Why Your Business Shouldn’t Outsource Overseas

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Most business owners understand the financial benefits of outsourcing their processes overseas these days. They are much the same as the monetary advantages entrepreneurs encounter when buying from suppliers based in other countries. Still, there are some excellent reasons why you should avoid following that strategy below. Read them carefully!

Outsourcing overseas takes money out of our economy

After the recent US election, the new President committed to bringing as much money back to America as possible. He is fighting a losing battle if entrepreneurs still choose to send their work abroad. Do everyone a favor and make sure you only trade within your home nation.

Outsourcing overseas takes jobs away from your friends

There is an unemployment crisis in most western countries at the moment, and it’s the fault of companies that outsource work overseas. By bringing those jobs home, you could ensure all your friends and family members never have to struggle.

Outsourcing overseas presents many quality control issues

There is no getting away from the fact that it’s often impossible to keep a close eye on quality control when the people performing essential tasks don’t live in the same country. Bear that in mind if you want to build a good reputation for supplying solutions of the highest of standards.

Now you know some of the reasons outsourcing overseas is a bad idea, you can start to alter your strategy and approach. Take a look at the infographic under this post if you still have some confusion.


Designed by  GreenLeaf Industries

5 Things That Can Actually Make You More Money

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article
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It’s easy to think that you need to spend as little as possible in business in order to make money. But that’s not always the case. Of course, in an ideal world, your income will always be more than your outgoings, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to cut back. In your business plan, you’re going to want to ensure that you cover off ways to make money, but over time, things are likely to change. Whether you account for this, or it comes as a surprise, there are things you can do to ensure that you continue to make money.

Hiring Staff

The very first thing that may surprise you, but should definitely be apart of your business plan at some point down the line, is the hiring of staff. Because hiring yourself a member of staff or two can actually ensure that you’re able to make as much money as possible going forwards. In reality, doing everything yourself is just not going to work. So, instead, you need to think about hiring your first member of staff as soon as you can afford it. With employees, you can then start to grow your operations in-line with your projections.

Working With Experts

Next, you should think about turning your attention to the experts. Because not only are staff essential to helping you grow, talented teams are too. Whether you need a marketing guru or bookkeeping services, you should definitely be thinking about hiring these as and when you need them. Because when you have professionals taking care of their set area, they’re more likely to do a good job, and you can, gain, focus on business growth and not just the day to day operations.

Shifting Responsibility

At the same time, you may also want to look a little more closely at your workload. If you’re going anything and everything, then you need to take a step back. Even when you’ve hired staff and are working with teams, you need to learn to unload more and more responsibility. If you want to make more money, you have to be able to trust others to do a good job to keep driving your business forwards.

Investing More

Then, you could think about investing. Investing in your business is often an essential way to ensure that you can grow on track. Whether you need more man power, a bigger business space, or even to expand into new markets, you may need to invest more capital. And if it’s going to better your business and make you more money in the future, it’s always worth the expense.

Upgrading Operations

And finally, you may also want to look at upgrading the way you currently do things to see an increase in profits. A fine example of this is making your website better. You may not be necessarily changing anything you do, but with a more refined site that is efficient and just better all round, you could see a huge uplift in profits.

Running a Smooth Operation: Tips for a More Organized Warehouse

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StrategyDriven Tactical Execution Article
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Warehouses play a vital role in the supply chain and can, therefore, have a dramatic impact on your business’ bottom line. If your warehouse is an efficient, organized and well-oiled machine, your business will run more smoothly, and you’ll be able to make more money than it is a bit of a disorganized shambles. Unfortunately, it can be a lot harder to maintain a smooth running warehouse than you might think. If you’re struggling with this, check out these simple tips for a more organized warehouse:

Keep it Clean

Perhaps, the most important thing you can do to ensure that your warehouse is better organized and that it runs more smoothly, is to ensure that it is always clean. Ideally, you should do this by hiring a cleaner to come in for an hour or two each day to clear the clutter and mess and ensure that your employees have an easier time of locating items and moving around the space, unobstructed.

Install Warehouse Aisle Markers

Warehouse aisle marker signs are the first line in warehouse identification. Use them to mark where each of your products is located and it will speedup the process of your employees finding what they are looking for fast, and make the process of unloading simpler, faster and more efficient too.

Cut Down on Clutter

Reducing the amount of unnecessary clutter you have in your warehouse day to day will do more than almost anything else to help you maintain an organized space. Most warehouses have more bins, panels, inserts, and accessories than they actually need to get the job done, just lying around doing nothing, so remove them into a separate storage area for an instant organizational boost.

Adopt Slender inventory Practices

Maintaining a slender inventory means that you only ever stock exactly what you need to get the job done with no excess. Many businesses worry about doing this in case they get a sudden run on a certain product, but if you properly plan for demand and foster good relationships with your suppliers, this should not be a problem. Of course, having a small amount of safety stock is always sensible, but you should reduce this to the bare minimum if you want to run a really smooth operation.

Make Safety a Priority

A safe warehouse is a more organized warehouse, and of course, you don’t want to do anything that would put your warehouse workers at risk, so when you’re trying to make your space more streamlined, do so by placing containers, shelves, and products in the safest place possible. You should also aim to change the layout so that traffic patterns flow easily and that every inch of space is utilized effectively to make things easier on your staff and increase efficiency, which usually means that things are organized so that every member of staff has to walk the shortest amount of steps to complete their assigned task.

Monitor Inventory Error Rates

StrategyDriven Tactical Execution Article
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It doesn’t matter how organized and efficient your warehouse is, you are always going to experience errors in picking and packing now and again, and if you want your operation to be as smooth as it can be, monitoring your error rates can give you the insights you need to implement better strategies for error reduction.

Invest in Stackable Shelf Bins

Stackable shelf bins are great for increasing efficiency and improving organization when you’re dealing with small parts because your pickers can use them to quickly store and access parts that are in demand so that they can get to them faster for greater efficiency allover and fewer stressful moments.

Place Like Items Together

This should be a no-brainer, but so many warehouse operatives have like items scattered all over the place. This makes little sense because, having, say, all of your office chairs close by, means that your employees know, at least, the area they should be looking at to find that product, and because customers often buy several like product, which means it’s easier to fulfill an order when like products are stored side by side.

Implement Regular Training

Last, but by no means least, if you want to be as organized and efficient in your warehouse operations as possible, you should implement regular staff training days to ensure not only that  new employees know what they’re doing, but so that regular staff are kept up-to-date with latest practices and refreshed on old ones. You’d be surprised how much this can help.

Maintaining a smooth operation takes time, but if you implement these practices and stay up-to-date on the latest developments, you should have no trouble keeping your warehouse expertly organized.

Technology Investments That’ll Improve Your Business’s Organization

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In today’s modern environment, a business needs to be making use of the full range of technology available to them in every aspect of their enterprise. Technology has made it easier than ever before to keep in contact with suppliers, listen to customers and what they have to say, and increase your presence through the internet. In short, through making effective use of technology, you will enable yourself to have a more effective business, and one that can be run much more tightly. Here, then, are just some of the ways in which technology can have a positive benefit to your business’ organization.

Communication and Interaction

There is such a wide range of ways to communicate with one another in today’s society that it is impossible to list them all. Studies have shown that the average digital consumer does in fact own 3.6 digital devices. But the sheer volume of ways that technology has afforded us should mean that you should always be able to get speaking to someone that you need to, employee or customer. Furthermore, with the extensive range of methods available to you, you should always be able to find a way that suits you, your business, and your methods, whether that be a phone call, a text message, or an e-mail. And with the internet, you can have a much greater freedom of access to information and contacts instantly, as well as quick access to all elements of your business with just the touch of a button or the swipe of a finger.

Apps and Software

There are a staggering number of tools, programs and software available to you in order to assist with all the elements of the organization of your business. Sites such as www.weaveability.com, for example, offer SAP tools that make all of the data about your business available in one place, with access to real-time updates from both your consumers and your suppliers. This makes it much easier to keep a watchful eye over what is going on within all areas of your business, as well as the fact that you can receive vital updates as soon as they occur and wherever you are, with data able to be synced across all your devices.

Document Management

There is also a wide range of document management software available for you to take advantage of. Such software will enable you to increase your business’s productivity and organization via a direct elimination of any need for entering data manually, routine maintenance or filing. Let technology do the brunt of this work for you-and, indeed, let it do it better and more efficiently than a living person ever could. The virtues of an automated system have long been documented and recorded, and while they are not faultless, in many respects they are clearly superior. With an automated system, the margin for error is much reduced, while you can spare valuable manpower for jobs that really require a human touch.

Improving Your Industrial Business Climate By Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

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StrategyDriven Tactical Execution Article
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It is one of the most important aspects of running a business in the modern world, its impact on the environment that cannot be underestimated. Whether you are running a business that uses a lot of electricity all the way through to something that makes a bigger carbon footprint, like an industrial business. There are many ways to improve your business so it can be a lot more environmentally ethical in this respect, so let’s go through some of the basics and make sure that you are up to speed.

Working With Like Minded Clients

Practicing sustainability is not just something you need to do in-house, but it’s something that you need to think about on every step of the chain, from where you purchased your equipment, all the way through to your suppliers. When you look at equipment like rig mats from Northern Mat, you can see that this company are continuously working to reduce environmental impacts through the everyday processes and equipment they make. It’s important that you align yourself with the company with the right ethical outlooks, especially as the government policies and regulations are becoming increasingly stricter with every passing year. Every aspect of your equipment in an industrial framework is a potentially dangerous item of machinery that has a big impact on your carbon footprint as a whole.

Making Your Business Sustainable From The Ground Up

An environmentally conscious business isn’t just something to benefit the planet, nowadays it’s a key part of how you attract clients and how you do business, so it needs to be part of your overall business operation. Potential clients will look to see how you are dealing with sustainability, not just on the ground level, that’s all the way up the ranks, through to your business plans and processes. It’s not enough to make it appear like you are covering your bases in this respect, it needs to be part of your whole ethos.

Replacing Your Raw Materials

Running an industrial business is a big drainer of raw materials, so it’s important for you to replace those, not just because of the moral obligation, but it also sets a good example to other businesses to do the same. A very simple example of this is to offset the devastation of deforestation in the world, so if you are a business that uses a lot of paper, planting the equivalent number of trees to replenish the paper you are using is a small step to show your intentions with the future of the planet.

Long gone are the days of recycling being a cutting-edge approach to helping save the planet. It’s an automatic approach to the way everybody looks after the planet now. So you need to make sure that you are imbuing your company with the best possible ways to cut back on damaging Mother Earth. From the products to the processes, and everything in between, it’s time to put your thinking cap on if you’re working on building an industrial company.