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Showing posts from April, 2017

Purchase Order Innovation

The importance of purchase orders  is somewhat obvious in today's business. A purchase order is simply an order that is submitted to an outside supplier for an amount of goods specified, for an amount that is agreed upon. But are there any way to improve this system? As stated, the purchase order is a vital part of the business' productivity. It governs how much material the company is taking in for the manufacturing of their product. For example, if we ran an electrical company, we would have to issue purchase orders to other companies for materials that we might need. These materials could range from wiring and electrical cables to switches and lightbulbs. But the acquisition of these items all depends on the purchase order. To get a bit deeper, a requisition order is an order that is submitted to the financial department of the business, and is then either approved or declined. In essence, the requisition is the purchase order before it has been confirme...

The EOU Business Process

The Economics of One Unit By: Zayne Hamilton The Economics of one unit is an essential building block of the business plan. These days, the world is full of get rich quick schemes and ideas that often turn out to be a waste of time. What would happen if your company was focused on selling one product at a time, rather than meeting the goal of millions? The Economics of One Unit can be a blessing or a burden, depending on how you view it. For small businesses in particular it would be wise to focus on a specific small goal of sales rather than flooding the bank in the first year. Typically, the Economics of One Unit model will have three numbers: the price of the unit, the cost of goods sold (which is subtracted from the price), and the "contribution margin"- or gross profit. This last number is key, as it will be added to the fixed costs per unit. The resulting outcome of these numbers will be your profit (before taxes). The Economics of One Unit model de...

The Importance of Business Process Management

Business Process Management (BPM) There are a lot of moving parts in a business. Sales management, purchase orders, shipping labels, etc. And the thing that binds them all together into a manageable group is this: Business Process Management (BPM). Note that this is not the study of individual functions in the effort to improve, however BPM seeks to encapsulate the entire string of actions into groups called processes. Typical examples of individual actions are: reducing prices, increasing customer satisfaction, reducing error rates, etc. The goal of BPM is to analyze entire processes. By knowing different business processes and their names, it allows for greater efficiency and productivity in your business plan. An example of a business process is the  Order-to-Cash process.  This process begins when a customer agrees to pay x amount of dollars for a good or service, and ends when the product has been delivered and the payment made. An order-to-cash process encompasse...

Business Analytics in a Virtual Data World

Business Analytics In the business world, information is everything. Without information, a company won't know how to better serve their customers, maintain their products, order stock, pay wages, or even when to open in the morning. Information in recent years has becoming less and less analog and more digital. Further, the company itself is becoming virtualized. Information is being stored in the cloud, making physical servers unnecessary. Another name for all this information can be, "data". The more data we have, the better informed our decisions can be. How data relates to a business in the terms of revenue and customer service is called business analytics. A large part of business analytics is marketing analysis data, where businesses take a look at the atmosphere into which they are selling their products, and make changes according to what they see. Marketing analysis data allows businesses to see whether they are gaining or losing customers, if they are ma...

Alternatives to Sage Business Intelligence

TEKOA Alternatives to Sage 100 Business Intelligence          Sage Business Intelligence is an application from Sage that essentially is an Excel plug-in. It allows you to create data pulls from Sage 100 into Excel. Although a bit cumbersome, it does its job well. One downside of this application is the resource draw on Sage. When the data pulls, it can have a negative effect on the Sage 100 application performance. Lagging, slow connection and occasional crashes can come from the pulls. The application is a good small business solution, but for a larger scale corporation it can be “too heavy” for the system. This is simply due to the fact that there is more data to pull and categorize from more places.          Tekoa offers an alternative to Sage Business Intelligence that uses SQL language instead. This allows the user to avoid the performance problems by caching the Sage 100 ...

Microsoft Cloud Applications

What Cloud Could Mean for your Productivity Microsoft has released a plethora of new programs and options to enhance your company's ability to be successful. Programs such as SharePoint and Cloud Office 365 are both Microsoft programs that can do wonders for your company's productivity.          SharePoint is a cloud based file sharing agent. It allows you to upload documents, photos, or files to  central drive that other people of your choice can have access to. With strict parameters as to who can see your files, it is a great way to share information and projects easily with your coworkers. Additionally, you can install several add-ons to your SharePoint account, such s image sliders, budget trackers, and contact forms. All of these are for the purpose of customizing your SharePoint experience.           Cloud Office 365 is somewhat self-explanatory,, however revolutionary for business produ...

Tips for Good Inventory Management

Good Inventory Management Practices Managing inventory is a severely underrated task. It requires a diverse understanding of the products you carry, their prices, and an intimate knowledge of shipping rates. So what makes a good inventory manager? Do the y just punch in a half hour early, and stay an hour late to clean up? Here are some practical ways you can improve your luster as an Inventory Manager. Check your Inventory Reports Frequently If you don't currently employ inventory reports, this is a great practice to get into. An Inventory Report is a summary of all of the items that you have in stock, and the quantities of those items. Checking these often can be beneficial for a number of maybe somewhat obvious reasons. For one, you will know what you can ship directly, and what you need to order. But on a more social level, if someone asks you if you have item x in your inventory, you have a better chance of knowing the answer if you have reviewed your Reports recentl...