From Greg's Head

I found an interesting item when I scanned the headlines in the business section of The Dallas Morning News. Seems that the Federal Trade Commission placed Houston ahead of Dallas in 2005 for the number of people in each metro area who filed complaints about identity theft.

However, according to a new study by Sperling’s Best Places, the Houston area ranks behind Dallas/Fort Worth based on various factors to determine the “riskiest” cities for ID Theft. Sperling considers 80 factors in four categories to determine the outcome. The four categories include the impact of technology, lifestyle risks, transaction habits and at-risk behavior.

Sounds kind of scientific, but whatever the outcome, the Houston-Baytown-Sugar Land area was ranked 22^nd out of the 50 metro areas. San Antonio was ranked 35^th, while Dallas came in at #13.

While experts can look at any factors they want to when figuring out what makes us tick and what constitutes “risky” behavior, I’ll say once again that we need to be more careful with our personal information, even if it means perhaps buying less stuff on the Internet and offering sensitive data to perfect strangers who seem legitimate.

Houston: Let’s try to curb our risk and rank even lower next year.

What do you think? Send me a comment.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, This is the first in a series of inventory control tips by Jon Schreibfeder. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found at the PKF Texas Radio/Television page.

How do you achieve Inventory Control? Where do you begin?

First, you have to understand the problem. I’ve worked with distributors throughout the world. These firms have distributed nearly every type of product imaginable. Despite the variety of locations and industries, I’ve found they typically have very similar inventory-related problems:

• They have too much of some products.
  • Results in excess inventory and dead stock and leads to decreased turnover and profitability
• They experience stock outs of other products.
  • Results in backorders, lost sales and an overall decrease in customer service.
• They don’t know what is in stock.
• They can’t find material in their warehouse.

As a result, many distributors don’t have control of their inventory. So, to get control, you need a plan for effective inventory management.

Stay tuned for future segments on effective inventory management. 

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I like to spread the word when I hear good things about Houston.

Just last week, Meeting Planners International announced it would hold its annual conference here in February 2008. While that’s 18 months or so from now, what’s significant about this is that MPI’s annual conference draws THE group that is most influential in deciding where businesses and organizations go for their meetings and conferences.

According to an article in the Houston Business Journal, statistics from MPI show that approximately 20 percent of meetings represented at the group's conventions will book an event in the host city within three years.

Kudos to Houston for landing this gem.

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With headlines dominating the news on security and identity theft related to data residing on stolen laptops, companies across the globe are looking for ways to ensure their data is safe and secure.

A recent article in Baseline Magazine summarized this very well in its 5 Steps to Prevent Data Loss:

1.      Guard against human error. Use security technologies, such as data encryption, as a safety net for honest mistakes.

2.      When in doubt, encrypt. All laptop hard drives should be encrypted.

3.      Monitor outgoing messages. Use software to block e-mail messages or file transfers with confidential data.

4.      Ensure security is easy to use. Otherwise, employees will find ways to get around it.

5.      Audit security practices regularly. Experts say such reviews should happen at least monthly.

I’ll ask you the same question Baseline asked: What's the best way to reduce the risk of data leaks, short of taking laptops away from users? Send me a note with your thoughts.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is a series of business tips offered by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found at the PKF Texas Radio/Television page.

Is your company on the Best Places to Work list? If your employees were surveyed today would you be on the list?

In Houston’s fast paced economy, human capital is the number one issue executives should be talking about. What are you doing as a leader of your company to encourage a positive environment that attracts and retains valued employees?

Appreciation for your employees needs to be demonstrated from the top down. If the leadership of your company shows appreciation for employee accomplishments, it will be infectious throughout the company. It can be as simple as acknowledging interim successes of a project or giving a gift card to someone who went the extra mile. 

Taking the time to let your staff know they are valued will make a world of difference in both the morale of your company and your bottom line.

Share you own business insights by sending me a note.

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How many credit card applications do you receive on a weekly basis, and better yet, how many do your children receive?

The State of Texas recently did a good thing when Governor Perry signed two financial literacy laws. Both programs start this fall. The first one creates personal finance pilot programs for up to 25 school districts, while the other requires Texas high schools to make personal finance education a requirement for graduation from public high schools starting in the 2006-07 school year. That means high school freshmen who graduate four years from now will have financial education as a component of their education.

Some news reports say this education – including everything from learning about bankruptcy to credit card debt to investments – will be worked into a senior-level Economics class, while others believe it could encompass a “personal finance” stand-alone course.

Whatever the process – this is great – and high-time the state stepped up efforts to educate tomorrow’s leaders.

Of course, the state isn’t the first group to come up with this idea. Locally in Houston, for example, Kanaly Trust Company has its own Foundation for Financial Literacy, an effort to educate the public on personal finance and related issues.

I wish more organizations would take a page from companies and businesses like Kanaly. Imagine how much more financially savvy our children might be.

What do you think? Send me a note and we’ll start a conversation on this.

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To follow up on my March 1 entry about leasing office space at the Houston Technology Center, I received an email from the HTC announcing there are still a few spaces left. The HTC office spaces provide small businesses a number of resources to successfully run and manage their business. 

These resources include:

• Secured 24/7 access
• VoIP Telecom system
• Network connections to printer/fax/copier
• E-mail

If you are interested or need more information, contact Sheila Whanger at the HTC. The spaces are leasing quickly, so contact her as soon as possible.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is the third in a series of business tips offered by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found at the PKF Texas Radio/Television page.

This is a good time of the year to take a look at your budget and forecast for 2006, and compare your performance to your expectations. If you do not have a forecast, it’s not too late to prepare one for 2006.

How do you use a forecast to take your company to the next level of performance?

The secret may be a “flash report.” A flash report will keep you focused on the key performance indicators that will drive your forecast. For example, if your goal is to improve cash flow and increase sales, a report would track your daily or weekly sales, along with the daily cash balances of your business.

Track a few items in your business and see how it works for you. Over time, I think you will find you can keep your finger on the pulse of your business by using a flash report on a regular basis. Remember you can’t manage what you can’t measure!

Share you own business insights by sending me a note.

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Now that I’ve been writing FromGregsHead.com for a number of weeks (heck, months), I regularly scan the Web for stories about blogging. Hey – even I’m open to improvement!

Jupiter Research reports that 34 percent of large U.S. companies have a corporate blog, while another 35 percent will have one by year-end. However, a closer look reveals that “large” may be a misnomer: less than 6 percent of Fortune 500 companies blog on an ongoing basis.

Who’s doing all the blogging?

In an eMarketer article, Makovsky & Company commissioned Harris Interactive to figure this out. Harris Interactive asked 150 Fortune 1,000 senior executives for their opinions on blogs. Only 30 percent of the respondents even had a thorough understanding of the term "Internet blog." According to the article, this may shed some light on Jupiter's numbers; many businesses may think that their discussion forum, e-mail newsletter, intranet bulletin board, or other communication, constitutes a blog.

Of course, it doesn’t. A blog is a blog is a blog.

I’d like to hear your views – what do you think? Are you seeing more blogs and are you participating in these with comments? Send me a note.

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How satisfied are your customers? Do you really know how they feel about you and your product or service?

There was an interesting story on CFO.com the other day that spoke to the way technology blends with customer satisfaction surveys. GE Capital uses something they call the “Net Promoter Score:”

“NPS was developed by Fred Reichheld, founder of the customer-loyalty practice at consultancy Bain & Co. and author of the book The Ultimate Question. Although theologians and philosophers may beg to differ, the "ultimate question" turns out to be (with apologies to Sally Field): "Do you like me? Do you really like me?" Reichheld's influence on customer-centrism goes back a decade, when he co-authored (with Thomas Teal) a book titled The Loyalty Effect, which postulated that 10 percent of a company's customers create 50 percent of its profits. Keeping customers satisfied, happy, and loyal suddenly became the essential sentiment of every company's mission statement.”

Known as “Enterprise Feedback Management,” the article talks about how Internet technologies spawned EFM and its efficiency in understanding how the customer (or client) feels about you.

Can’t we just pick up the phone and ask the question? In a huge business with millions of customers, this probably isn’t going to happen without using technology to help the effort. However, I think a small business can do a whole lot of good by asking questions that might reflect customer satisfaction.

As to the nay-sayer who wants to remind me that customers will not be honest with their answers except to an institutionalized survey company … if you really knew your customers and they trust you – then it’s a no-brainer. Ask them how they feel!

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is the second in a series of business tips offered by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found at the PKF Texas Radio/Television page.

In this ever more fragile economy, managing your cash flow may prove to be one of the keys to your Company’s survival. Customers will delay payment in an effort to preserve what little free cash they have. Unfortunately, this can be prove to be extremely painful for your Company, and may lead to your demise.

As an owner/entrepreneur, you are faced with many financial terms. One of the key terms you should become familiar with in managing your business is “Days Sales Outstanding (DSO).” You can calculate DSO by dividing your total annual revenues by 365 to get your average daily sales. Then, take your monthly accounts receivable balance and divide by the average daily sales to get your DSO.

Did you know that a properly designed and implemented cash management process, allowing you to track and collect overdue accountings can have an immediate impact on your cash flow? For example, a three-day reduction in your DSO balances (a very reasonable and achievable target) will generate $5,000 in cash flow for every $1 million in revenue. Thus, a $10 million dollar company should be able to generate $50,000 in cash flow by having a well designed and operating cash management and collection program.

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I posted a blog entry on June 21 about “fun” summer vacations – but clearly, not everyone is having fun.

Just yesterday, I heard a report on Good Morning America that Americans are awarded fewer vacation days than any other culture. Most notably, the French have an astounding 39 vacation days, while we have an average of only 14.

Still, I’ll take two weeks over two days any time, but can you really get away from it all? According to the GMA report, one in three vacationers reported they felt more stressed if they did not check their e-mail during their trips.

How can you de-stress your vacation? Taken from the GMA report, the author offers her views:

Identify a back-up. With productivity demands on workers today, it's very realistic to assume that some of your work will have to be addressed while you're away. Identify a colleague who'll serve as your back-up - brief him or her on any key issues and tasks, leave organized files and notes. Offer to reciprocate when that person goes on vacation. This buddy system will lessen the pile-up of work and will lessen any disruption in work flow.

Change greetings. Make sure your voicemail greeting and out-of-office e-mail greeting clearly state that you're on vacation with no access to messages. Offer an alternate colleague's contact information for any time-sensitive issues. And be sure to reiterate that you will not respond until you return. That way you don't have to worry that a client or contact is left uncared for — or thinks that you're just not responding.

Give contact info to one person. Don't tell everyone where you're going or how to reach you! Let one key person know where to get you if something urgent arises that requires your attention. Really get away — which means they don't call you, and you don't call them.

Set limits on work. If you're someone who just has to stay in touch, either because your boss expects it or because you want to, there's nothing wrong with checking email here and there — as long as you're not ruining your family's vacation. But if your phone is constantly ringing and you're clearly preoccupied with work, it's not fair to everyone else. I spent my 10-day Christmas vacation working the whole time because I had a deadline to meet, and I didn't realize how it was affecting my family until we got home and my daughter told someone that mommy worked the whole time. I'll never make that mistake again. It wasn't much fun for me, and clearly it wasn't good for my family either. They put up with my work schedule all year round. The least I can do is give them 10 days of fairly undivided attention while on vacation. We all owe that to ourselves and the people we love.  

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Just last week, I received an open letter from Bill Gates giving his picture of the future of communications and how we will interact with each other on a daily basis. Given the fact that MS Windows is running on over 90% of the desktops worldwide I felt this is important information to pass on, as well as understand where Mr. Gates is wanting to take us.

It doesn't matter whether you are the chairman of the world's largest software company, a salesperson at a medium-sized manufacturer or the receptionist at a small startup, there's one workplace scenario we are all familiar with. It starts when you need to reach a colleague quickly. First you look up their phone extension and give them a call, only to be directed to their voicemail. After you leave a message, you find their mobile phone number and leave a second message. Next, you send an email. If you happen to be in a meeting when your colleague gets your messages and tries to reach you, the process repeats itself, but from the other direction.

A decade's worth of software innovation has transformed the workplace and empowered information workers to do their jobs with greater speed, effectiveness and intelligence. But communicating with colleagues and sharing information is still far too complicated. Because you are a subscriber to the Microsoft Executive Email program, I wanted to share my thoughts with you about new "unified communications" innovations that will dramatically streamline the way we communicate at work and stay in touch with friends and family at home.

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