Articles written by Gopinathan Thachappilly
Showing 79 Articles
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Time Management is Critical for Business Success
Time management skills are critical both in personal and business contexts; personal time management by managers and workers leads to organizational time management.
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Skills Management Can Provide a Competitive Edge
Management training to improve managerial performance and operational training to develop the competence of workers enhance organizational competitiveness.
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Management Theories Provide Specific Insights
Theories are management approaches, some focusing on particular aspects while others seek to cover all aspects, and the different viewpoints provide a perspective.
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Quality Management Involves a lot of Things
In technical terms quality means suitability for intended purpose and in business terms it means meeting customer needs and expectations.
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Organizational Development Seeks Behavior Change
When we speak of organization development we are really speaking of people in the organization working cohesively towards achieving the vision it has set for itself.
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Office Managers Support Revenue Producers
The business office manager attends to the numerous detailed tasks such as record keeping and legal compliance that are essential for carrying on any business.
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Revenue Forecasts Initiate Business Planning
Forecasting future markets and revenues is critical for successful planning of business operations. Forecasts are uncertain, however, especially for new businesses.
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IT Management Optimizes Use of IT in Business
Information Technology Management with its greater focus on technology is distinct from Management Information Systems (MIS) that are more business-oriented.
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Innovation Management for Business Survival
A major product innovation can create short-term success for an organization while a culture of continuing innovation can create long-term competitive business advantage.
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Knowledge Management Involves Sharing Insights
Knowledge about business operations is an intangible, yet the most valuable, asset of the organization because without it, the tangible assets will be used inefficiently.
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SWOT Analysis Helps Strategic Plan Development
SWOT analysis involves analyzing internal and external factors that help or hinder the achievement of specific project or business objectives, which must be specified.
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CEO Roles Differ in Large and Small Companies
The CEO is mainly responsible for creating a vision for the company, and aligning the internal and external functioning of the company to this vision.
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Facility Management is changing with Technology
Using sensors and controllers, modern day intelligent buildings can optimize power consumption by switching on lighting and heating systems only when needed, for example.
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Crisis Management has to Tackle Varied Disasters
The kinds of crises that can affect a business are varied, and new kinds of crises are appearing with progress of technology and communications.
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Communication Management has Changed Drastically
A business organization has to communicate with employees, customers, suppliers, government, investors and the public to carry on its business successfully.
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Conflict Resolution Helps Improve Productivity
Conflicts in the workplace can affect employee morale and need to be handled in time. If left to themselves conflict situations can get worse and affect work performance.
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Change Management is One of the Toughest Tasks
Numerous change models have been developed for effective organizational change management, which will inevitably affect individual employees and their comfort levels.
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Compliance Generally Means Regulatory Compliance
The fight between business fraudsters and the government leads to increasing numbers and complexity of business regulations, making life difficult for honest businesses.
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Workflow Reviews Help Improve Business Processes
A workflow is a graphical representation of a sequence of business processes that involve resource consumption, transformation and data flow as well as human activities.
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Environment Strategy and Responsible Business
Traditionally, businesses focused on creation of wealth for their owners, often disregarding the damage they were inflicting on earth's environment and quality of life.
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Decision Making Quality Affects Business Success
IT can help businesses implement decision support systems that can identify the factors responsible for results achieved, and thus improve the decision making model.
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Cost Management Requires a Total Approach
While accounting systems provide information on existing costs, managing them involves a careful look at the lifetime costs of a product from development to retirement.
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Leadership Should Benefit both Leader and Led
"Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen" (Alan Keith of Genentech).
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Virtualization Can Save Substantial IT Dollars
Using computing logic at computing speeds, it is possible to do things that seem impossible, such as multiplexing available memory and other computing resources.
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CMMI Enhances Organizational Capabilities
Whether a business produces a product or renders a service, it is the business processes that determine performance levels in such areas as quality, timeliness, and cost.
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Project Management Method Depends on the Project
Some might be small projects with well-established guidelines. Others might be large projects with numerous uncertainties, requiring agile project management approaches.
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Business Process Management Aims at Adding Value
Business process management focuses on the basic business objective of survival and prosperity through continuous improvement of the value delivered to the customer.
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Responsible, Ethical and Sustainable Businesses
Responsible business practices include dealing fairly with employees and the community, using non-renewable natural resources carefully and avoiding environmental damage.
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Business Intelligence is Not Just Information
Business analytics, reporting, dashboard, performance management, data mining, process mining, OLAP, spreadsheets and other software tools all fall under the term BI.
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Internet Business Develops New Business Models
Home based Internet businesses have helped even moms with kids to earn money from a business. Home Internet business is only one manifestation of the new potential.
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Business Manager Job Description: An Overview
The role of business managers can vary depending not only on the size of the business but also on the scope of their functions, e.g. general manager or office manager.
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Receivables Factoring Can Bring Much Needed Cash
Factoring finance involves selling receivables that will otherwise take months to become cash. Factoring companies will, however, give the seller only a smaller amount.
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Manufacturing Methodology: Influencing Factors
Manufacturing industry can use job, batch or continuous processes depending on the industry and scale of operations, and the practices are constantly being improved.
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Product Life Cycle Management - Two Concepts
PLC refers to managing a product's marketing life while PLM refers to managing product design, development, production and field service more effectively.
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ERP in Manufacturing Can Increase Throughput
ERP software typically comes with features that enable it to work with different manufacturing methodologies like discrete, flow and process manufacturing.
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ERP Financials Offer Industry Specific Modules
ERP finance solutions have best-practice modules to attend to accounting, reporting, treasury, regulatory compliance, business intelligence and performance management.
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CRM Involves Managing Customer Relationships
CRM or customer relationship management is above all a customer-centric way of doing business that modern technology can help by processing huge amounts of data.
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Supply Chain Management Affects Competitiveness
In the globalized environment of today, competitiveness can depend on procuring from distant sources and shipping to numerous destinations, and SCM becomes critical.
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Cost Benefit Analysis Factors in Intangibles
Whereas businesses typically work with concrete measures like Return on Investment, governments typically go for social and environmental cost benefits analysis.
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Balanced Scorecard is for Performance Management
Business-vision-oriented strategy formulation and balanced scorecard implementation can help a business ensure that its vision drives day-to-day operations.
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Business Performance Management Fundamentals
Managing performance involves attending to issues like clear planning, effective organization, employee development, working conditions and well-designed control systems.
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Investment Evaluation Ratios for Stock Investors
Stock market investment is different from acquiring a business. Investors are interested more in the reasonableness of the stock market valuation of their shares.
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Performance Ratios Look at Operational Issues
Operating performance ratios are concerned with the utilization of physical facilities, productivity of employees and management of working capital.
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Debt Ratios Look at Financial Viability/Leverage
While a high proportion of debt funds can boost the returns to equity shareholders, it can also reduce a company's financial options during lean business periods.
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Cash Conversion Cycle Measures Cash Flow Speed
Cash conversion cycle reflects the effectiveness of activities that go into working capital management, such as optimum inventory maintenance and good credit management.
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Liquidity Ratios Help Good Financial Management
Even if a business has high profitability, it can face short-term financial problems if its funds are locked up in inventories and receivables not realizable for months.
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Financial Ratio Analysis for Performance Check
Used externally, financial ratio analysis can spot better investment options for investors, and internally, business managers can spot business areas requiring attention.
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Profitability Ratios Measure Margins and Returns
While profit margin ratios look at the margins that a company was able to generate, return ratios examine how well the company utilized available resources.
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ERP Systems Implementation Helps Best Practices
ERP systems come with modules for all business functions, and also with standardized best practices for different business processes.
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Sales Lead Generation Kicks off Direct Marketing
For B2B offers, it is important to generate sales leads by identifying organizations and persons to whom offers can be made with reasonable hopes of acceptance.
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Variance Analysis Finetunes Profit Control
Profit variance analysis highlights the financial factors responsible for the discrepancy between estimated and actual profits, and leads to focused investigation.
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Market Research - Importance, Goals and Methods
Market research is a continuing exercise to collect and analyze environmental, consumer, competitor and industry information to make marketing decisions less risky.
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Employee Training Goals, Relevance and Process
Employee competence and attitudes ultimately determine the level of success business organizations achieve. Training programs can improve both competence and attitudes.
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Market Orientation Focuses on the Customer
Techniques of market research, positioning and branding were refined and became popular with the customer focused and marketing oriented approaches from the 1970s.
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Emerging Technologies Can Revive Manufacture
Emerging technologies like nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science offer promise for developed nations' manufacturing industries.
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Production Scheduling Minimizes Time and Costs
Production scheduling involves allocation of facilities, materials requirement planning and employee scheduling based on available resources and subject to constraints.
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Working Capital Management Manages Flow of Funds
Working capital is the cash needed to carry on operations during the cash conversion cycle, i.e. the days from paying for raw materials to collecting cash from customers.
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Business Management Is Strategy and Process
Business management focus is on business results. Unless business managers maintain this focus throughout, management can become a routine bureaucratic exercise.
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Marketing Management from Research to Control
Marketing management covers new product development, acquiring customers, maintaining customer relations and building brands to increase company value.
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Management Information Systems' Significance
Executive information systems and other MIS are decision support systems, in contrast to regular information systems that focus on transaction processing/record keeping.
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Operations Management Enhances Competitiveness
Focusing on different aspects of a business' core operations, operations management seeks to develop systems and practices for cost reduction and quality improvement.
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Personnel Management Expands into HR Management
Personnel management was focused on employment contracts, disciplinary issues and compensation. Human resource management sees employees as high-value business resources.
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Production Technology for Manufacturing
Production technology covers technologies for an extremely varied range of products and services. Producers have to locate and organize the product technology they need.
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Venture Capital Fills a Critical Financing Gap
Innovative businesses with quick and high growth potential are the ideal candidates for venture capital funding. A detailed business plan would be essential, however.
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Business Financial Management Fundamentals
Business finances are managed through techniques like capital budgeting, financial planning, budgetary control, cost variance reports and financial analysis.
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Small Business Strategy Development Alternative
Small business strategy development cannot use the same techniques that big businesses do. This article suggests an alternative approach that small businesses can use.
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Small Business Management in Changing Conditions
A bottleneck is the currently critical factor that prevents business growth. Identifying and tackling the constantly changing bottlenecks can sustain business growth.
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How to Develop Business Strategies for Success
Business strategy involves looking at existing situation and future scenarios, identifying a challenging mission and deciding how to execute that mission.
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Business Promotion: How to Do it Effectively
In today's competitive world, you have to promote your business. Fortunately, business promotional tactics are innumerable with every trick of the trade being used.
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How Businesses Distribute Products to Consumers
Businesses can choose from a wide variety of distribution channels to get their products to consumers. Distribution decisions affect both costs and customer satisfaction.
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How Do You Fix Selling Prices to Best Advantage?
Selling prices have the primary goal of recovering direct and indirect costs with a profit margin. They can also support marketing and profit maximization goals.
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How to Align Product Design with Marketing 4 Ps
You do not buy a product; you buy a bundle of benefits. That statement sets the scenario for product development from a marketing viewpoint.
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How Do You Make Advertising Work for You?
Advertising is just one element of marketing. People know that advertising is a sales pitch, and you need to proceed carefully in a planned manner to make it effective.
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Publicity is a Top Priority for a New Business
Publicity is the information that the public gains about your business. Publicity campaigns seek to create a favorable image about you by disseminating good information.
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Small Business Marketing at Low Costs
Small business marketing needs a precise marketing strategy. Develop such a strategy based on what you learn during interactions with prospects.
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Direct Marketing How-to
Direct marketing can get superb results with narrow targeting and proper execution, or deteriorate into much detested junk mail or spam.
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Branding Multiplies the Value of Your Business
Branding involves creating a symbol that is widely associated with a particular company or product. A successful brand image can multiply the value of your business.
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Coupons and Coupon Codes in Business Promotion
Coupons that entitle the bearer to a discount or rebate when buying something are an increasingly popular business promotional device, despite dangers of coupon fraud.
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Promotional Giveaways Produce Business Results
Promotional products constitute a 20 billion dollar industry and promotional giveaways have become a widely used promotional strategy. Does this strategy produce results?
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