More and more people are considering starting their own business. By opening a business there could be a large profit to be made. However, there are losses may occur as well. Some peoples argued that starting a business in a field that they know well would not fail. Knowing if starting a business at all is what most small businesses fail to consider. According to an SBA Study done in 2005, “About 1/3 of Small Businesses fail in the first 2 years, and just over half fail within 4 years.” These statistics are depressing for people looking to start up a new venture. SMEs in successful business networks can generate up to 50% more in gross revenues than firms that work in solitude. However, the most significant reason for this high failure rate is the inability of SMEs to make adequate use of essential business and management practices. Although failures Continue reading
Business Articles
Functions of Organizational Culture
Organizational culture is the sum of reflects that gradually formed in the production and management practices, agreed and complied with all staff, with the characteristics of the Organization’s mission, vision, purpose, spirit, values and business philosophy, and the ideas in the production and management practices, management system, the behavior of employees with the external image. In essence, organizational culture is a cultural phenomenon among the enterprises, its appearance is inseparable from the development of the theory and practice of modern enterprise, from the management perspective, organizational culture are the application management tools to achieve management objectives, therefore, organizational culture are not only a cultural phenomenon, but also has a connotation as a management tool. First, the organizational culture is led by a sense of enterprise management, the cultural patterns of pursuit and realization in a certain corporate purposes, from a certain sense, the organizational culture is a culture of enterprise Continue reading
Leadership and Management – Differences
A manager may be a leader, a manager may not be a leader, but a leader may emerge who is not a manager. This saying shows that roles of manager and leader not to be connected at all. However, for a business to be effective, managers must learn how to become leaders by developing effective leadership skills. A leader means a person that holds a dominant or superior position within its field, and is able to exercise a high degree of control or influence over others. A leader is one who has followers. Followers follow leaders because they are influenced by the leader’s personality and share belief in the leader’s visions, goals and values. Leaders gain personal power through credibility. They can communicate their beliefs to team members, who understand that these beliefs will not alter or vary because of circumstances and will become the rock on which their working Continue reading
Forecasting for Strategic Planning
Forecasting is a collection of mostly statistical and/or judgmental procedures which aim at predicting the future based on the available information and/or data (These processes may include activities such as data collection, data pre-processing and preliminary data analysis, forecasting method selection, which also involves model selection, model fitting, and diagnostic checking, and control in a forecasting system in use). In such processes, forecasting has lots of potentials for strategic level managers including revealing system dynamics, problem determination, predicting, monitoring, and control. Forecasting techniques are used by managers to plan future capacity to meet market demand and to procure the needed inputs to produce this demand at optimum costs. Forecasting models are used to predict future aspects of business operation. They include averages, moving averages, weighted moving averages, exponential smoothing, linear trend models, and simple and multiple regression models. Forecasting as a Strategic Decision-Making Tool Surviving in highly competitive markets Continue reading