Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The Single Life/Divorced Males

The single life can be as difficult as starting over after a major disaster or death in the family. Of course we cannot include the young and always single in this article as they do not know any better, have not dealt with raising children or truly loved another person. It is the 30-year-old’s and older who are divorced and alone that are having the hardest time making adjustments to their new found ways of life.

According to U.S. divorce statistics 59% of the people are married and 10% of the population is divorced (U.S. Divorce, 2002). The medium age of first divorce for males is around 30 years of age and the medium age of the second divorce is around 40 years old. This leaves men slightly older than the typical underemployed college student and younger than those trying to apply for Medicare. In essence, “they are too old to care but too young for Medicare”.

Divorce is common in America due to the lack of social structure, family support and limited religious authority. This can be good or bad depending on the person and his/her motives. Yet one thing can be sure that life doesn’t end for a 30-something male out on his own again.

Recently divorced males have a lot of things going for them that their younger college colleagues do not have. Typically, they are youthful looking and can maintain a physically healthy lifestyle with few medical problems. In addition, they have a reasonable income after a number of years of employment, some assets like a house and a nice vehicle. Finally, and most importantly they are mature and know where they are going in life. “What you see is what you get” and a young lady doesn’t have to take a gamble on who are what this person will be in 5 years.

So when you feel down about your recent divorce just remember that you are in your most productive years and have more to offer than most people.


Learn where to get authoritative information on how to win child custody court cases.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Create a Unique Baby Gifts With Adorable Baby Shower Items

Is your sister expecting her first baby? Do you want to congratulate her? Confused how?

Do not worry because we have loads of brilliant ideas to save you from being embarrassed by messing up with your baby shower gift.

Where can I find my baby shower gift?

Finding the right baby gift is not difficult. It only needs your effort. But we have a solution for the effort too. You do not need to put in hours shopping for your unique baby gift for hours shopping on the streets from one departmental store to other and the end up in disappointment. If you are an educated person, just switch on your notebook. Your personal computer can envelop the world for you. Whatever you need or desire to buy, will be right there in front of you. Sit on your couch and rule the world. It is that simple. You require using a search engine and finding out links. Thousands of links are equivalent to thousands of departmental stores. One store is away from another just at a click's distance! It could not have been easier than this.

How can the internet help me?

Baby shower gift baskets are the most probably and likely gift item to be searched for. And therefore you will get a thousand results regarding the baby shower gift baskets. There is one suggestion that to should definitely consider. Do not buy anything from the first dealer you ever locate. It calls for no effort so give it some time. Check out with two or more dealers and compare the costs. Think intelligently and then go for any baby gift item. Baby gifts items have special charm that anybody gets lured and buys them for the sake of it. Don't be a fool and think rationally.

Alright now that you know the right steps to buy your baby shower gift baskets, we would also like you to have certain ideas regarding the gifts you can present to your little one. Baby blanket gift makes admirable baby gifts. Blankets are just ideal whether they are presented as baby boy gifts or baby girl gifts. It makes no variation for the reason that they can be offered likewise to both the genders. This is something parent will treasure for its helpfulness and rareness. Blankets are a figure of kindness which you will demonstrate towards the baby and your couple friends.

If you are really close to the couple expecting their baby, you could also present some jewelry piece. A jewelry item makes a gift for a life time and there are no doubts about it. If you want your gift to be exceptional and unique, present a baby foot ornament. You might have to shell out a little extra but then that worth the admiration your gift would receive. Nothing in life is more important than the warmth and affection of a real friendship. Considering this you may not buy anything for the baby shower, your friend couple will welcome you in the same manner as they are supposed to.

This author lives in Flemington, NJ with her husband and 5 month old daughter and is an expert contributing author for a luxury baby gifts boutique offering variety of baby gift baskets, baby shower favors, handprint footprint kits and more. This author and Babygiftstation is also dedicated to providing valuable and informative articles on childcare, baby safety tips, pregnancy health, parenting, potty training and more.


For the best unique baby gifts, visit Simply Unique Baby Gifts where you will find a large selection of baby gift baskets free shipping for boy, girls, unisex and twins.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Baby Gift Baskets For Showers And Newborn Gifts

If you are wondering what to buy for a baby gift or baby shower gift, then you may be faced with something of a dilemma. You will know that the parents probably need practical things, as does the forthcoming or newborn baby. The parents will probably also like items that are attractive, while a new baby will not care one little bit what their clothes, bedding or any other baby items look like. An attractively presented baby gift basket helps the gift buyer to reach a compromise, and solve their dilemma.

It is certainly fine, if not desirable, to focus on practical baby gifts, whether they are to be presented at a baby shower or directly at some other time; before or after the new baby is born. That then leaves the desire of the parents, and the person giving, to receive or offer a gift that is attractive. With a gift basket, you can combine the practical gifts with some pretty and attractive necessities, thus making an ideal gift offering to celebrate the birth.

Many of the things parents will really need for a new baby are quite mundane, to say the least. Diapers, baby powder, baby soap and other seemingly trivial items are really necessities, and will be welcome gifts for a new baby. However, individually they do not make gifts that most of us would like to give. Despite that, mixing the baby powder, diapers and wet wipes with some toys, and then presenting them nicely, can bring about a transformation. That is where baby gift baskets really come into their own.

For example, you could have a diaper bag as a “basket” and include a few baby toys, such as plastic ducks, baby rattle, and cuddly bear, together with more practical items like a wash cloth set, baby manicure set, picture frame, flannel baby blanket, gel teether, comb & brush set, and baby wash.

Another type of example would be an educational mix in a coloured wicker basket. You could use blue, pink or neutral colours for the basket, then for the gifts choose items like board books, soft toys with classical sounds, colouring crayons and a colouring book. Such gifts will be appreciated more later, of course, but they are good to have in hand when the baby is born as babies soon take an interest in pictures.

There are many permutations of gifts once you have made that decision to give a baby gift basket either at a shower, or after the baby has been born. There is also one plus for you: it can be great fun making up a basket gift yourself, or even choosing one online. For a baby shower, a cookie gift basket could offered as an additional basket, to provide part of shower feast.


Simply Unique Baby Gifts

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Marketing Tips For Secret Ways To Increase Your Sales

Marketing is the most important factors to increse your sales. From my experience, I always follow 10 secret ways to increase my sales. If you are struggling to increase your sales, Please follow these 10 marketing tips. You will discover something new to apply your marketing strategies.

1. Add a free interactive game to your web site. You could hire someone to create it. The game should be related to the theme of your web site.

2. Train your employees as a team instead of just individuals. Everyone must do their job in order for the others do theirs.

3. Make people feel like it's their idea to buy, they will be less hesitant. Tell them in your ad "You're making a smart decision for buying our product".

4. Promote yourself as well as your products. Write articles, ebooks, reports, etc. When you endorse products, people will think your statement is credible.

5. Show your prospects a group of testimonials that stand up for your product. People are more likely to agree with a group than have a different opinion.

6. Maximize your advertising budget and don't go broke like the big web sites. All you need is a small group of loyal customers to sell back end products.

7. Sell to the people that join your affiliate program. They are more likely to by your products because they are interested in selling them for commission.

8. Offer a deluxe product or service as an up sell or back end product. You won't have to create a totally new product just add on to your main one.

9. Tell people what they're thinking and feeling as they read your ad. Most people will actually do it. Your statements should help sell your product.

10. Make your product offer very rare. People perceive things that are rare as being more valuable. You could use a limited time offer or free bonuses.

I totally recommend those 10 secret strategies. Thereis always to improve your sales. Once again, please try those secret tips, and you will see a better result. I hope those strategies will work well and increse your sales.

Read more content marketing tips to attract and keep customers in your B2B company.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Arming Your Field Force with Wireless Enhancements

Introduction

In today’s competitive environment, companies are under constant pressure to improve customer service while reducing costs; in field operations this drives a necessity for businesses to optimize their business process. With the passing of each competition-charged day, the corporate IT mandate grows clearer. Successful companies know that a well-trained, highly motivated and efficiently connected field force is critical to their continued growth and success.

Mobile field workers can be found in different range of industries including product service and support, management and architecture, transportation and parcel delivery and utilities. They are in general field service employees from various industries who collect data and accomplish tasks/jobs while moving from point to point within a city, district or region.

Communication can be a real challenge for organizations that have to keep contact with employees in the field. Traditional methods of recording work done or reporting faults rely on batch transfers or paperwork completed at the end of a shift, so are often slow, inefficient and prone to error. Field force workers are the lifeblood of many businesses; they can deliver enhanced services that go far beyond data collection and repair through new mobilized devices and applications. These enhanced service capabilities better serve clients’ needs and provide additional revenue opportunities for companies.

This White Paper will discuss how the benefits of mobile solutions, are empowering Enterprises and their employees to improve revenue, engage in industry best practices and offer the best practices possible with its new features, functions and capabilities.

Field Force Workers—A Largely Untouched Market

The market potential is tremendous for mobilized computing solutions. According to research from IDC, there are 99 million field and 145 million on-location workers in the world today. Currently, only a very small percentage of companies are using mobilized solutions to conduct business. There is a vast area of opportunity for companies and ISVs to transform the productivity and performance of these workers. Figure 1 depicts the size of the potential market for both field and on-location work forces.

Field Force Automation – Technology Enhancements and Innovations

New and innovative technologies can significantly improve field force efficiency. These approaches can:

  • Reduce the overload of data
  • Provide actionable information where and when needed
  • Enable field force to receive and complete automated tasks while on the road

Mobile field workers – Early adopters of wireless technology

With field force automation solution, mobile field workers would be more effective in management as well as operation by connecting to their back-end systems via a wireless device.

Mobile field workers always have a need for receiving and transmitting information. This could not be handled by normal phone services. Making trips back to the service stations to get the needed information costs time and delays work process.

Field force automation provides complete access to all the activities conducted by a mobile field force worker.

Key Functions include

  • Fleet management
  • Inventory and asset management
  • Warehouse automation
  • Asset tracking
  • Quality Control (tracking and counting articles)
  • Packaging
  • Security and access control
  • Hazardous material management
  • Advertising and promotion
  • Delivery
  • Smart-card-based payment systems

Wireless Field Force – A new paradigm

A wireless mobile field force can make use of real time synergies between the enterprise, customers and suppliers leading to significant business benefits such as cost reductions and improved customer satisfaction.

Wireless field force automation is transforming the way organizations conduct business, enabling them to be more profitable, competitive and faster to market. Wireless FFA closes the information gap between the service organization and the field force representative by augmenting every component of the field service cycle, from initiation to closure of a service request.

Examples – Mobile Field Force

  • Field service technicians go to a customer site to repair a piece of capital equipment or conduct regular scheduled maintenance on an asset or machine
  • Completing a detailing visit in a retail setting and sending a detailed report back to the database
  • Medical Representatives distributing a sample of a drug to a physician
  • Insurance claims adjusters process claims electronically at the customer location
  • Parcel or expedited delivery service drivers receive customer location pick-up instructions throughout the course of the day
  • Cable or appliance installers receive customer account instructions while on the road, and can access technical data as needed to support an installation process

Top Field Force Deployment Challenges

  • How do I get this new device to work?
  • How can I rapidly deploy 20,000 devices?
  • How do I centrally configure my networks?
  • Is my connection secure?
  • One of our devices is reported lost; can I disable it?
  • What are the connectivity holes in my network?
  • Why is my network so slow?
  • How do I apply OS patches / application updates?
  • Why is my device acting funny?
  • Why aren’t my batteries lasting long enough?
  • How can I make mobile applications work better?

Source: Managing the Mobile Edge: The Unique Challenges and Requirements for Successful Management of Mobility Solutions

Top Challenges to Mobile Field Force Success

To remain competitive and increase productivity, no matter what type of business they are running, organizations ensure that they and their employees do not exist in isolated islands. To keep pace with its competitors, organizations are investing in their technical infrastructure to offer mobile field professionals more ubiquitous, secure and rapid access to corporate information. However, this evolution is not without its challenges.

High Cost of Mobile Solutions – Despite improved price-to-performance models of today’s mobile field service solutions, the day-to-day time and costs associated with managing mobile solutions, from mobile devices to wireless infrastructure, is significant. According to a recent Gartner study, capital costs are only 25% of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a mobile device. The remaining 75% is spent on deploying, managing and supporting these devices, as well as configuring the wireless network. This is particularly daunting for mid-sized firms.

Technology integration with back-office system – The top challenge for mid-sized companies is technology integration, which reflects a very different mindset from larger companies. Larger firms understand that no measure of technology can sustain long-term performance gains without sound business processes that steadily improve and evolve over time.

Insufficient IT structure and personnel to support mobile deployment – Mobile field force deployments includes integration with back-office systems, configuring software applications to run on mobile devices, and even customizing interfaces for specific business processes and mobile workers usability.

Information Security Risks – Security concerns prove to be the key challenge for field force deployments. A strong encryption system is necessary to protect proprietary enterprise and customer data. All users accessing back-end systems should authenticate themselves before accessing corporate data.

Mid-Sized companies continue to struggle due to these and other prevalent challenges over field force solutions. Field force workers in front of customers need instant support, not confusion over the source of the problem – the mobile device or the wireless infrastructure. Mid-Sized organizations often sustain expensive latencies in their field force operations from customer dissatisfaction, overcharges, glitch in performance, revenue delays and missed cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

Why Field Force Deployment?

Why would companies consider expanding its field force deployments with all these difficult challenges? Mobility to field force offers very significant return on investment (ROI) to companies that do it well.

  • Field workers can read meters, report on their location and status and receive service information and updated instructions while in the field
  • Warehouse workers with scanner-equipped devices eliminate the double entry keying of previously paper-oriented systems, allowing for greater accuracy and accelerated billing
  • Route drivers carrying handhelds show an increase in sales and an ability to make more stops in a day via efficient routing

All of these instances of mobile-equipped field force workers provide ROI benefits to organizations. By taking the complexity and technological hassles out of its field workers across all lines of business will exhibit major bottom line advantages.

Future Technology Accelerators

Tablet PC

Tablet PCs combine the touch screen and handwriting features of the PDA with the computing power of a notebook computer in a compact and light weight design. End-user experiences the same look and feel in the office as in the field. Other advances in battery life and wireless capabilities are also eagerly anticipated.

Voice

Emerging technologies that allow natural text to speech dictation will allow easier data capture by both sales professionals and other members of the sales channel. Such services can run on mobile devices or via telephone services to a central server. Such solutions will tie directly into sales and marketing applications and can help increase the amount of useful data that can be captured in the field.

Extending into Field Analytics

As wireless networks improve, our ability to access information throughout the enterprise increases. Through integration of analytics into a mobile environment, we bring the sales professional in closer contact with the home office and help them to better highlight customer needs. We will be able to better measure and predict behavior and the interactions with the customer and, in turn, support changes in the business landscape, such as product launches and formulary changes.

RFID [Spell out] – Radio Frequency Identification

An RFID system comprises three main elements: electronic tags, tag readers and software to store collected data.

The tags, which consist of a silicon chip and an antenna, provide each individual object to which they are attached with a unique identifier. When scanned, the tag transmits a wireless signal to the reader, which in turn sends the data to a database. The reader can also write information to the tag if required.

RFID technology is becoming prevalent in logistics where the movement of mobile tags, for example on pallets of consumer goods, is read by static readers, say, in goods in/out bays of a warehouse. However, for Sales Force Applications, this concept is reversed: the tags are static and the readers are mobile, i.e. carried by the sales professional. Tags can be attached, say, to a fixed location for proof of attendance, or to a specific item of machinery to be checked.

Impact of RFID technology in Business Process

The adoption of RFID across industries is fast moving from trials towards plans for large-scale deployment. Tag reader when combined with a communication device, such as mobile phones, RFID technology can give field service companies a much greater degree of control over what happens in the field.

For example, warehouse engineer who has to check the overall items is now able to inspect each item with a phone or reader, and that information is immediately transmitted to the back-office system. The user, if required, using client software on the phone can enter additional relevant information. This indicates

  • There is proof that the job entitled has been completed
  • Real-time information is displayed in the back-office systems
  • The potential for error is reduced because data is entered only once and the majority of data is extracted automatically by the reader from the tag or entered using a menu-driven interface
  • A faulty item is identified instantly and so can be dealt with more quickly, increasing customer service

Phone/Reader has to be very easy to use, eliminating the potential for error and minimizing training. It also has to be robust so as to withstand the rigours of field work

Readers can also be used to read an RFID personnel badge, so a field employee can log in each day, linking a reader to a specific person. The tasks the employee carries out can then be time-stamped, and an alert raised if a task isn't carried out at an appropriate time or in the right sequence.

Sample Case Study

Challenge

To thrive in market, Seattle Insurance Corporation (SIC) needed to improve the efficiency of its field force to meet the needs of current and potential customers. A key goal for all service-focused businesses is to continually improve customer service, while facing sales and cost pressures that generally translate to fewer resources. SIC realized it needed to transform its field service and sales processes to respond quickly – whether it was a service call or a new business opportunity.

Solution

SIC engaged ZSL to deploy a workforce management solution, from ZSL’s Partner Ameri Concepts Inc. The Mobile Field Force Automation integrated with Eye Module enables the Insurance Adjustors to capture and store the damaged vehicles’ part with the remarks. It also enables dynamic schedule optimization by allowing the Adjustors to view their daily schedule and update their status from their Handspring Visor Prism.

SIC uses ZSL’s middleware technology to capture the photos of the damaged vehicles and other information like the vehicle information, claim details, estimate and repair details by the Insurance Adjustors on their Palm OS based Handspring Visor Prism with Eye Module and then synchronize those data and the images to the Desktop application. The Desktop application in turn sends the data to the Oracle8i database, was mounted on the Windows 2000 environment.

Results

  • Improved productivity for field workers, resulting in a more than 30% increase in service call completion rates
  • Improved responsiveness to customer service needs, resulting in higher satisfaction and customer retention
  • Improved ability to target existing and new customers with customized service bundles
  • Shorter sales cycle due to the availability of mobile sales tools

About ZSL’s Mobile Field Force Automation

Even though there are a lot of challenges for mobile field force automation, the good news is that ZSL is making mobility easier and safer, as well as more manageable, reliable and affordable for small and medium businesses than ever before.

Key features include

  • Anywhere, anytime, any device Access to the business data
  • Task list or sales appointments browsing while on the go
  • Real Time sales and information update
  • Remote Status update
  • Pushing critical information over SMS or WAP Push
  • Offline or Disconnected area client to hold the data for later synchronization
  • Secured access to the corporate email, calendar and contacts

Supported Devices

  • Palm OS based Handspring or Palm Devices
  • Win CE/Pocket PC OS based Handheld
  • WAP and J2ME Phones
  • RIM’s Blackberry Smart Pagers

ZSL realizes that field workers are mobile by definition. ZSL uses technology to make field workers more focused and successful. ZSL’s solution is customized in such a way that mobile workers get the direction they need and managers get the information they need. The bottom line is increased profits.

Conclusion

Field Force Automation is the next evolution of optimizing revenue in business. Organizations have an enormous opportunity to transform how business, employees and customer interact.

Wireless technology has emerged as a potent enabler of industry convergence. Mobile field workers are the early adopters of wireless technology. Mobile workers need to send and receive the information again and again to be more efficient. Trips back to the service depots to get the required information wastes time and delay the work process. Wireless FFA closes the information gap between the service organization and the field force representative by augmenting every component of the field service cycle, from initiation to closure of a service request.

With Synchronization feature, mobile workers are equipped with real time and updated information, which in turn helps them to provide customers with up-to-date prices and inventory available. Remote order entry capabilities reduce the burden of entering the data again in the database residing at the server and help them to close the sale quickly and efficiently.

RFID-based systems provide a simple and effective way of ensuring that field data is collected and transmitted in real time, with guaranteed accuracy. The employees need not phone back to the office to report where they are with automatic time-tracking and location-tracking feature.

Companies can achieve higher levels of benefit to provide better service at a lower cost and increase their own profitability by adopting an integrated strategy. In a rapidly moving world, modern business know that their customers expect them to be more flexible, more responsive and more efficient than ever before. Mobile equipped field force workers provide ROI benefits to organizations.


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