September 28, 2007

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Information Management Part 1

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.

This is the first in a series of discussions on Information Management from PKF Texas and Microsoft. One of the major issues organizations face today is managing data, whether in terms of volume, location, format, or context. The complexity of these factors makes it increasingly difficult and time-consuming for your organization to find, use, and share information effectively. Also, as companies try to do more with less because of intense competition, organizational structures are becoming more complex, including virtual, flat, and distributed environments. Within these structures, business information can be stored in a multitude of places—server folders, intranets, e-mail, personal computers—increasing the challenge of locating critical information efficiently.

As a consequence, businesses need search and information tools that help them to be more productive, make better business decisions, and achieve greater business success in order to compete.

Over the next few weeks we add some additional comments to this very important area of your business.

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September 21, 2007

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Increase Customer Loyalty

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.

Customer connections are the moments that define your business. Your people strive for those moments and your customers tell others about them. Through their talent, knowledge, and passion, your people transform interactions into the impression that your company is committed to delivering greater value than your competitors. Building connections creates lasting value for your organization through increased customer loyalty.

In the short term, customer loyalty benefits your business through revenue growth as a result of repeat and referral business. In the long term, closer relationships with customers give your organization a window of insight into your customers’ needs and preferences. With the cost to acquire new customers typically much greater than the cost of retaining existing ones, and profitability found to increase as much as 25 percent for every 5 percent increase in customer retention, there’s never been greater pressure or opportunity to invest in and foster the right customer connections.

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September 19, 2007

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Receives Practice Innovation Award

More news from PKF Texas! PKF Texas – The Entrepreneur’s Playbook has been awarded a 2007 Practice Innovation award in the impetus technology from Practical Accountant. We are honored to have been recognized for the 7th time in 7 years.

All of my readers helped us win this award because it’s you who read the scripts every Friday. Our traffic spikes when the scripts post, so thanks for reading!

I hope you’ve received useful information from these tips. If there are topics you would like to see, let me know. I’m always on the look out for great material.

The Practice Innovation award winners appeared in the September issue of Practical Accountant. 

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September 17, 2007

Meet the Next Generation of PKF Texans

Speaking of Human Capital, check out PKF Texas' brand new career section!  www.pkftexas.com/careers

To help overcome the talent shortage in our industry we needed a fresh look. The new section has a more people-focused look and feel. Right from the start, we want you to meet our next generation of PKF Texans.   You can read why they chose PKF Texas and get to know them on a more personal level.

All new copy on every page of the section gives our potential recruits and clients a better picture of who we are as a firm. Another cool feature is the virtual office tour on our flickr site. You can see where Greg’s Head resides!

The site looks great and I want to congratulate the Human Capital and Practice Growth departments for all their hard work!  !

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September 14, 2007

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Business Intelligence

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.

In today's highly competitive business environment, companies must achieve alignment, integration, and optimization of its people, processes, and technologies to remain competitive. Although competitive strategies are increasingly based on business data analytics, extracting insight from large volumes of information presents a growing challenge.

One of the most critical organizational challenges is to align performance management objectives with strategic goals. Providing integrated business intelligence (BI) tools that are available to your employees at all levels is crucial in an increasingly knowledge-driven economy.

How well your people work together to make decisions is a key element in determining your business success. Your people are your key differentiators in the marketplace. Giving them the right tools to make the right decisions at the right time is a great way to drive business performance.

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September 12, 2007

FastTech 50 Update

Quick update for those who were nominated or submitted themselves for the FastTech 50. Yesterday we signed all of the notification letters and we will be mailing them later this week.

In addition to the making the list of 50 and our Enterprise Champion Award winners, we have a new category. This year we are introducing the Paul Frison Accelerator Award. This award will be given to the company who is the youngest, and highest ranked company on the Fast Tech 50 list. Paul has a long history of success and commitment to the emerging market space here in Houston. And he was a part of the initial group of supporters when we created the FastTech 50 program. We are pleased to honor his contributions by creating this award in his name. 

This year’s group of nominees was outstanding and I’m looking forward to the award luncheon on November 16th at the Hilton Americas. If you are interested in getting a table for that event registration will begin soon. I’ll keep you updated and see you there!

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September 10, 2007

Scott Cook's Advice for Entrepreneurs

Flipping through my latest issue of Inc. over the Labor Day holiday, an article interviewing Scott Cook, the founder of Intuit, caught my eye. He had commissioned a study on how the small business economy is evolving, from the Institute for the Future.

He provides many great insights. He mentions the entrepreneurial aspirations of the Next Generation.

The idea that stands out most to me is “You must find something you just love doing and find through that passion a way to change a customer’s life, to change the world for the better. That’s where your entrepreneurial destiny will lie.”

This is great advice to entrepreneur’s of all levels. I think most of the entrepreneurs I meet through the Aggie 100 and FastTech 50 would agree.

I also see that passion from the students who compete in the Rice Business Plan Competition. They have the drive and passion to compete at the highest level and to see their businesses succeed. It’s great to see this spirit in the Next Generation.

Let me know what you think of Cook’s article. Do you agree with his ideas?

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September 7, 2007

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Limited Liability Company

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.

Similar to corporations, owners of limited liability companies have limited personal liability for the debts and actions of the LLC but can be taxed as either a corporation, partnership, or, if owned by one person, as a so-called disregarded entity. Owners of LLC's are called "members". 

As with corporations, each member's liability is limited to their financial investment. To form an LLC, one must register under a state LLC statute, file articles of organization, and comply with state requirements that are a condition of its limited liability status. There are many things that must be considered when contemplating LLC status. Some questions to consider include the number of owners, the desirability of limited liability, whether losses are expected in the initial years, other sources of income to the owners, simplicity of formation, and flexibility of structure. Usually, owners form their businesses as LLC's because they want the tax-transparency of an S corporation and the flexibility of a partnership with the limited liability of a corporation.

Due to complexities in every situation, please be sure to contact your tax advisor when making entity selection.

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September 4, 2007

Social Networking Is Everywhere!

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Labor Day holiday!

It seems that lately everywhere I turn there is another news story about social networking. CNN.com, Business 2.0, Inc. and many others have run stories in recent weeks. 

The latest hot site for the business executive is a site called LinkedIn.

I want to pose the question to my readers, what are your thoughts on social networking? Are you members of any sites other than the big two of Facebook and Myspace, which right now are predominately dedicated to my kid’s generation?

Do you see any advantages to joining a site like LinkedIn or multiple sites for that matter?

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