Business Process Management System

I have been wondering about why some companies perform well and others do not: and why those companies that do perform well, get it, while those that don’t, usually don’t know how much they’ve left on the table. No, this is not a Jim Collins expose on “Good to Great,” yet performance, whether in management, finance, operations, customer service or growth initiatives, are what makes a company a company, and it also determines which company will succeed and which will fall short of their expectation.

As an executive, I am always looking at ways to increase the value of Upstart’s offering, Upstart: Business and Management for 20-40 Year Old Professionals.  I’m also interested in the types of business models and strategies that companies pursue, in terms of what strategies, tactics and execution techniques are replicable for any company, and which should be personalized for maximum efficacy for each enterprise.

Reading the book, Strategic Six Sigma,” which might help you create optimal performance from your business processes and services. This is what I learned:

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1. Six Sigma tools and concepts provide a means to optimally align all of an organization’s components-from leaders, culture, and mission and strategy on the one hand, to structure, management practices, systems, work climate, and employee skill sets and behaviors on the other-to help a company achieve breakthrough levels of business performance.

2. A CEO and senior leadership team must;

Develop a committed team of leaders to support Six Sigma initiatives.
Integrate Six Sigma strategic thinking and best practices into the company’s strategy planning and deployment process.
Ensure that the company is both passionate and consistent about being in touch with customers.
Create a business process framework to sustain Strategic Six Sigma for the long-term.
Develop quantifiable measures-then demand tangible results from people.
Develop incentives/create accountability/reward performance.
Be committed to having full-time and well-trained Six Sigma Leaders in place to sustain initiatives over time.

3. Forget building a learning organization. You first have to build a listening organization-a company whose people have their ears to the ground.

4. The use of strategic Six Sigma thinking and methods;

Measuring business and product/service conformance to customer requirements.
Creating specific continuous actions to reduce to variation in existing business processes that cause failures to conform to customer requirements.
Creating new innovative products/services and processes to specifically meet customer and market requirements.

5.  Using strategic Six Sigma to facilitate supply chain redesign; help link companies, customers, and suppliers together with a common set of metrics, operating parameters, and performance expectation.

6.  Customer Relationship Management;

Define their customer strategies and better understand the nature and needs of individual customer or market segments.
Conduct market research that can be used for product enhancement or the creation of new products and services.
Create effective channel and product strategies, the means a company will deliver their products and services.
Put the right infrastructure in place to support all dimensions of customer care; from new business development, market analysis, and segmentation, to the careful development and nurturing of key account and creation of long-term customer loyalty.
Create the ultimate in customized products and services.
Monitor conformance to customer requirements through real-time customer dashboard.

Look for the next installment to this posting: Best Practice: Strategic Six Sigma Pt. 2.

Good Luck

Calvin Wilson Founder and CEOCalvin.wilson1@verizon.netUpstart: Business and Management for 20-40 Year Old Professionals
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SEO Best Practices – Search Engine Optimization refers to optimizing your website so that it is best read by a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo and index it high on it’s search results. However, to achieve high rankings and better indexing by the search engines, we need to follow certain practices and guidelines laid down by the Search Engine Webmasters. These guidelines does take a lot of time bit if followed slowly, make a great difference to one’s ranking. Here are some of the SEP practices that needs to be religiously followed.

Always write original and business related content. Make sure your website has useful and relevant information only. Duplicate content will be easily caught up by smart search engines and will eventually be black listed by the smart bots.

Search Engines bots indexes better if the website structure is clean and simple. Therefore always have a clean and simple website navigation structure. This will help the search engine to easily browse through the related pages for faster and better indexing.

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Always have a good sitemap for your site. A sitemap in XML makes it easier for search engines to understand the structure of your site and they follow the sitemap to faster index your website. Google and other search engines understand the XML, which is why they give it more value.

Social networking and social bookmarking helps your website index faster in search engines. These social networking sites are faster and better indexed by search engines and in turn a link to your site will help the Google bot visit your site more often. Some of the popular social networking sites include Digg, FaceBook and StumbleUpon. While doing links, do not clog your site with links. Follow link building procedure as slow and steady process. Instant links can also harm your site.

Try to get your site on other important websites by getting a link on their website. The site with higher PR will have more indexing chances. Always exchange links with most relevant websites. Don’t try to spam your links on websites such as Craigslist or Kijiji, or poor link farm classified sites. These will only harm your site chance of traffic boost.

Finally the content and the structure of the website should be good and in accordance with the search engines guidelines. The website should have proper and unique titles, meta tags, meta description and image alts. Keep your webpage free from any syntax error and validate your HTML and CSS.

If you are looking for professional search engine marketing for your website, please visit us at www.platinait.com for more information. We are a full service IT Company based out of Toronto area and serve markets in the US and Canada for their IT requirements including Web development services, Ecommerce Solutions, Social media Marketing, Custom Software development, Online Marketing as Search Engine Optimization. Platina IT Technologies – Expect More!

Paul HPlatina Technologies
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DETORIT, M.I. – Fuel mileage can be increased with simple changes in driving. Small shifts may help create the most efficient driving routine possible for owners. It is important to take into account the driver’s actions, the vehicle and especially the exterior environment. Every little shift can cause a big difference in fuel efficiency.

Chevrolet recently decided to run an experiment between two drivers using the same vehicle. The two drivers were tracked as they completed normal activities on a morning commute to see the difference between each driver’s fuel economy.

Both GM fuel-economy engineers would be driving a Chevrolet Cruze LT. The estimated fuel economy for this vehicle is 24 mpg city and 36 mpg highway. Conditions included driving for 20 minutes, city and highway, as well as a stopping for coffee. Engineer A drove with efficient driving habits while Engineer B did not. The following are the results of the drives:

Engineer A: averaged 37 mpg
Engineer B: averaged 21 mpg

Based on 15,000 a year and $4 a gallon for gas, the difference in driving habits means Engineer A would spend $1,621 per year on gas while Engineer B would spent $1,236 more with a total of $2,857 per year in gas accumulated by both drivers

According to Roger Clark, Manager of the GM Energy Center, in a General Motor press release, “With a well-maintained car, the best drivers get up to 25 percent more miles per gallon than average. When you combine a poorly maintained car with inefficient driving habits, the fuel economy of the worst drivers can be 50 percent below average.”

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Clark added, “The fuel economy of every vehicle is greatly affected by how you drive, and how you care for your vehicle. Often, relatively small changes to your driving habits and vehicle maintenance can make the difference between being on the bottom, or the top, of the fuel-economy scale.”

After studying both sets of driver data, here are some fuel mileage best practices and what not to do while driving.

Five Best Practices

Turn off the engine whenever possible. Fifteen minutes of idling burns through an average of a quarter of a gallon.
Drive smoothly. Accelerating quickly and hitting the brakes can lower gas mileage by 20 percent.
Drive 70 mph instead of 80. The 10 mph difference can save up to four mpg on the highway.
Use cruise control on the highway to maintain efficiency. Speeding up and slowing down lowers the efficiency of the vehicle.
Keep windows rolled up on the highway. The increased air pressure with the windows down means the engine works harder, so it consumes more energy.

Five What-Not-To Dos

Let tires drive with low pressure. Although air pressure lower than recommended will not change the drive, it will cause the vehicle to work harder. Ten pounds of pressure lower can take more than three percent of fuel efficiency away.
Leave car decorations/ornaments up while driving. Up to a third of fuel is used to overcome wind resistance, so any added change will shift the aerodynamics in a big way.
Carrying heavy or extra items in the trunk. Every 100 pounds of weight reduces the fuel mileage by two percent, so remove any unneeded items from the vehicle when traveling.
Ignore the ‘check engine’ light. Serious engine problems can cause fuel economy to decline up to 40 percent.
Not running errands together and spreading them out. A cold engine is 50 percent less efficient than an engine running at operating temperature, so a day of errands is better than one errand every day of the week.

Fuel mileage may be affected by the smallest of changes. By following these best practices and not doing the others, consumers may see an increase in their fuel mileage.

MI Auto Times covers all Michigan automotive news all the time, featuring newly released vehicle recall information, relevant Michigan automaker news, vehicle ratings and comparisons, and everything else auto-related Michigan and world readers need to know.

Got a hot tip? Send your news tips to news@miautotimes.comor connect with us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/MichiganAutoTimes.[Source(s): GM Media] 
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Hello Class! In this lesson we will cover Best Practices you should consider implementing into your trade show program. “Best Practices” is one of those buzz words (OK, two words) that mean a lot of different things to different people. It usually is a collection of knowledge and rules as to how certain things should be done to ensure a certain level of quality, avoid
oversights and ensure certain results.

In our case, trade show best practices are a set of rules and guidelines that simplify the tradeshow planning process, make sure that we don’t miss anything important and speed up the exhibiting process.

During my career I have seen a number of different implementations, and the level of detail you decide to have depends on many factors, but the size of your organization and the number of shows you participate in are usually key. If you work for a large company, detailed best practices are particularly important since a much larger number of people are involved in planning and executing your shows. If you have multiple event planners organizing shows at
the same time, you want to avoid everyone coming up with their own sets of
rules, vendors and programs.

Examples:

To illustrate my point, let me give you two examples you would want to see covered in your best practices guide:

1. Process for Graphic Design and Printing of Collateral

Now why would you need to define that? First of all you want to avoid everyone going out creating their own material and risk inaccuracies in content and a non-consistent look and feel. You also want a uniform acquisition
process to save cost.

Here are some sample rules:

The latest collateral files can be accessed at <location>, usually a file server or collaboration site such as Microsoft Sharepoint.

If you need new material created, make sure it follows the design guide located at <location> and have it approved by <name or job title or department> and sent for printing at least <number> days before the show. Make sure to have at least <number> vendors from the approved vendor list provide a quote before awarding the contract.

Of course there can be much more detail for a single topic like this. You may spell out conditions before new material can be considered, or point towards a collaboration site to make sure nobody else is working on the same or similar material etc.

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2. Process for Promotional Materials (give-aways)

Existing inventory of promotional items can be found at <location>.

New promotional items may only be ordered after providing sufficient documentation about the purpose of the items, the intended recipients and cost of items. Any new items have to be approved by <name or title or department> and have to follow the guidelines located at <location>.
Approved new orders may be placed after getting at least <number> of quotes from the approved vendors, a list can be found at <location>.
Use of existing promotional items requires approval by <name or title or department>.

Key Considerations

You have to decide on how many rules you need and how detailed the rules have to be, usually based on your audience. A good way to start is to make a list of all activities that are part of exhibiting,pre-show, at show and post show. Also make a list of vendors and people (or job functions) involved in that process.

Keep your written guidelines as easy to read as possible using few words and bullet points instead. But make sure you have enough detail that the respective responsible party understands what to do.

I suggest analyzing your best practices frequently and updating them as necessary. Collecting feedback on the effectiveness is an important part; and always encourage suggestions for improvement.

Key Areas for Best Practices

Below is a generic list to help you get started. Your company will have items that need to be added and some that won’t apply.

Targeted shows
Goals and objectives 
Per show budget criteria
Guidelines for marketing collateral, promotional items, public
     relations and display
Display Guidelines: Graphics, messaging, handling, shipping,
     booth layout, approved display types, general pricing and preferred
     vendors
Approved graphic files and where to access (for display,
     collateral, etc.)

     Forms to fill in (for show requests, materials, displays, etc.)
How to get approval for XYZ
Booth staff: Procedures, uniform, goals, training meetings,
     incentives, travel and expenses
Lead process and follow up
Shipping and material handling procedures: pre-show, at show and
     post show
Measure and report on ROI and ROO post-show for each show

Make Your “Trade Show Best Practices”
Program Successful

Involve senior management
Market benefits of the “trade show
     best practices” guidelines internally (via email, intranet, in meetings,
     company webcast, company newsletter or company E-zine etc.)
Ask for feedback and make changes to
     the guidelines as needed.

Homework

Start thinking about how best practices guidelines could be implemented within your company. Create an outline and discuss these guidelines and benefits with sales/marketing department heads or upper management. Then fill in each area with details of the process; keep the details brief and concise. When the first draft is complete, send a copy to the sales/marketing department heads for feedback.  Once the guidelines are completed, hold a meeting with the appropriate departments to unveil the “trade show best practices” guidelines!

That’s it for now. I’ll be back with another lesson for you soon! Bye for now.

About Linda Musgrove, the TradeShow Teacher

Linda Musgrove is President of the Trade Show Training firm, TradeShow Teacher. She focuses on teaching companies to significantly improve Trade Show Results through
strategic, customized Trade Show Training for individuals, departments or  entire teams. Musgrove also presents customized training programs for Trade Show Producers to offer exhibitors. Most recently she authored  “The Complete Idiots Guide to Trade Shows”, published by Alpha Books/Penguin Publishing. Learn more at http://www.tsteacher.com
and sign up for the FREE monthly Trade Show Tactics newsletter. Follow on
Twitter at: http://twitter.com/tsteacher . Send an invite to connect on LinkedIn (email is: linda@tsteacher.com)

Linda Musgrove is the founder and president of TradeShow Teacher, a full-service, result-driven trade show management firm based in South Florida. Her brainchild was the culmination of 14 years of extensive ‘hands on’ experience in marketing, advertising, and graphic design.Her interest in her field started at age 16 and she later attended both Art Institutes in NYC (Center for Media Arts) and Miami (International Fine Arts College).Musgrove’s passion for all that is trade shows was a result of inheriting the trade show responsibilities of a client when she was doing corporate work in marketing.She has been quoted as saying, “It was then, I fell in love. The creativity and buzz on the show floor is invigorating . . .It is extremely gratifying and fulfilling to be able to use my knowledge and skills to help businesses make their trade show programs successful and inturn grow their business and revenue.”Widely recognized as an industry expert, Musgrove is a regular contributor to trade publications and authored The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Trade Shows,published in 2009 by Alpha Books/Penguin Publishing.Musgrove has contributed to thousands of shows combining her business edge with a creative flair. She has worked on trade shows in a vast range of industries including organic and natural fare but predominantly specializes in the hi-tech and healthcare industries.Trade publication Exhibit City News honored Musgrove with the award of “Top 40 Under40 in the Trade Show Industry” in 2009 for her dedication in providing clientsthe tools and strategies they need to be a trade show success.
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ERP implementation is an uphill task involving huge monetary investment and time. Success and failure of ERP implementation rests on the best practices adopted by the organizations. Many organizations go for ERP implementation without much planning and cases of failure with ERP are not rare. Intelligent planning is essential for successful ERP implementation to squeeze out the maximum return on investment. Selection of the right ERP software may give you high returns while a wrong selection may prove to be disastrous. Return on investment may not fall in line with the expectations as lots of factors are associated with its implementation and usage. The best practices of ERP implementation can be summarized as:

Define goals and requirements: The organization should sort out the requirements and define the goals accordingly before going for ERP implementation. Set feasible targets according to the capability and remain focused on them while selecting ERP software. ERP software offers varied features and benefits, but one should be very specific while selecting it. Analysis of the vendor’s capabilities is essential, and proper communication should be maintained to keep the vendor aware of the minutest details of transactions carried out in the organization.

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Devote time in planning: Allocate at least 4-5 months for effective planning before ERP implementation. Careful planning will help in budgetary allocation as per the organizational requirements. Enough time must be provided to test the new business processes, customization and security features of the ERP system. Proper testing will help to analyze the future returns of the implemented ERP system.

Identifying critical business processes: The organization should identify the critical business processes and make sure that these processes provided by the vendor function with extreme precision. The ERP should be able to analyze the business processes properly and decide the priority. It should be flexible in adopting new technologies and strategies instead of sticking to the old ones.

Aim in getting good ROI: The implemented ERP system should provide good return on investment. Analyze the key cost areas including cost of implementation and other hidden costs. Keep a track on the post implementation performance to achieve an appreciable ROI.

Training the in house staff: Proper training should be provided to the in house staff, as ROI depends a lot on the users. If required, consultants from outside should be hired to train them about the proper usage of the software.

Distribution of resources: Proper distribution of resources among the staff members and project team is important for successful ERP implementation. An efficient project manager should head the team and guide through various stages of implementation.

Forming risk management team: The responsibility of the team is to find out any flaws in the planning and eliminate them timely. The team should maintain a counter plan in case any problem crops up during the implementation process.

Data Migration: This is the most crucial phase of ERP implementation. Sorting out the relevant data discarding the irrelevant ones should be done carefully, while migrating data into the new system.
Read information about Cost of ERP Implementation. Also know about Annual Maintenance Cost for ERP. Read Sage X3 ERP Review.
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Do you know what email marketing best practices are? Well, people with interest in internet marketing still have some know how about these marketing tools but if you are new to this online world, beware you may have to face lot of hurdles. But if you want to have a smooth experience online you need to learn the tricks of the game. As far as email marketing concepts are concerned, it is definitely a great tool to promote your business online.  Are you serious about setting an email marketing campaign? First you should check out all the email marketing templates.

Like all other online marketing templates, the email marketing templates are extremely effective if done properly. If you do them badly, you are not going to get the desired results. Email marketing is a very creative and highly interesting field which involves various things. You need to learn the tricks of the game beforehand; otherwise you will face lot of difficulties. Remember, online marketing require lot of efforts and creativity in your presentation. In email marketing, the major thing is the email content which needs to be catchy and crispy. There should not be any trace of marketing in your content. A reader if find even a small trace of marketing element in your mail, he/she would definitely decline the mail. It would go into junk. All your efforts would go waste. So, is there any success mantra? Of course, one can get best of the results with this email marketing campaign, provided you understand the email marketing best practices.

Now if you are wondering what these email marketing best practices are, then you must browse the web! There is ample information on the World Wide Web. People who are familiar with the internet and its usage know very well what the difference between use and misuse of technology is and what the intricacies are. Let’s first discuss the main aspect, the email marketing templates. While using these templates be very careful about the use of images. Never add any important content within the image, it might so happen that “image cannot be displayed” message could flash at the top of your mail. This would damage the whole presentation. So, it is better if you don’t rely on images for presenting any kind of information. And if you need images then make sure their pixels are properly aligned with the mail. Most importantly, you need to check your email compatibility with number of different email service providers.

Hence, if you will take care of all these things, no one can stop you from achieving success in your email marketing campaign.

Author has 3 years experience in Internet Marketing.In Today’s world online marketing is the best way to attract customers through targeted email marketing and email marketing best practices best way to attract targeted marketing .
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