In today’s volatile economy, the first question that pops up when we talk about our enterprise is, “how well are we performing?”. Although the question seems to be very simple, the answer can be very subjective. Based on the information available, at any moment in time, you can assume a state. But what about the so called “information available”, how current and accurate is it? Are you really able to accurately measure your enterprise’s “health” at any given instant and say, today – this moment, our organization’s overall performance is X? Do you have real-time data that you can rely on?

Especially in large corporations where measurables are spread over numerous layers of departments and sub-departments; each one of them having there own information systems and ways of measuring performance. How do you provide this information to each layer in a format that they can relate to? How do you take all this information and compile it into a simple “at-a-glance spot check” report for your senior executives? Are you able to immediately identify problem areas and bottle-neck processes? Do you have a business management tool that provides, all levels of your organization, snapshot views of your performance with the ability to drill-down into lower levels of data? And, of course, can you still contain all of this within your budget, resource and time constraints?

If you are looking for any or all of the above, look no further! Q-NET Report is the answer to your data accessibility, dissemination and viewing problems. Q-NET is the leading Business Intelligence tool kit, that caters to all your needs. With Q-NET, you can easily create Business or Digital Dashboards to show performance indicators, at all levels, with drill down links to detailed data. Q-NET takes it to the next level by tying in real-time data, making your enterprise dashboards totally dynamic with accurate up to the second information. Create all key performance indicators and metrics, identify negative trends and correct them by making the right “educated” decisions. Use Q-NET to “drive” your business on the highway to success.

Wondering about the title of this article, yes, its very much referred in the industry by Time and Attendance. Try taking it this way, is it the time spent more important or the attendance or both equally. At most places its both. Department heads gives equal weight to both time and attendance when processing your salary. However with the change of focus, its always the output that matters the most. Maybe thats reason why there are two different industry terms associated with employees depending upon the focus, one is non-exempt employee and the other is exempt employee.

Rather than going into the terminological meanings of exempt / non-exempt, we move further. If there is a voting happening for whats more important, time or attendance or both, you may count on more votes falling into either time or attendance, and, time and attendance getting the minimum vote. Maybe the term time and attendance was designed reading the psychology of employees and restricting them into parameters of both for a quality output and making them learn how to discipline their work and also nurturing them for their future growth.

Different matrix are used to track employee working hours like biometrics, slot readers etc attached to a installed or on-demand software solution that in-turn records the data in a specified format. With the advancement in technology, its always the core focus that we must keep stressing on and that is not tracking employees efficiency but nurturing them in an environment that helps in bringing out the best output consistently.

Managing a project is a crucial step in the overall success of the job. Whether you’re a firm or a freelancer, you should occasionally evaluate the way projects are being managed to improve and refine the process. Here are some tips on how to manage your time and projects, whether you work for a firm, or freelance.

1. Be realistic. If you aren’t the person who does project estimating, be sure that you go over projects with this person so that realistic job timeliness can be created. Review your current workload and estimate what the next month’s workload might be, then go over all the details of the job. On large projects, be sure to create a time line with milestones where clients will need to sign off or review the progress to date. If there are any questions on any part of the job, be sure to ask those before delivering a finalized time line.

2. Don’t be afraid to to tell the truth. If you find you are too busy to take on more work, review your current projects and estimate how long it will take you to catch up, then tell your client that you will be able to start their job on a select date. Telling your client you can start right away when you really can not will only serve to frustrate your client and stress you out! Most clients are very understanding with this.

3. Remember that time is money. Organization is a skill every project manager should posses. Every minute of the day that you spend looking for documents, emails, files, etc. add up to a whole lot of wasted time. Develop a uniform process of managing each project. There are a number of software solutions out there to help in this process (I personally use BaseCamp).

4. Update. Update. Update. Yes, it’s really that important that I had to type it three time in a row! This applies to updating your projects, your designers, and your clients. Projects should be updated on a daily basis so you always know which phase of development a project is in at any time. Clients should be periodically updated when there is something for them to review, if there are any delays, etc. On large projects, I like to update clients on a weekly basis and present them with a list of things that have been done during the week and any visual or online progress examples. Designers need to be updated when clients make comments, changes, etc.

5. Keep the train on the tracks. Make sure your team is all on the same page. If you notice someone not following job specs, you need to step in and make sure they understand what they need to be doing to avoid any delays.

Many people are wondering how they can know if they truly need a business coach and if they need that business coach now, rather than later. People want assurance and confirmation that they first need a business coach and second that they need the business coach now, not later. With that in mind, I tried to develop a strategic thinking approach to answer that question. Here are 10 questions I suggest you ask yourself to determine if NOW, that means today, not tomorrow, is the time for you to engage a business coach.

1. do you want to establish a clear vision of your business?

2. do you want to manage your time more effectively?

3. do you want to learn how to think and act strategically?

4. do you want to create clear business goals & objectives?

5. do you want to develop effective business systems?

6. do you want to learn how to communicate more effectively?

7. do you want to learn how to market yourself and your products/services more effectively?

8. do you want to maximize your potential as a leader?

9. do you want to have the benefit of an independent and experienced business professional in an open and trusting confidential client-coach relationship that will hold you accountable?

10. do you want to experience growth in your business and on a personal level?

My experience leads me to believe that you did honestly answer YES to at least one and probably many of these questions. In more than 24 years of experience in my own strategic thinking consultancy I have learned that many people go into business being good at what they do but not knowing how to run a business. Eventually, and I am saying that means NOW, business owners and leaders have to face up to and admit to the need to take control of managing and growing their business. And the way to do that is to engage and work with a business coach.

The coaching process involves the person being coached to work on finding solutions to their problems and to finding ways to capitalize on their opportunities with the coach acting as a skillful guide and facilitator. Through questioning and challenging the person, the coach will guide the individual into defining and developing solid realistic action plans. And the coach will hold the individual accountable to those action plans.

How many of you reading this article has suffered through very dull, inefficient, and unwarranted business meetings that wasted your valuable time? And how many of you wished it was possible to transform the wasted time into time well spent? If you answered YES, please pay attention to the dozen tips I am sharing with you on how to transform time wasted into time well spent in your business meetings.

1. Do an honest evaluation of your current business meetings, identify what is not working and commit to preparing a plan to improve the meetings which will be respectful of everyone’s time.

2. Establish ground rules for your meetings and commit to enforcing the rules.

3. Always prepare an agenda and send it to attendees prior to the meeting.

4. Establish a committed time to begin and end meetings.

5. Develop alternative times, locations and formats of your meetings to introduce a needed change from time to time.

6. Hold the person chairing the meeting accountable for keeping the meeting “on track” and enforcing the ground rules.

7. Allow some time for “brainstorming” to take advantage of creative thinking and problem solving, as appropriate.

8. Maintain a positive tone for your meetings.

9. Assign someone to record an accurate account of the meeting, including decisions, future actions, assignments, etc.

10. Set aside time to recognize excellent performance and to celebrate success.

11. Have the chairperson recap the key points of the meeting.

12. Conclude the meeting on time with a unifying statement and a summary of action items.

Original Leader Mentality

The evolution of organizations started with men who, professionally, were great in business but who, personally, were emotional dolts. These are people who believed that there was no room for "feelings" in business. So they repressed all feelings by asserting coercive power. Their perspective: if you show feelings, you can forget about that promotion. As a result, people without power, who worked for them, did not show their feelings at work, for fear of ending their career advancement opportunities. Unfortunately, over time repressed feelings caused a lot of problems in those businesses.

Dominant Leader Styles

The leaders I am speaking of came into power via one of two categories. There were the “Repressors”, those that repressed feelings themselves, and the “Aggressors”, those that let them out inappropriately. In psychobabble terminology, they call them the Parents and the Children. The Parents were benevolent and parochial. There job was to protect their employees. ‘Fathers Knows Best’ is their mantra. Don't tell employees too much; it will confuse them. I'll make all the decisions for them. Mr. Brady from the TV show the Brady Bunch is a good personification of this style of management. Then there were the Children. They let out their feelings at will because they are the boss and they have the power to do that. Bobby Knight best personifies this style of management.

Put these two styles together and it spells problems. For years, bad communication reigned supreme in most organizations. It was mainly because both these dominant styles of management made it perfectly clear to workers that they were not to discuss their true feelings. The Mr. Brady’s would say "don't talk like that." And the Bobby Knight’s would say, "stop whining, shut up and do what I tell you to do."

Of course, repressing what we are really thinking and feeling eventually causes dysfunction. For years, organizations tried to function as machines, with people as nothing more than replaceable parts. We now know that this does not create or instill excellence. Yet, companies continue to get by in this manner, with one huge side effect: they are wasting a lot of potential. Unfortunately, they don’t know this, or just don't care.

Today

Anybody with a pulse and experience working in any type of company will tell you that bad communication happens and interpersonal dysfunction is the norm. There are varying degrees of dysfunction. Some places are worse than others. And yet, some minimal level of dysfunction exists in every organization I have ever worked for.

So, we've got a problem. And it is a problem that everyone knows. If asked “do you have any teams that could function better than they currently do?”, realists say ‘yes’ and people in denial say ‘no’. Granted, your team may not be what you would call dysfunctional, but it is not a model for excellence either. Bad teams and good teams can get better with the proper team workout.

Team building is Worthless

The problem is, for the last forty years, the training antidote to be ‘better’ has been team building. And team building is worthless. Why do I say this? When the term ‘team building’ is mentioned, you get a range of responses from gag reflexes and rolling of eyes. A few think ‘it is OK’ and even ‘fun’. Ask anyone, however, if team building actually helps their team back at the office and you get a resounding ‘no.’

Team building in general has become so impractical that nobody likes it anymore. Corporate America went from one extreme (repressed feelings) to the other (love fest). The concept of team building (working on strengthening our team) is good in theory, but something goes horribly wrong in practice.

The Oprah Lovers’ have seized their opportunity. Business people are clearly bad at feelings and communication. So consultants thought “let's package up some activities and sell them on the illusion that these activities will help their dysfunction”. And presto, a thriving industry was born.

The team building industry is actually a continuity business. Teams do not work out their problems and dysfunction in these flaky activities. They may have some fun, but no real changes happen back at work. Problems continue and the team building hucksters say it's because you need more team building. Let's play more expensive business games, waste more time and money.

I'm making a gag reflex as I write this. If you don't believe me, do a Google for the term "team building”. Check out the sites that come up. You see a lot of people playing games and having fun. They are also spending (wasting) a lot of time, energy and money playing games and having this fun.

Team building is Still Worthless and Maybe Even Worse

And what are the discernible business results? Nothing. Sure, people may get to know each other a little better, but you could do that at a holiday mixer, a breakfast meeting or a luncheon.

The problem has grown even greater because team building is getting more and more touchy feely and impractical. Fortune magazine ran a story in April 2006 about a company that sent two hundred of its people to a week long team building event in New Zealand at a cost of nine thousand dollars a person. That’s $1.2 million for what?

Let's face it, one of the biggest problems teams have is that they either avoid conflict or have destructive conflict. How much better is this problem after the $1.2 million dollar boondoggle? Try worse. First of all, there are forty four thousand eight hundred people pissed that they didn't get a free trip to New Zealand. Secondly, the people that were there were competing AGAINST each other for the entire week. Wasn’t the point to improve ways of working better TOGETHER?

Now what?

So, let's review. Because we have either Mr. Brady or Bobby Knight running the show, we have teams that have some problems. The only solution in today’s environment (fluff team building) actually causes more pain and is frustrating because it gets no real results. We go and maybe have some fun, then get back to our usual dysfunction du jour as soon as we get back to work.

Can't we find some middle ground here? We have teams that have problems and are in need of improvement. Most teams are just OK and are not on a path to excellence. Team workout sessions are a way for teams to get together and discuss interpersonal issues that are holding them back from achieving their goals. With a team workout, teams always end up with clear action steps that have responsibilities, deadlines and accountability.

You can build a better team without engaging in stupid and embarrassing activities.

Being ignorant about something is not the trouble. The trouble is the unwillingness to learn something. So, get rid of your inertia and read this article about management software affiliates.This article about management software affiliates is an attempt to remove all the doubts and confusions that remains in the minds of the readers.Creating Multiple Streams of Management Software Affiliate Marketing IncomeReading this article on management software affiliates must have helped you to confirm your belief whether you know everything that needs to be known about management software affiliates. And we can guess what your answer might be.

Reading of this article must have made you realize how much there was for you to know about management software affiliates and you thought that you knew everything was to be known about management software affiliates.Have you ever heard or read the phrase “multiple streams of income” before? Do you know what this phrase means? For many businessmen, creating multiple streams of income online or offline is one way of securing themselves as well as their businesses in the future. They also believe that it can also save them from the so-called famine effect in the business industry. Once you are engaged in affiliate marketing business, it is advisable if you have multiple streams of affiliate marketing income so that if one of those income streams vanished, it will not upset you the way losing your sole stream would.

If you depend on just one source of income and this single stream has been downsized or has lain off, you’ll surely find yourself bankrupted and hopeless. Try to ask the most successful online entrepreneurs, and you’ll discover that they have established multiple streams of online income.Now when you are reading this article on management software affiliates, you should judge whether our effort in providing you with quality information and content has been successful or not.There is a businessman that said and attested that the very first step you must take in creating multiple streams of income is to assess or evaluate your resources. Start by assessing yourself first. Jot down your answers to the following questions: What are the talents, abilities, strength and gears that you possess? Are you gifted with excellent and creative writing skills? Can you do well at sales? Are you good in communicating with people? Are you born with an artistic skill or unique ability that other people don’t have?

Through this, you can determine the kind of business where can possibly excel.Reading the general stuff published on the net makes one reluctant to read articles on the net. But now when you are reading this article, you must have found that we are not amongst those who publish that banal stuff.Next, look around and write down you assets and physical resources such as computer, color printer, scanner, digital camera, cell phone, CD or DVD burner. Write these all down because it can be used as a resource. Consider also your friends and family. Find out what do they possess that you have access to. Remember that no man is an island. You can use the talents, abilities, knowledge and resources of everyone you know.We were not thinking of wasting your time when we thought of providing you with this article.

And now when you are yourself reading this article, don’t you think that we were sincere in our efforts?That’s basically the initial step if you want to create multiple income streams. But if you’re already a webmaster or a site owner, you definitely have an edge. Why don’t you join affiliate marketing business to help you gain extra income out of your own website?We have tried very hard to provide you with an article about management software affiliates that could resolve most of your doubts about management software affiliates and now it is for you to decide if we have been successful or not.Being involved in affiliate marketing is one of the most desirable ways to make multiple sources of income. It is because affiliate marketing programs come in various shapes and forms.

There are a large number of affiliate marketing programs that you can sign on with and start gaining bucks right away. In affiliate marketing, you can make money by promoting and reselling your affiliate products and by recruiting new affiliates. What’s good about this is that you can find widest array of training materials that can enhance your marketing abilities. In affiliate marketing, you can be sure that there are genuine products to promote and sell and there is real income to make.So, do you still think that you know everything that was to be known about management software affiliates? Don’t you feel that there were so many things that were to be known about management software affiliates?Either part time or full time, being an affiliate marketer is an excellent way to create multiple income streams by means of promoting products and services from web merchants.

Here, you can get affiliate commission without investing big bucks in making your own product and without worrying about book keeping, customer support and ecommerce. All you have to do is to promote and resell the products and services in your site and pass on potential customer’s the merchant’s site.It is true that so many articles are available on the net about management software affiliates and you must have read quite a few of them. Now, when you are reading this article, don't you feel that we have actually tried to offer something different to our readers?In affiliate marketing, it is advisable to promote more merchants in your site so that your visitors will have variety of destinations to choose from. Using multiple merchants in the same site or niche means only one thing – you have multiple streams of affiliate income.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this business strategy because this is one of the best ways to protect your business and expanding your horizons. Through this, you can be assured that you won’t experience crisis if ever one of your web merchants closed his/her program.It is true that most of the articles on the net are repetitive and banal but we have tried hard to save this article from those faults. Now when you are reading this article, you can vouchsafe for us.However, you should choose only those affiliate programs that interest you so that you can effectively advertise and promote them. Don’t ever be tempted into signing up for numerous affiliate programs in the hope that one of them will bring income. Select wisely and don’t be engaged in selling products you know nothing about. Go with the stuff that jives with your enthusiasm; your passion can capture your client by the nose and guide him/her to your affiliate link.

You should also work hard to make your multiple streams of income more stable. You can do this by embracing some strategies and tactics and by developing within yourself, some traits that can help you become successful in any kind of business such as patience, persistence and thirst for knowledge.Lastly, just remember the adage that says “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” So that if one of them is lost, you can still have some to make omelets. And what do these eggs have to do with multiple streams of affiliate income?

IS departments are constantly being downsized or outsourced. Therefore, well-run projects are vital to an IS professional’s career. Carefully managing project details, including time and materials, is essential now that IS is being asked to deliver more using fewer resources. There are several effective, relatively inexpensive project management scheduling and tracking packages available for PCs. These types of packages have been around on mainframes since the early 1970s, though they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Today shareware packages start at under $100.

Many of these products assume a knowledge of project management that many technical managers do not have. Without an understanding of the basic concepts of project management, managers may often find the software is confusing and hard to use.

The first step in project management is to break the project down into measurable tasks and organize them into a hierarchy called the work breakdown structure (WBS). Different companies have different terms for the various levels in a work breakdown structure. Some levels include stages, steps, and tasks, or phases, activities, and tasks.

Regardless of terminology a company uses, the purpose of the WBS is to organize the project into various deliverables or summary reporting levels. Some of the traditional stage (or phase) levels in IS projects include project definition, analysis, design, development, testing, implementing, and project review. Whether a project has standard levels or not, the main purpose of these higher levels is to group the detail tasks, allowing project administrators to more easily track the project’s progress.

The next step in project management involves determining inter-task dependencies. Once the tasks have been listed and organized into a WBS, inter-task relationships need to be established. These relationships, also called dependencies or links, exist when the start or completion of one task is somehow related to the start or completion of another task.

There are three types of inter-task dependencies: finish-start, start-start, and finish-finish. The tasks that must be performed first are called the predecessor tasks and those that follow are successor tasks.

The finish-start relationship is the most common dependency relationship. In the finish-start relationship, the predecessor task must finish before the successor task can start. Some examples of this type of relationship include situations in which the project definition must be done before the analysis can start or systems design must be done before coding can start.

The start-start relationship is a less common dependency relationship. In the start-start relationship, the predecessor task must start before the successor task can start. This relationship is often erroneously interpreted as meaning that both tasks start at the same time, but that is not always true. An example of this type of relationship is a situation in which setting up interviews must have started before the interviews themselves can start.

The finish-finish relationship is also a less common dependency relationship. In the finish-finish relationship, the predecessor task must finish before the successor task can finish. The relationship is often erroneously interpreted as meaning that both tasks finish at the same time. This type of relationship occurs when, for example, coding must finish before testing can finish or when systems testing must finish before implementation can be completed.

Those are the first few steps to project management and, arguably, the most important ones. Make sure to practice these with each project you do in order to improve your project management abilities.

If you want to plan for a year, sow rice, if for a decade, plant a tree and if for the lifetime, then train your work force. - Chinese proverb

In these days of global competition, if organizations dare to ignore this saying just as another management quote, I bet, its doomsday is not far off. If an individual is self-actualized, he may quit at the age of forty and may lead a retired life as a Consultant. However, if an Organization behaves like a self-actualized individual, it is a real mess and an alarm for a massive HR exercise through positive intervention. An individual’s growth is stunted if he is satisfied with his achievements in life and he is in the club of the people who are self - actualized. As per Abraham Maslow, if an individual is satisfied, he ceases to be a motivator. Success will play hide and seek with such individuals. In the same way, if an Organization is satisfied with its growth, no one can stop it from vanishing from the business map of the world. You may ask, how can we identify such Self - actualized Organizations?

If we trace out the roots of Self-satisfied Organizations, the following are some of the behavioral patterns with which one can identify such organizations:

i) They neglect recruitment from day one of establishing the organization, giving way to mostly references from relatives and any hearsay that can be taken as potential recommendation. With this kind of recruitment, the Management gives way to appoint cheap Managers and cheap labour, ignoring the fact that you will get only monkeys, when you pay peanuts!

ii) Generally, there will not be any kind of training as this kind of Management thinks that if we dump people in the plant en masse, they will learn themselves, ignoring all safety precautions and putting their lives open to all kinds of risks and accidents. Such Organizations will buy 100% Safety Certificates from ‘National Safety Council’ at a throw away price. Moreover, such Managements do not believe in spending on Training and Development.

iii) Unfortunately, people are not considered as assets in such Organizations, and they are rarely treated in a gentle and humane manner. Such a Management is never fair and frank with the employees. Openness is a far cry. Recruitment is projected as on humanitarian grounds to tap cheap labour (remember, they are going to be your assets, not just a bunch of humans) is only at the risk of the development of the organization in the long run. People who are selected and recruited in the name of humanity will become seniors and self-actualized producing nothing either for the benefit of the Organization or for them. As far as Organizational building is concerned, ‘recruitment on humanitarian grounds’ must be rationalized and it should not be based on irrationality and favoritism.

iv) In the long run, such Organizations land in trouble and can not manage their human resources as the people recruited by them will become Seniors and start demanding more pay, promotions and what not, all kinds of perks which are paid in a professionally managed organization. Automatically, the Organization will become the birthplace of another new Union, naturally, which would contain a group of complacent, unproductive, uncreative bunch of gentle goons who always encourage just absenteeism but not productivity.

v) Employees working in such Organizations will become aliens to the outside world and cannot learn anything, which would be beneficial for them in future. vi) Managements who think of only humanity ignoring all other factors such as recruiting professionals and training them to suit the business needs of the Organization, will deliver only unprofessionalism and lose drastically in the world of competition.

vii) Such Managements never think of building Organizations and producing Professional Managers and it is a myth for them if anybody talks of producing wealth by way of sharing knowledge. Generally, these kind of Managements use outdated or not so widely used systems and software for e.g. use of Lotus Smart Suite instead of MS Office family. Generally, employees opting to leave such organizations do not get any kind of job as they worked on outdated systems all the years of their service.

viii) Lending unwanted helping hand and irrelevant HR practices also make employees feel disgusted and a promotion also considered as a curse and unwanted, as one has to do the same work even after elevation. Delegation of powers is a myth in such organizations. Generally, this kind of trend is highly evident in the family managed organizations as they always dream of grabbing more share from the market without training their Marketing Manager to dive deep into emerging new markets and they pile up stocks with low quality, indulging in self-deceit and unproductive board meetings arranged with disgust and lack of confidence.

Nothing would be initiated which would help develop the knowledge of the employees in such organizations. Where there is no performance due to lack of professional training, the question of performance appraisal does not arise as all Managers suffer with ‘Yes Boss Syndrome’. Promotions will be offered on a silver platter to those who are consistently maintain patience due to ignorance of rules, waiting for their turn due to lack of proper knowledge, and to those who are having minimum knowledge in their field of service.

Generally, pay will be hiked gradually as people become seniors and they think the Organization is doing well. Management will always concentrate on production and marketing and conveniently, pose as people oriented organization following all statutory obligations focusing them as good HR practices.

As per the latest HR practices and parameters, this kind of Organization is considered to be in a real HRM mess. The remedy would be only ‘Business Process Re-engineering’. As a first step towards this path of progress, an Organization must opt for HRD Audit, which would assess the talent pool and knowledge base of the Organization to take up cleansing process. People must be trained in a phased manner to develop a culture and mindset to integrate the thought process, in turn, which would contribute for the smooth running of the organization. Emotional imbalance, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional disturbance, Emotional turbulence, low IQ, low EQ is the most dreaded diseases of the family managed business organizations. These kinds of emotional excesses can be eliminated and balanced with proper behavioral training by way of organizing behavioral labs, meditation and Yoga classes outside the Organization, in the midst of nature.

Retain potential customers with Customer Relations Management. Manage the team spirit of the employees with positive Employee relations management. Old habits die-hard. However, train the people to develop new culture and open their world to the emerging innovations in their business field in which they are working. Open the floodgates of information through intranet and Internet, develop a culture prone to learning, and ultimately allow transforming it as a Learning Organization forever. Learning Organizations will be always alert to the needs of the customers. Continuously learning employees always work towards fulfilling the mission of the Organization if it is spelt out to reach top to bottom with clear communication. Personalized care must be taken by HR Department to help manage the emotional balance of the people. HR Managers must act as Chief People Care Officers, to facilitate people to concentrate on their tasks.

The following are the strategic moves to be followed to build a great organization.
1. Tapping the right kind of talent for the right job from day one of building the organization.
2. Training and development of employees to suit the business needs.
3. Transforming earning organization into Learning Organization for continuous motivation
4. Creating a Creative Centre in the Dept. of HRD on the lines of Profit Center, which would help in guiding the Organization towards the fulfillment of its mission statement and acts as a watchdog to influence positive and productive decision-making - such steps would contribute for the overall development of the organization.

Optimization of the utilization of M3 i.e. Men, Money and Machine through aligning HR Management with business goals would go a long way and help to become a truly global organization. GMP means not just Good Manufacturing Practices as defined but it also stands for Good Men Practices, Good Money Practices and Good Machine Practices, can be called GMP3 . Good Men Practices can be achieved through continuous training and development. Good Money Practices can be attained through continuous cost cutting measures and injecting accountability in every employee of the organization. Good Machine Practices can be introduced by way of checking IQ (Installation Qualification), OQ (Operational Qualification), and PQ (Performance Qualification) regularly. Sustenance and Development of these GMP3 would help sustain a good business model and transform the same into good revenue model, ultimately helps in building a highly profitable organization.

To conclude in a nutshell, one might be well aware of the fact that Bajaj, Tata, Birla, Eagle Poonawala, Nirma, Ranbaxy, - all industries in various businesses started as family organizations but slowly developed and metamorphosed into a highly professionally managed mammoth business groups which are proud and inspiring members of India Inc., with globe as their business play ground. The recent examples of professionally managed family Organizations which transformed themselves as professionally managed business Giants are Wipro, Satyam, Dr.Reddys’ etc. During the Tatas recent restructuring, Ratan Tata declared himself as Chief Personnel Officer, acting as a Change Agent to facilitate best HR practices. That would be a real shot in the arm for HR Managers when CMD himself supervises the organizational change!

Because of massive restructuring, Tatas sold out 11 Companies and bought 18 Companies to add more value to the Group. Taking over of Corus, by Tatas also demonstrates the business acumen of Indian companies. Above all, the finest example is Morepen Labs, which is a professionally managed Organization from day one and they achieved US FDA within minimum possible time from the date of commissioning the plant activities. Such is the meticulous planning and vision of the Morepen Management, which is an ideal benchmark, and envy of the competitors. An Organization engaged in any kind of business activity must have a vision of their own, lending the same to the employees down the line to help them tune to the business goals of the Management. Organizational Leadership must be prone to change according to times, and must learn and train them continuously to acquire the knowledge of innovations and must be aware of the emerging market trends. A learned and learning leader can always avoid creating a self-actualized Organization!

A successful business needs good management. However, without satisfied, dedicated employees, it will fail. Happy employees are optimistic and productive. Their enthusiasm rubs off on both management and customers. There is nothing like going into a business where the employees are happy, enthusiastic and satisfied with their careers and the way the company is run. As a customer, supplier or even a competitor, it is a pleasure to walk through the door of such a business.

Happy, satisfied employees are the most attentive and helpful to the customers. An employee with a positive attitude is contagious and can change the attitude of every staff member they are around. However, just as a positive mind set is easily spread, so is a negative one. If a member of the team is unhappy, watch out! His or her negative attitude can become infectious, contaminating coworkers and customers alike. These pessimistic employees can breed an atmosphere of low morale. This will lead to decreased productivity, higher than normal turnover and unproductive time spent gossiping and complaining. The expense of training each new employee so they may excel is lost when they leave to work at some other organization because the atmosphere is too negative at your organization.

This is where competent management earns their big salary. They must quickly identify the source of discontent and eliminate it as quickly as possible. If the cause is some new procedure or policy change, then corrections must be implemented immediately. If the problem is an employee, then that employee must be taken aside and counseled. Part of that counseling should include notification that their employment will be terminated unless they improve their attitude and behavior within a specified time frame. This notification should be made in writing. One copy of this notification should be left with the employee and one copy with a signature from the employee acknowledging receipt of the notification should be retained by management and filed on the employee’s personnel file. If improvement doesn’t occur, then the employee must be dismissed from the company. Just like a rotten apple can destroy a whole barrel of fruit, one pessimistic disruptive employee can destroy a company if left to fester away.

To combat negativity in the workplace, management must continually motivate employees by encouraging them to work to the best of their abilities. Regular management/employee contact is necessary to show that an employee’s contributions are valued. Management should implement a suggestion award program which will allow employees to have input into the running of the company. Compensation should be made for any suggestion that is implemented. Regular scheduled employee/management meeting should be implemented. These meetings should be used to discuss what is working and what isn’t. New policies or procedures should be announced at these meetings along with adequate justification for their implementation. Staff luncheons could be made part of these scheduled meetings. A free lunch for employees who attend the meeting should ensure good attendance. Also, Employee of the Month recipients can be announced at these meetings.

Another morale booster for employees is a continuing education program. If employees receive free or heavily subsidized education from their employer, they appreciate it. This is especially true when successful completion of the program results in a promotion within the company.

If your organization recognizes that its employees are valuable and deserve to receive praise and recognition, then you will benefit from increased productivity and employee satisfaction and retention. This will also positively affect customer satisfaction.

The success of your business depends upon creating an environment that is conducive to employee happiness. If your environment doesn’t do this, then you must make the necessary changes to correct it. REMEMBER, that good management and happy employees result in a successful business!

In Chapter Seven of Sun Zi Art of War, Sun Zi mentioned four important areas to achieve a good fighting force. They are:

1) Morale
2) Psychology
3) Physique
4) Change

Morale refers to the fighting spirit or the troops' willingness to fight. Psychology refers to emotional intelligence of the troops, their ability to manage their emotions. Physique refers to the well-being of the troops, whether they are well fed or well rested. Change refers to the troops’ ability to respond to situations.

So how can we apply this to business?

Business Application

Morale

This is the most important areas out of the four. It is equivalent to the fighting spirit of the employees in your the company. High morale can help the company to tide over even the worst crisis. But morale is very fragile. Any slight negativity in the company like a bad remarks or rumors can cause a drastic drop in it. So a good manager should always be able to keep the morale high in a company .

Psychology

This is equivalent to the emotional intelligence of the department This in turn is equivalent to the emotional intelligence of the leaders in the department. Many a times, we have seen that the leader’s emotions usually will affect other team members. If the leader of a team has low emotional intelligence, it is a matter of time before the team will self-destruct because of working relationship issues.

Physique

Studies have shown that absenteeism is a major costs on companies, but now there are studies that show 'presenteeism' can also be a huge costs as well because firstly, they can spread their disease to others in the office and secondly, the drop in productivity due to their sickness.

The best solution to these two problems is to take care of the health of your employees. Why not set aside time for your employees to do some exercise if they want to? Because in my opinion, time spent on work done is important but it is productivity that matters. Good health has been shown to have a high relationship with productivity. So if the increase in productivity can compensate for the time lost by a large extent, it could be worth your while. Do you have a program that takes care of your employees’ health?

Change

In this dynamic business environment, major changes come often. So how do you help your employees to cope with changes, both within the company and those in the industry? The key here is information.

The reason most people do not like changes or are not able to handle it is because the fear of uncertainty. The fear of what is going to happen after the change. So what can help your employees to manage and handle change is information. Let them know why such changes are made, what are the repercussions that are going to follow. Allow them to be able to anticipate what is coming from these changes so that they can make ample preparations for it. Is this being carry out in your company?

Air freight tracking is a service that is provided by many air freight companies in order for their customers to have the information relating to where their freight is at any one time from the moment it leaves their location to the moment it arrives at its destination.

Many people are able to visit the freight company's site and just by entering your waybill details you should be able to have the exact location of where your package is at that time.

However if you carried out a search of the internet by keying in "air freight tracking" you will find a myriad of sites listed who can find out where your goods are by you either keying in your way bill details or just by clicking on the Air Freight Company that is transporting your goods for you.

There are many companies around the world suggest as UPS who are a single source provider and they can provide people with instant access to their world wide network by allowing them to use their advanced air freight tracking and visibility system which will help people to manage their shipments from departure to delivery.

There are also a number of companies who offer a software package which many sites use for people to enter their air freight in order to track their goods. Below are details of one such package.

Magaya Live Track is the most revolutionary software product on the market today and it allows people to track cargo that is moved by companies that are part of the Magaya Network worldwide. This software allows you to view information such as pick up orders, warehouse receipts and cargo releases (very important for those who have strict deadlines they need to meet) immediately on line. As well as this they can view and print all the documentation that relates to their cargo in a clear and accurate format.

Whilst another company that offers air freight tracking is Trackweb which was set up in order to allow users to have access to the various websites of air freight carriers and shipping company websites and leads you straight to their specific tracking page. All the links they provide are direct to the companies tracking pages and can be accessed easily from any PC.

Making top notch financial decisions is the goal of all good managers. Unlock these secrets to make a start on this process today.

Secret #1. Think Widely on Options to Solve the Problem

It is a waste of your time if you make decisions without canvassing ALL the options. How can the business be served well if you haven’t bothered to think of all the ways to solve your financial problem?

For example, if you are required to find a replacement for an aging computer system or factory plant item, what options would you think were available? What questions would you ask?

- Replace with a comparable item?
- Repair, upgrade, refurbish or maintain the current item?
- Purchase new/second-hand item with more capacity and increased output?
- Will the customers still be there for the outputs of the new equipment over its life?
- Will the company’s direction still provide a need for this asset over its life?
- What are competitors likely to be doing during the life of the asset?
- Will the cost of the new equipment price the product out of the market?

Secret #2. Think Outside the Box

Now that you have thought of good questions it’s time to apply some creative thinking processes to them in order to get the best answers.

There are many tools for creative thinking available. Just go to your favorite search engine and type in “creative thinking” for a host of suggestions. Some commonly used ones are:

- Brainstorming
- Plus Minus Interesting (PMI)
- “Six Thinking Hats”
- S.C.A.M.P.E.R.
- Lateral Thinking
- Random Input

Enter any of these into the search engine for an explanation of the terms.

Also you can also gain some real insights by listening to dissenters in your company or other outsiders. They may just have the key that will make your decisions a lot easier and generate more profits for the company. Do not forget to include their ideas.

These tools are designed to provide you with many answers to your questions

Secret #3. Gather ALL the Data,

In order to make a successful financial decision you will need as much data as you can use effectively. You will need to quantify the costs and benefits so that a rational decision can be made easily. The best way to do this is to convert them all to dollars. This will make it easier to assess competing options.

Some Costs to Consider:

- Installation of new equipment
- Removal of current equipment
- Downtime costs e.g. lost orders, increased stocking costs, extra labor to catch up with customer orders
- Training costs for new equipment
- New maintenance costs
- Capital costs
- Tendering costs, purchasing costs
- Initial transport costs

Some Benefits to Consider:

- Less wastage
- Less labor input
- Less resource inputs
- Increased safety
- Increased quality of life
- Faster customer response
- More accurate data
- Faster production times
- Less stock required
- Scrap/Trade-in Value at end of economic life
- Scrap/Trade-in Value of current equipment

Secret #4. Analyze the Data

Now that you have collected the data and have converted it to dollars, it's time to evaluate each viable option using a systematic method.

There is a proven, tested method called Cost Benefit Analysis, which is the tool of choice for these kinds of decisions. It can be used effectively for asset replacement decisions as well as funding choices. Big business and governments around the world use it. The US government is a big user of this technique. In fact, it has legislated, federally, that this method be used when making decisions regarding funding to various major programs.

This method allows you to weigh up the relative costs and benefits of competing proposals, showing you which option is the most profitable, least costly or provides the greatest net benefit.

There are certain rules that need to be adhered to so that the final decision can be understood and acted upon. You can find the link to a site offering this proven method at the end of this article or in the Author Profile.

Secret #5. Make The Decision

Based on the Cost Benefit Analysis results produced above, there should be a clear answer as to the best way forward - provided all the processes were completed correctly.

You can be confident that this is the best financial decision, given the information at hand and the assumptions underlying the analysis.

Secret #6. Sell the Decision,

Once the decision is made it needs to be communicated, since others will need to know. Some groups who may need to know and be convinced that your decision is in their best interests are:

- Employees
- Board members
- The press
- Customers
- Suppliers
- The owners
- Special interest groups

Since you used a tested, proven system to make the decision it makes it easier to convince these groups of the correctness of your decision – saving you time and effort.

Secret #7. Review the Decision

A year after the decision has been made, communicated to stakeholders and implemented it is time to go back and review the decision. This is often referred to as a Post Completion Review. Some areas of review are listed below:

- Assumptions – were they correct?
- Costs – did the actual costs of purchase, installation and operation equal the assumed costs in the proposal?
- Were there other costs involved that were not planned for originally?
- Benefits – did they eventuate? Were they in line with the initial assumptions?
- Were there any problems in implementation not foreseen in the proposal?
- Did the decision and implementation involve all the people who could add value?

Secret #8. Learn the Lessons

Once the questions above have answers there will be lessons that can be learned from the experience. Lessons such as:

- We need to include all of the costs next time – some critical ones were missed
- Some of the benefits did not eventuate – we were not careful enough to think through how these would be created
- Some critical staff members were left out of the decision-making process, but could have assisted to make the process less costly and run more smoothly
- The process of cost benefit analysis has taught us to think more critically about important financial decisions

Secret #9. Apply the Lessons

So that the errors or mistakes in this proposal are not transferred on to the next proposal, the lessons above need to be applied.

Some ways this can occur are as follows:

- Hold meetings at executive level where the Post Completion Reviews and the lessons learned are discussed.
- Use the company newsletter to discuss how future decisions will be conducted based on the lessons learned.
- Make senior managers accountable for their financial decisions; make part of their salary contingent upon their decision performance.
- Establish a company-wide culture of making good financial decisions using tools that can positively produce the best outcomes.

This is but a short summary of a very expansive topic. It is hoped that this article will provide a springboard for you to begin making better decisions – maybe as early as today.