Archive for January, 2010

UNF helps small firms do business with government

January 20th, 2010 admin

The Small Business Development Center at UNF in partnership with the Florida Procurement and Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) is pleased to announce the Northeast Florida PTAC office is now located at the SBDC at UNF. The PTAC Program is a specialized program under the Florida Small Business Development Center Network (FSBDCN) and is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.

The Procurement Technical Assistance Center Program (PTAC) was established in 1985 and helps Florida businesses interested in obtaining contracts with the Department of Defense, other federal agencies, and state/local government agencies and participating prime contractors by providing information and training.

Lisa D. Haggerty is our PTAC specialist. Lisa most recently worked as a project administrator and business development specialist with MacDonald-Bedford LLC, a service-disabled-veteran-certified company providing architectural, engineering and construction consultation services. There she was responsible for identifying government contracting opportunities; marketing to area procurement professionals at conferences, trade shows and in person; proposal and presentation preparation; and contract review and administration.

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Main Advantages of Distance Education

January 19th, 2010 admin
If you have ever thought of getting a distance degree, then you surely have noticed its obvious advantages. These days it’s rather hard to fit studies into our everyday lives, especially if it’s a postgraduate diploma like MBA. But if you are hesitating about earning a degree, you definitely should have a closer look at the main benefits of online education.

   1. Accessibility.   You don’t have to attend any on-campus lectures, isn’t it great? All online students have access to their online virtual campus, anytime and anywhere. This option gives you the freedom to suit your studies into your everyday life taking into account all factors, for example, work and busy schedule. It’s very beneficial for those who want to earn MBA, ACCA or Master degree online.
   2. Self-concentration. Studying online gives you the freedom to be totally on your own. No pressure from tutors and students who sometimes can interrupt or distract from work. Online students can choose any method of studying, whether they like reading, listening or watching video lectures.
   3. Advanced communication with tutor. Indubitable advantage of distance education is possibility to ask you tutor questions at any time, unlike ordinary lectures where you have a time limit.

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How Coaching and Mentoring Works: The Benefits of Using a Coach or Mentor

January 18th, 2010 admin
The current trend is for an increase in coaching and mentoring in the workplace.

Coaching and mentoring, whether on an executive level or for overall staff, are increasingly being recognised as important in employee development. It is acknowledged by senior management in many organisations that their company will thrive if they offer some form of coaching and mentoring to their staff.

We are particularly aware at how much this trend for coaching and mentoring has grown in the UK, as this is where most of our clients are based.

We work with companies who automatically assign a mentor to new employees, some who leave it up to the employee to seek out a coach for themselves, some who don’t or won’t see the advantage of having coaches for their people and just about everything in between.

Fortunately, many more companies are giving their people an understanding of the benefits of coaching and mentoring, of which there are many, and more people are training and acquiring qualifications in coaching and mentoring than ever before.

What Coaching and Mentoring Training is available?

People can get a professional qualification in coaching and mentoring, a certificate in coaching and mentoring; there are many courses offering training in coaching development, creative mentoring, career coaching, face to face training, on-line training, workplace mentoring, becoming a coaching and mentoring consultant, building a coaching network, business approaches to coaching and mentoring, distance learning, management mentoring, staff coaching, in house training courses, ‘out’ house training courses.

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Why Use a Change Management Consultant?

January 14th, 2010 admin
Why use change management consultants? This is a very good question because unless you are very clear about exactly what sort of help you need I would just simply say don’t!

Key factors

There are a number of factors that will have a bearing on how you approach using a change management consultant – or in determining whether you even should do so.

~ Your objective – the deliverable you are seeking. [See comment below re 3 fundamental motivations]. What do really want? An answer or solution that (a) you can implement or (b) someone else can implement for you? A solution and the knowledge and means to be able to replicate it yourself in future?

~ Your company’s size. The smaller you are the more you need to maximise the leverage of your budget. The difficulty you have is that you need the knowledge and expertise but you can’t generally afford to pay someone else to do it.

The larger you are the greater the temptation and tendency to take the easy way out and pass the problem on to external consultants – rather undertaking the diagnosis yourself which is part of what senior management are paid to do and training your own people and/or where necessary hiring interim external support.

~ Your budget – this is usually closely related to the size of your organisation.

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The Benefits of the Business Transformation Model

January 12th, 2010 admin
The business environment worldwide has evolved into a global marketplace of opportunity for those who are willing to take the chance to succeed. It is more possible now than ever before for the smallest of businesses to be thrust into international stardom all because of a brilliant idea. In order to take advantage of this opportunistic market, there should be structure in place to nurture the possibility of business transformation taking place as swiftly as possible.

Having a flexible business model can be an advantage to any business, although it does require some careful planning. Some managers and business owners may wonder if it is really worth the trouble, but it is most often the adaptable businesses, the ones that can move and transform with market changes and performance, that do well in the long run.

Typical Business Challenges That can be Solved Using Business Transformation Strategies:

-Growing Consumer Demands: Not only do consumers want high quality, but they also want convenience and reliability. If a business cannot adapt to new distribution models, trends in customer service models or availability and ease of product sales and returns, customers will shop elsewhere.

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Discovering Fraudulent Appraisals During Foreclosure

January 12th, 2010 admin

by: Nick Adama

Without question, one of the enablers in many fraudulent mortgage lending schemes has been a crooked appraiser willing to give a property any value that the Realtor, mortgage broker, or lender wanted. The real estate bubble could not have been inflated to such a high level without the complicity of many appraisers who threw all conservatism out the window and began giving properties ridiculous values in order to help secure loans.

Now, with the housing market collapsing all around us, these appraisers have had to go back to valuing homes at more reasonable levels. However, this leaves many homeowners out in the cold, having received inflated appraisals just a few years ago and now finding out their homes were never worth that amount. What recourse, though, do these borrowers have, especially when they fall into foreclosure ?

The degree of appraisal inflation and fraud has been found to be astronomical in too many cases already. Homeowners have discovered that their home’s value was inflated by up to 1,000% of its non-bubble price.

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Making Affordable SEO work for your site

January 11th, 2010 admin

SEO stands for search engine optimization, a process of improving traffic on a site. It may also stand for a company offering search engine optimization for its clients, a search engine optimizer. Today there are many companies which offer affordable SEO. But before you finally decide on hiring one for your site, you should make sure you know what it can provide. There are companies which can be damaging to a site if they fail to deliver the right services, so this is actually very important. A thorough review of your site is the first thing you should expect from your SEO. The structure of your site and the content of your site is included in the review. Technical advise, particularly on the development of your site, is the next thing an SEO provider should provide. This includes the use of Java script, hosting, error pages and redirects. SEO companies also offer content development so you are not left out on your own devise. You should also expect additional services like the management of your business in the development of campaigns. Keyword research, accurate reports on geographies and specific markets and training on SEO are the additional things you should expect.

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Why there is a Need for Expertise Management Consulting to Run Your Business?

January 11th, 2010 admin
“Management consulting” this term shoulders an important responsibility of helping the companies to evolve in their performance and productivity with the help of conclusions that are drawn after analysing the existing business problems. There is the rising pressure for innovation and change that requires tapping out the best management strategies and resources to remain in competition. Business management consulting involves the identification and cross analyzation of the best business practices, analytical methodologies, change management, technological adaptations, strategy development and many more.

Management consulting is a broad term which encompasses various business consulting services like Information technology consulting, human resource consulting, change management, project management and many others like team development. At one level or the other most of these terms seem to overlap.

Management consulting is not only adopted in private sectors rather now a days Govt organisations, quasi- government organisations and non-profit organisations are also inclined towards following it.

The need for management consulting arises in the situation when it becomes necessary to exploit the knowledge. It becomes difficult to manage the knowledge in the ever expanding world of business.

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A List of Tough Job Interview Questions For Tough Times

January 8th, 2010 BUSINESS SHARING

by: Thomas Sullivan

The information presented here is designed to provide a benefit to anyone who must answer questions during the dreaded job interview. The main point presented here is that the key to a successful job interview is preparation. The following discussion expounds on this key point.

While some tough job interview questions take us off guard, others we can see coming a mile away. How we answer job interview questions will make the difference between getting and not getting the job. We all have questions that we’d rather not be asked during an interview. But how can one prepare completely for a tough interview?

The answer to this question really comes down to intense preparatory work. In a nutshell, do your homework. Make sure that you know your resume thoroughly and expect questions to come from your work history. Also, expect questions about the company you want to work for and the type of future you want in that company, and finally, expect questions about you. You should use several large lists of questions in preparation for the interview.

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US Aluminum Industry to Grow Over 5.4% CAGR to 2013, Says RNCOS

January 8th, 2010 admin

by: Shushmul Maheshwari

At present, the US aluminum market is largely driven by automobile, construction, and packaging Industry. Use of aluminum in automobiles will keep on growing with increasing public demand for a greener environment and greater fuel efficiency that has forced policymakers to raise fuel economy standards, cut carbon dioxide emissions and enhance the use of aluminum in automobiles. Consequently, enabling the US aluminum industry to register a steady CAGR of 5.4% (in value terms) during 2009-2013, says RNCOS in its new research report “US Aluminum Market Analysis”.

Our industry experts have done thorough research on the US aluminum industry and has identified various decisive trends prevailing in the market, We have inferred that aluminum industry in the US is dominated by the top four players, accounting for nearly 80% of the market share, which gives rise to intense rivalry in the industry and calls for new market entrants to balance the aluminum demand-supply mechanism in the country.

According to the report, financial crisis will hamper the aluminum industry’s growth rate in 2009 amid slowdown in country’s automobile and construction industry.

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Importance of Leadership Development

January 6th, 2010 admin
Leadership development programs prove to be advantageous to companies as they maximize the output of the company’s entire workforce.

Leadership development programs particularly help trainees in providing an overview of the operational system of the company as well as train for the required skill needed by the company to increase their productivity. This training helps the trainees to become more efficient and productive leaders and managers.

Leadership training is based on the company and the leadership development training differs from one company to the other. It should be very industry specific, however with certain foundations that cross borders.

There are a number of benefits that an organization can acquire from leadership development programs:

• Improves confidence:
Working on their skills will help the employees to get more confidence about their performance.

• Increases employees stay time in the company.
If the employee gets a perk from the organization, he/she feels they are a vital and respected member of the community which increases the chances of the employee staying for a longer time in the organization.

• Increases productivity
Leadership development program helps in enhancing the skills of the employees, which further enhances the productivity of the employees assisting in employee retention, better customer service and lessened revenues spent for training of new personnel.

• Provides employees with company’s vision in a tangible way by teaching them the skills that the company requires:
Through the leadership development program the employees realize the skills being taught to them, they have a clear vision of what the company is expecting to work on and how to achieve success within the company.

• Helps in training leaders and managers to generate new ideas and creativity in their work.
By:  Elle
Image source: http://www.tgassociates.com/images/people/leader.jpg

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Organizational Development for High Performance

January 5th, 2010 admin
The key to sustaining high performance in your business is total organizational development. Total organizational development is really about developing the total organization. It is critical to meeting your ultimate corporate challenge for long-run success and growth. Total organizational development involves fostering total organizational poise and effective organizational synergy. To do this, focus on imaginatively creating effective synergy of excellence of your people’s actualizing attributes and excellence in the facets and interfaces of your organizational systems, subsytems, and processes.

Total organizational development is the transformational challenge facing businesses in a pulsating business environment. It promotes total orgaanizational poise development through creating excellence of your organizational and people’s conditions and attributes while fostering effective organizational synergy for sustainable high performance. You and your top executives need to explore and employ the power of total organizational development for long-term busines success.

When last did you undertake an organizational intervention or transformation program? If you undertook an oganizational transformation project recently, which explicit principles of sustainable organizational development drove the project? Was the initial organizational transformation program conceived around certain specific burning issues? What did you achieve six months after the conclusion of the program? How much of that could you get (or were you getting) one year after?

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