And improving your employees efficiency is merely one of the advances you can make using performance management software. It’s often valuable to study suppliers and clients to better reduce costs by precision ordering. Identifying the suppliers that stock the higher grade and lowest priced products can be a great boon.

Turning our attention to affiliates, clients, and retailers, you can determine who who is your best seller of any or all products or services if there are payment issues, which one experiences the highest loss percentage, and more. This information is useful in minimizing expenses and boosting profits. Who wouldn’t want to take advantage of that? As well as all this, marketing campaigns become much more effective because you’ll have a clearer understanding of your ideal demographic. Performance appraisal software can study your sources so you can save money and scrutinze the market to customize your plans and increase your profits. It also streamlines the process of managing employee performance and aids you in setting precise targets for your employees decidedly. The sky really can be the limit with performance management software backing you up…

It’s well known that an efficient company customizes its routines to the specialties of each staff member to get the best out of them. While this data is important, it isn’t really easy to obtain. To look at one facet of this — for example, staff evaluation — determining progress and being able to track it is a significant task. The first step is to bring employee appraisal systems into play. Once this is done you can appraise the work of each worker. The analysis of all of this information is next. After all, before you can put it to use determining goals and tracking further development it’s important to know what the raw data actually means. Using performance management software you know that this preliminary work is taken care of and you need only look at the different analyses to determine what the right goals for this staff member would be. It also renders charting the staff member’s advancement much simpler. With more accurate information in less time, this is of course a major saving before putting these findings to use. It is of course also possible simply to use the system to keep track of raw information like performance reviews and to make your own assessment.

Performance management software can do more than help staff. It’s often valuable to study clients and suppliers to better reduce costs by precision ordering. Knowing the suppliers that offer the higher grade and lowest priced products can reduce costs greatly. When it comes to clients – retailers, affiliates, or similar – the software can still offer a clearer picture there, too, telling you just who sells the most of your products, any loss percentage and similar fallout, and providing a reminder of outstanding payments. This information is useful in minimizing expenses and boosting profits. Who wouldn’t take advantage of that? As well as all this, it’ll be easier to plan marketing campaigns due to your deeper insight into your market and the location of your best target audience. You can analyze your sources to minimize costs and watch your market to make more money utilizing performance management software. With a program of employee reviews this tool is sure to help accelerate staff performance management decidedly. The sky really can be the limit with performance management software backing you up.

Using performance appraisal software, all you need to do is look at the different metrics and factors to deduce what these goals should be and then keep track of the member of staff’s progress. This takes away the need to spend time on analysis and may even be more accurate. It is of course also possible just to use the software to track raw information like performance reviews and to make your own analysis.

Performance management software can do more than help staff. Both suppliers and clients can be analyzed using the appropriate programs, providing you with even more performance appraisal tools. For example, when looking at suppliers you can pinpoint the weaknesses like slow delivery times, high damage rates, etc.

Clients can be measured on their own set of metrics, and once again it’s possible to streamline your processes and help your bottom line. This information is useful in minimizing expenses and boosting profits. As well as all this, marketing campaigns become much more effective due to your deeper insight into your ideal demographic.

Analyzing both suppliers and market is smooth sailing with performance management software. It also makes employee performance management quick, simple, and far more effective when motivating staff through tangible goals significantly. The sky honestly is the limit when using performance management software.

Build relationships: Remembering co-workers by name is a beginning. Speak to employees; get eye contact when you are speaking. Do be respectful, and listen to everything the other person has to say, even if you disagree or have another opinion. Paying attention to what others say is one of the most critical people management skills in your arsenal. Be sure to welcome any contributions from team members. Live up to promises: Don’t give promises you won’t fulfill. When you don’t keep your word, the fragile bond of trust is violated, and without trust your staff will not offer their best. Everytime you say something or give a promise, ensure that you can follow through or it would be better not to give your word at all. The truth is, if you can’t be counted upon, your staff will not be committed if you actually need them.

Be open to any feedback: Feedback must be a two-way process. Maintaining an open mind regarding other’s ideas is an important skill in effective human resource management. If you can show approachability and receptiveness, you establish that other people’s thoughts are important to you, and they will listen to yours. Frank discussion in addition promotes fresh ways of doing business, ways of fulfilling the goals of the team, and strengthens the company dynamic. By allowing the staff a voice, the success of the company will become important to each member. Promote all sorts of communication: Communication is the key to managing people with skill. Be approachable, listen attentively to other people, remember to welcome all sorts of feedback, and permit all your staff a chance to express themselves. Staff must be encouraged to speak to one another as well as with you. The creative process depends to a great extent on the open exchange of opinions, and through communicating with each other, you can identify problems early, and measures may be implemented before things get out of hand. Some effort will be needed, however the dividends achieved far outbalance the effort required. By promoting a good team dynamic and demonstrating good listening techniques, you can achieve the best in business success.

Exhibit integrity: Keeping your word is really important. If your word is not kept, it will damage trust, and no-one will give you their best efforts if they do not trust you. When you say something or make a promise about something, do be sure that you can follow through or don’t bother giving your word at all. You will find, if your people can’t count on you, they can’t be relied on to be available when it’s really important. Be open to any feedback: Feedback should be a mutual process. People management skills mean keeping an open mind to all feedback. Being approachable and open demonstrates that you value other people’s views, your thoughts will be respected in the same way. Welcoming open conversation in addition furthers evolution of creative problem solving, innovative ways of fulfilling goals, and strengthens the bonds of an excellent team. By giving the employees a voice, the success of the business will become important to every employee. Communication is fundamental: Dealing with your team comes down to one thing — communication. Maintaining an open door policy, apply good listening skills, remember to welcome all sorts of feedback, and permit each of your team to express their views. Inspire team members not only to communicate to you, but with each other. The sharing of ideas is imperative in the creative process, and through communicating with each other, it becomes easy to find issues before they could present problems, and corrective measures may be implemented before things get out of hand.

Some time and effort is required, but the payoffs far outweigh the effort necessary. Through inspiring a good team dynamic and by taking heed of what your staff have to offer, you can accomplish a successful business.

Just as there are unique problems in publicly-held firms, there are challenges that are just as unique in family-owned and operated businesses. All companies have strengths, but the secret to both profitability and perpetuation is a willingness to step up to the plate and deal with each business and family issue in a professional manner.

In writing this article, I’m drawing on my experiences as a consultant to family-owned businesses as well as information I have been taught in family business seminars and workshops that I’ve attended over the years. My purpose is two fold: The first is to bring these “deadly sins” to the attention of family members who have perhaps not yet been exposed to them, and secondly, to offer recommended solutions. No matter how bad business problems sometimes seem, it’s rarely too late for a full recovery.

Deadly Sin #1: “Daddy” Dominance – In most family businesses, there’s a “daddy” who is actively involved. Sometimes he’s first generation, but he could also be second, third, and sometimes forth. “Daddy” is often highly reluctant to let go of the reins.

The “boys” or the “kids” are all too frequently little more than “hired hands” because only “daddy” is qualified to make the important decisions. And although some of these “kids” are well into their forties and fifties, to “daddy” they are and will perhaps always be “kids”.

Solution: The father the patriarch of the family can never be assured that either the business will survive him or his offspring will survive him in management unless he systematically gives up his “important” jobs and delegates them to a qualified subordinate.

Granted, “daddy” may perform these duties better than anyone else, but no one will ever approach his level of expertise unless he gives them a chance. And to do that, he must allow someone else to now and then make a mistake or two. He must be willing to make the transition from player to coach.

It doesn’t really matter where he begins in this process, but the point is that he must begin to delegate key projects or duties. It can be preparing the company’s annual budget or profit plan, making credit decisions, assuming responsibility for banking relations, participating in purchasing decisions, pricing, hiring or managing sales. But well before “daddy” plans to retire, a competent successor must have proven that he or she can perform each of these functions.

Deadly Sin #2: Refusing to Set a Retirement Date – If “daddy,” or whoever is the CEO of the family business, strongly resists establishing a retirement date, the likelihood increases that he never will. He will die with his boots on. He will have convinced everyone in the company that he simply cannot bear the thought of retiring because sitting at the helm of the family business has been his life and his identify for so many years.

I recommend that any owner/manager who is fifty-five years of age or older, set a retirement date as soon as possible. And those younger than fifty-five should also set a retirement date if they plan to retire before reaching 65.

Of course, setting a retirement date is not sufficient in and of itself. The CEO must take enough proactive steps so that it’s clear to all concerned that management changes are eminent, although not immediate.

There are several reasons for this recommendation. Employees deserve to know what’s beyond the horizon for them. Just about all employees suffer some degree of fear down deep inside that when the “old man” dies that the business will go down the tubes. And it’s difficult to recruit top talent into a company that doesn’t have a succession plan in place.

Solution: Set a retirement date and name a successor. In the absence of both, there will always be doubt that the CEO is really serious about retiring.

By naming a successor, a lot of apprehension is lifted. Both family members and non family members will at least realize that there is a good possibility that the business will survive the current CEO.

Deadly Sin #3: Embarrassed to Name a Non Family Member as Successor. If the retiring owner does not genuinely believe that one of his offspring has the “right stuff” to succeed him, he owes it to both the family and to the employees to tap a qualified successor from outside the family ranks. And oftentimes, this individual must be recruited from outside the company.

A good example of this principle was executed quite a few years ago at Ford Motor Company. Although since the inception of the company a member of the Ford family had often been at the helm, the family and board of directors was willing to recruit Lee Iococca when there was no member of the Ford family who measured up to the requirements of the job. As a result of the momentum the company gained under Iococca’s watch, Ford Motor Company’s sales and earnings have soared.

Bill Lee is a South Carolina-based business consultant and author of 30 Ways Managers Shoot Themselves in the Foot. $21.95 plus $6 S&H. http://www.BillLeeOnLine.com Or call 800-808-0534 to order via voice mail. http://www.BillLeeOnLine.com

There are however trends and hypes. A trend is a fundamental movement. A hype is a artificial one. In investment terms, a trend would be supported by a fundamental movement, a hype is a technical wave that could or could not have a fundamental backup.

Digging behind the drive of a trend is also about finding solutions for “problems”. A solution is something that is built. A problem can be anything. A marketplace on internet is a solution, the problem is how (and where) do people meet for all kind of purposes?
A marketplace, a business directory, they are all very “easy” solutions, not really expensive, to be established without a lot of capital, knowledge (you depend on others) so you will find many of them.
When observing all these sites you might question whether you could talk about a trend or hype. Behind a trend is a real demand, behind a hype hides an unreal supply.

In business you also need to think about the fundamental question – what are the clients demanding? – and about the solution you provide.

Analyzing the fundamentals behind a real trend can help you fine-tuning your strategy. In this you can focus on consumer trend (the most volatile), market trends and movements in society (if your focus is really long term).

Online businesses were a real hype a few years ago. The trend of connecting online however is still growing.

© 2005 Hans Bool

Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management advice. Astor Online solves issues in hours what normally would take days.
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• Service Model. Typically your product has service contract with hourly or annual payments and you track repair and preventive maintenance cases, have a list of replacement parts. Microsoft Great Plains has several options to automate these services. You can use customized version of Inventory Control Module, where you track serial/lot number, locations, item replacements, etc. In Great Plains Dexterity you can write light customization, tracking service cycle. Another way is to deploy Field Service suite, where you have Service Call Management, Contract Administration, Preventive Maintenance, Return Management as well as a set of eXXX modules such as eService Call, eReturn. You usually have to tailor these modules to fit your unique requirements – do it via Dexterity, VBA/Modifier, SQL Stored Procedures or Web Application, working with Inventory and Field Service tables. Assuming your product has serial number – then by looking up serial number you can see all the service history.

• Bidding. Great Plains Sales Order Processing (SOP) module allows you to have Quotes, Sales Orders, Invoices. You might need bidding and negotiation documentation system. In the case of Great Plains the best and future-oriented approach is to implement Sales side in Microsoft CRM, integrated with Great Plains via MS CRM-GP integration tool. All the calls and emails, plus contracts will be logged and documented in MS CRM and quotes are moved to or from Great Plains

• Purchasing. Your company might use tenders procedure and you would need requisition, proposals and quotes against the requisition, then purchase order and receiving. Deploy Requisition Management and Purchase Order Processing/ Receiving modules

• HR. If you have unionized employees – you may need to take a look at HR module, where you track employees certification, skills, training programs, hiring process and promotions

• ISO 9000. You can cover ISO compliance reporting, assuming that you have either customized Inventory Control system or Field Service suite implemented. The best and recommended reporting tool – Crystal Reports. Usually you create SQL views and stored procedures and base your Crystal Report on these views and procs.

• Technology Advise. When you implement your new system and making modifications to the existing one – you should try to predict which technology will stay for maximum number of years, plus you should try to avoid dependence on one vendor/provider – if you need to change Microsoft Business Solutions partner – how difficult to find new one with technical skills and customization expertise to maintain and further advance your custom system?

We encourage you to analyze your alternatives. You can always appeal to our help, give us a call: 1-866-528-0577 or 1-630-961-5918, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), serving Microsoft Great Plains, CRM, Navision to mid-size and large clients in California, Illinois, New York, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Washington, Minnesota, Ohio, Michigan

Putting a piece of paper in a file folder is easy; finding it again is the hard part. There are ways to make your files easier to use and your papers easier to find. Invest in a sturdy, four or five-drawer file cabinet. Spend the extra money it takes to get quality and durability.
You’ll spend more money replacing a cheaper file cabinet a few times than buying a reliable one in the beginning. You may not have enough files to fill the cabinet now, but believe me, you’ll need it in the future.

Before you buy additional cabinets, weed out unnecessary files. The natural tendency is to buy more cabinets to hold the papers you’ve accumulated. The more filing space you have, however, the more tendency you have to keep unnecessary papers.

Keep the number of hanging file folders you use to a minimum. Rather than putting only one interior folder in each hanging folder, group three to five interior folders in each one and label the hanging folder with the main category.

Minimize your paper files by using a scanner to store them electronically. There are hand-held, sheet-fed, flatbed and optical pen scanners available. You can even use a scanner to enter business cards into a contact management software program.

Designate one place in your office for magazines, newspapers and any other publications you don’t need to read right away. Select another place for papers that need to be filed. Stacking binsthey’re larger than stacking trays and have legskeep papers to file and papers to read separated, yet in close proximity to each other. You could also use wicker baskets near your desk to hold these materials. The point is to keep this inactive information off your desk and keep you focused on more important tasks.

You don’t have to spend a fortune or a lifetime organizing your home based business. Take the time to select the right location for your home office and evaluate whether your current furniture and setup is meeting your needs. Then design your office so you can find information quickly, and create a filing system that reduces the time you spend searching for important papers.

Disorganization can cause lost time and money and eventually may cause you to lose sight of the reason you started your business in the first place: to enjoy what you do each day.

Copyright 2004 DeFiore Enterprises

Interested in having your own successful, home based creative real estate investing business? Chuck and Sue have been helping folks start successful home based businesses for over 19 years, and we can help you too! To see how, visit http://www.homebusinesssolutions.com for the latest FREE tips and tricks, educational products and coaching in creative real estate investing and home based businesses. No time to visit the site? Subscribe to our “how to” Home Business Solutions Digest, it’s like having your own personal coach: mailto:subscribeHBS@homebusinesssolutions.com

The first thing that you need to consider is if your Overhead Projector will need to be portable or
stationary. If your presentations require you to travel from location to location then you should
certainly consider having a projector that offers you the portability of a briefcase type Overhead
Projector. These projectors easily fold into the size of a large briefcase making them easy to
transport, even through an airport. If you will be making your presentations say from a Boardroom
or a Classroom where your Overhead Projector will spend most of its life then in most cases a portable Overhead Projector will not be necessary.

Once you have determined which type of Overhead Projector best fits your needs, then it’s time to consider these options: Lamp changer, Open or Closed Head, Hi/Lo Switch, Lumen Output
(How bright the projector is), Singlet, Doublet or Triplet Head, Standard Focal Length or Wide Angle. There is allot to consider when making your purchase and if you are not familiar with these terms it’s easy for a fast talking salesman to sell you something you don’t need or in some cases sell you something that isn’t right for your particular application. I will briefly touch on each of these features to give you an understanding of what these terms mean and why or why not you need these options.

Also keep in mind that just like purchasing an automobile or a computer the more options you
add to your Overhead Projector the more expensive the purchase price becomes. So consider
these options and how they will fit into your particular application carefully before making your final decision.

Lumen Output: Lumens refer to the amount of light (brightness) that is produced by the projection
lamp and the optics of the projector. Is your application going to be in a darkened room, partial light or full light? Generally speaking for Classroom or Boardroom use a projector that produces 3000-4000 lumens will be sufficient.

Lamp Changer: A lamp changer or dual lamp Overhead Projector is a projector that has two lamps and two lamp sockets. You are not burning both lamps at the same time; the idea behind this option is to give you, the end user, the capability of quickly changing to a new projection lamp during a presentation. This is often done by simply pushing a lever or flipping a switch. If changing a burned out projection lamp quickly during a presentation is critical then I would consider this option.

Hi/Lo Switch: The Hi/Lo switch controls the light output (lumens) of your Overhead Projector. Personally speaking I think that this option is more of a gimmick than a useful option. The claim is that when you don’t need the high light output of your projector you can switch it to the low position saving lamp life. It’s been my experience that this option rarely gets used, and does very little to save lamp life.

Singlet, Doublet, Triplet Head Assembly: These options also fall under the same category as wide angle projectors. In my opinion what should determine the necessity of these expensive options is the distance you will be projecting your image from. If you projecting from a short distance then you should consider purchasing a wide angle projector with at least a doublet head assembly. This will allow you to throw a large image on a screen or wall from a very short distance without losing the quality of your projected image. If you are using your Overhead Projector in classroom type environment then a Singlet Head Assembly will fit your needs.

Open or Closed Head: Now this is even a difficult decision for me. From a technicians stand point an Open Head makes cleaning the optics in the head easy. It also makes it much easier for the optics to be scratched or tampered with. A closed head offers the protection of these sensitive lenses, but makes cleaning them more difficult. We certainly see more damage to the Open Head Projectors in our shop than we do Closed Head.

Take the time to consider all of these options before you make your purchase and you’ll be sure to purchase the Overhead Projector that fits your particular needs. One more thing I would like to mention is the offer of a “Lifetime Warranty”. To quote one of the manufacturers that we purchase replacement parts from, “Lifetime Warranty, it’s a huge gimmick to get people to purchase our product. In most cases they will never bother to use the warranty, and for those who do, they will find that it is a limited “Lifetime Warranty” and it covers only a few of the components in the projector.” Don’t let this gimmick fool you, purchase by reputation, there is no manufacturer that offers anything for nothing no matter how good the claim or warranty.

Mark Boehm is the President of M-B Electronics. He has over 25 years of experience in the Audio Visual and Electronics Industry. You can contact M-B Electronics at 800-872-9456 or by E-mail at etbinc@comcast.net

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