For those of you interested in international business transactions or the business networking organization, LinkedIn, a new Yahoo groups discussion forum has been created. Several Yahoo discussion groups already exist on the uses and preferences concerning LinkedIn, such as the Yahoo Group forum called MyLinkedin Power Forum (MLPF), but the messages on that forum were biased. The moderator of MLPF censored opposing points of view. He is the type of person who would criticize a group member’s message, but not let that member respond to his criticism. In many respects, the MLPF and forums like it were just plain boring: a large cacophony of disjointed and disconnected messages on everything from trolling for people with the same last name to using LinkedIn to advertise products or services.
The MLPF forum has a minority core group of people who do not advocate open networking and who resist requests to expand their networks or make LinkedIn a more useful reference tool -- which the latest revision accomplished. Now users of the LinkedIn system can learn profile details about the 3.3 million members of LinkedIn outside their own small networks; however, contact names and e-mail addresses are omitted. One way to make the system more transparent is to include e-mail addresses in the "name" and "job information" fields on Linkedin. That way users outside a person's network can still locate contact details on that user.
As I scanned the messages on alternative LinkedIn forums for the past two weeks, I did not learn anything new about (1) taking care of my network, (2) profiting from my networking, or (3) communicating better and faster with less stress. It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Instead of trying to reform one or more of the existing LinkedIn discussion forums, we created a new forum with a more investment banking, law, and tax flavor content.
Our new forum, which is called Linkedin_High_Power_Dealmakers, focuses on making deals, whether structured finance transactions, project finance, placing key personnel in companies, finding teaming partners, trends in the economic and financial marketplace, and the like. Members of this Yahoo forum believe that expanding business networks to reach out to strangers is a great idea. We reject the (old-fashioned, European) mentality that we will only exchange greetings and discuss business with someone to whom we have received a formal introduction. Unlike other Yahoo groups focused on Linkedin, our new forum will discourage two-bit opinions about special features of Linkedin or non-business uses, such as searching for old friends who attended high school with a given user. We have less discussion about Linkedin itself, and more discussion of deal making (using Linkedin or other tools). In fact, we provide honest comparisons of contacts made through openBC, Ryze.com, and Linkedin, and which one offers a better networking service for high-powered professionals.
This group is devoted to using the web-based Linkedin.com system to expand business and professional contacts for purposes of making deals: new business financing, finding new business partners, project finance, outsourcing staff needs, professional services, management consulting, recruiting key personnel, and the usual panoply of domestic and international business transactions. Some of our members joined because of the one-sided and biased nature of discussion forums such as MLPF. These forums seem riddled with double standards and hypocrisy, not to mention the bulk of the messages are just plain boring.
Examples of current message threads including an opportunity to invest in a movie deal; people interested in sponsoring business ties to Romania, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia; mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. energy industry; 50 jobs available in the energy industry; best business practices in obtaining small business financing, and much more.
On Fridays, we welcome parodies of comments made on other LinkedIn discussion forums, particularly MLPF. We have a little fun with these parodies as we get ready for weekend breaks.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Maintenance Programs
Some companies that are in need of fleet management may choose to utilize the services of a fleet maintenance program. These programs can generally handle all of you fleet management needs. Tracking vehicles, keeping up with maintenance, handling fuel budgeting and logging work are among a few examples of what fleet maintenance programs can offer your company.
For example, Enterprise Fleet Services is one of the leading fleet maintenance programs in the U.S. In their regular Fleet Maintenance Program, the company receives easy-to-understand reports concerning fleet management. Enterprise can analyze and consolidate all of your vehicle’s important information. They also offer negotiated discounts on all maintenance services provided by authorized Enterprise service centers.
Enterprise’s Full Fleet Services program is one of the most comprehensive fleet maintenance programs on the market. For a minimal monthly fee, Enterprise offers coverage of all maintenance on your fleet vehicles. From small jobs such as hose replacements to full transmission overhauls, this product can be a real cost-cutter for many companies. With over 65,000 certified Enterprise service centers nationwide, the company’s drivers will be covered no matter where the job takes them.
Subscribing or purchasing a fleet maintenance program has many benefits to companies. For many smaller companies with limited resources, outsourcing the fleet management to a company such as Enterprise can save costs associated with hiring a full-time fleet management person. With a product such as the Full Fleet Services Program, subscribing for a small monthly fee can give the company deep discounts on both small and large service jobs. If your company is small or start-up business, a fleet maintenance program may very well be an excellent alternative to doing the job in-house.
For example, Enterprise Fleet Services is one of the leading fleet maintenance programs in the U.S. In their regular Fleet Maintenance Program, the company receives easy-to-understand reports concerning fleet management. Enterprise can analyze and consolidate all of your vehicle’s important information. They also offer negotiated discounts on all maintenance services provided by authorized Enterprise service centers.
Enterprise’s Full Fleet Services program is one of the most comprehensive fleet maintenance programs on the market. For a minimal monthly fee, Enterprise offers coverage of all maintenance on your fleet vehicles. From small jobs such as hose replacements to full transmission overhauls, this product can be a real cost-cutter for many companies. With over 65,000 certified Enterprise service centers nationwide, the company’s drivers will be covered no matter where the job takes them.
Subscribing or purchasing a fleet maintenance program has many benefits to companies. For many smaller companies with limited resources, outsourcing the fleet management to a company such as Enterprise can save costs associated with hiring a full-time fleet management person. With a product such as the Full Fleet Services Program, subscribing for a small monthly fee can give the company deep discounts on both small and large service jobs. If your company is small or start-up business, a fleet maintenance program may very well be an excellent alternative to doing the job in-house.
Elearning Vs Traditional
It is important for managers and organizations to consider a number of different factors when determing the best training delivery approach for their staff or organization. Factors include: efficiency, timeliness, consistency and appropriateness of the delivery method. The key factor for most organizations, however, is program cost. Program cost may be comprised of a number of related sub-factors, too, which may include: development costs, instructor time, materials, travel, and opportunity costs for the students and participants. All these factors can have a wide variance, even in similar programs, due to the delivery method used.
Managers may want to develop their own mathematical model to better understand the relationship between costs and delivery of their training programs. Many managers have found a common key element when they have analyzed the costs of their learning programs. Their key finding: e-learning is less expensive to deliver almost regardless of the participant population. For example: in populations where the participants number 100 or more, e-learning had clear cost advantages and as the population number increases, so does the cost advantage. Cost advantages were still measureable in groups of 100 or less and even with classes as short as one hour in length. In a corporate study conducted by Catepillar, they determined that e-learning was 40% less expensive than the tradiational classroom models.
When preparing to conduct a cost analysis study, managers should be prepared to understand all the different factors involved with the development and delivery of training programs and then develop a customized list of factors that are applicable to the organization's training needs and environment. For example, the costs associated with a physical classroom can widely vary depending on the geographic and physical plant characteristics of the company. For some organizations, it may not be relevant to conduct any sort of market analysis if their niche market is highly specialized or small. On the other hand, factors such as timeliness, travel costs or development costs may be very relevant for the organization to consider say, for example, if they are outsourcing their training programs.
After the manager has created their unique "model" or list of factors or variables for analysis, they are ready to begin the comparison process. Gather data from comoparable organizations or training delivery programs, preferably from those using like and differening models. This will help in benchmarking the organization's costs to that of comparable companies. If the organization or department has specific regulatory or quality assurance standards, such as Cancer Registry departments as part of a healthcare organization, the costs associated with training (or not providing training) for compliance may also need to included in the analysis process.
e-Learning may not be the best delivery method for all training. For example, programs that require role-playing, individual or group interaction or observation of the participants are not conducive to online learning. On the other hand, the total cost of delivering instructor-led classes to many students must be taken into consideration whenever the organization begins planning a large training program. Cost analysis may reveal that a combination of both e-learning and tradiational classroom can deliver the optimal training delivery needs of the organization. Once the manager has completed the cost comparison process results should be documented carefully and used for future comparative studies or even for training program justification and strategic planning purposes.
Copyright 2005, M. A. Webb. All Rights Reserved
PUBLISHING RIGHTS: You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your e-book or on your website, free of charge, as long as the author's information and web link are included at the bottom of the article and the article is not changed, modified or altered in any way. The web link should be active when the article is reprinted on a web site or in an email. The author would appreciate an email indicating you wish to post this article to a website, and the link to where it is posted.
Managers may want to develop their own mathematical model to better understand the relationship between costs and delivery of their training programs. Many managers have found a common key element when they have analyzed the costs of their learning programs. Their key finding: e-learning is less expensive to deliver almost regardless of the participant population. For example: in populations where the participants number 100 or more, e-learning had clear cost advantages and as the population number increases, so does the cost advantage. Cost advantages were still measureable in groups of 100 or less and even with classes as short as one hour in length. In a corporate study conducted by Catepillar, they determined that e-learning was 40% less expensive than the tradiational classroom models.
When preparing to conduct a cost analysis study, managers should be prepared to understand all the different factors involved with the development and delivery of training programs and then develop a customized list of factors that are applicable to the organization's training needs and environment. For example, the costs associated with a physical classroom can widely vary depending on the geographic and physical plant characteristics of the company. For some organizations, it may not be relevant to conduct any sort of market analysis if their niche market is highly specialized or small. On the other hand, factors such as timeliness, travel costs or development costs may be very relevant for the organization to consider say, for example, if they are outsourcing their training programs.
After the manager has created their unique "model" or list of factors or variables for analysis, they are ready to begin the comparison process. Gather data from comoparable organizations or training delivery programs, preferably from those using like and differening models. This will help in benchmarking the organization's costs to that of comparable companies. If the organization or department has specific regulatory or quality assurance standards, such as Cancer Registry departments as part of a healthcare organization, the costs associated with training (or not providing training) for compliance may also need to included in the analysis process.
e-Learning may not be the best delivery method for all training. For example, programs that require role-playing, individual or group interaction or observation of the participants are not conducive to online learning. On the other hand, the total cost of delivering instructor-led classes to many students must be taken into consideration whenever the organization begins planning a large training program. Cost analysis may reveal that a combination of both e-learning and tradiational classroom can deliver the optimal training delivery needs of the organization. Once the manager has completed the cost comparison process results should be documented carefully and used for future comparative studies or even for training program justification and strategic planning purposes.
Copyright 2005, M. A. Webb. All Rights Reserved
PUBLISHING RIGHTS: You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your e-book or on your website, free of charge, as long as the author's information and web link are included at the bottom of the article and the article is not changed, modified or altered in any way. The web link should be active when the article is reprinted on a web site or in an email. The author would appreciate an email indicating you wish to post this article to a website, and the link to where it is posted.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Project Outsourcing
One of the common outsourcing delivery models being offered by many service providers is project outsourcing, or the process of transferring small, one-time requirements to a service provider. These projects can be anything - from logo design and creation of marketing materials, writing a certain number of articles for two months, to website design and site optimization for four months. In other words, these are client requirements that can be done without hiring a full-time employee in-house. These can also be projects that fluctuate in volume over time and/or those that your team can no longer handle.
In the Philippines, the project outsourcing delivery model offers a lot of flexibility. After assessing your requirements, the reputable service provider can work around them and find a setup that is suitable for your business needs. Western companies that outsource work to the Philippines can take advantage of the difference in time zones. Talented Filipino employees can work on your projects while you sleep, so it's like having employees working round the clock.
Pricing remains a major deciding factor for many clients who consider project outsourcing, and the Philippines can offer much lower labor and operational costs. The country has a huge talent pool, producing about half a million graduates every year. Also, their cultural compatibility with their counterparts in Western companies will enable them to have a better understanding of the needs of their clients. Government efforts are also evident to further hone the skills of current and would-be employees of the outsourcing industry, and to maintain or improve the favorable business environment in the country.
Many service providers in the Philippines offer a wide range of project outsourcing services including creative design, software programming, data entry, data mining, transcription, content moderation, game moderation, and voice-based work. Outsource small, one-time projects to the Philippines so you can focus on your other business tasks and get high quality deliverables at relatively lower costs.
In the Philippines, the project outsourcing delivery model offers a lot of flexibility. After assessing your requirements, the reputable service provider can work around them and find a setup that is suitable for your business needs. Western companies that outsource work to the Philippines can take advantage of the difference in time zones. Talented Filipino employees can work on your projects while you sleep, so it's like having employees working round the clock.
Pricing remains a major deciding factor for many clients who consider project outsourcing, and the Philippines can offer much lower labor and operational costs. The country has a huge talent pool, producing about half a million graduates every year. Also, their cultural compatibility with their counterparts in Western companies will enable them to have a better understanding of the needs of their clients. Government efforts are also evident to further hone the skills of current and would-be employees of the outsourcing industry, and to maintain or improve the favorable business environment in the country.
Many service providers in the Philippines offer a wide range of project outsourcing services including creative design, software programming, data entry, data mining, transcription, content moderation, game moderation, and voice-based work. Outsource small, one-time projects to the Philippines so you can focus on your other business tasks and get high quality deliverables at relatively lower costs.
Outsourcing Vendor
Outsourcing customer centric services and other part of work is more of a need than trend now. It is a very important decision which could have an everlasting impact upon your work operations, market reputation and profitability. So, we present ten tips for you to ponder upon to consider before you close on the search of the right call center outsourcing partner for you.
1) Experience and Expertise: The trend of specialized services providers call centers is gone long ago. Seeing the times of increased competitiveness and advances, BPOs have become multi-specialty contact center and one stop shop for all your business needs, however you need to know that they have the capabilities, infrastructure and manpower to do so. Along with that they should have proven track record to back up their claims and promises. Check their references and talk to their previous and existing clients to know more about their service policies.
2) Price: Always make it a policy to compare the prices with other vendors regarding number of agents, call charges, technology deployed and set up. Check with your vendor, if the prices are based on the actual usage. Always make sure to check the SLA and read between the lines before signing. Just for the sake of prices do not compromise with quality of services and your brand image.
3) Locations: The offshore location can be even of great value. For instance, many companies are attracted toward offshore destination India because of its geographical advantage and thus, able to provide customer centric services and support on 24/7 basis. Moreover, all the call centers are based around National Capital Region which facilitate transportation and infrastructure.
4) Infrastructure: A robust infrastructure ensures robust performance. Make a point to take a tab on phone systems used, computers and software being utilized there.
5) Customer Support Executives: See, the kind of training being provided to them. Their language skills, soft skills and attitude should be top notch yet pleasant. Also, check the retention behavior of agents there. If most of the agents leave the BPO in less than one year, do not select it.
6) Tracking: A reputed call center that provides call center outsourcing services would send you monthly track report in simple excel sheet to let you know and evaluate the performance regarding call duration, calls made per time, average speed to answer a call and the rate of satisfaction among customers.
7) Monitoring: Call centers thrive on quality and to maintain this, they always perform call monitoring on agents from time to time. You should be able to monitor them as well.
8) Volume of calls: Your call center should be able to handle any pressure and volumes of calls.
9) Needs: They should have resources to handle all your needs that relate to customers be it scripting, multi-language support or 24/7 assistance.
10) Account Management: The project manager assigned to you should be capable to handle all the projects with ease.
1) Experience and Expertise: The trend of specialized services providers call centers is gone long ago. Seeing the times of increased competitiveness and advances, BPOs have become multi-specialty contact center and one stop shop for all your business needs, however you need to know that they have the capabilities, infrastructure and manpower to do so. Along with that they should have proven track record to back up their claims and promises. Check their references and talk to their previous and existing clients to know more about their service policies.
2) Price: Always make it a policy to compare the prices with other vendors regarding number of agents, call charges, technology deployed and set up. Check with your vendor, if the prices are based on the actual usage. Always make sure to check the SLA and read between the lines before signing. Just for the sake of prices do not compromise with quality of services and your brand image.
3) Locations: The offshore location can be even of great value. For instance, many companies are attracted toward offshore destination India because of its geographical advantage and thus, able to provide customer centric services and support on 24/7 basis. Moreover, all the call centers are based around National Capital Region which facilitate transportation and infrastructure.
4) Infrastructure: A robust infrastructure ensures robust performance. Make a point to take a tab on phone systems used, computers and software being utilized there.
5) Customer Support Executives: See, the kind of training being provided to them. Their language skills, soft skills and attitude should be top notch yet pleasant. Also, check the retention behavior of agents there. If most of the agents leave the BPO in less than one year, do not select it.
6) Tracking: A reputed call center that provides call center outsourcing services would send you monthly track report in simple excel sheet to let you know and evaluate the performance regarding call duration, calls made per time, average speed to answer a call and the rate of satisfaction among customers.
7) Monitoring: Call centers thrive on quality and to maintain this, they always perform call monitoring on agents from time to time. You should be able to monitor them as well.
8) Volume of calls: Your call center should be able to handle any pressure and volumes of calls.
9) Needs: They should have resources to handle all your needs that relate to customers be it scripting, multi-language support or 24/7 assistance.
10) Account Management: The project manager assigned to you should be capable to handle all the projects with ease.
Mistakes to Avoid
Treating Virtual Team Like Machines - there are employees who are so stern when it comes to their Virtual Assistants, that they neglect to establish a good relationship with their employees. This aspect should not be taken for granted because this is the key factor that makes employees productive and stay in their job longer. The relationship you build with them will shortly translate into loyalty and motivation.
Not Having Enough Tasks for Outsourcing - some people, so eager to join the outsourcing bandwagon, sign contracts and send out payment without really having prepared tasks to be outsourced. In businesses, there is no room for wasting time, so before forming your virtual team, make sure that you have their tasks laid out 2-3 months before their official start date.
Disorganized Schedule - with this item, we mean your schedule. Of course, your virtual employees already have their fixed working schedule, but it should also be clear for them at what time of the day they can reach you, or how often you will check on their output. This will not only comprise the consistency and accuracy of your employees' output, but will also create clutter in your E-mail, Skype, Gtalk, and even Phone. Moreover, because of this clutter, there is also a greater possibility for you not to properly address all their concerns.
Procrastinating - well, in almost any project, this is a big mistake. It becomes even more important to avoid this when you are outsourcing. There are times when you trust the output submitted to you too much, just because you get too lazy to validate them. Leaving mistakes unnoticed or uncorrected can gradually impede your business operations and image.
Not Having Enough Tasks for Outsourcing - some people, so eager to join the outsourcing bandwagon, sign contracts and send out payment without really having prepared tasks to be outsourced. In businesses, there is no room for wasting time, so before forming your virtual team, make sure that you have their tasks laid out 2-3 months before their official start date.
Disorganized Schedule - with this item, we mean your schedule. Of course, your virtual employees already have their fixed working schedule, but it should also be clear for them at what time of the day they can reach you, or how often you will check on their output. This will not only comprise the consistency and accuracy of your employees' output, but will also create clutter in your E-mail, Skype, Gtalk, and even Phone. Moreover, because of this clutter, there is also a greater possibility for you not to properly address all their concerns.
Procrastinating - well, in almost any project, this is a big mistake. It becomes even more important to avoid this when you are outsourcing. There are times when you trust the output submitted to you too much, just because you get too lazy to validate them. Leaving mistakes unnoticed or uncorrected can gradually impede your business operations and image.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Medical Billing
If you are involved in the financial running of a medical practice and are frustrated because of high volumes of paperwork with little results, then this article is for you. In this piece, we will discuss the advantages of outsourcing the paperwork involved in medical claims, by using one of many billing companies that are operating throughout the country. We will also look at what other services these companies can perform on your behalf. After you have read this article, you will be able to look at companies that deal with medical billing in a new light.
Many smaller medical practices are run on a reasonably tight budget, with staff carrying out various tasks and constantly under pressure. When you introduce into this scenario the problems that medical billing can raise, then you can end up with everyone getting very frustrated and unhappy in the job they are doing. The reason for this is that medical claims can be very long on paperwork and much shorter on good results.
Medical claims are more often than not complex and whoever is dealing with the details of the claim and the follow up that is required will have their work cut out to get a result. After a lot of time and effort put in by staff at the medical practice, sometimes a file can get lost or an error can be made that means everything has to be re-submitted again.
The main advantages to getting a billing company to do this work for you is that the medical practice director can then get staff to concentrate on what they are good at, which is dealing with medical matters. Medical practices have found that since they have outsourced their billing, that they have had to take on less staff and that the staff they have are happier in their work, not having to worry about medical billing matters.
These companies have a high rate of success with claims, which is probably understandable, as this what they are good at. These companies can offer other services to the medical practice also. They have the staff to be able to input data or carry out coding on behalf of the practice for example and they can also keep the practice up to date with any compliance changes that they need to be aware of.
There is no doubt that any member of a medical practice could do worse than considering outsourcing their medical billing.
Many smaller medical practices are run on a reasonably tight budget, with staff carrying out various tasks and constantly under pressure. When you introduce into this scenario the problems that medical billing can raise, then you can end up with everyone getting very frustrated and unhappy in the job they are doing. The reason for this is that medical claims can be very long on paperwork and much shorter on good results.
Medical claims are more often than not complex and whoever is dealing with the details of the claim and the follow up that is required will have their work cut out to get a result. After a lot of time and effort put in by staff at the medical practice, sometimes a file can get lost or an error can be made that means everything has to be re-submitted again.
The main advantages to getting a billing company to do this work for you is that the medical practice director can then get staff to concentrate on what they are good at, which is dealing with medical matters. Medical practices have found that since they have outsourced their billing, that they have had to take on less staff and that the staff they have are happier in their work, not having to worry about medical billing matters.
These companies have a high rate of success with claims, which is probably understandable, as this what they are good at. These companies can offer other services to the medical practice also. They have the staff to be able to input data or carry out coding on behalf of the practice for example and they can also keep the practice up to date with any compliance changes that they need to be aware of.
There is no doubt that any member of a medical practice could do worse than considering outsourcing their medical billing.
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