Author: blogger

Warren Buffett’s Business Planning Methods

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Strategic planning and management is one of the keys to the success of the business. And this is what brought Warren Buffett to where he is now. He is the world’s second richest man according to the Forbes Magazine. His net worth is approximately $62 billion. Buffett is often called the Oracle of Ohama or Sage of Omaha. Right now, he is the largest shareholder, chairman and CEO of the company Berkshire Hathaway.

From a capital of $35 when he was still a teen, he grew largely by billions. He has shown a potential during his early years .In 1945, when he was still a freshman, he and a friend purchased a second-hand pinball machine that they placed in a barber shop. After some few months, they already owned three machines in different locations, His interest and dedication for business was already noticeable at a very young age which continued until today.

Now, he is one of the world’s greatest investor. Almost all businessman focusing on buying and selling industry have heard of Warren Buffett. Experts have now come up with the Warren Buffett Business Factors, a compilation of business principles that was used by the Sage of Omaha. He was the only man in Forbes rich list to have made it purely from buying and selling stocks and shares. In Buffett’s own words, he quoted:

Im 15 percent Fisher and 85 percent Benjamin Graham. The basic ideas of investing are to look at stocks as business, use the market’s fluctuations to your advantage, and seek a margin of safety. Thats what Ben Graham taught us. A hundred years from now they will still be the cornerstones of investing.

This is a brief view of Warren Buffett’s Business Factors that is applicable for all business owners.

1. Always stick to what you know, and that which is within your area of experience, expand on that experience, and stay focused.

2. Only enter into a business agreement, investment, or project where you can reasonably predict the outcome with certainty.

3. Only enter into a business agreement, investment, or project where you can reasonably predict the outcome with certainty.

4. Maintain emotional detachment in your business dealings. Invest only with a business perspective, do not let the others or the crowd persuade or dissuade you, but rather develop your self and your trust in your self. Make a point of learning from your mistakes.

5. Identify what kind of business deal you want, then determine what you are willing to pay. Small fluctuations in the price of what you need to buy can vastly affect your returns in the long run.

6. Work out the return on capital of your business, and try to make every business deal at least the same if not better than that return.

7. Use other peoples money to leverage returns. If your return on capital is greater than the cost of using other peoples money, then make sure you use their money as much as possible, not forgetting about your margin of safety. Warren has had great success with insurance companies, using this principle.

8. Only appoint or work with managers of outstanding quality. Use managers who act in the best of interest of the business and hence the owners of the business at all times.

Century Business Methods Used Today Are The Problem, Not The Solution

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Throughout the 20th century, various business methods for operating and developing the company have been contrived and refined, becoming the conventional business methods that we use today. We improve management and effect business change by laying new contrived business methods and structures over the methods in place. Even with all the improvements, we continue to have fundamental problems with re-organizations, intangible assets, accounting limitations, cost control, information management, alignment, etc. Even with all the business organization and management methods, we still have not found the one right method to organize and manage the company business.
Until now. Result-performance Management, newly launched in 2008, provides the one right method to organize and manage the business in the 21st century company, and leave problems with 20th century business methods behind.

Conventional business methods are the generally-accepted wrong ways

Over the past decade, we implemented breakthroughs like business process re-engineering, business transformation methods, business performance management, and enterprise resource planning. But, these turned out to be just new names for conventional business methods to do the same old things.

Why are there so many different business methods to do the same thing? Why isn’t there just one right business method? It is simply because all of these different business methods are wrong methods, and we do not know the one right business method. Since all the different business methods we use are wrong, we can only define the right method by identifying the wrong methods that are generally-accepted. The basis for our management and accounting methods is not that they are the fundamentally-sound and understood right business methods, but that they are the generally-accepted wrong business methods. When we come up with the one right business method, it will be known and accepted, and all of the wrong business methods will be obsolete.

Conventional thinking prevents the new breakthrough needed

Since the beginning of business, no one has ever stopped to think, “Are the business methods that have always been used the best business methods”. We accept existing business methods as the basis and try to improve the methods.

New business methods contrive ways to alleviate the symptoms of fundamental problems inherent in the way things have always been done. This we can do ad infinitum without ever solving the problems. How many methods do we have and how many books have been written about corporate governance, business organization, change management, investment management, capital development, performance management, cost and value accounting and management, solution alignment, intangible assets, business collaboration, etc. Why do we keep coming up with new business methods, if previous business methods were supposed to have solved the problem?

Management improvement books are written using the existing body of knowledge or published record as the valid basis. Many of the books cut, reorganize, and paste what has already been written. Other books describe innovative ways enterprises are coping with contrived business methods. These approaches prevent new breakthroughs and can, at best, produce some incremental improvement.

Conventional 20th century business methods do not organize and manage the business

The problem is that conventional business organization and management methods do not organize and manage the business. Instead we contrived business methods to organize and manage people, departments, functions, activities, duties, positions, tasks, and numerous other entities. Each business method defines these entities in its own way. Each method is laid over the business obscuring the actual business and compounding the problems of business change. The many different business methods describe the company with different entities and definitions creating information complexity and proliferation of information systems.

The organization structure is laid over the business. The business changes, while the organization structure remains rigid, building pressure for reorganization and upheaval. Other business methods and structures are laid over the organization structure. The actual business lies hidden under a proliferation of methods.

We need one right way to organize and manage the business

We need to step back and take a completely new look at the basics of our company business and build the one right method to organize and manage the business. Conventional business organization and management methods manage contrived entities, but fail to specifically define the business and manage specific business entities.

The business definition is investments in capital as solutions of worth utilized for costs and effectiveness of performance to produce value and quality in results. Conventional business management methods do not identify and manage the three entities that define the business and must be managed:

1. Results: Specific economic outputs of value and quality produced at any level from business performance
2. Capital: Specific invested capital available as solutions to be utilized in business performance
3. Performance: Utilization of a specific solutions of worth to incur costs to produce specific results

These three entities are used in Result-performance Management (R-pM) to organize the company. Any other entities used must be defined in terms of results produced, capital investments as solutions, and performance in solutions utilized to produce results.
The business organization changes naturally as results are added, changed, or deactivated. The business organization changes with each new capital investment to implement solutions or to discontinue old solutions. Human capital personnel and capabilities are deployed as solutions where they have the capability to manage and produce results. Other capital is deployed as well as specific solutions to be utilized in performance to produce a result. The business organization changes with each redeployment of a solution to be utilized in performance to produce a result.

R-pM is the new breakthrough needed to organize the business

R-pM is a new breakthrough that defines the results that enterprise management wants to produce and adds and deletes results as needed. R-pM defines the capital utilized as solutions in performance, to show how costs are incurred. R-pM deploys solutions to be utilized in performance to the results to be produced to show total performance costs against the result value created.
Once the organization is simplified, R-pM manages the enterprise in three dimensions for ongoing advantage

1. Result: Manage economic output to reach revenue goals
2. Performance: Manage invested capital in performance to reach profit-margin goals
3. Management: Manage operation and development goals by time period for return and strategic value

R-pM develops new capital solutions over time to create value in new results. R-pM governs the company business performance over time to create strategic value.

R-pM is one simple integrated business method for 21st century management

R-pM removes conventional business complexity and provides one simple integrated business method that eliminates re-organizations, intangible assets, misalignments, ad-hoc development, change management, and unknown costs. R-pM enables strategic value creation, result value-quality chains, transparent governance, innovation technology management, beneficial development, cost and value accounting, result-performance optimization, business collaboration, consulting professionalism, solution-sharing, and many other advantages prevented by 20th century business methods.
When we employ R-pM, we have the one fundamental right business method to organize and manage any enterprise for 21st century management, and leave all the obsolete wrong business methods and unsolvable 20th century problems behind.

Use Noncompete Agreements To Help Protect Your Business From

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Q: One of my former employees has started a competing business and is calling my clients and trying to steal their business from me. Do I have any legal recourse against him?
— Brad J.

A: I hate to break this to you, Brad, but unless this former employee signed a noncompete agreement while on your payroll, there is probably very little you can do to stop him from wooing your customers. You should discuss the situation with your attorney, but unless this person is also breaking the law in some other way (using stolen trade secrets, for example) your attorney will probably concur with me.

Renegade former employees riding the free enterprise wave is one reason noncompete agreements are gaining in popularity among employers who hope to use them to help protect their business from competitive threats launched by former employees. Many employers are now demanding that key employees sign noncompetes as a stipulation of employment. While signing noncompetes usually doesn’t sit well with employees who view them as potential roadblocks to their upwardly mobile career path, many businesses will not hire a key employee without his or her signature on the dotted line.

A noncompete agreement is a formal contract between you and your employees in which they promise not to use information or contacts pertinent to your business in a competing situation. In other words, they agree not to take everything they learn working for you and put it to use for someone else. This could mean going to work for a competitor or starting a competing business of their own.

While not popular with employees, noncompete agreements are a good way for employers to keep key employees on the payroll and protect the company’s proprietary information. That said, do not go overboard with noncompetes: not every employee should be required to sign one. If an employee does not have access to sensitive information, customer or accounting data, or is integral to the overall success of your business, there is no need to have them sign a noncompete. The janitor, for example, poses very little threat to your business if he gets a job with a competitor. Your sales manager, on the other hand, can devastate your business by hooking his wagon to a competing horse.

Which employees should sign noncompete agreements? While the prerequisites vary from business to business, the following is a good general list. The term “employees” represents executive level, management, supervisory, and non-management personnel relative to that example:

– Employees involved in research or product development. – Employees involved in the design, fabrication, engineering, and manufacturing process. – Employees who service products made and sold by your company. – Sales and service employees who have regular contact with customers or sensitive customer information. – Employees with access to sensitive business information or trade secrets. – Most importantly, employees who have sufficient information about your business that would allow them to start a competing business.

Most business experts agree that noncompete agreements are generally a good way to protect your business. The downside is that noncompete agreements are often difficult to enforce and in some states, may not be enforceable at all. Many state courts have ruled that noncompete agreements are too restrictive on an employee’s right to earn a living.

In California, for instance, noncompetes are generally only enforceable in connection with the sale of a business and not for employees. In Alabama, noncompetes are generally enforceable in only two contexts: the sale of a business and in connection with employment – but even then the enforcement requires that there be a valid interest worthy of protection.

Some states require that the noncompete be signed at the beginning of the employment relationship and will only consider the enforcement of a noncompete signed after the initial employment date if the signing of the noncompete was accompanied by a promotion, raise in pay, or other event that elevated the employee to a more important role within the company.

To be enforceable, noncompete agreements must be reasonable on three accounts: Time, geography and scope. Regarding time, you can’t restrict someone from competing with you forever, so one to three years is the accepted time period for most noncompetes.

As to geography, you can enforce restriction in the general area where you conduct business, but you can not enforce the restriction beyond those boundaries. And for scope, the agreement can restrict certain actions on the part of the employee, but can’t be so generally restrictive that the employee won’t be able to earn a living working in the same industry in a noncompetitive position.

One interesting thing to note: noncompete agreements are not enforceable against certain “professionals,” like doctors, CPAs, and lawyers (who do you think writes all those noncompetes).

At this point, Brad, the best thing you can do is contact your attorney to see if you have other grounds for suit, then contact your customers and let them know what’s going on.

Explain the situation regarding the former employee, but do so calmly and resist the urge to tell them what you really think of this guy. Showing your anger to the customer is not going to help you keep their business .

Reaffirm your relationship with the client, tell him how much you value his business, remind him of your track record and level of service, then ask one simple question: What can I do to make sure your business stays with me?

Here’s to your success!

Exports Business In India A Vital Statistics

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The Indian export business has been growing steadily for the past several decades. Indian exporters have succeeded in taking the export business to an international level.

Factors Contributing To the Growth of Export Sector

Several factors have contributed to the growth of export business in India. The growth of Small and Medium enterprises is one of the most important factors that have led to an increase in the export of the country. Most of the indian exporters include the SME sectors which have grown tremendously during the past several years.

Some of the most important and profitable sectors in the export business include textiles, chemicals, telecommunication hardware, food grains, iron and steel, consumer durables and electronics. India is second largest exporter in the world next to China.

Another important factor that has led to the acceleration of exports is the online business to business web portals. The use of business directory by the Small and Medium enterprises has led to a global exposure of products and services.

Today Indian exporters can easily find markets for their products through online portals. The small enterprises found it difficult to reach the target audience but with the use of the b2b directories, these industries are able to showcase different products and services in the global markets, make better and faster transactions and have an in depth knowledge about market situations.

Indian exporters have a healthy competition with neighbouring countries which has further led to the growth of export sector in the country. The government has created new opportunities by introducing several policies to augment the export sector. By the year 1990, government introduced liberal policies to boost the export business in India. The introduction of various trade policies have led to a substantial flow of foreign currency.

Some of the Important Export Products

The Indian exporters maintain cordial trade relations with neighbouring countries. Majority of the commodities produced in the country are exported to foreign countries. Some of the most important and notable commodities include:

* Iron and steel: India is the leading exporter of iron and steel to different countries all over the world.

* Leather products: leather products like shoes, bags and belts are exported to different countries on large basis. It is one of the most profitable sectors of the Indian economy.

* Textiles: another sector that contributes to the GDP of the country is the textile industry.

* Chemicals and pharmaceuticals: India is the leading exporter of various chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The export of petroleum has also increased during the past several years.

* Readymade garments: Indian exporters are well known for their readymade products in the international markets. Indian dresses and fabrics have immense appreciation all over the world.

* Jewellery: Indian jewellery has craved a niche in the global markets with its unique blend of traditional and contemporary styles.

* Dairy products: a leading exporter of milk products and eggs, the current census show a considerable increase in the export of dairy products.

The growth of SMEs and the use of business directory have led to a notable growth of the export sector of the country in many ways. Today the country is a leading exporter of many commodities in the international market.

Flush With Cash Open A Profitable Business Philippines Venture Today

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For a lot of foreigners, retirement does not mean not doing anything. You can find individuals that open a profitable business Philippines venture in order to keep busy and make money as well. Most of them come into the region flush with cash from having retired and so are aiming to build a new start in a country where the living costs is a lot more affordable. That is why you will notice plenty of small startups all over the country that are owned by foreigners. If it is your first time to work within the Philippines and want to prevent the stress of dealing with day-to-day operations, landlords, employees, inventory, as well as other such matters, allow me to share several opportunities that might be definitely worth your while.

One great place get started on if you want to open a company Philippines venture is to buy fixer-upper properties, renovate them and then sell them off. You’ll find numerous properties that are in a condition of disrepair and in case you’ve got experience in building homes and doing repair work, you will see that this is one opportunity where you could generate a nice profit. It might be advisable though, to get your own licensed Philippine broker in order to navigate the market as to what properties are worth renovating and selling.

The next thing listed where you can do good business within the Philippines is to build an apartelle. This is something that is uniquely Filipino and can be found all all over the country. An apartelle happens to be an apartment building where all but one of the units is rented out long term. Operating one of these can be done on a nightly or weekly basis, similar to a normal hotel, hence the combined name. Getting yourself into this will require heavy capital investment on your behalf, but with the right property together with a focus on rural areas and smaller cities, you can construct a small 4 unit building for about 3 million Philippine pesos, excluding the price of the land.

The third item that is also worth mentioning is farming. Considering the halt on the Agrarian Land Reform program (CARP), the private sector could have renewed confidence to invest in agricultural production once again. For the longest time, CARP has held back purchase of both production capacity along with farm acquisition. Now that it’s ended, land prices will go straight back to being valued for their own higher income producing potential.

For individuals who want to open a profitable business Philippines venture that is passive yet will yield a fantastic ROI, right here is the one. Farming has long been structured via the developers (all foreigners) to be an actual one turnkey investment price, which includes the buying price of the land, in addition to the clearing, planting, cultivating, and harvesting for the first few years. It has a price that’s intended to fit the capital investment budget associated with an average foreign retiree, and all landowners are going to be members of the co-op that can share in the usage of farming equipment. Farming operations will likely be handled by the developer’s management team.

Business within the Philippines is one thing that you should consider, especially if you really are a foreigner with a nice retirement fund. There are lots of opportunities around, however these three are some of the ones which could help you to get started.