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Taking Inspiration From Google For Your Business Premises

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Taking Inspiration From Google For Your Business Premises

Renowned for creating incredible workspaces that aim to increase productivity in their staff, Google has 70 offices in 40 countries, each of them carefully designed to be an appealing and inspirational place to work. Here are just a few of the most exciting and design-led Google offices around the world.

Google Zurich, Switzerland

Step inside Google’s European engineering HQ, and you’d be forgiven for assuming you were atop an Alpine ski resort. In fact, you’re in one of the company’s many zoned conference areas, which encompass a snowy “North Pole”, complete with penguins, an aquarium chill-out zone, and swing chairs for (literally!) hanging out while you work.

Google Tel Aviv, Israel

Another innovative Camenzind Evolution design that can inspire your business, this sales and engineering hub sits in a prime spot in Israel’s coolest city, focusing on Google’s EMEA activities. The office has themed designs across its seven floors. Each reflects an authentic Israeli scene; hence an in-house orange grove tipping a wink to one of Israel’s most famous exports, corridors mocked-up to look like heritage cobbled streets (complete with window-boxes bursting with colourful blooms) and even a tractor-turned-lounge to complete the weird and wonderful décor.

Google London, United Kingdom

The Central St. Giles Building in Covent Garden is situated in the heart of London’s theatreland, playing host to Google’s London “Super HQ” within an unmistakably British space. Designed by British firm Penson, the patriotic theme starts from the Union Jack-swathed reception and continues on throughout the building with Chesterfield-buttoned velour lounge seating in British Racing Green, reminiscent of a vintage town hall, and kitschy chintz wallpaper and wing-back armchairs suggestive of a retro “Granny Flat”. This quirky style of interior design celebrates all things London with tongue firmly in cheek.

Google Amsterdam, Netherlands

Finally, engaging local design firm D/DOCK to refurbish its Amsterdam offices, Google’s newly refreshed reopened in January 2014. With eco credentials just as impressive as the design focus, this makeover adhered strictly to an approved materials list that minimised toxins, while maximising efficiency in power and water consumption. You can easily take inspiration from this, creating an industrial environment by engaging a pallet supply company and re-using materials and equipment in order to create an office space that inspires and amazes all at once. The wellbeing of the staff was also a major driver, with all employees afforded a 180° view across Amsterdam from the multitude of windows that line the offices. Thoughtful decorative touches appear everywhere, with bikes featuring heavily in the design (a nod to Amsterdam’s pedal-power transport culture), plus cute and comfortable 1960s caravans, complete with deckchairs and faux grass, repurposed as enticing meeting rooms for staff to enjoy.

As you can see, Google has gone a long way to ensure their office spaces are inspirational and truly incredible. You can take this approach with your business premises, irrespective of whether you have a number of offices or you own a warehouse. You can still make the place exciting while productive and adhering to safety regulations.

How To Improve Your Professional Development

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article | How To Improve Your Professional DevelopmentWhatever your role – business owner, team leader, staff member – it is human nature to want to learn new skills and grow as a person. Personal and professional development are both key to this, but it is the latter – development in the context of the workplace, such as skills that can be used in your career – that can occasionally be difficult to know where to start with.

Primarily, there are a few key principles to remember:

  1. Stay motivated
  2. Increase how much you read
  3. Learn from different industries
  4. Get feedback on what you’re learning
  5. Attend a training program
  6. Assess your progress

The Basics of Professional Development

If you’re not motivated, you’re unlikely to learn anything new, or at least anything new quickly. If you struggle with self-motivation, perhaps you could team up with a partner and set each other targets to push each other. This will also help vary the way in which you learn, as you can share hints and tips for what methods are working. The most obvious method for widening your professional horizons is to read more. Reading books not only based in your field of work but other ones as well will give you a wider, more rounded outlook on your job.

Getting in touch with people in other businesses and industries and asking what sort of professional development they have done – or what skills they need for their job – is also a good idea. Developing yourself in the context of your own position is obviously useful for the present but equipping yourself with knowledge and skills of other positions will make you a more attractive worker or business partner in the future.

Once you have started learning a new skill or studying a new business practice, it’s never a bad idea to ensure you’re working along the right lines by either getting feedback or checking your progress against examples. For instance, if you’re learning more about search engine optimization, looking into case studies for SEO is a good way of gauging your understanding against real-life examples.

Working with experts in the field you are studying and trying to grow your understanding will also improve your rate of development. If it’s a skill that you can enroll in a training course for, consider doing so. If you can, contact somebody who has already completed the course to ensure it’s worth the investment. Always find professionals with a lot of experience and with proven examples of their training improving a business.

Embarking on learning a new skill, developing your existing ones, or any other form of furthering your professional improvement can seem like a daunting task. It is never easy to remove yourself from your comfort zone, but pushing yourself and surrounding yourself with knowledge will help you do your job better and encourage those around you to do the same. Assessing your progress as you go along – looking back and seeing where you were at a week, month or year ago – will demonstrate how far you have come and motivate you to go further.

Streamline Your Business Processes For Enhanced Efficiency

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In the pandemic world, the way our business is run is taking priority over revenue and profits. With more people facing unemployment, including your customer base, individuals are less likely to spend excess money on services or products. Even your most loyal customers and clients will be more frugal with their cash. It’s more crucial than ever that you conserve your revenues. Rather than spending money, you need to think about how your venture can save the pennies. Being more efficient tends to mean less financial wastage. Take a look at how you can streamline your business processes in an attempt to survive the Covid-19 world.

Saving Time

Time costs money. You need your staff team to be focused on the most worthwhile tasks that can save your business cash. Think about honing a mature digital process automation policy to ensure that there is less time spent on repetitive tasks within your company. You can generate more efficient workflows without the need for any coding by using a drag and drop facility. You can even identify bottlenecks and work on making your processes more fluid. This, coupled with an excellent document management system, means that your staff can be released from tedious, repetitive tasks to focus on more crucial considerations. Marketing, funding and staffing will be more high priority facets of your business in the coming months.

Staffing

No one wants to fire staff – this is the worst aspect of being a boss. While you want to conserve as many roles as possible, a decrease in revenue and profits may result in the need to streamline staff. Be responsible when shaving off wage commitments. Make your redundancy packages as comprehensive and generous as possible. Talk to staff members empathetically, and make it clear that you will be there to help them locate new positions elsewhere. Staff who are made redundant can feel bitter (understandably) so if they choose to burn their bridges, don’t be too upset. As a caring employer, try to restructure your business to save as many jobs as possible. Explore pay cuts or part-time working to keep as many of your staff on as possible. Lead by example and forego your bonus and a chunk of your wage to show that you are all in this together.

Outsourcing Overview

If you utilize outsourcing for your benefit, you need to do an audit to see if you can claw back any cash. Do you really need a social media manager? Can you keep this function in house? If you can continue your IT troubleshooting and your blog posts within your firm, it’s time to forego the more expert outsourced capabilities. This is money that can be saved. While your online presence may take a small hit, the traffic won’t be there to attract in any case. To increase efficiency, you need to bring these business functions into your remit. It may involve a restructuring of your firm, but this could see you through an economically uncertain time.

Follow this guide and streamline your business processes for enhanced efficiency.

5 Steps for Starting a Successful Manufacturing Business

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | 5 Steps for Starting a Successful Manufacturing BusinessStarting a new manufacturing business can be a daunting prospect, but if you pull it off, there can be great rewards.

One of the most important things is that you don’t rush into it without being ready, and this means careful planning is needed. These five steps for starting a successful manufacturing business can help you on your way.

1. Planning

You can’t just go into business and hope things will fall into place, because they invariably won’t. Instead, you’ve got to plan your approach in as much detail as possible.

Some of the first things you need to think about are how you’re going to enter the market, where your competitive edge lies, and how you’re going to finance the venture. There are a lot of start-up costs associated with manufacturing, so you may have to come up with some innovative ways of financing your company.

2. Location

Where you locate your factory is going to play a big role in your business’s success.

Logistics play a huge part in manufacturing, and you’re going to want to minimize these costs as much as possible. One of the ways you can do this is by finding a factory in a location with excellent transport links.

Great transport links also make it easier for customers to get to you and your staff to get to and from work.

3. Personnel

When you’re starting a new venture, it’s vital you get the right people in to help you out. This is a critical time for your company, so you want to be able to rely on competent staff to help carry out your vision.

If you hire well and build a good, solid team, you start to breed a culture that will define your business for the years to come, but if you get your hiring wrong, it can lead to bad habits and poor-quality work.

The hiring process is crucial, and you need to be getting the right people in, something that has served this dowel pin manufacturer well.

4. Technology

You can only get the best out of people if you give them the right tools to do their job.

Investing in technology is expensive, but if you’re investing in the right technology, it’s going to make a huge difference to your efficiency and make your company more profitable.

It might mean a big upfront investment, but technology can make all the difference in your manufacturing business’s success.

5. Suppliers

We’re always talking about customers and rightly so: they’re the ones that help pay the bills. That said, suppliers play a big role as well.

If you can start to build good relationships with your suppliers right from the very start, they can stand you in good stead for many years. Your suppliers are one of the very first cogs in the entire manufacturing process, so it’s vital you can rely on them.

Really do your research and due diligence on suppliers and try to cultivate strong relationships.

How To File A Lawsuit In A Business Disagreement

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article | How To File A Lawsuit In A Business DisagreementAre you having a business disagreement with another business or individual? Have you tried everything you can to resolve the issue, but without any success? If so, the next option may be to file a civil lawsuit.

This may seem like an extreme option, but in reality, civil lawsuits are fairly common. In fact, over 40 million civil lawsuits are filed every year in the USA, and there are over a million lawyers to help deal with the lawsuit process.

So if you need to file a lawsuit, you’re not alone – but it is important to make sure you know what you’re doing before you get started.

Here’s everything you need to know about filing a lawsuit in a business disagreement.

Who Is The Defendant?

Is the defendant a business, an individual, or both? It is important to know who you are filing a civil lawsuit against before you do it, as it can help to determine the amount you could win. It can also help you to decide if it is worth it; generally, it is much easier to file a lawsuit against an individual, but if you have a strong case and a good attorney, you can certainly win against a business.

What Do You Expect To Get From The Proceedings?

Filing a civil lawsuit comes with legal fees and court costs. If these costs are more expensive than the amount you hope to win, it may not be worth pursuing the case – but if you could stand to win big, you may wish to continue. So take some time to think about how much the individual/business cost you, and then compare this cost to the court fees.

Is The Defendant Harming Your Business?

If they are harming your business, you will need solid proof, such as an expert witness or video footage of the harm they cause. Without this proof, it will be difficult to win in court, so take some time to gather up evidence and witnesses before filing a claim.

What You Need To Do: Hire An Attorney

The first thing you should do is speak to an attorney about your case. They will be able to review your case and decide if you should proceed, and they can also represent you in court. We suggest finding an attorney who has experience in the specific area you are dealing with (such as employment law or contract law).

Contact The Correct Jurisdiction

Once you have weighed up your options and gathered evidence, you can contact the right jurisdiction. This often depends on where the event took place, and it can also depend on the type of case. For instance, you may need to speak to a small claims jurisdiction or exclusive jurisdiction. You can find out more about these options by contacting your local court for more information.

Write A Demand Letter

Once you have contacted jurisdiction, you can write a demand letter. This letter will explain your case and how you want to be reimbursed, and this will be reviewed by both the defendant and the court. Once the letter is written, you can fill in court forms and register the claim (which normally costs money).

Set A Date With Court

Next, the defendant will be served with the demand letter and a date to appear in court, and then they have some time to decide how they want to proceed. For instance, they may want to build a defense, but they may also decide to settle out of court.