Archive for the ‘Business Management’ Category

How to Structure a Customer Survey for the Best Results

May 10th, 2012 webkriti

Surveying your customers is a good way to get constructive feedback about your products, and also gauge the state of the market, and the likelihood of any new product or service you launch being a success.

However, the value of a survey depends on the way that it is written, and the number of people that answer it.  Many companies focus on the technical side of things when they’re implementing business surveys, worrying more about web development issues than they do the kinds of questions that they’ll ask inside the survey.  If you ask the wrong questions, or confuse your users, then the data you gather will be next to useless.

When you’re building business surveys, consider the following:

  • Keep your survey short, so that people answer all of the questions
  • Decide what you want to learn through the survey.  Focus on one or two topics per survey.
  • Keep the language in your surveys simple and conversational.
  • Start with general questions, and narrow them down to more specific ones.
  • Rephrase important questions and repeat them during the survey to ensure that the respondent is answering consistently.
  • Avoid leading questions.  Instead of asking “How much do you like our coffee”, say “Do you think our coffee is…” and offer the respondent a sliding scale from “Poor” to “Very good”.
  • Be consistent with your scales.  Don’t change from a one to five scale to a one through ten later in the survey.
  • Free text fields for people to explain their answers can be useful, but don’t rely on them.  It’s hard to make bar charts out of lots of freeform text!
  • Test the survey on a small group of people (even if they’re friends and employees) before you run it for real.  If anyone expresses confusion about some of the questions, re-phrase them.

Once you’ve put together your survey, you will need to find people to answer it.  This is the part that your web development team can help with.

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Do You Need An Accountant?

May 10th, 2012 webkriti

It used to be that in small organisation, an excellent accounting would be one of the main requirements when looking to start a company. Their expertise in everything involved with the start up of an organisation was seen as vitally important if the small company is going to be a success. However, their roles have been brought into question in a small company as the internet has grown. Their high price advice about forming a company, VAT and company structure is now usually available for a small charge, or even free online. Also, there has been a rise in accounting systems available online which as made it even easier to keep their business books up to date. This article looks to explore why more organisations are looking into online financial systems and how this has effected what is seen as the role of the traditional accountant.

Why are companies looking to online financial systems

Price – When bookkeeping and accounting was not accessible to small business owners, it was seen as an ongoing running cost of the organisation. Their cost structure differed from per hour to fixed fee and a number would even charge per minute for a telephone call.

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Why Your Local Business Needs a Website

May 10th, 2012 webkriti

In the era of the Internet, it seems like everybody and their brother has a website for their business. It’s true that consumers expect to find their favorite big retail outlet online for shopping and service needs, but what about a smaller, local business?

Rather than hitting the yellow pages or pounding the pavement for perhaps a local plumber in Harrisburg, PA, the modern consumer is more inclined to type the phrase, “plumbing Harrisburg PA” into their browser and see what comes up. If your company doesn’t have an Internet presence, you could be missing out on the online traffic to put your business in the black.

Advantages of a Website for Local Businesses

It may seem for an established local business that the need for a website is limited, but in reality the benefits are numerous. By having a home on the Internet in the form of a website, you’re immediately opening yourself up to new clients and opportunities.

The first thing most people do when they need a local service provider is to search what they are looking for online. Just like if your physical location for your store didn’t have a front door, if you don’t have a website you are essentially turning away potential business.

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The Benefits of Facilities Management to Businesses

May 3rd, 2012 webkriti

Businesses can grow at a rapid rate these days if you are successful and there are associated growing pains with the process. As your business grows, you find yourself taking on more staff, which can often lead to an upgrade in terms of the size of your premises. Larger buildings also incur a number of changes to the core structure of the business, including a number of extra toilets, the need for catering for staff, and the requirement of maintenance.

This is where facilities management can come in, and benefit a growing business. You’ll find that a growing business picks up an accumulation of assets, and these don’t just include the employees and the building. The grounds on the building, the meeting rooms, the computer equipment etc. all costs money, and these need to be properly maintained. Facilities management can offer the first and foremost, basic solution, of cleaning of any offices. An integrated service will be able to look after every issue associated with your business premises and assets. Integrated solutions are advisable to save time and money, because one company can look after everything. So what is covered by an integrated facilities management solution?

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The Need For The Best Seo Service

April 21st, 2012 webkriti

These days SEO and internet marketing is in vogue. You must be aware of the fact that in order to survive in this intensely competitive world of online business, you need to ensure that you are putting your web site on 1st pages of search engines. To march ahead on the road to success, it is vital that you look for the finest futuristic and optimized seo service that can give your site an edge over your competitors site.

With SEO, we mean the content on your site and articles about your site should be written that search engines like Google, yahoo and others index your pages and allow you to you secure high rankings in such search engine listings. By getting listed in the right position in such search engines, the probability of enhancing the net traffic on your site increases.

There are a lot of different agencies that can promise you the best seo service, but not all agencies are able to keep their promises because seo can be very grueling. So, the right thing to do is to carry out an intensive search regarding which is the right agency that has the right mix of innovative ideas that are sure to be a success providing a return on your investment..

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Is Virgin Trying to Do Too Much?

April 21st, 2012 webkriti

“There are times that a brand just has to say ‘no’ to a brand extension. Weak brand extensions weaken the entire brand, and that is a terrible thing to do to a strong brand name.”

-John L. Mariotti, President and CEO, The Enterprise Group, commenting on Virgin’s brand extension strategies.

Founded in 1979 by business tycoon, Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Group Limited is a British branded venture capital conglomerate organization consisting of more than 300 branded companies worldwide, and valued at about £11, 5 billon. The brand was named “Virgin” because Branson, and the co-founder of Virgin Records, considered themselves virgins in the world of business.

Since then, “Virgin” has become one of the most respected and recognisable brands in the world; and has extended itself multiple times to include trans-Atlantic flights, credit cards, cola, vodka, clothing, lingerie, electricity, gyms, trains, concerts, holidays and mobile phones amongst many others. We’re not even past the first quarter of 2012 yet but Sir Richard Branson’s empire has expanded after taking over Northern Rock bank in the UK.

Virgin has been heavily criticised concerning its numerous extensions. Marketing experts argue that, by extending into vastly dissimilar goods and services that are neither culturally or visually inconsistent, Virgin is diluting the meaning of the brand.

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Top Tips for Managing Your Advertising Budget

April 21st, 2012 webkriti

Many companies, when they make their first entry into the world of online marketing, are unsure how much they should spend on their marketing efforts.  Instead of asking how much they “should” spend, a better question would be “How much can I afford to spend on my advertising campaigns”.

Online marketing is just one form of advertising.  Many businesses still do well from print ads, billboards, and even TV and radio.  Each marketing platform has its own benefits and downsides.  Before you put a price on your marketing campaigns, you should think about how much you can afford to spend to make a sale – and how likely sales are to come from each platform.

When you place your first advertisement in a new publication, or experiment with a new medium, you can’t be certain how well that advertisement will convert.  There are, however, a few things that will help you to make an educated guess:

The most important things to consider are:

1. The effective reach of the publication or platform (how many people will see the advertisement).

2. The typical conversion rate of that platform (the quality of your ad will matter here).

3. The demographics that the platform can reach.

4. The value of a new customer to your business.

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Should I Choose VPS For My Business?

April 21st, 2012 webkriti

If you’ve got a business website then you need to know that you are getting the best out of it. You want a website that looks good, does its job and works well. You need to decide which dedicated hosting, shared hosting or vps you want to use and you want to know that you’re making the best choice.

Let’s start with the basics

If you don’t know much about the web then you probably don’t know what server hosting is. A server is a system that stores websites and it’s what allows your site to be accessible on the internet.

Anyone who owns a site needs it to be hosted somewhere which means you pay a provider to host your site within their server space.

The different types of hosting options

There are three main types of server options that are widely used. The first is dedicated server hosting and this is generally used by very large sites like those dedicated to global corporations.

Dedicated servers provide one server for one site so that it’s not sharing space with other websites. This offers the ultimate in security because your site is completely isolated from any other.

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Management 101: Providing Constructive Feedback to Employees

April 20th, 2012 webkriti

Criticism has a bad reputation. People tend to associate it with negativity and hurt feelings. However, as a manager, it is your job to help your employees perform at their best, and also to help remedy their underperformance. Therefore, you must provide some form of criticism. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this. Here are some tips for providing constructive feedback to employees:

Don’t put it off. It is not a good idea to wait until review time to address a problematic situation. Nip it in the bud, before it gets out of hand, by speaking up as soon as you notice the need. Also, be consistent in providing regular feedback.

The right time and place. Don’t make the mistake of speaking to an employee about a sensitive issue at the employee’s desk, where others may be able to hear it. Choose a meeting place that is private, and separate from coworkers. You may even want to consider meeting outside of the workplace altogether – say, for coffee or lunch. Also, it is a good idea to approach such a discussion after work hours, so that you don’t send your employee back to work feeling flustered.

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Management 101: How to Encourage Teamwork in the Workplace

April 20th, 2012 webkriti

While it is true that today many managers are focusing on creating autonomy in the workplace, it is also true that it is just as important that employees know how to be team players. As a matter of fact, having a strong team in the workplace is a necessity to any business’ success. Therefore, guiding coworkers into teammate roles can greatly increase your bottom line . . .and may even make your job as a manager a bit easier. Here are some suggestions for how to encourage teamwork in the workplace:

Evaluate your team members individually. Before you can encourage your employees to work together, you must first identify the ways in which they can best meet each others’ needs and fill their roles as employees. Take some time to size up each individual employee’s strengths, weaknesses, and skill set, and then figure out which role(s) each employee is best suited for, as well as which employees compliment each other the best. Remember that a team can’t be full of catchers, umpires, or third-basemen. It takes all types, and it is your job to recognize which types you are working with and then put them in their prospective roles.

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Two Main Types of Marketing Research

April 20th, 2012 webkriti

Marketing research is the process of gathering information from consumers and business customers, depending on the type of products and services you sell. The way you interview these people is called a methodology or method of research. For example, you may procure information from consumers via the Internet, the method. The information you garner is called data. Marketing research professionals, whether at the analyst, manager or director level, usually analyze marketing research data. They then use it to recommend various marketing strategies.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research usually includes phone, mail, Internet or in-person interviews. Market researchers may do interviews in person if they are speaking with doctors, executives or other professionals that are hard to reach through phone surveys. These professionals usually have gatekeepers like secretaries, who relentlessly screen their bosses’ calls. Quantitative research is usually conducted in large numbers. In other words, the marketing research agency conducts hundreds of surveys so they can attain a representative sample. A representative sample is one that is statistically valid. The results can be projected with some degree of certainty across the general population.

Qualitative Research 

Qualitative research is usually conducted before quantitative research. Qualitative research is conducted among smaller groups of people. It is more exploratory in nature.

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Things to Consider When Relocating Your Business

April 20th, 2012 webkriti

Anyone business owner who wants to become informed on business relocation should develop an outline on what they would like to learn. Business owners who have already established themselves within their field but who would like to move their shop to a larger town or city will need to be aware of some specifics. Once they have consulted with some professionals on what they need to do, they can begin loading up the moving vans and heading on to their final destination. With an appropriate business sense, they should be able to increase their profits significantly.

Will The Insurance Be The Same?

Insurance will have to be looked into. Anyone who keeps a small business in a stand-alone structure will need to insure that structure against any possible damages from floods, fires, or burglars. Because insurance rules are often different in various towns, some research will be needed. When men and women understand the kind of insurance policy that will be needed in their new location, they can go to work and set up that policy. Insurance agents can surely advise them on some of the more ambiguous aspects of the process. In the aftermath, they can concentrate on making a profit without worrying about potential negative events.

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