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The Systematic Approach To Formulating Your Business Strategy

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If you find the prospect of crafting a Business strategy over aweing – you are not the only one. The truth is that many Business entrepreneurs don’t really see the need. Nevertheless the is that most successful businesses have well defined business strategies.

A robust business strategy can mean the difference between a lucrative business and you working 60 to 80 hours a week all year long – and not making enough to make ends meet

On the other hand, many high performing entrepreneurs who have a business strategy are not married to their business and make piles of money – and they usually attribute their fortune to having a strategic plan which guides their business.

Your Business Strategy determines the focus, vision and aims for your whole company. A written business strategy will help guide, but not dictate, your day-to-day operations. Defining, sharing and communicating your business strategy influences and guides operational decisions.

So what is the process for preparing your business strategy?

1. Define your business vision. In your perfect world, just what your business look like What markets would you seek to dominate?

2. Decide your company’s core operating values? You are looking for the core beliefs and values that you wish your company to be known for. Once your key values are clear they form your guiding principles. In other words, why are you in business and how do you do business?

3. Strategy concerns long-term plans. Your strategic is based on the over arching objectives that will help you get from where you are now, to where you want to be.

4. Medium Term Planning. Strategy is about the large scale – long time scale. You need to include elements to guide your day to day, short-term performance. Remember to be “SMART” when setting your annual goals SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. As with any plan you need to define the tasks, who by and when. Figure out what resources you’ve already got, and what resources you need to get you past any barriers. And then create an action plan that clearly lays out how you will achieve your goals. Consulting with your staff will deliver much richer solutions.

5. It is important that you carefully monitor progress on your strategy and plans. Develop a set of milestones. Don’t underestimate the importance of this step. Being able to communicate progress to all stakeholders: investors, shareholders, partners, staff, customers and your local community is immensely powerful.

6. Communicate your strategy and plan. The short-term plan from your strategy creates the momentum and direction for your day to day activities.

7. Walk the Talk. Now that you have the roadmap, it’s time to begin the journey.

8. Make sure you know exactly how you are doing on a day by day basis. Create a dashboard to report on your key performance indicators.Prompt corrective action is often more important that the plan itself.

9. Follow the same cycle next year. (Dream, Plan, Act, Check).

Building a robust, realistic and achievable business strategy is not easy. It requires commitment, effort and discipline. Yet the rewards are obvious. Juat about every successful business has an active, documented business strategy.

Mailing Fulfillment – An Important Part of Business Strategy

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Mailing fulfillment is one of the most important strategies of business. Large business houses for long have considered it absolutely vital for proper functioning of their operations. Today, irrespective of the business size, it has become a mandatory option for all the business brains. Small organizations may hesitate a little in implementing such services, but in the long run they stand to benefit. This need becomes all the more important for small business houses when they decide to increase their production volume. Naturally, they are forced to delegate a portion of their responsibility or under certain circumstances, the entire responsibility to the service providing organization.

Identifying the need, today there is no shortage of such service providing organizations. Obviously, the price for these services does not come very cheaply, but the organizations who decide to avail these services stand to gain a clear edge over its competitors. The need for stock management has become equally important along with mail fulfillment. The process for managing your stock starts from placing the order and continues till the end delivery of the ordered goods to the final customer. The middle phase constitutes of storage and safety. The vigilance of precious and fragile goods before the time of their delivery is a responsible task, and needs to be handled with utmost care. This gives you the clear idea of the importance of this aspect on your business. Therefore, it needs the supervision of experienced and qualified personnel at every step.

The mailing fulfillment in the chain of demand and supply comes both before and after the phase of managing the stock. The importance of mail fulfillment is increasing because managing single proprietorship business is becoming difficult everyday. The task of taking care of every aspect of the business for a lone individual is a tough ask and has its own harmful effects. The effects show up at the time of the delivery process of goods. Regular delay in the delivery process of your merchandise becomes a norm, and the reputation of your business suffers badly as a result of it. On the other hand, even if you manage to deliver the goods with not much of a delay, they tend to get damaged or lose their quality in one way or the other. The quality of service just does not remain to the expected standard!

Therefore, lack of planning and judicious investment tarnishes the goodwill of the business forever. The worst result occurs when the business house loses its customer base. Both prospective and existing clients lose their faith on the mailing fulfillment company. Your years of hard work go into vain and the financial loses cut a very sorry figure. However, all such damages can be prevented and covered by availing the professional services of a stock management and a mailing fulfillment expert.

So, help your business from getting crippled on a permanent or a temporary note. Remember, a little price that you pay today can give you loads of revenue tomorrow!

Iris Announces Senior Promotions Ahead Of Revolutionising Agency Structure

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Bell is named London CEO as Noble and Wright take up global roles

Integrated marketing agency iris has announced three senior promotions as it plans to launch a new structure for its London operation. The current joint managing directors Steve Bell, Sam Noble and Adam Wright will take up the positions of chief executive of iris London, global executive planning director and global program director respectively.

iris London, which has grown at approximately 50% year on year, now employs over 300 people and says that the revised agency model will allow it to deliver integration in a far more client centric way, as the pace of growth, client mix, and scale and diversity of the business continues to increase.

Ian Millner, joint CEO and founder of iris Worldwide said, One of the most common pitfalls of agencies when they grow is that they loose their edge and spirit. This model will ensure that we continue to be as fresh, fast, proactive, valuable, accountable and client focused as we have been from day one.

The new model will consist of five houses that will each service up to five clients, with dedicated teams of creatives, planners and account handlers working under a managing partner and deputy creative director. The structure is aimed at creating better performing, more efficient teams, which behave like small agencies under the framework of a larger infrastructure.

A founding partner of the agency, which launched in 1999, Bell has played an important role in the development and growth of the London office and has been responsible for overseeing iris relationships with the COI, Brown Forman, Network Rail, Shell and Disney among others. He will now be charged with the overall running of iris London overseeing the five houses that have been created as well as responsibility for the creative, cultural and commercial delivery of the agency.

Bell said, iris London has grown from a handful of people to over 300 in just nine years, which is a unique situation in the agency scene. The 5 house structure will make it easier and more enjoyable to do brilliant integrated work by getting closer to our clients from an account handling, strategic and creative perspective.

We are increasingly working with new and existing clients at a strategic and channel neutral level, as brands are looking more closely than ever before at the potential value of integration and the revised agency model will allow us to deliver integration in a far more client centric way, Bell added.

Noble, also a founding partner of the agency, has to date been running the planning department, leading the investment in proprietary insight as well as overseeing a number of significant client relationships. In his new role as global executive planning director he will be responsible for driving the development, management and commercial application of planning and strategy to enhance the effectiveness and quality of iris work. Working across all iris agencies, both disciplines and territories, he will oversee a wide range of areas including consumer insight, account planning, communication planning, data and analytics, segmentation, digital strategy, direct strategy, retail strategy, measurement and evaluation.

Noble said, Brands are looking more closely than ever before at the potential value of integration. As a result, weve been building our strategic capabilities within the agency, including the recent acquisition of management consultancy firm, Concise and start up of a specialist Sponsorship strategy business under the wing of Peter Harris. My appointment is about accelerating this process of putting strategic capability at the heart of the agency and its relationships with our client partners all over the world.

Adam Wright, who joined iris in 2000 and worked on the Sony Ericsson pan-European business before becoming client services director and then joint managing director, will be responsible for spearheading the growth of the network across the globe and will head the imminent launch of a number of new offices across Europe.

For more information please contact:
Avril Canavan, + 44 (0)20 7654 7621 / +44 (0)7946416607
[emailprotected]

About iris Worldwide:

iris Worldwide is an independent, integrated marketing micro-network working across all media and all disciplines. Working with an enviable roster of global clients that include Shell, Sony Ericsson, ING, adidas and Coca Cola, the agency is committed to Media Anything, Idea Everything a creative vision that encompasses iris interpretation of integrated marketing.

iris provides true integration through its group of specialist companies – iris Digital, iris Direct, iris Experience, iris PR, iris Consulting, iris Product and iris Concise.

iris prides itself on two key abilities; seeing the potential and exposing mediocrity. These two objectives have guided the agencys work since conception, combined with a concerted effort to be the best agency their clients have ever worked with, and the only agency that truly talented people want to work for.

In the UK iris has been ranked 7th Nationally by the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For 2008 and was named Agency of the Year 2008 by the MCCA.

Established in 1999 by Ian Millner and Stewart Shanley, iris has shown considerable development in the last nine years, now employing over 500 people globally. With offices in London, Manchester, New York, LA, Miami, New Delhi, Singapore and Sydney, iris is planning to further expand its independent global micro-network with more offices opening in the near future.

Starting Your Cake Decorating Business From Home

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Are you contemplating opening a cake and cupcake decorating business from home? If so, you are not alone. But as with any type of business strategy, having a dream is actually just the very first part of the process. And dealing with food generally involves considerably extra preparation, health agency standards, and possibly permits that must definitely be established before you actually open your doors for business.

Quite possibly the most overwhelming tasks for many who are attempting to run a birthday cake decorating business from home, or perhaps a simple cupcake home-based business, is usually wading through the actual laws, zoning, as well as licensing standards. It might be disheartening for an individual who may never have done this before! Try not to get worried. There are plenty of individuals who have accomplished this before you, and you can now learn from them.

I’ll share with you suggestions to get you going on the right foot, before you head out and purchase your tools and business cards!

Plan For Success or System

Regardless if you are establishing a cake and cupcake decorating operation from home or any other business, you shouldn’t do a single thing until you have drafted (blank) a business plan or at a minimum an overview of exactly how you are going to operate your organization. For assistance with a business plan, you can easily get in touch with the Small Business Administration for guidance, or buy any number of reference books on the subject. Paula Spencer, that is definitely a well-known cake decorator, has a guide committed especially to the start-up of a cake and cupcake decorating company. This is explained further, in this article.

Have you considered Licensing?

As part of your main plan for success, call up or get on the net with your Town or City, and mention that you’re looking into running a cake and cupcake decorating small business. Explain if you are planning to utilize your kitchen, or if you’re planning on renting cooking space. Find out just what exactly you should do, along with exactly what legal requirements you need to comply with.

Just about every state government or community is unique, making it absolutely essential to get started off on the right foot. All of the online resources pointed out down the page will help you create a strategy of how to continue.

Is my kitchen sufficient enough?

One particular problem most of us experience is a lack of an industrial style kitchen area. If this sounds like your own greatest hurdle, here is a really imaginative suggestion that a good many others have used! Many neighborhoods have churches as well as other groups that already have industrial kitchen areas in place.

It is easy to check with the administrators connected with any of these kinds of agencies if perhaps you can use the kitchens part-time in exchange for perhaps a donation (possibly even a donation of one of your personal works of art for their special occasions!) or simply a set price.

You may be surprised at how receptive one or more of these venues can turn out to be!

Once you know that you’ll be able to legally open up your home business and have your mandatory permits in place, here are several practical ideas to get you going without having to break your budget.

Begin with small projects.

If you presently have a little cake and cupcake decorating experience behind you, you most likely have at the very least some fundamental cake and cupcake decorating equipment.

Unless your small business master plan permits for a few larger expenditures, start off small and build a little revenue before you purchase a ton of supplies. The information further down can really help guide you in the fundamentals that you really need prior to opening your doors.

Here are several ways you can check out The following are some ways you can check out the waters quite affordably.

Why not notify and youth organizations that you are offering to make cake pops or cakes for celebrations or other activities.

You can advertise a theme party; one example is, you could bring unfrosted Bake Pops(TM) or small cakes, and keep an eye on the kids in dipping the Bake Pops in a topping. Or even offer a “cupcake bar” where the children order the specific flavor of icing they want on their own treats. If they’re old enough and if you have sufficient ability to watch them, they can frost and decorate their very own cake pops.

With some ingenuity, you will soon make a name for yourself as a dependable cake decorating professional without spending too much start-up money. You will need to know the best way to price your cakes, how to write contracts and prepare orders, and how to determine the size cake you will need for the job. Never fear! There are formulas available that will teach you this information. Take your passion and creativity to the next level and begin earning money from home as a cake decorator!

Develop Hotel Management Strategy Map To Visualize Goals

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What is a strategy map? Is it just a nice presentation demonstrating company goals? Well, some top managers and business owners think so. In fact, this is not true as an effective strategy map shows both goals and ways to achieve these goals. Besides, some strategy maps are very difficult to understand since they contain complex terms and formulas from strategic management theory. An effective strategy map must be easy to understand even for a person without even elementary knowledge of strategic planning. Such a person should see goals and how these goals will be reached. All the rest is unnecessary. An effective strategy map and shows cause and effect ties between goals and measures. For example, if a strategy map contains just one goal of making much money and no ways to implement it this will be a useless document. At the same time, if such a strategy map demonstrates how this goal will be implemented and what needs to be done in several stages, this strategy map can be considered effective. In
this article well talk about hotel management strategy maps.

First and foremost a hotel should develop comprehensive and realistic strategy. It means that strategic goals have to be ambitious and achievable at the same time. On top of that, making a lot of money can be hardly called a strategic goal. A strategy is about future vision, and hotel industry is not an exception here. Thus, a good example of strategic goal would be gaining particular percentage of market share, improve and loyalty of existing customers and attraction of new ones, improving hotel business image and recognition throughout the world and of course increasing profits. Of an effective hotel management strategy map will show what needs to be done to achieve these goals. Balanced Scorecard is perhaps the best tool to design strategy maps that demonstrate cause and effect ties.

All financial goals can be implemented if some improvements are performed in other spheres. As known, Balanced Scorecard consists of four categories which are interrelated: financial, customer, internal business processes, learning and growth. A hotel strategy map will show cause and effect ties between all categories and key performance indicators that each category contains. For instance, in order to increase revenue (financial), it is necessary to attract new customers (customer) which is possible on lee through introduction of new services and improvement of internal procedures (internal business processes) while this is only achievable through improvement of personnel professional level (learning and growth). This simple example demonstrates cause and effect ties between Balanced Scorecard categories and key performance indicators. For example such key performance indicator as customer loyalty directly affects revenue growth since loyal and satisfied customers are more likely to stay and the same ho
tel again. Thus, the hotel strategy works in the long term which contributes to competitive advantage in the market. It needs saying that Balanced Scorecard will perfectly work and the hotel will improve its performance only if improvements in the four categories are achieved. This means that the hotel should be ready for changes.