Faith Between Us

Archive for June, 2010

From the mid seventies we can note that scholars makes the distinction between small and large businesses in terms of needs, level of sophistication and range of strategic planning. Bracker and Pearson (1986), Rue and Ibrahim (1998), Perry (2001) and Wijewardena, Zoysa, Fonseka and Perera (2004) all formulate definitions of strategic planning which take the uniqueness of small businesses into account and allow for the fact that small businesses cannot draw on management and material resources in a manner similar to that of large organizations.

Empiric studies’ findings indicate at a correlation between strategic planning and performance. Nevertheless, the findings are mixed. A survey of twenty-six experimental studies enabled Miller and Cardinal (1994) to identify a significant positive connection between strategic planning and small business performance. Robinson (1982) found a significantly high level of profitability as well as an increase in sales and returns on sales and the number of full time employees in a group of small businesses that employed external consultants for the purpose of strategic planning. Compared with other businesses, Bracker and Pearson (1986) discovered a significant increase in income and remuneration per entrepreneur in businesses that prepared strategic plans (the highest of four designated levels of strategic planning). No significant increase was detected in the measure salary expenditure divided on the sum total of sales. A significant differentiation in the rate of sales increase was found by Rue and Ibrahim (1998) in small businesses that incorporated written planning (basic or sophisticated), as opposed to other businesses. Perry (2001) detected a significant differentiation in the degree to which planning was conducted in small businesses that did not applied for bankruptcy as opposed to those that did. Wijewardena et al. (2004) define three levels of planning: no written planning; basic planning; and detailed planning. The findings indicate that the level of planning stands in direct proportion to the level of increase in sales. Yusuf and Saffu (2005) classify three levels of planning: low; moderate; and high. A connection was found between increase in sales and the low level of planning. No correlation was found between strategic planning and increases in market share or in profitability.

In the good old days, personal finance for most people meant simply balancing their checkbook once a week and making sure they had enough money in the bank to cover the monthly bills.  Of course that was long before the days of multiple credit cards, electronic fund transfers, PayPal, and the dozens of other complicated financial transactions made by even the average person on a daily basis.  These days, keeping track of person finances can be quite a chore and can often overwhelm you, leading to a less than perfect financial situation.

Modern life has created additional headaches in our daily lives, but fortunately it has also provided new tools to use to control them.  Personal finance software is the best option for keeping one’s personal finances organized and up to date.

Personal finance software comes in many varieties, each offering a specific set of financial tools.  The simplest forms simply keep track of multiple bank accounts, including credit card accounts.  The most complete versions offer tax tracking, investment tracking, budget analysis, electronic banking and a long list of other features.  How much you need depends on your situation and how closely you want to track your finances.

Most banks now offer free electronic banking to their customers.  Make sure that whichever program you choose, it is capable of taking advantage of electronic banking.  The vast majority of programs offer this feature as standard so you shouldn’t have to look hard.  With electronic banking, you can easily check your balance, automatically download statements, transfer funds among accounts and have all your information seamlessly transferred into your electronic account register.  Read more...

Robert Perry looks at key areas of current Financial Services Recruitment practice.

Since I first started working in Financial Services Recruitment back in 1998 the landscape of the market has changed in many ways. Back then the ‘Man from the Pru’ (or the man from Britannic, Friends Prov, Sun Life, etc) was at the forefront of advice for many individuals, Diplomas were the preserve of students and a Blackberry was a tasty pie filling.

Despite the numerous challenges we have faced along the way, for most of us the industry now holds a more professional image and advice is often more comprehensive and tailored to individual needs. So what has changed? Clearly an industry wide focus on raising standards has a huge significance but wouldn’t a good Financial Adviser in 1998 have achieved Diploma if required to do so?

A key factor in this progression has been the advances made Financial Services Recruitment practice. As a service industry, the knowledge, experience and skills of our staff are undoubtedly at the forefront of a high quality client offering. Therefore identifying the best possible staff to meet our business needs is essential. Indeed, with many of us feeling the pinch of difficult economic conditions, not only do we need to identify the best possible staff but we also need to get it right first time.  Read more...

If you’re a homeowner facing the threat of bankruptcy in the near or even distant future, the single most important thing you can do to protect your assets is to stop foreclosure. The loss of a job, cuts in hours or overtime, retirement, the death or illness of a family member, and several other factors can threaten your assets as a homeowner, but taking careful and deliberate steps in dealing with your creditor can potentially stop the home foreclosure process and get out of debt altogether.

As simple as it sounds, many people facing imminent or even distant foreclosure proceeding fail to do the simplest thing possible to avoid the process; contacting your mortgage lender as soon as financial problems arise which would prevent you from paying all or a portion of your mortgage on time. Surprisingly, this happens more often than not. Most of us would feel embarrassed faced with such circumstance and don’t even thing to let the bank know about whatever situation may have befallen us for fear that they will attempt to expedite the collection process and take as much as possible as quickly as possible; leaving us impossibly in debt and facing no other option than to declare bankruptcy. In fact, this assumption could not be further from the truth, and is the first mistake most make faced with this situation. Far from wanting to harm their customers, creditors and banks very much want to assist their customers in regaining financial control over their life. It is, after all, in their best interest to be receiving payments from you in some regular variety, not possible should you decide to declare bankruptcy. If worse comes to work, the bank has the right to foreclose on your property, but this too is a last resort for the banks if for no other reason than the unwanted obligation it ties them to. When the bank forecloses on your home it must then either sell it to a private buyer or auction it off. Both processes are expensive and time consuming.  Read more...

As the days go by, more and more people are getting hooked to the internet. So, if a business wishes to make a big name for itself, investing in a website, that too an SEO friendly one, is an expenditure worth its weight in gold. Small business SEO is available from several quarters in Kansas City. The advantage of this service is that it helps businesses that are perhaps only in their infant stages to join the competition with bigger competitors in gaining more visibility, more sales and more ROIs.

SEO, whether for small businesses or big ones, requires three chief elements to be successful: research, link building, and on-page optimization. Research needs to be done to identify the most competitive keywords, to know what the competitors are up to, and also to know what the target audience wants. To know what the target audience wants, you should know who your target audience is. In fact, an important step of successful small business SEO in Kansas City involves identifying the target market. This means considering factors including

• Age

• Interests

• Gender

• Occupation

The more the number of high-ranking inbound links, the greater would be the success of the website. On-page optimization is the use of apt keywords in the header tags, meta tags and page content. Indeed if a website is to get a good ranking on the major search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo, the content should include the right amount of keywords – not too much, not too less.  Read more...