Grow Your Business March 09

Dear Business Leaders,

Welcome to the March edition of the 2009 Xenex Group Newsletter. 

You have been sent this as a client or associate of Xenex Group. We regularly provided an interesting mix of articles on management, leadership and business process, for senior executives and business owners to better manage their people and resources.  We hope you find these articles sufficiently stimulating for you to make a commitment to positive change within your business.

Best regards, 

Daniel O'Connor.
Consultant Principal.

Client Milestones

It is refreshing to be part of substantial achievement in hard times. This can represent the ultimate validation of strategy and contingency, that was generally planned and implemented long before the expectation of any global downturn was realised. Xenex has played a strong consulting role in several projects that are realising their commercialisation objectives despite their markets and competitors suffering. Some of these outstanding achievements include:

Production launch - Tier Toys Limited; This project is a culmination of several million dollars of investment and several years of planning and growth, which has the company producing the first of its seven products, for the USA market. The company expects to be announcing global sales agreements with one of the World's largest toy retailers, as well as their first licence agreement with another of the top-5 global toy-makers. Demand appears to be so strong they have outgrown their brand new production facility and are forced to outsource almost their entire first 2 years' production.

Proof of Concept - Hewson Carbon Controller: Wouldn't you like to own a machine that can capture up to 80% of carbons, nitrates and sulphurs emitted from factories and power stations?  This is about to become a reality for a small group of inventors and developers, headed by Perth-based Glen Hewson. Glen has approached the issue of carbon capture from a radically different perspective, with significant early results from an early prototype. His next prototype is about to commence another round of testing with an independent Government laboratory, before the project gears up for a series of pre-production trials with World-wide facilities management companies.

Capture of Export Markets - Qmax; This small Western Australian company has finally shaken off the small business bonds and implemented a change program that is about to pay dividends for them in several overseas markets. The company has a modest R&D program, an export division and a restructured sales, support, service and procurement/design operation that is starting to pay dividends even during the implementation phase.

If you would like to find out how these and many others were able to implement prositive and profitable change in hard times, please contact Daniel O'Connor for a confidential interview. He is available on 9335 7724 or daniel@xenexgroup.com.au.

States Change Their Criteria

The global economic shift has seen most States adjust their sponsorship requirements. These sponsorship approvals are still attainable, but it is expected that current business turnovers will take a dive in most Applicant companies and this will serve to shorten the window of opportunity for most applicants, with some annual turnover not meeting the minimum requirements from 2008. Responsible Migration Advisers are telling their clients that given their turnovers for their current business may not meet the minimum requirements for 2008-2011, the time to act is now. There have been many changes by States, some of which are still unpublished. A summary of the key changes include:

- An increase in transfer amounts for S.163 from $300,000 to at least $600,000

- An increase in the minimum investment from $250,000 to $400,000 and in the case of one State - $500,000

- A focus on export-oriented business activities - this now eliminates some import businesses (particularly importing from the Applicants current business)

- Internet-based business proposals need to prove why the Applicant needs to be present in the State.

There are many other changes in the requirements for each individual states.For further information on the new requirements of States, please contact Daniel on 08 9335 7724.

W.A. is now $500.00; There is some good news for West-Australian 163-165 applicants.... We can now produce the shortened requirements (including cash-flow projections) for your WA and your DIAC applications, for just $500 (plus GST - if applicable). This is a reduction of $1,000 based on the elimination of the need for a proposal. However, as elements of a proposal are required on the application forms and the proposal (and cash-flow projections) are still required by DIAC, this provides an excellent value proposition for all West Australian applications.

As soon as a business introduces a computer into its workflow it is faced with filing and tracking information in two formats – paper and digital. In early days of computerisation this doesn’t present too much of an issue, just make a paper copy of the digital version and put it in the filing cabinet along with all the other information on paper about that client or subject. As things progress though, the balance between paper and digital transactions starts to tip towards digital. Orders, invoices and receipts are delivered as digital forms, banking is done online, contracts and blueprints are sent out as email attachments, your accounts are prepared on a software application and even your tax file can be sent electronically.

Predictions that electronic documents would ultimately push out paper altogether generated a lot of hype around creating the ‘paperless’ office. That’s not realistic. There are still many effective uses and needs for paper in a business and that’s likely to remain so for some time. However, what’s now possible, and highly desirable, is to create a paperless, i.e. digital record, for the types of information your business consistently deals with so you don’t have duplicate file systems. For instance, a dental clinic should consider the benefits of digitising everything related to its patients – their dental charts, diagnostics, correspondence, financial records, scheduling and so on. A digital record means that all the information on a patient can be bought together in the one file for easy reference, updating and sharing with colleagues and the office staff who need access to it.

Saying farewell to maintaining parallel workflows, one electronic and one paper, delivers benefits in work efficiency, in saving office space, in costs, in information security – and does reduce paper.

What new hardware and software is needed?

The biggest portion of your planning will go into identifying the components necessary to make a less-paper office workable. Simply adding a scanner won’t make you paperless. You have to have a number of components that work together as a whole, not just a few random pieces of technology.

A scanner to capture images electronically will allow you to make an ‘entry level’ start on reducing paper. Get a scanner with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capability. This enables you to produce a searchable PDF version of a document and this provides a very handy way to look for files or pull out all files on the same subject. Beef up disk space to handle the extra demand that will be made on it for storage of the electronic documents.

A high res monitor is very useful once you start doing most of your document work online.  For the real road warrior investing in portable paper replacement devices like a Blackberry and an eReader will free you up from having to carry paper copies of things like travel documents, itineraries and maps.

On the software side, use Adobe to turn your scanned files into PDF format. This is a stable format that keeps the file looking exactly as it looked on paper. It can be read online or printed, takes little space, and in conjunction with OCR can be searched and amended. Security and confidentiality can be maintained using anti-virus, firewall, storage space encryption and file eraser tools. To make records available to all those who need them shift from standalone PCs to a client/server setup. After these basic starting components your conversion upgrades can be as little or as much as you want.

Locating a document

All that electronic documentation is useless if you can’t locate things easily or keep related information together. You need to create an electronic version of your file cabinet. This is done by creating folders and placing one folder in another just as, for instance, you have files on each individual supplier filed in a folder inside the file cabinet drawer named Suppliers. For documents converted using OCR software you can search using an index term associated with the document or a number of documents e.g. a client’s name or a region code.

Making it happen

The computer savvy can create a less-paper office relatively cheaply by purchasing hardware items but downloading free versions of the software components from the internet. If you don’t have that level of comfort with computers, then seek help from an experienced dealer. Maintaining the less-paper office ongoing is not particularly difficult once it is in place, but it does require a little discipline, particularly around regular backup of your records. To get the most benefit, ask your suppliers and customers to prefer electronic methods of dealing with you when they can and do the same with them.

In soft economic times cutting back on payroll usually means laying off employees. As a tactic it works, but this strategy reduces your productivity and can end up costing you in the long run. You will have lost any investment you made in their training, lost their knowhow and will be stuck with the cost of hiring a replacement sometime in the future when business starts to pick up again, so avoid it if you can. If laying off employees is the only option, give careful thought to how you can maintain production and customer service so as not to plunge into a downward spiral of poor service leading to increasing customer desertion. Here are some suggestions for how to slim the payroll burden.

Slim the payroll

Reduce pay and eliminate raises: a reduction in pay won’t be popular but if the alternative is redundancies among the employees they might well agree to go for it. At least they keep their job (and you save on payroll) until business picks up again.

Cut back on work hours: this will reduce payroll without entirely losing the employee.  This can be done by decreasing daily hours or reducing days per week or moving to so many days per month. A reduction in hours may be viewed as preferable to having no job whatsoever. Sharing the pain out among employees will be better for morale and you get to keep people on hand for when times improve.

Replace monetary with nonmonetary incentives: offering the use of your vacation home or extra time off in lieu of a money bonus can show that you understand your employee’s disappointment in not receiving a cash bonus but want to reward them for their hard work.

Encourage employees to take time off without pay: canvass employees for those who would be agreeable to taking a period of time off work without pay. The deal must be that they are guaranteed their job back at the end of the specified period.

Incentivise employees to leave: the least unpleasant way to downsize is to let natural attrition take care of the job by not replacing employees who quit or retire. If normal attrition will be too slow to reduce numbers to what you need/can afford, then offer employees an incentive to terminate: grant early retirement with full retirement benefits or offer an attractive severance package. Make clear this is for this occasion only.

Make use of independent contractors: hiring is a long term commitment. Until things improve, soak up extra workload using independent contractors instead of putting on workers.

Insource: maybe some jobs you are currently outsourcing can be economically brought back into the workplace to be done by underutilised employees. Be careful not to breach employee or supplier contracts. Do this only if there is a distinct cost/benefit advantage over the outsourcing deal.

Reduce the cost of producing payroll

The actual cost of producing the payroll (calculating pay, producing cheques or making deposits and keeping track of employee information) is itself an area where savings can be made.

1.    Outsource payroll: organising each payroll is a time consuming, (= costly), process with an element of danger added because of the possibility of making a mistake with the regulations and procedures that need to be navigated and the forms and returns to be filled in to get it right. It may be more cost effective to outsource payroll to an online service provider who will carry out all processes in accordance with the latest regulations, insert this information into the correct forms and get salaries deposited into your employee’s bank accounts.

2.    Use direct deposit for salaries: a good way to save money is to use direct deposit of payroll (DDP) in place of issuing paper payroll cheques. There is a significant cost differential between an online transaction and the processes around preparing and issuing cheques.

3.    Extend the payroll period: switch from a weekly to a biweekly or monthly payroll period to reduce processing costs.

The best rule of thumb for implementing any restructuring of work practices is to be honest with employees upfront and lay out the reasons that make the changes necessary for business survival. You also need to be mindful of the terms of existing union agreements and work with the union to achieve a conflict free alteration of procedures. And always take expert advice in labour related decision making to avoid breaching labour regulations.

Over time computer slowdown is inevitable. Every session on your PC means more files and more chaotic file structure on the hard drive. The information in this article is general – it aims to explain why actions are necessary rather than how to do them on any particular PC operating system or application since, while the problems are common, the location and names of the fixit tools may not be. To carry out the required work your options are:

• Read the manual and then use the tools bundled into your computer
• Purchase a disk cleanup software application
• Sign up with a service provider and have it done for you remotely via your internet connection
• Take it into a computer dealer or repair shop and have someone do it for you

Which way you go will depend on your level of knowledge of how computers work. While some of these actions are perfectly OK for computer newbies (they are marked DIY safe), others involve hands-on with your operating system and should be left to an expert.

Archive or delete rarely used files (DIY safe)

After a few years your computer is likely to resemble a museum with a large number of files created in the past but now rarely used or completely irrelevant. Others, like the family photo album, movies and music can also be removed and put onto another device to save hard disk space on the work computer. Start by deleting those files that are no longer relevant at all. Then decide which should be archived to a CD-R or memory stick.

The fewer items you have on your hard drive, the quicker it will be for your computer to locate the files you need on a regular basis.

Disk Cleanup - delete unnecessary files (DIY with caution)

Over time your PC builds up a storehouse of debris and unnecessary files that can really slow the computer down. The Disk Cleanup utility in PCs can easily determine which files on a hard drive may no longer be needed and allow you to delete them. Select the drive to be cleaned and the utility searches it and then lists a number of file categories that might be cleaned out (Downloaded Program Files, Temporary Internet Files, Recycle Bin and a few others). Now review each category by clicking on it to display more information relative to that category in the Description section of the window. If you're unsure about what sort of files they are or what they do it is better NOT to remove them until you seek advice from someone knowledgeable. Perform a disk cleanup at least monthly.

Where files are removed there will be gaps and empty spaces created on the hard drive, so this is an excellent time to defragment as well.

Defragment the hard disk drive (DIY safe)

Magazine articles are often split between different pages within the publication would be much faster if the article was all in one place and you didn’t have to flip around finding the next segment. Files on your computer get split up (fragmented) like that with a bit in one part of the hard disk drive and another bit in a different part. When a file is fragmented it takes longer for the computer to read it because it has to skip to different sections of the drive to locate them. The PCs Defragmentation utility improves your computer's performance by bringing the parts of a file closer together. How often you defrag your computer depends on the size of your hard drive, the amount you use your computer, and type of use you give it. Once a month is a good practice for most average users.

Over time computer slowdown is inevitable. Every session on your PC means more files and more chaotic file structure on the hard drive. The information in this article is general – it aims to explain why actions are necessary rather than how to do them on any particular PC operating system or application since, while the problems are common, the location and names of the fixit tools may not be. To carry out the required work your options are:

• Read the manual and then use the tools bundled into your computer
• Purchase a disk cleanup software application
• Sign up with a service provider and have it done for you remotely via your internet connection
• Take it into a computer dealer or repair shop and have someone do it for you

Which way you go will depend on your level of knowledge of how computers work. While some of these actions are perfectly OK for computer newbies (they are marked DIY safe), others involve hands-on with your operating system and should be left to an expert.

Archive or delete rarely used files (DIY safe)

After a few years your computer is likely to resemble a museum with a large number of files created in the past but now rarely used or completely irrelevant. Others, like the family photo album, movies and music can also be removed and put onto another device to save hard disk space on the work computer. Start by deleting those files that are no longer relevant at all. Then decide which should be archived to a CD-R or memory stick.

The fewer items you have on your hard drive, the quicker it will be for your computer to locate the files you need on a regular basis.

Disk Cleanup - delete unnecessary files (DIY with caution)

Over time your PC builds up a storehouse of debris and unnecessary files that can really slow the computer down. The Disk Cleanup utility in PCs can easily determine which files on a hard drive may no longer be needed and allow you to delete them. Select the drive to be cleaned and the utility searches it and then lists a number of file categories that might be cleaned out (Downloaded Program Files, Temporary Internet Files, Recycle Bin and a few others). Now review each category by clicking on it to display more information relative to that category in the Description section of the window. If you're unsure about what sort of files they are or what they do it is better NOT to remove them until you seek advice from someone knowledgeable. Perform a disk cleanup at least monthly.

Where files are removed there will be gaps and empty spaces created on the hard drive, so this is an excellent time to defragment as well.

Defragment the hard disk drive (DIY safe)

Magazine articles are often split between different pages within the publication would be much faster if the article was all in one place and you didn’t have to flip around finding the next segment. Files on your computer get split up (fragmented) like that with a bit in one part of the hard disk drive and another bit in a different part. When a file is fragmented it takes longer for the computer to read it because it has to skip to different sections of the drive to locate them. The PCs Defragmentation utility improves your computer's performance by bringing the parts of a file closer together. How often you defrag your computer depends on the size of your hard drive, the amount you use your computer, and type of use you give it. Once a month is a good practice for most average users.

As an employer, you bear a legal responsibility to protect the health and safety of people in your workplace. It is a huge mistake to believe that your business is accident proof and now is definitely not the time you want to get hit with a payout to an employee or customer who suffered injury on your premises.

DON’T PANIC, implementing good health and safety measures does not have to be complicated, expensive or time consuming. Get started with these common sense occupational safety and health practices.

Fire Safety And Electricity

• Undertake a fire risk assessment
• Keep basic fire fighting equipment on hand
• Regularly inspect fire fighting equipment, sprinkler and alarm systems, wiring, heating, air-conditioning equipment and refrigeration units
• Train employees in emergency procedure
• Display posters about how to deal with fire and electrical faults and include phone numbers to call in case of emergency

First Aid And Accident Reporting

• Appoint a suitably trained employee as First Aid officer
• Offer training to other employees in first aid techniques
• Train employees to report and log notifiable accidents

Hazardous Substances

• Identify and document procedures for the handling of all hazardous substance
• Train employees in the proper procedures for storage, dispensing, moving and using hazardous substances

Manual Handling

• Do a risk assessment – which tasks involve manual handling, can any be automated?
• Train employees how to handle heavy loads

Work Equipment And Protective Clothing

• Provide suitable and adequate work equipment and protective clothing
• Keep equipment and protective clothing maintained
• Train employees in the proper use of equipment

Workplace

• Check that the workplace/customer areas meet regulation standards for  ventilation, lighting, temperature, cleanliness and size of working/walking areas and keep areas rubbish free

Insurance

• Take out employers' liability insurance

“It’s not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change …..”

- Charles Darwin

Be sure to read each article with the mindset "How could this apply to our business." Thinking of it that way will guarantee that you get value. Better yet, take notes as you read and commit to having the ideas implemented by the time the next edition arrives. Also, make copies for each team member. To really make sure something positive happens, work with your Xenex business development specialist to talk your team through the ideas and how to set a schedule for getting them implemented. We're here to help you get started.

While every effort has been made to provide valuable, useful information in this publication, Xenex Group and any related suppliers or associated companies accept no responsibility or any form of liability from reliance upon or use of its contents. Any suggestions should be considered carefully within your own particular circumstances, as they are intended as general information only.