Sample Training Program to Improve the Business Operation Part 1

CORPORATE BACKGROUND

Southern Luzon Technological College Foundation has 200 total numbers of employees working for the following department: Registry, Accounting, HRD, Marketing, Technical, Facility (includes the maintenance and security), Library, Faculty, Call Center and BPO.

SLTCFI is a corporation, with family members as its incorporators. Most of its employees are also related to the President and if not graduates from the school. There are employees who have been working with the company for 15-30 years who also have their relatives and siblings working at the institution.

TRAINING NEEDS ANALYSIS

360 Degrees feedback was given to the employees. Consist of self assessment, evaluation from the supervisor and hr department. The following criteria were considered: JOB KNOWLEDGE, TECHNICAL SKILLS, and ATTENDANCE AND ATTITUDE. See below for the result of evaluation of school custodian, office aides and

POSITION	EVALUATION RESULT/COMMENTS
SCHOOL CUSTODIAN	3 OUT 6 got POOR ratings under the criteria of ATTITUDE. This was based from the record of issued memo of the HR Department. Most cases found falls under Negligence or carelessness in the performance of duties.
OFFICE AIDES	Per Supervisors evaluation and comments still needs constant supervision. Still need to be told about the tasks. Also lacks knowledge about the services offered. Finds it hard to decide on stressful situations.
TECHNICIANS

After the evaluation, results were discussed to the employees. It was found out that most employees were not well oriented about their jobs. Some says they were not feed by sufficient information about their jobs and there were times that they feel floating because they really don’t know their specific tasks.

Some employees are also incompetent because they lack knowledge about the position and have not undergone trainings that will develop their skills needed for the job.

How to Understand Formulation and Strategies of Business Policy

The corporate world is in the process of a global transformation. Mergers, acquisitions, outsourcing and downsizing are becoming common word everywhere. Privatization is allowing free enterprise to take on functions that previously were the domain of government. International boundaries are fading in importance as businesses take on a more global perspective and the technology of information age is telescoping the time it takes to communicate and make decision.

Goals indicate what a business unit wants to achieve. Strategy is a game plan for getting there. Every business must design a strategy for achieving its goals, consisting of a marketing strategy, and a compatible technology strategy and sourcing strategy.

According to Johnson and Scholes “Strategy is the direction and scope of an organization over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organization through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations”. Indeed, strategy is a road map or guide by whom an organization moves from a current state of affairs to a future desired state. In other words, strategy is about:

• Where is the business trying to get to in the long-term (direction)
• Which markets should a business compete in and what kind of activities is involved in such markets? (markets; scope)
• How can the business perform better than the competition in those markets? (Advantage)
• What resources (skills, assets, finance, relationships, technical competence, and facilities) are required in order to be able to compete? (Resources)
• What external, environmental factors affect the businesses’ ability to compete? (environment)
• What are the values and expectations of those who have power in and around the business? (stakeholders)

 It is not only a template by which daily decisions are made, but also a tool with which long-range future plans and courses of action are constructed. Strategy allows a company to position itself effectively within its environment to reach its maximum potential, while constantly monitoring that environment for changes that can affect it so as to make changes in its strategic plan accordingly. In short, strategy defines where you are, where you are going, and how you are going to get there.

Strategic management takes a panoramic view of this changing corporate terrain and attempts to show how large and small firms can be more effective and efficient not only in today’s world but tomorrow as well.

Business policies define all functional areas in the company from marketing, finance, operations, to personnel or management. The formulation of policies is established to avoid problems and/or address unfavorable repercussions that may arise from any entity of the organization.

Business policies enable institutions, organizations, or enterprises to function efficiently and systematically. Essential to business management is a business policy that defines processes and practices within the organization. It functions as a set of rules or principles enforced to guide every department, component, and position in the company, the absence of which connotes a huge possibility of disorder, discrimination, and favoritism. Compliance to this set of rules however, promotes discipline, precision, and motivation to reach company goals.

A Millionaire Next Door – Book Review (Last Part)

Millionaires believe that financial independence is more important than displaying high social status. You can do an enormous amount of good when you have the means. If you’re seriously in achieving financial security and freedom, this is a must read and must have book in your bookshelves because it claims to teach you how to join the ranks of America’s millionaires. Here are some keynotes that will help us achieve financial independence:

1. Live on less than you earn. The majority of individuals with a net-worth of over a million dollars     saves and invests – on average – 15% of their pre-tax income. This requires giving up some of a consumption-based lifestyle for one of saving and investing.
2. Budget, budget, budget. About 83% of millionaire households create a budget for their income and expenses; conversely only about 16% of non-millionaire households create a budget.
3. Invest in what you know. Everyone is knowledgeable about specific subject matter; take advantage of this knowledge when looking for investments!
4. Seek professional advice. Realize when you’re not the most qualified to create an action plan to achieve your goals. Millionaires seek out professional help from tax accountants, CPAs, and financial planners far more than non-millionaires.

The conclusions are simple and straightforward but go against some of our preconceptions that millionaires spend money lavishly. They are, simply, that millionaires, on average, spend less money than they earn, they live below their means, they save, and they are likely to spend more on their children’s education than their non-millionaire counterparts.

I highly recommend you to pickup this book “The Millionaire Next Door: the Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy by: Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko ”, and spend time reading it. It’s well written and refreshing because it doesn’t promise you “riches in 3 easy steps.” For me, this book is one of the most important books on becoming wealthy. It doesn’t provide specific approaches on how to invest or build a business or any number of things that you will find in other books about getting rich, but it provides an essential philosophy to work from. It had a significant impact on me in terms of convincing me of the relative importance of “playing good defense” (i.e. keeping my spending low) versus the importance of “playing good offense” (having a good income). While good offense will obviously help you win the game, always make sure that a strong defense remains a priority.

A Millionaire Next Door – Book Review (Part 4)

Those characteristics are:

1. They live well below their means. In general, millionaires are frugal. Not only do they self-identify as frugal, they actually live the life. They take extraordinary steps to save money. They don’t live lavish lifestyles. They’re willing to pay for quality, but not for image.
2. They allocate their time, energy, and money efficiently, in ways conducive to building wealth. Millionaires’ budget. They also plan their investments. They begin earning and investing early in life. The authors note that “there is an inverse relationship between the times spent purchasing luxury items such as cars and clothes and the time spent planning one’s financial future”. In other words, the more time someone spends buying things that look good, the less time they spend on personal finance.
3. They believe that financial independence is more important than displaying high social status. The authors spend far too much time beating home this point: usually millionaires don’t have fancy cars. They drive mundane domestic models, and they keep them for years. (There’s an entire 31-page chapter devoted to how millionaires shop for cars. It’s tedious. It may be the worst chapter I’ve ever read in any personal finance book. And the authors go on ad nauseum about the average price per pound of various vehicles. There’s even an appendix showing the average price-per-pound for the most popular models.)
4. Their parents did not provide economic outpatient care. That is, most millionaires were not financially supported by their parents. The authors’ research indicates that “the more dollars adult children receive [from their parents], the fewer they accumulate, while those who are given fewer dollars accumulate more”.
5. Their adult children are economically self-sufficient. This chapter is fascinating. The authors clearly believe that giving money to adult children damages their ability to succeed. The American consumer lifestyle is the greatest enemy of accumulating wealth. The children of the wealthy do not understand how their parents accumulated wealth, so they consume it. 
6. They are proficient in targeting market opportunities. “Very often those who supply the affluent become wealthy themselves.” The authors discuss how one of the best ways to make money is to sell products or services to those who already have money. They list a number of occupations they feel have long-term potential in this area.
7. They chose the right occupation. “Self-employed people are four times more likely to be millionaires than those who work for others.” There is no magic list of businesses from which wealth is derived — people can be successful with any type of business. In fact, most millionaire business owners make their money in “dull-normal” industries. They build cabinets. They sell shoes. They’re dentists. They own bowling alleys. They make boxes. There’s no magic bullet.

A Millionaire Next Door – Book Review (Part 3)

A common thread that runs through the book is that people that are destined to become extremely wealthy are very careful about using credit and tend to save for things before they buy them. The author points out that the people that become millionaires are tedious planners and investors. They put a priority on budgeting and saving. This doesn’t mean that they spend hours each day, or even each week. Typically they spend an evening or two at the beginning of each year outlining a budget to guide them. They will refer to this often throughout the year making sure they are staying within the budgeted amounts. This is a priority for them. They take time each month to manage their investments. Yes, they put a priority on these things, but it does not consume them. They worry far less than the average person who isn’t a millionaire.

It also presented a formula on how the people are classified. Multiply your age times your realized pretax annual household income from all sources except inheritances. Divide by ten. This, less any inherited wealth, is what your net worth should be. If you are in the top quartile for wealth accumulation, you are a PAW, or prodigious accumulator of wealth. If you are in the bottom quartile, you are a UAW, or under accumulator of wealth.

For example, if Mr. B is forty-one years old, makes $143,000 a year, and has investments that return another $12,000, he would multiply $155,000 by forty-one. That equals $6,355,000. Dividing by ten, his net worth should be $635,500. Then, Mr. B is classified as AAW, or average accumulator of wealth.

The authors have developed a simple rule of thumb: if your net worth equals the average calculated by the formula above, you are an AAW, if your net worth is twice the average, you are a PAW, if your net worth is half the average, and you are a UAW. Whatever your income, if you want to Retire Early you must be a PAW. In accumulating wealth, it is not about how much you earn, instead it’s about how much you are able to save and invest for future value. PAW is expert saver and manager of money, they don’t have to earn a million a year to have 10 or 20 millions of net worth, in contrast a lot of PAW earn much lesser but still able to make millions mark in net worth. While for UAW, even though they earn hundreds of thousands or millions per year, due to their spending habit, lifestyle and high upkeep, their net worth are nowhere near a millionaire’s when they should have already worth more hundred millions.

I suspect that we all want financial independence – its many people’s “ultimate life goal”, but most of us don’t plan for and work towards this end. The authors argue that the biggest culprit that prevents people from achieving their goal of financial independence is living a high-consumption lifestyle. So, they come-up with seven common denominators among those who successfully build wealth.

A Millionaire Next Door – Book Review (Part 2)

Some personal finance books promise to show the reader how to become a millionaire. But The Millionaire Next Door) is different for it is built on years of research, on a body of statistics and case studies. It doesn’t make hollow promises. Instead, it profiles people who have already become millionaires. This is a delicate but important difference. The author did an extensive and detailed study of people who are millionaires on the basis of their net worth along with people who are likely to be millionaires on the basis of their salaries and age and did a comparative study on the basis of the data gathered by them to create a typical profile of a millionaire. They also interviewed the so called typical millionaires to get a much more detailed picture to covey the readers of this book that where do millionaire’s stand in today’s society. The question that plays in a book is about personal finance. Most of us believe or have this idea that millionaires are people, who have inherited property or got famous, but actually most of the millionaires whom we see or come across are people who are self made and with perfect financial planning they have earned that position more than anything else. The Millionaire Next Door tells us that these self made millionaires are people who are not only frugal but have wise head on their shoulders and these millionaires cannot be distinguished from the crowd and they can be anyone. The main thing Stanley and Danko contribute is destruction of a great many myths about wealth and the wealthy. They make it clear that the image of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” has nothing to do with the lifestyle of most wealthy Americans, especially first-generation wealthy Americans. Contrary to the belief of many people who believe most wealth is inherited and “you can’t make it in America today,” eighty percent of America’s millionaires are first-generation rich. To get rich, you must first learn not to be a hyper-consumer. In other words don’t buy a lot of expensive stuff you don’t need. You need good “offense” or generating earnings of at least $60,000 or more a year. They need to learn to play financial “offense”. Then you need good “defense” or saving a goodly portion of what you earn. The Millionaire Next Door tells us that these self made millionaires are people who are not only frugal but have wise head on their shoulders and these millionaires cannot be distinguished from the crowd and they can be anyone.

The book is excellent on determining who’s wealthy and what it takes to get wealthy. The book cited three types of people namely – prodigious accumulators of wealth (PAW), under accumulators of wealth (UAW) and average accumulators of wealth (AWW).

AAW or Average Accumulator of Wealth

–          this is the average level you would want to be see the formula below to see what this means.

PAW or Prodigious Accumulator of Wealth

–           this is what most Millionaires are and is 2x that of a AAW

UAW or Under Accumulator of Wealth

–          this winds up being 1/2 the wealth of a AAW and tends to be a big-spender, possibly high income but with lots of debt

A Millionaire Next Door – Book Review (Part 1)

”It is not how much money you make, but how much money you save.”

The Millionaire Next Door – the Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy by Thomas J Stanley, Ph.D. and William D. Danko, Ph.D. is definitely an eye-opening book on America’s wealthy. At first, our perception of millionaires or wealthy people is that they graduated from a prestigious college and grad school, make a lot of money, have a lot of money, and spend a lot of money, living in large houses, driving fancy cars, wearing expensive clothing and traveling often. But, it was misconception after reading this book. The Millionaire Next Door does a great job of detailing the real process that allows an everyman to accumulate great wealth and how the wealthy live. The book provides insight that millionaires are not born millionaires but they adhere to certain strategies that makes them what they are today. It involves the slow process of becoming successful in your career or business, saving up your money instead of spending it, budgeting down to the last cent, investing carefully and prodigiously, seeking out good advice when necessary, and spending a tremendous amount of time on money matters. Very few of the millionaires interviewed were young, this is a book more geared to someone who wants to become filthy rich by the age of 50 and retire in comfort, as opposed to the usual goal of retiring young while you still have the energy for a life of pleasure-seeking.

The Millionaire Next Door deals with subtleties of financial planning, by accumulating money, you are building wealth. If you spend as much or more than you make you are not accumulating wealth. If you want to be a millionaire one day then you need to spend less than you make.  In most cases the people we see living in mansions, driving fancy cars, wearing expensive clothing and traveling often do not have very much money at all. These people make a very high income to support their expensive habits, but put very little money into savings. Many of these people work extremely long hours to support their families spending habits. They believe they are wealthy because they earn a high income. They are wrong though. Most of the millionaires that the authors talk about live comfortably, but not extravagantly. They are thrifty in their spending habits. A common thread that runs through the book is that people who are destined to become extremely wealthy are very careful about using credit and tend to save for things before they buy them. Most of millionaire people have a simple lifestyle, actually they are described in this book with the following characteristics:

• Drove a second-hand American built large family car, the Aussie equivalent being a Falcon, Commodore or maybe a four-wheel drive.
• They live in middle class suburbs, not necessarily in the best house in the street.
• The majority of millionaires were not members of yacht clubs and exclusive private golf clubs.
• Most of them sent their children to ordinary public schools.
• They ate at normal places instead of gourmet restaurants.
• They drank beer instead of fine wine.

Process Decision Making Model

Process Model

Problem solving and decision-making are important skills for business and life. Problem-solving often involves decision-making, and decision-making is especially important for management and leadership. There are processes and techniques to improve decision-making and the quality of decisions. Decision-making is more natural to certain personalities, so these people should focus more on improving the quality of their decisions.

The Decision-Making Process Model

–          provides a framework and guidelines for working through to a logical conclusion, questions which require action

Steps of  Process Model

Recognition

–       One way of deciding if a problem exists is to couch (state) the problem in terms of what one wanted or expected and the actual situation. In this way a problem is defined as the difference between expected and/or desired outcomes and actual outcomes.

Diagnosis

–       This careful attention to definition in terms of outcomes allows one to clearly state the problem. This is a critical consideration because how one defines a problem determines how one defines causes and where one searches for solutions.

Search

–       When a consumer discovers a problem, he/she is likely to search for more information.  Through gathering information, the consumer learns more about some solutions that are valuable in solving the problem and their features and characteristics.

–       One way of deciding if a problem exists is to couch (state) the problem in terms of what one wanted or expected and the actual situation. In this way a problem is defined as the difference between expected and/or desired outcomes and actual outcomes.

Design

–       Devise multiple solutions for study and evaluation. If you only have one alternative, you do not have a decision.

–       This careful attention to definition in terms of outcomes allows one to clearly state the problem. This is a critical consideration because how one defines a problem determines how one defines causes and where one searches for solutions.

Screen

–       It indicates whether a project is desirable based on some previously established minimum criterion or criteria or conforms to the standard operating procedures (SOP).

Analysis

–       As you evaluate each alternative, you should be looking at the likely positive and negative cones for each. It is unusual to find one alternative that would completely resolve the problem and is heads and shoulders better than all others. Differences in the “value” of respective alternatives are typically small, relative and a function of the decision maker’s personal perceptions, biases and predispositions.

–       This distinction between fact-based evaluation and non-fact -based evaluation is included to assist the decision maker in developing a “confidence score” for each alternative. The decision maker needs to determine not just what results each alternative could yield, but how probable it is that those results will be realized. The more the evaluation is fact-based, the more confident he/she can be that the expected outcome will occur.

Judgment

–       Selecting the best solution from the respective alternatives

Authorization

–       It is not enough to think about it or talk about it or even decide to do it. A decision only counts when it is implemented. As Lou Gerstner (CEO of IBM) said, “There are no more prizes for predicting rain. There are only prizes for building arks.”

 

Review on Public Spending by the Government

Public budgets are the blueprints for how the government will raise and spend the public funds needed for the policies and programs that will translate its priorities into action. To provide information on government spending plans and out turn expressed in terms of budgeting aggregates. The Government uses the budgeting framework for expenditure planning and control. Though the budget directly impacts all of a nation’s people — especially the poor and most vulnerable — traditionally the public has been shut out of the processes through which these critical taxing and spending decisions are made. In fact, there was a belief among many public finance “experts” that encouraging the public to participate in budget decisions would lead to inefficiency and irresponsible decisions.

In most countries government spending has grown quite rapidly in recent years. They are spending on so-called public goods, national defense and police and charity works for poor people. It is frequently asserted that the government spends much in helping the poor. Although the government does do so, the bulk of all transfer payments go to people who are relatively well off. In order to monitor the spending of the government, report and review tracking is advisable.

Remarks which answered through report and review tracking:

• It helps governments, citizens and CSOs ensure that allocated public resources effectively reach
  their intended beneficiaries.
• It can help identify and address problems and weaknesses in systems and transfer and service
  delivery.
• It is also effective in revealing corruption and detecting the exact location of leakages.
• Used in verifying financial accounts to monitor the actual flow of funds and qualitative research.

Public spending by government is a mystery, especially if the people are not involved in the process of allocating the proper spending of budget. If these so happens, the funds of the people will not reached the intended receiver.

Key Notes in Business Transition

Business Transition is the process of preparing  business in transferring into a new successor. If done properly it is  rewarding experience. Handled improperly an owner can meet many pitfalls, regrets and financial reverses. It may become a nightmare. There are no second chances in transitioning a business. The transition to a new leadership is never easy, especially if the senior executives may have more experience than the new successor. The succession process can cause havoc in the family business and the family especially if the process occurs only once and without a significant investment in planning. There is no magic bullet to make sure a smooth organizational transition. The problem in which the Cafaro Co., will be facing during the transition is how to groom its third generation of executives to run the 60-year-old, family owned firm without disrupting the business operation. Since transferring of the power in the Cafaro Co., to the third generation where in Anthony and William taking over is as one of dilemma of the company since the approval of the people around it especially their client would really matters.

Key Notes in Business Transition

1. The commitment to transparency.
2. The commitment to inclusiveness.
3. The commitment to self-reflection

A good succession plan equips companies to handle such career progressions throughout their organization while ensuring that the performance and productivity of their organization does not take a backseat.