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Business and Management Training Programs are not only helpful to beginners but to a qualified professional as well. To someone new they act like an induction program where there given an orientation on how to develop their business and managerial skills. To a professional they help in enhancing their existing skill.

For a basic level trainee a good Business and Management Training Program will be formulate by a consultant who will in detail with you the concepts and skills. This includes managerial concepts, how to make an effective plan, organize and control the team, how to motivate people to work, and tips on maintaining good professional employee relationships. They will help to you get training in your field, teach the art of communication and coordination. A good trainer will also tell you how to go about cost control and work simplification.

Beside this, they will train you in maintaining, and understanding accounting methods. Further, they will tell you the fundamentals on preparing financial statements, accounting journals, balance sheets, inventory, sales, purchases and payroll.

The trainer / consultant will help you to understand the principles of business finance and in depth will tell you on how to plan a marketing strategy, and go about product pricing, promotion, and distribution. In lucid manner, they will describe the principles of sales management. Sales management training will include recruitment, sales, training to people, prospecting for clients, planning and developing a sales strategy.
For those who have no computer background, for them they will impart computer knowledge and talk about its importance.

As said earlier the Business and Management Training Programs differ for a skilled to entry-level workers, supervisors, or managers. Therefore, depending on your needs, they will formulate the program.

By: Manoj Salwani

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business management

Anybody that has ever had a job (whether it was with a large firm or small start-up company) has had some interaction with business management.

Every business needs some way of planning, organizing, staffing, leading or control in order to accomplish a goal. Business management can be defined as human action as well as design to create useful outcome and production. Management can also mean one person or a group of people performing the act of management.

It is difficult to trace the history of management since it is a more modern conceptualization. Management-like history dated back to Sumerian traders and workers of the pyramid in ancient Egypt. With the use of bookkeeping, management planning and control was then in place. As complexity and sizes of organizations grew, so did the split between groups and responsibilities. Gradually independent managers grew more and more common.

Management can be seen as a philosophy, where one measures quantity, bases their plans on that, and then takes actions to reach a goal. Business management has separated into different branches: human resources, operations, strategic, marketing, financial, and information technology.

Basic functions in management include a process of planning, organizing, staffing, leading, controlling and motivation. These ongoing functions let management operate their business and evaluate their progress. Business policies include mission statements, their vision and objectives. The policy is a guide that stipulates rules, regulations, and objectives in the manager’s decision-making process. It must be easy to understand by all employees. Policies and strategies of managerial staff include understanding how to implement strategies, having a plan of action, reviewing policies and strategies regularly, having contingency plans, having progress assessed, having a good team environment, and determining roles in achieving the business’s mission.

The management hierarchy is split into different levels. There is the Senior management, Middle management, Low-level management, Foreman, and Rank and File. The Senior level management has extensive knowledge in roles and skills, they are also very aware of external factors. Their decisions are usually long-term, analytic, directive, and conceptual. They are responsible for strategic decisions. Middle management has a specialized understanding of certain managerial duties. They are responsible for carrying out decisions by Senior managers. Low-level management ensures that the other two management level decisions are executed. Low-level manager’s decisions are usually short-term. The Foreman, (or supervisor) has direct supervision over the working force, or work group. The Rank and File is more restricted and specific than the Foreman.

There are also different styles of management that people are very familiar with. Macromanagement and Micromanagement are two good examples. Macromanagement is when a manager is focuses on system entities, such as constraints, rules, information architecture, etc. Micromanagement is where a manager observes or controls the work of their employees to great detail; it is generally viewed negatively.

There are endless types of business management out there: Accounting, Capability, Change, Conflict, Communication, Cost, Crisis, Customer Relations, Design, Educational, Engineering, Environmental, Facility, Financial, Human Resources, Hospital, Hotel, Information Technology, Innovation, Inventory, Land, Logistics, Marketing, Merchandising, Materials, Office, Program, Project, Process, Performance, Product, Public, Quality, Records, Relationship, Restaurant, Risk, Spend, Stress, Systems, Talent, Time, and Work are just a few of them.

By: Mary S Singleton

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What Does Your Company Do? What Core Vision Drives Your Business? What is Your Elevator Pitch? These may sound like elementary questions but surprisingly the answers to these essential questions oftentimes do not match the Mission Statement, Core Values or Stated Objectives of many organizations.

Take the Test
Without referring to your company’s website or literature, answer these questions:

What is your Mission Statement? What is your Organization’s Core Vision? What are the Organization’s Core Values? If you had 1 minute to sum up what your company does, what would you say?
Take it a Step Further…
Now ask the same questions impromptu in a managers meeting. Then… ask the same questions in an all-staff meeting. You may be very surprised at the responses… but the insight will prove invaluable.

Reality Check
Think about it. If a good percentage of your employees can’t answer the fundamental questions posed above, how can management honestly expect to deliver on the company’s core objectives and values?

What Exactly is a Mission Statement?
Mission Statement’s have been described as a summary of the overall plan of the organization including objectives and values; the definition for the existence of a company; or, the company’s vision translated into written form. “We make jet engines”, “we exist to be the best”, or “we provide excellent service” won’t cut it.

Who Are You?
From an organizational standpoint, you need to be able to answer this question: Who are you? Take a look at some of the power players:

Google: is the world’s largest search engine.
Starbucks: is the leading retailer, roaster and brand of specialty coffee in the world.
Microsoft: is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions.
Walt Disney Company: is the world’s leading producer and supplier of premier family entertainment.
Xerox: is the world’s leading document management technology and services enterprise.

What Do You Do?
Now, answer the subsequent question: What do you do? This is your mission–your purpose, the reason you exist. If you polled your employees by asking them to fill in this blank: “We exist to _____”, the answers would likely be varied. The point is–there is no variance in a Mission Statement. It needs to be clear, concise and accurate on paper, and in reality. Again, take a look at some of the world’s most successful companies:

Google: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful (by pursuing innovation and pushing the limits of existing technology to provide the fastest, most accurate and easy-to-use search service that can be accessed from anywhere).
Starbucks: to be the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world (by serving the perfect cup of coffee and creating an unparalleled customer and community experience through inspiration and nurture of the human spirit).
Microsoft: to help people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential (by providing software, services and solutions and delivering technology innovations).
Walt Disney Company: to be the world’s leading producer and provider of family entertainment and information (by developing the most creative, innovative and profitable entertainment experiences and related products, for all ages, around the world.)
Xerox: to help people find better ways to do great work (by constantly leading in document technologies, products and services that improve customer work processes and business results).

Bottom Line
If your company’s actions, attitudes and methods do not match your stated objectives and meet the expectations of your customers and stakeholders, it’s time to do some course correcting.

It is healthy to revisit your organization’s purpose by periodically reviewing its Mission Statement, Core Values and Stated Objectives. And remember, this is not just an exercise for the top tier executives. Adherence and reinforcement will reflect inside and outside of your business. They are foundational to the entire organization and will trickle down effecting and driving (for better or worse) everything that your company touches.

Elevator… Going up?

By: April McCallum

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When you look at Apple from purely a corporate performance standpoint all you can say is wow, but we all know that such incredible performance never lasts forever – or can it. Recently, our think tank took a look at the company, and had a rather lengthy discussion on the topic. Perhaps, I might share some of my thoughts with you on this as well.

There was a very decent quickie type article in the Wall Street Journal, accompanied by a nice graph of Apple’s success. The chart is clearly going skyward, and somewhat hyperbolic. Every business CEOs dream, and it is all thanks to good business management, executive leadership, marketing execution, and branding. The article was entitled; “On Apple and Its (Enviable) Problems,” by Yukari Iwatani Kane (featured in the “Heard it on the Street section”) on October 18, 2010.

Okay so, that was some interesting commentary and my hopes are that you will go read that article and then come back to this article so you can better follow along on my comments for Apple’s future strategy. You see, trying to keep control of such rocket-ship growth is going to be tough, but there are avenues, venues, and strategies which can allow Apple to continue their loyal following, and grow it organically in the market place.

Consider if you will that there are many PC and Microsoft based loyalists too, and despite what you might think for every religiously loyal Apple follower there are five who absolutely will not touch the product – can Apple win them over? Perhaps, over time, and those who are hard core against Apple could become their best word-of-mouth referrals in the future – or not, depends on how they play it. Likewise there are huge numbers of Blackberry followers too, who seem to be able to be coaxed into trying the Apple products such as iPhone and iPad.

Even as a non-Apple person myself, I happened into an Apple Retail store, which is Apple’s strategy in taking it to the people, will that work? Well, it might for Apple if they only put them into the right demographic, but it didn’t work so well for Microsoft or Gateway, of course, neither really had a cult-like brand loyalist following like Apple has now.

Apple so far has capitalized on its “road-show” roll-outs of new products, and capturing the product cycle curves of each, at the prescribed inflection points, but now Apple must pick up the pace to continue. Is it possible? Or will even their loyal followers get fatigue, and god-forbid they make a big mistake or a product does not do what it says and they lose all credibility. They’ve had a few recent crisis management fires to put out recently – for instance the signal strength of the border-perimeter antenna of one of their latest products.

Still, if Apple is to break into the main-stream and really sell tons of products while keeping price points high for that currently “stellar brand name” of theirs – they are going to need a consumer financing arm, and that means taking some profits and retained earnings off the table, and taking some risks with “Apple Financing Programs” and Apple Loyalty Card Programs, but in this uncertain economy that could be risky too. Please consider all this.

By: Lance Winslow

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Periodically, all business owners should conduct a SWOT analysis of their enterprise. This is an identification of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that relate to your organisation. One of the main reasons for doing this is that it gives you clear goals to work on to improve your commercial future. But how do you go about doing it?

There is no “set” way to undertake a SWOT analysis. Here are some suggestions to get you going.

Set aside time to do it. I think it is important that the key people in your enterprise focus on this issue at a set time. This will highlight its importance and enable you to make best use of your time. It is best done away from your normal place of work, telephones and e-mail.

Have someone facilitate the process. Someone (who knows what they’re doing) should guide your people through the process. Without structure, the process of analysing your business will become a time-consuming talk-fest that will probably achieve little and frustrate a lot. The person facilitating the process should be skilled at drawing out people’s opinions and making sure that everyone has ample opportunity to express their views. If you can afford it, I recommend that you get someone external to your business. A person who is facilitating the process from within the business may have their own agenda or may get caught up in the politics of the organisation. Also, they may not have the skills I have just mentioned.

Start with a “secret” process. Often the SWOT analysis process commences with a group of people sitting near a whiteboard or flipchart paper and letting the ideas fly. There is nothing wrong with this, but I prefer that each participant in the process writes down their thoughts about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats prior to the discussions starting. The reason that I favour commencing with a secret process is that you are more likely to get honest views that are not influenced by dominant personalities in a group or pet agendas. You could use a stack of system cards where each idea is written on one card by each person. These cards can then be put in piles of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. You might like to use different coloured cards for each of the four categories.

Discuss the “secret” contributions. Once you have gone through the “secret” process described above, the facilitator should then permit open discussions about the ideas. But, prior to those discussions starting, there should be some sorting of the cards into like ideas. The facilitator should check with the participants that the groupings are indeed the same idea. Otherwise this might override someone’s valuable opinion. The discussion should be free-flowing, informal but professional and respectful of all opinions. It is the job of the facilitator to keep the discussions on track.

Categorise the points into a small number of important issues. Following the discussions, the ideas for each part of the analysis should be distilled into a short list of important issues. As a general business principle, I am very much in favour of keeping things simple. If you finish up with 45 different points in your SWOT analysis, you will have too many. Try to aim for about three points for the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (about 12 – 15 in total).

Once you have done all this, you will have your SWOT analysis finished. Now you must act on what you have discussed.

Wishing you easier business.

By: John Jeffreys

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Outsourcing the services of your business not only saves you money, but it also means that you have people working for you that are extremely specialised in what they do. But how do you go about choosing the right contractor for your business when there are so many offering their services? Here, we’ve got a great list of tips to help you choose the right person for the job. From information on identifying the need for a contractor to the possibility of engaging with a contractor management company to make the whole process more efficient, we’ve got the important facts you need to know:

Identify the need
Firstly you need to identify what services you need to outsource within your business. Really take the time to make a list of the important tasks of that role so that when you engage with contractors about what the job entails, you have a clear description which can outline to them. Outsourcing is a great way to minimise costs so you may have identified a few areas in which outsourcing could be a viable option.

Know your responsibilities
With any person under the employment of your company, you and your business are responsible to ensure that safe work practices are adhered to and that all employees (including contractors) have a healthy and safe working environment. While contractors need to comply with safety standards too, ultimately if anything were to happen whilst a contractor was on the job you could be facing steep fines.

The legal responsibilities of the contractor
Contractor Certification and OH&S requirements are an important part of engaging with any contractor. They need to be compliant with the Occupational Health & Safety Act and Regulations of the state in which you are located, and you need to be able to verify a number of important forms of information including things like: Contractor Registrations and ABN, Licences, WorkCover Insurance, Professional indemnity insurance and public liability insurance.

Getting assistance in contractor compliance
There are so many factors that need to be considered before selecting the right contractor to suit your needs. Fortunately there are companies out there that offer contractor compliance verification so you can have peace of mind that all of the appropriate checks are completed before they commence work, and you can feel safe in the knowledge that the contractor you have working for you meets the appropriate OH&S requirements and other important legal obligations. Getting assistance with this process means that you can save time looking for the right contractor by having someone else verify their skills and legal requirements.

Outsourcing is becoming increasingly popular. It really is a great way to get the right person for the job at a lower cost than that of a permanent employee. I hope you’ve found our list of tips helpful in assisting you to choose the right contractor for the job you have at hand.

By: Stan S Michaels

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