Facteon Blog

• Ten Tax Time Considerations
  

  Is your business ready for tax season? While you may only have to file income taxes once a year, it's something you should be thinking about year round. Many business decisions you make will have tax implications and knowing those ahead of time can save you a lot of money.

  You should be visiting your tax person at least quarterly, as well as any time you're making a major decision.

  1. Change in type of business entity. Tell your tax person if you've changed your business formation--sole proprietorship, Limited Liability Company, corporation, etc.--in any way.

  2. Fixed asset changes. Did you buy, trade or sell any of your fixed assets such as property, plants, equipment or vehicles? If so, provide your tax accountant with the dates and dollar amounts of all related transactions. This could affect your tax liability because of depreciation.

  3. Use of subcontracted services. If you paid an outside subcontractor more than $600 in a calendar year and the subcontractor is unincorporated, you will need to supply a 1099 form. It should be postmarked no later than January 31 of the following calendar year.

  Read the remaining Ten Tax Time Considerations

• Use Barcodes in Your Business
  

  Barcodes have evolved into a useful tool for millions of businesses in a wide variety of industries. Barcode technology is faster and more accurate than entering information by hand on a keyboard — about 15 times faster and 10,000 times more accurate.

  Barcodes are a sort of Morse code that uses bars and spaces to represent critical data about a product or document. Unfortunately, not all barcodes are the same, and there's no universal business application.

  If barcoding is something your business is considering you might want to check out this guide to Using Barcodes in Your Business

• 9 Ways to a Growth Business
  

  There are essentially nine basic sources of growth for your business. All are potential opportunities for creating new growth trajectories.

  1) Natural growth, where the market for what you make is strong and expanding

  2) Gaining market share through low cost -- high productivity growth, rapid cycle times, high asset turnover.

  3) Proprietary or patented technology.

  4) Highly-developed distribution channels that you have built over time.

  5) Opening new markets for your existing products -- for example, globalization.

  6) Gaining power in the marketplace via acquisitions, alliances, vertical integration.

  7) Expanding your pond.

  8) Resegmenting your markets.

  9) Moving into adjacent segments.

  The first six are very familiar: If you haven't tried them, you can read about them in many books and countless articles.

  The last three are not part of the standard repertory. In fact they are more ways of thinking than anything else. They represent outside-in thinking and you should give them some thought.

  A good resource for 9 Ways to a Growth Business

• Motorola Unveils E-Commerce Website
  

  Motorola Inc. is getting into the e-commerce business: The 79-year old, $35 billion company has launched an online store, Store.Motorola.com.

  It offers Motorola products as well as wireless service plans for various telecommunications companies to go with its numerous mobile phones.

  The site also includes a section for digital content--ringtones, wallpapers and games designed for use on mobile devices. Additionally the web store is promoting offers exclusive to the online sales channel.

  The website is part of a strategic plan Motorola hopes will change the way consumers purchase mobile phones and wireless services.

  I wonder how their other sales and channel partners feel about this new strategy?

• Fresh New Direction - Sound Familiar, Guess Who?
  

  Guess what company this is speaking?

  
  There are three pillars to my plan:

  1. Focus the vision.

  a) We need to boldly and definitively declare what we are and what we are not.

  b) We need to exit (sell?) non core businesses and eliminate duplicative projects and businesses.

  
  2. Restore accountability and clarity of ownership.

  a) Existing business owners must be held accountable for where we find ourselves today — heads must roll,

  b) We must thoughtfully create senior roles that have holistic accountability for a particular line of business (a variant of a GM structure that will work with Yahoo!’s new focus)

  c) We must redesign our performance and incentive systems.

  
  3. Execute a radical reorganization.

  a) The current business unit structure must go away.

  b) We must dramatically decentralize and eliminate as much of the matrix as possible.

  c) We must reduce our headcount by 15-20%.

  
  See who the company is: Fresh New Direction - Sound Familiar, Guess Who?
  

• Keeping Company Information Safe
  

  According to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, 91 million data records affecting nearly 10 million U.S. citizens have been exposed due to security breaches since February 2005.

  Breaches occur from someone hacking into a database, a disgruntled employee stealing information, or sheer stupidity -- as in a lost or misplaced disk or laptop.

  Based on the public outcry, the U.S. Congress has proposed new laws to address general data privacy and security concerns, although none has yet been enacted.

  However, 33 states, including New York, New Jersey and Conneticut, have passed data breach legislation within the past three years.

  What does this mean for small businesses? In short, more compliace requirements.

  Read more on Keeping Company Information Safe

• Extending Credit - Ten Things to Think About
  

  1. Do you actually need to extend credit to your customers? Is it necessary to offer credit in your business, or are you able to operate profitably by expecting to be paid in cash?

  2. Will you accept checks? Most people don't think of accepting checks as extending credit, but you do take a credit risk when you accept a check for payment. If your customer doesn't have money in his or her checking account to cover the amount of the check, your customer's bank will "bounce" the check (return it to you unpaid).

  3. Will you accept credit cards? You don't take a very big risk by accepting credit cards, particularly if you are careful about following the credit card company's policies and procedures. When you accept a credit card as payment, your bank (as a "merchant" bank) collects the money from your customer for you. In return, you pay the "merchant" bank a fee for doing so, usually from 2 to 6 percent of the bill for most small businesses.

  4. Will you offer credit terms? "Credit terms" means the amount of time you give your customer to pay your bill. The type of business that you operate will help determine the type of credit terms that you offer.

  Read the rest of Extending Credit - Ten Things to Think About

• Improve Your Service - Standards
  

  If you want to succeed and grow, you must achieve high standards in four essential categories.

  1) You must create excellent products and services.

  2) You need terrific delivery systems to keep tack and get the products to your customers on time.

  3) You have to attract and keep great staff with a winning service mindset.

  4) You must build long-term customer relationships that endure and mature over time.

  Then you need to answer these questions:

  In each category, how good are you now, and how good do you plan to be?

  What does it take to keep your customers happy, and keep them coming back for more?

  Is it enough to be average? Just like all the others? Or do you need to reach higher? And if so, how high?

  More on I