Role of a BDM

1. Investigate the economic conditions surrounding your small business activity such as industry trends and competition.
2. Conduct extensive market research prior to starting up your business and continue gathering information throughout the life of the business.
3. Prepare a detailed business plan so you will not lose sight of your goals and objectives.

4. Secure sufficient financial resources for future development or expansion.
5. Contact professional advisors such as an accountant, banker and/or lawyer to provide expert information about your business.
6. Network with other small businesspeople; establish a support group. Remember, you are not alone.
7. Attend workshops, trade shows, and seminars to keep up-to-date on changes in the industry.
8. Adopt a team approach; work with others in pursuing common goals.
9.Understand the skills and qualities you bring to your business.
10. Develop a situation analysis of your company including its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to assist in the development of a strategic plan for the future of the business.

In general, a business manager is responsible for running the business day-to-day. Whether, a managing director in a medium-sized company or a business unit director in a large corporate organization, this general management role is crucial to hold the business together, and to lead the changes which will ensure future success.

Negotiation with Walmart

Here are some of the key negotiation skills that are needed when you are talking to big retail giants like Wal-Mart.

• When you have a problem, when there's something you engage in with big giants like say Wal-Mart that requires agreement so that it becomes a negotiation, the first advice is to think in partnership terms, really focus on a common goal, of getting costs out, for example, and ask questions.
• Don't make demands or statements ... you know, can we do this better and so forth. If the relationship with Wal-Mart is truly a partnership, negotiating to resolve differences should not endanger the tenor of the partnership.
• Don't spend time griping. Be problem solvers instead. Approach Wal-Mart by saying, "Let's work together and drive costs down and produce it so much cheaper you don't have to replace me, because if you work with me I could do it better." Learn from and lobby with people and their partners who have credibility, and with people having problems in the field.
• Don't ignore small issues or let things fester.
• Do not let Wal-Mart become more than 20 percent of your company's business. It's hard to negotiate with a company that controls yours. Never go into a meeting without a clear agenda. Make good use of the buyers' face time. Leave with answers. Don't make small talk. Get to the point; their time is valuable. Bring underlying issues to the surface. Attack them head on and find resolution face to face.
• Trying to bluff Wal-Mart is never a good idea. There is always someone willing to do it cheaper to gain the business. You have to treat the relationship as a marriage. Communication and compromise is key.
• Don't take for granted that just because the buyer is young they don't know what they are talking about or that it will be an easy sell. Most young buyers are very ambitious to move up within the company and can be some of the toughest, most educated buyers you will encounter. Know your product all the way from the production standpoint to the end use. Chances are your buyer does, and will expect you to be even more knowledgeable.

Yoko

How to write winning proposals ?

As a senior person in the organisations, its very important to know when to go for and when to walk away from an RFP. There are many a strategies to win a proposal, as there are many a strategies to win and get a pinch on your bottom line results. Here are few scenarios when you walk away from a proposal.
1. When your RFP response takes more than 10% of the project life itself.
2. When you dont have the capability to handle it or even worse, if you are not able to find good partners to work.
3. When you are asked to work against corporate ethics and integrity.
4. If you know the source company to have been in somekind of financial distress

Yoko

wireless router configuration

Few things to remember –

· Don’t connect the ADSL Lan Cable to the Internet Uplink port of the Wireless Router. It never worked for me. Always connect it to one of the 4 ports excluding the designated Internet port. Local machine's mac Addresses can be anything of your choice. But it is a good idea to follow the 192.168.x.x convention. If you get lost any time, feel free to reset the configuration by poking a pin into the reset slot on the modem and the router. Don’t compromise on the security. Always enable WPA and save your key. Don’t let your friendly neighbors ride on your network! Don't forget to notedown the WPA access password.

Airtel Beetel 220X - wireless configuration

Airtel tries to make the wireless configuration sound very hard (unusual to hear right !!). Most of the OEM try to keep this process very simple so that they can sell it out to any commonman, is what I believe.
But anyways..
Following are the major steps for configuring the modem with any brand wireless routers ( D-Link, Netgear, Linksys.....so on and so forth)
1. Change Airtel's modem to a bridge.
- Log onto the modem at 192.168.1.1 ( use admin login if you know the passwd, mostly its either admin or blank ( pls leave the passwd textbox empty :)) )
- Change LAN type to DHCP disabled and WAN to bridge mode from PPPoE.
2. Configure your new wireless router.
- Log onto the router at 192.168.0.1 ( use admin login if you know the passwd, mostly its either admin or blank)
- name the connection and set the WEP or WPA encryption option set up.
- enter the userid and passwd of the ISP in the WAN segment.
3. Configuration at the receipent's side.
- disable the LAN network adapter if the comp/laptop doesnt pick up the new wireless connection automaticaly.
- make a new wireless connection with the new WEP code.

All the best
yoko

ferrocement boats

how to build ferrocement boats.
What you do is build a wooden frame in the shape of the boat you want, tack on several layers of chicken wire and metal rods . . . and then cement over all your mistakes (you'll have a lot more leeway with this process than if you were working with wood or fiberglass). Once the reinforced or "ferro" cement sets up, you'll have a seaworthy hull that's both dirt-cheap and virtually maintenance-free. And, if you keep the thickness of the troweled-on pour of cement down to less than an inch (which provides plenty of strength), the shell will weigh about the same as a similar hull constructed of wood.
The ferrocement process seems ideally suited for that large boat you never thought you could afford. Pool your spare change and weekends with a few friends and you can build the hull of a 36-foot fishing boat in 700 man-hours for a materials cost of less than a grand! Or bring in a 50-foot work boat hull—with deck and bulkheads—for less than 2,000 man-hours and about $4,000.

Yes, it seems certain that ferrocement boats are here to stay . . . still, a few words of caution are in order before you dash off to "pour your own".
Many experts in the field advise against using the process on very small designs—say an 18-foot boat—because the thin-hulled craft that result are not (in the experts' opinion) seaworthy. We know of several people who've constructed exactly such designs, however, and they have no complaint. Then again, they weren't amateurs either.
It should also be noted—even when constructing a bigger ferroconcrete craft—that the final cementing: plays a very critical part in determining the ultimate strength of the vessel. If you can find the cash to hire a professional plasterer to do the job, by all means do so.

retail glossary

http://retail.about.com/od/glossary/Glossary_of_Retailing.htm