April 30, 2007

More Space Available at HTC

Several companies who started at the Houston Technology Center have since outgrown the space and there is now more open office space for Houston technology entrepreneurs. The deal you get is a great one. Visit www.htcbuilding.org for details. 

Also, the HTC recently hired a new property manager, Kendra Trueba. If you have any questions feel free to contact her at 832-476-9256.

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April 27, 2007

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Get a Grip on IT Budgets

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

IT departments routinely perform many tasks well. Sadly, setting accurate project budgets is not one of them.

“It is something that historically they have never been very good at,” says IT Governance Institute. According to Institute, cost overruns from 20 percent to as much as 100 percent are practically standard.

Fortunately, organizations can increase the accuracy of their project budgets by using a variety of proven, simple, and mostly free techniques.

One of the most common mistakes IT organizations make is not allocating adequate time for budgeting.

IT often forgets to account for important expenses on projects.

Of course, every project has unexpected expenses, which become easier to anticipate over time. Veteran managers learn to increase their budget projections if they are working with unfamiliar technologies or an inexperienced project team.

After work on a project has begun, managers should revisit their initial budget regularly. At a minimum, project managers should revise the budget if stakeholders impose new requirements.

Finally be aware of the law of estimated fact. Which is when giving an estimated range, people tend to always remember the lower end of the range not the range. 

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April 23, 2007

Crackberry Shutdown a Good Thing?

Last week’s Crackberry shutdown got me thinking once again about how reliant we are on mobile technology. How many important emails were lost or delayed because the system shut down?

What did everyone do for the 24 hours the network was unavailable? Compulsively keep checking to see if it was back up? Simply put it in a drawer and ignore it until the next morning?

Research In Motion’s shutdown might have been the push many Crackberry addicts needed to start their “rehab.”  So maybe it was a good thing. Maybe it made people pause and reevaluate their dependence on their Crackberry. Maybe not…

If you’re one of my many readers with a Blackberry, how did the shutdown affect you?

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April 20, 2007

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Misconceptions of Expanding Internationally Part 4

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Houston is a booming international marketplace. International expansions can be particularly tricky. Over the last few weeks you’ve heard about some common surprises. Here are more: 

If all I do is export product to another country, things are easy.

Maybe, maybe not. Venturing abroad , even simply to export, requires making sure that you have not triggered tax responsibilities in other countries. What if you have sales people or employees working temporarily in the other country? These can cause tax in the other country. You must also look out for "value added taxes" in other countries. These taxes are similar to sales taxes, but are assessed and paid at every step in the economic chain, not just in retail sales. Often, a business can be responsible for these taxes even if not responsible for income or other taxes. 

This all sounds too hard. Where can I find help?

The US provides many resources to support venturing abroad . One of the best is the U.S. Department of Commerce through their Export Assistance Centers. There is one of these centers in Houston They provide one-on-one assistance and counseling and also sponsor programs to assist exporters and potential exporters with their operations overseas. Better yet, their help is usually at no cost, or for only a nominal fee. 

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April 16, 2007

Houston & The Fortune 500

The annual Fortune 500 list is out. Once again, Houston is home to 22 corporate headquarters. We’re second only to New York City. Dallas follows us in the #5 spot. Not surprisingly, the majority of headquarters located in Houston are related to the energy and oil and gas industries. 

What are your thoughts on the list? Were you surprised that Wal-Mart overtook ExxonMobil?

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April 13, 2007

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Misconceptions of Expanding Internationally Part 3

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Houston is a booming international marketplace. International expansions can be particularly tricky. Over the last couple of weeks you’ve heard about some common complications and surprises. Here are two more: 

You can setup business in a foreign country and get going quickly if you need to.

Wrong. Setting up a business in many foreign countries can be a complicated and lengthy process. In the US, legal entities can be created and ready to operate in as little as a week or less. In many other countries there are very bureaucratic and cumbersome processes for creating new entities so that it can often take weeks or months. And you often cannot proceed further until your company is formed.

I only have to worry about audits by the tax authorities.

Wrong. Many foreign countries require so-called statutory audits. These audits are performed by outside certified accountants, primarily to support tax reporting and collection. In some countries, auditors may be required to certify that the company’s taxes are all properly reported and paid, and may be subject to sanctions from the tax authorities if problems are later found.

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April 12, 2007

Blog Nominated for Bloggers Choice Award

Guess what? Thanks to you, my great readers, I’ve been nominated for Best Corporate Blog and Best Blog About Stuff for the Bloggers Choice Awards!

This award is voted on by the public, so you can help the blog win! Here’s what you need to do:

  • Go to www.bloggerschoiceawards.com. 
  • Click on ‘Best Corporate Blog’ or “Best Blog About Stuff” and look for fromgregshead.com. It will move up as more people vote. 
  • Click on the ‘vote’ button – they’ll ask you to create an account for voting purposes because you can only once per blog, per category .

That’s it!  Voting at BloggersChoiceAwards.com closes on May 22 @ 11:59pm.

Thanks to everyone who has supported the blog. If we win, this award is for you!

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April 10, 2007

Navision Automotive Alliance

I have some great news to report!

PKF Texas has joined seven other Microsoft Dynamics – NAV partners to create the Navision Automotive Alliance (NAA). 

The NAA will deliver the integrated solution of AIM Computer Solution, Inc.’s Vision AutoSys and Dynamics – NAV.

The other partners with us in NAA are:

The NAA was formed to provide consistent and highly reliable industry vertical solution for companies that manufacture automotive parts. Collectively each of the NAV partners that form the NAA have the highest capabilities and desire to provide a deep industry vertical in this field. Our group chemistry, collaboration, and geographic locations is a perfect fit for the rollout of the automotive alliance.

To quote Mogens Elsberg, The Worldwide General Manager of Dynamics NAV:

“This alliance is a fantastic example of the benefits to both partners and customers of true partner collaboration. The combined talents of eight certified Microsoft Dynamics NAV Partners bring a focused solution to the production automotive parts supplier, based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft technologies. The benefits to customers having access to this new integrated vertical solution are huge.”

This will be a great partnership and I’m looking forward to our continued collaboration. 

If you have any questions about the NAA or what our capabilities are, please leave a comment or email me!  Also, check out the website, www.navautoalliance.com.

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April 6, 2007

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Misconceptions of Expanding Internationally Part 2

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Houston is a booming international marketplace. Any business expansion has pitfalls. International expansions can be tricky. Last week you heard the first of several common complications and surprises faced by international entrepreneurs. Here’s another:

If you don’t have a hybrid – get one.

Hybrids are foreign companies that can be treated as corporations in the foreign country and partnerships in the US. They are important because the US differs  from many other countries in that here corporate business profits are taxed twice - first to the corporation and second to the owners when the profits are paid out as dividends. That’s why so many US businesses are run as partnerships or subchapter S corporations. Unlike the U.S., many foreign countries do not have this double taxation. Generally, those countries exempt shareholders from dividend taxation under the principle that the taxes on that income have been paid once, and that once is enough. Therefore, partnerships are not as commonly accepted as a way to do business in many countries. Hybrids can help US entrepreneurs operate effectively in the foreign country and use taxes paid there to offset their taxes in the US. 

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April 4, 2007

Website for Crackberry Addicts

I ran across an interesting website last week: http://crackberry.com. It’s dedicated to all things Crackberry. The website is intended to be a humorous look at the Crackberry culture, but also has a lot of useful information as well.

There are pages for everything from a “Rehab” message forum to the features and functionality of the latest Blackberry models.

One of my favorites is the Crackberry rehab page, detailing thirteen steps to breaking the addiction. It goes along with my post about email addiction.

Take a look at the site. Do you see yourself reflected in any of the posts? I know I do, though I’ll refrain from elaborating on which ones!

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April 2, 2007

Houston - The Procrastination City?

Have you filed your individual tax return yet?

According to a recent survey by Intuit (the company who makes TurboTax), more Houstonians file their taxes at the last minute than any other city in the US. Chicago and New York City round out the top 3 procrastinators.

So what’s slowing us down? Is the great March weather keeping us outdoors and away from the computer? Is eating out at too many good restaurants leaving us too full to think about filing early? Did filling out our bracket and following March Madness take the place of filling out our tax forms?

These are questions I don’t know the answer to, but I do know next year we’ll all file earlier right? Come on Houston, let’s file those taxes!

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