Understanding Why Clients and Customers Leave

Have you ever wondered why your clients/customer/patients stopped doing business with you? The reasons are surprising and eye opening! The most important thing is you can get the large majority of them back. In fact many of them want to come back.

Align Employees With Your Strategic Plan - Five Quick Steps

5 quick ways to improve the alignment between your employees and your strategy from Robert Bradford, author of Simplified Strategic Planning.

Opening a Dollar Store - Cut Start-up Costs

Are you opening a dollar store? Start thinking of creative ways to help reduce the costs associated with getting started and open for business. Remember that cost reduction will be one of the continuing areas of focus for you in the future. Why not get started early?

Aligning Departments With Your Strategy

Robert Bradford discusses concrete ways you can create better alignment between your corporate strategic plan and departments, based on 20 years of experience working on hundreds of strategic plans.

Can Finance Really Become a Strategic Partner to the Business?

Much has been written about how finance organizations can become strategic partners with the businesses they support. Despite significant effort, not much progress has been made. Paradoxically, the link between finance and the business has been under finance's proverbial nose for some time - resource allocation. A serious concerted effort to optimize an organization's resource allocation ultimately enables finance to develop the bridge between finance and strategy. This discipline known as corporate portfolio management works to actively manage the company's resource allocation as a portfolio of discretionary investments.

Strategic Planning- Document or Tool?

A strategic plan as a tool is focused on taking a realistic vision and mapping out the steps to accomplishing that vision.

Opening Minds to Diversity

In the world of human resources (HR), everywhere you turn these days people are talking about diversity in the workforce. In particular, companies that operate globally are aware that to go beyond what is required of them legally and morally in eradicating discrimination can bring about a positive climate that will engage their employees, improve their productivity and enhance the effectiveness of their organization.

The 3 Strategies of Market Followers

One type of business plan strategy is to be a market follower. This discussion demonstrates the characteristics of the strategy and what one can expect related to business vibrancy and monetary returns.

Strategic Planning - Pitfalls in Implementation

In our strategic planning work, we often work with companies who have tried strategic planning before. Almost inevitably, the companies we meet were disappointed in the results they got before using Simplified Strategic Planning.

Time is Money - So Make More Money by Using Less Time!

Robert Bradford discusses how to improve profitability by paying attention to how you use time - both yours and your customers.

Business Intelligence - Better Merchandising, Better Sales

Operating within the ever-changing consumer electronics market, cellular retailers face unique merchandising challenges that extend beyond the typical lost sales due to out of stocks and markdowns from excess inventory – their business is susceptible to handset design trends, emerging technologies and of course, passing fads. When planning merchandise, however, retailers are not completely powerless. Business Intelligence (BI) software, with its predictive analytics, helps retailers improve their merchandising processes to identify hidden opportunities and eliminate lost sales and markdowns.

A Business Plan Can Secure Financing for a Professional Practice or Small to Mid Size Business

Writing a business plan can be intimidating. It is however a necessary step towards earning a business loan for the launch or expansion of a professional practice or small to mid size business. Gaining an understanding about the expectations that the bank, government or other type of investor have about the contents of your business plan can help you to get started.

Various Ways of Stopping Foreclosure

This article would let you choose and implement the method to get you out of the foreclosure problem by either stopping it and living in your house or by getting out of the foreclosure problem while still retaining your financial stability. A number of options are available to choose from in the pursuit to escape the hard times.

Strategic Planning - Understanding the Competitive Value of your Brand

Robert Bradford discusses the strategic value of branding and how to evaluate your brand, plus ways that you can increase the value of your brand.

Your Computer and Opportunity

Because the Internet has grown so quickly, opportunities to make money within its framework have increased as well. If you have a computer, an internet connection, and perhaps a few business ideas, you can make money on the Internet. There are a variety of ways you can go about this, but if you are just starting out, you might consider becoming a freelancer.