Leveraging the Benefits of SCM Solutions

Supply chain management is a very complex area in an organization. Therefore, it has the chance to be a source of great efficiency and cost-savings gains. Organizations are realizing it today than before, that supply chain management excellence leads to a competitive edge over others, shareholder value and better consumer relationships. The business case for an improved supply chain management mandates a thorough review of the multiple source of potential benefits that comprises task productivity and SCM staff. Generally, the productivity enhance includes savings in sourcing, production planning and analysis, supplier management, production staff, production management, change for order processing and management, sales order entry, quality control and analysis, promotions management, fulfillment solutions, logistics and transportation.

Benefits of Supply Chain Management
When an organization implements reasonable supply chain management solutions then it can generate great value, such as:-

  • Enhanced supplier collaboration
Collaboration and dialogue to enhance social and environmental conditions that will strengthen ties with suppliers and might also help to minimize expenses resulting from maximized productivity and minimized resource consumption

  • Enhanced product quality
For numerous organizations, reasonable supply chain solutions assist in ensuring product quality and set up more sustainable products

  • Guaranteeing compliance with consumer demands and expectations
Today more and more organizations are witnessing demands from consumers to manufacture their products under various social and environmental circumstances

  • Eliminating the risks of negative PR
Efficient supply chain management program helps to secure an organization from negative PR resulting from social and environmental hazards in the supply chain. In worst cases, responsible supply chain management can function as a security body against possible human rights violation.

Today eminent brands specializing in reverse logistics introduced innovative supply chain solutions with which you can package products for store shelves or installation, ship products directly to the retailer, distributor or any other destination. Furthermore you can fill orders track orders from the inventory stage from your desktop. Other services include:

  • Material Planning and Procurement
  • Turnkey Materials
  • Consigned Materials
  • Domestic and Offshore Sourcing
  • Supplier Qualification and Certification
  • Vendor Managed Inventory
  • Kan/Ban
  • Lifecycle Management
  • Web Based Inquiry and Reporting

That is not all. Efficient supply chain management can also help in attracting and maintaining employees. Today a good brand reputation is essential for organizations who are looking forward to attract and retain qualified employees. When an organization outsources, it is essential to signal the employees that it prioritizes social and environmental conditions.

Read more about :  Supply Base Management

What You Must Know About Tax - Penalties

True strategic tax planning is a necessity and it generally creates a quantifiable bill for consumers. As non-payment or delay of taxes can result in penalties, effective  tax planning has become a crucial part of financial success in businesses today. There are fixed deadlines for filing various tax returns and penalties for missing these deadlines. If you owe taxes, the Internal Revenue Service will calculate penalties and interest on the amount owed. When it comes to filing a tax return – or not filing one – the IRS can assess a penalty if you fail to file, fail to pay or both.

 

Here’s what you must know about the different penalties you may face if you do not file or pay timely.


* Nonpayment of taxes by the due date could bring on a failure-to-pay penalty, while failure to file by the given deadline results in a  failure-to-file penalty.


* Even if one cannot pay all the taxed owed, one must still file  tax returns on time and explore other payment options, as the failure-to-file penalty is generally more than the failure-to-pay penalty.


* While the penalty for filing late is usually 5 percent of the unpaid taxes for each month or part of a month that a return is late, this penalty does not  exceed 25 percent of one’s unpaid taxes.


* The minimum penalty is the smaller of $135 or 100 percent of the unpaid tax, if you file your return more than 60 days after the due date or extended due date.


* Nonpayment of taxes by the due date would result in a penalty of of ½ of 1 percent of your unpaid taxes for each month or part of a month after the due date that the taxes are not paid. This penalty can be as much as 25 percent of one’s unpaid taxes.


* Timely filing a request for an extension of time to file and paying at least 90 percent of one’s actual tax liability by the original due date, will ensure that there is no  failure-to-pay penalty if the remaining balance is paid by the extended due date.


* In case the failure-to-file penalty and the failure-to-pay penalty is applicable in any month, the 5 percent failure-to-file penalty is reduced by the failure-to-pay penalty. However, if the returns are filed more than 60 days after the due date or extended due date, the minimum penalty is the smaller of $135 or 100% of the unpaid tax.


* It is not necessary to pay a failure-to-file or failure-to-pay penalty if one can prove that the failure to pay or file on time was because of reasonable cause and not willful neglect.


Work with a knowledgeable tax professional who can help you meet your filing obligations and avoid penalties. Qualified tax consultants can help expand your business by estimating the taxes appropriately and provide you with solutions to arrange your finances in the best possible manner. Pay the tax on time, even if this means requesting an installment payment agreement on Form 9465.


Read More About: Foreign Bank Account, FBAR, Overseas voluntary disclosure, Entity Formation

Language Translation Services Removing Communication Barriers

Translation is an activity which started with the start of trade and commerce. The advent of internet and the technological evolution over the years has  helped the  modern language industry  to grow. However, with the economy creating a  spectrum of a global enterprises, the business world needs to be communicating in a multilingual environment.  The  globalization of the corporate world has created challenges for the industry in the form of  localization and quality assurance.  Technological evolution that has  paved way for the development of automated language translation services  has enabled the enterprises to translate long texts into a number of languages.

 

 

The language translation services gains importance in the changing economic scenario. The growth of the e commerce has provided  most of the industry sectors to establish their  footprints on the web, providing  scope for a wider reach for the enterprises. The consumer and public with  an access the internet should thus be able to  read and understand the  web content in a local language, calling for a global translation solution. This demand has brought in a number of service provides venturing into the field of translation software solutions.

 

 

However, with a number of  tools such as the translation memory inbuilt in the translation software available today, the job of a professional translator also becomes easier and trouble free. Language translation services that meets all the requirements of accuracy, efficiency and quality is crucial for a business. This is also becoming an increasingly important part of e commerce marketing, with many  small- to medium businesses as well as large conglomerates seeking for  non-English-speaking customers.

 

 

With communications becoming a critical factor in any business enterprise, the global organizations need to communicate smoothly across boundaries. This calls for the need to use enterprise translation services. The leading service providers offers the client industries a translation platform with fast and trusted translation thus ensuring that the business enterprises will get new ways to engage global communities.

 

 

These service providers with world-class services understands the localization needs of the client enterprises and through the translation platforms offer corporate and global translation solutions customized as per the organizational requirements. Further, by integrating the translation technologies with the work flow, these collaborative platforms paves  way a language translation network that facilitates  a cost-effective localization process.

 

 

A number of  in-built features of software offered by the language translation service providers include the  terminology management  that ensures consistency and accuracy in messaging, the machine translation  that aids in improving the performance, real-time dashboards reports  facilitating  team coordination and translation memory  that  reduces repetitive tasks. All these features facilitates the new age  business enterprises in their  quest for global expansions.

 

Related links: translation software solutions,Customer Translation Network

Why Do You Need Unified Storage Systems?

If you or company is involved with IT, then it natural that you are witnessing pressing challenges pertaining to data growth and expansion. However, owing to exploding data expansion, data have significantly undergone changes over the past few years. This in turn has redefined the growing importance of storage systems in addressing any data challenges.

 

Unified storage solutions that have the capacity to address both file and block requirements within a single system, instead of what to be utilized in multiple systems has now become a serious contender on the storage system vertically. Regardless of whether a data is filed or block, a unified storage system is able to offer a single point management for storage volumes, replication, snapshots and many more. The single yet holistic view changes the way the storage is provisioned, purchased and monitored.


Unified Storage System Concerns


However, the concern with the long-term trend in unified storage systems is that a conventional approach to this kind of storage system only serves half the concern. Unified storage systems are not unified if they are taking up 10, 20 or 200 storage systems to implement adequate capacity and performance. There has been instances when IT had to invest in unified storage to combine the two systems for efficient utilization and the it was discovered shortly that there is a need for a second unified storage server as they are running out of capacity or performance. This apart, they also encounter huge upgrade expenses to purchase other systems.


Innovative Unified Storage Solutions


In order to address these concerns, eminent OEM manufacturers have introduced unified storage solutions that assist small and large scale companies to set up an effective data infrastructure that allows them to store, secure, optimize and leverage the data from a single e-mail to the production databases. These servers are efficient in managing more data and would keep the data safe, accessible and ready for expansion.


Whether your company needs to attain real time data sharing, protection or executing a diverse storage platform, advanced unified storage solutions with their customized DAS, NAS, SAN, JBOD, and iSCSI solutions enables you to achieve your objectives in a cost efficient way. Furthermore, the solutions have inbuilt backup and recovery facilities that help you to bring down the back up expenses, enhance protection and streamline the data recovery process.


Innovative unified storage systems make use of leading industry technologies and are set up to increase the storage server assets, enhance efficiencies, carry on work with the present infrastructure and offer elasticity to make the most of new age technologies.


Read More About: high performance computing cluster, data centre solutions, custom computer systems

Global Supply Chain – Backbone of the New-age Business Model

Behind every successful business is a robust logistics and distribution services. The robustness of the distribution system however, is again dependent on the supply chain which is made up of all organizations, people, technology, activities and information and resources involved in transferring a product or service from   its origin to destination. The supply chain system forms the main link between the supplier and the customer.

 

 

Supply chain solution can be defined as an integrating function of coordinating and collaborating channel partners, supplier, intermediaries, third party service providers and customers into a cohesive and high performing business model. In other words, it includes all logistics activates, manufacturing and also coordinates through marketing, sales, finance and IT functions. Under such circumstances, in a globally bound business environment, the role of the supply chain also reaches a global level. The global supply chain model is a framework built on key business processes that are cross-functional and cross-firm in nature. Each of the business process is managed by a cross-functional team, made up of logisticians, production specialist, as well as professionals from the departments of purchasing, finance, marketing and research and development.

 

 

Till the time business houses took on a global route, enterprises focused on lean manufacturing principles, just-in-time deliveries with shorter lead times. However, the onset of globalization has increased the complexity of supply lines with longer lead-times and bigger batches. This elongated supply lines have posed challenges for the global enterprises which showcases through the supply-chain management strategies of the enterprises. However, to combat the fierce competition in today’s market enterprises make use of advances in technology, demand and supply sources, improvements in information availability and creative business designs.

 

 

Leading service providers and IT giants have created   technology platform combined with a number of software solutions that offer enterprises a strong backbone of operating infrastructure.  Such high-end technology facilitates global enterprises with an efficient platform which supports business intelligence, customer relationship management and logistics management as well as client reporting in real-time mode. Leveraging on such developments helps the organizations integrate the network assets into a single instance thus easing the global supply chain process while ensuring efficiency in retail distribution  across the wider market.

 

 

There are major differences in supply base management in a global market and single market. The   cross-border operations are more complex and greater than in a single country, and the ability to compete in the global environment depends on the level of understanding the subtleties of cross-border trade or global supply chain. Though today's supply chain solutions include both returns management and forward logistics, the robustness of the system is dependent on the right systems, a reliable supply chain provider and efficient and scalable services.

 

 

Read more about :  order fulfillment

 

Open Innovation Resolves Global Concerns

Rapid globalization, advancement in internet technology, software application and the ever changing individual mindset has brought about a significant change in the way organizations resolve internal issues or global concerns today. Talk of global concerns, noise and air pollution, proper drainage and sewage, global warming and the likes has always been the top concern. However, the ways companies approach, tackle and solve them have changed. Today these concerns are no longer restricted to the four walls of a conference room, rather they are out in the open for the audience at large to think and contribute their opinions and solutions. Such has been the overwhelming success of open innovation that remedies for crucial global concerns often come from the public.

 

Open innovation has been gaining momentum, so much so that NASA, leading global space research agency resorted to it as well. NASA in association with Harvard Business School established the NASA Tournament Lab, an online platform that provides the overall TopCoder community to compete against one another in offering creative insights and solutions to several challenges faced by NASA researchers. Jason Crusan, Chief Technologist, NASA Human Exploration Operations asserted that this kind of open innovation aided NASA in finding some of the innovative ways to fill in the gaps that existed in their technical capacities.


This has been one of the primary objectives of the modern day techniques for idea management and idea capture. It connects the dots and gives way to creative blockages by motivating employees and the audience at large to share their opinions and views. It makes people inculcate a belief in themselves that their idea or feedback can make a significant change in the way the world functions. This apart, innovative crowdsourcing software used by organizations to also help in resolving critical issues.


Recently, climatic changes accompanied by global warming has been the prime concern, as it has led to changes in weather pattern and temperature fluctuations resulting in ailments such as sinus, migraine, dehydration, flu and many more. To resolve this growing concern, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence resorted to crowdsourcing and welcomed everyone to share their views and probable solutions. MIT came up with a Climate Lab and made use of the collective intelligence and implemented the same to reduce climatic changes and global warming.


Going a decade or two back, who could imagine that a common man could contribute to serious global issues and concerns. Today with rapid changes, companies realize that the common man is intelligent and is a conscious individual who has a great deal to contribute in terms of opinions and views. These thoughts and views when capitalized become potential solutions that can help a company to move forward with ease and greater knowledge. Furthermore, idea management techniques foster a culture of knowledge sharing that promotes growth and expansion.


Read More About: idea management system, innovation products, innovative management solutions, capture ideas

Open Innovation In The Food Industry

The point of inception for any enterprise, big, small or medium has been an idea. The thought of coming  up with a product, service or initiative that would be of use to the global consumer, has resulted in the emergence of numerous brands globally. However, the success of continuously developing new products and better services does not only depend on market research and branding activities or new business development strategies. What is needed is an environment that is conducive to ideas and knowledge sharing that brings together multiple views and feedbacks. This too is not just limited to the organization’s employees, but rather is open to all. This process of sourcing meaningful ideas is termed as open innovation.

 

Over the past few years several brands have been resorting to open innovation and crowdsourcing techniques for new product development. One of the industry vertical making active use of this technique is the food industry. Let us look at the multinational food manufacturing company Kellogg’s (United States). The company launched a creative initiative that enabled it in creating a new product variant of Cereal Straws. This initiative originally started in Spain where children between nine to ten years shared their breakfast concerns and probable ways to resolve them. The result of from these detailed discussions was that one should not only drink milkshakes through straws but eat the straw afterwards that is crunchy and tastes good. The final outcome was a brand new product named Kellogg’s Cereal Straws with its target audience defined way before the product released in the market.


Therefore we see that open innovation often helps food brand to have a clear idea of their target consumer group prior to product release. This gives the brand the assurance that the capital and other resources invested in the product development will not go waste. More than that, it allows the brands to actually come up with products that are a blend of proper nutrition and taste. Furthermore, innovative ways of mass idea capture and idea management tactics can not only be used for essential foods. The same can be applied to fancy food and confectioneries as well.


This is what the multinational confectionery company Kraft Foods, United States did by setting up an Idea Café along with Insites Consulting to welcome new ideas. The company was looking for consolidated ideas that can be incorporated on a day to day process. For this the company also invited 50 Belgian Kraft consumers to be a part of this three week idea generation process and Concept Development Community. The final outcome of this open innovation practice was that the company gathered more than 60 creative food ideas both for short term and long term development.


Thus the future of any company in terms of coming up with better products and meaningful practices depends on the way idea management tactics are harnessed. Furthermore, this also helps in setting a deeper audience connect that boosts sales and results in increased goodwill.


Read More About: capture ideas, innovative management solutions, innovation products, idea management system

Putting Social Media Analytics Tools into Use

Over the past few years the way the social web and media has evolved, it can no longer be described as a channel of directionless interactions and idle networking as it was claimed by few sometime back. Multiple brands today participate in various social media platforms not only to make their market presence felt online but also to make the most of the their online presence in business generation or awareness creation. This can be done in many ways, such as gathering customer feedback, audience polls and conversations by the way of arranging contests and sharing important FAQ’s for a certain product or service. In addition to that, there are brands that also have their own blogs and publish articles with important data, which in turn is shared by an user if he/she finds it interesting.

 

However, if you want to leverage the best results of social media monitoring then, you must use efficient techniques to measure your online efficiency. Today there are advanced analytics through which the social media data is collated. It is essential to enable an enterprise arrive at efficient online campaign leads and marketing strategies efficiently in the social media marketing sphere.

 

Today most organizations need to focus on social media and social media analytics. It is an essential tool for every social media user, i.e. a company or a business owner to maximize its online effectiveness. Social media analytics provide a new platform for assessing interactive marketing by analyzing, integrating and enabling enterprises to respond to the social intelligence that is gathered by broadening their reach, bringing down retention and generating more revenues. It also allows you to arrive at important business decisions in terms of marketing and branding.

 

Service providers of social media analytics tools offers fast results to retain a record of social media behaviors in real time and gathers mass feedback on what will make a certain service/ product work and what will not. Other benefits include the following:

 

  • Provides trending views and drill-down capabilities
  • Provides insights that helps to make faster, smarter operating decisions across huge amounts of social data
  • Revenue acquisition
  • Offers faster insights into the key influences on your K-Factor and viral campaigns
  • Understand what keeps customers engaged, and uncover the levers that can most influence revenues.

 

With the emergence and expansion of social media platforms today, such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook marketers needs to evaluate in a unique pattern about the next social analytics requirements in a web 2.0 landscape.

 

 

Types And Utilities Of Storage Server Systems

To define in simple terms, enterprise storage is a centralized storage system that most businesses make use for securing and monitoring data. It also helps in data sharing through connectivity to multiple computers in a network cluster that comprises Windows 2000, UNIX, and other mainframe platforms. This enterprise business storage has an essential role to play in making sure that the enterprise business intelligence is accessible to make the most of the the opportune moment and that the separate information is combined to offer an enterprise business intelligence architecture.

 

Types of Storage Server Systems


The three essential storage server systems are:


* Direct attached storage, i.e DAS

* Storage area network, i.e. SAN

* Network attached storage i.e. NAS


The DAS is a primary building block on which NAS and SAN can be implemented. Hence DAS that comprises of block-level storage generally defined the performance of NAS and SAN and the overall enterprise storage platform. Furthermore, the host computing device’s storage interface is associated with DAS. A data network is needed so that the computing devices other than the host computers are able to avail DAS. The storage devices that are utilized to develop DAS storage subsystem comprises of the following:


* SCSI

* PATA

* SATA

* SAS

* FC

* Flash

* RAM


Today eminent OEM manufacturers offer storage server benefits in a cost-efficient manner. Simultaneously, it also provides high reliability, high-end performance and energy efficiency and suitable for all sizes of enterprises. These storage server solutions help to configure the OS and software of a computer to function at an optimum level and offer any type of features that end users might require from their solution providers. The moment the storage server reaches an enterprise, company professionals from storage system provider can cable, rack and deploy them.  The key objective of these service providers is to offer total customization, unmatched consistency and a fast turnaround at a competitive cost. This apart, the solution providers also offer enhanced quality that you are able to trust along with innovative manufactured servers.


In addition to that there are the rack-optimized servers that feature the updated multi-core high performance technology, energy-efficient infrastructure and are ideally suited for Virtualization, Clustering and Cloud Computing. They are all configured for maximum Virtualization performance and are VMware certified and ready.


Read More About: unified storage solution, high performance computing cluster, custom computer systems, data centre solutions

A Closer Look at Retail Distribution

The marketers all over the world use different models and strategies for marketing a product or brand and one such model is the producer-oriented model proposed by the marketer E. Jerome McCarthy, in 1960. As part of this model, McCarthy identified four elements for an effective marketing strategy. Referred to as ‘4 Ps’, the four elements are product, price, and promotion and place (distribution). Let’s look at distribution in detail to understand the importance of distribution, the different models or channels of distribution and the solution available to the enterprises for improving productivity, reducing costs and accelerating time to market.

 

Distribution is an important aspect of supply chain management as it is the activity of getting the finished goods from the point of origin to the point of consumption. Wikipedia defines distribution as “the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by a consumer or business user, using direct means, or using indirect means with intermediaries.” Simply put, retail distribution is the manner in which goods find its way from the manufacturer to the shops where the consumers purchase them.

 

Today there are different distribution channels or models available to enterprises for getting the products to the consumers. The following are some of these models.

 

  • Traditional Warehousing / Distribution

In this model, the goods are shipped to retail distribution centers where they are stored until store orders are fulfilled. Once it is fulfilled, the goods are delivered to the stores.

 

  • Direct to Store Delivery

Here the goods are shipped directly to retail store outlets with no warehousing in between.

 

  • E-Commerce

This allows retailers to access clients and vice-versa all over the world.

 

  • Dropship Distribution

This distribution channel is for those online and catalog retailers who do not stock inventory. Once the order is placed, the wholesale distributor directly ships the products to the retail clients. 

 

Today the retail distribution activities of most enterprises are not restricted at the local level or national level. Instead, it is more globalized. In such a scenario, global supply chain management is an important issue for enterprises. The best possible solution for those enterprises looking to save company time and money and to be freed from the annoyance of managing distribution and transportation of products is to entrust this responsibility to good third party supply chain solution providers. They would do everything from packaging products for installation or store shelves, shipping products directly to the retailer, distributor, or any other destination to filling orders directly. 

 

Retail distribution is a crucial phase in the supply chain process and therefore enterprises must be very careful when taking decisions regarding it.

 

Read more about : evaluation system