A Guide To Vehicle Tracking With Fleet Management Software

Maintaining and organizing fleet vehicles, field personnel or other assets is impossible without a reliable centralized system accessible at all levels of the business. Luckily these systems do exist and are referred to as fleet management software or vehicle tracking systems. There are a number of solutions available and these have been developed to handle all aspects of managing and maintaining a fleet as well as personnel and job dispatching. Each comes with a raft of features and capabilities making it difficult to choose a solution.

There are many companies providing vehicle tracking and fleet management software solutions. These fall into two types of system, online or locally installed software.

Online systems are usually a web-based or "in the cloud". They are accessed via a web interface or web browser where as a locally installed system is installed on a local computer. The pros and cons to these two systems are minimal and come down to IT infrastructure already in use by the business. If a business has an existing database to manage parts of the business then this data may need to be accessed by fleet management software and this may need a locally installed solution.

What features or capabilities make fleet management software a good investment for a business?

Centralized Data Storage

Having all information in one place is a must for organization of all aspects of a business. All good solutions enable the input and storage of vehicle information like service, MOT and road tax records. Driver records such as driving qualifications, medical requirements and endorsements can also be entered on to the system. Important vehicle and driver documents can be scanned and easily retrieved when required.

Vehicle Service Reminders, Alerts and Management

One really useful aspect of fleet management is the ability to set reminders or alerts for vehicle servicing, MOT or road tax due dates. Personnel can update the status of vehicle repairs and drivers can record any vehicle faults when completing daily checks.

Vehicle Tracking with GPS

An important feature when deciding on a fleet management solution is the ability to know where vehicles or personnel are located or where they have been. Vehicle tracking is usually achieved with the installation of a small device in the vehicle or in the case of personnel or assets a small device can be carried in a pocket or attached. Once setup it is possible to see vehicles, people and assets in real-time on maps. Knowing where all the business assets are allowed the fleet manager or transport dispatcher to assign the right asset to the correct location.

Job Assignment and Dispatch

This is a very useful feature but not all fleet management systems feature it. The ability to assign jobs via the system is a really useful function. Mobile personnel, drivers or field engineers can update the job status, upload images and signatures enabling back office staff to immediately see and inform a customer of progress. These systems can be installed on existing devices such as smart iPhones, Android and Blackberry handsets.

History Trails and Reports

When all of a business's data is stored in a centrally managed system it is easy to compile reports that can improve efficiency and even save money.

Detailed reports on individual assets such as vehicles can show total running costs for that vehicle. Vehicle tracking information can show how much fuel has been used and help to suggest cheaper alternative routes. This combined data from personnel can help a business to see where efficiencies can be achieved.

To summarize, fleet management software and vehicle tracking solutions should enhance a business and if used correctly and should improve the operating and efficiency of a business's mobile resources. The savings that can be achieved may be out-weighed by the costs of the systems but that should also be balanced against the increased productivity and the ability to offer a better service to clients.

Fleet Risk Management FAQ

Managing any business is tough, but when your employees are out on the road? Well, it only gets more complicated. The risk associated with managing a fleet is real and significant as mistakes can not only end up in damage to your property but, more seriously, a threat to life.

Most people know that if you're operating a fleet of vehicles you need to partake in fleet risk management, but that leaves many questions unanswered. In this guide, we'll take on the most commonly asked questions regarding fleet risk management. Let's get started:

Q: How often should my drivers be tested?

A: Bad driving habits do not take long to form, and even habits which have been taught out can creep back into our driving style if we are not careful. It's a consequence of idle habit, and it means that testing your drivers regularly is essentially essential.

In general, it's recommended that major training is undertaken on an annual basis, however, quarterly mini-evaluations are also recommended in order to correct minor issues with driver style.

Q: My staff drive vehicles which are not cars, do I still need fleet risk management?

A: It does not matter what type of vehicle your staff are in control of, whether it's bicycles, motorbikes, buses, trucks or lorries, fleet risk management is a legal and moral obligation. Most fleet risk management firms will offer support for the wide variety of vehicles which are owned and operated by businesses like yours.

Q: Who in the company is responsible for fleet risk management?

A: Unlike certain legal obligations, there is not a set position within a business which is liable for FLR. However, it is recommended that the role is taken upon by those at the very top of the business as this sets an important precedent for road safety within the business.

Ultimately, your business should not enforce a fleet risk management program, your business will be held personally liable for any accidents that occurs. Thus, it's recommended that FLR is taken seriously at the top of the business and, ideally, an individual is given the responsibility of exceeding it through the year.

Q: What kind of data can you get from a telematics device?

A: An optional aspect of FLR which some businesses choose to install are telematics devices. These boxes are effectively cousins ​​of flight 'black box' technology and monitor everything that goes on in the car.

These devices can provide information on speeding, dramatic acceleration or braking, corner performance and other, vital, risk management issues.

How To Evaluate A Business Idea For Developing An Enterprise

Why Do You Need A Business Plan?

Planning is a process that never ends for all businesses. It is extremely important in the early stages of any venture when the entrepreneur will need to prepare a preliminary business plan.

There are different types of plans that may be part of any business operation. These include but not limited to Financial plans, Marketing plan, Human Resource plan, Production plans, Sales plans etc. Plans may be short term or long term or may be strategic or operational. Whatever the type of plan or the function, plans have one important purpose; to provide guidance and structure to management in a rapidly changing market environment.

A business plan on the other hand is a written document prepared by the entrepreneur that describes all the relevant external and internal elements involved in starting a new venture. It is often an integration of functional plans such as marketing, finance, manufacturing and human resources. It also addresses both short term and long term decision making for the first three years of operation. So, the business plan, or road map, answers the strategic questions of where am I now? Where am I going? And how will I get there? Potential investors, suppliers and even customers will request or require a business plan.

How I Prepared My Preliminary Project Proposal

In my case, I followed the following break downs keeping each section as brief as possible.

1. Background : In this section, I established the context of the project by giving an account of the problem it is trying to address.

2. State of the art: I gave an overview of existing and emerging technology in the field, including an account of rival technologies and a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the various options.

3. Proposal: I wrote an overview of the proposed project and the approach, ie the activities which I will be mandated to achieve the project objectives. Clearly establish the research element or novelty component in the proposal.

4. Consortium: an overview of the proposed manpower and establish the required ability to carry out the project successfully (eg skills, competencies, etc.)

5. Objectives and Deliverables: Identify (1) the objectives and (2) the deliverables of the proposed project.

6. Competitiveness: if applicable, establish the competitiveness or advantages of the proposed solution compared to other solutions, whether these already exist or are still being researched.

7. Cost: give an overview of the project cost (including start-up cost and working capital requirements).

8. Impact: this section should include:
i. Markets and Uses: identify possible uses and markets for the deliverables of the project.

ii. Benefits and Beneficiaries: identify the beneficies of the project's results (eg the project participants, the general public, third parties) and the manner in which they will benefit.

iii. Roadmap: give an indication regarding what further steps, effort, costs and timeframes are necessary before possible benefits can be realized from the deliverables or results of the project (unless these are realized within the lifetime of the project).

iv. Spillover Benefits: identify any secondary benefits of the project (eg facilitating participation in funding programs, improving Malta's ranking, strengthening Malta's reputation in a particular area, etc.)

Preparing a Detailed Business Plan
Stages of writing a business plan are: After deciding to go into business, before starting the business and when updating is required.

Business plans can be written for retail business, wholesale business, service business, manufacturing and any other type of business.

A business plan is written by doing the following:
Identifying all the questions that could have asked about the business.
Determining what additional information needs to be collected to answer all the questions.
Obtaining all the necessary information.
Comparison various alternatives
Making a decision on each question.

A business plan should:
Have a good appearance
Provide an index
Provide a summary
Number each copy
Be signed to show who is submitting it.
Depend on the nature of the business.

A business plan should be organized to carry a cover page, table of contents, executive summary, business description, marketing plan, organizational plan, operational plan, financial plan and appendices.

Outline of a typical business plan is as below;

1. Title: Feasibility study Report on______________________
Commissioned by_________________
2. Project consultants
3. Table of contents:

Executive Summary
The Report
Project Background
Objective of study
Project description and
Loan promotion
Promoter
Location

Market and marketing plan
Potential customers
Competition
Pricing
Sales Tactics
Advertising and Promotion
Distribution.

Technical Feasibility and management plan:
Factory
Machinery
Overhead charges
Packaging materials
Raw materials Manpower and Labor costs.

Financial Projection / Feasibility:
Overview on capital requirement
Financial plan
Projected cash flow
Projected profit and loss account
Expected balance sheet
Break-even analysis
Source and application of funds

Organization Plan:
Form of ownership
Identification of partners / Principal shareholders
Authority of Principals.
Management team background
Roles and responsibilities of members of organization

Assessment of Risk:
Evaluate weakness of business
New technologies
Contingency plans.

Schedules:
12 months projected sales
12 months proposed purchase
Fixed Assets and depreciation schedule
Profitability index.

Thanks for reading

What Business to Buy

There's a twofold answer to the question 'What Business to Buy' simply because in its' core it involves two aspects: You and The Business.

At first it is all about Your Skills, Knowledge, Experience and Interests. When looking for Opportunities in Business You are a fundamental part of the Process. Make list to narrow down personal interests, traits and characteristics and look for a Business that suits these exercises. Most of the time when entrepreneurs buy businesses that do not match their Temperament, they end up unsuccessful, unhappy and selling the Business.

Ask yourself the following questions to get Your Ideas for Businesses:

• What are my 5 Strongest Personality Traits? You can also opt to ask your friends and family to send you lists with their observations (can be very revealing).
• What are my 5 Strongest Skills when it comes to doing my current or previous jobs?
• What Role do I want to Play in the Business?
• What Destination and Location do I want my Business to have or can it be a Business without a fixed Location (such as internet based).
• Do I prefer a large-scale business with many contacts and customers or do I prefer to focus on a niche market, dealing with a smaller number of contacts and clients?
• Do I want a Product Supply Type of Business or a Service oriented business?
• What is my Business Investment Budget?

When going over all the answers to these questions, you will have a Clear Picture What Type of Business you want to Buy.

Find a Business to Buy

After having identified What Type of Business you want to Buy it is time to Find a Business to Buy. You will want to opt for a Business that offers Value for Money. Its Valuations have to be backed up by Reliable and Detailed Financial Data.

Some Investors are Buying Businesses because they are Cheap compared to their core Value. They believe that as long as the market undervalues ​​the business relative to the core value, they are making a Solid Investment. This way of Investing fully depends on the reasoning that the market will eventually realize it has undervalued the Business and will correct its Course.

Below some questions you can ask yourself when determining What Business to Buy:

• Does the Business Match my Personal Characteristics and Expectations?
• Is there a Solid Business Plan available?
• What are the Top-5 Competitors of the Business?
• Do I have access to all Detailed Financial Data?
• What is the Trend in Profits over the last 5 years?
• Does the business show healthy and consistent cost margins?
• What is the expected Return on Investment?

How much you will always profit from your Business depends on the level of Original Investment and Your Management and Marketing Skills.

What Travel Agents Need to Know About Corporate Travel Today

This is rightly named as the age of traveler-centricity and with the evolution of the new era of personalized travel; it is leading to research and development of a host of new so-called intelligent services. The command-and-control perspectives of traveling have changed a lot from the past and the focus has shifted more on the traveler and the productivity of each trip. It has become essential to maintain that the travelers have the greatest return on investment on each trip. New generations of young employees and managers, who have been growing up and dwelling in a digital age, are moving up the ranks as travelers. It has become essential to recognize the need for greater flexibility acknowledging that the employees who travel on corporate trips also consider a percentage of their trip to be a leisure outlet. With increasing globalization and rise in companies sending their staff overseas to network and connect with their offshore prospects/customers/suppliers, corporate travel is a highly profitable tourism segment. Before we talk about how tourism companies can better cater to business travelers, let us first look at why they prefer to use specialized corporate agencies over traditional agents

Why do businesses use Corporate Travel Agencies?

This might be the most basic question for a travel agency as to why they need to use agencies specializing in corporate travel when there are plenty of regular travel agents in the market. Here is the importance of corporate travel agencies who have online systems which allow business travelers access to their complete itinerary.

The following information is at the fingertips of the CTAs:-

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  full business itinerary details














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  up-to-date tracking details of flights (including delays or rescheduling)














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  transparent details about additional costs such as baggage fees or in-flight fees














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  travel alerts, if any, in the destined area














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  complete and up-to-date details about the visa procurement policies and identification required














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  currency requirement and conversion rates

What do corporate clients expect from Corporate Travel Agencies?

Negotiated Fares

The Corporate Agencies tend to have tie-ups with hotels, car rentals, flights etc. giving them access to lower fares which can be used only by the frequent business travelers. Discounted prices are not the only advantage though as they also offer flight upgrades, room upgrades, and VIP check-in lines as required.

In-depth information about the travel industry

Corporate travel agents have access to many travel resources and most importantly, quickly, than any other leisure travel agent. Additional information helps to make the business trips convenient and comfortable.

Changes in Itinerary

When an airline ticket needs to get rescheduled or cancelled, chances are the airline or the online service provider will charge lofty fees. When booking with a corporate travel agent, most of the times schedule changes can be done at zero or minimal extra charges.

Viable emergency contacts

It is important for the business travelers to reach the correct person at the need of trouble. Corporate travel agents have the experience and professionalism to relieve stress for both the traveler and the company.

What you need to consider as corporate travel increases?

Business Travel Barometer reported that corporate travel is witnessing an accelerated growth. However, when poorly managed, it may be no longer an advantage to companies and may, in fact become a burden. There are some factors which the corporations and CTAs must consider to get the best out of the time spent traveling.

Adopting a travel policy

The corporate must define a travel policy which is applicable to and respected by travelers at all levels. This policy should be used to establish the standards which will help to track the improvement of business travel. It will eventually help to reduce the costs of the entire package.

Do not limit the traveler's autonomy

The management is responsible for budgeting the travel policy which helps to improve cost management however, it is also essential to give a degree of autonomy to the traveler. The policy should be flexible enough to allow the employee to adapt the trip as per the situation.

Traveler's security should be a major concern

Business travelers need to have security in place. The company needs to stick to its definition of standards to ensure the employee's integrity. The CTAs should have reliable partners (travel insurance, airlines, hotel chains etc.).

Mobility and automation

To optimize time and ease the processes, the administration of management platforms should have automated processes. This means they should adopt mobile solutions where search options, travel alerts, ticket reservations etc. can be accessed quickly, easily and on the go.

Corporate Travel Trends in 2016

Corporate travel trends tend to change regularly. 2016 has also not been any different and the travel management companies (TMCs) and corporate travel agencies (CTAs) are quite focused to provide steady if not strong axis all over. A growing MICE sector, investments in mobile and big data and enhanced focus on duty of care are some of their areas of focus.

Rising prices

The consolidated buzzword among global suppliers, airfares, hotel rates etc. is the rising fares. It is sometimes the move of the suppliers to generate discounts which encourage travel if there is a strong decline in demand. A positive 2016 world economy has been bringing an increase in air fares of a few percentage points, hotels are expected to see 4%-6% rise in average global rates and the competition will remain moderate in the car rental services.

Duty of care

Risk management is one of the major points of emphasis for corporations. Corporate customers are allowing new policies and improved technologies to monitor employees' location in case of an emergency, especially when they are travelling to foreign destinations. For instance, Concur Risk Messaging helps to identify the travelers moving around in the world and alerts them with alternate travel arrangement as and when needed.

Focusing on MICE

Meetings industry is a major growing sector and the corporate travel trend is developing on it. The corporate travel agencies should better start aligning the various meeting procurement methodologies with its transient travel sourcing. One of the ways could be to broaden the variety of meeting services by incorporating incentive trips within it.

Investing in technology

A sharper focus on increasing value and becoming more traveler-centric can be done by bringing in mobile friendly technologies. Mobile and big data are definitely the two most significant technological investments which any corporate travel agency must focus to make their platform more appealing.

Business travel analysis after Brexit

Following Brexit, ACTE and CAPA shared their speculations. According to them, the greatest short-term effects on the travel industry will come from the weakening of the pound against other world currencies. Greeley Koch, executive director for the Association of Corporate Travel Executives said that the business travel industry will trend on currency fluctuations; with some companies taking advantage of the weaker pound and traveling more, while others may withhold business travel until world markets find their own level.

Impact of terrorism on corporate travelers

Travel policy makers and administrators need to be guided by rising terrorism scare. For executives and staff undertaking travel on behalf of businesses, the travel agents and corporate travel agencies (CTAs) should prove the reassurance for their safety through the travel policies. It is more than likely that the surveys conducted over corporate travelers reflect the general concern of the global business travelers about the spate of terrorism. However, there is no denying the fact that terrorist threat is changing the patterns of business travel. The key impact of this is to keep in mind that the companies providing travel services for business travelers need to enhance their focus on security and the associated risks in delivering the services to corporate clients. According to a recent finding, travel managers have higher estimation of their policy's effectiveness in addressing risk compared to skeptical business travelers.

Concluding

Although the corporate travel sector has continued to progress, there are a plethora of challenges faced by the industry. A rapidly changing consumer market, the emergence of new business models, the impact of technology, man-made and natural crises are some of the fulcrum points that need to be considered before planning corporate trips.

Essential Features of Devops Technology in This Cloud Era

DevOps is the evolution of traditional application development and operations roles driven by consumerization of all software and business demand for agility. DevOps facilitates the needs of today's businesses to stay relevant by constantly innovating through software.

DevOps is about people and processes as much as if not more than tools. Without cultural and process changes, technology alone cannot enable DevOps success. DEVOPS, one of first challenges is to find out what the industry really thinks "DevOps" means. DEVOPS asked experts from across the industry to define what DevOps means to them. The purpose of this list is not to come up with a one-sentence definition of DevOps to appeal to all. The goal is to show just how many varied ideas are connected with the concept of DevOps, and in the process learn a little more what DevOps is all about.

Several of the top experts in the DevOps arena made this very clear while DEVOPS was compiling this list. That being said, a variety of technologies can be critical to supporting the people and processes that drive DevOps. DEVOPS asked experts from across the industry for their recommendation on a key technology required for DevOps.

DevOps tools are designed to support those definitive aspects of DevOps: collaboration, breaking down silos, bringing Dev and Ops together, agile development, continuous delivery and automation, to name a few.

List covers performance management, monitoring and analytics.

1. APPLICATION PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: There are clearly so many tools vital to DevOps advancement, but Application Performance Management is the one that stands out today as it has become so highly ingrained as the primary vehicle by which practitioners aggregate and share critical data.

2. MONITORING: While DevOps is most often associated with automation and continuous delivery/integration tools, I believe the single most important tool that organizations need to properly adopt and use to make a transformation to DevOps is a monitoring system. You cannot improve what you can't measure. Implementing key metrics across the business to help recognize areas that are in most need of improvement is the key to identifying the bottlenecks that prevent DevOps adoption.

3. END USER EXPERIENCE MONITORING: The parts of DevOps which turn the tide around and start exposing data from production to developers are also increasingly deployed, but the processes around these are not. For example, tools that enable exposure to the actual end user experience in production would need to become more transparent for the engineering departments instead of just operations. Even more so, many of such tools provide value to the business side as well, so a successful deployment in the user experience monitoring domain would satisfy even more stakeholders.

4. SYNTHETIC MONITORING: DevOps implies that you need to communicate between Ops and Dev in a good way. Using application/API driven synthetic monitoring will always give you the yardstick to measure your success.

5. INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT: If you are stranded on a desert island (but with a strong and reliable Internet connection) you still need to ensure your infrastructure is performing and your users are happy with their experience. What's needed is a solid and extensible Digital Infrastructure Management Platform that can collect data from every layer of your stack, analyze what's normal, what's not, and visualize the impact of anomalous behavior. This will allow you to catch issues that can affect your operations before they truly impact your business.

6. INCIDENT MANAGEMENT: Organizations must understand that tools are only one part of the answer. They must have the people, processes, and tools in place in order to successfully implement a DevOps environment. There are a number of helpful tools in the DevOps ecosystem. You want to think along the lines of productivity, repeatability, and safety when considering tools best suited to facilitate a DevOps mindset.

7. ANALYTICS: DevOps needs tools that go beyond continuous release and deploy. They need tools that provide continuous analytics in order to measure and analyze application activities against business objectives. While the focus is often on continuous release and deploy, that is not always possible in some firms due to regulatory concerns. However, the need is there for continuous monitoring, tracking and analytics. First, use monitoring to gather end-user experience data as well as infrastructure and application data. Then, track and stitch transactions together to show a timeline of what happened. Finally, create shared metrics that enable the analysis to be compared to both technical and business objectives.

8. MANAGER OF MANAGERS: The DevOps agile development model extends to its tools, and we've seen a huge proliferation of tools introduced to improve some aspect of monitoring. While each tool solves a specific problem, the proliferation has inadvertently fostered silos of expertise, domain-specific views and massive data volumes generated in various formats. As application count and architectural complexity increases, the must-have tool to scale production support is an analytics-driven Manager of Managers. It has to ingest all of this operational event data and apply machine learning to automate the noise reduction and alert correlation. This gives DevOps teams earlier warning of unfolding issues, better collaboration, visibility into root cause - ultimately reducing the impact of production outages and incidents.

Are You Embarrassed by Your Sales Manager Job Description Skills? Here's What to Do

Supervisors, and especially sales managers, acquire their outputs from the group they manage. This requires behavioral attitude that enhance the company and accommodating attitudes.
• These abilities are created predominately from:
• An enthusiasm for individual needs and perspectives
• An eagerness to invest time and commit thought to analyzing states of mind
• A feeling of equity or reasonable management

RESPECT FOR OTHERS 'SPECIAL PERSONALITIES

Typically the business manager will have to work his or her way up in the company and will have to amaze product learning, a database of loyal clients, awesome thoughts regarding development of sales, and incredible compatibility with partners and customers alike. However, there is a likewise scope for experienced transactions directors to be parachuted into an organization to convey a crisp way to deal with dealing with the business department. Sales managers now and then decide and build up sales territories in accordance with the organizations' development plans. He or she will likewise be in charge of setting standards and sale objectives for the business officials and the business group in general. Successfully working in as the controlling hand for the business team, the business manager will likewise outline the staff's training programs, create methodologies for the business group to work productively and urge collections to outperform short-and-long term targets.

INBOUND MARKETING MANAGER JOB DESCRIPTION

If you're in a promotion department then you simply need to move to an inbound approach, it's conceivable every thing you'll have to demonstrate the accomplishment of your inbound marketing program. If so, you'll likely be looking to hire a holding nothing back inbound advertiser, someone who can build and grow your inbound marketing system starting from the earliest stage. Search for somebody who is exceptionally self-motivated and flexible ... also, completes stuff (what's more, in case regardless you're trying to persuade your manager to make the move to inbound in any case).

21ST CENTURY DEALS SUPERVISOR

The business profession has changed over the prior decade as an after effect of advances in IT, the expansion of correspondence channels and automation. "The administration job is trying to understand the change and sale supervisors are critical to its prosperity," says one encountered sales director. Sale administrators today should comprehend IT system, perceive the force of web-based social networking, and be fully informed regarding sales and customer trends. He or she will be great with figures and ready to analysis measurements and always monitor deal figures and the group's execution, as indicated by agreed KPIs.

CAPABILITIES REQUIRED FOR SALES SUPERVISOR JOBS

Employer hiring stuff tend to search for applicants with a bachelor or graduate degree in a business organization with a concentration in marketing. Education in business law, economic matters, business administration, bookkeeping, arithmetic, finance, and statistics will surrender candidates a leg on the opposition. Computer and Internet skills are likewise valuable for record-keeping and information services. Many business supervisors are promoting inside from the business executive part. A few companies likewise offer confirmation programs, a capability that is turning into a standard among managers. The Institute of Sales and Marketing Management offers a scope of Marketing and sales manager job description add qualifications for expert business people from little Awards to larger Certificates and Diplomas. These capabilities are on the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) and are directed by the UK government education controller.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Work with Marketing to assurance predictable lead era.

• Work together with sales manager to make and prepare prospecting process.

• Work together with sales leadership to make and prepare lead capacity handle.

• Hire high-performing business people as indicated by HR staffing rules.

• Prepare new sales representatives to guarantee achievement.

• Oversee everyday execution of all business collections and deliver reviews.

• Work with sales authority to produce thoughts for sale challenges and motivational activities.

• Lead and timetable week after week or potential month to month group gatherings with deals group and administration.

• When you hire, an employee must be stated in sales manager job description that that Prepare and guarantee adherence to sales handling.

Global Business? Speak the Language and Content of Your Client

According to many sociologists, in the last decades we have been experiencing a "sea change" in several fields of humanity, from technology, science, economy to politics. This huge shift they talk about is called "Globalization" and it has seriously affected our lifestyle, our habits, the entire social structure and hence the way we deal with the contemporary world.

As a matter of fact, our world seems to have been experiencing a sort of time-space compression since 1972, as a famous anthropologist and geographer, namely David Harvey, affirmed in his famous book The condition of Postmodernity: An inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (HARVEY, David, The condition of Postmodernity: An inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Blackwell, 1992). Think out to the rapid flow of information triggered by the ICT revolution that nowdays enables us to send a message to the other side of the world in real time through "a click on the palm of our hand". Think out to the increased flexibility of the means of transports thanks to the technological advances that enable us to move through the world in a matter of hours. All these improvements have made the world get smaller and smaller in a metaphorical sense so that today in the business field organizations are no longer bounded by their geographical location.

All of a sudden, their markets have no limits at all and they can start looking at new opportunities overseas where they could not even imagine going only some years ago. In other words, what happens is that they become global and, as they achieve this new status, their new customer targets are no longer exclusively composed of local clients. New global segments emerge that share more or less the same lifestyle thanks to globalization. For instance, the Chinese women of the emerging middle-class act like and identify themselves with the American women.

Companies willing to internationalize have a desperate need to start off from internationalizing their communication ... but, would not it be enough to use English for their foreign communication ?? Perhaps, the jury is still out on this issue but No ! We definitely think No and we are going to show you why below.

Multilingual communication: fundamental for going global in business

In today's global economy multilingual communication is an essential tool to succeed in business because:

• Buyers in every country are increasingly demanding products or services described in their own language
• companies that realize the point above too late inevitably lose market shares and 33% reduction in long-term profitability of the product life cycle on average, according to McKinsey & Co
• companies' global brands decline in value if they speak a non-local language

Unfortunately, it seems that many organizations are failing to address their efforts towards localization and translations along with creating relevant and valuable multilingual digital content. If they do it, most of the time is just an accidental process without yet a carefully considered plan nor relying on a well-conceivable strategy behind it.

Redefining the value of content management: towards multilingual global content management

The user, potentially interested in a product or service just just Googles it on the Internet and guess what? Among the Google's list of results, he picks out and clicks only on those delivered in his own language. This action will be repeated in any touch point of its online journey before ending up purchasing the searched product or service.

Therefore, what a business would better do is to start redefining the value of its content management and upgrade it to a multilingual global content management. The later drives the global customer experience, increases the customer satisfaction, promotes the brand awareness, its consistency and supports the time to market goals. Moreover, since the content is a significant corporate asset, it must be managed as any other corporate asset, since it is imperative to turn it into a multilingual one and working relentlessly on its translation to the client / user's idiom.

As the former German Chancellor Willy Brandt once said:

If I'm selling to you, I speak your language. If I'm buying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen.

(Then we must speak German)

Although one might be induced to think that simply embedding a Google Translator plugin into his business website would do the trick, it would soon find out how short sighted this choice is. Not only would translations turn out to be of poor quality but this would also heavily affect the reputation of its business and brand.

Furthermore, a global economy is more and more requiring not only a multilingual content but also a content which is appropriate to the targeted population. In other words, a business must meet the expectations in terms of localization and translation processes of a targeted country, otherwise even a perfectly translated message may sound weird for a native speaker.

For instance, a Spanish firm could use in its website an expression such as

llevar el gato al agua - to take the cat to the water

to highlight that they have fulfilled a very complex task in a particular job, a feat.

Clearly, the English translation does not convey the same meaning of the original Spanish one and a web user would feel puzzled when reading this expression. As a consequence, that business would not be perceived as professional and its reputation would soon break down into pieces. It goes without saying that the user / potential customer would dash off to another business website and, sometimes, buy a product or service from the competitor.

Online Brand Management - Use It to Increase Sales

Experienced marketers assert that brand management is one of the ways to increase sales because strong brand recall helps customers insist upon a particular product or service in place of any other one. Strong brands are a great asset to a company because they help to increase demand. Marketers will also be able to reduce the cost of doing business if they own very powerful brands. The rules of online brand management have to be followed by marketers in order to increase sales and build their business.

As a person who owns an online business, you should be able to attract and retain the attention of your potential customers. This requires certain specific resources and you should be able to use them correctly in order to make the best use of your budget. This is not a one-time expense and effective brand management requires constant efforts because your competitors will also be trying to make inroads into your customer base.

You should also connect with your customer base in a wide variety of ways because this helps to build brand loyalty and recall. The easiest way you can do this online is through the help of blogs as well as social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Naymz, Flickr. You need to build a lot of links from these pages to your site in order to increase traffic. However, you can not just create a blog or accounts on these sites without updating them frequently because you need to have a regular supply of fresh content.

Another aspect of online brand management is the monitoring of your competitor's online activities. You should always ensure that allegations of competitor brands are matched by complaints of your own brand. This will help you influence potential users who are undecided about which brand to select.

Online reputation management is another feature of brand management. There are bound to be negative mentions about your company on the internet and they may come to the attention of potential users who are searching for the product or service you are dealing in. This has a very negative impact on your sales and should be managed so that only positive claims of your company feature on the first couple of pages of search engine results. You will be able to expand your business very effectively if you take these steps to enhance the image and strength of your brand.

Writing Your Affiliate Home Business Plan

Here's a typical scenario: You are deciding to start a home business and suddenly everyone you know has his nose in your business, literally. What do you tell them? And how do you answer your own questions? What should you expect from the company in terms of stability, longevity, vitality, trust, income, and so forth? First the bad news: there are no guarantees. Then the good news: there is plenty of information from which to draw your own conclusions. The internet is huge, and any good company will offer free marketing tools and training.

But back to the WHY of that business plan. You're going to be starting small, slow and boy! is there a lot to learn. What's the point of actually sitting down and writing a business plan? You're not Bill Gates, this is not Microsoft, just you in your home office a few hours a week, slowly building an online business presence, not really understanding what the heck you'll be doing.

Relax and breathe. Unlike Mt. Rushmore, your plan will not be designed to withstand the weathering of the ages. You can expect it will change and bend with the flow of your real experiences, which will be totally yours, not identical to anyone else's.

What writing your plan will do is cause you to pause, think, dream, study and focus. The written document, whether it is one page or twelve, will give your business a framework to work within. The internet is vast and seemingly endless. It is easy to lose focus and drift away on a different whim or idea every day. Understanding where you are today, what tools you have to work with, what your goals are, and how you can best achieve them and measure your success, will help you stay on target and not waste what few hours you may be investing in your business at start-up.

Whenever you feel lost or confused, you can return to what you have written. When you analyze your situation and decide to make a change, rewrite that part of the plan. Understand that it's a living document, intended to grow with you and your business. Your business plan is your friend.

Getting Started with the Business Plan

First you need to study the company and its management. You need to read and learn about the products, the compensation plan and the network structure. See you next month. Just kidding.

Plan on doing SOME reading each and every work day for the next few months, if not indefinitely. Keep up with the company forum entries every day; read something in the training reports every day. Your education will continue. Plan for it.

When you are ready, open up a Notepad window and answer these questions:

What service / products does your business provide and what needs does it fill?

Who are the potential customers for your product or service and why will they purchase it from you?

How will you reach your potential customers?

Where will you get the financial resources to start your business?

Ok. Maybe your company offers many products and services. What do you want to focus on? I suggest that, at first, you focus on one or two products and / or the affiliate opportunity. In other words, keep is simple. Once you get the hang of what you're doing, you will KNOW when it's time to expand. Do only what you are comfortable with, every step of the way. This is YOUR business, it's your right and privilege to decide on your approach.

Internet marketing hinges on building trust. How will you do this?

Reaching customers means marketing. Your decision, once again. And again, the options should be in your company's training materials.

So we're talking developing a reading / study schedule. Here's a possible list, once you've read enough to make your own decisions to answer the above questions, start writing. Your writing can be lists of words and phrases, free-form brainstorming, outlines, mind maps, whatever works for you. Just write it down, and do not forget to save often. If your home office is affiliated by cats or small children, they have the tendency to press on random keyboard keys. Documents do occasionally just disappear. Saving avoids total disaster.

1. Study the products.
2. Read the training materials.
3. Read about decisions, bonuses, etc.
4. Study the marketing aids and strategies
5. Find out what free tools are available.
6. Visit the forums on a regular basis. Read everything about getting started.
7. Ask questions.

Your final written business plan will have at least four parts:

Introduction / background: history of the company and its founder, internet marketing trends, why THIS company and why NOW, and so on.

Goals: I suggest you think of what you would like to be learning in two years, but mainly focus on goals for your first year. Realistic goals can be planned based on info on the company website, in newsletters, searches on the forums, and focused questions to other affiliates.

Marketing plan: based on your answers to the first 3 questions above and your study of marketing aids and tools.

Action plans: the specifics of what you will do on a monthly, weekly, and / or daily basis for the next year.

I can not tell you what your answers should be, because you have to decide how much money you have to invest. Only you can decide how many hours per day, week or month you can invest in your business. What products you feel most comfortable marketing, and who you decide to target as your customer base, are all decisions only you can make. If you get stuck and do not understand a question, do not know where to find information, or do not know how to ASK a question, contact your sponsor or someone in your upline. If they can not help you, they should be able to send you to someonewho can.

You should NEVER feel alone. Work should be FUN! ...

Freight Management Solutions

Business models of all sizes have complications. The goal of businesses in terms of logistics basically narrows down to having what the consumer desires, at a price they are willing to pay, in the quantity they wish for when they want it. That is not too much to ask right? Companies with issues in logistics are continuously searching for freight management solutions often times turning to companies that specialize in providing this service for companies big and small.

This is done in one of two different ways; third party logistics or fourth party logistics. Third party logistics uses outside companies to carry out the various logistic operations that have been accredited to being done internally. An example of this is when a company that has its own storage facility decided that it will now use an outside transporter to carry out distribution. Distribution was previously done by the company but in evaluating it was determined to be more cost effective to bring in a third party for this sector of the supply chain. This was determined to be an effective freight management solution.

Fourth party logistics is somewhat of a new concept. This is when a company determines that the freight management solution that desire is one in which the whole logistics procedure is outsourced to another party. This company has a sole purpose of providing logistic solutions to companies. They bring together their companies resources and technology and pair it with other organizations to plan out, operate and maintain a fully functioning supply chain.

The main difference between the two; third party logistics and fourth party logistics, is that the third party is specifically targeting one function of the supply chain solution where as with fourth party they manage the entire process from beginning to end. In general a fourth party logistics provider is a contractor serving the entire logistic needs for a company.

Fourth party logistic providers are the future of freight management solutions. Consulting companies are now offering so much in the way of cost savings and services to companies that they are becoming hard to live without. It is easy to see how needed a fourth party logistics company is when examining inbound logistics and outbound logistics. In smaller companies especially it is important to have support that specializes in all aspects of logistics. To pay specialized logistic personal to be on staff would not be nearly as cost effective as hiring companies, with a system already in place to help manage that piece of the business puzzle.

Inbound logistics is a basic process in the business equation which includes purchasing, arranging the movement of materials coming in, parts and finished inventory from suppliers to manufacturers, assembly plants and stores. Outbound logistics is related to storing and moving the end goods and information from the end of production to the end user.

The field of logistics is complex and absolutely integral to a business's success. Without the proper logistics in place a company could be losing money with increased shipping costs or improper communication through the supply chain. In order to give the client what they want, when they want it, at an acceptable price and time a highly functioning freight management solution should be maximized.

The Evolution of Marketing Automation

While aiming to promote products and services successfully in the market, businesses had realized the importance of adopting marketing strategies early on. Due to the intense competition, marketing strategies got infused with the technological innovations in order to evolve out as the modern marketing, which is now embedded in the customer's lives and affecting it at a rapid pace.

Fortunately, from radio to internet and smart-phones, nowdays technology has revolutionized the ways marketers can reach their potential customers. But, back then in the late 50's, with almost no effective marketing channel, companies were finding it challenging to approach a huge customer base.

This is how automation technology came into existence. It has traced its origins back from a Customer Relationship Management or CRM that came out of Rolodexes and a pack of business cards. It acted as a rescuer for the companies who were endeavoring to maintain their employees and client's records into a central knowledge group. But, in no course of time, it became the fundamental business element and started finding its applications in professional business services as well.

During the late 1980s, CRM platforms had gained more power in terms of customer support servicing, sales management, and forecasting. But, the high price tag kept it limited to few multinational corporations.

In 1999, Mark Benioff, the founder of Salesforce, invented the Monthly License (MLC) fee model, with aiming to offer cost-effective and agile business model, that further introduced SaaS or Software as a Service. And in contrast, this technology evolved out as an amalgam of email capability, web analytics, and the Marketing Resource Management (MRM). With the advent of the internet, marketers were seeking potential ways to reach their customers. The pioneer of this space Eloqua came in 1999 and developed a product, later renamed as automated marketing service in 2003.

Soon, the success of this trend led to the arrival of more players in the market such as Pardot, HubSpot, WhatsNexx etc, and industry started gaining momentum while shifting marketing automation services to cloud platforms.

By 2008, new platforms such as HubSpot, Act-On, rule the market, and the advent of social media marketing, content management, search engine optimization made marketers incorporating a variety of automation tools.

In the period 2013-2014, the automation industry witnessed a huge growth financially through acquisitions when a giant marketing software company ExactTarget acquired a marketing automation company Pardot for $ 95.5 million and in turn, salesforce.com spent $ 2.5 billion to acquire ExactTarget, This is recorded as its largest acquisition ever.

I found people wondering if CRM and marketing automation co-exists. In fact, few consider the later as a subset of the CRM industry which follows one of the marketing laws proposed by Al Ries and Jack Trout. To clarify, CRM is sales focused software while the other is user-centric software that completely focuses on marketing strategy. Where a CRM manages company's interactions with their customers, a automation software streamlines company's marketing tasks, and work-flows. However, these two, together, go hands in hand and reinforce company's insights and efficiencies. A good CRM-marketing automation integration unleashes an opportunity to handle data management and strategies marketing plans.

It can filter relevant data and required fields to standardize tagging and data, and ideal processes. Also, it can run auto-cleaning processes to clean the dumped data in a CRM system. Businesses utilizing automation software have witnessed an incredible growth of 451% in qualified leads and 14.5% in sales productivity as well as 12.2% marketing overhead reduction. We can conclude by saying that the future of marketing completely belongs to Marketing Automation.

Business Retreats - Good for You, Good for Your Business

A business retreat is a holiday location specifically designed to allow corporations to send employees to allow them to pursue business development and / or strategic planning activities in a relaxing and support-filled environment. They are typically geared towards upper-management and CXO level employees, although it is also quite common to hold leadership development and team building weekends at business retreats.

Such retreats are not only good for the continued growth and development of your business - they also provide a relaxing and refreshing environment for attendees to recharge their batteries. A corporate retreat will often provide recreation activities either at the retreat or in the near vicinity. Such activities include things like golf, hiking and swimming. Many retreats (especially those located outside of city limits) will also have a strong focus on providing healthy, nutritious and organic food.

There are a number of business development activities employees who can undertake at such facilities, including:

• Strategic planning meetings
• Board or upper management meetings
• Leadership development activities
• Team building activities
• Individual / team coaching

It is easy to see that a Business Retreat is not just an excellent way to ensure your business is moving towards its goals and objectives, but to also ensure that your employees are happy and healthy while doing this. A retreat is an excellent way to reward your most valued (or most senior) employees, helping them to relax and increase their value to your business.

When choosing your venue, make sure you look into more than one option. Calling the director of each is also a necessity to ensure not only that they support your requirements for the retreat, but also that the retreat and its operators suit you and your team. Following these simple guidelines will help you to ensure your next corporate retreat is a success.

The Five Components of a Business Strategy

Can you define exactly what makes up a business strategy? Some people say no, but we think you can.

In fact, we believe a valid business strategy has five components:

1. Your company's current or desired core competencies
2. A description of how you will differentiate vs. competitors
3. The industry or industries in which you intend to compete
4. The initiatives you plan to implement in the areas of marketing, operations, information technology, finance and organizational development
5. A financial forecast that shows how your plans will meet stakeholder requirements over the next 3 to 5 years

Let's look at each of these components .

The first component of a valid business strategy is a clear description of your company's current or desired core competencies.

You may be thinking, "Great, but what's a 'core competency?"' While there are many definitions, here's a good one from Wikipedia:

" ACore competency is something that a firm can do well and that meets the following three conditions:

• It provides consumer benefits
• It is not easy for competitors to imitate
• It can be leveraged widely to many products and markets.

A core competency can take various forms, including technical / subject matter know how, a reliable process, and / or close relationships with customers and suppliers. It may also include product development or culture, such as employee dedication. "

For example, we could say that Southwest Airlines is a reliable airline that offers low fares. But in order to provide those benefits, it has to have certain "core competencies," important capabilities that enable it to have low fares and to be reliable. We believe that Southwest Airlines has four core competencies that it executes so well that it regularly beats all other US airlines in terms of profitability.

These core competencies are:

• The lowest operating costs per plane
• An economic point-to-point airport network
• A fanatical culture focused on customer service and cost savings
• An ability to keep planes in the air more of the time than its competitors.

Southwest airlines could not offer the benefits of low prices and reliable service if it did not master these core competencies. What key benefits do you want to offer your customers? What core competencies do you need to master to provide them?

The second component of a valid business strategy is a description of how you differentiate vs. competitors.

In our experience, differentiation is about being the best at something. This should be encapsulated in your mission statement - what are your company's aspirations and how are you going to beat the competition? We just talked about how Southwest Airlines differentiates - what are you going to offer customers that will make them choose your products or services so that you can grow your business?

It takes a lot of hard work to come up with a great answer to this question and even more work to make that difference real. It's easy for us to say that Southwest is the best low-cost airline in the US, but it's extraordinarily difficult for them to pull it off.

The third component of a valid business strategy is a description of the industry or industries in which you intend to compete.

You need to be able to define just what kind of company you are - are you a furniture manufacturer? A gift card retailer? A consulting firm, a bearings distributor, a toy importer, etc.? This step sounds easy but we find that companies are often so concerned about getting too narrow in their focus that they fail to become really clear about what they want to do. A company with a good business strategy will have thought through these issues and made the hard decisions necessary to clarify its identity. If it has, it can easily pass the litmus test of identifying the industry or industries in which it operates.

The fourth component of a business strategy is the set of initiatives you plan to implement in the areas of marketing, operations, information technology, finance and organizational development.

These are the plans that guide your company's focus and resource allocation over the next several years. If your business strategy is specific enough to be relevant, you will have detailed plans in all of these areas.

The fifth component of a business strategy is a financial plan that forecasts the results you expect to get from your plans and illustrates how they will meet stakeholder requirements over the next 3 to 5 years.

Your strategic planning process can not be separated from your annual budget process. In the vast majority of companies, if it's not in the budget, it does not exist. That's why you have to have a very senior financial person on your strategic planning team, preferably the CFO. During the planning process, your team must agree a financial plan that estimates the results of implementing your strategy. This plan needs to earn the approval of your company's management and board and should be reviewed on a regular basis to track results and make refinements.

So - those are the five components of a valid business strategy. Good luck planning your success. And succeeding because you plan.

Make Money Online - Starting Your Internet Business

Making money online by starting your own internet business is a big draw with economic conditions the way they are, many are trying to make extra or replace their income. Although the need and want are there, knowing where to start and what to market, gets many beginners very confused. Having a plan will help the confusion.

Time management is where many go wrong, they may have a regular job, or family to deal with and feel they just don't have time to start a business online. However having a plan with an effective system in place will allow even the beginner to run their business with less time.

Evaluate business opportunities When deciding what business you should set up, be sure they fit your needs and desires. Choose wisely, because by planning ahead you will be able to find many things that can be marketed by using the same type of system.

Choose one thing to market and learn the marketing techniques that it will take to make money online, by doing this before jumping to market a lot of different things at the same time, you will understand what it will take to make your business a success. Then you can take what techniques you know are successful and apply them to other markets.

By learning and improving your marketing skills, testing what works and fine tune it, you will be successful at starting your internet business. As an example: Many begin with affiliate marketing because it is easier to do, it can even be done without a web site or advertising budget.

However, as they learn an apply what the learn they soon realize that they can make more money online by having the proper tools in place, such as a domain name, web site and auto responder. These tools are used to build a list of potential buyers instead of sending them to someone else who will put them on their list and profit from you.

Another example is many start out writing articles to promote the products that they are selling because of budget restraints, but once they make enough they want to move on to pay per click or other ways to bring even more traffic, so take the time to learn and improve your skills and profit from them.

If you want to making money online by starting your own internet business, take action, make a plan so time can be managed, and you will have a system to follow. Evaluate business opportunities, and of course learn an improve as this needs to be done.

Investment Banking And Its Basics

There is a great deal of confusion among people about exactly what investment banking is. To make things clear, no - it has nothing to do with savings and fixed deposits. It is not something that the average people use on a daily basis. It is more commonly used by either investors or by those seeking investors and raise capital for their business. The investment banks simply help these two categories of people find their way to each other. There are always people who want to invest their money and make more of it than what they already have. One of the best ways to make idle money useful is through investing it. But the question of where to invest comes up. And to answer this question, they start looking for places and companies to invest in. This research is made a lot easier when they approach investment banks.

Similarly, there are businessmen on the lookout for money. Whether the businessman is looking to start-up a new business from scratch or just seeking to expand an existing business, he needs money. And this money is something he can get from investors. Looking alone, he might not be as successful in finding investors. But if he were to approach an investment bank, he would have access to a multitude of investors, with different needs. His chances of getting capital get higher. So basically, investment banking services include facilitating investors find potential investments and investments find potential investors. But These are not the whole and sole function of such banks - they do a lot more. They tend to take on matters like asset management, estate management and investment advisory. They help you to manage your finances smoothly and with little amount of trouble possible.

From figuring out specific aspects of business management to deciding where to invest in equity capital markets - these banks offer available services. They can act on your behalf or simply give advice, if you prefer to act on your own. The thing to remember is what they think is the best decision might not always be the best for you. Also remember that you will have to give away some personal and sensitive information to these banks for them to function well. You need to make sure you keep a keen eye on their actions, so that you do not end up with your trade secrets being leaked, leaving you the loser. You should also make note of their practices, so that you can pull out before something happens where you stand to lose more than you gain.

How To Play Time Management Games Online For Free

1. First a warning, playing games can be addicting so remember to manage your playing time. Also be sure to download time management games from sites that you trust and always keep your anti-virus program up to date.

2. Check your browser some time management games require the Internet Explorer browser and will not work with Firefox and some other browsers.

3. Decide if you want to play time management games online or download them and then play. Please check our "Times Management Games" section for resources that is updated regularly.

4. Let us look at some of the games that you can play for free online. As you will see there are many time management games to choose from so take the time and try several of them, you will soon find out which one you like the most.

Belle's Beauty Boutique:

'Belle's Beauty Boutique' you must help run a beauty parlor single-handedly. The owner, Belle, needs your help to give all of her customers the treatments they want. Help her wash, cut, shampoo and color a crazy cast of characters. Watch them gossip, flirt, and help Belle realize her dream of creating the ultimate beauty salon.

Big Island Blends:

After arriving on Big Island you discover that the "fortune" you've just inherited is an orchard? Well, what better way to turn your fields into a real fortune than opening a smoothie stand Serve your delicious fruit concoctions to the thirsty inhabitants of Big Island in level after level of fast-paced fun. Then, use your hard-earned money to purchase a wide variety of sparkling upgrades to make your smoothie stand the best on Big Island! Colorful, fast, and fun, try Big Island Blends for a unique taste of the tropics.

Burger Island:

Help our heroine Patty turn around a run-down burger stand located on deserted Mount Tikikola Beach in 'Burger Island'. Juggle orders from demanding customers, purchase over 30 exotic mouth-watering recipes, unlock more than 40 delicious ingredients, combining up to 9 per order, all while keeping an ever-watchful eye on the clock. With 60 increasingly challenging levels, see if you have what it takes to help Patty build the best burger stand on the island!

Burger Shop:

After receiving a set of strange blueprints in the mail, you build an extraordinary food-making contraption and open a restaurant. Your goal? Make food and satisfy customers until you discover the truth behind the mysterious blueprints. Burger Shop is a fun and addicting time-management game with several play modes including: Story Mode, Challenge Mode, Relax Mode and Expert Story Mode, each with different trophies you can collect. Utilize unique food making devices to make over fifty different food items during your quest. With four play modes, over sixty upgrade items and ninety-six trophies, you can play Burger Shop forever!

Cake Mania:

Baking runs in Jill's family. Help Jill upgrade her kitchen with state-of-the-art baking tools, while serving her ever-increasingly difficult customers. Help Jill earn enough to reopen her grandparents' bakery in this fast-paced culinary crisis.

Cake Mania 2:

After re-opening the Evans Bakery, and sending her grandparents on an exotic Hawaiian cruise, Jill is back in an all-new, out-of-this-world adventure! Explore six far-flung bakery locations; serve up deliciously original creations to 18 quirky customers, ranging from Federal Agents to mysterious Aliens, and choose the path Jill will take in 'Cake Mania 22!

Delicious 2:

Uncle Antonio needs Emily's help to get out of a financial fix. Help Emily rescue her family's finances in five all-new restaurants, each with a unique menu and theme. Use your earnings to purchase decorations sure to make your customers smile. Emily's friends and family are on hand to help, but it's going to take your serving savvy to get Uncle Antonio back on track. Featuring two game modes, all-new customers, and hours of fast family fun, 'Delicious 2 Deluxe' is just the thing to satisfy your craving for fun.

Features:

* Two Game Modes

* Five All-New Restaurants

* 60 Challenging Levels Featuring New Customers

* Decorate Your Restaurant Your Way

Delicious Deluxe:

Join Emily on her quest to make her dreams come true in two game modes and seven different restaurants. Success means more tables, bigger restaurants, and a menu full of uniquely delectable items. Tasty treats may keep your customers happy, but it's going to take quick clicks and careful timing to get Emily's ambitions off the ground. Take a bite out of Delicious today!

Features:

* Two Game Modes

* Seven Different Restaurants

* Bonuses Like Bigger Trays, Chocolate, and Stars

* Five Types of Customer

Diner Dash:

Diner Dash is the action-puzzle that brings out the entrepreneur in all of us. Poor Flo! Sick and tired of pushing paper in the world of finance, she ditched her desk job and is setting out to build her very own restaurant empire. Flo's on her own now and heading for the top! It won't be easy, though. To get there she'll have to start on the ground floor and she needs your help to survive and thrive. Diner Dash combines fast-paced puzzle action with a build-your-restaurant-empire theme. You'll start with a run-of-the-mill greasy spoon and end up in a dream restaurant that will take your breath away!

Features:

* 40 challenging levels of addictive, skill-based game play that allows you to grow your restaurant through 4 complete re-models

* Five different types of customers, each with different behaviors

* Two modes of play: Career and Endless Shift

* Fun sounds, cool visual style, flashy effects, and humorous animations

* High score tracking and automatic game save

Diner Dash®: Flo on the Go:

Flo trades in her apron for a passport to paradise! But will our hard-working waitress get a chance to relax? Seat customers, take orders, collect tips and dress up Flo in hundreds of vacation outfits in the all-new Flo's Closet".

Wedding Dash":

Help Quinn, a hopeful wedding planner, make wedding bells ring! Featuring the hilarious ups and downs of wedding day drama, 'Wedding Dash"' incorporates the plate-spinning fun from the 'Diner Dash®' series with the added challenge of pulling off the perfect wedding reception. Can you keep the bride and groom happy and Quinn's business afloat? Help couples select all the details - from tasty cakes to gorgeous flowers - but once they've tied the knot, lookout for obstacles preventing the perfect party, such as tipsy guests, falling cakes, and catty bridesmaids. When the going gets tough, keep an eye out for extra help from everyone's favorite server, Flo! It's a fast-paced challenge to execute a flawless event, but for the determined Quinn, it's all in a day's work!

5. There are several types of games available, some give you resources that you have use or spend to advance to the next level. Some time management games you must complete a number of tasks within a fixed period of time while in other games you have a certain number of lives, when you have lost them the games are over. Also there are games where you can continue to play until you figure out how to advance to the next level.

6. By now you have decided what time management game you want to play. Before you start the game check the game options, select the easiest level or story mode (where available) first time so you time to become familiar with the game.

7. As you become more experienced move through the different levels or game modes. Remember one of the advantages of playing time management games online is that you can communicate with other people playing the same game, so you can always ask for help.

8. Have fun but remember playing time management games can be addictive so take a break away from your PC every now and then.

Shortly we will look at time management games that you can download and play for free, so please re-visit or subscribe to our blog.

Warm regards,

Henrik

PS. Where can you find the games mentioned above? Please go to: http://games.aol.com/browse-games/arcade/time-management/

Who Owns the Business Smartphone? Mobile Device Liability

Today's enterprises have already learned how to deal with the complexities of their mobile employees and the information carried in their laptop computers. After all, the information in those laptops is confidential and owned by the corporation. Those same complexities-and many more-now arise from the employees' use of smartphones. Often, the data in a smartphone is just as sensitive and critical to the company as data in computers. Issues of security, compliance, legality, trust, and of course cost all need to be addressed.

All of these issues give rise to the biggest question of all-who should own the enterprise smartphone-the employee or the corporation? Smartphone use among U.S.-based information workers is expected to triple by 2013, according to Forrester Research. It seems that the decisions and strategies surrounding the control and ownership of these devices should be made sooner than later.

The cost of ownership is perhaps the easiest aspect to calculate. It might seem like just reimbursing an employee for a flat percentage of the bill from their own phone would be a quick and easy way to go. But there are hidden costs to consider, including the support costs of accounting, billing, and asset management, and for controlling things like overseas roaming charges. Not to mention keeping track of how and where the connection charges are occurring in the company, this can yield valuable information on the true costs of enterprise mobility.

Corporate-owned phones come with their own set of problems, like supporting the plethora of different phones and carrier types. Think again if you believe that you can just issue the same phone to everyone to control that complexity. It's usually the best performers, the hardest employee-type to recruit, who insists on having his or her own type of phone, "because it's worked for me in the past."

Even though it seems obvious that there is need to control employees' equipment and use-after all, there are hundreds of emails, calendars, documents, and confidential customer information stored on these smartphones-an increasing number of companies are loosening their hold on employee-owned handheld devices that are used for business purposes.

Today, half of the smartphones in use among U.S. and Canadian businesses are not company-issued equipment, according to a recent report from Forrester Research. Most companies are still grappling with the question of who should be liable for these devices. In this debate, there are still many unanswered questions and hidden trapdoors, including: What is meant by "liability"? What are the legal aspects that must be considered? How can I start to build a strategy that is meaningful and balances the needs of both the company and the employee?

What Is Meant by "Liability"?

There are many types of liability associated with owning and using a smartphone, including financial, regulatory, compliance, privacy, and legal liability, to name just a few. Financial liability is perhaps the easiest to understand. It would seem obvious that paying for individual liable (IL) carrier plans would be the responsibility of the employee. But what if the employee racks up a $5000 bill on a three-week business trip to Europe? And what if that employee uses a corporate liable (CL) phone to conduct an illegal activity with large financial consequences, like using the camera feature to take a picture of a competitor's confidential documents?

If you are in an industry with stiff regulatory and compliance considerations, it would be more likely that stronger controls and CL smartphones would be the norm. Of course, it is the data on that phone, and not the phone itself, that needs to be managed. In a larger company with adequate IT staffing, keeping sensitive data away from the phone with specialized software and firewalls is relatively easy. But what about smaller companies that allow phone access to company records on the company's private intranet?

Financial services and medical companies can have very high financial and legal ramifications for misuse of private data that might end up on a smartphone. Many of these companies require all corporate data to go through company-issued computers (and not phones) that have elaborate encryption and other data protection mechanisms. But "privacy" can have another definition. How about protection of employee-owned information that resides on a CL smartphone? Does the employer have the right to look at ALL of the data on the phone they own, even if they might happen upon some embarrassing photos?

And here's a hypothetical "who's liable" question. What if an employee happens to lose a next-generation prototype smartphone that is later found and sold to a technology magazine, so that the new features and technology can be "outed" to an interested public? What kind of insurance/risk management liability plan will cover THAT?

Legal Aspects of Data Ownership and Control

There is a distinct lack of legal clarity about what a company can and cannot control when it comes to smartphones. With case law lagging behind technology, how do you factor legal issues into the equation of who should own the smartphone?

Some generally accepted practices are starting to emerge. Corporate email messages and company data are owned by the company, regardless of where they reside. The company has unrestricted access to the information and can set usage policies that must be adhered to by the employee. On the other hand, courts have ruled that once this data is sent via the Webmail through a service like AOL out into the cloud, employers can lose the rights to confidentiality! The problem is multiplied exponentially if you are an international firm, because in the E.U., Japan, and Canada, all email is regarded as private to employees if it was authored by them.

Can an employer mandate control over CL or IL phones used for business purposes? One way that seems to hold up legally is through the use of employment agreements. Even if the phone is owned by the employee located in (let's say) Canada, a well-crafted employment agreement will trump the local laws about employee privacy of business email and text messages. Of course, the employment agreement will not hold up if it is only selectively or randomly enforced, which makes the employer the bad guy if it is strictly enforced with a heavy hand. It is generally agreed upon that any policy must be well understood and "bought into" through consensus to be able to avoid lawsuits over privacy issues.

Start with a Strategy

There are too many variables in the equation to go about randomly managing your policy for smartphone use, ownership, and control. At the core, you need to define your strategy upfront. What are the business goals you want to accomplish? How do you balance the needs of BOTH the employee AND the company? Since every function and level of a company-not just sales and marketing Road Warriors-is affected by this plan, the strategy must be well thought out.

Segmentation of user types is generally the first step of the strategy. Forrester analyst Ted Schadler recommends dividing your information workers into several groups based on how their mobile enablement benefits the company:

• Those who use the most sensitive data get company-paid, company-managed smartphones














• Those who work extensively away from their desks receive subsidies for most or all of their personal smartphone charges














• Those who work away from their desks occasionally receive a partial subsidy for their personal smartphone use














• Those who rarely work away from their desks receive no subsidy, and you may consider locking their smartphones out of your systems altogether.

Conclusion

So who should own the smartphone? There is no perfect answer. Sometimes it's the employee, sometimes the employer. Times have changed and employee expectations are different. The workforce today is demanding to choose their own devices. The locked down, two-year old corporate device just doesn't cut it anymore.

Planning for this dynamic is the new reality. Forrester's Schadler says, "The secret to smartphone management is treating employees like grown-ups and using a 'trust and verify' model for policy control. You have to stop treating it as an IT policing issue, and instead treat it as a business risk management question."

More and more companies are already starting to make this shift in their thinking. A balance needs to be found between issuing smartphones as an IT-controlled management tool, to letting a certain subset of employees own the responsibility for their own devices. That balance point will vary for every company. One thing is certain-the IL/CL debate will rage on for a quite a while to come.

Performance Measurement, Operational and Financial Performance

Empirically, most strategy research studies employ the construct of business performance to examine a variety of strategy content and process issues (Ginsberg and Venkatraman, 1985). This second article in the series concerns the use of financial and operational performance; through the summarization of two seminal papers written by Venkatraman and Ramanujam (1986) and Kaplan and Norton (1992).

Venkatraman and Ramanujam (1986) study consider as an important document for the theoretical discussion regarding the evaluation of the measurement of business performance. One of the key issues addressed by this study is the attempt to delineate the performance concept. More specifically, whether business performance should be differentiated from the overall discussion on organizational effectiveness. The view taken by Venkatraman and Ramanujam (1986) was that business performance, which reflects the perspective of strategic management, is a subset of the overall concept of organizational effectiveness. The narrowest conception of business performance centers on the use of simple outcome based financial indicators that are assumed to reflect the fulfillment of the economic goals of the firm. Venkatraman and Ramanujam (1986) refer to this concept as financial performance. Financial performance measurement is a multi-dimensional one. Sample of financial measures, group into dimensions can be presented as follow: Profitability - return on investment (ROI), earning before interest and tax (EBIT), gross profit margins. Growth - market share growth, Sales Growth. Efficiency - return on sales (ROS), return on equity (ROE). Analyses made by using single financial measure or several measures relating to only one dimension may lead to misleading conclusions. According to Venkatraman and Ramanujam (1986) a border conceptualization of business performance would include emphasis on measures of operational performance, which consists of those key parameters which may lead to an improvement in financial performance. Venkatraman and Ramanujam (1986) note that it would be logical to treat operational performance measures such as market-share, new product introduction, product quality, marketing effectiveness, manufacturing value-added, within the domain of business performance.

Kaplan and Norton (1992) have presented another seminal paper regarding the measurement of business performance. Its name, "The Balanced Scorecard - measures that drive performance" could suggest for the way they approach the issue. According to the writers, since there is increasing need, both for large and small businesses, to master a variety of capabilities in different fields, the traditional measures of financial performance gives inadequate, or in some cases inaccurate, perspective for the status of the business and its ability to keep improving. The balanced scorecard tries to overcome these difficulties through the completion of financial measures, which reflect for actions that already have been taken, with those of operational performance measures, which consists of parameters that may drive the forthcoming financial performance. Operational measures according to the balanced scorecard constructed from three dimensions - How do customers see us? (Customer perspective), What must we excel at? (Internal perspective), Can we continue to improve and create value? (Innovation and learning perspective).

Business Sales Close Plan - Milestones to Close the Deal

Being with my feet on the sales ground for 25 years in IT, I can recommend that many steps in the sales process need to be discussed and agreed internally and with the business customer to come to an agreed and signed contract.

Following this sales process through a so called 'Sales Close Plan', describes all the necessary milestones that need to be agreed from a resource perspective, internally from a supplier perspective as well as from the business customer resource perspective. This Sales Close Plan will enable you to set up the right expectations during the contract negotiation milestones during an enterprise sales process.

Discuss with your business customer the close plan and have your customer sign / off the Sales Close Plan on timescales and milestones. If each stone is finalized confirm this in email to your customer so all expectations and potential road blocks keeps transparent and visible to you as supplier and business customer.

1. Identify the Power Sponsors:

Which customer contacts have the power to approve or veto a major contract deal?
Who are the business owners?

2. Identify customer procurement process:

Send Non Disclosure for approval.
Perform Customer due diligence and screening.
Is supplier employee screening process required?
What are customer standard terms & conditions?
What are the expected legal challenges? Intellectual property, Warranty ...?
What are the payment terms?
What is the VAT number?
What are the shipping address details?
What are the billing address details?
Discover expense costs cap guidelines.
What is the business identity code?
Will payment be in Dollars / Euro ...?
What are the finance contact details?
Which legal resources are required from supplier, internally, externally?

3. Approval process:

Who needs to approve from the IT department?
Who needs to give approval from the business department?
Is budget available? If not when?
Is Board approval required to close the deal? I yes, when is next Board meeting
Which person from the Board supports business case?
Do we need a reference visit and who will attend from the customer?
Which reference do we nominate for site visit or phone interview?
Agree on travel arrangements for reference visit.

4. Feedback 1st round legal / proposal discussions:

Does the commercials / T & C's in the proposal need to be updated to get a deal?
If yes, which resources from supplier and customer are required?
Do we need internal approval from higher management for this?
Is customer requesting any legal adjustments that need further legal review by supplier?

5. Send new proposal / T & C's contracts:

Agree date for presentation final proposal to customer.
Is customer verbally accepting new proposal / T & C's?

6. Contracts:

When will customer sign / off contracts?
When can signed contracts be collected at customer?
Reconfirm resources allocation.
Start of project or delivery.