Exchange Database Recovery

SEO Success: Step Two is Attracting Search Engine Attention

admin — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:08:46 +0000

Once the website has been created and published, many new
website owners think that the web development project is
finished. But in reality, the real work is just beginning. In
order to create a money-making site, traffic must be generated
and driven to the website. There are several effective methods
that can be implemented in Tier II of the SEO strategy to create
this web traffic. While all methods may not be required to
realize successful traffic generation, some combination of most,
if not all, will probably be needed to create traffic, maintain
traffic and finally, grow traffic to your website with
long-term, lasting results. Consider implementing these
strategies:

- Dynamic content is necessary for search engine recognition,
and by updating the website frequently, the search engines see
your website as an active, not stagnate, website. How often
should changes be made? At the very least, monthly. But the more
frequent the changes, the better. There are some tried and true
methods you may want to employ:

– Monthly newsletter (or weekly) – Tip of the day that rotates
to the page using a script from an existing database of
information at your site – RSS feed to public news feeds that
update hourly or daily at the least – Changes to contact
information, staffing, clients, etc. – Checking the links
frequently to make sure that they are active and valid, and
changing the link text from time to time will register as a
change to the page – Simple modification of content from time to
time should be done in between these regular maintenance tasks
which will update the website

- Good links management will result in a stronger weight given
by the search engines for search positioning. The algorithms
used for weighting one page over another require link popularity
assessment for successful traffic to your website. Link
popularity is also one of the main considerations for Google and
Alexa Page Rank. How do you achieve link popularity? It can be
tedious and requires careful attention to the selection of the
links, but there are several means that can be employed:

– Reciprocal Links – Search for relevant and desired web pages
with which to trade links – Purchase Page Rank-based links -
boost your relevance and weight in the eyes of search engines by
purchasing links for a period of time, three to six months until
you have achieved a better ranking – List with directories -
paid or unpaid directory listing that are relevant to your
website will give your website additional exposure – Anchor text
- create the links with link text in mind, utilizing relevant
keywords where possible – PageRank consideration – link only
with websites that have decent PageRank (PR); i.e., PR of 3
could be a minimum but a PR of 4 would be a better minimum
requirement from those pages who want to exchange links with you
- Blogs – web logs linked to your site or posting to popular
blogs with your links included to point traffic back to your
site; a good strategy is to employ pinging with the blog posting
- Forums – forum participation that allows you to leave your
link with the intent of attracting traffic back to your site can
get traffic back to your website, however, take care that you
actually offer something of value in your posting so you are not
accused of spamming – Search engine listings – listing with the
few free search engines and directories is an essential step,
although you won’t see any results for months – Gather opt-in
email addresses – utilize an email list subscription function on
your website with the intent of sending e-newsletters and
announcements on a regular basis. This subscription list can be
used for several other campaigns, including the sale of
advertising space on your newsletter. – Advertise on ezines -
purchase sponsorship on other email lists where you can promote
your product and/or services as well as links to your website in
the process.

- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns with Google and Yahoo Search
Marketing where you purchase advertising space based on keywords
that are popular for your website if you are not in a saturated
market. If your business operates in a saturated internet
market, seek niche keywords for your PPC advertising. Determine
your budget first and from there, you will know how much you can
afford for the positioning you desire. It’s all mathematical:

– Price Per Click = monthly budget/number of clicks or – Number
of clicks = monthly budget/price per click

Some suitable combination of price and number of clicks based on
your own budget will result in a campaign you can monitor and
adjust as necessary. The important result to watch for is the
conversion rate. How many paid clicks convert into the desired
result; i.e., new contract, sale of product, sign up for
e-newsletter, etc.

Remember that the website is only the first step. Driving
traffic to your site is the next important task. Layout a plan
of action and follow-through. You are not going to realize
success until you spend the time and energy – or pay someone
else for their time and energy – to get the job done.

Abc of Staff Leasing

admin — Thu, 05 May 2011 18:10:04 +0000

Gabriel Fuchs, managing consultant at IBM, talks of communication as “the Holy Grail of outsourcing” in CIO Magazine. As opposed to the common idea that cutting costs is the most important factor considered in outsourcing or staff leasing, it should be for the company to know that the staff leasing or outsourcing provider has extensive infrastructure, communications that can be relied on to transmit and exchange valuable data.

He said that because of the primary belief that outsourcing lowers overhead expenses, communication is, most often than not, set aside and is where things start to get messy: “focusing on IT costs alone will not make a difference to the IT organization unless there is an actual understanding of what is going on. Sure, any project manager will know the importance of communicating so that expectations will—at least in theory—match the deliverables. And even if the project managers do it all by the book, it is still often a limited audience that gets the information.”

Look into dozens of staff leasing and outsourcing providers before deciding on leasing staff from one of them. Aside from accurate communications, here are a few more pointers that are valuable in the decision-making process:

• Compliance to All Applicable Rules and Regulations. Besides conforming to government laws, your staff leasing company should also abide by your agreement; transparency should be imposed so as not to cloud key tasks and responsibilities to carry out.

• Limitations Due to Time Differences. Find out if the staff leasing company offers flexible time schemes. The ones that allow their staff to work during your working hours is a great advantage because it will let you monitor input and have direct control over operations. More importantly, you can come up with solutions right away in case problems occur.

• Familiarity in Both Outsourcing and Corporate procedures. Staff leasing or outsourcing companies in general provides the skill sets, but they should be able to handle workplace matters as practical as the way they offer outsourcing tasks.

• Excellence in Project Management. Make sure you collaborate with a staff leasing company that employs staff and project supervisors with good management skills regarding project planning and implementation. This is to ensure that each task or project is executed orderly and adheres to specific time frames.

• Best Value for Your Money. Sure, staff leasing saves you money. But does it guarantee commitment to quality? How long does it take to start the actual work? Are efficiency rates parallel to fees? These are but a few questions you need to ask yourself. Generally, you have to asses the overall characteristics of each offshore vendor and see if outsourcing truly is for you.

ManageStaffing™ is a staff leasing company that provides a range of skill sets that suit your business needs. Our value-added, technology-supported solutions help your company increase business productivity at low rates.

We are located at the world’s favorite back office operations site – Makati, Philippines. Our proficiency in English along with our established infrastructure enables smooth and unmistakable communication and the convenient delivery of product input. Attributable to today’s technological advancements, communication barriers are a thing of the past. Instant messaging, emailing, and even video conferencing enable us to be in touch whenever and wherever you may be.

Our team entirely consists of educated and proficient degree holders in their respective areas of expertise, which sets us apart from other staff leasing firms in the market. Our Webmasters, Web Developers, Web Designers, Graphic Designers, Systems Administrators, Programmers, Multimedia Artists, Creative Writers and Virtual Assistants are formally learned and trained further to make sure only world class quality work is carried out.

Choose from various individuals and their specialized skills on our staff database, view their profiles and sample work to asses who you want to lease. Direct communication with your staff is allowed in order to relay instructions and information clearly. Unlike other staff leasing suppliers, direct communication is prohibited and may hamper project growth.

We offer two specific solutions tailored for every business problem – the Dedicated Staff Package and Per Project Package.

Routine or maintenance-type tasks are best solved by leasing Dedicated Staff. Not only do you form a good working relationship, staff is leased exclusively to you. Per Project Package, however, is a one-time objective accomplished within a fixed time and budget. It is essential that you provide us with the necessary material because it will be the foundation of project planning and implementation.

A partnership with us will surely bring you satisfaction and guarantees you privacy. Experience great service, smooth and easy communication, and achieve end-product excellence only with ManageStaffing™.

How To Target Your Online Marketing To Reach The Right Customers With The Right Offer

admin — Wed, 04 May 2011 21:08:49 +0000

If you’ve been involved in marketing during the past decade, you’ve probably noticed that things are a bit different since this whole ‘online’ thing got underway.

While being online has starting to become an ‘ordinary’ part of many people’s day-to-day lives, the experience of being online is very different from any other type of popular media.

Those of us over the age of twenty clearly remember a world without the ‘Internet’. Back in those olden days most media consisted of marketing channels to which the majority of the population flocked. In exchange for giving people access to this content, advertisers were given access to the people who came to visit. They tossed their messages in front of us as we wandered around hoping that something would catch our eye. Sometimes it did. Mostly it didn’t.

Because these mass marketing models were based on ‘quantity’ and not ‘quality’ of consumers, there was an up-front expectation that there would be a tremendous amount of waste. Advertisers understood that even if they were targeting the very best demographic group for an offer the vast majority wouldn’t even see or respond to the marketing offer.

For marketers, it was the safety in numbers advertising approach that kept them going.

This approach also trained us, as consumers, to understand that our direct involvement in the marketing process wasn’t really necessary. The TV commercials would continue to run whether we watched them or not; the print ads would stay right where they were printed even if we didn’t open the magazine or newspaper; the ad on the side of the bus would keep moving down Main Street would keep going even if we ignored it.

But the arrival of the online world started to change things and pretty dramatically. Consumers now have millions of “channels” to choose from and advertisers have fewer places where they will reach mass markets. In fact, the very structure of the Internet means that consumers don’t even need to look at or interact with advertising anymore…unless they really want to.

Culturally we’ve developed a number of ways to share information with one another. We’ve also learned how to customize messages so that they reach specific people. We never pick up the phone and think ‘Okay, I need to talk to every person on Earth. What’s the number?’ We don’t send an email to everybody in the company every time we have a thought to share with Sandy in accounting.

When we start any new marketing campaign we need to first think about who the campaign is trying to reach. What is the ultimate goal? What is the campaign saying? What obstacles can get in the way of the right consumer receiving the message? What should the consumer do to take advantage of the offer?

In the past mass marketing has represented the ultimate delivery mechanism for advertising messages but paints the audience with such a broad brush that its goal of reaching the right people can’t be efficiently kept. To be truly effective, a delivery system has to reach the greatest number of individual consumers who can take action on the message being sent.

The bottom line is that a message that reaches 1,000,000 of the wrong people isn’t more effective than a message that reaches a single right person.

The ultimate goal of effective advertising is to maximize effectiveness while reducing waste. Correctly targeting a campaign means first identifying who the best people to receive a particular offer are and how to go about identifying where they are.

When we target online audiences that are three primary areas of exploration:

1. Contextual targeting
2. Database targeting
3. Behavioral targeting

Let’s take a closer look at the differences between these three areas.

Contextual Targeting

The simple definition for contextual targeting is the placement of messages where the people most likely to be interested are most likely to see it. Contextual targeting is perhaps the oldest type of targeted marketing. For years, trade magazines, area newspapers, local television stations and local radio stations have served as channels for contextual marketing campaigns.

Because each channel caters to a specific range of the population either based on topic interest or region, advertising using contextual targeting has generally meant reaching an audience that has already been ‘filtered’ down to a common interest or locale.

In online marketing, contextual marketing works in a similar way. Many web sites focus on, or have sections that focus on a single or limited range of topics. Like trade publications, these sites attract a self-selected audience who share a common interest whether its butterfly collecting, paintball battlefield strategies or exploring the validity of UFO sightings. For advertisers looking to communicate with these specific groups, good targeting is as easy as placing topically relevant ads on those pages.

Demographic Targeting

Demography covers a broad range of ways a population can be sliced up to define certain segments. A few of the more traditional segments include:

Age/ Lifecycle
Gender
Race/Ethnicity
Socioeconomic status
Location of residence
Religion
Nationality
Occupation
Education level
Family size
Marital status
Ownership (of home, boat, car, etc.)
Language

While many of these characteristics can effectively narrow a population down into an audience, traditional demography often offers just a generalized benchmark of behavior.

For example, I currently live in a fairly rural part of the country. While I share a number of demographic characteristics with other people within my particular zip code (middle aged, white, own my own home, went to college, married, speak English, or a variant thereof) those benchmarks do a lousy job at identifying us as a whole or me as an individual. My little town runs the gamut of religious and spiritual beliefs, political leanings, socioeconomic levels, education and what’s considered a fun way to spend a Saturday evening. In short, we share very few characteristics as a population apart from our choice to live in the same part of the country.

For marketers trying to reach ‘us’ based solely on where we live, the results of any geographically targeted campaign are going to be just about as untargeted as you can get.

To reach a more refined group of people based on attributes that aren’t as generalized as most demographic groups, marketers need to find ways to measure ‘who’ consumers are instead of ‘what’ they are.

Here are a few more recent targeting approaches that marketers are using to reach highly refined audiences.

Psychographic Targeting

For marketers to effectively target any audience they need to have a clear understanding of the personal interests that the target audience shares. Social scientists categorize this segmentation as the study of psychographics. Psychographics are commonly defined as individual attributes directly relating to personality, values, interests or lifestyles. There are sometimes referred to as IOA variables or characteristics (for Interests, Attitudes and Opinions). Psychographics often target the most personal parts of who we are.

We belong to multiple psychographic ‘groups’ based on our interests as individuals. Our relationship with each group ranges from little involvement to whole involvement. For example, I may take my bicycle out for a short spin on a warm summer day. This action classifies me as a bicyclist and helps me to identify with other people who enjoy riding bicycles. However, my involvement in this group is very different from the guy who’s training for an upcoming Tour de France and spends 6 hours a day on his bicycle. My identity with bicycling is one of enjoyable weekend pastime while for the guy in training it’s almost on par with being a lifestyle. If given the opportunity to purchase bicycling paraphernalia I’m going to have a different perspective as to its value and necessity than he will.

Marketers looking to reach a thin-sliced audience need to understand common shared traits and how individuals in these groups ‘weigh’ their interests in these areas. Whether targeting deer hunters, urban dwellers, backgammon players, people of Scotch-Irish descent, unicyclists or guys who mow their lawns on Saturday morning, the value of each psychographic slice is going to depend on how the people in these segments define themselves.

Technographic Targeting

Online targeting is often restricted by technological limitations that prevent marketers from reaching consumers. For marketers to effectively reach consumers it’s often necessary to know where potential obstacles or bottlenecks exist.

Technographic targeting focuses on identifying the technological foundations that consumers are using to connect with the Web. This includes things like computer CPU speeds, Internet connection speeds, Operating Systems, browser types, browser versions, and drivers or extra software availability.

A common example of technographic targeting is measuring the online bandwidth capabilities of a visitor to a web site. For example, if, as a marketer, I wished to send a video based ad to my target audience I’m going to want to know if they can receive the ad. While broadband adoption over recent years has made this task easier, there are still millions of people worldwide who are using dial-up modems to get online. Without knowing how my target audience accesses the web, I run the risk of wasting impressions by sending ad content to people who can’t receive it.

On the other hand, by measuring the connect speed of my target audience, I can then sort that audience out into sub-groups and provide separate ad units for each group.

Technographic measuring can also tell marketers a lot about a potential customer. A high-tech company looking to introduce a new cutting edge product can effectively target prospects by measuring the operating system on the recipient’s computer. Prospects running the most recent versions of Windows or the Macintosh OS might be classified as being technologically savvy while prospects still running Windows 98 on a 7 year old PC are probably not good candidates for marketers looking to reach ‘early adopters’.

Centrographic Targeting

While geographical targeting is generally considered part of standard demography there are a few variations that fall outside of the basic geographic targeting realm. Whereas most geographic targeting focuses on regions and areas of the country and world based on their proximately to one another, centrographic targeting focuses more on population characteristics that can be associated with specific regions.

For example, every winter across the Northern United States there is a need for snow removal services. There is also a need for services like heating system maintenance, fuel delivery and sales of things like ice scrapers and snow tires. Meanwhile, in the Southwestern United States the need for these services or products each winter is very limited or non-existent. On the other hand, the hot summers in the Southwest requires air conditioning and home cooling services that are not always necessary in the North.

Centrographic targeting can also identify and isolate differences between population groups. For example, people living in a city like New York are going to have a different perceived need for products and services than people living a few hours north in rural New York might. Even staying within the boroughs of New York, the cultural diversity of different ethnic groups alone makes for dozens of unique regional markets.

Significant differences can also exist among cultural groups that share a similar language and history, or current geography. For example, Hispanic populations living in Southern California and those living in Southern Florida may share common cultural histories and ancestry but represent very unique markets based on unique regional characteristics.

While reaching those audiences requires a new layer of understanding on the parts of marketers, if used correctly the ability to reach more of the right consumers with any marketing offer is also going to result in greater effectiveness and much less waste.

Rob Graham – LearningCraft, LLC.
October 1, 2007

B2b Purchase Practice in Indian Sub Continent : Opportunities and Trends

admin — Wed, 04 May 2011 00:09:32 +0000

Consumer market seems more bigger than B2B marketplace, but when it comes to actual figures, whether in terms of currency or quantity, B2B overpowers consumer markets. Whether conducted through face to face meeting or indirect channel, these organizations have to deal with complex purchasing and selling decisions, side by side handling many people for same account or project having many decision makers, influencers, end users, etc.

Further, these markets can be seen as divided into four categories:

• Commercial Market

o Sells raw material used in production

o Sells product which aid in production

o Sells maintenance supplies

• Trade Industry

o Wholesaler

o Reseller

• Government organization/ Public Sector Unit

o Under Central government

o Under State government

o Under Foreign government

• Institutions

o Hospitals

o Church/Temple, etc

o College/university

o Museum

o Not-for-profit organizations

B2Bmarketers have to develop marketing plans according to market they are dealing with. Now, in order to have a focussed insight of B2B marketing lets start with IT industry overview of India.

But before that lets have a look at some facts about India.

This is a country of big dimensions. It spreads over a geographical area of 3.29 million square kilometers and is about 2.5 per cent of the globe, which makes the country the seventh largest in the world. It has a population of over 1,000 million ranks which is the second largest only next to China. India is Asia’s third and world’s eleventh largest economy.

IT Industry Overview

According to Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the year 2006-2007 witnessed a revalidation of the Indian Information Technology – Business Process Outsourcing (IT-BPO) growth story, driven by a maturing appreciation of India’s role and growing importance in global services trade. Industry performance was marked by sustained double-digit revenue growth, steady expansion into newer service-lines and increased geographic penetration, and an unprecedented rise in investments by Multinational Corporations (MNCs) – in spite of lingering concerns about gaps in talent and infrastructure impacting India’s cost competitiveness. The sector looks set to close the year at record levels, with the revenue aggregate growing by nearly ten times over the past 10 years.

The software and ITES exports from India grew from US$ 12.9 billion in the year 2003-04 to US$ 23.6 billion in 2005-06. It is estimated that total software and ITES exports from India will exceed US$ 31.3 billion during the year 2006-07. Software and services exports are likely to beat forecasts and exceed 32 per cent in dollar terms during the year 2006-07.

While the US and the UK remain the dominant markets for software and ITES exports, contributing to 67 per cent and 15 per cent of total exports respectively, firms are also keenly exploring new geographies for business development, and to strengthen their global delivery footprint. Banking, Financial Services and Insurance, and Technology (Hitech/ telecom) are the main verticals, accounting for nearly 60 per cent of the total; Manufacturing, Retail, Media, Utilities, Healthcare and Transportation follow-also growing rapidly. India offers a unique combination of attributes that have established it as the preferred offshore destination for IT-BPO. Over 2001-06, India’s share in global sourcing is estimated to have grown from 62 per cent to 65 per cent for IT and 39 per cent to 45 per cent for BPO. The visibly higher preference for India is driven by its unmatched superiority when measured across a range of parameters that determine the attractiveness of a sourcing location.

The outlook for Indian IT-BPO remains bright, and the sector well on track to achieve its aspired target of US$ 60 billion in export revenues by 2010. Key factors underlying this optimism include the growing impact of technology-led innovation, leading the increasing demand for global sourcing and the gradually evolving socio-political attitudes.

The process quality and expertise in service delivery has been a key factor driving India’s sustained leadership in global service delivery. Since the inception of the industry in India, players within the country have been focusing on quality initiatives, to align themselves with international standards. Over the years, the industry has built robust processes and procedures to offer world class IT software and technology related services. Today, India-based centres (both Indian firms as well as MNC-owned captives) constitute the largest number of quality certifications achieved by any single country. As of December 2006, over 440 Indian companies had acquired quality certifications with 90 companies certified at SEI CMM Level 5 – higher than any other country in the world.

The Indian IT-BPO sector is committed to extending its unmatched reputation in quality, to information security and is working on a four-pronged programme to achieve this objective. This comprises:

a) engaging key stakeholders (policy makers, industry players, enforcement agencies, etc.) to build a common understanding of the key issues relating to information security – in the context of global service delivery;

b) educating industry constituents about developments in information security policies and practices;

c) enactment of policy reform required to ensure compliance; and d) addicting in the effective enforcement of policy frameworks by encouraging the practice of periodic security audits and certification, developing and maintaining an incident response database and facilitating greater cooperation with enforcement agencies.

Notwithstanding the strong fundamentals (of large talent pool), there has been growing concern about parts of the available pool being unsuitable for employment. The Indian IT-BPO sector has taken the leads in ensuring that requisite remedial actions are undertaken in time to avoid any form of a talent crisis.

Training has become a regular and significant component in the induction process of all IT-BPO firms. Several firms have also established dedicated facilities and terms, for employee skill enhancement initiatives. The total number of IT and ITES-BPO professionals employed in India is estimated to have grown from 284,000 in 1999-2000 to 1,630,000 in 2005-06, growing by over 340,000 in the last year alone. In addition, Indian IT-ITES is estimated to have helped create an additional 3 million job opportunities through indirect and induced employment. Indirect employment includes expenditure on vendors including telecom, power, construction, facility management, IT transportation, catering and other services.

The domestic software market is also picking-up, showing definite signs of braking out of the trend of hardware linked growth with the contribution of software and services exceeding that of hardware for the first time in 2005-06. The total size of the domestic market is expected to cross to Rs. 37,800 crore in 2006-07, a growth of 28 per cent over 2005-06. Indian firms are gradually gaining ground and are in neck-to-neck pace with the MNCs. The Indian IT and ITES sector contribution to the national GDP is estimated to rise from 1.2 per cent during the year 1999-2000 to 5.4 per cent during 2006-07.

Production Profile

The software and services industry continue to be the dominating factor in the overall growth of the Indian industry. In 2005-06, the Indian software and services industry exports witnessed a healthy growth, its total exports reaching Rs. 104,100 crore (US$ 23.6 billion), an increase of 33 per cent in dollar terms and 30 per cent in rupee terms over the previous financial year. This segment will continue to show a robust growth and the total value of software and services export is estimated at Rs. 141,800 crore (US$ 31.3 billion) in 2006-07, an increase of 36 per cent in rupee terms and over 32 per cent in dollar terms. The Business Process Outsourcing (ITES-BPO) sector has emerged as a key driver of growth for the Indian software and services Industry. As export revenues from ITES-BPO estimated to grew from US $ 6.3 billion in year 2005- 06 to US $ 8.3 billion in year 2006-07, a year-on-year growth of over 31 per cent was achieved. Consumer electronics sector is estimated to achieve a production level of Rs. 20,000 crore during 2006-07, as compared to Rs. 18,000 crore in the year 2005-06, thus achieving a growth over 11 per cent. The fast growing segments during the year were colour TV, DVD players, home theatre systems. The colour TV production has shoot up to over 12 million units during the year 2006-07. The flat segment CTVs now accounts for more than 50% of the total domestic TV production. The PC sales are expected cross 6.5 million units during the year 2006-07. The high growth in PC sales was attributed to increased consumption by Industry verticals such as Telecom, Banking and Financial Services, Manufacturing, Education, Retail and BPO/IT-enabled services as well as major e-Governance initiatives of the Central and State Governments.

Strategic Analysis

B2B customers / accounts are completely rational by nature, so they have to develop a proper B2B procurement plan, in order to do that strategic analysis is done to learn strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats so as to shape strategies that

• build strength

• overcome weakness

side by side allow firm to

• take advantage of market opportunities

• avoid business market threats

To start with lets have a look at External Analysis (looking outside the organization), which include General Environment and Competitive Environment.

General Environment

Factors overlap and development in one area may influence those in others like :

Political / Legal : Change in political environment, legal regulations like SEZ (special economic zone) development can also serve as a factor also.

Economic : Have much impact on day to day change in economic conditions like foreign exchange, etc. In case of exports/ imports the price effects do take place to a large extent. Alongwith this costing of product is also to be reconciled due to budgets and taxes (Central Excise, Customs duty, etc.).

Socio Cultural : Day to day changes in technology, life style, etc., changes the perception of people towards product/ service. So, demand changes due to change in market demand. Like in India around Diwali season demand for IT products and services increases which inturn increases the demand for more raw material procurement/ purchase.

Technological : Need latest and sophisticated technology products and machinery, so as to come out with low cost and better quality product/ service.

Environmental : This factor itself deals with, cost implications, public opinion and sites along with locations.

Legislative : One cannot go beyond laws, no matter from where, when, for whom, one is working or doing business with.

Now as far as competitive environment is concerned, companies like Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Satyam, Nucleus, etc. altogether form the competitive environment, which provide same kind of product/ service(raw material) to other industries and are established since ages.

Also the home base of an organization plays an important role in shaping the advantage of an organization on a global scale.

So, lets have an analysis of suppliers, customers, competitors, supplementary as well as complementary industry through Porter’s Five Forces model.

Porter’s Five Forces model :

Bargaining Power with:

Vendors/ Suppliers : Due to availability of lots of vendors/ suppliers in the region of India, the IT organization has high bargaining power while procurement is done.

Customers : Though the product is to be provided at competitive rates to the customers in various industries but then also due to bulk demand the IT organization has some bargaining power.

New Entrants : As the IT industry in itself to provide competitive prices due to oligopoly market conditions, so is the low margin for new entrants alongwith difficulty in adjustment to the dynamic requirements, so the IT organization has some power over them also.

Substitute Industry : The market is driven by ever changing technology products / services. So, bargaining against substitutes can only be done through quality promotions.

Competitive Rivalry : Price wars continuously occur between competitors, which at times settles at constant price with approved quality or at premium services also.

Further, lets have a look at Critical Success Factors for the IT organization :

• Innovation

• Speed to market the product as soon as possible

• High Service

Further, as we know that the value chain analysis describes the activities the organization performs and links them to the organizations competitive position.

Value chain analysis describes the activities within and around an organization, and relates them to an analysis of the competitive strength of the organization. Therefore, it evaluates which value each particular activity adds to the organizations products or services. This idea was built upon the insight that an organization is more than a random compilation of machinery, equipment, people and money. Only if these things are arranged into systems and systematic activates it will become possible to produce something for which customers are willing to pay a price. Porter argues that the ability to perform particular activities and to manage the linkages between these activities is a source of competitive advantage.

Now, after this Value Chain Analysis can be seen as:

Inbound Logistics : Raw material in form of hardware, software, etc. through digital or vehicular means.

Operations : Mix of Software, hardware, infoware and peopleware to provide knowledge through product or service development.

Outbound Logistics : Product or service through digital or vehicular to reach to destination or customer’s warehouse/ factory/office.

Marketing and Sales :

• Through Trade Journals , website – www.infosys.com, search engines like www.google.com, www.yahoo.com, www.jayde.com, etc.,

• Registering through industry specific websites such as www.industrialproductsfinder.com, www.industrialleaders.com, www.trade-india.com, etc.,

• Taking part in exhibitions and trade shows like IITF, etc.,

• One of the most important thing is one to one marketing through sales representatives, which plays most important role in B2B promotions.

Service : Direct availability of representative whenever and wherever needed by the customers.

Technology : As seen before that high and sophisticated technology is required, so is the requirement for technology in other departments to a much greater extent.

HRM : Though HR plays a greater role in each and every organization as it is the resource which drives all the other resources of organization so is to be managed effectively and efficiently. Moreover, due to high attrition rate, HR is of much significance in overall organizational departments.

Procurement : This is one of the important areas which are being looked as insignificant since ages, but now with the development of Supply Chain Management, Just in Time, Kaizen, etc. the need to procure right product / service, at right time from right place, at right price in right quantity is being understood by most of the organizations.

Firm Infrastructure : Infrastructure need arises in case of It organizations also. Office plays much importance alongwith requirement of large investment costs.

This is all about value chain analysis.

As far as Competencies are concerned, lets see what competencies are required:

• High R&D

• Quality of product as per specification

• Service to customer

• Low costs

• Availability product at any time

Core Competency :

• Early Innovation

• and flooding the market with that innovated product before time.

Now, all these as we know help in identifying strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats.

Which can be stated further.

Strength :

1. More Infrastructure

2. Brand Name

3. Superior Service Quality

4. Lowest cost in most of products

5. Proximity to Consumer/ Customer Industry

6. Vast Knowledge

7. High R&D

8. Skilled representatives/ manpower

Weakness :

1. Dependent on technology

2. Dependent on manpower.

3. Sells more quantities of low margin products.

Opportunities :

1. SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and SAAS (Software As a Service) as new markets.

2. Switching of customers to better quality product so is the opportunity for increase in margins.

3. New technology requirements like enhanced graphics, speed, etc.

Threats :

1. TRAI and other IT regulatory norms

2. High taxes.

3. Competitors might also sense the opportunity.

So this is about the way to find out the exact company’s strategic position.

PROCUREMENTS IN BUSINESS TO BUSINESS MARKETS

To succeed in an increasingly complex business markets environment, companies should make a clear choice as to which strategy they decide to follow and be sure that the entire organisation is capable of supporting it. Essentially, companies or divisions of companies in business to business markets can follow one of four strategies.

• Price Strategy

o Lower price provider

• Like in case of common / outdated products/ services

o Leanest & Meanest organization

• Mostly for products required in continuous large quantities

• Product Strategy

o Good Products

• For high quality and technology products / services

o Regular Prices

• Prices compared with industry average

• Product + Strategy

o Most Comprehensive product and service combination

• As per urgent need, i.e. when, where and whatever is required

o Shift from price to added value

• Unique combination

• Organization Specific Solutions Strategy

o Constantly flexible to meet organizational needs

• Product and service as per customer / organizations expectations

o Integrate into vendor’s business processes

• Attach with profitable and long run vendor organisations

Strategy Implementation

Whichever strategy we choose, success depends on our ability to implement it consistently from start to finish and across all business functions. Let’s have a look at Business Markets Model which addresses strategy implementation in business to business markets in three steps: creating value, capturing value and delivering value.

1. CREATING VALUE

1. Vendor market insights: this depends on B2B strategy:

Commercial success demands an accurate understanding of vendors and their, today and tomorrow. Insights are best gathered through collaborative relationships with the vendor, getting “under the skin” of their business processes and objectives.

As the IT organization do, by integrating backward and forward with vendors as well as customers and their processes in order to create value as and when desired by them. Like when they change their process along with which their raw material requirements change, then organization also change its product availability and competitive price as desired. Moreover competitors are also being taken care off. Like, which product are they providing, at what price, to which organizations, etc.

Creation of value takes a different form depending on our strategy:

• “Price leaders” channel the creativity of their people to making the organization leaner and finding new ways to lower the price. Like technological innovation in processing, economies of scale, etc.

As can be seen in case of low cost, low quality or out dated products like CD’s, Floppy’s, etc. which is in high demand due to its lowest ever prices by the organization to its customers.

• “Product leaders” organize themselves to offer products/services with some features at a mid-range price. Innovation oriented product line like Blue ray disc in case of writing media.

• “Product+ (Premium/High End) leaders” augment their core product with features or services that testify to an understanding of the business while recognising the need for consistency and efficiency in delivering them.

• “Organisation Specific Solutions leaders” choose a value proposition that integrates itself in the business models of their vendors, and these organizations need to constantly reorganise for higher levels of satisfaction. Like IT organizations sometimes have to ask for products/ services with particular specifications. As for e.g. good quality floppy disc or writing media such as USB’s

The key drivers of growing complexity from a procurement perspective:

• Polarisation of vendor segments: Vendors are becoming more explicit on when they are prepared to deliver a premium and when not. Companies must be notice both the premium and value needs of vendors, simultaneously, yet many companies lack the capabilities to do so.

• Optimise procurement and distribution touchpoints: the growing number of procurement and distribution options, offered by vendors have made buyers better informed, more demanding and prone to ‘mixing and matching’ vendors.

• The return on commercial investments is dropping: the increasing number of media, marketplaces and networks is challenging the impact of traditional vehicles like trade magazines and exhibitions.

Many companies lack the skill to manage multiple media, develop ‘experiences’ and connect them to the bottom line.

2. B2B should be cross functional

Often, when managers in B2B companies are asked about their B2B activities, the answer points to the “brochure makers” – as if business to business marketing was only communications.

Approaching marketing as a business philosophy and not as a department, B2B companies enhance their customer focus and responsiveness, thereby improving their results.

3. Continuous innovation in B2B markets

While there are different ways to innovate, leaders need to focus the creative efforts on areas that support the strategy best. In B2B markets, innovating new products, creating cost-reduced versions or adding services or systems allows us to reach out to current and potential customers and beat the competition. Whether these innovations revolutionise or simply improve, it is critical that they meet our customers’ needs.

2. CAPTURING VALUE

Procurement isn’t what it used to be. It is ever more important to:

• focus on key customers within the organisation: Just as marketing is often misunderstood in B2B as being about brochures and catalogues, similarly CRM can be misunderstood as just a technology solution for keeping track of your customers. Internal customers are company’s strategic investments.

True CRM – the process of acquiring and keeping strategic accounts – is vital to your profitability and competitive advantage.

• Procure as an organisation: In B2B markets, the procurement approach and the required competences must be closely aligned to the chosen strategy. In organization, the procurement process and the competences of the purchase team are all very different if we purchase standardised products or if we purchase organisation specific solutions. As most B2B players are shifting away from a pure Product strategy into Product+ (Premium/High End), enhancing their core product with additional features and services, value procuring becomes a core competence.

Understanding not only the features and benefits of our enhanced product, but knowing what value and benefits it brings to our business will make us stand out from our competitors. This requires both an ability to have a value-based dialogue with our client, and the necessary influencing and organizational skills to represent our customers’ needs internally.

• get the price right: value-based pricing requires a detailed assessment of product/ service value. Without this, vendors can end up stressing points of difference that deliver little value to the organisation. Value presumption – assuming that any favorable points of difference must be valuable – should be replaced by close assessment of customer needs to get to the root of “what’s worth what” for them.

• align all departments: No matter how well thought-out the B2B Procurement concepts are, and how good the purchase team is, disconnects between these two functions lead to mixed messages reaching the vendor.

As a result, better alignment of inter and intra department teams will enable:

• sales force to move from product promotion to problem solving

• value propositions to create value from the company’s perspective

• purchase people to be equipped for better vendor dialogue with the right messages for the right people

• product/ service development team to create more accessible and useful procurement tools

3. DELIVERING VALUE

We’ve created a strong value proposition, and we are convinced of it. Now it’s time to deliver – and not once, but consistently. Our value proposition needs to be translated into skills, behaviours and beliefs.

Operational processes and structures – including the selection of and relationship with partners in the supply network – need to be constantly fine-tuned towards customer needs as well as profitability requirements.

Note : According to a global benchmarking study by Deloitte among 800 corporations, companies that have continually optimised their existing and new investments within the global supply chain structure are as much as 70% more profitable.

The survey identifies three key enablers:

1. Visibility – access to information regarding product, customer service and manufacturing costs, customer and product profitability.

2.Technology – an integrated and flexible technology infrastructure allows company to gain visibility and support changes in the network structure.

3.Top management support – the vast majority of the organisation’s branches most successful at optimising their networks have one executive in charge of the overall supply chain.

Findings and Conclusion

As per the study and findings, the IT organizations should develop a procurement process or better to say, B2B buying process in such a way that it provides profitability in long run as well.

Moreover, as per the analysis of IT industry, we can say that B2B buying practice requires the strategic alignment of entire value chain through formation of strategy which can be centric around:

• Price

• Product

• Product + strategy

• Customer Specific / Customised Solution

Alongwith Creation of value through:

• Vendor Insight

• Cross functional departments

• Continuous Innovation

After that, Capturing Value through:

• Focus on key customers within the organisation

• Procurement as an organisation

• Getting the right price

• Align all departments

And lastly, Delivering Value through:

• Visibility

• Technology

• Top management support

So, the organization’s should focus on its key procured products/ services like the most beneficial organisations in the industry in India and abroad..

Listening to the dynamic requirements and fulfilling them from time to time ahead of the competitors not just to stay in the race or win the race but also to change the rules of the game through innovation and change the market requirements as per the developments taking place in the marketplace.

Moreover, as Business to business markets involve more rational nature of buyers rather than impulse buying in case of Business to customers.So, the organizations should focus as well on these aspects through following proper procurement tactics, synergies and strategies as framed by organizational top management keeping in mind the strategic position of the organization.

Bibliography

1. Co-Author : Dr.S.L.Gupta, Professor & Academic Coordinator, Birla Institute of Technology, India

2. Anderson, James C. & Narus, James A. (2007). Business Market Management – Understanding, Creating and Delivering Value. 2nd ed. Pearson Education

3. Boone, Louis E. & Kurtz, David L. (2002). Contemporary Marketing. Harcourt College Publishers

4. Dollinger, Marc J., Entrepreneurship Strategies and Resources, 3rd ed. Pearson Education

5. David, Fred R., Strategic Management, Prentice Hall

6. Keller, Kotler. Marketing Managemet. 12th ed. Prentice Hall India

7. Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. Principles of Marketing. Prentice Hall India

8. Kothari, C. R., Research Methodology. Vikas Publishing House

9. Reeder, R.R.,Brierty, E.G., & Reeder, B.H, (1991).Industrial Marketing. Analysis, planning and control. 2.ed.Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall

10. Robinson, P.J., Faris, C.W., & Wind, Y.(1967). Industrial Buying and Creative Marketing. Boston: Allyn & Bacon

11. Webster, F.E.Jr., & Wind, Y.(1972). Organisational Buying Behaviour. Englewood Cliffs,N.J.:Prentice-Hall

12. Zikmund, W.G.(1994). Exploring Marketing Research.5.ed.Ford Worth:Dryden Press

13. http://www.mit.gov.in

14. http://www.iied.org/mmsd/mmsd_pdfs

B2b Purchase Practice in Indian Sub Continent : Opportunities and Trends

admin — Wed, 04 May 2011 00:09:32 +0000

Further, these markets can be seen as divided into four categories:

• Commercial Market

o Sells raw material used in production

o Sells product which aid in production

o Sells maintenance supplies

• Trade Industry

o Wholesaler

o Reseller

• Government organization/ Public Sector Unit

o Under Central government

o Under State government

o Under Foreign government

• Institutions

o Hospitals

o Church/Temple, etc

o College/university

o Museum

o Not-for-profit organizations

B2Bmarketers have to develop marketing plans according to market they are dealing with. Now, in order to have a focussed insight of B2B marketing lets start with IT industry overview of India.

But before that lets have a look at some facts about India.

IT Industry Overview

The Indian IT-BPO sector is committed to extending its unmatched reputation in quality, to information security and is working on a four-pronged programme to achieve this objective. This comprises:

b) educating industry constituents about developments in information security policies and practices;

Production Profile

Strategic Analysis

• build strength

• overcome weakness

side by side allow firm to

• take advantage of market opportunities

• avoid business market threats

To start with lets have a look at External Analysis (looking outside the organization), which include General Environment and Competitive Environment.

General Environment

Factors overlap and development in one area may influence those in others like :

Political / Legal : Change in political environment, legal regulations like SEZ (special economic zone) development can also serve as a factor also.

Technological : Need latest and sophisticated technology products and machinery, so as to come out with low cost and better quality product/ service.

Environmental : This factor itself deals with, cost implications, public opinion and sites along with locations.

Also the home base of an organization plays an important role in shaping the advantage of an organization on a global scale.

So, lets have an analysis of suppliers, customers, competitors, supplementary as well as complementary industry through Porter’s Five Forces model.

Porter’s Five Forces model :

Bargaining Power with:

Vendors/ Suppliers : Due to availability of lots of vendors/ suppliers in the region of India, the IT organization has high bargaining power while procurement is done.

Customers : Though the product is to be provided at competitive rates to the customers in various industries but then also due to bulk demand the IT organization has some bargaining power.

Substitute Industry : The market is driven by ever changing technology products / services. So, bargaining against substitutes can only be done through quality promotions.

Competitive Rivalry : Price wars continuously occur between competitors, which at times settles at constant price with approved quality or at premium services also.

Further, lets have a look at Critical Success Factors for the IT organization :

• Innovation

• Speed to market the product as soon as possible

• High Service

Further, as we know that the value chain analysis describes the activities the organization performs and links them to the organizations competitive position.

Now, after this Value Chain Analysis can be seen as:

Inbound Logistics : Raw material in form of hardware, software, etc. through digital or vehicular means.

Operations : Mix of Software, hardware, infoware and peopleware to provide knowledge through product or service development.

Outbound Logistics : Product or service through digital or vehicular to reach to destination or customer’s warehouse/ factory/office.

Service : Direct availability of representative whenever and wherever needed by the customers.

Technology : As seen before that high and sophisticated technology is required, so is the requirement for technology in other departments to a much greater extent.

Firm Infrastructure : Infrastructure need arises in case of It organizations also. Office plays much importance alongwith requirement of large investment costs.

This is all about value chain analysis.

As far as Competencies are concerned, lets see what competencies are required:

• High R&D

• Quality of product as per specification

• Service to customer

• Low costs

• Availability product at any time

Core Competency :

• Early Innovation

• and flooding the market with that innovated product before time.

Now, all these as we know help in identifying strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats.

Which can be stated further.

Weakness :

1. Dependent on technology

2. Dependent on manpower.

3. Sells more quantities of low margin products.

Threats :

1. TRAI and other IT regulatory norms

2. High taxes.

3. Competitors might also sense the opportunity.

So this is about the way to find out the exact company’s strategic position.

PROCUREMENTS IN BUSINESS TO BUSINESS MARKETS

Strategy Implementation

1. CREATING VALUE

1. Vendor market insights: this depends on B2B strategy:

Creation of value takes a different form depending on our strategy:

• “Product leaders” organize themselves to offer products/services with some features at a mid-range price. Innovation oriented product line like Blue ray disc in case of writing media.

The key drivers of growing complexity from a procurement perspective:

• The return on commercial investments is dropping: the increasing number of media, marketplaces and networks is challenging the impact of traditional vehicles like trade magazines and exhibitions.

Many companies lack the skill to manage multiple media, develop ‘experiences’ and connect them to the bottom line.

2. B2B should be cross functional

3. Continuous innovation in B2B markets

2. CAPTURING VALUE

Procurement isn’t what it used to be. It is ever more important to:

True CRM – the process of acquiring and keeping strategic accounts – is vital to your profitability and competitive advantage.

As a result, better alignment of inter and intra department teams will enable:

3. DELIVERING VALUE

The survey identifies three key enablers:

1. Visibility – access to information regarding product, customer service and manufacturing costs, customer and product profitability.

2.Technology – an integrated and flexible technology infrastructure allows company to gain visibility and support changes in the network structure.

3.Top management support – the vast majority of the organisation’s branches most successful at optimising their networks have one executive in charge of the overall supply chain.

Findings and Conclusion

As per the study and findings, the IT organizations should develop a procurement process or better to say, B2B buying process in such a way that it provides profitability in long run as well.

Moreover, as per the analysis of IT industry, we can say that B2B buying practice requires the strategic alignment of entire value chain through formation of strategy which can be centric around:

• Price

• Product

• Product + strategy

• Customer Specific / Customised Solution

Alongwith Creation of value through:

• Vendor Insight

• Cross functional departments

• Continuous Innovation

After that, Capturing Value through:

• Focus on key customers within the organisation

• Procurement as an organisation

• Getting the right price

• Align all departments

And lastly, Delivering Value through:

• Visibility

• Technology

• Top management support

So, the organization’s should focus on its key procured products/ services like the most beneficial organisations in the industry in India and abroad..

Bibliography

Online Compliance and Government Regulation

admin — Tue, 03 May 2011 03:11:08 +0000

With business being conducted more and more so online and the use of the Internet having primary relevance in today’s society comes the need for regulation and protection in a way never needed before. As new ways of doing business online grow so do the dangers and attacks on vulnerable users. We are not only seeing encryption technology and certificate authority but government rules and regulations imposed upon businesses to protect their customers and information.

With all the regulations set either by government or credit card companies to help protect the consumer, the business or the government, it’s easy to get confused as to who is doing what. So here are just some of the protections put into place:

1. Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
Identity theft has been on the rise with the ease of stealing credit card information. Of the approximately 650,000 complaints about fraud that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission received each year in the period 2004 to 2006, identity theft was the subject a consistent 35% to 36% of the time.

In 2005, the world’s biggest credit card issuers including MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover, and the JCB International Credit Card Company formed a consortium for the purpose of establishing adequate and consistent data security measures that must be used by all merchants, banks, and service providers that store, process, or transmit cardholder data.

These requirements apply not only to data in motion but also data at rest in databases, Web servers, and applications that store and/or process credit card data. PCI DSS also requires that crypto keys and their transmissions and storage be effectively managed. While not mandated by the standard, it is also recommended that organizations provide visibility into the SSL traffic to detect threats and employ Web gateway solutions that offer SSL scanning and policy enforcement for encrypted traffic.

All merchants and service providers must perform a quarterly network scan. The penalties for violators are severe. They may face higher processing fees or, in more severe cases, can even be barred from using or processing PCI member credit cards at all. In extreme cases, credit card companies issue substantial fines. Visa, for example, levies penalties of up to 0,000 for each instance of non-compliance while American Express fines merchants up to ,000 per day.

2. HIPAA
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996, which
affects all health-related organizations in the United States, was originally intended to
protect health insurance information when workers changed or lost their jobs. In 2005,
HIPAA expanded its charter and adopted a new set of standards for the electronic maintenance and transmission of protected health information (PHI) – information about the health status, provision of health care, or payment for health care that can be linked to a
specific individual. To assure the security of patient-related data, HIPAA regulations require health plan administrators, healthcare clearinghouses, and healthcare providers to protect and secure any individually-identifiable health-related information including that which is stored
or transmitted electronically. To ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic protected health information (ePHI), HIPAA provides a uniform level of protection of all health information that is housed or transmitted electronically and that pertains to an individual. Specifically, health care organizations are required to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all electronic protected health care information; to protect against threats to the security or integrity of such information and against unauthorized disclosure or use of protected health care information; and to educate the entire workforce on achieving compliance.

The penalties for violating HIPAA requirements can be quite severe, for example:
• Each instance of unauthorized disclosure by a health care provider is punishable
by fines ranging from ,000 to ,000
• Each instance of intentional unauthorized disclosure is punishable by fines
ranging from 0,000 to 0,000 and possible jail time
• Although certainly not part of HIPAA itself, the most severe penalty of all might
be exposure to lawsuits from the individual whose private medical information is revealed in violation of HIPPA requirements

3. Sarbanes-Oxley
The Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002, commonly
known as “Sarbanes-Oxley” or “SOX”, was enacted in response to the flood of headline-
dominating financial transgressions by companies such as Enron, Arthur Andersen, and
Worldcom that led not only to their downfall but to a serious decline in stock markets
and the economic health of the United States. In a nutshell, it was too easy for a company
to “cook the books” and for executives to line their pockets at the expense of shareholders
while claiming ignorance. SOX greatly tightened restrictions on methods companies can
use for maintaining and reporting financial data, and on their financial processes generally.
SOX is enforced by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). While SOX does not specifically mandate the use of encryption in maintaining or transmitting information, it does require that institutions maintain tight control over access to their sensitive financial data.

The Information Technology Governance Institute (ITGI), a group created to assist companies with IT governance, has created a set of security-related recommendations for helping with SOX compliance. One of them is to employ SSL or similar encryption to secure IP connections whenever passwords or other sensitive data may traverse the link.

Another is to use digital certificates whenever financial information is moved between systems.

One of the provisions of SOX as an embezzlement preventative is that no single individual in a company should be in position to both make and receive any given payment—a so-called segregation of duties requirement. Therefore it is very important for companies to be able to prove the identity of the author of key communications such as emails that have to do with making or receiving payments, and to be able to state with certainty that they have not been tampered with. Digital signatures are ideal for this purpose.

SOX compliance is a major issue for virtually any publicly traded firm and is the subject of untold numbers of hours spent in company meetings. Its provisions are still not completely understood by many firms, but everyone involved does understand one thing: SOX is very serious business and a breach can lead to detrimental consequences. Penalties include large fines and jail terms, in addition to damaged public images for them, their employers, and the brand. With consequences this severe and so much ill-defined, many companies are going beyond the letter of the law and incorporating technologies such as strong encryption—such as that offered by SGC technology—that clearly can help demonstrate compliance with the spirit of the law.

4. FISMA
The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA) is a U.S. federal government law intended to bolster computer and network security within the government and affiliated parties such as government contractors by mandating yearly audits. It requires each federal agency to develop, document, and implement an agency-wide program to provide information security for the information and information management systems that support the operations and assets of the agency, including those provided or managed by another agency, contractor, or other source. The information contained on RFID tags, which sometimes contains sensitive data, is one major application area.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electro- technical Commission (IEC) have issued a series of standards collectively known as
“ISO27K” that provide best practice guidance on Information Security Management Sys- tems (ISMS) for protection of confidential information, including the use of encryption. As a set of voluntary international standards, ISO27K recommendations are not enforceable and therefore compliance with the standards themselves is not required. However, they make a number of recommendations on achieving compliance with laws, regulations, contractual obligations, and internal or external security requirements.

5. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
The Financial Modernization Act of 1999, also known as the “Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB)
Act,” is intended to protect consumers’ personal financial information held by financial institutions including banks, securities firms, insurance companies, credit card agencies and other companies that provide services such as lending, brokering, or servicing any type of consumer loan; transferring or safeguarding money; preparing individual tax returns; providing financial advice or credit counseling; providing residential real estate settlement services; and collecting consumer debts. It covers organizations issuing such personal information as well as those receiving it.

The FFIEC also has power to investigate institutions and enforce compliance with GLB Act rules, and it expects its recommendations to be followed. If an institution employs weak or no encryption, it carries the burden of demonstrating to the FFIEC that it is nonetheless fulfilling its information safeguarding obligations.

6. Department of Defense Directive 8100.2
The Department of Defense Directive 8100.2, in effect since 2004, defines mandatory security policies for the use of wireless technologies within the DoD Global Information Grid. Its main purpose is to protect DoD computer networks from the security vulnerabilities introduced via wireless networks. The directive applies to all DoD employees as well as visitors to DoD facilities. It also applies to contractors and others who have access to DoD information.

The directive requires that all data sent to or from wireless devices, as well as all VoIP packets, be encrypted. It also requires that the encryption technology comply with FIPS
140-2 Level 1 or Level 2—which do not specify a particular encryption strength. In addition it specifies that all DoD components ensure that robust, standards-based, FIPS 140-validated authentication and encryption are used in their wireless infrastructure and security technology—including new technologies that emerge in the future.

How to Make Money From Affiliate Programmes

admin — Mon, 02 May 2011 06:12:12 +0000

Affiliate programmes are simply commission-based business opportunities. With an Affiliate Programme, you get paid for sending customers to other company’s websites.

Joining an affiliate is the quickest, easiest, risk free way of starting to make money online if you haven’t got your own product or service, website, money, time or experience in trading online.

You do not have to have any products or service of your own to sell, a website, money to start up your own business in order to reap the huge benefits online trading has to offer.

You do not have to do all the hard work of stocking products, administrative work, shipping orders and all the other bits that businesses have to deal with on daily basis, your main aim is to find the right customer and direct them to your partners site through your unique link and so long as they buy your commission is made.

How it works:

When you sign up to become an affiliate for a company, you receive a special link with your own unique affiliate ID embedded into it to promote that company’s products/services. Simply add your new affiliate link to your website or in your emails, newsletter or anywhere you want to promote the products and services. Then when people use your link to get to the other company’s website and buy a product or service from them, you earn a commission.

You benefit from the commission earned and the affiliate company benefits from sales it would not have otherwise made without your promotional efforts.

How to join an Affiliate Programme

Joining an affiliate is the quickest, easiest, risk free way of starting to make money online if you haven’t got your own product or service, money or experience in trading online.

As with any marketing venture, you need to be careful in the selection of an affiliate program.

The benefit of an affiliate programme is that it gives you another way to make money from your website visitors or from your other means of promotion. Instead of selling the visitors a product yourself, you send them to a partner and take a cut.

The key to success is to choose the right programme, right from the beginning.

A lot of commercial sites run affiliate programmes and that’s because they know that they only have to pay a commission if a sale is actually made; it’s a proven way to generate revenue without risk.

What that means for you is that when it comes to choosing an affiliate programme, you’re going to have a huge range to choose from and what it all boils down to though is product and price.

While it might be tempting to go for the programme that pays the highest commissions, the program me won’t pay you a penny if your visitors won’t go there or won’t buy once they get there. You have to be certain that the service you’re promoting is of genuine interest to the kind of visitors you get to your website or mail your promotions to.

Though some of the companies whose product you will be promoting give you a free website from which to promote their goods (you have no control over these websites because it is not you property and you cannot promote any other product not relating to their company), for best results and independence it is advisable to create a small site independent of the companies whose product you are promoting in addition to the free sites, and use this to promote all your affiliate programmes.

Research for the most popular sites, and negotiate banner campaigns and link exchanges.

But it’s much easier to find an affiliate program operating in a field you’re familiar with, and use that programme to earn extra cash.

The most lucrative affiliates are:

those with monthly subscriptions because each month the customers who bought the subscriptions pay their fee you gat commissions on each one of them

Those with repeat buys like health supplements, gym membership, beauty products and a whole host of others

Fast selling products

Selecting an affiliate programme that is lucrative and right for you:

Don’t accept less than 40% commission. You can find affiliate programmes with great payment structures and high percentages of the purchase price in just about every field. In fact, many affiliate programmes pay out 50%-80% depending on the type of product or service.

Look for affiliate programmes that have the following characteristics:

Commissions’ payable weekly or fortnightly – (monthly is not too bad but any period of more than I month is too long to have your commission locked up somewhere else in my opinion)

Pays out over 50% of revenues back in commissions

Operates in several countries and it is a 24/7 business

You can participate FREE for as long as you want, with no obligation

Look for programmes that offer a wide variety of promotional tools to put on your web page, including text links, banners, articles, brandable e-books, etc.

Opportunity for you to share in company-wide sales/commissions every month

Can earn ongoing, residual income from one-time sales

Your own personalized Website provided free (with free maintenance)

Personal mentors provided for free personal support

Company handles all orders –payment, shipping, customer service for you

Can create substantial income giving away free stuff

Marketable in every country worldwide (make money everywhere!)

Good reputation and track record in on line trading

Extensive free training & resources to help you get started fast

Potential to earn huge amounts per annum

Support available 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week

Can earn unlimited override commissions on unlimited levels

Products available/shippable worldwide

Tools provided for easy and free contact with your entire sales team

Can market virtually ANY product or service in the world

You can market on or off line with their extensive marketing tools

Has their own private-labelled products

Simple, easy-to-understand compensation plan

Managing and Tracking Your Affiliate Programmes

The key to any business is to promote your products and services to people who need them. Your affiliate business is no different. In order to earn commissions you must put your products in front of the people who need them. The beauty of marketing affiliate programmes is that anybody can do it and be very successful at doing it. There are no barriers and there is good money to be made if you have the right focus and attitude for making money and a good marketing strategy.

Organizing your programme

There are many software programs available on the Internet that organize and keep track of all data associated with affiliate programs. These programmes maintain databases to do with information about all your affiliate programmes such as: Programme Name, Date joined or created, Contact Name, URL, Email Address, ID, Password, 1st Tier Percent, 1st Tier Sale, 2nd Tier Percent, 2nd Tier Sale, Total Income and additional comments.

The best affiliate programmes will provide these detailed statistics for you at no extra charge.

To find out more click on:

Have a Successful Affiliating and look for my next article on How To Use Auto Responders to Automate Your Email Marketing Process.

Affiliate Programme Watch

A Boadu

Dummies Tips to the Fastest, Easiest and Risk Free Strategy to Making Money on and Off Line Without Having Your Own Products and Services to Sell

admin — Sun, 01 May 2011 09:17:45 +0000

So you need to to make money, and fast by perfectly legal means, but haven’t got the time to do a second or even a third job, you have no money to start up a business – that is if you have any business ideas at all – I suggest you have a close and serious look at Joint Ventures and Affiliates

Joint Ventures (at no cost to you)

Affiliates (at no cost to you)

What if you don’t have your own product, services or customer base?
Find products and services that would easily sell to someone else’s customer base

Help both of them to get together and take a piece of the profits
Call people with products or services you have chosen (another good way of doing it is by placing small ads or applying both methods to increase your chances) Explain to your potential Joint Venture partners how joint ventures work Do you due diligence by investigating both the company with the products/services and the company with the customer base. (This is to make sure you have got a great match) Convince both of them to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement and the Joint Venture Agreement. Without these agreements you have wasted your time and are not going to see a penny for your efforts. (if they refuse to sign these walk away and find other partners who are willing to sign)

So what percentage of the profits should you take for putting together these Joint Venture Deals?

The standard fee for a broker is 10%, but if you can push for more go for it. A word of caution – Don’t be greedy otherwise the whole deal will be in jeopardy. All you did is put these two together, you do not do any ongoing work after that, except you make sure you get your money.

How to do Joint Venture deals On Line

Start with people you know.

Who do you know that your partner has customers that could benefit from your product/services? Who do you know that products and services that could benefit your customers? Go On Line to find “Cold Joint Venture Prospects”. One I can recommend is . Think about the market you are going after
What keywords and phrases would be contained in those prospective markets Make a list of your keywords and phrases and start putting them in “Google” “MSN” and “Yahoo” to see what happens Take a look at the top 15-20 sites and do your research – find out what they are selling and how they are marketing them. Contact the owner of the site. Most owners list their contact details at the bottom of the page or have a contact us page. If your potential joint venture partner sells something that would benefit you, buy it and use it or sell it on. This gives you the opportunity to determine whether the goods/services are the quality you are looking for and if they would be good for your customers.

How it works:

You benefit from the commission earned and the affiliate company benefits from sales it would not have otherwise made without your promotional efforts.

How to join an Affiliate Programme

Joining an affiliate is the quickest, easiest, risk free way of starting to make money online if you haven’t got your own product or service, money or experience in trading online.

As with any marketing venture, you need to be careful in the selection of an affiliate program.

The key to success is to choose the right programme, right from the beginning.

What that means for you is that when it comes to choosing an affiliate programme, you’re going to have a huge range to choose from and what it all boils down to though is product and price.

While it might be tempting to go for the programme that pays the highest commissions, the program won’t pay you a penny if your visitors won’t go there or won’t buy once they get there. You have to be certain that the service you’re promoting is of genuine interest to the kind of visitors you get to your website or mail your promotions to.

Research for the most popular sites, and negotiate banner campaigns and link exchanges.

But it’s much easier to find an affiliate program operating in a field you’re familiar with, and use that programme to earn extra cash.

The most lucrative affiliates are:

those with monthly subscriptions because each month the customers who bought the subscriptions pay their fee you gat commissions on each one of them

Those with repeat buys like health supplements, gym membership, beauty products and a whole host of others Fast selling products

Selecting an affiliate programme that is lucrative and right for you:

Look for affiliate programmes that have the following characteristics:

Commissions’ payable weekly or fortnightly – (monthly is not too bad but any period of more than I month is too long to have your commission locked up somewhere else in my opinion) Pays out over 50% of revenues back in commissions Operates in several countries and it is a 24/7 business You can participate FREE for as long as you want, with no obligation Look for programmes that offer a wide variety of promotional tools to put on your web page, including text links, banners, articles, brandable e-books, etc. Opportunity for you to share in company-wide sales/commissions every month Can earn ongoing, residual income from one-time sales Your own personalized Website provided free (with free maintenance) Personal mentors provided for free personal support Company handles all orders –payment, shipping, customer service for you Can create substantial income giving away free stuff Marketable in every country worldwide (make money everywhere!) Good reputation and track record in on line trading Extensive free training & resources to help you get started fast Potential to earn huge amounts per annum Support available 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week Can earn unlimited override commissions on unlimited levels Products available/shippable worldwide Tools provided for easy and free contact with your entire sales team Can market virtually ANY product or service in the world You can market on or off line with their extensive marketing tools Has their own private-labelled products Simple, easy-to-understand compensation plan

Managing and Tracking Your Affiliate Programmes

Staying Organized

The best affiliate programmes will provide these detailed statistics for you at no extra charge.

Wishing you a successful venture

A Boadu

Six Sigma Servqual

admin — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 12:08:11 +0000

Introduction- Six Sigma Background and Issues

Six Sigma is the practical application of a theoretical statistical measurement that equates to 3.4 defects per million opportunities -a position of practically zero defects for any process or service. Its attainment is one of the highest measures of quality and is based on the ideology that practically all errors are preventable (Behara et al, 1994). Initially originating in Motorola Inc. in 1985 as a response to drastic quality improvement pressures from the threat of Japanese competition (Harry & Schroeder, 2000), it quickly gained many followers particularly G.E., Allied Signal, Ford Motor Company etc. and more recently attentions have shifted to service environments.

Bob Galvin former CEO of Motorola stated that the lack of initial investment in the non manufacturing areas of the business over four years was a blunder that cost the business over 5 million dollars (Basu & Write, 2003, p43). However, organisations have implemented six sigma initiatives in transactional frameworks with success- testimonial for six sigma triumphs in services range from American Express and PriceWaterHouseCoopers to local NHS departments.

The nature of Six Sigma and it’s Quality Objectives

As outlined in Lagrosen & Lagrosen (2003) six core principles form the basis of quality management, constitute the common material measured by numerous recognised quality awards (e.g. Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award, Swedish Quality Award etc) and form the basis of ideas presented by leading authors in this field (e.g. Dale, 1999, Bank, 2000 etc). These six core values are –

1. Customer Orientation

2. Leadership Commitment

3. Participation of Everybody

4. Continuous improvements

5. Management by Facts

6. Process Orientation

Six Sigma methodologies encompass all of these areas and thus in a sense is not revolutionary, rather it’s focus on directing resources and effort towards explicit goals with concrete objectives using a prescribed approach makes it unequivocal and robust to implement in organisations. Goal setting research indicates that there is a strong positive relationship between setting challenging, measurable, specific goals and performance (White & Locke, 1981). Linderman et al (2001) argues this is one of Six Sigma’s foundations of success. Thus Six Sigma may be succeeding in a manner TQM could not– TQM was often criticised for being weak – “It is very difficult to motivate and justify what seems to be a repeated circular path, where what in fact is required is a spiralling process that moves forward with each revolution” states Tennant (2001, p 35) in regards to the unclear targets of TQM.

This common goal in Six Sigma organisations is to reduce costs by eliminating defects (Greatbanks, Lecture- 18/11/03).

Costs of Defects

It is argued that Six Sigma should be implemented through the processes that affect customer satisfaction and organisational effectiveness to reduce costs (Eckes, 2003, p3). The following costs are associated in services:

· Verifyable Failure costs- service defect is detected by customer and brought to the attention of the server for rectification, e.g. a hair is found in the soup at a restaurant, the soup must be replaced.

· Nonverifyable Failure costs- difficult to measure ‘hidden’ costs that are not reported back, e.g. people rarely complain and ask for a refund if they attend a bad theatre production.

-Issues include declining image and goodwill due to negative word of mouth and the costs associated with regaining a lost customer (3-5 times more expensive than attracting a new one) Without a loyal customer base a service organisation would be financially very unstable.

· Internal Failure Costs- costs of correcting defects uncovered by the producer before they reach the customer e.g. Slightly overbooking for an excursion means the service provider needs to book 2 minibuses instead of one.

-Often internal failures result in higher staff turnover and lower morale which in turn leads to recruitment and training costs above the overt costs of rectifying the problem.

(Heskett et al, 1990, p76)

The Costs of Poor Quality (COPQ) corresponds with sigma levels, for instance if Six Sigma has been attained, the COPQ is less that 1% of cost of sales, while operating at a three sigma level, which many companies do, equates to a COPQ level of approximately 25-30% of cost of sales (Basu & Wright, 2002, p39). This demonstrates what a powerful tool Six Sigma can be in reducing costs.

Six Sigma is very relevant for services as it has been found that the costs of quality in service organisations are greater relative to manufacturing (Asher, 1987)

The Nature of Services

Services are notorious for their wastage, inefficiencies and variability (George, 2003, p3), and as the basis of service is human delivery, one may assume that clear goals and a prescribed system of change could motivate transformations in the workforce. However there are more issues that have their roots in the nature of services that effect how Six Sigma can be implemented in such a context.

Six Sigma was initially designed within the framework of the manufacturing company. It is important to note that services differ in nature to physical products in the following regards:

Inseparability – The customer is involved in the actual production process- the service is delivered and consumed at the same time.
Perishability – Being intangible, the service cannot be stored.
Heterogeneity – difficulties in standardising services every time for every customer.
(Ghobadian et al, 1994)

Service Quality

Quality is an important issue in services due to the features of inseparability, intangibility and perishability. That which can not be stored and is intangible cannot be checked for defects before ‘delivery’ to customers. In addition each individual involved in the exchange process brings with them varying levels of expectations and levels of satisfaction in addition to the unpredictable nature of human beings. It is this dominant role of human interaction in services that shape customers expectations and create difficulties in understanding and implementing quality initiatives (Behara & Gundersen (2001)).

The most commonly used definition of quality is the extent to which goods or services meet or exceed customer expectations (Zeithaml, 1981). Customer satisfaction should lead to repeat utilisation of the service; so if ‘zero defects’ are the goals of manufacturing then ‘zero defection’ should be the sign of quality coming to services (Reichheld & Sasser, 1990). Thus for the Define stage of the Six Sigma methodology the areas linked to optimising customer satisfaction should be concentrated upon. Yet it is important to stress that this in itself can be a muddled and complicated feat.

Six Sigma strives for Total Customer Satisfaction in services (Erwin, 2000).

As illustrated by Behara et al (1994, p12) customer satisfaction is a multistage process where levels of satisfaction are multiplied as different facets of the service are exposed to the customer. These facets cover a broad range from ethical practices of the business to timely response to knowledgably staff etc. So for instance no matter how fresh and tasty a McDonald’s burger is, for a customer who has moral issues with the low wages of their employees, fulfilment will never be attained. The key notion is that different customers have different patterns of expectations for the components involved and so, is it possible to have zero customer defection? Not everyone likes the same things and thinks in the same way and thus the service provider must focus on the elements that will please the majority only.

Also as services are intangible, there are greater problems in the measurement of quality, as discussed, what constitutes quality may be different for different individuals based on their perceptions and past experiences and thus what defines defect in services? Often this will be an obvious matter of simply delivering what is promised, yet in most cases reliance on customer feedback, complaints and measurement (as demonstrated in the case study) will have to be used for enlightenment of issues. Six Sigma advocated the measurement of such variables as the only way to gain insight into service defects.

Implications for Services

The use of quality programs in relatively high in the service environment, for example Robinson (2003) found that 90% of the sport and leisure facilities managed by local authorities implement some quality scheme, however it follows that the type of quality schemes in services are considerably less ‘technical’ based (e.g. Statistical Process Control, Design of Experiments, Quality Circles and Failure Mode and Effects Analysis- FMEA) than those found in manufacturing and more in tune with ‘softer’ cultural issues and creating an proficient and efficient climate through employees, not processes (Lagrosen & Lagrosen, 2003). But as Tennant (2001, p36) puts so eloquently this is not the purpose of Six Sigma- “Six Sigma has the tools and the power to cut ice where hot air has contributed little in the past”.

The Six Sigma methodology relies heavily on statistical analysis; traditionally services have minimal data and examination of their techniques, thus this may poise an initial hurdle. Over and above many individuals have a fear of metrics and don’t connect their use to services. Breyfogle (cited from Smith, ) explains “They (services) don’t appreciate the importance of creating meaningful metrics that give insight into how their business processes perform over time. This can lead to fire fighting common cause variability as though they were special cause”. He argues that only the use of statistical control charts will enable services to focus on prevention rather than reacting to problems. Monitoring processes is the only way to progress from subjective hypothesising of reasons of error to concrete data and this one of the main principles of Six Sigma.

Is this fear of metrics justified? Many academics have confronted the problem of applying statistical techniques to non-manufacturing environments, for example Deming (1987, Ch7) gives a long listing of measurements in service industries where SPC or similar can be applied. It is noted by Oakland (1989, p226) that “Data is Data…whether numbers represent defects or invoice errors, the information relates to machine settings, process variables, prices, quantities, discounts, customers, or supply points is irrelevant, the techniques can always be used”. The inference is that statistics can be transferred to services; it is rare though, that problems and issues are documented in the literature (merely success stories) this does not mean however by implication these problems do not exist (Wood, 1994). It will often involve creativity and flair to apply statistical techniques to services in a fashion that causes true understanding of what the reality is through numerical representation.

Healthcare Case Study

(Kooy et al, 2002)

The following example is simplified and divided into the common methodology of DMAIC to illustrate how Six Sigma is implemented in services.

Background

In June 2001 VirtuaHealth, an organisation of 4 Hospitals in New Jersey USA, put together a team of internal employees including frontline staff members and a six sigma project leader (black belt trained by GE Medical Systems), the aim being to –Ensure safe and effective acute anticoagulation capability.

The project would focus on the drug Heparin (an anticoagulant) which was used for the treatment and prevention of thromboembolic diseases (blockages in the veins). Patients administered Heparin within 24 hrs of detection of problems saw a significant reduction in future problems, but there were side affects involved also with the Heparin therapy, including serious bleeding (thromboctopenia) and life or limb threatening thromboses. As a result, a weight based protocol was used to administer correct dosage of the drug.

DEFINE

Team identifies customer (i.e. patient) requirements and process deliverables as preventing or addressing anaemia and thromboctopenia during therapy.

These 2 attributes are defined as follows-

Anaemia- drop in haemoglobin at rate of at least 1g/dL per day (and final value less that 12g/dL)
Thrombocytopenia- 50% drop in platelet count (enables blood clot) or a count less than 100,000.

- Occurrence of these attributes was considered out of the ‘Therapeutic Range’.

Acceptable practice was defined as the recognition of the reduction at monitoring stage and actions being taken by the physician- discontinue heparin therapy or other such appropriate measures.

MEASURE

Team used pharmacy and laboratory databases and manual data to measure current performance. From the 815 patients who had received therapeutic doses over the last 6 months, 18% were sub-therapeutic and 35% were supra-therapeutic.

The Team constructed a high level process map to better understand the flow of activities involved in administering and monitoring Heparin (this is the service component).

The mean time from administering the drug to monitoring the outcomes was 8.5hrs, which was considered late but acceptable, yet it was the amount of variation in mean times that was causing problems. Samples being drawn early could lead to drug adjustments based on non-steady state results, whilst those drawn too late could result in an unacceptable diffusion rate of the drug being administered.

ANALYSE

This phase entails the identification of the factors that drive the process results. Barriers towards successful completion of each process step was identified and a more detailed process map was drawn (including the laboratory and pharmacy sub cycles), a total of 92 steps were identified for reaching completion of first dose adjustment.

Many problems were identified. Step completion was often down to staff remembering to act, often hours after triggering the event. It was concluded that the complexity of the system was impeding performance and there were few system elements in place to help prevent problems. In particular, the initial step using the weight based protocol was rarely followed meticulously due to time constraints- only 48% of patients were being weighed at all (critical for accurate measurement of drugs) and out of the remaining patients where the weight was estimated, 20% of estimates were more that 10% off. Finally the progression from each step was disjointed and there was often uncertainty as to who had responsibility for the various stages.

In summary, adverse outcomes were not due to minor process variation; rather, they were connected with major break-downs in the delivery of procedure. The team concluded that by simplifying the acute anticoagulation method and error- proofing each stage this would act as the greatest prospect for ensuing safety.

IMPROVE

At this juncture, the implementation and measurement of changes to the process toward desired performance is considered. The weighing problem was overcome by investing in beds that had integrated scales, which the hospital used in other departments with much success for routine weighing. This problem had been “flying under the radar” for several years and had only been made explicit through the Six Sigma intervention. This is coupled with an administration record for the weight based Heparin protocol that notes the responsibility (given by doctor taking on case to shift nurse) of re measurement in the agreed time of 6 hours. In addition, new infusion machines that restricted the range of infusion based on the weight calculation were implemented to reduce the possibility of overdose due to lapse of nurse attention.

CONTROL

Visible metric or ‘dashboards’ (control charts, run charts, reports etc.) are used by the project owner to ensure performance is sustained at optimal levels. The performance will also be tracked on a monthly basis by a local quality analyst in the hospitals quality assurance department. Deviations are to be reported to and reviewed in detail by the quality director and pharmacy and therapeutics committee.

Commentary

A public sector example was used to display how six sigma methodologies can be extended to cater for goals that are not primarily cost reduction. Reduction in defect and cost reduction are not mutual concepts in the short term. Customer has been substituted for patient, and reduced cost for successful therapy. Although not explicit, the case study did suggest that in the long term costs would be abridged through a reduced amount of administration time and investigation into faults/ compensation. Thus all Six Sigma projects have long term cost reduction consequences, however this is not always (but mostly) the motivation for implementation (as with the treatment of life threatening diseases).

The case study demonstrates the importance of the measurement of all major inputs into performance in order analyse how a process can be improved. Six Sigma stresses this measurement opposed to theoretical conjecture; it is “management by facts, not emotion” (Randall, R. cited in Erwin, 2001, p38)

Conclusion

Application to Services- Six Sigma Influence

Six Sigma is undeniably more complicated to apply in some service situation than those in manufacturing. Even where a process and goal exists some may argue that the setting of the specification limits can be somewhat a subjective issue and sometimes organisations spend time and money adding a specification value where one is not appropriate (Breyfogle et al, 2001, p196). This may be overcome by implementing a measurement systems analysis (MSA), however it must be noted that due to such issues, in services primary tasks may take longer than anticipated due to determining the appropriate measurement systems. (Breyfogle et al, 2001, p196).

This does not however mean that Six Sigma is not useful or is too difficult to implement- the extent of use and thus difficulty is dependent on company objectives. The methodology can be used to bring quick financial savings early on by tacking what Breyfogle coins the obvious ‘low hanging fruit’ problems in an organisation. By contrast it can also serve as a model for organisational culture “whereby everyone at all levels has a passion for continuous improvement with the ultimate aim of achieving virtual perfection” (cited from Basu & Wright, 2003, p3)

Reduced Quality?

Some writers also maintain that various types of service industry are unsuitable for such rigid methodology as it will hinder the very facets that create customer satisfaction. There is often a trade off between customer satisfaction and running a business efficiently. For example a hairdressers may lose clients if it merely tried to fit as many haircuts in as possible (assuming no decline in haircutting quality), the customer in such circumstances like to be pampered, for the hairdresser to take their time and a relaxed atmosphere be upheld. Powell (1995) found that success derived more from HR intangibles, such as an open organisational culture, employee empowerment and executive commitment than on improved measurement, process improvement and benchmarking

This also links into the concept of reducing variability to decrease defect and increase efficiency. Although primarily founded on manufacturing quality, some services take this route- e.g. the mechanised “have a nice day” script in fast food chains etc. It is important to note that this will not lead to customer satisfaction in such sectors.

Process or Goal?

Behara et al (1995) state that in the early 1990s companies in the US (summary of all industries) were operating at around a three /four sigma quality level. The question is do companies need to reach Six Sigma level and is it in their best interests to do so? Initially one may believe that zero defects or total customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal that all companies should strive for (even if just for motivational purposes) as conveyed by the principles of Crosby. However understanding the traditional view of the trade-off between costs and prevention of service failures adds a different perspective. This concept is based on the premise that error prevention costs increase as the level of quality increases; in fact the relationship is exponential increases in prevention costs for mere incremental quality gains. Thus the target quality level managers should endeavour for may be under 100% and variable for different services dependent on their nature. (Heskett et al, 1990).

Six Sigma does not necessarily need to be achieved (Hammer & Goding, 2001), merely its methodology followed and an understanding of the optimal levels for overall cost reduction should be understood and set as the goal.

Fashion?

Among the literature, some authors have debated that Six Sigma is the latest fad, and that consists of a ‘repackaging’ of what has already come previously (Dusharme ).

The challenge of Six Sigma is to overcome the ‘Innovative Fatigue’ (cited in Basu & Wright, 2003) which can cause loss of interest in an initiative. It has been shown by Turner (1993) that any quality initiative must be reinvented at regular intervals in order to sustain motivational levels of employees and that the maintenance and implementation of a quality program is approximately 2.5 years.

Improvement initiatives often forgo their initial success and do not gather the momentum necessary for true permanent organisational change for various hidden reasons. “Six Sigma is a quality approach that takes a whole system approach to improvement of quality and customer service so as to improve the bottom line” (Basu and Wright, 2003, p2) The main concept at this juncture is the ‘bottom line’ or return on assets as the key measure of success. This is a historical measurement that inherently can only inform of the result after it is too late to influence it. In many cases this may be too late and formal periodic assessments must be made in order to enable the flexibility to respond to various pressures. The ‘Control’ variable in the DMAIC methodology should ensure longevity and suppleness, and the DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyse, Design, Verify) methodology will serve to update and sustain processes also. Thus the question of whether Six Sigma is fashion or here to stay will only be answered through time.

Alternatives and improvements

It is also worth mentioning how Six Sigma has expanded and developed to illustrate its evolution is business and particularly services. Lean Six Sigma focuses on the maximisation of process velocity and provides tools for analysing the delay times and process flow for activities (George, 2003). It aims to reduce work in process and waste in procedures. Fit sigma (Basu & Wright, 2003) adds the element of sustainability and focuses not on the perfect goal of 3.4 defects per million but whatever the right ‘fit’ is for the organisation.

Finally Human Sigma does not focus so much on eliminating error, rather in reducing variance in key employee and customer outcomes, on the assumption that high variance equates to inefficient management. (Coffman, 2003). It seems that so many adaptations and variations of quality initiatives are being introduced due to the fact that organisations, particularly services are different in structure, ethics, goals etc. There does not seem to be one ‘best fit’ model and thus it is the predicament of the company to pick the one that suits it best.

As discussed in this essay there are many issues that must be considered when assessing whether to implement six sigma in services. These range from how one defines quality, identifies the costs of poor quality, implements statistical techniques to measure the situation, decides the level of sigma which will be optimal for the particular service industry they operate in etc. Despite these considerations one believes that Six Sigma is a useful tool in services, perhaps a reason why it has been criticised is that people have taken too literal an interpretation

It provides companies with a common metric that can be used across and organisation from production to customer satisfaction. It also presents one with the opportunities to compare results year on year, benchmark against rival firms and set goals for business evolution. Generally speaking, a higher sigma represents fewer errors and higher customer satisfaction (Behara et al, 1994).

The facts are that in the business world it is results that count and in this respect Six Sigma has been very successful (Hammer & Goding, 2001)

REFERENCES

Asher, J.M., (1987), “Cost of Quality in Service Industries”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 5:5, pp38-46.

Bank, J., (2000), The Essence of Total Quality Management, FT/Prentice Hall, Harlow.

Basu, R. & Wright, J.N., (2003), Quality beyond Six Sigma, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.

Behara, R.S., Gundersen, D.E., (2001), Analysis of Quality Management Practices in Services, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management. 18:6, pp584-603.

Behara, R.S., Fontenot, G.F., Greysham, A., (1994), “Customer Satisfaction and analysis using six sigma”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 12:3, pp9-18.

Dale, B. G., (1999), Managing Quality, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.

Deming, W.E., (1986), Out of the Crisis, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Eckes, G., (2003) Six Sigma for Everyone, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey.

George, M.L., (2003), Lean Six Sigma for Services, McGraw Hill, USA.

Ghobadian, A., Speller, S., Jones, M., “Service Quality- Concepts and Models”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 11:9, pp43-66.

Hammer, M., Goding, J., (2001), “Putting Six Sigma in Perspective”, Quality, 40:10, pp58.

Harry, M.J., Schroeder, R., (2000), Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionising the World’s Top Corporations, Doubleday, NY.

Heskett, J. l., Earlsasser, W., Hart, C.W.L., (1990), Service Breakthroughs: Changing the Rules of the Game, Macmillon Inc. USA.

Kooy, M.V., Edell, L, Melchiorre-Scheckner, H., (2002), “Use of Six Sigma to improve the Saftely and Efficacy of Acute Anticoagulation with Heparin”, Journal of Clinical Outcomes Management, 9:8, pp445-453.

Lagrasen, S., Lagrosen, Y., (2003) “Management of service quality- differences in values, practices and outcomes”, Managing Service Quality, 13:5, pp370-381.

Linderman, K., Schroeder, R. G., Zaheer, S., Choo, A.S., (2001), “Six Sigma: A Goal Theoretic Perspective”, Journal of Operations Management, 21:2, pp193-203.

McAdam, R., Canning, N. (2001), “ISO in the service sector: perceptions of small professional firms”, Managing Service Quality, 11:2, pp80-92.

Oakland, J.S. (1989), Total Quality Management, Heinemann Professional, Oxford.

Powell, T.C. (1995), “Total Quality Management as competitive advantage: a review and empirical study”, Strategic Management Journal, 16:1, pp15-37.

Reichheld, F., Sasser, W., (1990), “Zero Defections: Quality comes to services”. Harvard Business Review, Sept-Oct, pp105-11.

Robinson, L., (2003), “Committed to Quality: the use of quality schemes in UK public leisure services”, Managing Service Quality, 12:3, pp247-55.

Turner, J.R., (!999), The handbook of Project Based Management: Improving the process for achieving strategic objectives. 2nd Ed. McGraw Hill, London.

White, F.M., Locke, E. A., (1981), “Perceived Determinants of high and low productivity in three occupational groups: a critical incident study” Journal of Management Studies, 18, pp375-387.

Wood, M., (1994), “Statistical Methods for Monitoring Service Processes”, International Journal of Service Industry Management, 5:4, pp53-69.

Zeithaml, V.A., (1981),. “How Consumer evaluation processes differ between goods and Services” in Donnelly, J. and George, W. (Eds) Marketing of Services. American Marketing Association, Chicago, pp186-190.

WEB PAGES

Coffman, C. (2003), HumanSigma, Managing the human Difference. Gallup Management Journal.

Dusharme, D., “Survey: Six Sigma Packs a Punch”.

Erwin, J. (2001), “Flawless”, Quality World, Jan ed.

Erwin, J. (2000), “Achieving Total Customer Satisfaction through Six Sigma”, Quality Digest.

Smith, K., “Six Sigma for the service sector”

14 Reasons Why You Need A Website

admin — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 12:08:08 +0000

Why You Need A Website …

Even the most negative anti-internet people out there even believe that a huge portion of business revenue is be derived from online transactions, or offline transactions as a result of seeing the product or service online beforehand.

Sometimes I wonder why people even hesitate about creating an online presence, why? nowadays the cost of setting up a website from scratch is extremely, and I mean extremely cheap.

Don’t be quick to dismiss your product or service as one that doesn’t lend itself to the online environment, people all over the world are selling all kinds of goods online, the product doesn’t even have to be tangible, it could be selling an e-book on how to make hats!

I know of many local businesses who don’t put all their efforts into selling over the internet but they do have some kind of online presence, whether it’s a small brochure website which simply contains an inviting homepage, about us and contact page, this type of website is great for small local companies who offer a local service, for example a ‘local car valeting service’.

The point here is to have something on the web so you can be found by potential customers or even partners etc; even if your website simply contains your contact detail with a brief description you can still generate leads and business.

Below are a few more reasons why you need a website

1. Build Customer Relationships

A website is a great place to build customer relationships – this can be done extremely effectively using email. Once you have a consumers name and e-mail address they could be a customer for life if they are treated well.

2. Lead Generation

Let’s face it we all want to make money online, and the sole intention of many online organisations is to make money, and turn visitors into customers into loyal customer who use their products or services again and again.

Creating a website, attracting visitors and funnelling this traffic are a great lead generation technique. A local organisation I worked with on a website visitor conversion campaign found they increased lead generation by 800% by effectively utilizing the powers of creating an effective online presence and marketing their website through a variety of channels.

3. To compete against your competitors

Without having an online presence could mean you are missing out on a lot of potential business – meaning your competitors have a distinct advantage just by having an online presence. Effectively leverage the power of the internet and get ahead of competitors by learning by their mistakes and doing what they do better.

4. To provide business information
A huge proportion of internet users use the internet to find local businesses or a product or service in general. Using the web to do this, is a lot cheaper than directory enquiries and a hell of a lot quicker than using a telephone book or directory.

A website containing your business information is available 24 hours a day, this can be printed and can be bookmarked to return to later. Furthermore potential customers can contact you using the desired communication channel you display.

5. Global Reach
Ok, a lot of people use the advantage of having a global reach to say things like “you can sell your products to people overseas” and “people like to buy the latest and best products”, yes of course you can but you already know that. Having a global reach means that people from all over the world can buy your products, however again it doesn’t have to be a tangible product it could be an e-book or a series of videos.

6. Open 24/7 365 days/year

Your shop is always open so to speak. Visitors can enter your shop any time of the day – before 9am and after 5pm – because out of these hours are when people tend to surf the internet, a perfect reason why you should have an online presence

7. Cost Effective Advertising

Offline advertising generally has an extremely low conversion rate. Leaflets and brochures can be quote costly and once these have been printed and distributed and more often that not thrown away this communication channel is dead.

However using a website as a communication will always be online; this cannot be thrown away or discarded. Offline Marketing could be looked upon as a ‘push’ marketing mechanism, however having a website uses a ‘pull’ mechanism, and customers search for your services and find your website.

Think of a website as a full colour interactive brochure which you can add to whenever you like. Reduce advertising costs by using just one effective call to action / message and promoting your website address e.g. learn more about this product on our website, for more information visit http://www.domain-name.co.uk.

And finally on this one alteration to your website can be done quickly and free, this is a completely different story with marketing literature such as posters or flyers.

8. To Project a professional image – not @hotmail.co.uk

Lots of very small business nowadays has some kind of online presence. Nothing looks more unprofessional than when a company refers to one of their points of contact being your-name@hotmail.co.uk or your-name@yahoo.co.uk. This says too many consumers that the business either couldn’t afford or wasn’t bothered about investing in their company brand image, would it to be nicer to use a more user friendly and professional email such as support@your-domain.co.uk or contact@your-domain.co.uk, this gives the consumers the feeling they are dealing with a successful organisation and that their query or contact is being deal with a customer support / care team.

9. Your website can make you money – sell your products and services

Firstly before I go into this one I would like to tell you two things, I recently attended a Search Engine Optimisation seminar in London and In one of the exhibition hall I engaged in a conversation with a middle aged woman from Scotland, after discussing the topic of the seminar we were about to watch she revealed to me that she found her online success selling, get ready for it, selling books on how to make straw hats, she uncovered that she was able to quite her full time job 3 years ago to peruse her online career selling books full time, but without the full time 9 – 5 or later house, she found she could happily sit back and work 1 – 2 hours per day checking email and performing general maintenance on her website.

I think this goes to show that you need to be a retail outlet selling top brand labels in clothing to become and entrepreneur online.

A website can be a great tool in not only promoting your products but selling them to, your shop cannot be available 24 hours a day but your website can, and its probably worth mentioning again that people do tend to surf the internet most when they return from work, so why not reinforce your brand online as well as offline.

Having a website is a great way of automating your business, whilst you are having an evening off or even sleeping you website can be generating brand awareness, generating leads but more importantly generating sales and revenue for your company.

10. Word of mouth advertising

With the growing online community and social networking going on nowadays it has never been easier to like minded people to communicated, but more importantly communicate your website address or even drop it into an email. Its very common nowadays that a website address could be posted up onto a website discussion forum by a happy customer and you could expect to receive hundreds even thousand of visitors to your website from that one forum post or conversation about your company and the products and services you offer.

11. Effectively reach new markets

An overwhelming amount of people now have access to the internet whether it is through their mobile phone, pc, laptop or game console. You really can’t afford to miss out on all these potential customers. It may be that someone didn’t mean or intend to land on your website but people surf the internet in many different ways, more often than not people often refine their searches on search engine again and again until they get to the website they want, they may begin searching for “car wax” and throughout their journey they may find that they done actually want “car wax” anymore what they want now is a “car valeting service”, this is common with website users in that they do end up on a website looking at products or services they didn’t intend to look at in the first place.

12. Test the market

Many organisations at some point would like to know how their target marketing are going to react to their new product or service but are afraid of investing large amount of money into creating the product and then be disappointed by the lack of interest or enthusiasm for it. A great way to “test the market” is to expose this new product or service on your website. A typical idea of this would be if a training consultancy wished to offer a new training programme, by adding a small paragraph on the homepage of your website detailing a brief introduction into the course followed by a “click here for more information” or “contact us to register your interest”, by tracking the number of click through or page views or even email enquiries can tell you how your market has reacted to your new offering, this can then determine whether the launch of this new product is feasible. You can even go a step further and test your new found marketing on piloting product prices etc.

13. Customer Support

Provide a support area or knowledge based for your customers. This can become a hub for all your customers’ queries and questions, assistance on products, provide a variety of ways to be contacted, alternatively use a frequently asked questions to answer the most popular questions or queries – all of this can be done without using staff time, employing new resources or without even answering a phone.

14. Advertising Seasonal Offers / Special Offers

A website and having the right data capture in place is a great way to tunnel traffic into an email list. Effectively collecting customers email addresses gives you the power to contact them when you want to tell them something. You may have a seasonal offer that you wish to communicate, effective email marketing is a great way to build relationships, generate leads (by offering a free report or discount voucher in exchange for their email address, and more importantly convert leads into customers through the use tailored email that meet the demands of your customers.

Building up an intelligent database can have a massive impact on consumer retention and loyalty, knowing that Mrs Smith loves to buy books by a certain author gives you an opportunity to up sell and cross sell other books by that author / similar authors and also attempt to sell items that other people have purchased – hence giving the consumer exactly what they want, when they want it a step on from this is to build an incentivised loyalty program e.g. buy this book and get another book for half price, all of this is possible.
Every one of your customers can be alerted about this special offer at the click of a button, and compared to the cost of offline marketing this is extremely low cost with a higher conversion rate and an even higher return on investment.