Posts Tagged ‘certified copy’

Home sales and prices will continue to fall next year and more people will try to sell their homes more cost effectively, according to 2009 predictions made by ForSaleByOwner.com, the nation’s leading by owner real estate website.  Based on trends among real estate consumers, it is also predicted that the Internet will continue to play a more prominent role in the selling and buying of homes, as real estate websites continue to make it easier to complete real estate transactions without paying expensive real estate commission fees.

“While 2008 will be remembered as perhaps the most painful year for real estate in decades, declines in home sales and prices will likely continue well into 2009,” said Greg Healy, Vice President of Operations at ForSaleByOwner.com. “As a result, we’re seeing new trends emerge that will affect both the industry and consumers who need to sell or buy a home.”

Healy continued, “Sellers facing lower home values will utilize the Internet and other alternatives to using an agent to avoid the expense of a real estate commission. On the buyer’s side, we expect that in 2009 the industry will reach a “tipping point” where — for the first time ever – more people will find the home they buy after seeing it on the Internet, rather than finding out about it from a real estate agent.”

“Finally, we believe the number of real estate agents and brokers will decline in 2009 and more real estate services will follow ForSaleByOwner.com’s lead in allowing sellers to advertise their home on Realtor.com without having to be on their local Multiple Listing Service,” added Healy.

Enduring companies survive because employees throughout the firm, not just those in the executive suite, learn to keep an eye on how related industries are evolving. As reported in a recent issue of Stanford Knowledgebase, longevity comes not just from matching the competition but also from recognizing fundamental changes in how the game is played and moving strategically to stay ahead.

“The main capability you really have to deal with these dynamics is the strategy-making process,” said Robert A. Burgelman, the Edmund W. Littlefield Professor of Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, who coauthored with Andrew S. Grove, Stanford lecturer, a recent study in the Strategic Management Journal. “If the entrepreneurial activity has to be driven from the top, then the middle and senior executives are not doing their jobs.”

Business competition is generally highly dynamic but plays out in a linear fashion, says Burgelman. For instance, in some industries companies compete by giving rebates. Once a rebate is offered, rival firms quickly match it—but “the fundamental equilibrium remains.”

Grove and Burgelman focus on nonlinear strategic dynamics that change the normative, economic, technological, and/or cognitive “rules” that govern how an industry functions. In the rebate example, a firm may come up with a novel manufacturing strategy that offers high quality at lower costs, while the rest of the industry continues to compete by giving higher and higher rebates, a tactic that weakens their capacity to match the new strategy. These firms fall farther and farther behind, and eventually will be ground down, said Burgelman. “The player with the new strategy is going to get stronger and stronger.”

Middle managers and senior executives need two crucial sets of skills—conceptual and political—to help their companies handle nonlinear dynamics, Burgelman said. They must recognize the strategic changes in their industry, develop proposals to overcome the competition, and educate upper management about why the changes are crucial. That requires middle managers and senior executives to get support of at least some of their peers to be reasonably sure of having enough support to see the strategic change through.

The authors use their framework of nonlinear strategic dynamics to examine 37 years at Intel, where Grove served as president, chairman, and chief executive officer, and today is senior advisor to executive management. It focuses primarily on four events:

An industry shift turned dynamic random access memory (DRAM) products, Intel’s core business during the 1970s, into a commodity, making large-scale precision manufacturing competence the key to winning. Intel lacked that competence.

In four successive generations of product, Intel tried to use its competencies in integrated circuit design and process technology to innovate products and compete against the Japanese. The efforts increasingly failed, and Intel fell farther and farther behind—a nonlinear strategic dynamic. In late 1984 Intel top management decided to exit the DRAM business.

By this time frontline leaders at Intel had developed the first microprocessor, which found application in several high-margin market niches, while the DRAM had become a low-margin product. Although top management remained unclear for some time about which strategic direction to pursue, microprocessors won out in the internal Intel competition for scarce manufacturing resources. In the early 1980s IBM’s personal computers—a major application for microprocessors—rapidly grew to prominence and Intel top management became ready to shift its core business from DRAMs into PC microprocessors.

Top management’s decision to make this shift was facilitated by another nonlinear strategic dynamic that played to Intel’s (and Microsoft’s) advantage. While IBM had not insisted on exclusivity when adopting Intel’s microprocessor for the PC, it had insisted on Intel cross-licensing its technology to other suppliers. This required Intel to essentially give away its microprocessor designs to competitors.

Because of the broad access to the Intel microprocessors, independent software vendors increasingly wrote their applications based on the Intel architecture, increasing its value. PC users wanted to continue to use their old software on their new machines, fueling a virtuous circle for backward and forward compatibility. As Intel (and Microsoft) ultimately controlled compatibility, the company was able to radically change the game by insisting that it become the sole source provider of Intel microprocessors. Intel’s market share and profitability grew dramatically.

Strategic change does not always have such a positive effect on an industry. In the late 1980s the workstation market settled on using machines based on reduced instruction set computing (RISC) architecture that looked like it might migrate into the PC market segment. Even some within Intel were convinced that the RISC would eventually wipe out the complex instruction set computing system (CISC) that Intel used for its microprocessors. Through an autonomous strategic initiative of one young engineering manager, Intel also developed a RISC microprocessor. However, it became clear that new architecture would not be able to deliver on a 10X advantage over Intel’s CISC architecture. Intel’s leadership eventually decided that unless Intel itself pushed the new RISC it didn’t represent a paradigm shift after all and went back to what Grove called “vectoring everybody at Intel” behind the CISC architecture.

“Many times, these initiatives will not pan out,” Burgelman said, but it was still crucial for Intel to develop a RISC processor. If Intel had ignored it and RISC had won, Intel would have been at a huge competitive disadvantage.

Geographic diversity sometimes encourages autonomous strategic initiatives that may have nonlinear strategic effects. An Intel team in Israel designed and developed a new microprocessor—called Banias at the time—that demanded less energy and had easier-to-use wireless capability rather than emphasizing ever more “speed”—Intel’s typical performance focus. The Banias processor became a core building block of an innovative “mobility platform” called Centrino, now used in most laptop computers to allow users to be almost continuously connected to the Internet. Through Centrino, Intel was again able to set in motion a nonlinear strategic dynamic that gave it stronger and stronger market share and profitability in the fast-growing mobility market segment.

Having the team in Israel placed it far away from the faster-faster-faster mantra of Silicon Valley. “If the idea of trading off clock speed for die area had come up at headquarters,” Burgelman said, “it probably would have been killed right away.”

Another element crucial to maintain a company’s capacity to cope with and/or capitalize on potential nonlinear strategic change is often cold, hard cash. The authors point out that in spite of sharply declining revenue and profit during the technology slump of the early 2000s, Intel’s board of directors let top management keep enough cash reserves for one year of research and development and one generation of capital investments. That offered enough resources to fully pursue existing opportunities through heavy capital and technology investments, and a time buffer to decide on strategic direction.

According to the results of a new survey from SAS, companies that have better customer experience management capabilities, along with a strong customer orientation, enjoy a decisive competitive advantage.  Over 150 senior executives from leading U.S. corporations were polled to gauge their customer experience management capabilities in the first annual Customer Experience Maturity Monitor study. The results are now available by viewing an American Marketing Association Video Discussion “Multi-Channel Mayhem: Tapping the Customer Experience for Competitive Advantage”. Some key findings:

• Among companies reporting high customer-experience maturity, 81 percent reported outperforming their competition.
• Companies that reported outperforming competitors also reported higher future investment plans in customer experience capabilities.
• Although 76 percent of respondents reported that they motivate employees to treat customers fairly, only 62 percent provide the right tools and training to earn customer trust.
• While 76 percent reported that customer trust is tied to the financial success of the business, only 60 percent consider how a proposed action increases or decreases customer trust when making decisions.
• Most companies want to focus on enhancing the customer experience but are pressured for short-term results. Only 42 percent of respondents agree that their company can do what is right, despite the pressure to make current-period numbers.

“As the 4-P’s of marketing – product, price, place and promotion – become increasingly tactical, this study confirms that more companies are embracing the 3-I’s of marketing – customer insight, interaction and improvement – as the key to growing long-term profitable customers. However, there is room for improvement,” said Jeff Gilleland, Global Strategist for Customer Intelligence Solutions at SAS.

“Companies are doing a good job gathering customer data but are falling short at creating proprietary insight from it,” observed Gilleland. “You can’t manage the customer experience if you don’t know what your customer is likely to buy next or if they are going to attrite. Of the companies we surveyed, only 39 percent rate their capabilities as “good” or “excellent” in predicting a customer’s likelihood to purchase, cancel or leave. Looking around the curve and predicting future outcomes is where the value of customer insight lies.”

Some 60 percent of respondents report treating customers differently, based on an understanding of individual needs. “That’s important,” added Gilleland. “Needs represent the “why” behind the “buy”. Knowing individual customer needs enables a company to craft more relevant customer experiences to improve loyalty.”

Being able to bridge the gap between your companies receivables with paying the monthly bills can be difficult, especially in a declining economy.  However I may have good news for you if you’re having problems in this area of business.

The Receivables Exchange, an online marketplace for real-time trading of accounts receivable, today announced that it has launched a trading platform to conduct live trading of accounts receivable. At The Receivables Exchange, U.S. businesses (Sellers) are able to increase their cash flow and free up their working capital by having their outstanding receivables bid on in real-time by a global network of institutional investors (Buyers).

For businesses, accounts receivable represent the most under-utilized asset on the balance sheet – with more than 60% of working capital tied up in outstanding invoices. The average turnover of receivables is 48 days, meaning most businesses wait nearly two months before collecting cash owed to them by their customers – essentially extending them a free loan that they could otherwise reinvest into growing their companies. By selling their receivables on the Exchange, businesses can free up cash to accelerate re-investment into their businesses such as hiring more employees, expanding operations, investing in infrastructure and delivering more goods and services, all as a result of their strengthened liquidity and financial position.

The Receivables Exchange is changing the landscape of business financing by providing a new dimension in working capital management. The Exchange connects millions of small and mid-sized businesses (Sellers) in search of capital to a global network of institutional investors (Buyers) looking to broaden and diversify their portfolio. Buyers get direct access to an $18 trillion new investable asset; Sellers are introduced to a new source of liquidity by having their receivables competitively bid on in real-time by multiple Buyers.

“The Receivables Exchange was founded on the fundamental belief that America’s small and mid-sized businesses should have better access to working capital,” said Justin Brownhill, co-founder and chief executive officer of The Receivables Exchange. “In today’s credit crisis, we’re hearing from CEOs and CFOs across the country that the need has never been greater for them to identify alternative funding sources to reinvest into their businesses in order to maintain their success.”

Companies of all sizes – from under $10 million to over $150 million – have been signing up to use their receivables to accelerate cash flow. Members span a diverse range of dozens of industries, including manufacturing, technology, transportation, distribution and staffing – all realizing the strategic advantage of monetizing their accounts receivable, particularly in today’s troubling credit crunch.

“We’ve been fortunate to experience tremendous growth despite our cash flow constraints, but it’s imperative – especially in this economic environment – that we find faster, more competitive ways to improve our cash flow,” said George Rosero, Founder and CEO of Atlanta Pediatric Therapy. “The ability to trade our receivables on the Exchange is going to answer our needs for a faster way to realize even greater growth.”

There was exciting news in the real estate industry this week, Cogent Road, a provider of Internet-based applications for the mortgage industry, announced the launch of Business Spaces, the company’s new collaborative document management system.  In addition to a fully interactive, end-to-end e-mortgage platform, Business Spaces automates work processes by delivering documents, tracking their status and notifying key workgroups of issues that may delay closing.

The moment a loan officer orders a credit report, a Business Space is created and the applicant is notified via e-mail. The loan applicant enters a private, secured environment through which he or she can view, e-sign or upload documents directly into the Business Space via computer, fax or an easy-to-use virtual printer. The borrower can also communicate using micro-blogs and discussion threads integrated in different areas within the Business Space. With automatic audit logging, all borrower actions are effectively tracked for compliance purposes.

If the loan progresses, the Business Space evolves into a true collaborative workspace enabling communication among both external and internal partners, with the loan officer able to invite such third-party partners as title agents, notary agents, appraisers and real estate agents into the Business Space. Parties may contribute relevant documents and dialog to the Business Space, and while communicating, photographs of all the parties involved are shown for a virtual face-to-face business transaction. However, the loan officer remains in total control of what the external partners can actually view. The process yields a highly interactive yet confidential business transaction.

In addition to increased efficiencies and elimination of overnight shipping charges, an established Business Space enables originators to strengthen their relationships by expanding their brand using corporate logos and photo enhanced profiles of all business partners assisting on the applicant’s loan. This feature enables a more active and desirable customer service connection between the applicant and loan originator.

Business Spaces also offers one-click order and delivery of state-specific disclosures with full e-signature capability. Should the loan applicant decline the e-signature option or fail to enter the Business Space within a predetermined amount of time, bar coded hardcopies are automatically delivered for ink signing. The signed documents can be automatically uploaded via fax or mailed back to the lender and scanned into the borrower’s Business Space.

“In addition to efficient document management, we wanted Business Spaces to eliminate document shipping charges by both pushing documents outward as well as collecting them from external sources,” said William DiPaolo, managing partner of Cogent Road. “And most importantly, we designed Business Spaces to foster collaboration between the loan officer and all external business partners connected to the loan. In this way, the potential issues can be proactively addressed and the loan applicant receives the highest level of service.”

Location-based advertising is gaining momentum as a new advertising medium. It provides more targeted and efficient marketing tools for advertisers and represents an additional revenue source for LBS (location based services) vendors, allowing them to offer free ad-funded navigation and LBS services that stimulate uptake and/or increase their profitability.

“While the relevance of location-based advertising for the location industry is huge, the hype is never far away,” says ABI Research director Dominique Bonte. “Too many location based services (LBS) providers see advertising as the cornerstone of their business plans. The reality is a nascent industry with many barriers still to be removed: the lack of understanding of location-based mobility, a fragmented location ecosystem, immature click-to-locate and click-to-navigate direct response models, limited indoor location technology, and intrusiveness and privacy-related user acceptance issues. Startups such as social networking sites are advised to introduce location-based advertising gradually next to more traditional pricing schemes based on subscription fees or pay-per-use, or a combination of free ad-funded basic services with paid premium offers.”

Transparent opt-in processes and advanced levels of customization will be key success factors for location-based advertising. The seamless integration of location into standard demographics and usage-related advertising targeting parameters will be equally important.

While free ad-funded off-board navigation solutions are already offered by companies such as Jentro Technologies and Locationet, the bigger brands such as Google and Nokia will most likely dominate this space in the future. The Mobile Marketing Association and advertising agencies such as 1020 Inc. with its Placecast service are key players in enabling this new form of advertising and increasing awareness and understanding within the location and advertising industries.

Typically, the holiday shopping season consists of finding the perfect gift for a loved one, but there are some business professionals shopping for themselves this year. FranNet is offering insight to those entrepreneurs looking to get into franchising by listing the top franchise systems for 2009.

There are many reasons for an individual to turn away from a corporate environment and start their own business, and as the economy continues in turmoil, many individuals are turning to an entrepreneurial approach. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, buying a franchise is the average person’s most viable avenue to owning a business. Affording a franchise is easier than you think; however, finding the right franchise for you can be even harder than finding the perfect gift this holiday season. There are many low cost franchises available today in many industries.

The 2009 Top Franchise Concepts from FranNet

• Senior Care: Since Americans are living longer, the home care industry is experiencing phenomenal growth.
• Pet Care: According to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, consumers spend $42 billion a year on pet-related products and services.
• Cost Reduction: With the economy being unpredictable and not strong within recent years, this is a great franchise to get into because Cost Reduction franchise model is simply to help clients lower business costs.
• Home Repair: There’s always something that needs fixing, improving or polishing up, and the home improvement market is huge–more than $300 billion.
• Hair Care: Hair care franchises are booming in the slow economy and a great opportunity to provide superior customer service to the community. Hair care franchises owners can add multiple product lines to generate additional revenue.

It has been decades since an election had such wide reaching economic implications as what transpired at the beginning of November.  Not only in regard to the landmark Presidential result, but also in the strong push to a democratic majority in the house and senate.  So what does this mean to you, the small business owner?

“It’s not too often you see an election with such major implications for employment issues,” said management attorney Michael S. Kalt, a partner at San Diego’s Wilson Petty Kosmo & Turner. “Obama campaigned he would work on a bipartisan basis. What we don’t know is whether we will see compromise or Democrats will move with the majority they now have.”

With the proposed economic stimulus package from President-elect Obama, it is clear that he will be opening up new jobs through government sponsored developement, however this will not directly affect small-businesses since most small to medium sized companies utilize skilled workers as opposed to manual laborers.  However, a democratic majority, in the past, has been prone to raise minimum wage rates on a regular basis.  This could affect your bottom line, and could cause further budget cutbacks at the present economic stage.

In addition to this, Law.com also projects the following changes will be made.  Other Obama-supported workplace measures to be pushed include:

• Amending federal employment statutes to make it illegal for an employer to discriminate with respect to an individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation.
• Requiring public and private employers with more than 15 employees to provide paid sick leave to their full- and part-time employees.
• Removing the current $300,000 cap on compensatory damages and punitive damages for violations of Title VII and the Americans With Disabilities Act.
• Narrowing the definition of “supervisor” under the National Labor Relations Act.

Retail, insurance, travel and leisure, real estate, financial services: each of these industries is among the hardest hit by the recession and the enormous decrease in consumer confidence and spending. All these sectors, too, share telemarketing as a lifeline for reaching potential new leads.

While salespeople are going back to basics, utilizing cold calling as the most productive way to generate business, due to stringent state and federal Do Not Call (DNC) regulations, these businesses can no longer indiscriminately “dial for dollars.” When it comes to avoiding DNC violations, adherence to regulations is paramount, as inadvertently placing calls to registered numbers can result in fines of up to $11,000 per call.

And DNC regulations are only becoming more comprehensive. This summer, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) passed two telemarketing sales rules amendments. The first bars telemarketing calls that deliver prerecorded messages unless a consumer previously consented to such calls; the second modifies the FTC’s current method of measuring the maximum permissible level of “call abandonment” to coincide with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) existing telemarketing rule.

“Due to the fact that both federal and state governments maintain separate lists, DNC navigation can be a tricky endeavor,” says Dean Garfinkel, CEO of the Compliance Systems Corporation. “Forty-three states have DNC legislation and the Federal Registry currently has more than 165 million numbers on file. While the cost and effort involved in implementing a DNC solution, training personnel on company policy, and constantly cleansing target market lists can be daunting, the chances of dialing suspect numbers without a foolproof solution in place remains high.”

The holiday season from November through January is often considered the worst time to put a home on the market. While the thought of selling your client’s home during the winter months may dampen your holiday spirit, the season does have its advantages: holiday buyers tend to be more serious, and competition is less fierce with fewer homes being actively marketed. First, decide if you really need to sell. Once you’ve committed to the challenge, don your gay apparel and follow these tips from HGTV.

1. Deck the halls, but don’t go overboard. Homes often look their best during the holidays, but sellers should be careful not to overdo it on the decor. Adornments that are too large or too many can crowd your home and distract buyers. Also, avoid offending buyers by opting for general fall and winter decorations rather than items with religious themes.

2. Hire a reliable real estate agent. That means someone who will work hard for you and won’t disappear during Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s. Ask your friends and family if they can recommend a listing agent who will go above and beyond to get your home sold. This will ease your stress and give you more time to enjoy the season.

3. Seek out motivated buyers. Anyone house hunting during the holidays must have a good reason for doing so. Work with your agent to target buyers on a deadline, including people relocating for jobs in your area, investors on tax deadlines, college students and staff, and military personnel, if you live near a military base.

4. Price to sell. No matter what time of year, a home that’s priced low for the market will make buyers feel merry. Rather than gradually making small price reductions, many real estate agents advise sellers to slash their prices before putting a home on the market.

5. Make curb appeal a top priority. When autumn rolls around and the trees start to lose their leaves, maintaining the exterior of your home becomes even more important. Bare trees equal a more exposed home, so touch up the paint, clean the gutters and spruce up the yard. Keep buyers’ safety in mind as well by making sure stairs and walkways are free of snow, ice and leaves.

6. Take top-notch real estate photos. When the weather outside is frightful, homebuyers are likely to start their house hunt from the comfort of their homes by browsing listings on the Internet. Make a good first impression by offering lots of flattering, high-quality photos of your home. If possible, have a summer or spring photo of your home available so buyers can see how it looks year-round.

7. Create a video tour for the Web. You’ll get less foot traffic during the holidays, thanks to inclement weather and vacation plans. But shooting a video tour and posting it on the Web may attract house hunters who don’t have time to physically visit your home or would rather not drive in a snowstorm.

8. Give house hunters a place to escape from the cold. Make your home feel cozy and inviting during showings by cranking up the heat, playing soft classical music and offering homemade holiday treats like cookies and eggnog. When you encourage buyers to spend more time in your home, you also give them more time to admire its best features.

9. Offer holiday cheer in the form of financing. Bah, humbug! Lenders are scrooges these days, but if you’ve got the means, then why not offer a home loan to a serious buyer? You could get a good rate of return on your money.

10. Relax — the new year is just around the corner. Thanksgiving and Christmas are stressful enough, with gifts to buy, dinners to prepare and relatives to entertain. Take a moment to remind yourself that if you don’t sell now, there’s always next year, which luckily is only a few days away.