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Three Ways to Establish a Baseline for Your Brand-New Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Three Ways to Establish a Baseline for Your Brand-New BusinessIn business terms, a baseline is where you start. It gives you an idea of your bottom-most revenues and ranks, then allows you to improve upon them until you have a new baseline to replace the start-up version. This is super-important for a brand-new business, as you need to know where you’re starting from to grasp where you want to go. Especially important in project management for business, baselines should be included in your initial business concept. Or at least projected and considered. That said, this article gives you more to think about when establishing a baseline for your brand-new business.

1. Establish a Projected Baseline of Your Hopeful Revenues, Ranks, and Business Presence for the First 3 Months

Baselines are your bottom dollar and where you begin in business. It’s the rock-bottom of your company, and it’s rather low to start with because you don’t know exactly what your business will make. However, you can do a projected baseline as a goal for the next three months. Project a hopeful new baseline, and if you accomplish that one, then that will be your new standard until you consistently make more.

2. Compare Your Actual Baseline to Your Projected Baseline AFTER the First 3 Months and Make Note of Things to Do Differently/Similarly

The first three months are crucial to the success of your business, so keep well-documented records of projected baselines and actual revenues and ranks. When the first three months pass and your business is still standing tall, make tangible notes of what you did, what you will keep the same, and what to do differently. This will be your routine for every three months that your business excels. You could even make a tangible office chart on your wall. Make custom stickers to represent your baseline, projected revenues, and current ranking numbers.

3. Build on Your Business Concept Using the Baseline as an Example of What You Can Accomplish—but Update it Every 3 Months

Baselines change, and businesses go through the trial and errors that either lead to big successes or big failures. Look at where your business began and how much you have accomplished every three months. Let these numbers drive you to do better and maintain a standard of success within your business.

How Can A Business VPN Secure Your Company?

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Across the globe, VPN services are providing privacy and security to more than 400 million consumers and businesses. Business VPNs are used to help safeguard the information employees send and receive online and protect their internet connections from unauthorized intrusion and other dangerous hacks.

Here, we’re going to discuss how a business VPN can secure your company, so read on if this is something you’d like to learn more about.

StrategyDriven Risk Management Article | Business VPN
 
What Is A Business VPN?

A business VPN is something you use that provides you with end to end encryption for your business device’s internet connection. You get a secured web connection to your company devices, wherever people connect to the internet. You will be able to avoid things like hackers, governments, fake wi-fi, competitors, and more when you use a business VPN.

Is it a good idea for you to start using a VPN? Well that can depend on what your business goals are. We discuss the benefits of a VPN below:

Better Security For Your Business

Hackers and other threats can still be a danger if you have firewalls, antivirus protection, and other things in place. A typical online connection isn’t all that secure or encrypted, so a business VPN can ensure you are protected from the lesser known viruses, hackers, and threats. A good VPN will protect sensitive customer and client information, internal documents, internal communication and other trade secrets. Although it’s possible to pay for a VPN service, it could be a better idea to go for a Free VPN to begin with, especially if you’re not yet convinced of what this can do for you.

Secure Data Sharing

One of the best uses of a VPN is safe and secure data sharing. You will safely be able to share data between your colleagues and even those outside of your organization. You just have to ensure the VPN encrypts your entire internet connection rather than just the connection to your company network.

Remote Data Access

How do you securely connect to your cloud? A VPN allows you to remotely connect into a secure server that hosts the data you need to access, keeping you secure from prying eyes.

Companies that want to improve security while not hindering accessibility for their employees should all look into a VPN.

Avoid International Censorship

If you’re looking to grow your business, this may mean traveling to and from countries that have internet censorship in place – and this can hinder your employees and your progress in a big way. With a business VPN you can choose different locations to appear as if your business is still connecting to the internet just like you were back home.

When you’re thinking about whether a VPN is the right choice, other things to consider include set up costs and management and operations. A business VPN may not might be an ideal solution for every type of company, but the security and flexibility it offers can help those organizations looking to protect their data as securely as possible.

Steps To Solving Operational Issues

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If you are spending more time encountering the same issues over and over again in your business operations, you are going to notice over time that they are festering into bigger issues. The thing is, no matter what industry your business is in, if you have done the things that you have always done, you will get the results that you have always gotten.

Choosing to implement an approach that solves problems in your business can help you to realise the root cause of what is going wrong in your operations, so that you can approach it the right way and find solutions to the problem. Manufacturing plants are large places, and anything from boilers to heat exchangers can go wrong at any time. You need to take a problem solving approach and below, you will find this solution broken down into steps to make sure that mistakes do not happen.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Operational Issues Resolution | Corrective Action Program
 
Look at the problem. An issue can be seen as a temporary setback or an interruption in production. The problem is that these temporary setbacks can be costly, and the first thing that you need to be aware of is if a problem exists and you should view it as an opportunity to make improvements for next time.

Get to know the issue. Something in the plant has broken down and production has halted across the board. In order to understand the issue, you need to figure out what started all of it. Some of the questions that you can ask is:

  • Who needs to be informed?
  • What are the processes in question that have failed?
  • When and where did the issue occur?
  • What caused the issue?
  • Does the problem happen too often?

Implement temporary measures. You can’t always find a perfect solution right away, and that’s okay! You first need to put out the fire and put the right fix in place for now – even if that fix is only temporary.

Find the cause. You can’t always find the exact cause of the issue straight away, but when you do you need to find the root cause and not just the immediate problem. If the heat exchangers or boilers have failed, you need to figure out what caused the failure and then trace back from there to fix it. This will prevent it from happening again.

Find a solution. Once you know the root cause of the issue you are facing, you can figure out the solution. Work with your team and examine your options wholly. Once you find your solutions, plan for back up solutions in case the first solution doesn’t work.

Make a plan. Action plans are there to help you to implement the solutions that you’ve come up with. With the right resources and an established timeline, your progress can be closely watched.
Reap the rewards. When you start to see progress and results, collect the data to evaluate these results and use performance indicators against any standards you set. Adjust your plan and make it work.

Outsourcing Might Be The Answer You’ve Been Looking For

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Outsourcing | Entrepreneurship
 
One of the biggest challenges of running a business is simply the fact that there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything that you need to. There are hundreds of businesses that had huge amounts of potential but fell apart simply because they took on too much and weren’t able to handle the workload or the pressure. There can sometimes be a sense of pride connected to how much of your business you are dealing with personally, but you should never let that get in the way of your success. So what is the answer? Since you can make the days any longer then there’s only one solution: share the workload. And the very best way to do that is through outsourcing. Outsourcing is simply hiring a professional in a particular field to handle a certain aspect of your business for you. That way you can focus your energy on more specific places, and you don’t end up feeling like you’re spread too thin. There are plenty of different areas of your business that you can outsource to other people, but here are some of the most common that you might want to consider.

Your IT

Let’s face it, we live in an intensely digital age and if your business isn’t able to reflect that then you’ve got a pretty major problem on your hands. Connecting to a company that can offer managed IT services for your business can help you make sure that you’re always right on the cutting edge of all modern digital developments. Otherwise, you run the risk of falling behind the competition entirely.

Your branding

It might sound kind of shallow but the truth is that without great branding, your business is never going to succeed. Customers will be drawn by what they see when they first look at your business and if your branding is ugly and amateurish, then they’re going to assume that your business simply isn’t worth dealing with. You need to make sure that you’re working with someone who can really make the most of your branding and help you connect with as many customers as possible.

Your finances

Despite how important they are to your business, not everyone is going to be an expert with numbers and figures. If that’s the case then hiring an accountant is going to save you a great deal of time and hassle. Not only that but you can be sure that your finances are always in order no matter what, that way you’re protected from any nasty surprises down the road. Not only that but your attention is now free to focus on the kinds of things that are really important to you.

The truth is that there are too many different parts of your business that would benefit from outsourcing to count. You need to think about the things that are really important to your business and make sure that you’re putting them in the hands of the people who can really make the most of them.

Why Every Business Should Outsource

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | OutsourcingOwning and running a business is not a 9-5 role; it takes a highly committed, dedicated individual who will strive for success every hour of the day, whether that means working until 9pm on a Friday evening or waking up early to take a business call on a Sunday.

However, running a business is not a sole effort for the majority of the time. It takes an army, especially if the business owner lacks the necessary skills for marketing, web development, or even accounting.

When you need an additional skill set in your company which you currently do not have, outsourcing is your best option. This increasingly popular practice allows a business owner to receive the talent and workforce they need, but without requiring bringing a new member of staff into the business permanently.

Why Outsource?

As a business owner, if you currently lack a number of skills which could see your company grow and succeed, it can be daunting to begin the recruitment process. Plus, recruitment takes valuable time and valuable resources. You may end up spending a number of weeks trying to find a suitable candidate only for them to reject the job offer. In this event, it’s back to the beginning of the process.

An alternative path is to seek the assistance of a contractor or freelancer and outsource the role. This person will hold the qualifications and skill set you need to get the job done, except they won’t be hired for a full-time position. This way, once the task is complete, you have the option of working on another project together, or exchanging payment and thanking each other for their contributions.

When you choose to outsource, you reduce the risk of losing time, resources and money into a stressful recruitment period. Instead, you gain the experience and expertise your role requires with minimal fuss and effort.

What’s more, it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement — the business owner benefits by getting a project completed on time and within budget; the contractor benefits by earning a paycheck, boosting their experience and their reputation. After all, reputation within outsourcing is highly valuable.

What Should You Outsource?

Now you know why you should outsource, it’s time to learn what projects and roles you should outsource, including:

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is a specialist skill on its own; you need to understand the many factors, such as SEO, PPC, copywriting, editing skills, social media, and so on. It’s also a rather time-consuming role, one which needs constant monitoring and measuring of which methods are successful, and which you need to change. Outsourcing digital marketing means you get the knowledge and expertise from a reputable marketer who can help drive your campaigns to success. For a fledgling business, it’s an essential role you cannot be without.

Security

In the modern age, security is extremely crucial for all businesses. With so much private data being held on our systems, it’s critical that it’s protected at all costs. A data breach or ransom can be devastating for enterprises of all sizes, and even be the reason why a company fails. However, an experienced Chief Information Security Officer is an expensive role, something brand new businesses can’t always afford. Therefore, opting to outsource CISO is a cost-effective solution.

Web Development

If you don’t have a website, you won’t get very far in today’s digital world. It’s your virtual storefront, and as such, it needs to be attractive and easy to navigate. Website development and coding is a specialist skill, but your website isn’t something to cut corners over. Choosing to outsource your web design needs means you receive a visually stunning and technically correct site from the experts without the high price tag.