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In certain industries, each employer must create a safety and health program known as “A Workplace Accident and Injury Reduction,” or AWAIR, program, as required by Minnesota Statute

Whether due to negligence on the part of the victim or the faulty equipment in the construction site, one fact remains: the victim died on his/her workplace.

Now, leading New York construction accident lawyer David Perecman is becoming worried about the worsening conditions of construction sites where a lot of workers sacrifice their lives for work’s sake. According to New York Times, a total of 10 deaths already happened for the past 3 months in the year 2008. One building already received 25 building code violations but the authorities weren’t able to do anything about it.

Assure UK Business Insurance is not quite making a good name in the business insurance industry. Although their prices are competitive (lower than most business insurance companies), some claim that enrolling a premium in their company is not worth it. Why? Their customer service (if they ever have one) is poor. UK Insurance Index, a website that allows customers to comment on certain services offered by insurance companies in the UK, had there posted in their official page a review of the said company. The commenter said that his/her request to cancel the premium took days (or even weeks!) and that a lot of “promised calls” were made but no calls came back from the said insurance company.

Ever since the 9/11 attack in the United States, many countries have been very wary about their own security. A lot of conspiracy theories were formulated since the area where the planes were spotted was a “no fly zone”, but nevertheless, if it was really an attack from another country, people should now be precautious of their surroundings.

Or so we thought. Marsh, a risk management company found out that most of the businesses in London, whether large or small, are not prepared if things go the wrong way. Some proponents of Marsh say that although these small-time businesses can’t do anything to thwart future attacks, they can do some precautionary measures, through some risk management strategies, to prevent further damages.

As you prepare your usual coffee in morning to bring it to your office (or someplace else), you smell the aroma of fresh coffee beans being brewed. As you pour the liquid inside your Stanley thermos, an unfamiliar sound startled you. BANG! Suddenly, your surroundings become black.

No, it’s not that you’re injured. It’s due to the charcoal that splattered from the thermos. The 2005 edition of Stanley thermos were withdrawn in the market because of some handle issues. If the vacuum cover of the handle is broken, chances are, it’ll explode and charcoal powder will burst in the air. A family in Arkansas sued the company (since most of their belongings had black powder in/on it) and the owners of Stanley thermos were more than willing to pay and assist them for the damages.

American and British proponents of risk management have agreed to include ERM (enterprise risk management) in the credit ratings of the companies. Although ERM is included in rating banks and other financial companies, they plan to include almost all companies now with their wider coverage (both public and private). They said that it’ll have a good effect on the companies because if ever the company gets a high risk management evaluation, the higher the chances that it’ll be given a much better credit rating. Credit ratings are needed since these will determine whether the company is worth it of a hefty loan.

Jon Caldwell is a professional content manager. Much of his articles can be found at http://thebusinessinsuranceblog.com

Globally, companies are embracing new working practices and technologies, changing the demands placed on office design. Employees used to instant messaging and online communication, expect their jobs and office design to reflect this dynamic culture and employers are responding.

Research by residential property company, Savills, revealed understanding the needs of workers has never been more important. Its report, What Workers Want in Property, conducted by YouGov, polled more than 4,500 employees. It discovered more than 82 per cent of respondents rated immediate workspace concerns, such as comfort, heating and lighting, as the most important.

Potential employees are also changing. More job seekers are looking at a company’s environmental credentials before applying for work. Savills revealed: “Where respondents rated employer image as important, 80 per cent placed the same level of importance on an employer’s possession of an environmental/recycling policy.”

Not only are firms looking at innovative office relocations and fresh office interior design, they are also reconsidering how they use office staff. The recent report by Sainsbury’s HR director, Imelda Walsh, has been accepted by the government and business is now allowing more people to apply for flexible working conditions.

Increasingly powerful, networked computers and web-based applications are creating virtual offices and more employees than ever work from home.

This migration to flexible working need not be a concern for organizations according to Brendan Barber, head of the Trades Union Congress, who says employers should support it.

He recently told the Work Wise UK summit, changing working practices has to involve “drawing on a range of measures to realign employment culture and people management practices – in ways that match both the needs of the business, and the aspirations of staff for a better quality of working life”.

Office interior design, like the new workforce, needs to be flexible. Professional services firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), recently completed a successful office relocation, having first considered the cost of moving.

Its new property at the Spencer Dock site at the North Quays in Dublin’s docklands is an example of new office design. PwC established focus groups with its new office furniture designer, Steelcase and Architects Mullally Leonard Partnership. Having consulted on all aspects of the fit out, Steelhouse said it “ensured that the design was aligned closely with the actual needs and aspirations of PwC people”.

One element of their office interior design is now common in new buildings and much sought after by firms conducting strategic relocations: informality.

The company incorporated a variety of social spaces in its new office design. Caf

Many people wonder whether building an online home based business on limited budget is possible.

The answer is Yes.

If you are beginner probably that’s what you want is to start your business quick and get it to the decent income level at as little money investment as possible.

This is good approach that has to be taken as spending to much of money on your business straight away doesn’t necessarily decide about success.

The good news are that you don’t have to be a millionaire to get started. The most important thing at the beginning is to find the company that will let you join at no cost and provide you with a free training material that will teach you step by step what to do to get things done right.

If you are beginner the education is the priority for you. You need to gain the proper marketing knowledge and skills to not get trapped and lose your money on something you don’t need. The more you learn the more money you will be able to save in the future as you will be more aware of what’s is worth to spend your marketing dollar on and what is not.

As you might notice nowadays the Internet is full of blueprints “revealing the secrets of Internet marketing” or ebooks that supposed to lead you to success and million$$$. The fact is that people usually seek for the information while browsing the Internet. Many marketers realize that and using the power of Internet they come up with their own information packages that people have to paid for in order to benefit from them. The sad reality is that not all of those information are valuable and useful. Sometimes you need to weed through a lot of trashy and unuseful products in order to find the one valuable for you.

Keeping that in mind the better solution will be finding some alternative resource of free information and online training you need in order to get started.

It’s really important as you need to realize that free marketing material is sometimes more powerful and effective for you than any other paid one.

You can always start at no cost applying the free marketing methods that can also work pretty well.

Online home based business is all about promoting and spreading the word on your business over the web and to do that you can use free promoting techniques such us: SEO optimization, banner and link exchange, article marketing, blogging, WEB 2.0 technology to get desired results at no cost.

Later on if you are ready to invest some money to promote your online home based business even more effectively you should spend them on something that once applied will be giving you results for a long time.

Limit your monthly budget, learn, apply the low cost or free promoting strategies to get started and then as your income grows you can invest the part of it to keep your business rolling like a snowball down the hill:).

Daniel Gebura is an experienced online marketer who helps ordinary people build a successful home business. Visit Daniel’s Internet Business Opportunities website for the best home based business ideas and opportunities.

To many, creativity simply means being able to produce lots of ideas quickly, with the expectation that some will be useful. But to those who deeply desire to be thought of as “creative,” any creativity challenge is also seen as a chance to fail and be “uncreative.”

This can quickly produce a kind of stage fright. Stage fright involves fear, worry, often self-chastising, and can result in freezing up.

Naturally that inhibits the flow of ideas, producing more stage fright.

It’s a vicious cycle.

But it can be brought around to a calmer, more productive state where ideas come easily, and in a steady stream.

All you need to do then is record them as they come, take a breather, then later, choose among them, and elaborate on those select few.

But how do you get there?

Try these approaches:

1-Don’t Judge Creativity While Creating

Mental state rules. Your mental state, that is. If you feel creative, or even neutral, you’re in the right mind frame. The neutrality I’m talking about is a nonjudgmental state, where you’re not constantly asking yourself if you’re creative or uncreative.

Or whether an which ideas have merit.

In fact you’re not aware that you’re thinking at all.

Thinking about your thinking—which involves being judgmental—

stops the flow faster than anything else I know. Let your brainstorming be an unjudged flow. Leave the sorting for later.

If you judge now, you stop tapping into your right brain and move into your analytical left brain. Good for judging, editing, polishing. Not so great for producing a wide array of alternatives.

2-Remind yourself that you have already produced many ideas in your lifetime.

Count the times in a day that you come up with an idea. You’ll be surprised how many there are. Big ideas or small ideas? Smart or dumb ideas? Don’t categorize them that way. Or at all. Not yet.

Think that ideas are ideas. Their purpose is to create a flow of more.

Creativity is a habit, and producing a plethora of ideas gives you good odds of finding a great one in the bunch. The more you push yourself to churn them out in large numbers, the more your mind trains itself to think that way, and quickly!

There’s another reason why “the more, the merrier” is true in creative pursuits: even discarded ideas contain fragments of great thinking that you can use on the hand-picked winners.

Example: An ad agency team was searching for a surprising gift for a new client. They came up with delivering a do-it-yourself ice cream sundae setup to the client’s office for an afternoon of fun.

The delivery of an experiential event sounded good to the agency CEO, but because the client was in a sophisticated business, he replaced the sundae bar in favor of a caviar tasting. Shortly thereafter, the president of the client company awarded additional assignments to the agency.

He did it, he said, “Because you truly understand us.”

3-Make A Point Of Appreciating Creativity Wherever You Find It

Creativity is all around though not always beautiful, or cool, or in an art museum. Sometimes it’s the clever way something is displayed in a store. Or an apt phrase spoken by a colleague.

Instead of feeling disappointed that you didn’t think it up, embrace it. Imagine how the person may have come up with that thought. In fact, read books by creative types who discuss topics like “how I came up with that idea.”

You’ll learn tricks and techniques, and enter into the mindset of creativity.

Children can be our best teachers because their special perspective exhibits a rare view of the world. And they are unashamed—or unaware—of their uniqueness.

If your three-year-old saw a pregnant woman and whispered, “Mommy, that lady looks like she swallowed a beach ball!” would you feel proud or embarrassed?

It happened to my friend, and she applauded her son’s creative thought (and only later requested that he speak more quietly). Of course it helped that the expectant mom laughed till she cried.

4-Try Easy Creative Jumpstarts Beginning Today

Noticing and appreciating others’ creativity can inspire you and prime the pump.

Visit the art museum on free day. Since you paid nothing, it’s okay to go in for a half hour. Don’t expect to see much. Just take in what you can and let it feed your mind. You can return next week and see more if you like.

If you’re in a walking city, walk as much as you can, observe the people and the surroundings. Eavesdrop occasionally, and listen to the different words used to express thoughts and perspectives.

Which of your friends thinks very differently from you? Many of us choose friends who think like us. It’s comforting but not always mind-feeding.

Make an effort to get to know people unlike you. The stimulation, even when uncomfortable, allows you a peek outside your usual worldview; it broadens your scope and upgrades your thinking. (You get smarter!)

5-Watch TV Fewer Nights A Week

Choose shows that foster new thoughts, or show you the unexpected: situations, ideas, or people you rarely encounter. Also choose unique quality entertainment. Both of these are good food for your mind and a way to keep in touch with the best of the current media offerings.

You already know what junk food is, so you can easily determine what “junk thoughts” are. Indulge in them only rarely and mostly to know what the public is seeing.

6-Tap Into Trends To Boost Your Ideas

A direct approach to getting ideas would simply be to copy what exists: if everyone is buying small cars, you, too, buy a small car. If you’re in the car-design business, your company designs another small car.

“Trend-tapping” is an indirect approach. You can, for example, tap into the smaller-car phenomenon indirectly:

If you’re a luggage maker, you could design luggage that fits easily into smaller trunks.

If you’re a toy designer, you could produce games that kids can easily play in smaller cars. Maybe the game board is smaller and players don’t need to move around much to play.

If you design clothing accessories, you design a purse that is inspired by a hat you saw. Same for a media campaign, a new soup, a way to stimulate interest in a medical facility.

Whatever your occupation, you can use this approach.

You’re hitching a ride on the spirit or vibe of a product, company, or individual.

Ask yourself: what trend outside my field can I bring to my work?

If Mac created a car, what would it be like?

What if Porsche created a restaurant?

If Harvard designed a grade school curriculum, what would it be like?

If (a person currently in the media) were in charge of (whatever task you’re currently working on), how would s/he handle my new project?

7-Borrow Techniques From Improv Actors

Improvisational actors really know how to take an idea and run with it, quickly and

regularly. If you want to know how to produce lots of ideas fast, these are the people to model.

I discovered this when I was an creative director in advertising and I took many improv classes. Before long my group ran brainstorming sessions around that model.

Surprising? Not really.

“Improv”-ing (which, of course, comes from the word “improvising”) is a kind of brainstorming whereby one takes the info/situation given to her, and staying within that “world,” creates a scene.

Improv actors are instructed to never to negate an action or a line fed to them by another actor, but to move on with it.

If one actor says to another, “So what’s your husband up to?” the second actor would not say “But I’m single.” Instead she enters the reality that she has a husband.

Valid replies might be as varied as “He’s leaving me,” “He’s making pizza” or even “I just killed him” because they move the scene forward. This kind of answer is called “Yes and—”

Creativity demands a “Yes and—” answer, too, because it opens the door to more possibilities that build on each other and allow movement.

The opposite of “Yes and—“ is “No but” and it brings the action to a dead halt.

If “how’s your husband?” gets the answer “I don’t have a husband,” there aren’t many places to go but to a scenario about amnesia (ho-hum). “Yes and—” generates hundreds of possibilities. I bet you could list twenty without even trying.

When you want to be creative, or to foster creativity in those around you, always reach for “Yes and—.” Discover how generative and life affirming that can be in all areas of your life.

-Final Thought

If you were to choose one technique you just learned to use on your current project, which technique would you use, and what new thought(s) might arise?

Most new buyers tend to use a wholesale directory to source products for resale.

But before a wholesale directory is even utilized, the buyer needs to understand what is wholesale as most directories paid and free have many suppliers that do not offer true wholesale pricing.

What does the word wholesale mean anymore? Everyone wants to buy wholesale, everyone thinks they are buying wholesale, but what really is wholesale?

Most will try to tell you it’s a significant discount off the suggested retail price, that’s what they want you to believe. But the truth is, as most of you may know, that a true wholesale price will allow you to mark up a product with enough margin to make a profit from the price that the product is generally sold for, not the suggested retail price.

This simple definition say it all “the sale of goods in quantity” for resale. The key word here is quantity. Because without quantity you can’t really buy at a low enough price to meet your profit margins.

A good wholesale directory will list only suppliers that are true wholesalers, do not sell to the public and will offer goods in quantity with a price point low enough for you to make a profit

When you search a wholesale directory and you keep coming up with sites that are retailers who offer a discount, wholesalers that sell to the public, or membership sites requiring a monthly fee, then just hit your delete button and move on.

There are also wholesale directories that are not directories at all. They are simply link farms, listing Google ads and affiliate links that are worthless. These are easy to spot, they look exactly what they are supposed to look like “junk”

Free wholesale directories vs. paid. If you can get past the junk, there are a few free directories that are actually useful. They are not hard to find, just do a search, get rid of the junk and start your research.

Paid wholesale directories can be very worthwhile as many specialize in niche categories. You can find directories specifically for electronics, fragrances, video games, handbags, designer name brand jewelry and just about anything else you can think of.

The caveat here is to make sure that any paid wholesale directory you purchase offers a money back guarantee. There are a few out there that are just not worth it, listing dead links, retailers, and wholesalers that do not really offer wholesale pricing, and names randomly taken off the Internet.

There is one little trick that will make your research easier also. Many times when clicking on a supplier link it will seem that you are taken to a retail site. I know it’s a pain, but that’s what research is all about.

Most of the time you will find a link to the merchant’s wholesale website (many have both a retail and wholesale website) buried somewhere on the front page, the site map, or the contact us page.

If a site shows up in a reputable wholesale directory as a wholesale supplier, that looks like a retail site, take the time and check it out. It may be bogus (everyone makes mistakes), or it may be one of your best efforts of the day that no one else knows about, thus cutting the competition.

Mark A. Greenberg is a retired CEO that has traveled the world sourcing products for successful companies. His website http://www.freewholesalesourcedirectory.com lists verified manufacturers & wholesalers that you can contact immediately. Visit our website to sign up for our newsletter and receive new suppliers, tips, tricks and information right in your mailbox twice a month.

Management is crucial in any business, and the management of change is particularly important. How you manage your business is important in determining its success. Even if you put your heart out in what you do, if you don’t manage your business well, then there is nowhere to go but down. You may be passionate about what you produce or manufacture but if your staff feel that you don’t manage them all too well, then there will be no support from them, and that’s not good news for you.

Always re-evaluate your business management from time to time. Are you doing it the right way? In order to do so, you must be open for change. Improving one’s management requires great skill and knowledge. A lot of people actually need some training in order to better manage their business. Let me tell you how you can improve management in your business by embracing change.

If you feel that your business needs some improvement, then you know there has got to be some change in the way you manage things. If you think your business is changing from doing well to not being able to meet its goals, then you know that you also need change to reverse the situation and meet higher goals for the business. Understanding what kind of change you need is the key to a great transition. You don’t change your way of management overnight. You also don’t change in just a short time. You need to plan it out, just like planning out a business of your own.

In order to improve management of your business, you must understand the dynamics of change. For you to manage your business differently, you have to take things one step at a time. Firstly, you need to know that when you start changing about how you manage business and your staff. You will initially feel awkward and self-conscious when you start the change process. Few people like change, particularly if they have been used to a stable environment and doing things the same way for more years than they care to remember.

Perhaps that is part of the problem: things have been done the same way for too long and your business is falling behind others that are adopting good management techniques and quality managements systems in a modern world. Such systems are more relevant in online business as in a traditional offline company due to the speed that the internet is moving at. Unless you roll with the wind, you will get stuck and your business will become stagnant.

However, do not change just for change’s sake. Determine HOW your business or management style should change. Analyze your business and determine where things are going wrong. There are business tools available to help you such as cause and effect analysis, turtle diagrams, fishtail diagrams and so on. You should determine what changes will be effective once you have identified at least some of the problems, and then put the required changes in place.

Remember, it has already been stated that most people do not like change, and therefore tend to resist it, particularly employees who have to implement the changes you have proposed. Good management will understand that the way to overcome this is to involve the employees in the analysis and proposed changes, and if possible lead them to propose the changes themselves.

In fact a good manager should have to impose nothing on employees since they will have been led to proposing all the changes necessary to improve a company themselves. That is good management; a manager that has to impose changes is a bad manager who does not understand the psychology of employees.

Try to understand that when changes are imposed, your employees’ initial reaction would be to focus on what they need to give up. This may not be a good thing for you. But in order to manage your business better, you must direct you and your staff’s attention to what they have to embrace and how it can benefit them and the company. Turn their attention from the things they have to say goodbye to, to the things they have to welcome. This is made easy if the staff and workforce have agreed to or better still, suggested the changes themselves.

Nevertheless, no matter who suggests the changes, people can only handle so much change. If radical changes are required, implement them in small amounts: otherwise your employees will react even though they themselves were responsible for suggesting the changes. Too much change is as bad as none, so make sure that you don’t overwhelm your employees with too many major management changes at once.

Change is good for a business, but it can be bad if the workforce feels that they have been omitted from the decision making procedure. Make them part of it and you will have a better chance of implementation. That is good management at work, and a call for change can be handled the right way or the wrong way. Good management knows the right way, and understands the importance of the management of change.

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A major storm is brewing in high-tech sales. Today’s customers are interested in complete business solutions rather than product features. This new focus is forcing vendors in many industries to become more reliant on the indirect channel to generate their future growth. Meanwhile, distributors and resellers are turning to services solutions to enhance their margin potential. What’s needed now is a new approach that allows vendors to not only ride out the storm but outrun their competitors. Here are the five moves that vendors and channel players can make now to best position themselves to achieve high performance:

1. Build trust –. To build trust – and to rebuild it – it is essential to make things simple yet comprehensive. Many companies are effectively leveraging technology to create such simplicity. Vendors must also work harder to collaborate with their channel partners. Successful channel programs owe much of their success to the fact that they were designed by the channel partners in concert with the vendors. Trust can be fostered by starting small and scaling fast. A series of quick wins can help build trust early on in the relationship.

2. Develop collaborative services - Vendors that want to drive the most effective channel partner relationships will have to upgrade their offers to present a differentiated combination of product, software, service and financing. In some cases, the offer may include a specific solution provided by the partner. The value proposition often may expand beyond the development and selling of the bundles and include codelivery platforms for serving customers. The codelivery distribution model requires collaborative models that integrate the strengths and weaknesses of all parties and provide an infrastructure that can be leveraged by all players.

3. Drive clarity of who gives what – and who gets what - It is important to properly segment partners with differentiated value propositions. Leading vendors are spending the time to effectively profile, segment and package unique value propositions. Their segmentation models reflect the volume potential of different partners as well as their competencies and specializations. Organizations also need to craft offerings that transcend basic pricing and discount characteristics.

4. Improving channel ROI – To properly manage channel returns, it is vital to establish visibility of cost and performance in all aspects of channel programs. The key enablers include:

a) A clear understanding of the economic models for each channel model;

b) Integrating infrastructures that not only facilitate the sales and delivery process but also provide access to performance information; and

c) Establishing governance structures that are integrated internally.

5.Focus on strategy to action at speed – Strategy to action at speed requires:

a) Access to scalable infrastructure, especially in emerging countries;

b) The ability to quickly test and pilot various concepts; and

c) Building the automation needed to facilitate the level of collaboration required between vendors, customers and channel partners.

We firmly believe that vendors searching to achieve high performance must act now to help ensure that their channel programs are as sturdy and effective as they can be. The perfect storm is brewing now. Better to be prepared to take advantage of the opportunities it will provide than to be picking through the debris in a few years’ time.

Accenture’s Electronics & High-tech industry group offers management consulting, technology-strategy and implementation services to all segments of this exceptionally dynamic industry. Read the full article on Big Changes in Indirect Channels to Achieve High Performance . Send an email to Patty Crawford if you would like one of our pricing specialists to meet with you.

Revenue growth continues to be a key goal of C-Suite executives with many turning to mergers and acquisitions to support their strategic agendas. While the acquirer’s top-line traditionally benefits from revenue growth in the first year after acquisition, few companies have been able to achieve sustained increases in revenue growth in the subsequent years.

One example of companies’ inability to get back to pre-merger revenue growth rates is the acquisition made by an established leader in the outsourcing arena of a fast-growing start up. On paper, this deal should have changed the industry dynamics and created a “one-stop-shop” for outsourcing deals, generating additional revenue for the combined company.

In reality, two years after the deal announcement, the acquirer was struggling to stay competitive after posting a significant year-end loss and with its stock price falling. The acquirer admitted to having underestimated the complexity of taking on a large number of new contracts in a short period of time and miscalculating the cost of executing them.

This,combined with the loss of confidence in the new organization, led to negative sales growth for the first time in the company’s history and a decrease in sales growth from around 16 percent

growth two years before the deal to around -1 percent sales growth two years after the deal.

There are numerous reasons for these growth challenges. Chief among them is a tendency among acquirers to become inwardly focused on integrating their new acquisitions, and they lose sight of the need to retain and grow their customer bases. All customers will be impacted by a merger. The key is to understand how. A clear strategy that focuses on reducing customer disruption, communicating changes timely and accurately, and developing robust retention programs for profitable customers, is essential to successfully managing customer expectations. The benefits are well worth it. Companies can experience:

• Satisfactory retention rates for customers and employees.

• Market stability

• Informed customers who act predictably during the integration.

• High level of excitement on the part of the customer that can lead to even greater loyalty.

Successful companies use mergers as an opportunity to discover untapped revenue potential by optimizing cross-selling and rationalizing channels, products, pricing and overall marketing efforts. This can be done if companies understand their new pool of customers – their segmentation, preferences and behaviors.

Not only are customers at risk during integration, maintaining high-performing employees could also be at risk if staff retention is not managed properly. To help reduce these risks, company executives must also win the hearts and minds of client-facing employees, leveraging them to keep customers at ease. In addition to a motivated salesforce, the right tools and messages to communicate with customers can be crucial in maintaining and growing the customer base throughout the integration plans. Engaging leaders from both organizations, developing fair and effective financial incentive plans, and creating and clearly communicating the integration plan are also key to successful integrations.

Companies that put the customer first, successfully equip employees with the right tools and messages and mine their customer databases to drive profitability can succeed at generating post-close revenue growth. Accenture has been involved in up to 400 M&A deals over the past five years and is a leader in providing sales and marketing support. Given our experience, we understand what it takes to help increase the growth opportunities of mergers and acquisitions.

Accenture’s Electronics & High-tech industry group offers management consulting, technology-strategy and implementation services to all segments of this exceptionally dynamic industry. Read the full article on Leveraging Sales & Marketing to Maximize the Value of Mergers & Acquisitions . Send an email to Patty Crawford if you would like one of our pricing specialists to meet with you.

The drive to achieve high performance through sustained top-line growth is dominating the strategic agenda of most global companies today, and that has placed an even more intense focus on the productivity of sales organizations. Many corporate leaders have been trying to meet the challenge to generate growth and improve sales effectiveness by focusing on process improvements, cost reductions, sales tools and training however for most, sales results are not paying back the investment in improvement initiatives.

Our research and experience points to the fact that many companies are devoting inadequate attention and resources to their sales operations – the processes, infrastructure and administrative support that underpin everything a sales organization and its people do. If they are to achieve and sustain high performance, companies must focus their sales effectiveness programs more pointedly at the transformation of their sales operations.

Why is the operational dimension so critical to achieving high performance through sales effectiveness? Operations serves as the vital two-way conduit between the customer and the rest of the organization. It’s the essential layer that enables activities such as placing the order and working with finance, accounting and legal. It’s directly responsible for managing the enterprise through the sales person to the customer, as well as from the customer to the sales person and back into the enterprise.

Unfortunately, back-office cost reductions have left sales organizations gasping for air from an operational perspective: Not enough hours in the day to meet sales quotas; too much time spent on administrative tasks and not enough time spent actually selling. The cost-reduction squeeze on the sales organization and/or back office functions has simply inflated the amount of administrative time spent by the sales force, leaving less breathing room for sales discussions with customers.

Accenture believes that a transformation initiative with the goal of driving high performance through reengineered sales operations should proceed according to the following general steps:

• Diagnose current sales and operations spending and capabilities – Companies often have inadequate visibility into how much they are spending on sales operations because the various related activities are splintered across other functions such as finance, IT and supply chain. Executives see the budget numbers at the aggregate level, but may not adequately understand where spending is redundant or broken at the process level.

• Consider “core” vs. “context” processes – A critical step in getting a handle on the operations needed to support a sales team is to consider what we call “core” sales operations activities versus those more appropriately considered as “context”. Core functions such as the sales advisory role, customer solution support, contract initiation and reporting should be retained. Context activities such as quotes, credit approvals, contract development and order management can be done effectively and at less cost by pulling them out into a shared service center.

• Tailoring a set of sales operations transformational programs to strategic goals and existing capabilities –companies can then design a transformational program right for them. Whether or not a company chooses a shared services or outsourcing solution as part of sales operations transformation, companies will still reap the benefits of standardized, modularized and consistent processes.

• Achieving high performance in a complex selling environment – high performance businesses know how to transform simultaneously along two dimensions: They can improve their company’s ability to meet short-term quarterly expectations, even as they are re-engineering on the fly to support future plans.

Transforming sales operations can result in improved sales performance and increased margin optimization. Companies can realize comprehensive benefits by improving sales operations: reduced expenses, an increased rate of sales, more repeat sales and improved margin optimization.

Accenture’s Electronics & High-tech industry group offers management consulting, technology-strategy and implementation services to all segments of this exceptionally dynamic industry. Read the full article on Achieving High Performance by Transforming Sales Operations . Send an email to Patty Crawford if you would like one of our pricing specialists to meet with you.