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NEWS - MANAGEMENT
Exporting tips for small business
A number of tips for export success were presented by economics writer Peter Switzer at a recent Top Exporters' Breakfast in Sydney.
The event was part of Austrade's annual Australian Export Awards activities. Mr Switzer led a discussion on export success and highlighted a number of key strategies that contribute to global success including targeting growing niche markets, mental and financial stability and forming strong relationships with partners.
Podcast your way to business success
So you wanna be in podcasting? Here are five things a business might do to harness the power of the podcast, and a great new software tool for putting a show together.
Innovative ideas are the ties that bind
What works when we hire? Well, to start with we look at a person's values rather than their technical experience: experience is generally obsolete in six months' time, but values stay forever.
Franchising and how to beat the copy catch
Every week in Australia, one or two businesses will embark on an entrepreneurial adventure into franchising. They will do so with great expectations, as will the franchisees that join their fledgling enterprises, especially those who regard a franchise as a fail-safe method of making money.
Due diligence: undervalued and overlooked
Effective due diligence of an acquisition or merger is critical in determining final terms and price for the acquisition, and for planning integration priorities post completion.
Email systems for busy executives
Email isn't working for many business executives because we are trying to use it for tasks it was never designed for.
How to build a winning business
Perhaps it's a desire to escape the corporate grind and go it alone. Or maybe it's a longstanding wish to pursue that clever idea you've had for years and that you are convinced will make you a fortune. Whatever the reason, many people dream of going into small business.
Crackdown on negligent managers
Middle managers, consultants and contractors could be found liable for corporate misconduct if proposals to close gaps in the law identified by the HIH Royal Commission are adopted.
The good boss
Curtain installer, John Mattiuzzo, was driving through Melbourne's suburban backstreets last Friday when his mobile phone rang. It was a call he had been expecting all day. Tony Cassar, the managing director of Victory Curtains and Blinds where Mattiuzzo has worked for the past five years, was on the line wishing him happy birthday.
The graduate skills that count
Consider this: One job applicant achieves high distinctions at university, but has no hobbies. Another scores a more modest credit but plays netball and is an amateur actor. Which one would you hire?
Burnout a problem for women of all ages
It may seem an unusual time of year to bring up the topic of burnout, but for many women the prospect of another year spent juggling work and family responsibilities can bring on a quick attack of exhaustion, and even prompt a move to a less demanding job or out of the workforce.
Small business still neglects IT security issues
Most SMEs still fail to have adequate data security procedures in place despite increased regulatory focus on the responsibilities of information holders to manage their data securely.
How to transfer the know-how
When a person sizes up a complex situation and comes to a rapid decision that proves not just good but brilliant, you think, "That was smart." After you have watched this happen a few times, you realise you are in the presence of something special. It is not raw brainpower or emotional intelligence, though often both of these are involved. It is deep smarts, the stuff that produces that mysterious quality, good judgement.
Workers stick with the boss they know
It's an employee's market and businesses are finding it harder to find the right people, but new figures suggest workers are not using the healthy conditions to jump ship.
Emotions belong in the office too
The concept of emotional intelligence has generated so much interest in business circles since it was popularised by Daniel Goleman's book on the topic in the mid-1990s that it has become a fixture in management lexicons.
Happiness is a bottom-line business
A happy workforce is a productive workforce: not many people would argue with that. But how to go about making staff happy about their work - and whether it is possible to do so - is a more complex issue.
The fundamentals of executive success
An effective executive does not need to be a leader in the sense that the term is now most commonly used. Harry Truman did not have one ounce of charisma, for example, yet he was among the most effective chief executives in US history.
Expanding your business
The company is up and running, sales figures are doubling every month and you are expanding fast. Now comes the hard part: finding the money to continue the expansion. Where do you get it?
Recruitment becomes more discerning
As more signs emerge of a rejuvenated job market, the experts are warning there will be no return to the excesses of the "war for talent" and that many employers are becoming highly selective in their recruiting.
Fitness Concerns
You may be overweight and middle-aged and you've decided to take up exercise. Great idea. Being sedentary and overweight costs $1.3 billion each year in associated illnesses, so you owe it to yourself and the government's health bill to quit being a slob. But here's a cautionary note: don't let your enthusiasm for exercise hasten your arrival at the coronary care unit.
How to disagree with your boss
You're attending a meeting in which the boss unveils his latest ideas for making changes in your department. As he enthusiastically outlines his plans, you can see a couple of major flaws. Should you speak up, or is silence the prudent approach?
Getting serious about job stress
Stress in the workplace can cost companies and organisations large sums of money. Managers are now coming to grips with the problem.
Businesses prepare for SPAM legislation
New spam legislation is forcing local companies to take stock of their communication strategies. Marketing reviews and makeovers are top of the agenda as many firms get back to business this week.
Finding ways to get staff to go the extra mile
When businesses decide that they need to devise an incentive program to keep staff interested and productive, the top prize is often some form of travel. But the more common prizes are merchandise in various forms.
SMEs secure growth the self-help way
The small to medium-sized enterprise end of the market has powered ahead, despite most sources of speculative capital - capital that fuels the more dramatic success stories in the SME end of the market - drying up during the prolonged stockmarket slump.
Starting out: key factors in setting up a new venture
You have a small lump sum, and you want to use it to start your own small business. How do you pick a healthy, fast growing and profitable sector?
Gauging employees' emotional wellbeing
There have been few ideas in the business realm that have attracted as much interest and scepticism as emotional intelligence.
Why net's still a challenge for SMEs
They might be confident about the future, but small businesses are still finding it a challenge to adopt new technologies.
Rewarding staff to recruit talent proves successful
The "war for talent" may have quietened down but companies are still paying their staff in cash, holidays or other incentives to recommend or refer potential candidates for positions ranging from call centre recruits to partners at global professional service firms.
Giving staff a bit more to get results
A receptionist is given a $100 cash bonus as part of a reward scheme and finds the reward to be deflating and demotivating. A top salesman at the same company wins a trip to Perth plus a small plaque for being salesman of the year.
Watch over your young staff
In many ways, 36-year-old Charles Armstrong is a natural leader. He's brilliant, creative, energetic, aggressive - a strategic and financial genius. He's risen quickly through the ranks due to his keen business instincts and proven ability to deliver bottom-line results, at times jumping from one organisation to another to leapfrog through the hierarchy. But now his job is on the line. A division president at an international consumer products company, he's uncovered a major production setback on a heavily promoted new product. Thousands of orders have been delayed, customers are furious, and the company's stock price has plummeted since the news went public.
Motivation and wealth creation
The bottom line on share plans is that they are probably the best long-term means of motivating executives and employees, reckons financial adviser Rowan Wall. The plans allow you to become wealthy without the need for capital, says Wall, whose Sydney-based Eclipse Financial Group specialises in providing financial advice to senior and chief executives.
Government tries again to drop 100 shareholders rule
The right of small groups of shareholders to force company boards to hold special general meetings would be watered down under planned federal government changes to company law.
Research can avoid franchise failures
People looking to buy franchises must do their homework if they want to avoid losing their investment, the author of a new survey has warned.
Small businesses not facing up to risks
Lack of financial management skills is the biggest threat to the long-term viability of many small businesses.
SMEs reap rewards of e-commerce
Small and medium-sized enterprises might be spending less on computer software and hardware but they are continuing to increase their computer, online and internet activities, according to a new e-business survey.
Four areas of business you cannot ignore
Running a small business successfully requires very similar management skills to any senior executive job. It also takes additional skills that many may need to learn, as there are smart ways of running a business in a practical sense that can make a huge difference to its success.
20 questions to ask before you enter a new business
Do you know if you have what it takes to run and manage a small business? Following are 20 questions that all prospective small business owners should ask themselves before they jump in at the deep end.
Risk management practices booming
When terrorists smashed hijacked planes into New York and Washington on September 11 last year, two results no doubt far from the minds of the perpetrators were to plunge the insurance industry into chaos, and greatly boost the practice of risk management.
Hands-on landlords often manage worse
Should one manage their own investment properties or not? Now you've parted with hard-earned dollars and taken on a pile of new debt to buy that investment property, how do you ensure you get the best return?
Customer retention techniques
One method to retain customers is known as the RFM method which works on a scoring applied to individual customers to select which customers will respond most favorably to promotions. RFM stands for recency (of their last purchase), frequency (how often do they purchase) and monetary value (how much did they spend).
CRM caution
Experience has shown that there is no such thing as a silver bullet as far as technology solutions are concerned. No matter how grand the promises made, investing multimillion-dollar sums into sophisticated software and hardware does not guarantee a miraculous lift in performance as far as the corporate buyer is concerned.
Formulae for success
The string of businesses that have been operated by Dick Smith suggest that this high-profile entrepreneur uses a four-step formula to launch and run new ventures.
New challenges for firms outsourcing
Outsourcing is often seen as a panacea for business problems. Yet scaling back an organisation's in-house activities to core functions and contracting out much of everything else throws up new challenges.
Pitfalls of contracts in inexperienced hands
It's now more than a decade since outsourcing first made its way into Australia's business lexicon. Over the past 10 years companies from all spheres of industry have found outsourcing to be an effective way of managing, and then reducing, complexity.
Web enabled businesses net higher, faster growth
Australia's internet economy is alive and running generating more than $28 billion in revenue each year and incorporating the majority of Australian companies.
You don't have to dob in a mate!
Every schoolkid knows the rule - you don't dob in a mate. Now the principle has been backed by Australia's premier industrial tribunal.
Businesses forced to reveal margins
Australian companies will be forced to reveal commercially sensitive information, including their profit margins, under tough new accounting standards that come into effect at the end of the month.
Rents make a moving argument
Small businesses across Australia are revisiting their financial accounts as property rents increase, interest rates remain low and the opportunity to buy improves.
Sound small business pc advice
Modern personal computers have been serving the needs of small business for approximately 20 years now. For most of that time the smart strategy was simply to buy as much computer power as possible.
Executive Leasing - expensive cars
Consultants who arrange novated leases for executives say it happens all the time - an executive is told he can have any car he wants, provided it fits his salary, and promptly falls in love with a gleaming Porsche or BMW that is a shade too expensive.
Companies warned to lock in privacy policies
Businesses must get their privacy policy in order as the countdown has started, the deadline being set by stricter legislation scheduled to start later this year.
Privacy guidelines out for public comment
The public is being urged to help shape new controls on the use of personal information by private enterprise. From December this year, most businesses will be subject to national privacy standards, unless they develop their own codes.
Ruling puts contractors on par with employees
Workers engaged as independent contractors have for the first time been classified as employees and given rights to paid leave, overtime and protection against unfair dismissal, in an historic labour law ruling.
Corporate Law Reform - Directors of wholly owned subsidiaries and section 187
Part of the CLERP proposals have been the consolidation of the Corporation laws and clarification of directors duties. Section 232 of the Corporations Law used to deal with directors duties. These duties are now located at section 191 and are supplemented by other new laws such as section 187.
Beware of the dangers in writing references
Management should beware of the potential liability in a reference, should a legal wrangle arise.
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