try to do everything. Do one thing well. – Steve Jobs.

It’s Hard to Do Less

As business owners sometimes the hardest thing is doing less. All sorts of opportunities can present themselves to us and with that can come the temptation to take on work that’s beyond the original business plan.

If we aren’t careful we can spread our resources so thin that we end up doing nothing really well.

There is incredible power in drilling down and focusing on one thing and doing it with excellence. Drilling down and offering a superior product or service can lead to the following benefits:

  • Consistent Demand: The law of demand means your product or service will always be in demand if it is superior
  • Higher Revenue: A superior product or service will attract a higher price because of higher demand
  • Lower Costs: By focusing on one product or task, you can better optimise your resources towards it

Sounds like the ideal business model.…

Continue reading →

How Great Online Accounting Can Save Your Business

Every business survives or fails because of whether it is staying in the red or black. It is hard to keep any kind of business afloat if you are spending more then you are taking in, that is an easy statement to make.

Cloud accounting

But what if you aren’t really sure how your business is doing? Sure, you have cash in the bank and happy customers, but are you really making a profit? This is the all important question that can only be answered with a good accounting system.

These days, more and more, that accounting system will be online accounting or cloud accounting.…

Continue reading →