Profit Solved - Clarify Your Small Business Objectives

Without clarity your profit picture will be too fuzzy to serve as an accurate guide to making more money in your small business. Sharpen your focus in these four areas to improve your bottom line.

Personal Reasons: Understand your personal reasons for successful small business ownership.

Most small businesses are started for personal reasons. Your motivation might  come from a skill, hobby or passion. The tipping point is often an incident in your life. It might be the threat or reality of losing a job, need for extra income due to a child on the way, insufficient retirement funds or general frustration.

Many times your personal reasons for starting a business of your own are really, "more personal" - they have to do with who you are as a person, the need to have more control over your time and more options in your life.

The greater clarity you have about the "Why" behind your decision to start your small business the greater chance you will be focused and produce a higher level of profitability.

Business Goals: Clearly state your business goals regardless of your personal talents or skills.

You and your business are really two separate entities. You, as the person who owns the business, and the business itself. This is an important distinction because business must stand alone for several reasons.

You need to set goals for the business to achieve to be profitable. These goals are set based on the mission statement of the business rather than the capabilities of its owners. That would be too limiting. Also, for the business to be in the best position to be sold some day it must be capable of operating independently of its ownership.

Without a clear set of goals your business will lack focus and not be able to develop and implement a profitable business plan.

Active Lifestyle: Schedule activities for each lifestyle area: individual, family, spiritual, career, financial.

Small business ownership is generally all consuming. It gobbles up a huge amount of your time, at least mentally if not physically. If you set goals for each core area of your lifestyle you can maintain more balance and, as a consequence, be in a position to accomplish more in your business.

Use a simple system to select one or two goals for each lifestyle area including business ownership. Schedule time for each goal on a weekly basis. The amount of time allocated for each area or goal does not need to be equal. It just needs to be scheduled.

When your business clearly serves your lifestyle and is integrated into your daily life plan you free up time and energy to accomplish more and positively impact your profit potential.

Mandatory Time: Plan your use of time in 30 minute increments with an emphasis on mandatory items.

Time is money, particularly when it come to the business of making money. It has a equal if  or greater value in one's personal life. A month, week or day is too much time to plan with accuracy, but a 30 minute window is not.

Set long-term objectives to create direction. Set short objectives to set actions. Set blocks of 30 minutes to work on or complete actions. Reserve your 30 minute blocks of time for those actions which must done to complete key profit plans.

The technique of scheduling mandatory items within 30 minute blocks of time give you a  clear picture of the steps you're taking to optimize your profitability.

Today is the best time to bring your profit picture into focus and enjoy the benefits that come from clarifying your small business objectives.

QlikTech announces top placements in BI Survey - IBNLive.com

PTI | 10:09 PM,Sep 29,2010

Hyderabad, Sep 29 (PTI) QlikTech, a global business intelligence provider, has announced its top placements in this year's BI survey, an independent survey of Business Intelligence(BI) and Performance Management(PM) users conducted by the Business Application Research Centre (BARC). The company ranked first in customer loyalty, query performance (least complaints), and inclination to purchase more licenses, continuing to outpace larger rivals SAP (Business Objects), Oracle (Hyperion)and IBM (Cognos), a company release said here. QlikTech ranked high in other key categories, including ease of use, query performance, speed of implementation and intention to buy more licenses. "Its gratifying to see that our disruptive business model of proving our value as we move through an organisation is paying off in terms of customer loyalty, as intended. We hear from customers often who find our approach to be a refreshing change from the traditional enterprise software model that often turns solutions to shelf-ware" Lars Bjork, CEO of QlikTech said. "The fact that this loyalty transcribes into an inclination to buy more licenses reinforces that our 'land and expand' sales model is an effective approach for this customer base," he added.

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Business Objective

A company entering the market with a goal to do business shall have the following objectives:

Maximizing the returns on stockholders capital (wealth maximization) & and;
Profit Maximization

Unlike traditional business theories where maximum importance was given to profit maximization, modern theories lays down facts stressing on the maximization of wealth of its stock holders. Which means, maximizing the price of the stock/shares.

Profit maximization is a short term goal mainly for a period of one year or less. A company can maximize its short term profits at the expense of its long term wealth maximization. Stock holders wealth maximization is along term goal as stockholders are investing in a company expecting good-future-returns. Wealth maximization is preferable because it considers (1) wealth for long term, (2) risks, (3) stockholders returns and timing of the returns. Timing of the returns is important, as earlier the return is received, the better. A quick-positive return reduces the risk involved in the investment due to time factor. Also, if you have quick cash in hand you can reinvest the same.

When we are discussing long and short term business objectives, we must keep in mind that very often profit maximization and wealth maximization are conflicting objectives. It is very important for an entrepreneur to decide that what is his priority, longer term business or short term business. Very often you will find business starting off very well but ultimately going down to competition. They never invest in modernization and expansion of their business process. Hence better companies with good technology took over it. A costly investment may create losses in short term but yield substantial profits in long run. A company who wants to show short term profits may continuously postpone its capital repairs or equipment replacement. These postponements will certainly hurt the long term profitability. As an investor, important is to analyze a companies business objective and find out if it is focusing more on short term and long term growth.

The biggest obstacle in the way of long term wealth maximization is our thought process. And if you have overcome your mind then the second obstacle you will face is Financial Risk linked with any investment. Risk refers to the variability of expected returns (sales, earnings etc) and its profitability. Hence risk analysis is very important. Risk analysis is a process if measuring and analyzing the risk associated with financial and investment decisions. It is important to consider risk in making capital investment decisions because of the large amount of capital involved and also because of long term nature of the investment (time factor). Compare rate of return with amount of risk involved. Investor agreeing to take risk must be rewarded with good returns and vise versa. Management of Risk and returns is a key to create a long term wealth Maximization.

Latest Version of SAP® Sourcing OnDemand Solution Delivers Sourcing Innovation ... - PR Newswire (press release)

WALLDORF, Germany, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- On-demand technologies are continuing to grow as an important facilitator for companies looking for cost effective solutions that can be quickly deployed. To address this increasing adoption and market traction, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the latest release of the SAP? Sourcing OnDemand solution, wave 7. The solution delivers the complete sourcing-to-contract process via an on-demand deployment model, enabling rapid time to value. Wave 7 of SAP Sourcing OnDemand includes usability enhancements, mobile device support, integration of business intelligence tools from the SAP? BusinessObjects? portfolio, and new functionalities in the areas of sourcing, contract management and supplier management. SAP Sourcing OnDemand offers flexibility through subscription packages that deliver strategic sourcing, contract life-cycle management and supplier management components integrated with the enterprise resource planning (ERP) application SAP? ERP. This latest release demonstrates how SAP is delivering business innovation and speeding customer time to value by providing new releases of on-demand solutions twice a year.

(Logo: ?http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20050310/SFTH009LOGO-a)

(Logo: ?http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050310/SFTH009LOGO-a)

In early September 2010, SAP conducted customer workshops in which 25 companies experienced SAP Sourcing OnDemand firsthand. Participating companies responded positively to the usability enhancements and key new capabilities as well as the ease of adoption that they were able to directly experience during the workshop.

"The number one concern of our customers is the price of energy. SAP Sourcing OnDemand helps us improve customer satisfaction," said Gail DeVeau, director of supply chain, We Energies. "We have found that electronic bidding and reverse auctions lead to cost reductions that help us hold the line on energy prices. Our SAP ERP is run by We Energies while the sourcing solution is hosted by SAP. We chose the on-demand solution for sourcing because we were up and running in less than one month."

Wave 7 of SAP Sourcing OnDemand enables faster and more effective strategic sourcing, contract management and supplier management processes for accelerated savings through the following capabilities:

Rapid and more effective sourcing decisions — Wave 7 provides significant enhancement for total cost calculations that support better sourcing decisions, including line item grouping and formula-based pricing, along with new auction types and tools for faster results and enhanced supplier management workflow. It also offers mobile device support for sourcing processes and contract approvals. Key usability enhancements — Users now have faster access to content and new ways to evaluate event results through new usability features, including favorites, saved searches, auto-complete, global searches, user reporting, a "Quick Create" tool and enhanced charting features. Users can also now access their most active business documents immediately. Use of SAP BusinessObjects reporting tools such as Xcelsius? software provides report views that can be modified in real time, and supplier performance dashboards provide enhanced supplier performance visibility. ?Faster management of contract documents and enhanced globalization — An enhanced default view of contract documents allows users to quickly access contract documents and attachments, while a quick and fully searchable repository delivers enhanced accessibility to documents in different locations, and can effectively manage contract expirations and audits. The solution also maintains different currencies on master and sub-agreements. Wave 7 also enables the publishing and replication of supplier information between multiple backend ERP systems.

SAP is also providing packaged standard services such as customer success manager, on-boarding and enablement, as well as hosting and training. Additional services such as consulting services, event day support, supplier and contract support, legacy contract migration and supplier management risk profiling are also available.

"Through co-innovation with its customers, SAP is committed to delivering on the promise of on-demand solutions through rapid innovation and adoption of its solutions," said Mark Ellis, senior vice president development, SAP Sourcing OnDemand, SAP AG. "Successful companies have formal sourcing processes, and effective contract management and supplier programs. The enhancements in wave 7 enable superior supplier and contract management while providing sustainable cost savings with the rapid time to value necessary to compete in today's global economy."

Next Major Event: SAP? TechEd 2010 in Berlin, Las Vegas, Bangalore, and Shanghai

More than 14,000 SAP customers, partners and technical experts are expected to convene at SAP? TechEd 2010, the company's largest ecosystem education event series. The conference brings IT managers, software developers, administrators, and business process experts together to see, hear and share how they and their peers can stay one step ahead of business change. Choosing from hundreds of hours of expert-led sessions and hands-on training, attendees can gain the inspiration and skills they need to maximize impact on their organizations. In its 14th year, SAP TechEd 2010 is being held in Berlin, Germany, October 12-14; Las Vegas, Nevada, October 18-22; Bangalore, India, December 1-3; and Shanghai, China, December 1-2. Follow SAP TechEd on Twitter at @sapteched. For announcements, blog posts, videos and other coverage during the event series, visit the SAP TechED newsroom at www.sapteched.com/news.

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 102,500 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol "SAP." For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

Copyright ? 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved.

SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.

Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:

Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24

United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727)

For more information, press only:

SAP Press Office, +49 (6227) 7-46315, CET; +1 (610) 661-3200, EDT; press@sap.com

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5 Surefire Ways to Bring Your Business Objectives Full Circle with Technology

All small to mid-sized company owners want to know where their dollar is being spent when it comes to computer technology in their organization. The challenge is for them to get the information they need to make the right purchasing decisions. 'Tell me in English why you think we need this technology in our company?' That question goes through every company owner's mind and mouth. Getting the answer that makes sense to them is another story. How can the people in charge of your company understand what the value is of specific technology if their computer support people cannot articulate why it is so important?

This guide will assist every company owner in understanding how to communicate with your technical consultant so technical recommendations are applied, understood and the full potential of technology is realized throughout the company. After all, your technical consultant wants you to appreciate what they do. And you will not be able to appreciate it until you understand how it effectively applies to you.

Company Objectives- Understanding your company objectives is not a one way street. This information cannot be kept with upper management. Share it with your technical consultant. "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

Big picture- Your technical consultant must understand how the company functions as a whole. They must understand the duties of the different departments. How else will the company be able to apply technology to the business's everyday processes if those processes are never articulated?

Changing with the times- Just because a technical consultant has worked in an environment for 'a couple years' does not automatically mean they are aware of changes to the intricacies of the company's business functions. Just like technology, business strategies change. It's important to consistently keep them in the know when these changes occur at the business level.

A picture is worth a thousand words- Tell you're technical consultant to chart out why they recommend a specific technology. Managers love colors and charts. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Define; Measure; Analyze; Improve; Control. As long as every project is measurably articulated in the following order, upper management will have no issues understanding what is being recommended and how to proceed in the future. None of the steps above should be skipped. This is very important. The clearer the projects are defined quantitatively, the easier it will be to control processes going forward.

Addison Lee deploys SAP business intelligence platform - ComputerworldUK

Addison Lee, London's largest minicab service, is rolling out a new SAP business intelligence system to improve its operations.

Addison Lee will work with IT systems provider Maxima to implement the SAP BusinessObjects EDGE business intelligence platform. The system will provide account teams and sales management staff at Addison Lee with real time visibility of the company's fleet of 3,000 vehicles, and allow them to see the performance levels being achieved for its 10,000 corporate account customers.

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The system is aimed at helping improve core business processes, as well as providing access to self service tools, business intelligence dashboards and web analytics.

It will be implemented at Addison Lee's London headquarters, with the aim of providing executives and operational managers with role-based real-time dashboards. It will allow them to drill-down for further details, carry out root-cause analysis and generate daily information and alerts on specific operational performance issues.

Peter Ingram, Addison Lee IT Director, said, "Our business is growing rapidly so we needed an enterprise-class business intelligence solution."

Ingram said, "When Maxima introduced us to SAP BusinessObjects Edge we immediately saw that it would be possible for us to secure all the benefits of SAP BusinessObjects in a cost-effective package that was backed by Maxima's own specialist expertise."

As part of the deal Maxima will provide full consultancy, training and support services.

Earlier this month, SAP released a set of real time analytics products that are customised for use in various industry sectors and business functions. The products are based on technologies from the company's 2007 purchase of Business Objects.

They include new tools designed to let enterprises enable mobile access to business intelligence (BI) applications. The new products are customised for companies in the healthcare, consumer products, public sector, financial services, retail and telecommunication sectors.

They are designed to deliver real time analytics capabilities for line of business functions, such as finance, sales, marketing, planning, risk assessment and customer satisfaction.