Author Archives: blogger

Crm In Sme – The Changing Scenario In India

CRM is one of the most exciting areas that organizations are looking at these days. We have seen a significant spurt in demand given the accelerated growth and competitive scenario emerging on the business landscape.

Let us look at THREE scenarios here which are clearly emerging in the Indian SME market from a CRM perspective,

First, standalone CRM solutions which many organizations are implementing. I am taking the example of a Brokerage House that has a Customer Service team and a Sales Organization. For a brokerage, the customer service team is the heart of their business as prospects and customers are constantly calling them with requests, issues, requirements, account set up and what have you. This internal Call Center has to be CRM enabled to manage this steady flow of telephone calls, emails and other contact points from their prospects and customers. Invariably their telephony systems have also to be integrated with the CRM. All elements of the Call center have to be truly integrated for seamless delivery of customer service. Likewise their sales team needs also to be tightly integrated in to manage leads allocated by the Call center. This could be within the CRM system or even via SMS to alert mobile sales persons of potential customers. Imagine the customer delight, if you log in your requirements and within minutes the appropriate sales person calls you to set up a meeting. Indian brokerages which are on a high growth path given booming stock markets have realized the importance of CRM systems that will truly drive their business growth. The need has got cemented with brokerages rapidly expanding across multiple locations and the need to manage remotely branch operations. Further many organizations which started small have grown exponentially in the last one year. We have seen the emergence of a high growth industry in the Financial Services business.

Secondly, more and more organizations are seeking end to end solutions with best of breed offerings. The classic example is of ERP integrated with CRM. This is increasingly seen as a trend in the Indian market now. By having this integrated solution, the sales, operations and finance organizations can work together as a team to manage their customers, deals, payments, receivables, inventories and orders. This can powerfully transform the way organizations are run and reduce lead times and improve information flow. This approach has to be taken by organizations seeking exponential growth in an economy where things are happening. Here again we are witness to a new trend that has emerged in the last 6 months or so across SME businesses. This seemed to have been a major requirement for larger organizations until sometime back. This again reflects the rapid growth potential seen by SMEs in India today. This technology driver has accentuated the need for employees to become more result oriented as well as increasingly accountable.

Thirdly, hosted offerings are here to stay for SMEs looking for CRM application. The trend we see is of relatively smaller SMEs adopting this approach quickly as this minimizes investments in hardware, trained technical manpower and infrastructure. It also helps them get off the ground rapidly. CRM is best suited for SaaS (Software as a Service) model given the fact that sales persons are generally on the move and can therefore work from any location as long as internet bandwidth is available. The other major driver of SaaS is the fact that organizations prefer to get started with vanilla applications which makes sure that they focus on user adoption in the initial phase. Further this model makes it easier for SMEs to decide if they wish to rent or buy as the on-premise should always exist in case organizations decide at some point in time to move the application in-house. Flexibility is a huge advantage from a deployment and investment perspective. Lead management, Sales force automation are the two major areas of CRM that are best enabled though the SaaS model.

Internet Sales Letter Magic

Imagine spending thousands of dollars on web design, bells, whistles, a flash intro, and an array of colors. Firstly, this is a big waste of time, money, and effort. Also, this is like building a gaudy and non-functional house without a foundation. Your web site is a key sales tool. Fortunately, web sites do not have to be pretty in order to be effective.

In the above-mentioned case, no forethought is given to the first step in building a web site. The first and most important part of web site construction is your cover page, sales process, and the least expensive ways to send targeted traffic to your web site.

Unless your web site is just a hobby, it should function as an automated 24-hour sales person, seven days per week. Your Internet sales letter is much more than a business card or company brochure. A properly constructed sales letter is a separate entity and can possibly close sales by itself.

When you have an idea about a great Internet product or service, have researched the demand, have chosen the best URL, and developed an outline of your proposed site – your next step should be to develop an award-winning sales letter. This proposed sales letter should be packed with unique content that drives visitors to you and captures their interest.

Your sales letter should thoroughly describe the benefits of your product or service. At the same time, your product or service should solve a problem that your potential clients have encountered. Therefore, any successful sales letter will have to fulfill a genuine need.

The right sales letter should develop trust from the very start and tell an interesting story along the way. This is not a guarantee of an instant sale, but the start of a relationship – built on credibility and trust. Your prospects visit your site because your product or service has sparked an interest.

Prospects visit your site for a multitude of reasons – but do you know why? Do you know the top reasons why your existing customers choose you, over your competition? This knowledge is essential when constructing a sales letter for your web site.

Lastly, when deciding how to construct your sales letter, you have many choices, but choose wisely and research your choices. If you decide to hire a sales copy writer, make sure his or her previous works have produced results or are persuasive in content. If you decide to purchase the least expensive writer available, do not expect good results. When seeking out a sales copy writer, you will get what you pay for.

Copyright 2006 Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

Some Benefits Of Cash Registers

A cash register is one of the devices that are used within a sales establishment and which are being operated by a sales clerk. This is usually used to calculate the total number of sale a customer was able to purchase, and will also give the people the proper change and the respective receipts with what they are buying.

Cash Registers is used to a grocery store, department store, clothing store, or other profitable retail business, POS cash registers, are an important component of running a successful, profitable business. Cash registers not only help you keep an accurate count of your inventory and your sale records, but they also enable your customers to be serviced in a quick, yet effective matter. That is why it is vital that your business uses POS cash registers.

Cash registers have many benefits in the retail world, or anywhere that sales are made. They keep track of sales and quickly process sales transactions. They also keep accurate records, which benefits both the business owner and the customer. POS cash registers have even more benefits than standard cash registers. They produce more detailed reports, track inventory and grow with the business without much hassle. Here are some benefits of Cash Registers :

Help to keep business running smoothly

Complete POS cash register systems are commonly equipped with cash drawers, credit card readers, receipt printers, keyboards, cash register computer screens, barcode scanners, and all systems come with installed POS software. Complete POS cash register systems ensure that you will have everything that you need to help keep your business running smoothly, at least at the checkout counters.

Retain additional profits

To saving money on the original cost of buying a complete POS cash register system, as they are cheaper than buying each component individually, you may also be able to save money in the long run; in fact, make money. This is often referred to as a return on your investment, plus additional profits. If you already run a profitable retail store, you are likely to be able to make a return on your investment in as little as a few weeks. Once your complete POS cash register has essentially paid for itself, you are able to retain additional profits.

Need not require constant data input

Cash registers don’t require constant data input. The costs associated with a POS system are more than offset by the data and reports available. However others may simply be unable to spend the extra money. As a result, you are not tracking inventory levels, price adjustments, and other data. By using a cash register there is a requirement for much less data entry and manipulation.

Accuracy

With a computerized cash register system, every item in your store has a price associated with it. Never again will you have to figure out how much a specific item sells for. The guesswork is gone.

Speed Up Customer Checkout

Lower transaction times save both you and your customers time and money. Computerizing speeds up your customer checkout. With a barcode scanner, you can checkout a customer in half the time required with a cash register. Even if you don’t use a barcode scanner, your checkout is still faster and more accurate because you are entering inventory item numbers which are automatically tied to pricing specified in your accounting program for each inventory item.

Falling Fowers, Yard Sales, And The Diploma In The Box

How would you describe life? What is it? In a short little book of the Bible written by the Apostle James we find the answer. “Life is but a vapor. It’s here for a moment and then it’s gone.” Another of the Apostles described our lives in much the same way saying, “All flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls away.” In two short passages of Scripture we are given an extremely sobering and important reminder.

The inspired words of the Apostles should remind us that so many of the things that steal away our time, energy, effort, and finances won’t matter much in the end. The things that keep so many people awake at night suffering from anxiety induced insomnia are all temporary.

Our lives are vapor.

You and I are as grass. The achievements that currently seem so incredibly important to most of us in this age, just like a dying flower will wilt away into nothingness.

Regardless of how much we exercise and how carefully we monitor what we eat, the mortal and corruptible bodies we are currently wearing will eventually begin to wear out, break down, get sick, and die. There is no avoiding it. Do some research. Check out the death statistics yourself. They are startling! Surprisingly enough, one hundred out of every one hundred people die.

Think about the thousands upon thousands of diplomas proudly displayed in offices around the globe. We spend a fortune in student loans paying for that diploma and a tenth of our lifetime working for it in the hope that it might help us land a better paying job. But have you ever thought about where that diploma is going to eventually end up?

One day your diploma, along with your framed employee of the decade certificate are going to find their way into a cardboard box in someone’s garage or attic. Eventually your children or grandchildren are going to have a yard sale to free up some space for extra storage. Your plaque and diploma will find their way out onto the driveway in the ninety-nine cent box on top of a folding table.

The neighbor from across the street will wander over to pick through the loot. When she sees the diploma and employee of the decade certificate in their shiny frames she is going to be overjoyed. As she lifts them from the ninety-nine cent box your grandson will walk over to ask if she needs any help. They will haggle over the price for a minute or two before she walks away with a smile on her face carrying the two prizes she purchased for a total of fifty cents!

Immediately after making her way back across the street she will grab a screw driver to pry open the back of each frame. She will pull out the diploma, crumple it up, and toss it in the trash followed immediately by the cherished employee of the decade certificate. She will then run to her computer to print out a picture of her dog and one of her cat, put them in the frames and hang them on her bathroom wall.

“All flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls away.”

James Flanders is a musical artist, writer, audio blogger, and full-time student of Scripture. You can find some of his music on sites like CDBaby and Rhapsody. Dozens of his audios can be found on YouTube and his main site “The Path Of Grace.”

Italian Jobs Berlin

The hotel industry in Berlin recruits Italian and English speakers as data and channel management co-ordinators, where training for the knowledge of in-house job system is provided to employees. For this job, the candidates are required to have command over written and spoken English in addition to having fluency of German, French or Italian languages. (Both written and spoken). The job requires strong communication skills, the candidates are assumed to be computer literate as well. If you are a fluent English and Italian speaker then you can be recruited in hotel management job market.

Jobs in telecommunication are abundant for Italian speakers, but for that you need to have good command in English as well as Italian. Companies recruit candidates with strong English and Italian fluency. You can be employed as Customer service agent. For this, the candidate is required to have complete knowledge of communicating with customers through all ways of communication, telephone, fax, e-mail, chat or any other form of communication.

In the marketing sector too, the Italian speakers can be recruited but for that English, German and Italian language fluency is recommended. Here is a sample of job description:

Sales Account Manager

Job type: Full time
Requirements: Strong Communication Skills
Experience: At least three years of experience in account or sales management
Language skills: Should be a fluent English and Spanish or Italian speaker, however if a person has command over both Spanish and Italian then that person would be on a surer ground.

Moreover Italian job speakers can apply as customer service agent, client service agent and sales manager.

Cost of living

Cost of living is relatively less expensive in Berlin as compared to the rest of Germany. Average Rental cost in Berlin varies around 350-450, you can easily get a one bedroom apartment in around 450, but it depends upon what you desire, to get a decent living, more facilities you have to spend 1000-1500 per month. Berlin is considered 36% cheaper than London and 35% cheaper than New York, US. Household necessities are relatively cheap in Berlin.

Taxation

Tax structure in Germany is progressive in nature, higher payable taxes for higher income. Tax rate is from 0-45%. Individuals who are permanent residents of Germany are liable to pay tax, both from income earned in within Germany and from overseas. A person who is employed in Germany but is a foreign resident is liable to pay tax on income earned in Germany only. The income tax is withheld by the employer every month and then the employer directly pays the tax to the tax office.