Industrial Process

Archive for October, 2009

Is Your Management Style Assisting Or Hurting Your Business?

Many times business owners can have significant differences in management styles that can deter the growth of both the employees and the business.

Employees can have differing needs that require differing methods of management as well. Problems arise when the management style of a business owner does not match the needs of the employees.

There are two basic management styles that are also broken down into more minor categories the Autocratic Management Style and the Permissive Management Style. An Autocratic Management Style is one in which the business owner makes all decisions unilaterally. In other words the business owner is the “boss” period and doesn8217;t value input from employees. The business owner’s word is law. The Permissive Management Style allows employees to take part in business decisions. A rather considerable degree of autonomy on the part of employees is encouraged in this management style.

If a business owner possesses an Autocratic Management Style and the employees and/or type of business would benefit more from a Permissive Management Style problems will arise and vice versa.

Management styles may also be “situational” in other words should be changed depending upon the needs and growth of the business as well as the differing situations that may occur.

How then can a business owner know if their overall “approach” or management style is hurting or assisting their business? Easy: Results.

The results of the business in all facets of the business will dictate which management style is needed or if a business owner needs to amend their management style. If a business is doing well financially if clients are routinely satisfied if employees are happy are all indications that the management style of the business owner is appropriate. Discontentment and loss of business would be indicators that the approach is incorrect.

An example of this will explain this principle further:

Karen R. successfully managed her own business for several years. She employed a rather Permissive Management Style allowing the employees plenty of input with a rather “family style” atmosphere developing. The employees were very much engaged in the business and considered the business “their own” as well leading to much devotion on their parts.

However as the business grew so did the demands of the clients. It became imperative for Karen R. to change her management style to the Authoritative Management Style as she needed to quickly enforce parameters and complete projects. There simply was no time for discussion among the employees and no time for multiple approaches to each project.

This led to much discontent on the part of the employees and they needed to be reminded that their opinions were no longer welcomed repeatedly which left Karen R. frazzled and stressed too.

The solution: Karen R. engaged a series of psychological tests for both herself and her employees as initially she had no clue what was wrong or how to relieve the problems. This test revealed that she was being somewhat “overly authoritative” in her approach and also that her employees were “too expectant” in their demands that she include them in decisions. A compromise was reached and Karen R. now allows some “input” from the employees but retains the right to make a decision unilaterally. This combination of Authoritative/Permissive Management Styles has led to the relief of the stress within her organization and has also led to increased happiness and productivity on the part of the employees.

Without a good knowledge of their own management styles or psychological approaches to business business owners can set themselves up for problems. They may be so difficult in their approach and so set in their ways that they in essence would not put up with this behavior if they worked for themselves. Or they can be so passive and so permissive that they become “doormats” for the employees thus not achieving enough control over the business. Karen R. above is a good example. Her Authoritative Management Style when adopted became much too rigid for the growth of the business and this was because of her perceived “need” for control in a business that was growing rather rapidly. Because she herself felt somewhat overwhelmed by the growth she tended to approach the employees with an attitude that was too strict and unrelenting.

Assessment of situations along with psychological tests administered to all within a business if problems arise can go a long way towards alleviating the problems. These tests are generally available online or from Human Resource providers.

Business owners can’t rectify a problem or their own behaviors or that of their employees unless they know specifically what these problems are. Insight into themselves and others will assist business owners into successful resolution of all problems as they occur. Knowledge of behaviors and knowledge of management styles can prevent problems in management problems before they happen.

About the writer:

Vishal P. Rao is the owner of http://www.homebasedbusinessopportunities.com One of Internet’s leading website dedicated to starting managing and marketing a home based business.

Outsourcing Your Ecommerce Order Fulfillment

When your eCommerce business grows to the point where you can no longer package and ship the orders yourself its time to begin outsourcing your order fulfillment. Although all order fulfillment centers offer the same basic services their individual methods and costs will help you choose one over the other. When selecting an order fulfillment service keep the following in mind:

Location

Order fulfillment warehouses are located all over the country. Its more important to select a warehouse that is close in proximity to your customers than to select one that is close to your business. For example if your warehouse is located in California and most of your customers are located on the East coast your shipping rates will be higher than if you had a warehouse located in Kansas. Fulfillment centers located in the middle of the country will be able to ship to both the east and west coast for similar prices.

Size

Fulfillment warehouses range from small business with just a few employees to large companies such as UPS. Select a fulfillment service that can meet your daily order fulfillment needs. Do you have consistent orders each day or do your orders spike? If you have orders that spike be sure to choose a fulfillment center that can handle the extra workload and still ship the orders within the agreed timeline.

Shipping Options

Most fulfillment centers offer a variety of shipping options. Make sure the fulfillment service you select offers all of the shipping options you currently offer your customers and the shipping options that you may want to offer in the future.

Turnaround Time

Each fulfillment warehouse has its own policy regarding order processing. For example some fulfillment centers will ship all orders that arrive before 1pm on the same business day. If you miss the 1pm deadline the order is shipped the next business day. This could impact your customers if a nextday order is placed after 1pm. In this case next day shipping turns out to be twoday shipping.

Order Entry

Order entry methods can be very important when considering a fulfillment service. The most common methods include:

• Forwarding individual order invoices to the warehouse
• Entering each order on the fulfillment centers webbased system
• Emailing an Excel spreadsheet with all order once a day

Each method has a different affect on your business. For example you may save money by manually entering orders into a webbased application but it can be tedious if your business grows to the point where you have more orders than you have time to enter. You may pay a higher price to automatically email each individual invoice to the warehouse but it may be worth the extra costs to have orders may be shipped as they arrive. Same day shipping could give you the edge over your competitor. On the other hand if you have a high volume of orders you wont want to individually enter each order into a webbased system and may not want to pay the extra charge of having individual orders emailed to the warehouse. If you dont mind shipping the next business day you can send an Excel spreadsheet containing all of your orders once a day. Choose a warehouse that offers an order entry method that meets your business needs and fits your budget.

Communication

Communication is an important part of every business. There will be times when you need to contact the fulfillment center to modify a customers address or cancel an order. Select a fulfillment center that is available via phone and email. You should not have to wait more than a few hours for a return email or call from the fulfillment center.

Error Rate

Mistakes will happen. Some customers will receive the wrong items or the items will be shipped to the billing address rather than the shipping address. When interviewing potential fulfillment centers ask about their error rate and their process for remedying the situation. For example do they issue UPS call tags to pick up the incorrect item and pay to ship a replacement item? Will they ship the replacement item at a faster rate to compensate the customer?

Costs

Each fulfillment center operates under a different payment schedule. Some use sliding scales and require contracts while others charge per order or per item with no contracts. You will also be charged a base fee to store your inventory at the warehouse and an additional fee per pallet or per item. Be sure you have a clear understanding of the fulfillment centers costs and any contracts.

When choosing a fulfillment center create a checklist of the features you would like. Interview a member of the warehouse staff as well as their references to make sure the warehouse will meet the needs of your growing eCommerce business. When you outsource order fulfillment the time that you normally spend packaging orders managing inventory and dealing with returns can now be focused on growing your business. Use this time to expand your product line enhance your online image promote your business or expand into new markets.

Copyright 2004. Danna Henderson. All Rights Reserved.

About the writer:

Danna Henderson started ZIP Baby in order to provide parents with comprehensive potty training information and a large selection of potty training products. For more information visit the ZIP Baby Potty Training Store.

Your Website Your Virtual Business Card

To make one thing clear way ahead without a website you will not survive on this market. And while you are at it make sure the website is userfriendly because you will need to make changes once in a while and if only to promote some new services. A website should list all the services you are about to offer as well as all your contact details. In the US pictures of yourself and your colleagues are seen as a sign of trustworthiness and reliability in Europe this notion is not so widely spread mainly because we are a little shy when it comes to posting pictures of ourselves on the net.

One important detail should never be omitted: your VAT number and the companys General Standard Terms and Conditions. Even though it is a global world and all make sure to indicate that if anybody likes to take you to court it will have to be a relevant court in your country.

It is also quite useful or so I have been told to have a quotation form on your site so that the client can get a price quotation for the potential job real fast. I have posted one on my site but honestly I dont really see any advantage in this. The clients have always contacted me via email or phone without using this form so the day is near when I will take this damned thing offline again.

Links and tools which can be useful for any translator or interpreter are always welcome. I see my site as a way to promote things I like seeing on the net useful websites I have come across useful shareware interesting glossaries dictionaries events coming up sites of friends and colleagues practically anything that makes my daily routine easier and more fun. Again it is up to you what to link to but it is advisable to check the links once in a while to see if they are still working the internet is a fastchanging medium!

So now you have it all a website with a clear message and some useful tools and links and on top of it a good provider to host it. Here I made the rather costly experience that it pays off to have a provider in your hemisphere your country. My first provider was an enterprise in Arizona US and one day got merged with the competition. I ended up paying more fees for less service and when I wanted to change providers they blocked my domain name and made things real complicated for a while.

Again now you have it all so how to promote this thing? You want people to find you not the other way around it right? Well if you have not forgotten to include some keywords so that search robots are going to find your site go ahead and submit your site to the various search engines i.e. Google Alta Vista and all. There are services on the net which will post your website on any search engine available for free. Dont fall for any of those companies claiming they will submit your website on various search engines in exchange for a hefty fee. You can save that money! Just google submit url free search engines and the results will point you to various providers you can use for this. Also make yourself known on the various translators portals write up an article about your profession once in a while for the various associations post messages on the mailing lists (make sure your website is mentioned in the footer of the message) post a newsletter on your site etc. T!

he list is endless for promoting your services but keep in mind with fame comes notoriety. Keep in mind the website is just meant to be your virtual business card it is not meant for opening doors to your computer for anybody out there. If youre on the Internet you need to have good antivirus software and a firewall period. And you need to keep them updated. If you use Windows you need to use the Windows Update feature at least monthly to make sure that any discovered holes are patched. This goes triple if you use Internet software that integrates closely with Windows like MS Outlook or Internet Explorer. This will cover you for the vast majority of security problems out there. I also review CNET news and Yahoos most popular news items to see if there are any other security issues or rampant viruses I should be aware of.

This brings us to all the unsolicited mail you tend to get once you are online with your website and email the socalled SPAM. Some email programs have builtin spam filters while sometimes your ISP will offer a spamfiltering program. If you dont have either of these options you may wish to consider a spamfiltering program to keep your email more about job offers and less about any number of a dozen scams. Do a search for spam filtering or antispam software.

One word of advice: The Internet has over four billion pages. Everyone is going to approach it with different needs and interests. Not everybody will have your wellbeing in mind so please use your common sense and the resources available on the net to reduce any chances of getting burned.

About the writer:

This article was written by InkaMaria Kunz CEO of a flourishing multilingual translations agency with offices in Germany and New Zealand. This article may be printed or used in its entirety with full author contacts and details. For more information translations or purchases of a new website/ebusiness contact the author thru the official website www.linguatransl.co.nz or the blog www.linguatransl.blogspot.com.