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6 Ways to Save on Maintenance Costs for Your Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Maintenance Costs|6 Ways to Save on Maintenance Costs for Your BusinessThough you may feel like you have no extra room in your budget, there are almost always ways to save business costs without cutting corners and compromising on quality or safety. One of the often overlooked areas is maintenance. Here are six tips for saving on maintenance costs for your business.

Buy wholesale maintenance products

Certain maintenance products are non-negotiable. Though they may not seem like a huge expense, if you’re buying them in small quantities as you need them, you’re almost certainly spending more than you need to.

Look for cleaning equipment suppliers that offer wholesale cleaning products. While it may seem like you’re buying more than you need, many cleaning products don’t expire, or if they do, have extremely long expiry dates.

Act preventatively rather than responsively

While it may be tempting to avoid making repairs on things before they’re needed, giving your facilities and technology attention only when a problem arises significantly increases the costs. By developing a solid understanding of your maintenance needs, and knowing when you should be conducting servicing, you’ll be able to save extensively on materials, supplies, and labor.

Conduct assessment on the current schedule

To accurately determine the areas you may be able to make changes in, you need to develop a thorough understanding of your current maintenance schedule and procedures. If you don’t currently have the right reporting in place to obtain this information, arrange a meeting with the relevant stakeholders and put this infrastructure into place.

Proper reporting produces the right data, and data are essential for determining where you’re wasting resources, as well as the areas that require more attention.

Invest in the proper equipment and technology

If your equipment and technology are outdated, chances are you’re not running as efficiently as you could be. You’re also likely to be spending more on maintenance than you would be with newer technology. Replacing your old infrastructure might seem like a hefty upfront cost, but by calculating the costs of maintenance over time, you may find that replacement is the more affordable route in the long run.

Improve efficiency through training

While having efficient technology is important, it’s only part of the equation. To save on maintenance, you need highly trained staff that know exactly what they’re doing, and how to get the job done efficiently. If you haven’t already, make sure you set up regular training sessions for staff. In addition to formal training, ensuring communication is effective is also important.

Improve written communication through email and memos between maintenance staff and managers, and hold regular meetings to discuss areas that need improvement to create actionable strategies to meet those goals.

Make warranty claims

Most equipment comes with a warranty option for a small additional fee, or at no additional cost. However, consumers and corporations rarely take the steps to make a warranty claim when something goes wrong.

While the amount recuperated by a warranty claim may seem insignificant, multiple warranty claims over time add up to a substantial sum. When purchasing a new product or equipment, make sure you inquire about warranty terms and keep this information on file so that it is readily accessible in the case you need to use it.

The Advantages of Online Payment Systems for Digital Products

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Online Payment Systems|The Advantages of Online Payment Systems for Digital ProductsThere are currently 24 million eCommerce sites on the web. So it’s fitting to say that there’s much competition. Yet you can stay ahead of the game by offering secure online payments. Platforms like PayPal and Stripe are among the most popular online payment systems for digital products. These systems offer the distinct advantages of being more secure, quick, efficient, and trusted.

Easy Shopping Cart Management

One of the most crucial systems on an eCommerce site is the shopping cart. The shopping cart forms the basis of interaction between a customer and your products before payment processing begins. By placing a shopping cart feature on your site, you give customers the ability to browse, select, and, more importantly, pay for products when they want to. Payment is typically received at the end via credit and debit cards, but digital wallets are popular.

Established and Trusted Brands

Digital or eWallets are a secure method of payment by which users can complete a transaction for your products. While systems like PayPal and Stripe are used for purchasing real-world goods, they are excellent for digital products. Digital products include video game codes, eBooks, software licenses, video or music, and website memberships. Digital wallets are the preferred currency for these as they provide efficient online payments.

Simplified Transactions

There are many eWallets to consider as payment options on your eCommerce site. PayPal and Stripe are the most common, yet tech companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon also provide digital wallets. The more you accept, the easier it is for customers, and that means repeat business. Using digital wallets is simpler these days since they are all available as apps on smartphones. As such, there are over 1 billion eWallet transactions per year.

Payment Security

In addition to convenience and efficiency, digital wallets are very secure. In fact, they are more secure than standard debit and credit cards since the magnetic strips on these are easily cloned. eWallet providers initiate multiple security measures such as encryption, multi-factor authentication, and one device registering for smartphone apps. A user also needs to be in possession of a mobile device to complete a physical transaction in a store.

Instant Receipt of Products

PayPal, Stripe, and others are excellent for digital products because transactions are instant. Therefore you can provide instant access to a product purchased by a customer. For example, ACH or card payments might take time to clear. This means a user cannot access their video game code until payment has been processed. There is no processing time with a digital wallet payment, so you get paid instantly, and the customer immediately receives their product.

Meeting Expectations

A vital aspect of operating a successful eCommerce storefront is the ease of use and customer experience. Meeting expectations is part of a good customer experience. For example, users now expect 24 hours LiveChat support features on a website. In addition, customers expect multiple payment options when completing a transaction via eCommerce. The reasons vary, but some of the most common is that people find PayPal more secure. One survey found that 63% of users don’t want to divulge personal data, and 80% agree they feel more confident using PayPal over cards.

Using Video Games As A Teaching Aid

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Teaching Aid|Using Video Games As A Teaching AidMany individuals have sympathy for teachers and parents when it comes to getting children to learn. Education is becoming more and more difficult in many ways. Many would agree that it is becoming tougher to get children to tune into what you have to say and what you are teaching.

Maintaining interest is an extremely difficult challenge. Teachers and parents need to combat this through the use of different and innovative teaching techniques, which is something more and more online programs, and software for distance and hybrid learning in K-12 schools, are focusing on. And one of these techniques revolves around the use of games. There are lots of fantastic free online games for kids available today that can be used as teaching tools.

Use games as motivation

This is an indirect method of using games for motivation purposes. You can use games as a reward for hard work in the classroom or the completion of homework. As a teacher, you can say to the children “if you complete this task then you can have 15 minutes of computer playtime before you go home”. As a parent, you can say “if you do your homework when you get in from school then you can play games for longer in the evening.” This will motivate your children to do their homework because they know that it is beneficial to them as well because they will get something out of it. Of course, they get the benefit of enhanced knowledge, but they are too young to realize how advantageous that truly is.

Problem-solving

There are lots of cartoon games are associated with the process of problem-solving. This is highly beneficial because it helps children to come up with a process in order to get to the end result. This helps in school life because this methodology needs to be attributed to lots of different lessons and subjects.

Source educational games

There are games that have been designed specifically to aid children. You can find maths games, English games, French games, science games, history games… you get the picture! It is a good idea to incorporate these into the educational structure. Children are more likely to learn in this way because you have mixed education with fun – this is critical for your career as a teacher; knowing how to mix fun into the learning process. They will revel in the opportunity to use the computer and therefore they will look forward to the task you have set rather than having the usual lack of motivation.

Use games for computer development

It is fair to say that learning to use the computer is one of the most important educations in the modern day. The online world and technological world is truly taken over. In this day and age, it means that your children need to grow up and be a part of that, otherwise they will merely lag behind. There are lots of great free online games for kids that will help to enhance your child’s concentration, develop their motor skills, improve their hand to eye coordination, and all the while helping them to get to grips with how a computer operates. Games can be seen as a huge player in helping children to be prepared for the future.

Crystal Clear: Pioneering the Last 60 years of Display Technology Innovation & Looking Into the Future

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StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective Article |Display Technology|Crystal Clear: Pioneering the Last 60 years of Display Technology Innovation & Looking Into the FutureFrom large outdoor interactive screens on buildings to tiny displays in a wristwatch, the display industry has created applications and entire industries over the past 60 years, transforming our entire society. Just take a look at laptops, tablets, mobile phones, and other handheld devices, which were all possible thanks to display technology innovation.

Older TV’s took half the space in your room; now they are like a painting on the wall, and in some cases thinner than a portrait frame. Modern displays are everywhere now – from the back of the seat in an airplane and taxicab, to stadiums and other public venues, tiny kiosks that serve one person at a time, and of course, medical devices, military vehicles, and more. Display innovation can also be found in factory equipment, oil rigs, trains, trucks and boats and airplanes. Other unique display applications include displays embedded in a credit card.

Innovators in this industry are displacing shelf labels in stores, printed signs, and printed timetables at bus stops and train stations.

It has been thrilling to be part of this industry the past 25 years. Right out of engineering school, I worked on vacuum tubes – CRTs ruled then – and later on, monochrome LCD. I got my real start with displays at Standish Industries in Wisconsin, which was a pioneer in wide temperature monochrome TN (twisted nematic)) and STN (super-twisted nematic) LCDs, which was used in a variety of rugged applications.

It was exciting to work on rugged displays that provided valuable information that made them indispensable – from gas pumps to ATMs, parking meters, aircraft displays, and John Deere tractor consoles. Later I was fortunate to work on TFEL displays while at Planar; on early AMLCD while at TFS; best in class AMLCD while at Sharp; on electrophoretic ePaper while at E Ink; and presently, I get to work on every major cutting edge display technology.

One thing I find fascinating about this industry is that you can’t write off any display technology when something new enters the market. Some of these technologies linger on for much longer than you expect; some should have been out of the industry 20 years ago, but they are not – they find niche applications and continue to make a living for someone.

In honor of the Society for Information Display’s (SID) 60th anniversary, I’d like to take a look at some of the display technologies and their impact over the past six decades:

  • CRT (Cathode Ray Tube): Traditionally used for computer monitors and televisions, and also made its way into military and even maritime applications. Demand for CRT screens dropped in the late 2000s, and were replaced by LCD.
  • VF (Vacuum Fluorescent): Originally used in car stereo displays, but has dwindled to obsolescence in the past decade.
  • FED (Field Emission Display): A technology similar to CRT, which relied on electrons striking a phosphor coated surface in a vacuum environment. It did not make it to the mainstream.
  • LED (Light Emitting Diode): Popular in handheld calculators and other similar devices in the 1960s, and moved into digital store signs and bigger outdoor digital signage such as in Las Vegas, continues to dominate the outdoor signage space.
  • TFEL (Thin Film Electroluminescent): Sharp demonstrated TFEL in 1975 and made the first commercial display in 1983. Mainly used in industrial, medical, and rugged applications. The military used this display in the main battle tank, for example.
  • TN and STN LCD Monochrome: This display technology was pretty prevalent until color versions showed up. It is still used in gas pumps, parking meters, and simple appliances.
  • Plasma Display: Some people still refer to flat panel TV’s as plasma. This technology had a short tenure, but paved the way for the next generation of flat TV’s.
  • Projection Displays using DLP/LCoS: They were originally designed when it wasn’t possible to make large-area LCDs. With projectors, you could create a 100-inch image. These displays are still around in older conference rooms and home theaters.
  • AM LCD (Active-Matrix Liquid-Crystal Display): The most impactful and successful in display technology history, boasting about 80% of the global market to the tune of approximately $100 billion. Used in pretty much every application that has a display but has been quickly giving up ground to OLED over the past five years.
  • PMOLED (Passive Matrix OLED – monochrome): OLED technology started out as monochrome and made initial inroads in applications that required higher contrast and faster response. Now it is quickly eroding like monochrome LCD.
  • AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diodes): The second most impactful and successful display technology after AMLCD and is found in personal devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Phone, LG ‘wall-paper like’ TV. This has been the fastest growing technology in the past decade.
  • ePaper: Uses a dual pigment electrophoretic display used in reading applications such as the Amazon Kindle. Low power, and paper like appearance makes this technology valuable.
  • Quantum Dots: This is technically not a display, but it enhances displays by making LCD colors “pop” in TV applications.
  • MiniLED: This small form factor LEDs brings the technology indoors in signage applications where the user is closer to the display than its predecessor, which was used mostly outdoors. This is relatively new and might give way to MicroLEDs and itself relegated to backlight applications.
  • Electrochromic/Electrowetting/MEMS/Electrofluidic/Cholesteric LCD: These technologies all aimed for the broad ‘ePaper’ applications, but that did not quite happen. Some of them, like Electrochromic and Cholesteric LCD, have had modest success in non-display applications like airplane windows, car rear view mirrors, toys, and writing pads.
  • MicroLED: An emerging flat panel display technology that I think holds great promise in the future. It brings some of the most desired display characteristics, and the industry has seized on this opportunity with every major display company working on this tech.

Speaking of the future, I’d like to now dive into some of the display innovation trends I see by the year 2035:

  • AR/VR glasses: These will be ubiquitous and lightweight, much like eyeglasses are today. They will last a long time without having to recharge. The display won’t intrude, it will augment, and its computing power will exceed that of today’s laptops. But it won’t be for everyone.
  • Immersive displays: Holographic and 3D displays could replace the wall the TV is hanging from today; they will also replace the kitchen countertop, the restaurant table, the student desk, and the tray table in an airplane.
  • Auto: The entire windshield will be like a movie screen in autonomous cars; the inside roof will be your display monitor, while the sides of cabs and Uber cars will convey useful information.
  • Conference room: Every video call will replicate a virtual conference room with lifelike 3D images, directional voice, the ability to confer (the chat function is archaic), and the ability to stand up and speak to a room or teach a class where the physical – the virtual class will be seamless.
  • Entertainment: Much like today’s surround sound, we will have surround visual displays, which will be like IMAX theaters but in each home, car and airplane seat.
  • Buildings and Roads: In Times Square, the bricks on the walls of tall buildings will be made of ‘display blocks.’ Every display will be curved, and every road sign will be an electronic display.
  • Gaming: Gaming consoles will be better than the Universal/Disney Studios experience today – you will find yourself in the game as a player or as an actor in a movie, dunking basketballs in a major league game, or hitting the cricket ball to the boundary.
  • Branding: Handbags, carrying cases and shopping bags will feature paper thin displays that will depict, camouflage, and promote a brand or message – as your heart desires.
  • Viewing the world: Displays will replace windows to save space, create the atmosphere you desire, and double as solar panels and privacy glass.
  • Smart surfaces: Every display surface will enable writing ability, touch and voice activated inputs. Displays will make surfaces ‘smart.’
  • Mobile: Your phone will completely replace your wallet, remote, car keys, door keys, entry badges and event tickets – all of these are already happening, but the transformation will be a 100% with changes in display and related technologies.
  • Digital Art: Wall paintings and art will be digital displays, showcasing your favorites and will change every day or every minute and adjust to what’s happening in that room. You will be hard pressed to tell the difference between a display and an oil-on-canvas painting.

It’s thrilling to think about my younger industry colleagues who will pioneer the next 60 years of display technologies. Devices will continue to be smaller, smarter, and versatile. From phones to cars to AI devices, display technology will enhance how we live, work and play. I expect the industry to build displays that will exceed the expectations set by every futuristic display we have seen in any sci-fi movie thus far.

Every time we reach what we think is the limit on what a display technology can do, along comes an industry colleague with a new chemical formulation, or the ability to bend some light or stretch some laws of physics to keep it going. It’s been a fantastic ride. I can’t wait for more.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor |Sri PeruvembaSri Peruvemba is CEO of Marketer International Inc. in California. He has also served on the Executive Board and was former Chair of Marketing for many years for the Society for Information Display (SID’s Display Week 2022 will be held in San Jose, CA, May 8-13, 2022). With over 30 years of experience in the technology industry, Peruvemba has been an influential advocate in the advancement of electronic hardware technologies. He is an acknowledged expert on sensors, electronic displays, haptics, touch screens, electronic materials and related technologies; and consults, writes, and presents on those subjects globally. Contact Mr. Peruvemba at [email protected].

The Things Every New Business Needs To Succeed

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |New Business|The Things Every New Business Needs To SucceedThere are a lot of things that every new business needs to succeed. Having a plan, understanding your market, and building a brand identity are a few examples. Creating a plan for your business is one of the most important things you can do to ensure success. If you want to start your own business, it’s not enough just to have an idea anymore – now you need to know where to start and what steps need to be taken in order for it to succeed.

Every entrepreneur starts off with a dream and a passion for what they want to do. However, a lot of people fail to turn their dreams into a reality. So it really does help to have a bit of an idea of what you need to do in order to get to where you want to be.

What Makes a Successful Business?

The things that make a business a success can vary. For some, it will be their marketing strategy, for others it will be their product idea. But, it’s safe to say that there will be some unity in most cases. And so, if you like the idea of starting out right, it’s a good idea to follow a few set steps.

Getting to Know Your Business Goals

Business goals are essential for any company to succeed in the long run. The goal of a business is not to make a lot of money or be famous – it’s to make a profit and provide its customers with what they need.

It is important for a business owner to know their business goals and how to measure them in order for them to improve their company’s performance. This is an effective way that you can understand your business objectives.

In order for them to understand their business goals, you should identify your organization’s vision, mission, and values. It is also important that you set up clear limits on what you want from your company in order to determine how successful it can be.

Developing Your Company’s Mission Statement & Values

Companies need to have a clear mission and vision to guide them while they’re growing. This can be done by creating a mission statement and values that will foster the company’s culture, ideals, and beliefs.

Essentially, a mission statement defines what you do and why you do it for your customers. It should be concise, but focused on what inspires you to wake up in the morning and work hard.

A company’s values should also guide its decision making process, so knowing what your company stands for will help all of your employees work together towards a common goal. That’s why we recommend having clear intentions with your values so that everyone knows where they stand at any given moment.

Identifying Your Target Audience and Reaching Your Customers

Next, you need to make sure that you know who your audience is. While the target audience is an important step in any marketing strategy, it is not always easy to identify who they are and how best to reach them.

The first step for identifying your target audience is understanding what your business does and who its customers are. If you know this, then it will be easier for you to figure out who your ideal customer is. You can then create profiles on who they are and work out a strategy to target them.

Creating a Successful Marketing Strategy that Gets Results

Now you need to work out how you’re going to target your audience by marketing to them. A successful marketing strategy depends on three things: where you want to go, what you sell and how you sell it.

This starts with your company’s core offer and understanding what makes a product or service stand out from its competitors. This will help you create a marketable message. You then need to choose the platforms you’ll deliver this on too.

In order to make sure that your marketing strategy is successful, you need to make sure that it aligns with your company’s goals. Your business will be able to grow as a result of the strategy as well as the product or service itself.

How to Create an Online Presence with Social Media

Right now, having some kind of presence on social media is always going to be a great idea. But if you want to create your online presence with social media, the first thing you need to do is build up your following.

This means that you need to know how to create content that will engage your target audience on your chosen platform. You need to interact with them and get them to engage with your content or move to your site. You could even look to do paid campaigns or work with influencers to make this happen.

Working With Experts That Can Add Value to Your Business

But then also, it’s important to recognize the value in working with experts and professionals in your business. It’s important to get the right expertise for your business and the best way to do that is by finding people who can add value to your business.

To do this, you need to identify who and what you need. Do you need an accountant or financial specialist? Or maybe you need complete on-site & in house welding services for your product? It might even be a great idea to hire a business expert or consult to help you grow and reach your goals too.

Having Determination To Succeed and A Vision of What Success Looks Like

It is easy to be determined when your vision is clear and you have the drive to achieve success. You will know that you are on the right path when things get tough and you don’t stop.

It’s not always easy to see success because we can’t predict how different things will turn out in the future. But we do know what it takes to succeed. It’s taking action and working hard every day, no matter how much it seems like nobody wants or likes what we do.