Chris A Watkins - Business

The following article came out of an interview conducted with Max Doleh - Law enforcement organisations and Crime Stopper programs are turning to technology which enables text tip-off from the public to facilitate a police response. In September 2007 Master Sergeant Charles Phillips of the Oklahoma City Police Department published an item on the Oklahoma City Crime Stoppers web site (http://www.okccrimetips.com/ ) calling for increased resources to bring this technology to OKC. In November 2007 it was announced that Crime Stoppers of Oklahoma City have engaged technology company ProductiveT to develop an SMS system that is radically different to others in use in the country. Max Doleh, ProductiveT president and CEO answers questions – 1 . What makes the Oklahoma City system so different? The ProductiveT technology differs greatly from other offerings. The police department have their own dedicated number for receiving the messages and unlike most systems there is no need for the sender...

A recent freelance project informed potential bidders - "... I don't need creative. I write web pages and articles but my spelling and grammar are atrocious. I need an editor who will work with me on a page by page basis..." Full marks for effort here. High marks too for confidence. The writer is very much into the - I believe, therefore I can - method of self image boosting. It's a ten to one bet he repeats a mantra every morning before rising. Repeating "I can, I will, I can I will..." five hundred times, just as all the best self improvement manuals say. Or does he? Let's not forget - this guy is successfully selling his work. What is puzzling is HOW he can do creative writing when he doesn't have a grip on the basic rules of language? Don't misunderstand this. It can be done. You only have to read the opening pages of the novels on the bestseller shelf of the local bookstore to appreciate that it can be done and is done. What is elusive - is...

It all looks good on paper. Your product or service is up there with the competition, you can fend off new entrants to the marketplace, the demand is stable and your suppliers are solid. Then it happens. Profits start to fall. You may have seen it coming. If you’re on the ball you will have identified the threat. The cause may be legislative changes for employers, or increasing legal protection costs, or the need for increased customer support. The crunch may even stem from something as simple as a key member of staff leaving your employ. Yes, we’re talking about that ever-present bane of business – Overheads. In the face of increasing costs, profit margins can be sustained in only three ways – 1. Increased product price – could be death to your competitive edge. 2. Decrease in quality or professionalism – while the process may take a little longer, this will kill you just as surely as pricing yourself out of the market. 3. Increased efficiency. No prizes for guessing th...

Only four years after Sen. Inhofe (R-Okla) attempted to label Global Warming as a hoax the business world seems to have embraced environmental sustainability so thoroughly that 'green' has become the new 'black' in marketing. Intel, AMD, VMware, Microsoft and many others have developed green facets to their advertising. The motor manufacturers have become so enthusiastic in boasting environmental claims that their advertising is now being labeled as potentially misleading. While it could be assumed that the marketing gurus are more in touch with the public mood than the politicians, it wouldn't do to forget that many of the products being advertised in this manner were under development well before Sen. Inhofe's amazing gaff. That being the case, it may also be assumed that the features so enthusiastically touted as green aspects were designed with completely different motives in mind. Certainly, in computer manufacture, the new quad processors from Intel and AM...

It’s your dream team. Everything is in place, all they need is a little bit more tweaking and they’ll be perfect. Then it happens. Somebody hands in their notice and leaves. And it’s not just the loss of one individual. It’s the strain on the others as they try to make up the shortage. Recruitment takes time. Get by that and it’s followed by even more stress as the newbie takes up more resources in the training phase. Even when it’s all done, you know the adjustments will keep them below peak performance for several months. That’s the period when other team members begin complaining about the extra work load and start to look around at other jobs. Control is easy. You just use the good old disciplinary process. Fine tuning a team is harder with many more plates to juggle. People are just plain unpredictable, or are they? Recent research by Gallup Consulting reveals a pretty convincing case for active engagement of employees, claiming that engaged employees are – More profitable More cu...

Gaining an increase in market share may become necessary for a number of reasons. You may need to shift focus from one product line to another in the face of a declining market, you may wish to expand to fend off a market place squeeze or you may just be growing towards your planned capacity. Whatever the reason, you will need to form an acquisition strategy. There are three ways to obtain an increase in market share – Earn it. Use competitive trading to buy it. Acquire a competitor. Each of the three approaches bring along its own strategy requirements and its own issues. Selecting the best approach depends entirely on circumstance. Outperform the competition. Earning market share by supplying a better product, better service, better support, better delivery is an honorable way of expanding a customer base. It is steady, progressive and undemanding in that production/purchasing is not subject to stresses caused by sudden up-shifts in supply/delivery. Even so, there are issues. Attaini...

Many young companies reach a point in development where growth is seriously slowed by lack of funds. Finding the best way forward can be difficult and a wrong choice can be disastrous. The term angel investor was originally coined in show business where it was applied to a wealthy individual who would take the risk of privately backing a Broadway show when conventional funding failed to materialise. Today the label is commonly applied to describe an individual who invests private wealth in a business. Nearly a quarter of a million angel investors are currently estimated to be providing around three billion pounds to UK business each year. The cumulative pool of investment from this quarter stands at around twelve billion pounds, a figure that exceeds all UK venture capital lending and is equal to a full seven percent of the total UK bank business lending. A very clear indication of just how much UK business craves growth funding sourced from the private sector. As a group, angel invest...