Skills for running a small business

Skills for running a small business SKILLS FOR RUNNING A SMALL BUSINESS There are a number of skills required to run a business. You will need to use the skills you have and probably develop new ones as well It is often not possible for one person to have all the skills, in this case you might consider taking on staff or perhaps a partner to fill the gaps What kind of skills do you think are needed to run a business? Skills relating to products or services Management skills Recording and checking performance skills Selling skills Administration skills Previous experience, although not a skill will help The ability to recognise your own strengths and weaknesses 1. Skills relating to products and/or services Some products or services require specialist skills to produce or provide Even if you buy your products or services in, the people in your business that deal with customers still need a detailed knowledge of what is on offer You will need to think about these skills for your business, do you have them, are you planning to develop them, or are you going to employ someone who has them? 2. Management skills Henry Fayol suggested there are 5 primary functions of management, to be a successful manager you will need to have or develop skills in these areas. Planning Organizing Leading Co-ordinating Controlling (processes, performance etc, NOT people) Some people now think Fayols ideas are a bit old fashioned, however the basic principles of management remain the same A more modern writer, Katz, identified 3 main components to being a good manager Technical skills about the product or service Human skills, interacting with others and leading effectively Conceptual skills, coming up with new ideas, decision making and problem solving 3. Recording and checking performance skills One of the main roles of a business owner is to monitor how well the business is doing so that things can be changed if needed Performance standards need to be set, these should relate back to the aims and objectives and be SMART Actual performance is measured, information is collected. What information would your business need to collect? Actual performance is compared to the standards, if they are being met no further action is needed Corrective action is taken where required How good are you at following this kind of process, do you have an eye for detail, are you likely to follow up and measure? You will need to make use of your organisational and analytical skills 4. Selling skills As a small business owner you may need to use personal selling to get your potential customers to buy Good communication skills Persuasion skills An awareness of buying signals from customers (Observational skills) The ability to close a sale (Negotiation Skills) Good listening skills Identifying product needs in the customer Good product knowledge A lot of these skills can be learnt if you dont have them 5. Administration skills . Administration skills are vital to any business. To be good at administration you need to have a logical approach, be well organised, pay attention to detail and have good communication skills Accurate organisation of customer files and data Letter writing, faxing, emails, telephone calls etc (Technological skills) Preparation and dispatch of invoices, paying bills Managing budgets 6. Previous experience (although not a skill, this would be useful) If you have already worked in a similar company or related business this will help you. Also if you are basing your idea around a hobby or interest this may also give you some expertise If you have worked in a similar business you may have seen problems in that one that help you to avoid them yourself 7. Strengths and Weaknesses No-one is good at everything so you need to be honest about what you can and cant do Recognising your strengths will help you build the business around things you are good at Weaknesses should not be ignored. Once you are aware of them its important to implement a strategy to either eliminate them or prevent them from undermining the business Training you could enroll on a course, possibly with a local college. There are also lots of companies around that specialise in training so you might be able to contact one of them. Beware though, sometimes they can be very expensive, particularly if they are specialised Take on a partner if they compliment your skills this may be a good idea. There may be no upfront expense associated with this but they will expect a share of the profits Do some business networking this is where you attend events that attract other business people, you can talk to them, make contacts, get advice and possibly sales leads as well. For most small businesses this is an excellent option. Business Link, Chamber of Commerce and trade associations are sources that can help with this Employees you could always advertise for an employee with particular skills. Specialist employees may expect   higher salaries so could be expensive There are a number of areas that you can get professional help in. It can be really expensive so be sure you know what youre getting into before you commit. What kind of professions do you think can help? Business consultants you can employ experienced business people who will share their expertise and knowledge Accountants Most small businesses will need to employ a professional accountant, particularly to set up the legal status of the business and produce the annual accounts Solicitors will advise on any legal matters, contracts and the like with regards to the business Business Link an organisation set up by the government (Department for Trade and Industry), they offer services similar to business consultants but because they are government funded they are cheaper. You may have to wait for them, they are generally very busy You are now ready to do a skills audit. You need to perform an objective and accurate assessment of your suitability and the skills you possess to run the business you have chosen. You need to appraise your own skills and abilities honestly and identify any gaps For the first part you need to compile a list of the skills needed to run your business and a realistic assessment of whether or not you have them at the moment. You now need to put an outline job description together that describes the skills needed to run your business. Skills relating to products or services A keen interest in the product sold by my business shal be a necessity n the working of the company, Also a ability to know the whole of the procut along with its functionality shall also be required. It would also be needed that a ability to answer customer demands in regards to a product, to run the business smoothly. Obvioulsy therefore in light of this a ability to use and demonstrate the product shall be required along with a ability to market the product as well as the business enteprie itself. Management skills Team management shall be needed when running my business, especially in the field of marketing. Whereby groups of ndividuals shall market the product outside the company, and therefore good management technique shall need to be drawn upon. Furthermore to this senior management shall be needed to direct the company and its product as the business gros and develops. This ability to lead the business shal undoubtably be a massive requirement in regards to moving th company forward in the future. Recording and checking performance skills Recording and checking the companies performance shall be a necessity as in any other eneterprise. Particularly in the business of a new innovative product, market analysis and checking shll be a hugely needed requirement. Furthermore a ability to check company financial performance shall be needed to ensure the company is hitting projected performance targets as a whole. Selling skills A strong ability to sell the product of which we sell shall be neededwithin my business, for It continued success. A ability to sell the product in bulk orders would be preferable and also to sel the product in a friendly manner too. Also when sales are lost an ability to record and suggest how the sale went wrong shall also b e a required skillset. Administration skills Administration skills as in any business shall be critically important. In order to run my business successfully a srong administration skillset shall be needed. This shall allow for all paperwork and smaller tasks within the business to all be completed to a standard that ensures the company in kept up-to-date in all its work and legality documents. Previous experience, although not a skill will be useful Internal audit Strengths Weaknesses External audit Opportunities Threats Skills Assessment Team Member (Anonymous) Skill Administration Skill Management Skill Selling Skill Product Knowledge Skill Operations Skill Customer Service 1 3 3 2 3 5 3 2 4 4 2 2 4 3 3 5 3 1 2 5 2 4 3 2 2 3 4 1 Tally Priority Rating Scale 1-5 (1=Good, 5=Poor) Statement 1 Your selling skills within your business at the momen its its greatest quality. However its clear that the area of operations can greatly do with improvement Statement 2 Operations is a poor area of your business to date, in terms of how everything works and things fit together however management like selling is a better quality existing. Statement 3 Your customer service at the moment is good, however a better knowledge of the products you shall would be of greater use and further help your customer service. Statement 4 Your management skills however currently good theres a great amount of room for improvement in this skillset. This can be achieved by leading your employees more effectively of which shall also cross over and improve your results for the operations section of your business. Skills I need to run my business Do I currently have these Evidence Selling Skills in regards to the product Good Customer Service I feel that currently my selling skills are of a good standard however would greatly need improvement in the future. In order to run my product based business to a successful level. It key therefore that this skill is worked upon and developed. Along with a ability to sell, with my business being around a product good customer service shall be essential. It shall be preferred that I develop a good level of customer service skills that are used throughout my business. Selling products within young enterprise group. Speaking to customers of young enterprise and helping with order placements. Skills I need to develop Purpose for development How will I achieve this By When Need to develop operations skills To improve my ability to work a business. And to get it functioning towards a objective. Allowing for the business to run smoothly and operate successfully. This shall be key in ensuring my business is of a good working level and leads to a strong company as a whole. I shall achieve this by working on the area of operations within a business. I shall therefore take roles relating to operations more frequently and work in those areas with great care in order to improve within that particular area. I aim to achieve this particular goal by February 2010. Target Review point 1:   February 2010 Date achieved Evidence If not achieved how   can you achieve them in the future Target Review point 1: April 2010 Date achieved Evidence If not achieved how   can you achieve them in the future

What Is History? :: essays research papers

What Is History? What is history? Where do I start? And who says it started there? I wasn’t there, does it matter? Can I accept whatever happens in another part of the world into my personal history, or just in the worlds history? What parts of history are most important? Who decides? What a question! The word history has many attached meanings to it, and the result is that the definition for history depends on who it is you are asking. But What is it? Dictionary.com states that, â€Å"history is a narrative of events; a story.† Everyone has stories. it goes without saying then that everyone has history. But what about looking at the world in a broader aspect. I think we could look at humans, in whole, and see that we all have a history; a social history. Also, what students mostly study in textbooks, and in lecture halls; political history. Therefore, history, in my terms, can be broken into three very different branches: Personal, Social, and political. A friend of mi ne unfortunately parted ways with a woman whom he devoted a long period of time to. Inquiring, as I often do, I ask for the details on their break up. I was given a response of, â€Å"Man, She’s history.† And my friend is exactly correct. This woman now lies within his personal history. Had this girl never came into my friends life, he could not claim her a part of his history; his past. We have defined history as, â€Å"a story,† and my friend can tell stories of him and his girl. (in fact lately that is all he talks about) The Vietnam war was a very important part in history. Actually, the boss at my present place of employment served a long period of time in the war. He was a grunt. I have asked him about it, trying to hear maybe a story or two of what it was like, but he doesn’t like to talk about it. this part of his history he shuts out. Many veterans are like this. I believe the reason being is that the war that is in his history is a very differen t war than we could ever read in books or hear about from professors. War is different for everyone; as is history itself. These few examples give way to the first area of history; personal history. This is the story that everyone has.

Copyright Infringement Research Paper Essay

We are well into the year of 2011 and technology is continuing to advance and a faster and faster rate. As technology advances there continues to be more of an opportunity for things to go wrong. The ability of our society to obtain information has been becoming as easy as it has ever been. I simple line into the google search bar and you are looking at millions upon millions of lings and opportunities to attain information. With this source and hundreds or even thousands of these resources just like it, piracy and copyright issues have never been more of a problem. And a very serious problem at that. Copyright is defined as a set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. The exclusive rights are however balanced for public interest purposes with limitations and exceptions to the exclusive right – such as fair dealing and fair use. Copyright does not protect ideas, only their expression . In most jurisdictions copyright arises upon fixation and does not need to be registered. Copyright owners have the exclusive statutory right to exercise control over copying and other exploitation of the works for a specific period of time, after which the work is said to enter the public domain (1). While piracy is simply defined as the unauthorized use of another’s production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright (2). The definition of these two is strongly correlated and leaves them both dealing with the same issues that have been plaguing the creative minds of many people in recent times. Copyright and piracy issues have had a huge effect on how we are able to access information on the internet. Information is going to continue to get more difficult to attain the further into the future we get, but how will this directly effect us? First a generalized overview over the types of copyright and piracy strategies. The most common types of piracy of copyright-protected materials concerns books, music, films and software. Books: Book publishing has the longest history of dealing with piracy. Any unauthorized use of a copyrighted work, such as a book, school manual, journal article or sheet music, represents an infringement of copyright or a case of copyright piracy, unless covered by a copyright exception. Piracy of printed works affects both paper copies and works in digital format. In some developing countries, trade in pirated books often exceeds the legitimate market. Educational institutions represent a primary target market for pirates. Infringing activities include both illegal commercial photocopying and/or printing and reproduction of books and other printed material in digital form, as well as distribution in hard copy or digital format. Music: Music piracy includes both traditional unlawful use of music and unauthorized use of music on on-line communication networks. Bootlegging (unauthorized recording and duplication of a live or broadcast performance) and counterfeiting (unauthorized copying of the material support, labels, artwork and packaging) are the most widespread types of traditional music piracy. The unauthorized uploading and making available to the public of music files or downloading such files from an Internet site is referred to as Internet or on-line piracy. On-line piracy may also include certain uses of â€Å"streaming† technologies. Films: As in the case of music, film piracy is either traditional or done over the Internet. It includes, but is not limited to, videocassette and optical disc piracy, theatrical camcorder piracy, theatrical print theft, signal theft and broadcasting piracy, and on-line piracy. Software: Software piracy refers to practices that involve the unauthorized copying o f computer software. Internet (on-line) piracy: The unauthorized downloading or distribution over the Internet of unauthorized copies of works such as movies, music, video games and software is generally referred to as Internet or on-line piracy. Illicit downloads occur through file-sharing networks, illegal servers, websites and hacked computers. Hard goods pirates also use the Internet to sell illegally duplicated DVDs through auctions and websites.While trafficking copyrighted works through increasingly sophisticated electronic means, such as peer-to-peer file trading networks, Internet chat rooms, and newsgroups, has an ever increasing negative impact on cultural industries, it is also argued that curtailing this phenomenon limits the right of access to information, knowledge and culture (4). The problem in trying to prevent digital copyright infringement is tied up in the problem of regulating the Internet – an almost impossible feat, considering the World Wide Web today comprises more than 100 million individual Web sites. Regulators have been severely tried in recent years with the rise of peer-to-peer networks, with the most infamous being Napster. The brainchild of a 19-year-old college student, Napster launched in 1999 and revolutionized the way music sharing was conducted online. However, with such a quick rise to success comes the inevitable problems; in this case, the problems arose in the form of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and copyright lawsuits. While users of Napster saw nothing wrong with sharing music, the RIAA, which represents the four major music labels, saw the situation quite differently. By late 2000, the courts had ruled that Napster must restrict access to copyrighted files, a death-blow to the young network, for all intents and purposes. The media industry probably thought it was in the clear after the Napster fall-out, and to a degree it was, until a new source of copyright infringement rose up in 2005 and became even more widely success than Napster.†¨The story of YouTube, an online video-sharing network, is reminiscent of the beginnings of its music predecessor, Napster. Founded in February of 2005 by two 20-somethings, the idea for the company arose due to difficulties in sharing home videos with friends. When the site launched in May 2005, it contained about 30,000 videos. As with Napster, word of mouth allowed the company’s popularity to spread like wildfire. Less than 20 months later, visitors to the site watched 100 million videos a day. While many visitors to YouTube go to see the homemade videos, the company shares another similarity to Napster: its success is, in part, due to the illegal sharing of copyrighted files. YouTube’s terms of service forbid sharing of copyrighted materials, and the company monitors content to limit the number of violations, but copyrighted material still gets through. With such material widely popular among users of the site, the companies whose videos were being shared on the site saw the situation differently. In March of 2006, NBC asked YouTube to remove a Saturday Night Live skit. Viacom soon followed suit, threatening action against YouTube if it did not remove clips from Comedy Central shows like South Park and The Daily Show. Many industry insiders speculated that YouTube’s fate would follow in the footsteps of Napster. Rather than sit idly by, however, YouTube took action. The company began signing licensing agreements with companies including Warner Music, Sony BMG and CBS Corp., allowing the content providers to supply the clips and share in advertising revenue. YouTube also attempted to assuage the companies’ concerns with a promise to develop new software capable of finding and removing copyrighted materials. The biggest hope for YouTube, however, lies in its acquisition by Google, the search engine giant worth approximately $130 billion, which paid $1.65 billion to purchase YouTube on Oct. 9, 2006. While this acquisition did not remove the threat of future lawsuits, most analysts believed the power of Google and its many existing media partnerships will allow YouTube to avoid Napster’s fate. Additionally, Google’s technological advantages in finding and removing copyright infringement threats go far in easing the minds of the media companies. In my opinion Google’s many existing partnerships suggest that these companies will continue to do business with a Google-owned YouTube, rather than following the legal path they did with Napster and its related music piracy companies (3). The example of Napster and YouTube is a very generalized and a very modern look at the issue of copyright and piracy issues but I also feel that they are very high scale cases that represent the problem at hand very well. There are millions of similar small scale websites such as these that are stealing information and making money off of other peoples work. But as stated by Jessica Vitak above, how could you possibly be able to monitor such a vast array of internet sites? It is almost impossible to even fathom. Now that these two giants have brought the issue of copyright and piracy into the general publics eye we need to explore how this will effect the collection of information in our lives. Following up Napster and YouTube the new revolution with high speed internet connections is the ability to go after movies. As we know and have seen there is a lot of power in Hollywood. It is a multi-billion dollar industry and is a point of serious concern. A movie is a large amount of information that takes a lot of time and internet speed to be able to download. But again with the advancement of technology getting this type of file is no long more than a 20 minute download period. Many argue to say that this can have great effect on our economy because of the amount of money that this industry brings in. The Motion Picture Association of America warned against a â€Å"growing global epidemic† of movie piracy over the Internet this week, citing a survey of Internet users in which nearly one in four respondents had illegally downloaded a movie online. The study, conducted by online research company OTX, queried 3600 Net users in eight countries, and was cited by the MPAA as the harbinger of the tough times the industry faces ahead in grappling with online piracy. Although the MPAA participated in delivering the survey results it did not fund the study, an OTX representative says, adding that the company undertook the survey independently. According to the survey, 24 percent of respondents reported that they had downloaded a movie online, and 69 percent said that they did not believe that online music piracy was a major concern. The study was performed in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Korea, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S., and shows a direct correlation between broadband penetration and the incidence of piracy, the researcher says. In Korea, for instance, where broadband penetration is estimated to stand at 98 percent, 58 percent of respondents said that they had downloaded a movie online (5). These are clearly alarming numbers and much higher than I think any one would guess if they were asked but, now that we know how high those numbers are what exactly is the effect. Clearly there must be a large loss of money but how great? And is that a number that we can even guesstimate on? The economic impact of movie piracy equated to $1.37 billion in lost revenue to the Australian economy and 6,100 jobs forgone over the 12 months to July 2010, according to a new report from the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT). The report, carried out by IPSOS and Oxford Economics and surveying 3500 adults, also found tax losses to movie piracy amounted to $193 million, while direct consumer spending losses to the movie industry, local distributors, producers and retailers amounted to $575 million. As much as one third of the Australian adult population had downloaded, streamed, burned or otherwise not paid for movie content during the period. Some 92 million pirated movies were also estimated to have been viewed or obtained within the period. According to AFACT executive director, Neil Gane, the findings showed that movie piracy had a destructive impact throughout the economy. â€Å"The film community is no different than any other sector of the economy that relies on skill, investment and hard work,† Gane said in a statement. â€Å"The losses are significant and the report highlights the need for urgency in addressing this problem.† AFACT members include Village Roadshow Limited, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Australia, Paramount Pictures Australia, Sony Pictures Releasing International Corporation and Twentieth Century Fox International. In September the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said it had embarked on a major crackdown of counterfeit goods, including pirated software, computers and CDs and DVDs, in a move hailed by as a victory by software companies such as Microsoft and representatives of the music and film and TV industries. The arrests were the result of investigations which had stemmed from information provided by industry stakeholders such as Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), the Australian Federation against Copyright Theft (AFACT), the Trade Mark Investigations Service and the Union of European Football Associations (6). To me these numbers are amazingly alarming and are clearly a huge issue. Though they are not numbers from the United States of America they make it very evident that this is a world wide epidemic. The way that our economy is these days we cant afford to be losing out on any amount of money, let alone billions.

Consumer Behavior And The Digital World - 1302 Words

Consumer Behaviour in a Digital World Introduction Consumer behaviour reflects the acquisition, consumption, and disposition of goods, services, time ideas made by decision making units (textbook). It involves many people and many decisions. The digital world significantly impacts consumer behaviours in each stage. It serves customers with more offers and provides them new consumption patterns, which are more fabulous and convenient. To marketers, these changes can be good opportunities but also serious challenges and the same time. Based on these facts, this assignment will introduce the changes and new features of consumer behaviors in the digital world compared with the traditional world; and how marketers should response to these changes in a positive way in order to adapt the digital world better. The changes of consumer behavior in the digital world A. 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