Storage Solutions: Getting A Warehouse For Your Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Storage Solutions: Getting A Warehouse For Your BusinessWhen you’re building your business upwards and outwards, you might consider outsourcing some key components so you can focus on the company from an internal perspective, but you also need to think about accommodating more obvious components on site, or just finding extra space so things can be physically stored. A warehouse is one of those things that can be an absolute lifesaver, but for those businesses that have started in modest surroundings, it can raise a few questions, such as if it is necessary right now, but also, what can you do to help your business? Either way, you’ll have to expand at some point, and looking at possible properties will help you decide whether you need it or not. If you know how to look, you can find an industrial warehouse space with a convenient location for your business at affordable rates

Is It Appropriate For Expansion?

Every business has their own reasons for expanding, and when you are looking to boost the brand value, or you want to get to a new market, or just offer a wider range of products, a warehouse can prove to be a very useful component. But with this, depending on what you need, it could throw up a multitude of options. It all depends on two things, what you want, and how much money you have in the bank. For those businesses that are small in stature, it’s far more cost effective to have the warehouse close in proximity. When you hire a warehouse that’s far away, it can be useful for storage, but that’s only if you are expansive in your operation.

Is It Practical?

It’s not just the location, or even the storage facility, but it’s about the manpower and the facilities on-site. Choosing the right components, whether it is pallet rack storage facilities, various forklifts or transportation vehicles, they all need to come from a place of practicality. Naturally, this goes hand in hand with the objectives and the budget. But if you are looking to establish a new base somewhere, the warehouse can be the first thing to set up, so if you get the staff on board, and get the ball rolling before you start trading in this new area, it can mean you hit the ground running. But also, depending on the labor skills in this new location, you may find you have to pay a bit more money to get the right people. Think about the practicalities.

What Are Your Warehouse Options?

It depends on your budget and your overall goals, but the options consist of three main ones. You can get a private warehouse, and this will be built for the storage of your products. The great thing about these warehouses is that they can be altered according to the products stored inside. For example, if you specialize in foods, this space can be accommodated to refrigerate these products.
A public warehouse is licensed by the state, and comes with a storage fee. Ultimately, for a fee, you have this storage space, but it’s dependent on the regulations of the state, but as a major positive they are set up by convenient transport routes, like railways and main roads.
A bonded warehouse is a more beneficial approach for those who import goods because only duty is required as far as payment is concerned.

A warehouse can be an excellent addition to an expanding business. But it’s all about picking the right components and making it work with your business.

Staging Your Independent Coffee Shop

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Business Startup| Staging Your Independent Coffee ShopIn 2018, the US coffee shop market grew to over $45 billion, with over 36,600 stores across the country. While a lot of stores belong to chained brands, such as Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, more and more independent shops are carving a spot to call their own in a competitive market. Indeed, more and more coffee enthusiasts are looking for a unique experience with their favorite brew. There’s plenty of room for independent business owners to tap into the interests of an educated and savvy audience. But at the same time, it’s essential to provide the same level of service than your customer would get in a branded chain.

Too many independent coffee shop owners forget to prioritize their customer expectations as part of their decor. While an independent shop can be the stage in a more rustic approach, it doesn’t mean that you should miss on some essential factors, such as:

A menu that blows your customers away

Your customers have probably experienced the likes of Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and Tim Hortons before they’ve diversified their search for good coffee to include independent stores. As a result, they’re used to updated and modern visual displays when it comes to the menu. If you want to appeal to coffee amateurs, a digital signage would allow you to capture an image of each type of drinks, which can be useful – not everyone knows the difference between a Cortado and a Ristretto, for instance. Additionally, with the popularity of Veganuary, it’s impossible to ignore the impact of the vegan diet in everyday business. With customers demanding dairy-free alternatives to milk and vegan biscuits, you need to offer a diverse and inclusive selection of drinks and snacks.

Your interior says a lot about you

Your decor is your brand. It goes beyond the choice of furniture or colors. Ultimately, you need to find options that not only fit your budget but that also supports your vision. Creating a style that emphasizes the personality of your coffee while keeping your customers comfortable is significant. Independent shops prefer to focus their attention on reclaimed materials, which gives an eco-friendly finish. Additionally, using specialist materials on the wall, floor and ceiling can help to create a space that isn’t too loud – or that doesn’t sound too echoey which could be creepy for customers. Even though it is fashionable to create an atmospheric shop with dramatic lighting, do try to maximize natural light to make the room feel brighter and friendlier.

Go big online or don’t go at all

Last, but not least, you should seize every occasion to ask your customers how they like their #coffee. Indeed, Instagram is changing the way coffee shop promote their brands, encouraging bold creations and inspiring designs. The account @coffeeoprops, for instance, bring expert together to share their knowledge and passion around coffee, through artistic photos. There’s a lot of exciting ideas for you to learn how to make the most of each shot online by playing with the light, the colors and the contrast.

Independent coffee shops need to build a solid presence, in their premises and online, if they want to appeal to an audience of brew lovers. From offering practical solutions to introducing inclusive designs and menus, you need to make your shop everyone’s cup of tea… or coffee!

3 Things That You Should Consider Outsourcing

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As a business owner, there are many decisions that you have to make, and one of them is whether you outsource or not. Whilst some people are outsourcing converts – and get most of their work done by external companies – others are a little more skeptical, and would prefer to have control over every part of their business in-house. Whilst this is understandable, there are a range of benefits of outsourcing, and if you’re not utilizing it in your business, then you could be missing out on saving money, and having the job done, well… better by somebody else.

We’ve put together a list of 3 things that you should consider outsourcing in your business.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Entrepreneurship | Outsourcing | 3 Things That You Should Consider Outsourcing
 
1. Your social media management

Social media seems like something that would be easy to manage yourself, because all you have to do is post out a few updates every now and again, to make sure that you’re drawing people in across the various platforms. However, getting social media right is actually a lot more complex than that, and outsourcing it means that you’ll be able to benefit due to those professionals that know the algorithms, and what works. On top of this, it’s actually harder than you think to come up with a few things a week to post, especially when you’ve got to think up those ideas that will cause a good reaction. Leave it to the professionals!

2. Your IT security

OK, so pretty much every business out there uses IT in some way, and we all enjoy the benefits that it brings us. After all, are there any people out there who aren’t checking their emails at least 50 times a day now? As people – and business owners – we are IT obsessed, but security is a complex and difficult thing to manage. Even if you’ve got somebody in-house to deal with issues such as networking monitoring, the truth is that most external cybersecurity companies are a lot more advanced, which means that you’ll be facing less problems in the long-run. It will probably be cheaper than hiring somebody in-house, too.

3. Your admin

When it comes to admin, there is arguably nothing more boring than dealing with these things. Whilst you want to be getting on with that good stuff, it’s pretty annoying that your phone is constantly ringing, and that you’re being bombarded with emails left, right, and center. There’s nothing that you can do about this though, right? You’ll be pleased to hear that you can get a virtual reception, where people answer your phone calls, and even deal with your mail, for you. This is ideal for those who can’t afford full-time admin staff, and it’s great if you just want to get rid of some of the pressure of office life.

So, if you want to take those first steps into the world of outsourcing, then consider handing over these 3 things to the professionals. You’ll be glad that you did when you’re saving yourself a lot of time, and money, in the process!

Can Your Business Keep Up With Consumer Demand?

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Consumer Demand|Can Your Business Keep Up With Consumer Demand?When you’ve got a good thing going, you want to keep it going. But success only comes in intervals in business, and therefore no one is ever guaranteed a permanent seat on the throne. So you should do you best to stay one step in front of the next interval, and make sure you are consistently achieving what you want to achieve. Maybe your product is selling very well, or perhaps your service is making headway in your industry. Suddenly you’re looking like a brilliant alternative for customers around the world. Consumer demand for your commerce is only going to stay high if you know what they want. Then logistically you will be tested to deliver on that expectation. Practically, you will need to be ready to smartly use your resources, to continue improving your products and services in the ways being demanded. Do you have the capacity to fill such new demands and live up to the anticipation? There are numerous ways you can do this.

Don’t believe the hype

Your first bout of success is going to have you smiling from ear to ear. It’s going to feel wonderful and finally you’ll say to yourself, things are working out as planned. However, you must snap yourself out of this euphoria that success can bring and make sure you are keeping your finger on the pulse. Why are you having this great period of rising sales and profits? What are the exact reasons for this. It may not be because the majority of consumers think your product is better but rather, that you were simply cheaper than the next rival. On the other hand it could be because there is a key feature they like which no other competitor has. There’s always a reason or multiple for why you are getting a new and consistent sales increase.

Plan your improvements

Of course business cannot stand still, you are in the annals of constant improvement. You may have the best product one year, but the next year you could so easily be toppled from your perch. The large corporations like Samsung always begin to plan ahead for the improvements they will make for their next iteration even before the current product is released. Therefore you need to begin planning on what you would like to see be done more thoroughly, made stronger, more complex, optimized and just the sheer overall quality increased.

All this entails, going back to the drawing board and being totally honest about what you think were the shortcomings of your current product and or service line. In a perfect world, what would you change? Slowly but surely you should work your way towards making that perfect goal a reality.

Keep them fixated

Is there such a thing as customer loyalty? Yes. But is consumer loyalty real? No. Consumers on the whole look for what’s best for them. And price has a huge part to play in what choices they make. Consider using netsuite pricing which has the world’s leading ERP system. In this system there is a section for ecommerce. It will help you organize your strategy for reaching out to online consumers. This external strategy is by far the most important in the modern age of internet shopping. Everything from marketing, software applications, and real world connections via ecommerce can be decided and managed using this ERP.

Upscale your production

Perhaps the most crucial but by far the most expensive is the upscaling of your production. It’s the dream come true when you simply don’t have enough products being made to satisfy the sudden overwhelming demand. Yet, if it’s allowed to continue for too long it can be a nightmare. Consumers don’t wait around for any business, they want what they want, and they want it now. So if you can see that your units are being sold far quicker than you can currently produce in a short space of time, you need to upscale your production capabilities.

Instead of one manufacturing facility or storage warehouse, double both and start creating the right amount of products that will keep up with the rate of purchases. This way the increase in demand is met with the equal supply. Avoiding backlogs of orders also avoids the big headache of going back and rectifying outstanding and late orders.

Every business wants to have that feeling of being overwhelmed by so much demand for their product. You’re obviously doing something right, but you can’t be in a production deficit for too long. Using an ERP you can manage your online strategy for reaching out far and wide to new customers.

4 Areas Your Business Should Be Focusing On This Year

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StrategyDriven Business Performance Assessment Program Article | Business Performance Improvement | 4 Areas Your Business Should Be Focusing On This YearThe reality is that if you try to take on too much at once with your business, this approach may backfire on you. It’s better to focus in on a few essential initiatives than it is to spread yourself too thin and, in turn, end up accomplishing nothing.

There are four areas in particular that your business should highly consider concentrating on this year if you want to experience more success. Take time to review the following ideas and then think about which areas you’re performing well and which ones could use more of your time and attention so that you can come up with a plan of action for moving forward.

1. Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is one area you definitely want to focus on this year if you’re going to run a better business. It’s important to collect feedback and track your customer service performance, so you know exactly how you’re doing. The happier your customers are, the more likely it is that your business will receive positive reviews online and that consumers will start talking about you with each other and spreading the word about why it’s a wise choice to do business with you.

2. Health & Safety Obligations

Additionally, commit to following health and safety protocol and running a safer business this year. You’ll avoid unwanted situations this way and be able to retain your employees because they’ll feel safe and protected coming to work each day. Properly ventilate and extract dust and waste by using products from Integrated Air Systems to help you achieve this goal. This way, you’ll reduce the risk of equipment breaking down or someone getting sick or hurt because of unsafe working conditions.

3. Employee Retention

Another area your business should be focusing on this year has to do with employee retention. The truth is that people are more willing to change jobs these days if they’re unhappy at their current employer. Keep your employees satisfied and motivated by assigning them challenging tasks and rewarding them fairly for their efforts. Be willing to gather feedback from and listen to your employees so you can create an even more attractive work environment.

4. Innovation

Your business should also be concentrating on how to innovate your products or services in the upcoming year. Going along with business as usual might be the easy answer, but it’s not what’s going to help you stay relevant or get ahead of your competitors. Hold brainstorming sessions with your employees and use your creativity to come up with new solutions that are impressive and newsworthy.

Conclusion

Achieve better results with your business this year when you’re focusing on improving in the right areas. Use these tips to help you set more specific goals about what it is you wish to accomplish and what challenges you need to overcome in the future. Start by coming up with a plan of action and then writing down specific details about how you’ll properly execute each objective.