Do Business Well

10. Limit the supply of protective and special clothing

A number of companies supply special clothing such as jackets, overalls, gloves and shoes, all of which have a practical use outside the factory. It is also easy for special or protective clothing to be taken from a factory or office by simply wearing the outfit and walking out through the door.

11. Monitor scrap and reject materials properly

This is a frequent and effective method for transferring high value items through the factory gate or office door. Each scrap or waste bin should be thoroughly inspected by a senior person for each department who should also insist that no item is put in the scrap or waste bin without his approval in the first place. A further check on the content of scrap bins should be made by the security staff at the gate and spot investigations should take place as necessary. Careful watch should be kept on the contents of scrap bins as they are weighed in on entering the factory premises. Scrap bins containing water show a high dead weight reading which can result in a lower tonnage of the contents being recorded when the skip is full and the water has been emptied. Continue Reading »

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Another important aspect of the change in your company from survival oriented to management oriented is the way in which you establish goals and monitor them. The following questions are designed to take you through a process of developing a new set of goals for your company:

1. What do you want the company to do for you in the next twenty years? Ten years? Five years? Twelve months? Are you primarily interested in the income stream that can be generated? Is wealth building as opposed to income generation your most important desire? Possibly you’d prefer a lighter work schedule, even if it meant less income. Will you be happy if you aren’t growing? Is it a high priority for you to broaden markets?

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How to use the Power of Conscious Thinkingto achieve the results you desire.

If there is one factor that sets man apart from other animals, it’s the ability to choose. Birds operate on a genetic code embedded deep within their brains. Mammals operate on instinct and conditioning. Only humans have the gift of conscience and consciousness. The problem, though, like all other gifts, is that we may have the gift but we don’t use it. And so the gift loses its power. In this session we will show you how to leverage the gift of Self-Awareness. We will demonstrate the Power of Choice and Conscious Thinking. And finally we will show you how to help others do the same. Continue Reading »

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The key criteria for building a Brand Identity are: appeal to prospects, relevance, the right personality for the market, user friendliness and the offer of an important benefit that is not currently being made by the competition.

A good brand is easily recognizable and its name must be easy to pronounce. Simplicity is the key to success. Consumers must remember it easily. This is what branding is all about: occupying the number one spot in a consumer’s mind to ensure repeat sales. Another important consideration is whether the brand name can be protected or not. Intellectual property must be registered as soon as possible and must be difficult to copy. Generic names are difficult to register (for example, The Coffee Place is a generic name whereas Joe’s Coffee Place is attached to a name and easier to protect). A good brand name cannot be copied easily (think Compaq, Intel, Coca-Cola and Nike). Continue Reading »

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The issue of digital trademark and copyright protection has become a hornet’s nest since the commercialization of the World Wide Web. You need to register a domain name if you want to do business on the World Wide Web. Network Solutions, which handles the registration of domain names, has been doling them out on a first-come, first-serve basis, regardless of who owns the trademark. But now that companies are waking up to the commercial potential of the Web, they are screaming foul if the name they want has been taken by someone else, especially if they have a federal trademark protecting the name. Continue Reading »

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Because it’s so easy to capture, store, process, and redistribute digital information, it is becoming almost impossible to police trademarkand copyright infractions on the Internet. Consider for example, the problem of the Digital Fan.

The digital fan: Let’s say you own a major rollerblade hockey team, the Hanover Hippos. Your team has won the world championships three times in a row, and made you millions of dollars selling merchandise and information about the Hippos. You’ve created your official Hippo Home Page, and receive more than a million hits a week. But something is amiss. Many of your fans are starting to set up their own online fan clubs. They’re plastering the Hippo logo all over their pages and posting statistics and player profiles downloaded from your site. As well, fans of your archrivals, the Neustadt Nimrods, have set up anti-Hippo sites filled with lewd images which they have made by digitally altering your logo. Continue Reading »

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We will now consider more specifically the benefits and drawbacks of ethics to online marketing:

Ethical benefits

• Online marketing has the potential to remove prejudice and barriers, as transactions are carried out via disembodied computer screens.

The lack of need for a physical presence in a particular place allows the inclusion of people whose physical needs make working in an office environment difficult.

Internet-based business activities are opening up markets, thereby improving information provision and freedom of speech about different products, including non-corporate information (see Hamelink 2000: 139-164). For example, typing ‘Nike’ into a search engine also finds sites about Nike products alleging human rights abuses by the company. Continue Reading »

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It is not at all unusual for newcomers to franchising to go into a state of shock when they first realise the complexity of a typical franchise t agreement. But whilst efforts to draft franchise agreements in plain English, thereby enhancing their user-friendliness, are laudable, attempts to keep them “short and sweet” are generally doomed to failure. The reason for this is that unlike other legal agreements that will deal with one specific transaction, a franchise agreement has to cover an entire portfolio of commercial arrangements of varying complexity that may appear to be almost unrelated, yet, by virtue of the fact that they are part of one specific franchise arrangement, they are in fact closely intertwined.

To illustrate this point, let us look at just one of the areas that are dealt with in a typical franchise agreement, namely the grant of the franchise.

The Grant

A franchise is granted, never sold. Typically, franchisees will be licensed to operate one unit of the franchise, either at a specific address or within a clearly defined territory, using the system’s brand name(s) and corporate mage, sometimes known as the get-up, as well as its know-how as described in the franchise agreement and the operations and procedures manual. Continue Reading »

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On the positive side, a well structured franchise concept will elevate the business to the status of a national or even international player much sooner than he could realistically have hoped for, had expansion been attempted through traditional channels. Experience has shown, too, that although it takes time and patience, the synergies created through franchising have the potential to make the business extremely profitable over time. Just think of McDonald’s.

Along similar lines, the second hurdle every prospective franchisor will have to negotiate is the need for utmost realism when initial and ongoing fees are calculated. Given the long-term nature of a typical franchise agreement, this decision can make or break the new franchise operation. Set fees too high and few people will join the network. Those who do are likely to struggle to make ends meet, thus virtually ensuring that the long-term prospects of the network remain poor. And if the franchisor acts as the main supplier to his franchisees as well, he must take care to ensure that prices for goods are set in such a way that the franchisee’s competitiveness remains intact.

Franchisees must be secure in the knowledge that their franchisor offers them the best possible deals at all times. Although profit generation at unit level remains the franchisee’s responsibility, the entire franchise package must be structured in such a way that it offers those who follow the franchisor’s instructions to the letter a realistic chance to achieve above- average returns. Franchisors who overlook these important points are almost certain to fail, and deservedly so.

Typical financial transactions

The financial transactions that occur in a franchise arrangement can conveniently be grouped as follows:

Franchisor’s investment

At the outset, unless the franchise is the offshoot of an existing business that has been operated successfully for years, the prospective franchisor will have to make an investment into the development and testing of the concept. And even if the basic business concept is in place, the step of franchising it will necessitate certain modifications. The next step will bethe creation of the franchise package, followed by the setting-up of the franchisee support infrastructure. Continue Reading »

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