Gas vs. Electric Rotisserie... Which One Should you Buy?

There is need to evaluate between the gas-powered and the electric grill rotisseries to find which best suits your applications. Due to the large number of different rotisserie machines you find in the market, when you are buying one for the first time, you need to make an informed decision. The following are some of the considerations you can make to ensure that you gain value for your money when purchasing your rotisserie grill machine.

First, the gas-powered rotisserie produces optimum power when it's turned on and this makes it more suitable especially in large restaurants. In addition, you can accurately control the temperatures on the gas grill rotisserie enabling you save energy when you are cooking. When you increase the amount of gas which passes through the burner, the temperature increases because of the automatic climb in cooking temperature experienced inside the rotisserie machine. This enables you cook your food fast.

Secondly, you can easily move the gas rotisserie oven from one location to another and in restaurants where you would like to showcase active cooking to the guests, this can easily be accomplished. Similarly, if you are carrying out outside catering, this can also be a good option for you since it is convenient to move around.

Nonetheless, the gas rotisserie have some bottlenecks in that they are not very compact and thus may require some extra space in your home or restaurant. And this does not just mean a 12" space that you would find on your countertop. It is more than that since a good rotisserie machine can take larger spaces equivalent to whole kitchen counter that handles large amounts of food items in it.

On the other hand, electric rotisserie machines are lighter and designed to be more compact compared to the gas-powered rotisserie machines. If you are living in a house that has limited space, this can be an ideal choice since it takes up less space enabling you enjoy your cooking while saving more space for other uses in your home.

Thirdly, the gas rotisserie cooking machines are more expensive than the electric rotisseries. For instance, most of these gas-powered rotisseries for home applications can cost up to $200 and when this is compared to the cost of electric powered rotisseries of about $40 to $75, there is certainly a big difference.

But where is the real catch in the price? Whereas you may spend more that $100 when investing in gas-powered rotisseries, buyers need to understand that electricity can be more expensive especially during the peak hours. This means that you can buy the cheaper electric-powered rotisseries but end up stretching your overall cost by paying more on the electricity bills.

If you do not have the cash to invest on the gas rotisserie grill, you can buy the electric rotisserie but you have to watch out on the cost of fueling, which can stretching the cost of using the machine. So if you are a heavy user of rotisserie, you may require buying several tanks a month but a tank only fetches about $25 to $30.

And therefore what is the verdict? It is evident that gas rotisseries is more appropriate for those people who use the machine for cooking in a large scale but for those who would like to have a rotisseries for light cooking, then the electric-powered is a better option. It is also important to be cautious since if you buy a high-end rotisserie chicken machine, which you are not going to make use of, it may end up occupying unnecessary space in your home that you could use in other ways.

Fix Troubles within Your Tumbler Dryer with Help of Appliance Repair Technician

A clothes dryer consists mainly of a heat source, lint trap, and a vent. This may sound like a simple machine, but there are different moving parts within this appliance that could break and cause trouble. It is important to fix any problems with help of a reputable appliance repair technician. Faulty dryers can trigger fires that could damage your valuable clothe drying equipment and risk your home being burned.

If your dryer is not handled carefully, chances are that it will keep on breaking down and soon you may be compelled to dispose it off and buy another one. Since you do not want to incur untimely costs, you need to ensure you always consult a qualified technician. The timers, sensors, temperature controls, air exhausts, and vents can cause your dry to malfunction.

A dryer that is shutting off before clothes are dried properly means there are some serious issues that need to be resolved. Similarly, if the machine is getting too hot or it is not heating up as required, you need to have it checked immediately. Other problems that need to be checked by an expert are such as burning rubber smell, damages on clothes, dryer that is not starting, small clothing items vanishing from the dryer tumbler, or air flapper not working properly.

If there is anything that seems to be wrong with your dryer, you should not neglect it. The earlier you seek the help of a technician, the better because you are able to solve the situation before it gets out of hand. If you do not fix the issues straightaway, you may risk your dryer breaking down completely.

An appliance repair technician can help in fixing dryers or other home appliances like stoves, ovens, fridges, and icemakers. Proper care and maintenance of your appliances will prolong their life expectancy and prevent premature breakdowns and damages on your precious equipments.

Correct Defects in Your Refrigerator with Help of Appliance Repair Technician

A malfunctioning refrigerator can cause inconveniences in storage of perishable products. You can imagine how life would be without a working fridge. You need to contact a qualified appliance repair technician to restore any damages in your refrigerator. A fridge has many parts such as the cooling and humidity control zones, ice makers, automatic defrost and beverage dispensers.

These components need to be handled carefully in order to maintain efficiency in the appliance.
A faulty refrigerator can risk the safety of your family, and you need to act fast to rectify the problem. Modern fridges require a technician who possesses advanced knowledge in dealing with the complex schematic and different inventory parts of these home appliances.

When faulty fridges are repaired in time, it helps enhance their efficiency. An inefficient fridge can use more energy meaning that you incur increased utility bills. The lifespan of the appliance is determined by how well you maintain it. If your fridge has no power and you have checked to make sure the electrical plug is plugged in correctly and the control knobs are on and no fuses are blown, then you need a helping hand from a trusted technician.

If the appliance is not cooling as it used to, it may be experiencing some technical problems. Different refrigerator problems need the right expertise in repairing fridges including the presence of moisture on the outside of the fridge, freezing on the inside walls, leaving puddles on floors, strange noise coming from the rear side of the appliance, and musty odor  from the fridge.

When the coils are damaged or crooked, they also need to be restored. Not only does the technician repair fridges but also works on other appliances like tumbler dryers, ovens, icemakers, stoves and freezers. With help of a primed appliance repair technician, you can maintain your appliances in good working conditions.

Advertising with Internet Search Engines

Use of search engines in advertising is proofing an effective tool for boosting business sales and creating awareness. The digital edge has revolutionized the aspect of marketing and advertising in the business portfolio. With an ever-increasing competition, business organizations are constantly repositioning themselves in a bid to achieve a competitive advantage. Marketing and advertising is one of the profound ways of improving on business sales volumes.

Internet has edged out the marketing and advertising from the conventional forms of advertisement. With the large number of consumers accessing the internet, it is evident that businesses are shifting their attention to the internet advertising. Some of the main search engines on the internet are Google and Yahoo. For instance, Google is one of the search engines that have gained popularity.

The main marketing products in these search engines are Ad words, pay per click and Search engine Analytics' channels, which help in tabulating the effectiveness of the advertisement programs. These kinds of ad products are designed to suit different clients with different advertising needs. Ad word is one of the most advanced and commonly used types of internet marketing tools. This usually entails the so-called Pay Per Click (PTC) advertising. It mainly takes into account text and images in its content presentation.

Banners are a common information presentation tools in Ad words. This type of advertising is cheap as it incorporates tailor-made advertisement. The sizes of the banners differ depending on the contents to be presented to the audience. To reach the intended audiences and hence the clientele, the Ad words advertisements are group into regions. For instance, there is local, national and international. It also depends on the kind of product and the targeted market niche. Ad Sense adverting programs are tailored to suit those businesses that have websites blog pages.

One imperative aspect of Ad Sense is that it amalgamates text, image and video advertisements on the sites. Due to this integration of different forms of information presentation, it is able to penetrate the clients buying behaviour and influence their purchasing decision. Ad Sense has the (PTC) and per-thousand-page views.

The effectiveness of this kind of adverting has to be measured. There are statistics, which are used to analyze how many of the targeted audiences who view a particular advertisement through the Ad Sense are able to make buying decision. The tabulation of these statistics aids the webmasters and website owners to be able to establish the effectiveness of the Ad Sense adverts.

For example, Google applies the Google Analytics (GA) to establish and analyze the consumer information. This program gathers and puts together information, which is used to establish the origin of the audiences, the time one was on the website and the geographical distribution of the audience readers. This program is used to establish how Ad words and Ad Sense are impacting on the consumers.

In a nutshell, it is worthwhile noting that the ability of a search engine to achieve the desired marketing and advertising results, the ad programs should be able to reach and impact on the consumer behaviour. Many internet users could visit a website or an advertisement banner but the results are unimpressive. This is because perhaps the wrong consumer segment is targeted.

What Advantages do Small Businesses Have Over Large Corporate Organizations?

The structural, technological, strategic and human facets of a business become complex as the organizations expand in size.  There are certain advantages small businesses have over large businesses including capital, risk implications and management complexities. There is a direct correlation between the managerial inputs and the size of the business.  The larger the organization the more demanding it becomes for the management to initiate its managerial function.  

As small businesses advance to transform into large corporations, the managers and investors are confronted with more challenges to put the company into performance.  It's therefore evident that running small business entities is quite simplistic and easy than operating big businesses.  This does not mean that investors should not strive to have their business expand. 

In reality, when businesses grow, it provides more opportunities for the investors to earn good returns.  There is also a test of ability to apply the human skills of intellectual, intuitive, cognitive thinking and conceptualization in business management.  The investors are able to enjoy the economies of scale in a larger proportion compared to their counterparts with the small businesses.  Otherwise, who doesn't want to have a large piece of the economies of scale in the business platform?  Some of the advantages that small businesses have over large companies are;

Less capital requirement
There is obviously little capital required to set up of small businesses as compared to large corporate.  This implies that more prospective business investors can manage to establish small businesses.  It must be agreed that the financial aspect is one of the setbacks to setting up of businesses. Large business entities require enormous amount of starting capital and many people who would like to put up businesses are tumbled around constrains of financial abilities. 

Although with the visions, aspirations and plans to have big businesses, they end up starting small entities and build up their visions from that platform.  The small businesses profile provides a building block for the larger entities.  With good managerial initiative the small business owners are able to transform the small entities into large corporate.  It's just a matter of time and focus and soon an investor begins enjoying large economies of scale.

Easy management portfolio
Due to the fact that the structural, technological, and human aspects of small business are inexpensive, there is easy management of these resources.  The manpower is controllable, the financial resource is manageable, the technological innovations are sizable and the strategic approaches are simplified.  Basically there is less input in the management aspect of small businesses.  It thus requires a basic understanding of business operations to run a small business which would be difficult in the case of large corporate.

Less cost implications on risks and uncertainties
The small businesses are preferred by many because of the conceptual framework in cost analysis in case of eventualities.  Indeed, there are fewer costs that are attached to risks and uncertainties in small businesses.  Any way, businesses are but just about taking risks, and when the events of uncertainties occur, there is a cost implication.

The amount in which a small business suffers is much less than in the case of large businesses and this provides another advantage small business have over large companies.  For instance, when a natural disaster such as an earthquake strikes in an area, the big businesses suffer more losses than the small businesses.  Nevertheless, investors should not shy off from running big business where appropriate, as the opportunities are great in terms of monetary achievements.

5 Great SEO Forum Tips that Can Help Generate Traffic to Your Site

Although seo forums are discussion platforms, nonetheless, these forums can be utilized as tools of generating targeted traffic to websites. The seo forums bring together a community of audiences and experts in internet marketing where they share ideas, trends, and search engine seo tips. Audiences can learn from the experts by asking questions, which are best answered by the professionals in search engine marketing. 

If you are an expert in particular topic on internet marketing, you can share your knowledge and expertise with the other audiences. This way, you can build a community of followers, which you can convert to customers. This is one way in which you can use the many opportunities available on the internet to tap the huge clientele base provided by internet.

The popularity of internet forums where experts in different fields exchange their ideas, expertise, advises, opinions, and other information with audiences has grown in the recent past. Today, you can learn different aspects on particular topics by engaging with the professionals through the online forum discussions. A seo forum is mainly concerned with topics that discuss aspects of search engine optimization.

In order to seek optimum benefits by participating in these online media platforms, there are a number of seo forum tips, which can help you tap a substantial traffic from the forums. Below are 5 tips that can guide you to maximize the benefits of online marketing forums in generating website traffic;

1. You should take part in as many forum sites as possible if you want to build a community of followers whom you can turn to customers. The more seo forums you take part in, the more you get to understand all about search engine optimization. Similarly, the more forum sites you engage in, the more traffic you are likely to generate in your website.

2. You also need to contribute to topics, which you are knowledgeable in so that other audiences can know your expertise. They are likely to follow you and see what more you have to offer in seo marketing.

3. You need to raise questions that you feel you have no thorough knowledge about. There are contributors who are experienced in virtually all SEO aspects whether it is design or technical aspects such as CSS and HTML coding. Some of the contributors in these forums are professionals running seo companies.

4. You need to use forum signatures at the end of a post that you submit. Forum signatures act as links that help direct visitors to your website where they can be able to see your products and services or even learn more about seo service.

5. You also need to participate in list of forum sites that are recognized by search engines. Forums that do not allow "do follow" attributes receive more link credits from the search engines and can help you generate inbound links to your website.

In a nutshell, when you participate in seo forum discussions, you need to be strategic so that you exploit the benefits of SEO. You can benefits by learning SEO techniques, strategies and tips to help enhance your web design and the ranking of your site by search engines. You also get the opportunity to build a community of followers whom you can convert to leads and then to sales.

Great Reasons Why Companies Should Use the Online Document Signing Services

Whereas there are many reasons why companies should seek for online document filling and signing services and perhaps efficiency of the service is one of the main reasons. Businesses owners want to close more deals in the shortest time possible. When documents such as clients’ orders and payment processing documents are signed fast, this means improved services. With the esignature service, the time taken to sign documents is minimized. 

The conventional way of signing process may take hours and with this online service, it takes minutes to get documents signed. This means that more deals are closed within a short time. Another reason why this electronic signature service should be adopted by companies is the broad spectrum of application features. In order to make the process to be modeled out articulately, the service entails use of software features that have the ability to produce wet-looking signature that looks like just a ‘paper and pen’ signature. 

There are different ways by which a signer can sign documents for instance; there is a type-to-sign application mode. In this case, the software is composed of specially designed fonts, which produce signatures that look as though they are handwritten. Another way in which signatures are made through esignature is by a touch screen pad application feature. 

A signer can sign a document using a finger and this produce a handwritten signature. Another way in which documents are signed is through fax-to-sign mode. In this case, documents are downloaded and printed out in a faxable signature page that contains a unique barcode. The sign is made with a pen and faxed to a special fax number. Moreover, companies need to use the esignature process because it is secure. 

To protect the clients’ documents and information, the data on transit is protected by SSL data encryption provided by VeriSign. This creates confidence within the users. By using this state-of-the-art electronic signing technology, a company is able to improve on it service delivery. More business deals are closed and thus there are increased sales. This leads to increased returns on investments (ROI). 

With the ability to carry through multiple signing by different parties, this means that a document can be signed by the required signers. This can be done through the shared email addresses or otherwise. With the sequential signing process in esignature, in a custom workflow where multiple signers are designated to sign in a specific document such as clients’ order or creditors payment petty cash voucher, this can be executed easily. 

Documents are immediately generated into new versions when signed. When using the electronic signature service, documents are uploaded in common file formats such as PDF, DOC and DOCX. They can also be uploaded in online document formats such as the Google docs and FreshBooks.

One of the most impressive features of this digital signature service is the blackberry mobile signing application. With use of iPhone mobile signing, the signers can sign documents on the go with application of the acclaimed esignature iPhone functionality. This creates a high user experience, which enables the parties to sign documents while on the move. With a touch-screen conversion into a signature pad, this esignature application feature enables signers to embed their signatures perfectly.

In a nutshell, if you are seeking for innovative ways to transform your company’s document filling and signing process, then the electronic signature service could be the most apposite application to use. This will save you time and money. With the online signing service, it is paperless meaning that you also go green since there is no need to use paper, buy ink and pen for signing. This is an environmentally safe procedure that companies should incorporate in their systems operations.

Good Reasons Why You Should Participate in SEO Help Forums

Almost every business owner wants to have a website for internet marketing. This is because; business owners have realized the benefits, which are offered by the internet such as search engine optimization. However, the challenge is that, search engine optimization is not easy and requires a lot of insights on how to use the right metrics and techniques to have your website ranked on the top pages.

Participating in SEO help forum can equip you with great online marketing skills that you can use to push up the ranking of your site by search engines. In addition, you can also learn how to optimize your landing page to increase its conversion rate. The forum seo sites attract a group of professionals in online marketing who are willing to share their views and knowledge and this can be an ideal resource tool for you to learn more about online marketing and in particular SEO.

You can ask Search engine optimization related questions that you need to get answers. You will be able to get answers from fellow forum webmaster participants who have excelled in search engine optimization. Moreover, you also contribute to topics, which you have more knowledge in and this helps you build a community of followers whom you can convert to customers. Because these forums attract business people seeking for marketing ideals, it can be a good form of B2B marketing.

Similarly, when you participate in the forums, you can learn about the dangers of using blackhat SEO techniques. A successful search engine optimization is that which is organic, natural or whitehat meaning that the ways applied in search engine optimization are ethically acceptable by the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Natural or organic SEO gains more credit from search engines like Google and it brings long lasting results whereas blackhat techniques can easily lead to ban of your site by the engines. From the forums SEO discussions, you are able to develop great skills that you can apply in your website marketing. What this means is that you learn SEO techniques and tactics which you could otherwise have sort for paid professional to offer the same.

Choosing the Right Bank for Your Company

Banks form part of the business associates platform and their main function is to offer financial support and services to business organizations. During the process of business operations, banks interact with the entrepreneurial entities in various ways some of which are granting loans for business growth, necessitating transactions through money transfers and offering financial advice to the clients. Indeed, a constant interrelation needs to be nurtured in the most complaisant manner possible.

With the many financial institutions, it must be admitted that choosing the right bank is not an easy task. It requires a critical examination of the goals and objectives of the company in regard to financial stability, and on the other hand, the ability of the financial institution to offer the much-needed support. For a company to choose a suitable bank, it should consider the viability of the financier, the kind of supportive services that the bank offers to the business clientele including advisory on future borrowing, and the flexibility in terms of agreements.

The company should critically establish how the bank has been performing, how the other companies commend on its services and if there are any disputes with other business organizations and how they were resolved. It should be noted that most banks will not disclose any information that they feel may taint their image. Perhaps details on disputes with clients may only be obtained from other sources including the business journals, courts of law and the media highlights and archives.

There are numerous dimensions on which to categorize a bank as suitable to indulge in business with. First, the financial institution should have a record track in offering good services. The period in which it has been in business should clearly signal its performance mileage. Entering into contract with a bank that has no known performance background can be quite technical.

It is not certain whether the institution will be able to offer the necessary support when things go haywire. For example, during a recession, an unstable bank may be faced with operations setbacks that may hinder a company from seeking any financial help to back up its monetary resource. This is the time financial institutions should show commitment and demonstrate their ability to support businesses.

Secondly, other aspects need to be evaluated, for example, the terms of agreements when applying for loans. The financiers may be so stringent that being unable to repay loans can prompt a further unprecedented course of action such as unjustifiably taking up collateral that have been placed as security for loans. Although this may be in the interest of the lenders to protect and safeguard their business, but on the other hand, there should be a consensus on how to best resolve such a an eventuality.

The interests of the two parties (bank and the company) should be taken into considerations on a win-win situation. The financial institutions should have good advisory frameworks that assist businesses to financially manage their monetary resources. It should advise the businesses on the right time to borrow and how to appropriately obtain manageable loans.

Financial companies that are out to unscrupulously exploit the companies without considering their financial uncertainties can lead businesses to plunge in financial pit-holes. The terms of agreements are one of the most important of the conditions in borrowing. The financiers should be able to offer in-depth pre-loan information to the company. There are times when banks, out of fear of being branded as unreliable, tend to hold vital information regarding lending agreements.

For example, banks may hide particular information to its clients such as the so-called 'hidden charges’. This implies that the companies only come to know of such terms when they have already entered into a loan contract with a bank. This is quite pathetic and creates misunderstanding and lack of confidence with the institution. This can adversely affect the company's financial goals and objectives. 

Enhance your Document Signing Process with esignature Service

The process of filling and signing of documents has been made more effective, reliable, cost-effective and fast with the application of esignature services. Companies are seeking for those technological innovations, which enhance service delivery and perhaps online document signing offers an ideal option. With the online document signing process, the documents are uploaded in PDF or word file formats and send to the recipients’ email.

Upon signing, the documents are sent back to the sender. The process can take hours if not minutes and this reduces the time taken in signing document from hours to minutes. Moreover, since there are different ways in which esignatures can digitally be embedded on the documents, this means that the signers can apply the most suitable mode. 

For example, there is the use of handwritten signatures where the documents are signed by use of finger on their laptop or iPhone screens. This produces a wet-looking signature that looks like a ‘pen and paper’ signature. This is as impressing as the typical way of signing documents. Similarly, there are specially designed fonts, which are used to produce typed signatures. 

A signer can as well apply these fonts, which resemble handwriting. In addition, with this electronic signature service, the signer can sign by using the touch pads on their iPhones and iPads. This means that they can sign the documents while on the go thus enhancing service delivery in organization. With a secure system of online document signing such as the use of SSL data encryption features from VeriSign, this ensures that clients’ documents and data are protected from intruders.

There are other features, which are incorporated in the signing process such as ‘sign by fax’ whereby the signers sign documents by printing out faxable signature pages that contain unique barcodes. The document is signed with pen and faxed to a special fax number provided by the esignature service provider. The signed documents are then forwarded to the sender. The process is confidential and secure and all clients’ data is protected. This creates confidence with users.

Live Mobile Support Apps…What Retail Store Owners Could Be Missing!

Consumer buying behavior is a complex aspect that needs to be analyzed in-depth by e-store owners in order to convert leads into sales and one way this can be achieved is through live mobile support. The point of decision is certainly one of the most important stages in the consumer buying life cycle. 

Retail businesses failure to close their sales partly because the aspect of point-of-decision is not addressed conclusively when business owners and marketers engage with consumers. An augmented retail experience is lacking among many e-retail stores that can help influence the buying behavior of the consumer.

If a customer has not visited or completed the shopping cart this doesn’t mean that he or she does not want to buy the goods or services. There is a “connection” between the seller and the buyer that is missing. This is what needs to be derived and augmented in order to turn that prospective buyer into a real customer by completing a sale. 

As smartphones sales proliferate, customers are using these mobile phones to research product information, potential purchases, prices of goods, as well as ratings and products reviews.

Surveys show that smartphones are currently influencing 5.1% of sales generated annually by retail stores. This translates to close to $159 billion of sales forecasts in the year 2012. According to a research by Deloitte Consulting, it is expected that the smartphones growth retail sales to 19%, representing $689 billion by 2016. 

The most challenging aspect for retail store owners is that many do not know how to leverage live mobile support in the overall customer engagement. The consumer needs to be more engaged at the point of decision in the buying life cycle. The way in which smartphones users will be able to make buying decisions will largely depend on the kind of information they get about products and services they are willing to buy. 

Retail store owners are examining the consumer cross-channel shopping behavior in a simple way yet this is a complex phenomenon. Consumers’ behavior has changed significantly and in order to be able to make these customers buy your products and services, you need to have the right tools for mobile apps and software products.

The overall decision making process of the buyer differs mainly on the consumer, shopping trip and also the point where the consumer is in his or her shopping journey. Despite these differences on the buying decision, the bottom-line is that the more information e-retail store owners provide to the consumers, the more influential they will be in converting leads to sales. 

Consumers are now tech-savvy meaning that they want knowledge and more credible information before they can close a sale. If a retail store integrates the Near Field Communication- NFC supported mobile phone attributes into their retail apps, this can greatly help at the crucial point of decision of the consumer.

This is a key element, which helps feed the consumer with access to relevant products information in real time meaning that customers get ready hand information about products they want to buy. The apps have to be customized to create high profile brand image. With the apps, consumers are able to view product ratings and reviews, which are a major determinant factor in influencing their buying decision.

Because software compatibility is a major challenge, the live mobile support apps you integrate in your e-retail store show also be compatible with most of the smartphones. With branded and easily customizable apps templates, the consumer can easily navigate and view as well as read the information they want about products whether it is product details, what other say about the experience they have had after using the products or the simplicity in payment process.

Businesses are also afraid of installing too many apps in their systems and this means that with software application that does not require downloads and installations, this relieves the e-store owners the stress of economizing their limited systems network storage capacity. By simply touching the live mobile support apps tag, products information is readily displayed and this drives the consumer buying quest to closing his or sale.

Considering the importance of social signals in today’s internet marketing, the e-stores can greatly benefit from Twitter “Tweets”, Facebook “Likes” and LinkedIn “Inshare” information that is shared from friends and relatives through augmented shopping experience software. This further complements the consumers’ shopping experience giving them the confidence to buy the products.

In essence, businesses need to apply cross-device digital and retail marketing strategies in order to be able to exhaustively generate leads and then convert the leads into sales. The smartphone apps that offer localized information, products details and price comparison and transparency coupled with easy shopping cart attributes will be able to convert more leads into sales.

Email Marketing Campaigns...Transforming Small Business Growth

Email marketing campaigns are essential tools that can help turn around the sales and returns on investment- ROI of a business. Businesses leverage various marketing strategies in order to optimize their sales process. Email campaigns are praised of offering the ability to pre-sell to a targeted traffic or market. When traffic visits your website, there prospects that make a buying decision and there are those who do not make a decision though they may be willing to buy. Use of email marketing campaign helps businesses to reach their prospective leads and convert them to sales.

One of the immediate benefits of bulky email campaigns is that they provide a cost effective way of reaching out and enticing customers to buy products and services. This gives your business a competitive advantage as it enables you scale down the cost of email marketing, which can drain off your resources including time and money.

Through email marketing campaign, businesses are able to increase the prospects conversion rate. This means that a business administer increased conversion of the traffic that visits its website. When a business embarks on lead generation and nurturing process, it has to engage with every lead based on its stage of development. There are those leads that show an immediate need to buy products and services. Those leads may visit and abandon the shopping cart. These are the leads, which have some information and know something about your business.

At this stage, they may not be interested with the background information of the company but rather a content that can make them close a sale. Information such as promotional offers may be essential. If you send personalized messages based on the stage of lead generation in which your prospects are in, this can help in turning them to buyers.

Another benefit of email marketing campaign is that it saves the time utilized in marketing. Sending messages to thousands of prospects may be time consuming and could occupy most of your time thus resulting to inefficiency. However, with software applications that have been designed to handle bulky customized email campaigns, these help in saving the time you dedicate to your marketing campaigns.

In addition, email marketing campaign is a supplement for those marketing strategies that may not be able to optimize the conversion rate of the traffic. Whereas some campaigns will deliver a good traffic, closing a sale may be a problem. However, when a sale is not closed, this does not means that traffic does not want to buy. It may only be that the prospect need to be a little more convinced to buy.

This is why email campaign is used to influence the prospects and lure them to make buying decision. Closing a sale becomes the most challenging part in the selling process. Email campaigns can be used as buyer engagement tools, which help reach, understand and influence the buying behaviour of prospects.

When you are initiating email marketing campaign, it is essential that you observe certain things like customized message, optimizing landing page and building a prospect profile score in order to make it successful. Many businesses engage in costly email campaigns that only plunge them deeper into financial constraints because the strategies applied do not yield any tangible results.

How to Manage Sales Contests With Systems Software Applications

The application of sales contests is one of the most rewarding for the sales manager and his team and this is because these contests produce positive results in achieving sales targets. The sales team is the driving force for the business revenues since it engages in developing new product sales opportunities and influencing the consumers and turning them into buyers. A sales job is certainly one of the most challenging. This is because a company is under pressure from the company owner to meet to particular sales targets. 

On the other hand, the sales manager and sales executives have to work behind the clock to ensure that every tactic is a “selling” strategy. A sales contest will make your team to;
•    Gain recognition for exceptional performance
•    Build team spirit
•    Set the right performance standards
•    Make the sales job more fun and interesting
•    Feel like winners
•    Provide a baseline for sales performance improvement and training

The contests have been viewed as motivational factors, which make the sales team more vibrant thus being able to go past their limits.

However, managing sales contests is never easy as it requires constant interaction, assessment, monitoring, and morale creation for the team to be able to achieve projected sales goals. With the managers in the office and the salesmen and sales ladies on the field or on the internet doing the job, for the sales manager, it is a difficult moment to put up the team to its optimal performance. 

Close interaction, appreciation, commenting, pin pointing essential things and also checking on the performance of the sales team leaders is the most challenging thing. A sales manager can easily lose control of his sales contest team if there is no that interaction. In order to be able to organize your sales contests smoothly and successfully, you can use an innovatively and intuitively designed software system. 

The system helps you build a high impact within the shortest time possible. With this system, you can rally behind your sales team to ensure that it realizes more sales opportunities; it’s able to launch new products, and close more sales deals.

The sales figures can exponentially grow with the use of the software system. The software allows for application of an incentive behavior where the sales manager makes use of different attributes of the program to create the best rewarding program. 

For instance, leads, opportunities, events, tasks and chatter features are applied. This means that you can develop different reward schemes for the contest team such as the sales person who has acquired the most business leads, a sales person who has obtained a breakthrough in creating new opportunities for products and services.

Sales contests rewards can also be organized through particular events or certain completed tasks. Through the analysis of the performance of the sales persons, a chatter reward is one of the easiest, effective, and most interactive ways to keep your team in high spirit. You can reward almost immediately when a certain peculiar achievement or success is achieved by a sales employee. 

You can decide to reward that sales person through the chatter with very encouraging message and approximate reward to keep him or her motivated and determined. The system also streamlines the prizing and awarding and the sales manager can add prices that he or she feels can best motivate the team. Through the system, the eligible entries are automatically entered into the contests. 

The administrators of the contest including the sales manager are able to view the leaderboard and updates of the team members that have gained entry into the contests. The interaction with the sales team through the system enables each member to view their performance. They are able to set targets based on their achievements. The sales manager has one-on-one contact through emails and chat platforms to try and motivate each individual member.

Why Insurance Companies Should Use Social Media Strategy to Engage the Consumer

Social media is now becoming part and parcel of the mainstream business aspects. Like other businesses, insurance companies need a social media strategy to help reach and engage the consumer. Insurance company is highly regulation field and despite these charges, it also needs to understand that its survival lies on how well it engages the consumer. Social strategy cannot be ignored by businesses including insurance companies no matter how it is perceived and therefore, there is need for social media management.

In the insurance industry, there are been a notion that social media is crippling insurance business by exposing too much of the negatives than the positives. Whereas this may be true, it is certain that social media has far much better things to offer than bad in terms of marketing and branding insurance products, and services.

There is need for insurance firms to apply social media management strategies to enhance their presence in social media networks and influence their existing, prospective and potential clients. Insurance companies can benefit in various ways if they create their social presence on the internet.

They understand their weaknesses through the posts and discussions which are raised by customers through social media networks such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn. These companies are able to know where they are failing to offer what consumers want. However, insurance firms they argue that the comments may just be too negative and spread so fast. On the other hand, failing to react to these comments is a retrogressive business approach. This is the reason why social media management needs to be applied by insurance companies.

Through social media, insurance firms are able to develop their product and services. Consumers contribute in providing key information, which help formulate better insurance products that meet to the expectations of the insurance buyers. Social media can reduce the overall cost of formulating new products. If these companies apply social media management strategies they can win the clients confidence.

Insurance firms are able to manage their reputation through social media participation. Engaging the consumer in social discussion forums shows how committed insurance companies are to their clients. When clients’ comments are responded effectively, this nurtures a bond that can go a long way in spreading good word about the insurer.

Through the social media, insurance firms enhance their sales growth. Peer recommendations have become very effective in advertising. Insurance coverage buyers are now seeking for information about insurance policies such as quotes, premium rates, and claims issues through social sites. This influences their buying behaviour and therefore, insurance firms should focus on social media management.

In summary, social media is offering an unprecedented representation of business internet marketing campaigns and it cannot be ignored and insurers need to embrace social media management as a core marketing aspect. Consumers are now controlling the social media. Insurance companies cannot afford sidelining social media participation in their marketing strategy.

Here are the Best Ways to Manage Personal Finance!

Faced with many financial needs and with limited streams of income, it is clear-marked that people need to manage their cash effectively to avoid crisis. Even with numerous and huge cash inflows, these monetary reservoirs can be drained off if poor and untimely spending behavior is adopted in personal finance. The key to succeeding in meeting your financial needs is to first make an appropriate use of the available cash. Poor financial use can plunge one into a burden of indebtedness and eventually be rendered bankrupt. 

To manage the cash inflows, it is important to develop a personal financial plan streamlining how one intends to spend the available cash. With great ambitions, people are always working hard to meet these aspirations.  However, these ambitions can only be achieved when the cash earned is utilized in the most appropriate manner.  Setting your financial goals and identifying ways to achieve them is certainly one of the aspects that a person should emphasize on.

Once you have identified your financial goals and objectives, it's imperative to prioritize them.  There are urgent and not urgent needs.  At the same time there are important and non important financial needs.  For instance, buying your dream limousine may not be urgent but providing for your daily meals is important and urgent since one cannot go without food.  There are basic and secondary needs all of which require cash to meet them.

One of the most important things in managing personal finance to do is examine your streams of income and calculate how much you earn per specific period of time for example, on monthly basis.  The next step is to establish your regular expenses such as food cost, insurance premiums, household bills including electricity and telephone bills.  It must be agreed that regular bills cover most of the expenses.  This is because; although they may appear little in the short run, since they recur every day or month, in the long run they consume a large part of your income.

Identifying the disposal income is also of paramount importance since you are able to know how much is left for saving after covering most of the recurring expenses.  You should also save with a purpose and this means that you have to establish how you intend to spend the money you save.  This calls for financial planning, and setting up a budget is one healthy way of utilizing your hard-earned finances.

 A budget can be used as tool for determining how much cash will be allocated for particular expense and when this will be accomplished. The financial needs are categorized as short term (immediate), medium term and long term. With this classification, all your financial needs should then be placed in the right category.  It must be emphasized that setting a target to accomplish in your financial obligations places one in a better position to utilize the saved cash appropriately.

Time frames are very important in managing cash. This substantiates the reason why time is said to be money. You should also match your spending with income earned.  Do not overspend even if the income increases. There are certain aspects that form a stumbling block to achieving financial goals and these include aimless and multiple borrowing, unnecessary expenses that are not budgeted for as well as other expenses that can be minimized. 

Borrowing has to be done when it is pressing to do so otherwise, repaying a loan can be daunting especially when it is not clear how such a loan will be paid back. The interest charged on loans can destabilize ones ambitions to achieve financial goals. Unnecessary expenses occur when impulse buying of products or assets is done. Budgeting should help in eliminating impulse buying or untimely expenses.  This is achieved by sticking on the budget features. 

Other expenses that can be reduced such as insurance premiums, regular household bills, and leisure and recreation costs should be scaled down significantly. This helps in cutting down on the expenses and the end result is an increased disposable income and hence savings. Moreover, a saving culture should be developed where you save as you earn. The saving should be targeted and proportionate to the earnings.  When there is a significant increase in cash inflows this is the time to save more and manage your personal finance well.

The Benefits of Satellite Inmarsat Services in Smart Grid Applications

Satellite inmarsat services help in connecting smart grid technologies applications as well as Satellite SCADA supported networks that provide ever-present IP connectivity in utility services in an entire territory. One of the renowned global mobile commercial satellite communication network set up by Inmarsat is the award-winning Inmarsat-4 (1-4) satellites. Offering Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN), Inmarsat-4 concurrently delivers both voice and broadband data and has a gained a strong base in sectors such as oil and gas, international aid agencies, and broadcast media.

Moreover, Inmarsat introduced BGAN M2M and this is a two-way IP services for data transmission only. The BGAN M2M is ideal for low, high frequency transmissions, which are required in normal automated data reporting right from Smart Grid and Satellite SCADA application. Some of the benefits of satellite Inmarsat services are;

Smart Grids Metering
The advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) of the Smart Grids helps consumer manage their energy consumption by providing utilities based on visible demand. The meters are connected to aggregation points, which collect data from consumers in a given geographical area and transmit back to the data center of the utility in a fixed link or cellular network.

However, since cellular networks experience restricted bandwidth and are faced with congestion, coupled with their vulnerability to natural disasters, then it means that bgan inmarsat offers a better option. It is accessible in areas where cellular and fixed line coverage is not available. Therefore the BGAN is a cost effective and high quality option for backhaul usage data experienced in advanced concentrators or aggregation points and this allows utilities to reach entire networks and offer energy solutions to the entire customer base.

Automated distribution
The deployment of BGAN or BGAN M2M network connectivity infrastructure alongside power distribution lines offers a primary or secondary link to the utility’s data center. This provides monitoring and control of switches, reclosers and other devices on the distribution network, recording any voltage fluctuations, outrages and also consumer energy demand. This kind of data helps in making real-time decisions on smart grid energy based on ready hand information.

Connectivity in substations
Inmarsat offers Satellite SCADA or equivalent applications at electricity substations and these could be standalone or combined with VSAT. Such connections help reach out to the locations where it is difficult or costly to apply fixed-line and cellular communication. BGAN connectivity guarantees data streaming all the time since it can work in both low-volume/high-frequency data traffic situations or in high-volume/low frequency data streaming situations. And in addition, there is a backup communication in every substation.

Disaster recovery application
In times of disasters, the Satellite Inmarsat communication terminals are deployed quickly to offer alternative communications and this helps in diagnosing problem issues pretty fast and thus offer solutions immediately. This reliability aspect of the Inmarsat connectivity substantiates the reason why it has widely been used by organizations such as the American Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide immediate and dependable communication for coordinating disaster relief.

Smart Grid Communications
As energy utilities seek for electricity grids that offer greater scalability and control over energy consumption; it is certain Smart Grid communication will play a big role in managing energy costs. The Smart Grid is dynamic and interactive infrastructure that offers real-time solutions in energy consumption and cost control. The Smart Grid communication helps enhance operational efficiency and extends the accessibility of network across the utility’s entire service territory.

In essence, Inmarsat BGAN and the data only BGAN M2M, which supports Satellite SCADA applications, are critical energy utility network solutions and offer real-time data, which helps in management of energy consumption as well as improves operational efficiency through workforce mobility enhancement.

What are the Benefits of Lean Consulting?

Businesses need to embrace the benefits of lean consulting in order to turn around their performance towards increased productivity while at the same time maintaining high level of customer relations. Lean is a process that helps create value for the benefit of the end user customer and it is looped around elimination of waste and utilization of resources in an optimal manner.

The cornerstone to Lean is continuous improvement and this helps in improving people and processes so that they can achieve better results with either the same resources or even less. In essence, lean applies in virtually any process or person’s activities and therefore, has a wide application in the improvement of people and processes.

The lean process thrives in all sectors and disciplines ranging from social care to the medical and engineering fields. In people lean consulting helps in optimizing the workers talents, willpower, knowhow, efforts, time and efforts and translate them into results while adding value by minimizing wastes and improving outputs.

This process eliminates aspects, which increase unnecessary costs, wastes of space, underutilized time and knowledge as well as the non-optimized resource applications. Lean process helps leaders to have the time to be able to lead others. It embraces leading by example. It helps businesses organize their space at the workplace by eliminating the underutilized space.

Space utilization is one of the aspects, which bring a lot of expenses to businesses, which could otherwise be eliminated. For instance, the arrangement of office and production areas could help improve the time workers take to move from one location to another. It also helps streamline the workflow in these critical production areas.

In addition, the lean consulting helps develop a team of workers that fosters resilience, engagement, morale, enthusiasm, flexibility, accountability and optimal use of resources with reduced wastages. There are different types of lean consulting and these include productivity, time, production cost, inventory, floor space, quality, transportation, and human skills.

Different lean practices are carried out to address the commonly identified wastes in business processes. Overproduction is one of the processes, which can cost businesses a lot of money and the lean consultancy helps addresses aspects of overproduction in order to reduce wastes. Organization of time is also a key element of the lean process as it minimizes the time people spend waiting and staying idle.

The movement of people and materials in a plant or business premises should be re-arranged and restructured to ensure that it adds value to the product and service. The inventory control needs to be managed so that there is no excess supply of inventory in business, which could remain underutilized or unsold in the warehouses.

Peoples need to translate their efforts, knowledge, talents and time into results and therefore, they need to be transformed to use the best of their unique skills and abilities. Quality control needs to be enhanced so that there are reduced defects, which could lead to reduced value of products and services.

In essence, lean thinking, though has its origin on the automotive industry; it has successfully been transferred to virtually all disciplines and produce great improvements in elimination of various types of wastes, reduction of production time and minimization of inventory. Last but least, lean consulting also minimizes storage space and enhances efficient use of personnel resources.

What are the Top Applications of Business Intelligence (BI) Systems in SMEs

Businesses create a lot data and for them to use the data meaningfully, they need to use business intelligence applications software to analyse the raw data and translate it into a reliable information. In business processes, companies continuously create data, which may be stored in files, spreadsheets or other forms of databases. This data is a valuable tool for the company in making key decisions and improving the functional role of different departments of the business. 

What is business intelligence? 
In definition, business intelligence-BI is an umbrella term, meaning that it is a term that carries many terminologies such as data mining, data analytics, data querying and data reporting with use of business intelligence software. It is therefore a process of software applications that is used to analyze an organization’s raw data and provide meaningful information, which can be relied upon in making key business process decisions.

Small businesses are still not embracing the potentials, which are presented by business intelligence tool in their processes because they are reluctant in investing in this essential technology. These small businesses can leverage analytics capabilities and be able to transform their decision-making processes and steer their business to growth. About 40% of the mid-market businesses are interested in predictive analytics software, according to Tachaisle survey. The following are the top applications of business intelligence.

Data visualization
One of the areas of business intelligence applications is in data visualization. This is the process of presenting data in visual graphics, which makes it easier to understand and comprehend. The main goal of data visualization is to enable different people in the business to understand the textual and number information more clearly through visual presentations. Businesses can use graphics to display their sales trends in different periods. Graphical data presentations are essential in making comparisons in business performance.

In addition, data visualization should also be able to stimulate the viewers’ engagement and entice them to capture the details in whole. For instance, a drill down of the sales data entails navigating through the details such as accessing individual product sales in a particular region, and individual sales representative performance details for a particular period of time.

Reporting
Another area of BI application is in reporting. Small businesses can make use of financial reporting and forecasting software tools to understand their financial performances. Furthermore, small businesses like other entities do not operate in “vacuums” meaning that they are in a real business environment where data sharing is essential. One of the aspects in which data is required to be shared is in the field of research. Research is very important as it helps businesses know where they are now and where they are heading.

Knowledge management
BI is also used in knowledge management by business intelligence analyst. Small businesses need to participate actively in knowledge management in order to achieve their set goals. There are knowledge management software systems, which are used in learning management as well as regulatory compliance. Take for example a case where customers walk into your store and don’t buy anything. This doesn’t mean that since there are no sales and customer information that is entered into the databases, the business should not know more about the behaviour of those customers.

Businesses can use the CI systems to carry out surveys and use that data to make inferences as to why the customers are behaving in such a manner. It is also imperative to understand that not all business intelligence tools are applicable to every other small business and therefore, a thorough research and advice should be sort to establish the best viable BI for each small enterprise business entity.

Exploitation
Last but not least, business intelligence is used to measure performance. Like the large corporate, the small businesses need to know where they are today in terms of performance by comparing their previous data, current data and future expectations. This is where business intelligence systems come in handy. 

Businesses can have very huge data stored in their systems but if this data is not analyzed to produce key beneficial information, which can be used to make decisions and change business processes for the better, then it remains useless data taking up storage resources for the company. Small businesses need to realize that such data produced by business intelligence software can be used as a tool for reorganizing their business processes.

Top Benefits of Using Integrated Business Intelligence (BI) Systems

Many companies have invested in business intelligence (BI) systems but most of these are typical BI installations, which entail a mix of various customized and packaged intelligence systems with applications that access data from multiple stores. What this means is that the businesses have not consolidated their BI systems into one large system application, which handles different data inputs. For instance, an accounting system offer finance-oriented data output while marketing and sales system offers information on business marketing.

Using integrated BI systems reduces the number of employees obliged to perform business processes thus saving the businesses the cost of hiring additional workforce. In addition, the turnaround time of creating business reports is reduced significantly. Businesses need reports done in time so that decision-making processes are not stalled. The stagnation of the decision-making process negatively affects business growth and continuity.

In ensuring efficiencies in business processes, the BI tools and systems create benchmarks, which allow companies to easily identify areas of weaknesses and strengths and thus make swift actions to address any shortcomings. The process of mining data from the business data archives can help in uncovering forgotten, hidden or lost data, which can help a business avert past mistakes and learn from the past strategies. With the integrated business intelligence system, these business reports are available on-demand. This makes it easier to drill down and across the details of the report as well as sort and filter the details for easy tabulation.

Moreover, there is increased interactivity within the integrated BI systems as information is easily shared across departments. For instance, data stored in the accounting enterprise resource planning-ERP system and the customer relations management-CRM system is shared through data consolidation, which in turn produces better results in decision making.

As businesses continue to register increased data creation and storage, they are also finding it necessary to use that data in making decisions more quickly. In order to ensure that the huge data created by the systems is turned into meaningful information, integrated BI systems can be used to tabulate and manipulate the data. The unstructured best-of-the breed business intelligence tools are posing a challenge to business executives as the data they get from independent systems is not coordinated into one output platform where it can easily be tabulated.

However, by adopting a standardized BI strategy with help of business intelligence analytics, this helps in integration of the business intelligence for informed decision making. Whereas BI tools are not “decision makers” by themselves, if they are applied consistently and in well structured forms, they can evolve to be tools of enhancing decision making.

In addition, dashboard reports offer current metrics of the performance of the business showing the health and wellbeing of the company in real times. Key performance indicators-KPIs are offered in graphical formats through data visualization so that the users can easily tabulate the data reports. Whether, it is data from the accounting package, payroll systems or the CRM, all this can easily be accessed with the integrated BI systems tools.

Whereas the benefits of integrated BI systems may not be exhaustively covered, it is imperative to mention that companies have benefited from integrated and standardized BI systems because they are cost effective to implement.

In conclusion, as companies embrace business intelligence, it is important that they identify a BI partner who is able to offer integrated BI systems, which can help businesses save in their intelligence investment. Whereas it is difficult to place tangible value on the benefits of BI, businesses can capture the aspect of BI cost and returns on investments (ROI) for their BI investments. This can help in determining the cost of purchasing and applying the systems in data warehousing, information delivery, and data collection, and the associated infrastructure such as software and support resources, needless to mention the expertise required in enterprise business intelligence systems applications.

7 Critical Things to Consider When Choosing a Transportation Management System

Businesses are increasingly focusing on how to optimize their supply chain operations such as transportation and delivery logistics and one way they can achieve this goal is to use transportation management systems. They are compelled to adapt to changing supply chain business environments including choosing a transportation management system that promotes efficiencies. There are many challenges facing large and medium transport organizations and they range from escalating costs due to increased fuel prices to proliferation of many ineffective and incompatible transport management systems- TMS tools in the market.

In order for logistic organizations and departments to improve their efficiencies, reduce costs and overheads as well as grow profits, while at the same time meeting customer satisfaction, they need to integrate the best TMS tools. When choosing a transportation management system, there are numerous factors, which should critically be considered;

1.    The TMS technology solutions
Before you embark on any transport management system in your company, you need to analyze what benefits it offers. It is essential that you have a chronology and prioritization of the challenges your company is facing. Logistics organizations and departments want to achieve efficiencies in transport, reduce costs of transportation, optimize on distance and mileage coverage, initiate proper route planning and scheduling, avoid delays in delivery and promote customer satisfaction.

You need to evaluate how the management systems application is able to solve key problematic aspects in your transportation services. In cost management, when choosing a transportation management system, it is important to ensure that it addresses the aspect of load distribution and cost allocation in movement of goods.

The reason is that cost management in logistic companies is a major drawback. These companies are facing difficulties in cost allocation and dispatch scheduling. With fuel price margins not expected to go down, businesses need to streamline their costs of operations in supply chain to ensure high efficiencies in fuel consumption.

2.    Upgrading needs of the system
It is important to point out that software application systems are dynamic and changing. This means that you may obtain a transportation management system today and after a few months or years, it is rendered obsolete. When choosing a transportation management system, you should examine the possibilities of upgrading its features to keep pace with new developments.

There are enterprise and network-based TMS solutions. The enterprise based models are highly customizable and require internal infrastructure and this means that if there are upgrades to be done, you have to meet cost of the upgrading the infrastructure too.

3.    Data collection, evaluation and reporting
One of the main aims of using transport management systems is to be able to gather essential data that can be used in making decisions. When you are choosing a transportation management system, you need to ensure that it provides key metric data that can easily be interpreted for wise decision making. If the system is able to provide real time information, it means that companies can change their strategies to align with the prevailing transportation challenges and needs.

4.    Compatibility/integration of existing management systems
One key aspect logistic companies should evaluate when choosing a transportation management system is its compatibility with the existing enterprise resource planning -ERP. If your TMS easily integrates with other software applications such as warehouse, accounting, purchase and HR resource management system, this means that information is easily shared among all the departments in a company.

With a TMS that fits in the Enterprise Resource Planning Tools, it means that logistic managers can share important information in real time with financial managers, purchasing managers and Human resource managers. This helps in the decision making process. If you are acquiring the best-of-breed TMS tool, you need to ensure that it can be incorporated in the already existing system.

5.    User experience and navigation of the software interface
Whether you are using a third party logistics (3PL) tool or an in-house transport management tool, it is important to ensure that it can be accessed easily. The navigation and user interface should be self-guiding and easily maneuvered by users. If you have a complex system, this means that it takes a lot of time for the workers to derive the data they want.

If a staff is drilling down a report to find crucial data, it should easily be found within a click of a few buttons. This is essential because, at times employees accessing the data will need to provide instant feedback to questions raised by vendors and customers about their shipments or transportation orders. This will ensure that customer satisfaction is achieved. What this means is that if the system cannot easily be accessed with straightforward leading interfaces, then it can be complex for it to achieve its intended goal.

6.     Sustainability of the TMS
The sustainability of a TMS tool can be analyzed in different perspectives whether in inbound transport, outbound goods movement or fleet management operations. If you are choosing a transportation management system, it should amicably address the aspect of sustainable growth in its application. The system should be able to reduce carbon footprints and environmental degradation, which have a cost implication on the company. It should also be able to provide in-depth analysis through key performance indicators (KPIs) of the aspects such as engine inefficiencies and amount of emission of carbon monoxide.

The system should have a trace back capability in monitoring green logistic infrastructure. It should be able to capture and report shipment information and history. There is need to get prove of the TMS’ reliability and scalability not to acquire a tool that will not be able to perform a few years down the line. This is a mission-critical application that should support current infrastructure and any future expansion and growth of the company.

7.    Financial feasibility
Although you may acquire a TMS tool for your business at relatively low cost, if you are not careful, this could be trap that can easily lead your business into financial pitfalls. When you are choosing a transportation management system, you need to leverage current and future cost implications, which range from training of employees to execute the system, upgrading to new versions as well as offering network security measures to avert risks of hacking and theft of essential company information. Most in-house TMS tools can attract additional costs in the future.

This is one main reason why companies are outsourcing for the transportation management system so that they are able to concentrate on the application part. The infrastructure and maintenance tasks are left with the systems vendor, and the logistics companies can concentrate on key aspects of data analysis and implementation of key strategies.

According to a 2012 Supply Chain Software User Survey conducted by Logistics Management (LM), a supply chain news and resource information analyst, it shows that 37% of companies are using TMS. This is an increase from 32% in 2011. The report cites that the use of TMS is slowly-and-steadily gaining a positive growth path. However, companies are facing challenges on how to go about in choosing a transportation management system that fits to their business goals and objectives. In essence, despite the slow adoption of the TMS by logistic companies and departments, this transportation systems management tool has a proven track record of enabling companies adopt efficient and cost effective freight movement only if the right software tool is obtained.

Prepaid Credit Cards...a Killer to those Wishing To Repair Damaged Credit Score

When prepaid credit cards first hit the market, they were they were pitched as good options for those who could not qualify for credit cards. However, these prepaid credit cards are actually debit cards because they do not carry credit limit. You can only use what is loaded on the debit card and no more and therefore it does not provide credit facilities like you would find with credit cards. If you have less-than-stellar credit, it means that the first priority is building the score. This cannot be achieved with prepaid debit cards because they do not offer credit and no payments are reported to credit reporting agencies. 

If your credit is bad, you should work on bringing it to better levels so that you have access to regular credit cards, low interest personal loans and other credit facilities. A secured credit card can help you raise your score and the good thing with this card is that it is accessible to anyone with good or bad credit. What you need to do is look for some money to put as deposit against the card. That deposit acts as the collateral or security against the credit on that card.

Secured credit cards attract low interest rates and can help you push up your score to a better higher point. The deposit you place against the secured card is not used and only remains on the account until you close your account. The reason why prepaid cards are killer to those focussing on bringing up their credit score is because they cost the card holder a lot of money in terms of fees. If you check the monthly fees charged by prepaid cards, they are far way above the fees for bad credit secured credit cards even those, which attract annual fees.

For example, if you acquire American express prepaid card, and you reload the card and use it in the ATM two times each month, you are likely to pay a cost of about $11.90 per month. This comes from the card loading fee of $9.90 and the ATM fees of $2. An ideal secured card can cost you about $4 to $6.5 per month. This means that at the end of the year, you can save a lot of money with secured credit cards.

A prepaid debit card only adds more burden to your spending because of the fees. Although consumers say that they do not worry about the fees, this cannot be overlooked because it contributes to the state of indebtedness. The prepaid card does not allow you to enjoy credit facilities. It cannot help you rebuild your bad score and it will cost you more in monthly fees. 

Perhaps a prepaid card is not designed for people who are truly working hard to have their score push upwards. Prepaid debit cards are known to help those with lose money-spending morals and who cannot hold money in their accounts. You can use these cards to put a gauge on your spending patterns and habits. You only load what you want to spend in specific time and after spending what is on the card, no credit. You must reload your prepaid debit card again.  

Prepaid Debit Cards... Some 4 Viable Alternatives to Prepaid Debit Cards

Prepaid debit cards can enable you manage your spending patterns so that you do not overspend your money. These cards also enable you alleviate some of the troubles that come with credit cards such as late or missed payments as well as over-the-limit penalties.  However, prepaid cards come with fees such as ATM withdrawal fee, annual fees, monthly fees, transfer fees, loading fees and other types of charges. It has been argued that prepaid cards are costly than some checking accounts. They are also costly than secured credit cards but despite these aspects, people are preferring use of prepaid cards.

Prepaid credit cards do not help in rebuilding credit score because they do not offer loans or credit limits. Therefore, card issuers or banks do not report the card usage in credit reporting companies like Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian.  Below are 3 alternatives to prepaid debit cards;

1.    Secured credit cards
Although there are many alternative to prepaid debit cards, the right choice is determined by the reason why you are looking for a prepaid debit card in the first place. If you are seeking for a card to use when you are in bad credit, then a secured credit may be the right choice.  Prepaid debit card cannot help you repair your damaged score and therefore if you have a less-than-stellar credit score, then you would better seek for secured credit card.

It only requires you to seek for a few hundreds of dollars to put as deposit against the secured card. A secured card cannot cost you more than a prepaid debit card if you make balance payment in time. The secured credit card will help you build your score and eventually qualify for a regular credit card. 

If you are seeking for an alternative for a prepaid debit card, you may consider secured credit cards from Capital One and Citibank. These are primed institutions that offer secured cards with low fees and also an option to be able to trade up or increase the credit limit after 12-18 months if you demonstrate that you can really use the card wisely and competently without late payments and over-the-limit use. 

2.    Unsecured credit cards
Besides the secured credit cards, there are also unsecured cards and these are designed for those people who cannot afford to pay the little deposit to secure a secured credit card.  However, an unsecured credit card opens doors for fees levied by banks and card issuers and therefore, they may not be a perfect alternative to prepaid debit cards. Some banks are helping people with stinky or bad credit by offering them credit cards with low limits so that they develop their scores. 

3.    Rewards checking accounts
If you want to control and manage your spending, instead of going for a prepaid debit card, you can opt for rewards checking account. With this checking account, you cannot overdraw and this means that you do not incur the over-the-limit fees charged on credit cards. With this account, you can transfer money between your checking account and saving account. A rewards checking account can also earn you interest. It is important to check a reward checking account that offers low minimum balance.  Instead of losing money through prepaid debit cards fees, you can earn as much as 4% with high-yield checking accounts. 

4.    Cashback debit cards
Moreover, you may choose a cashback debit card. Rather than going for prepaid debit card, you may choose a cashback debit card which works comparatively the same as prepaid debit card but you can get refunds or cashbacks on your purchases. This means that you save about 1 to2 percent on your purchases. This can help meet some of the fees that come with these debit cards.