Finance Blogs

The Strategic Value Of Corporate Intelligence

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:39:36 -0600

Corporate intelligence encompasses a wide range of strategic security activities including risk management, security consulting, competitive market analysis, and workplace violence.Some companies provide all source and open source intelligence analyses and products to government agencies and larger corporations with global operations. Nearly every company, to one extent or another, conducts research and analysis on competitors and markets affecting their service or product lines.There are some common skill-sets that are a must-have for corporate intelligence professionals, including how to effectively and efficiently conduct open source research and analysis, threat assessments, applied critical thinking and logic, as well as effective report writing.What is true for foreign and national intelligence analysts employed by Government is true for intelligence analysts employed in the private sector; they must both understand the fundamentals of how to collect, process, evaluate, and...

Constable in Love by Martin Gayford - Exhibiting a Painter’s Love Story

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:03:22 -0600

Martin Gayford has been art critic of the Spectator and the Sunday Telegraph. He is currently chief European art critic for Bloomberg and lives in Cambridge with his wife and two children. 'Constable in Love' is a romantic story about John Constable -- one of the grand masters of English painting, fell in love with Maria Bicknell, granddaughter of a Suffolk country neighbour, Dr. Rhudde. The story begins with the description of Constable -- his achievements and his family background is also plotted well. In , when he was , he met a -year-old with a sweet and winsome face, who was visiting her grandfather, the wealthy, rector of the parish. From onwards, his childhood friendship with Maria Bicknell developed into a deep, mutual love. They soon fell in love and immediately found their plans for future happiness beset with problems since their engagement in was opposed by Maria's grandfather, who considered the Constables his social inferiors and threatened Maria with di...

Managing your website development – eight easy steps to project management

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 09:10:08 -0600

Managing your website development need not cause you sleepless nights providing you learn the secrets of successful project management. Perform the best practices in project management and give your project the best chance of success.Define objectivesObjectives guide everyone on the project to your final goals. Are your objectives to sell your product online, to provide customer support, to promote investor relations? Carefully decide and clearly document your objectives. Decide the critical success factors ' the things at the end of the project which tell you if you've been successful. Make them measurable so you know if you've achieved them. For example, the website development should result in an increase in online sales of by year end.Stakeholder analysisA stakeholder is someone with an interest in your project's success or failure. Decide who they are and whether they support your project. Perform stakeholder analysis by classifying them high or low according to how m...

Are you making customers an offer they can't refuse?

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:14:54 -0600

I was reading an article in Forbes Global just before Christmasentitled 'The Undeaded'. The article considered the great numberof software companies who have been losing millions of andeating into their cash mountains built up by raising equityfunding in the late 's. The software industry is of greatinterest to me and this made me think about the strength oftheir Sales Propositions. Are the companies and their productssearching for problems to solve? Are their propositionsdelivering real business advantage for their clients? The issue of preparing and developing strong and robustpropositions which deliver advantages to the customer, is acommon problem for companies and professional firms throughoutthe land - and one not always well addressed. The absence of a strong, coherent proposition which benefitscustomers is often one of the weak links in building asuccessful and profitable sale and hence a viable business. Agreat deal of money is invested in the employment of...

A Brief On Small Business Accounting Software

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 06:39:35 -0600

IT revolution has enabled business organizations to be more efficient in their performance in multiple ways. Well, business accounting software is one such by-product of IT revolution that has made it easier for business entities to maintain their balance sheets and other accounting aggregates. The IT industry has come up with different software solutions for different business entities. For a bigger organization, software packages comprise of additional features to meet vast accounting requirements of the organization. Similarly, for small business entities, a good number of small-business accounting software are on the block. They come with sufficient features to facilitate smooth maintenance of various accounting aggregates and related financial statements.Let's find out what all small accounting software can do for your business and what are their basic features.A decent small business accounting software proves very helpful in day-to-day maintenance of inflow and outflow of acc...

The Recession is Creating Jobs - Change Your Thinking!

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 06:12:30 -0600

I´ve written before about the effect of the World Recession on everybody and , in reality, it should now be apparent to everybody that no-ones´ job is really safe anymore. Globalisation of companies has made them very big, unwieldy and ultimately very prone to rationalisation ie. job cutting. Barely a day goes by when you don´t hear of more job cuts and the horizon isn´t looking that great for anyone at this minute. So how can you protect your job - well - you probably can´t - but you should be looking to protect yourself and your family. I get asked many times about making money working from home and if you "Google" it you´ll find that it is one of the the most popular searched for keywords on the Internet. Firstly, a small revolution is taking place. You should look at the overall position - Companies are already outsourcing many tasks and are going to be looking to outsource many more of their jobs to workers from home because it is much more co...

Live Internet News – A New Revolution

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 06:06:09 -0600

Live internet television news has been a fairly new and unknown phenomena in our country. This new concept has brought about another information revolution through the Internet medium. Internet , already has proved to be a irreplaceable part of our lives and now with the launch of this another new service called live news television it will change the information exchange systems all over the world. First, let us differentiate between the Internet TV and IPTV. Internet Television is a television service distributed via the Internet and IPTV or Internet Protocol Television is a system where a digital television service is delivered using a Internet Protocol over a broadband connection. Internet television requires a very high speed broadband connection and so is beyond the reach of most common consumers. Internet Live News has just started getting popular in other developed countries and moreover is being seen as another form of an additional or supporting role to television news servi...

The Potential Conundrum of Regulating Pay-TV

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:41:54 -0600

In last week's column, I argued the merits or rather the lackthereof of extending decency regulations to cable and satelliteTV. This week, I'll point out just how much of a quagmire thiswould actually be and how difficult it would be to implement,regardless of the merits. Regulating cable and satellite TVwould not be as clear-cut as it might seem on the surface.Remember, we are talking about the regulation of indecencywhich, unlike obscenity, is protected by the First Amendment.The complexities of such an undertaking are quite formidable, tosay the least. There are several key issues that would have tobe dealt with and overcome. Like they say, the devil is in thedetails. For one thing, Congress would need to determine thescope of what is to be regulated. Would it be cable andsatellite TV only or all forms of pay-TV? If Congress sets outto regulate all forms of pay-TV, the term - "pay-TV" - wouldhave to be legally defined. Besides satellite and cable, wouldit also inc...

Poor Credit Mortgage Reigns High Among Mortgages Available to

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:15:11 -0600

Like a big brother keeping notes of the erring behaviour of hisyounger sibling, credit reference agencies like Experian andEquifax maintain a record of each person entering into credittransaction. While a few instances of arrears are consideredadmissible, as the incidence of bad credit behaviour increases,creditors start considering these as a lack of reliability.These people are termed as having a bad credit history. Of all things, the ability to get a reasonable term mortgage isparticularly affected by a bad credit history. Opinions differon the extent up to which credit report must be allowed say indeciding the candidature of borrowers for mortgage. The firstgroup says that a borrower with a bad credit history cannot berelied to repay the mortgage lent on the basis of their pastrecords. Thus, it will be wise to refuse mortgages to suchborrowers.The other group of lenders believe that taking a moderate degreeof risk while dealing with bad credit borrowers will do litt...

China's high-level Energy Agency, not the first time set up

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 07:37:17 -0600

Energy Agency, China's Premier Wen Jiabao set a high standard to personally commandChinese Government Network "issued by the State Council on the establishment of the National Energy Laptop Battery Commission on notice" that the energy strategy to enhance decision-making and co-ordination, the State Council decided to set up the National Energy Commission. This is currently the highest standard in China's energy sector. It is understood that the establishment of the National Energy Commission as a director of the State Council Premier Wen Jiabao, Vice Premier Li Keqiang as deputy director.The National Energy Committee members total people, including the State Council Deputy Secretary-General You Quan, Zhu Zhixin, director of the Central Finance Office, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Director of the National Development and Reform Commission Zhang equality, are from the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Science, engineering letter Department, Minis...

Increase In-House Collections

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 06:34:28 -0600

When you provide a consumer service or product, you have thelegal and moral right to be paid within contractual terms.Consumer accounts not paid within your payment terms canrestrict your cash flow, business growth and in some situations,the ability to continue operating your business.The following consumer collections report outlines guidelinesyou can follow to increase the amount of in-house consumercollections your business collects. Have a Defined Credit and Consumer Collections PolicyOne of the major causes of overdue receivables is that abusiness has not defined to its consumer customers and staffwhen accounts are to be paid. If consumer customers are noteducated that accounts are to be paid on time, then chances arethey'll pay late or sometimes not at all. Make sure that yourcompany's terms of payment are clearly stated in writing to eachconsumer customer. Invoice Promptly and Send Statements RegularlyIf you don't have a systematic invoicing and billing s...

The Many Mind-Blowing Benefits of a Dubai Job

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 05:59:36 -0600

Landing a Dubai job has been the top priority of working individuals worldwide for a very long time. Why? As you read this article you will end up wondering why the heck not?You have probably heard about the craze around job opportunities in Dubai and how everyone and their little puppy dog want to move there? It's hard to avoid the chatter as more and more people are considering a Dubai career.So why is everyone so lured to the region? The answer lies mainly in the benefits of a Dubai job. Dubai jobs are not like any other job in any other country. Because of the government's ambition and vision, they have and are going "out of their way" to attract the best and brightest from all around the world.It is not easy to do that. Especially not in a land where there are so many fundamental differences in certain aspects of life such as culture, weather, religion, freedom, government and day to day lifestyle just to name a few. To overcome all that, Dubai jobs come with benefits that a...

Student Finance: Prepares You to be the Best

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:43:31 -0600

Student life is all about studying and being away from the tensions and lives of the outer world. But certain problem that gets created in the educational life sometimes forces the students to indulge themselves in other things where they can earn for their livelihood. When you will not have the required money for your higher education then you will have no way left but to leave your studies unfinished. The outcome then becomes quite bad as you will get your hands on other jobs to earn money. The job you would have been doing after being highly educated is completely different from these ordinary jobs. Therefore, you should always think about the best and being the best. In that effort, the student finance services will always be behind you. These will enable you to get any amount as loan and before that you have to choose ...