What to Consider When Deciding What Type of Small Business You Should Start

Are you an individual who would like to start your own Small Business? For instance, do you plan on running your small business out of your home? Do you want to run an online business? How you want to run a business or how you are able to run a business should have a significant impact on the type of business that you are interested in starting. Starting a small business based on something that you not only know, but also love, will up your chances of your business being a successful one. When it comes to starting your own local business, you will want to start a business that has a relatively small amount of competition.

Project Management: a business-focused approach

When managing a project, it is important to have an overall definition of what a project is supposed to accomplish, and a specific description of what the end result should be or accomplish. Regardless of the methodology used, the project development process will have the same four major stages: initiation, planning, execution and controlling, and closure.



The planning phase is critical in the success of a project. If it is not performed well, it is unlikely that the project will be successful in meeting the business’s needs.





Project management software is a term covering many types of software. The components most frequently found are : scheduling, cost control, budget management, resource allocation, collaboration software, communication, quality management and documentation. Project management software needs to provide a lot of information to various people, to justify the time spent using it. It can be implemented as a program that runs on the desktop of each user.



Several national and professional Associations exist which have as their aim the promotion and development of Project management and the Project management profession. For example the PMP (project management professional) has published a set of guidelines for project management known as Project Management Body Of Knowledge (PMBOK). These are helpful guidelines, but they have to be slightly adapted for each project. Nethertheless, applying a recognized project management methodology considerably improves the chances of success.





Project control begins early in the project with planning and ends late in the project with post-implementation review (closure phase). It has a thorough involvement of each step in the process. Each project should be assessed for the appropriate level of control needed: too much control is too time consuming, too little control is too costly.



With a good project tracking system, if a project is partially completed and data about the project duration, cost, and events occurred is available, it is possible to refine information about future potential events and helps to forecast future project performance.





Also furthering the concept of project control is the incorporation of process-based management. In the agile software development or flexible product development approach, the project is seen as a series of relatively small tasks conceived and executed as the situation demands in an adaptive manner, rather than as a completely pre-planned process.





The key project controls needed here is an understanding of the business environment and making sure that all necessary controls are incorporated into the project.

Harvard business review

A wholly owned, not-for-profit endeavor, The Harvard Business Review also offers itself, in eleven translated editions, as well, to business educators who can plot courses around the magazine—using the divisions of emphasis that include Accounting and Control; Business and Government; Competitive Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Finance; General Management; Human Resources Management; Information Systems Management; Organizational Behavior and Leadership; Service Management; and Social Enterprise and Ethics as the base text for their business curricula design and development. Educators access The Harvard Business Review to implement school cases, Harvard Business School exam replicas, and cutting-edge materials for undergraduate, graduate, and executive development courses. The Harvard Business Review reaches a wide-ranging demographic (of college-educated male and female readers between 18 and 55+); The HBR appeals to the business cross-section of corporate executives; and The Harvard Business Review, catering to and concerning the motivators, the innovators, the leaders, and the motivated learners of today, makes a mission of informing and entertaining with the best practices of the business world. Read also: Project management tips and web based project management software

Survival Tips For Your Business

Whatever your business or specialism, whether you are in mail order, direct mail or a small or medium sized on or offline business, it is important to know the strategies for keeping your business alive so that your business survives economic recessions, peaks and troughs in market trends, external competition, changes in legislation. At any point where the cash flow in the business, whatever its size starts to diminish the money management of the business needs to be scrutinised and managed tightly. Whatever your structure it is essential to keep your hands on the wallet of your business!! Credit control is essential to the cash flow of the business and is often overlooked, many businesses concentrate in generating new sales which is great, but if there is no money in the pot to finance the man power, the purchases needed for the business, etc then the business will not survive for long, therefore it is a necessity to ensure that your customers are paying their accounts on time, if not, you need to speak with these people, and follow a strategy and Action plan to ensure that debts are paid to you in a timely manner. In order to survive with a small business, regardless of the economic climate, surround you with smart professionals and practise sound business management at all times.

Caterpillar D11

The D-11 model from Caterpillar is one of the largest bulldozers in the world, and one of the best, with almost no competition. If you’re looking for a bulldozer with a huge amount of power and a wide range of capabilities, this is the right one for your construction site. Read full article at: Caterpillar D11 - More resources: Building and construction

You can get a degree with distance training

Every coin has two sides and distance learning program is not an exception to the rule. While distance learning program is advantageous as it helps people to continue with their education despite of their demanding schedule it also has some disadvantages. It may fail to motivate a student to study resulting in no good for the candidate, this shows registering yourself is not sufficient, you must also have a drive in yourself to continue with the study. The success of distance education also depends on the success of the technology. And without a good support system and infrastructure the distance learning may be a failure. Read full article in French at: Centres de formation à distance - More resources: Formation internet

Entrepreneurship

The Entrepreneurship is the practice of starting new businesses or developing new products or services. Entrepreneurship is a difficult task, as a majority of new businesses fail. It is always associated with risk taking, but only moderate risks that would not jepardize the success of the new venture. Read full article at: Entrepreneurship - More resources: Leverage buy out financing

How to Perform FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis)?

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a method to analyze potential reliability problems in the development cycle of a project
Read full article on: FMEA - More resources: Cycle PDCA

Guidance regarding business purchase

If you intend to purchase a business, make sure your attorney has analysed the legal terms set out in the purchasing agreement and reviewed any other documents provided to promote the sale. Consulting your attorney will ensure that you are not only acting within the law, but you are also safeguarded against making a mistake. Read full article at: Business purchase - More resources: Free legal resources

Using key performance indicators (KPI) for effective project management

Key Performance Indicators are quantifiable measurements that reflect the critical success factors of an organization. Based on beforehand agreed measures, they reveal a high-level snapshot of the organization. They vary depending on the kind of organization they characterize. Read full article on: Key performance indicator - More resources: Fault tree

Planning A Memorable Going Away Party

A "going away" party is often thrown in honor of a dear person who may be going on a long vacation trip or for someone who is moving away. Either way, it would most especially be memorable for the person leaving to see all of his friends and family get together for one last time to wish him bon voyage. Considering the sad nature of having to part with a friend, the "going away" party should most definitely be a lot of fun - a sort of "last hurrah". Read full article on: Going Away Party - More resources: Picnic theme ideas

Understanding a Leveraged Buy-Out

A leveraged buy-out (LBO) is an acquisition of a public or private company in which the takeover is financed predominantly by debt with minimum equity investment.

Read full article on: LBO - More resources: Project management resources

Project Managers – learn your lessons

Project management resources - lessons learned Read full article on: Lessons learned - More resources: PMFEA

The Assimil method remains one of the most efficient solution to learn a foreign language, even after 75 years

The method is based on Intuitive Assimilation to learn a foreign language. You get a course book of 60 to 150 lessons. The text of each lesson is first read by professional actors who are native speakers of the target language. Then the student simply repeats the sentences. After 20 to 30 minutes of practice, you almost always know the text by heart. Each lesson has some humorous drawings and some simple grammar rules. You repeat this step for about 6 months and you end up very quickly fluent in the foreign language. This can be viewed as the same intuitive learning method as a child learning his mother tongue. The beauty is that it requires no almost effort. Read full article in French on: La méthode Assimil - More resources: Education, emploi, formation

Business case justification

A business case is a document that presents a comprehensive view of a project with financial justification and expected return on investment when the project is completed. It is an excellent source for reference when changes or process reengineering take place. Read full article on: Business case justification - More resources: Key Performance Indicators