Outsourcing Your Packaging Is A Strategic Option

In a recent article in “Investors Business Daily”, it was revealed that outsourcing has become more than just an easy way to cut costs. It has become a strategic tool that gives businesses flexibility and access to skilled personnel.

Since the advent of the Internet, and the rush to get online, companies have turned to outside professionals for services and solutions. Hiring a full-time IT technician is costly and not an efficient use of resources. Outsourcing allows compa…

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outsourcing,packaging,packaging services,contract packaging

In a recent article in “Investors Business Daily”, it was revealed that outsourcing has become more than just an easy way to cut costs. It has become a strategic tool that gives businesses flexibility and access to skilled personnel.

Since the advent of the Internet, and the rush to get online, companies have turned to outside professionals for services and solutions. Hiring a full-time IT technician is costly and not an efficient use of resources. Outsourcing allows companies to focus on their core businesses while gaining access to skilled labor when they need it.

* Outsourcing is a way to boost revenue
* Outsourcing is a way to cut costs
* Outsourcing eases labor shortages
* Outsourcing cuts payroll costs
* Outsourcing allows companies to focus on core competencies
* Outsourcing reduces or eliminates some capital expenditures

Outsourcing also allows businesses to change their corporate culture. If companies have renegade groups that are costly, ineffective, or difficult to manage, that group can be outsourced. This enables employers to change their workplace environment on-the-fly.

Still, most companies outsource projects in order to reduce costs and to gain outside expertise. A survey by “The Conference Board” indicated the following “Top-10″ outsourcing objectives (numbers are approximate):

* Reduce Costs (40%)
* Access to Expertise (38%)
* Improve Internal Service (37%)
* Focus on Core Business (34%)
* Maximize Resources (27%)
* Internal Flexibility (25%)
* Improve External Service (24%)
* Changing Customer Needs (20%)
* World Class Standards (15%)
* Continuous Improvement (15%)

When deciding to outsource your packaging, the real litmus test is whether outsourcing adds value. Does it really reduce costs? Is the investment in in-house training and machinery too great? Does outsourcing a service give you access to people with greater skill sets or companies with more resources available to them?

Bottom line: outsourcing your packaging service needs is about more than just saving money. It is a strategic option for savvy businesses and entrepreneurs.

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Merchant Account Set Up

Owners of small businesses who hope to increase their profits may have questions about a merchant account set up. Although perhaps interested in applying for this special type of account through a banker or preferred lender, they may be unsure of the costs and other requirements for getting equipped to process credit card payments. Since it is always wise to find out about required expenses before asking for a new account, business owners should carefully review the terms and…

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Merchant Account Set Up

Owners of small businesses who hope to increase their profits may have questions about a merchant account set up. Although perhaps interested in applying for this special type of account through a banker or preferred lender, they may be unsure of the costs and other requirements for getting equipped to process credit card payments. Since it is always wise to find out about required expenses before asking for a new account, business owners should carefully review the terms and fees associated with a merchant services account, along with any other information that will help them understand how to set up a merchant account.

One of the first things you will need to know is how to apply for a merchant account set up. This part is easy enough. You just have to do an Internet search to find a list of the available lenders who are eager to offer your company this valuable service. Those that seem to be a little iffy you will want to avoid, naturally. These are the companies with whose names you are unfamiliar or who have not been in business very long. It is probably a good idea to look for companies with a solid reputation or history. In fact, you may want to ask trusted business colleagues for a recommendation. Another option is to check with the bank where your company has its accounts at present. Perhaps that lender offers a good rate on a merchant account.

After being approved for a merchant account set up, the next step is to decide what type of services you would like your business to implement. Do you want to set up a simple credit card processor for checkout transactions in addition to check and debit processing? This could speed checkout time as well as please customers who prefer to use a credit card instead of cash or check for your products or services. Another way to use your merchant account is to purchase or lease a wireless credit card processor for point-of-sale payments, which will help you avoid the added step of mailing invoices and then awaiting payment.

Your merchant account set up will be based on certain fees, possibly including but not limited to an application fee, set up fee, gateway expense, or annual membership cost. Don’t forget that there will be a per-transaction fee or monthly percentage rate that you will need to pay for merchant account services. If you decide to put up a company Website, the merchant account could cover basic set up fees and maintenance service, though you will need to work this out with your account provider. Make sure you understand all of the terms and conditions of your merchant account before you sign an agreement.

Your company can enter the world of electronic commerce, or “e-commerce,” almost immediately and bring your customers into the 21st century of bill-paying when you qualify for a merchant services account. Start browsing offers by established lenders today to find the best deal for your merchant account set up.

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Reward And Recognition; The Glare Of Publicity

The company newsletter hit Ruth Kenyon’s desk and there was her picture on the front page under the heading “Employee of the Month”. A simple paragraph of text explained that she had single-handedly reduced the debtor days from 39 to 32 in a period of 6 weeks. If others didn’t understand the significance of her work, it didn’t matter, she just felt a huge wave of pride sweep over her.

Even the smallest company has a reception area. This is a great place to publicize how go…

Keywords:
employee, recognition, employee recognition, motivation, employee motivation, rewards, staff rewards

The company newsletter hit Ruth Kenyon’s desk and there was her picture on the front page under the heading “Employee of the Month”. A simple paragraph of text explained that she had single-handedly reduced the debtor days from 39 to 32 in a period of 6 weeks. If others didn’t understand the significance of her work, it didn’t matter, she just felt a huge wave of pride sweep over her.

Even the smallest company has a reception area. This is a great place to publicize how good your people really are. Fast food restaurants are some of the best at this form of recognition; however every company should be telling its customers and suppliers how good its people are. An A4 size sheet can provide a photograph and a little background about the reasons for choosing this individual for recognition. Keep the display fresh, don’t leave the same information on display for more than a week otherwise regular visitors will think you only have one good employee.

If you have an in-company newsletter this is an ideal place to publicize the success of individuals and teams. Have a professional article written about the work that was done and include a photograph. Also make sure the CEO includes a quote about his or her interest in the work.

Every year companies produce their annual report for shareholders. Typically they will include photographs of the executives and name each one. They also feature a range of photographs of their operations showing dynamic employees doing their jobs. It gives people such a buzz if their name is included in the caption saying something like “Frank Rodgers and Mary Knight producing Zenfda components on the state-of-the-art FRANMAR digital router” rather than the usual, anonymous “FRANMAR digital router: Investment in Technology” caption.

Company websites can be very informative about products and services but rarely do they take the opportunity to talk about the people in the organization. There is sometimes reluctance to publish anyone’s name on a website for fear that they may be targeted by spam mail or more sinister approaches, however this can easily be worked around by using initials or only first names. There is no good reason not to use this medium too.

If at all possible avoid publishing only a list of names as this leaves fertile imaginations to conjure up conspiracy theories about why they are not included.

There is no good reason in these days of digital cameras and camera-phones to avoid producing a photograph of the person being recognized for their contribution to the business. Purists might say that the photographs should be of studio quality but in the interests of rapid turn-around the quality of the images will be forgiven in favor of instant feedback.

Later in the day Ruth Kenyon passed by the coffee machine and was instantly recognized. She met the barrage of questions about debtor-days with aplomb and educated her colleagues. The perils of celebrity are that you must eventually face your fans.

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Managing Your Time – How To Prioritize Your Tasks

The ability to choose and complete tasks in the order of importance highly desirable and more challenging for some business types than others.

Keywords:
Management training, Business management, Business,leadership, management, leadership training.

Prioritizing Tasks:
The ability to choose and complete tasks in the order of importance highly desirable and more challenging for some business types than others.

In order to choose tasks you must be aware of as many chores and projects as possible. In order to do this, every planning session must have a list.

You Must Have a List!

List all your tasks, then rate them, and list them again in order. Then you can schedule them.
When all tasks and projects are rated, use these additional filters to prioritize:

• Imagine the consequences of eliminating the task. – This exercise will often remove some unneeded tasks altogether.
• Decide if each task should be performed in prime time or secondary time.
• Determine who will be affected by the task.

Now Reduce Your List
Until we can effectively clone ourselves to be in more than one place at a time, most of us need to reduce our workload.
Before you start prioritizing, consider these task elimination criteria:

Does This Task or Project Make Sense?
Every task you do should first have to pass this benchmark.
You have goals, priorities, and objectives. Does every task contribute to your big picture? Estimate how much time each task will take, and then imagine what you would do with the time if the task were cancelled. While not always possible, everything you do should contribute to your objectives.

Why is the Task Urgent?
While urgency should be a mindset of business, urgency should also be questioned – ruthlessly.

Is the urgency only appeasing someone else?
What has caused the urgency? Many urgent situations have been caused by mistakes. Determining the cause of urgency can eliminate or postpone a task and lead to prevention measures of interruptions and mistakes.

Some seemingly imperative tasks are not urgent at all. Customers might be making demands that are unnecessary.
Check with all parties involved.

The Delegation Qualifier
Are you the only person that can handle the task?
Sometimes you might be, but many times someone else can perform for you. Delegate everything possible to free up your schedule.

How Else Could the Task Be Done?
Are You Utilizing Technology

Could an in person appointment be a phone call?
Conference calling can rule out travel and save an enormous amount of time.

Could you email instead of calling?
Email can be done on your terms when you want. You will have time to articulate better compared to the live telephone conversation. Time can be wasted and sales lost by leaving phone messages for people. Email eliminates phone tag.

Can the Task Be Dissected?
Are there portions of the work that can be delegated, eliminated, or postponed?

What is the Cost of Excluding a Task?
There are many jobs throughout the day that are actually not worth the time to do. Applying the dollar figure when considering cancelling a task is another measure of the task value.

The Measures of Task Value

Money – How much is the task worth?
Time – How much time will it take?
Effect – Completed versus Cancelled
Effectiveness – What is the most effective way to perform the task?
Contribution to Your Objectives
Replacement – (What could be done with the time instead?)
Division- Dividing the Task into Parts
When – Can the task be performed just as well in secondary time?

One great trick for prioritizing is to give every task a deadline.

Give tasks a deadline.

While many SME owners define a start time for projects and tasks when planning, they do not establish a deadline. Having a clear deadline makes tasks easier to prioritize.

Prioritizing while planning is easy. You have time to think. Prioritizing while working is a bit more challenging.

Prioritizing Interruptions

While most people are familiar with prioritizing tasks, few people prioritize their interruptions.
Hence, few people have defined the types of events that interrupt them.

Define Interruption Types

In order to take control of your time, you must minimize interruptions. Many SME owners describe their positions as managers, and define management as ‘putting out fires,’ or solving problems. While having a job definition for yourself is a great start, most owners have not defined or classified these problems. They just catch every ball tossed at them. The tail is often wagging the dog.

Think about how you are interrupted from your OUT or productive work. Make a list of every kind of interruption you have experienced in the last three months.

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Know When To Get Help – Performance Management Consulting

Most people dread performance appraisals because it is tiring and tedious, and people believe their jobs may be on the line. Of course, performance appraisals are really quite useful because management can fully make sense out of the things that have been happening in the company. Through a yearly performance appraisal of employees, companies can finally be able to find out about the reasons behind why the company is losing money here or there.

1. Perform Appraisals In A …

Keywords:
business performance management,performance management software,corporate performance management,corporate performance management,performance management solution

Most people dread performance appraisals because it is tiring and tedious, and people believe their jobs may be on the line. Of course, performance appraisals are really quite useful because management can fully make sense out of the things that have been happening in the company. Through a yearly performance appraisal of employees, companies can finally be able to find out about the reasons behind why the company is losing money here or there.

1. Perform Appraisals In A Serious And Scientific Manner

As the part of the management that ultimately runs the company, the superiors who are actually doing all that performance appraisals year after year, they should really take this task seriously so that that the company will be able to greatly benefit from the yearly performance appraisals of the employees. In case the people who are going to head these yearly employee performance appraisals are actually clueless on what they should really do, they actually have the option to get some performance management consulting so that they will able to know what people from the management like them should really do when its time to once again make those employee performance appraisals.

Employee performance appraisal may seem to be a scary and highly difficult task but through good performance management consulting, you are sure to be able to get the ideas as well as the strategies that other companies are doing with the aid of performance management consulting. When it comes to performance management consulting, experts in the field of business management will actually instruct company heads that before they actually go on to their employees’ performance appraisal meetings. Whether they will give out a presentation to other company heads or just be talking to the employees, performance management consulting will actually advice the management to actually make a draft of what they are going to report first before actually going out to the meeting and fumbling on the employee appraisal meeting.

2. Appraisals Should Focus On Positive, Not Negative Aspects

When it comes to performance management consulting, it is highly recommended that you plan everything out from the beginning so that the whole process of the yearly employee performance appraisal will go on smoothly and without any hitch. The performance management consulting activity should be able to help out the company’s management to actually be able to produce clear and concise ways for them to make their thoughts be fully understood throughout the performance appraisal report. Performance planning is definitely the key to a well-executed performance appraisal meeting according to the performance management consulting.

- Heed the advice of the performance management consulting group
- Decide on the important factors
- Tackle those factors

3. It Works!

According to the research from the performance management consulting, top companies today are using the performance management process to eliminate a best-effort directed culture in the company, instead the company should move on towards a results-driven culture instead, the next is to be able to establish as well as reinforce the extreme importance of the company’s core competencies and lastly, the company should also be able to target the poor performers in the company for termination.

Based on this research from the performance management consulting, the management should be able to target he poor performers in their company by actively weeding out the bottom 10 percent of the pack while completely nurturing the upper 20 percent of the company’s employees to be able to sustain their dedication and good work for the company. It is extremely important that the company is able to full acknowledge the presence of such beings in there company so as to be able to further motivate them into doing good for the companywhile the bottom feeders need not be kept in the company anymore since they are hired to do their best and not to actually become a liability to the company.

Cheap rechargeable calling cards

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Risk Management – An Inescapable Part Of Doing Business

Risk is an acknowledged and inescapable part of business – which means that risk management should be an integral part of a successful enterprise. By employing professionals or training members of your team, you reduce the possibility of misfortune, financial or personal.

It works by highlighting the possibility of failures in your business enterprise, and giving you the information to weigh up what level of risk is acceptable.

A failure can mean something that endanger…

Keywords:
risk, risk assessment, cossh, osha, risk management

Risk is an acknowledged and inescapable part of business – which means that risk management should be an integral part of a successful enterprise. By employing professionals or training members of your team, you reduce the possibility of misfortune, financial or personal.

It works by highlighting the possibility of failures in your business enterprise, and giving you the information to weigh up what level of risk is acceptable.

A failure can mean something that endangers employees, a venture that will not achieve the desired result, or anything not considered to be carried out in a financially viable and wholly professional manner.

Once risks are identified, it is the responsibility of your specialist team to provide options on the minimizing or avoidance of the problem. They may also help to prioritize areas for action and to develop a risk management plan.

In effect, reducing risk is about aiding good judgments: in the interest of your business, your customers and your employees.

There are different ways to go about ensuring that your enterprise has a satisfactory plan to achieve a safe workplace.

For very large organizations, it is suggested that a team of 1-3 people be employed on-site. In general, though, using the services of an outside consulting business works better for most companies.

These professionals will have high-level qualifications in appropriate disciplines, and be able to provide you with a comprehensive risk assessment.

For enterprises that involve low levels of risk or have a very small budget, there are other options that can give you a sufficient degree of protection, for instance part-time courses for employees in risk assessment that are provided from centers nationwide.

These give participants enough skills to be able to deal with the basic ideas, which may be helpful for any size organization.

Additionally, some consultants will provide non-profit enterprises with risk management courses, plans and software at a discounted rate – this can be invaluable if your not-for-profit business is struggling to afford the extra expense involved in meeting your statutory obligations.

The Internet can provide all managers with an overview of the risk management services available, as well as useful tools such as downloadable worksheets and software.

Risk management is the best way available to ensure the continuing success of your business and safety of your workplace. Evidence of attention to this inspires faith in investors, customers and shareholders alike, and the benefits of increased safety and productivity will far outweigh the initial cost involved.

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Prepping For Business Partnerships: A Bird’s Eye View

Successful business development executives increasingly are doing battle in the arena
of strategic alliances and marketing partnerships. Nowadays getting the jump on your
competition is not half as important as mapping out and deploying a targeted and
unique value proposition with particular appeal to potentially compatible allies.

Keywords:
partnership,partner,partnering,alliance,marketing partnership,strategic alliance,business development

Successful business development executives increasingly are doing battle in the arena of strategic alliances and marketing partnerships. Nowadays getting the jump on your competition is not half as important as mapping out and deploying a targeted and unique value proposition with particular appeal to potentially compatible allies.

Successful business development executives increasingly are doing battle in the arena of strategic alliances and marketing partnerships. Nowadays getting the jump on your competition is not half as important as mapping out and deploying a targeted and unique value proposition with particular appeal to potentially compatible allies.

Take the old aphorism: “The early bird catches the worm?” It just doesn’t apply anymore. Even in the wild, naturists have discovered that ‘early on the job’ does not necessarily equate with success.

Consider this analogy:

Worms are slow, but they are expert at hiding. To catch one, birds must do more than just show up early. In the highly competitive world of birds, all the birds are up early. So, in practice, what distinguishes the successful bird from the hungry one is observation and preparation. Smart birds have figured out that worms are most vulnerable when they are in the act of eating.

The clever ones take care to study when, where, and what worms eat. The successful bird takes that data into account when making preparation! For example, one rather successful bird has learned that a certain type of worm finds a particular kind of leaf to be especially appealing. The wise bird has been observed using its beak to place the targeted worm’s preferred leaves in the worm’s vicinity.

The analogy of the clever bird applies not only in nature, but suggests a powerful strategic option available to you in business.

Knowing your target partner’s needs and decision structure gives you the edge over all other early birds. Whether you’re a CEO or a field executive with front line responsibility, you know that your prospects are capable of sophisticated camouflage. They are expert at hiding behind gatekeepers, red tape, misdirection, and layers of bureaucracy. So be it! Getting in front of potential partners takes more than showing up early. Executives responsible for cultivating business relationships must be able to increase their penetration effectiveness. They do so by providing prospects with “food” – in this case, a compelling level of data, analysis and capabilities presented in an extraordinary manner. The results of such highly creative, custom prepared initiatives are dramatic.

Your commitment to a content-based partnership initiative is a win-win strategy:

* Partnership options, sales opportunities and receptivity improve dramatically when prospects are prepped via well-designed initiative tools front-loaded with offers of relevant information.

* Superbly orchestrated interface meetings, powerful creative presentations and mouth-watering proposals (worthy of the partnership’s revenue potential) help prospective partners cut back on resistance and institutional firewalls.

* Most partnership executives are more inclined to bite into knowledge that treats them like a stakeholder. This approach improves their ability to evaluate, decide and be open to profiting from a prospective alliance.

Empowering your target with information is significantly more likely to get the deal done at the end of the day.

Increasingly, the Web is proving to be an ideal content delivery venue for initiative purposes. Content configured, digitally distributed partner initiatives are growing, but when it comes to relationship building face-to-face meetings are still essential.

Increased partnering productivity has a significant bearing on:
- finding good opportunities
- executive dialogue
- positive brand perceptions
- reducing the cost of partnership development
- buy-in from gatekeepers and influencers
- negotiating agreements.

It is never too early to start developing and implementing a targeted and effective Strategic Partnership Plan & Program. Feel free to contact the clever birds at Partner | M for assistance in this matter.

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Private Companies Weigh Employee Stock Options

This is a great opportunity to show your employees the value they bring to your company. Just imagine if employees could actually see quantifiable gains and losses in the value of the company through their efforts.

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Private Companies Weigh Employee Stock Options

Q: I understand that Entrex has brought public market standards and disciplines to the private market. What does this mean for my employees and the possibility of stock ownership or options?

- Al Davenport, business owner, Pompano Beach, Fla.

A: This is a great opportunity to show your employees the value they bring to your company. Just imagine if employees could actually see quantifiable gains and losses in the value of the company through their efforts.

Public companies have the advantage of being able to option employees with shares that have quantifiable value. Now, by following the standards for public company disclosures and reporting, private companies and their shareholders can measure performance against established benchmarks.

As a company owner, you have the choice of providing limited distribution of company data or offering wide access to the community of alternative investors. In either case, by participating in the private company market, you provide employees the means of having a tangible quarterly valuation of their stock and ultimately, the possibility of liquidating their shares.

You didn’t mention whether you have an actual employee stock ownership plan program, or if you have limited distribution of stock to key employees. While ESOPs may provide liquidity for the founding shareholder, new owner/employees have generally fewer liquidity options, because they have limited exposure to the financial community.

The private equity market provides a vehicle for companies to gain exposure, allowing their stock to trade freely among alternative investors. By simply following industry-accepted valuation principles, owners, optioned employees and external investors can acquire shares, track share value and know their liquidity options.

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It’s okay to be happy at workplace

Learn how a happy attitude can be extremely beneficial to you at workplace.

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Yes, it’s ok to allow yourself the luxury of being enthusiastic, light hearted, inspired, relaxed and happy at workplace. If you don’t do this, you are self-denying your true potential.

It’s unfortunate that many people think that a happy demeanor at office would appear ‘Strong’ and ‘out of place’ to other people including coworker, clients and employee. Often they wrongly assumed that if someone is looking happy, he/she must be satisfied with the status quo and, therefore, lacks the necessary motivation to excel in his/her work or to go to the extra mile. And s/he simple can’t compete in a competitive environment.

This sort of thinking creates huge amount of stress at workplace. Many employers are of the view that they should not allow their employees to be very happy as they may lose their edge.

It’s absolute non-sense to believe that a relaxed, happy person is necessarily lacking in motivation. In reality, happy people are almost always the ones who love what they do. It has been observed again and again that people who love what they do are highly motivated by their own enthusiasm and continue improving themselves and their performance. They are not only good listeners but also quick learner. Further, almost all of them are highly creative, charismatic, easy to go around and very good team players.

On the contrary if we consider unhappy people, we find that they often held back by their own misery or stress, which often distract them from success. Rigid and stressed out people are a drag to be around and difficult to work with, always adding negative vibes in the environment. They lack motivation owing to their being consumed with their own problem, lack of time and stress. Unhappy people often feel victimized by others & their working conditions. It’s difficult for them to be solution oriented as they see everything as someone else’s fault. In addition, they are usually poor team players because they are often self-centered and pre-occupied with their own issues. They are defensive and almost always poor listeners. Despite having o many negative traits, if they are successful, it is despite their unhappiness not because of it. If an unhappy, stressed out but successful person can learn to become happier, he or she will become even more successful.

So my dear friend! Please rest assured. It’s okay to be happy, kind, patient and more relaxed at workplace. It will be to your great advantage – both personally and professionally. You won’t lose your edge.

Just be happy and be natural with a positive frame of mind at your workplace. Dong this, you will not be uncaring or unmotivated. Rather you’ll feel more inspired, creative and driven to make an even greater contribution than you do right now. This habit will give you the ability to see the solutions and opportunities where others see problems. Similarly, rather than being discouraged by setbacks or failures, you’ll bounce back quickly and resiliently.

I one read in a book that if we start thinking positively and act happily, positive force of the nature start attracting towards us. Dare to be happy and your life will begin to change immediately. Your life and your work will take a greater significance and it’ll feel like an extraordinary adventure. Others’ll love you. Number of your friends will soar and that of your rivals/enemies will drop.

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Multi-Channel Retail – Plan For Success

The maturation of multi-channel commerce

More and more retailers are realizing the benefits of multi-channel retailing. Leveraging brand equity in multiple touchpoints has been proven to drive loyalty and interaction among consumers. With trends clearly showing the Internet as the core component to pre-purchase research, brick and mortar brands can ill-afford to take a wait and see approach as it relates to core multi-channel offerings.

Three core enhancements must be e…

Keywords:
ecommerce, e-commerce, internet marketing, emarketing

The maturation of multi-channel commerce

More and more retailers are realizing the benefits of multi-channel retailing. Leveraging brand equity in multiple touchpoints has been proven to drive loyalty and interaction among consumers. With trends clearly showing the Internet as the core component to pre-purchase research, brick and mortar brands can ill-afford to take a wait and see approach as it relates to core multi-channel offerings.

Three core enhancements must be executed flawlessly to have true multi-channel integration:

• In-store associate kiosks

Leveraging the eCommerce store within an in-store environment solves fundamental out of stock situations, provides a new channel for up/cross selling, and maximizes profitability per square foot.

• In-store pickup

Incorporating buy online and pickup in-store functionality eliminates the barrier of shipping in the online sales equation. With shipping costs being the number one driver to why shoppers choose to not purchase online – this initiative help reduce key customer based purchase inhibitors while drive incremental sales in-store traffic. The solution also provides added convenience and satisfaction to the consumer, as they no longer have to wait to receive their merchandise.

• In-store returns

Returning products that were bought online, in-store, can bring many back-end technology bottlenecks to the radar screen. Forward thinking retailers must accurately map their order processing and inventory data to empower service associates with the data they need to reconcile and close the transaction efficiently at the POS.

Slow processing and a poor return experience will virtually erode a consumer relationship that was costly to start and maintain.

Getting your organization on board with change

Convincing company executives that these initiatives deliver ROI may be challenging, but that challenge pales in comparison to what is faced in your store network. The perspective change within the rank and file employees in your organization will prove to be your most daunting task as it relates to these initiatives.

Within all three of the solutions above, the web transaction integrates with the physical store. The store is the final piece of the puzzle in all three scenarios, making it the most crucial element to deliver a proper transaction. If your employees do not execute properly on this level, the result will be an un-utilized solution, or even worse, a customer perspective that your employees are incompetent.

The key is getting your employees aligned with multi-channel change. This happens by driving two key operational strategies in conjunction with a multi-channel technology solution.

• Training

Store managers must take the lead in understanding multi-channel solutions, while leading efforts to replicate this knowledge among customer-facing employees.

Prior to solution launch, be sure to communicate the internal and external value among the manager base, create a solution handbook for employee questions, and bring managers in to the home office for a Ѕ day workshop to become experts right before the solution goes live.

• Incentives

Employees must feel that the web-generated order still has some benefit to them. To drive accountability, some type of carrot must be given to ensure that employees have reason to treat the web-driven transaction seriously.

Because in-store employees receive bonuses for comp sales, create some type of awards program for efficiency as it relates to in-store multi-channel solutions. Or provide a piece of all web sales, distributed on a regional basis.

Understand the dynamics of your employees – how they work and what motivates them. By closing the gaps in training and incentives, multi-channel success becomes much closer to being reality.

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