Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Biz Innovations Changing Female Lives

In the business world, women haven't always had it easy. Until the end of the 20^th century, it was uncommon for women to work at all. And even once we entered the hallowed halls of American companies, we struggled with unconscious bias and pay disparities. Fortunately, though, 21^st-century business innovation is benefiting women in an unprecedented fashion. Let's explore a few recent innovations that have changed working women's lives for the better.

Business Innovation #1: Flexibility Drivers

Werk is an analytics dashboard that helps organizations offer targeted flexibility options to their workforces. The company's proprietary assessment methodology uncovers how well an organization is meeting its employees' needs and the flexibility programs that will drive the greatest impact and return on investment. Werk aims to make flexibility access equitable across gender lines and invests in individual employee success by offering personalized flex reports with the exact information working women need to perform their best at work and at home.

Also, women's flexwork thought leader Kathryn Sollmann recently launched The Flexwork for Women Alliance. It's a community of recruitment and career firms that partner with progressive employers to offer U.S. women better work/life integration opportunities ranging from job sharing and flexjob creation to returning to the workforce after a long absence and changing your career. The Alliance aims to help greater numbers of women stay in the workforce in a less life-consuming way as they care for both children and aging parents—and achieve professional fulfillment and long-term financial security in the process.

Business Innovation #2: Women-First Networks

Bumble made headlines a few years ago when it became the first dating app to mandate that women had to make the first move. Now, the company behind Bumble is spreading its wings to offer Bumble Bizz, an online network in which women can take the initiative to make professional connections on their own terms. Just like the original Bumble sought to make dating less uncomfortable for women, its younger sibling Bumble Bizz wants to provide a safe forum for working women to collaborate, share and learn alongside one another.

For the rest of the innovations, check out the full article on the AMEX Business site. 

 

Modern Businesses: Local Versus Global

Not long ago, offshoring of goods and services was a foolproof way to keep costs down—if you could manage it. Now, however, due to changing markets, local sourcing is experiencing an upswing. Helped by Gabriele Rizzo, futurist adviser for private and public international defense organizations, and Alexander Bird, CEO of micronutrient food manufacturer Kiss My Keto, let's look at the pros and cons of local versus global supply chains.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Local and Global Supply Chains

Since local supply chains are often smaller, local suppliers may require less of an initial investment and allow smaller orders, which results in lower stored inventory costs.

In some foreign countries, worker wages are increasing, so the gap in labor costs between local and global supply chain strategies is diminishing. For instance, according to Eurostat data released in the fall of 2018, wage growth in the eurozone reached its fastest rate for two years, accelerating in the second quarter of 2017.

Also, goods and services production is becoming more specialized and geared to local customers, and in such cases, there is often an advantage of being physically close to the buyer. These factors led global management consulting firm AlixPartners to report that 69 percent of the 106 U.S. and western European manufacturing firms that responded to their 2016 annual survey were considering moving production closer to their home bases.

But global supply chains have substantial benefits as well. Today's economy is unquestionably global and having only local operations may result in lost opportunities and stalled growth.

Also, depending on your industry—and especially if you are in manufacturing—you may face significant skills shortages in certain U.S. regions, but can readily find available labor in countries such as China and Mexico. Raw materials may also be less expensive in a foreign market, and global supply chains also allow businesses to take advantage of the innovation afforded by emerging markets.

That said, time lags, shipping delays and language and communication barriers associated with global supply chains may negatively impact a business's speed, agility and on-time delivery record.

Finally, political situations can sour quickly, so global supply chains in certain regions of the world may carry a higher risk of business disruption overall.

For more where this came from, check out the American Express Business site.

Supply Chains of the Future: What You Need to Know

There's a significant amount of change taking place in business today, and it requires owners to avoid disruption to their supply chain strategy.

Supply chain management plans will need to take into account automation and tech innovation, new geographies and regional sourcing, increased regulation and climate change.

Automation and Tech Innovation

Extensive job automation can affect your supply chain strategy for the better because it allows organizations to reap the unique strengths of both humans and machines.

"Teaming together human creativity, abstract thinking and adaptive response together with machine precision gets you the best of both worlds, leaving machines in charge of what they do best—easy, repeatable tasks—and freeing humans to be the best they can be," says Dr. Gabriele Rizzo, a futurist adviser for private and public international defense organizations.

But businesses will need to work with labor unions and governments to transition workers into new roles and help them to re- and upskill, and to enforce the appropriate labor laws involving safety, wages and hours. They may also want to consider developing a means to collect worker feedback and adjust operations, so they meet employee needs throughout the march toward automation.

According to Rizzo, implementing automation and other emerging technologies are of utmost importance in building and maintaining an edge in supply chain operations.

"These technologies enable fine-grained gathering of operational data, advanced analysis of processes and impacts and faster decision making," she says.

A 2017 Gartner report predicted that by 2021, virtual customer assistants (VCAs) and chatbots will handle 20 percent of all customer service interactions. Although technology innovations such as VCAs and autonomous mobile robots are getting smarter, human workers are still needed to integrate and oversee their participation—and this often requires a highly specialized, but not always readily available, skillset.

If your supply chain strategy already incorporates data analytics, you're off to a great start. But even so, it's becoming even more important for owners to zero in on the information that's most useful and relevant to them.

Technology-based supplier audits are valuable, as are digital platforms and dashboards that assess the effectiveness of operations and worker sentiment in real time.

To fully leverage Big Data's potential, owners must determine the data science skills required for their operations, and work to source these either internally or externally.

For more where this came from, head over to the American Express Business site.

Entrepreneurial Accounting: How's Your Reconciliation?

As a business owner who does a fair amount of her own accounting, I come up against reconciliation frequently. And, as a business and workplace adviser to others, I recognize its importance. Reconciliation is part of the ongoing accounting mix that leverages two or more financial records to make sure numbers match.

In other words, it helps owners and accountants demonstrate that the money going out of an account is equal to the amount spent, and that the amount coming in is equal to the amount earned. Account reconciliation provides a mechanism for accurate balancing at the end of each recording period. If you don't do it properly, you will move forward with compounding inaccuracies and will risk your business' overall integrity.

When I started my business in 2004, the new Sarbanes Oxley Act had greatly tightened the reins on reporting reliability. Although the law had the biggest impact on large corporations, it encouraged me to establish strong accounting practices. I'll admit that I struggled with account reconciliation. An ongoing problem involved client payments that arrived significantly after I declared the income. But fortunately, I never experienced strange inconsistencies I couldn't explain.

Over the last 14 years, I've witnessed and personally experienced the following reconciliation pitfalls I hope other business owners can avoid.

Reconciliation Pitfall #1: The Dreaded Spreadsheet

As someone who studies and applies future of work technology, I'm embarrassed to admit that I left my spreadsheets kicking and screaming. I was comfortable with them and grossly underestimated the manual processes involved with reconciliation. I regularly spent hours trying to get to the heart of a single discrepancy and even then, sometimes couldn't overcome the danger of human error. Today, we have the advantage of much more accurate cloud-based solutions to access real-time financial data from any device at any time and track the flow/monitor the status of each reconciliation. Just make sure you certify and secure your chosen system.

Reconciliation Pitfall #2: Non-Standard Processes

I can't tell you how many times I fell prey to this one. I'd do reconciliation one way, my business manager would have another approach, and then our accountant would come in and use a third technique. As you can imagine, this lack of standardization was problematic. To avoid this pitfall, sit down with all relevant parties and draft your organization's reconciliation policies. Store them in an online system connected to your financial data, make sure anyone new coming into the organization understands them and knows where to find them and emphasize their importance.

For more where this came from, check out the American Express Business site.

Business Innovations of the Future

As a futurist, I often get asked to predict the business trends that organizations can afford to ignore, because, while they generate a lot of buzz, they are also likely to fizzle out. On the other hand, we must also pay attention to business innovations that are gathering such rapid strength that adoption is now essential. Let's look at a few.

Blockchain

A blockchain is a data structure that builds a digital ledger of transactions and shares it among a distributed network of computers. Using cryptography, each participant interacts with the ledger in a secure way without the need for a central authority. Bitcoin was the first app built using the platform in 2008, with a premise of sending digital payments between any two parties without the help of a financial institution. Bitcoin has now been joined by hundreds of other cryptocurrencies, and the model has moved out of financial services: organizations, employees, and customers are using it for all types of transactions.

Deep Learning

Deep learning (programming machines to mimic the actions of the human brain), is driving a whole new set of business innovations. It's the process of training computers to recognize patterns in data and then classify and categorize them as a human brain could. Together with complex algorithms, deep learning is already helping machines to participate in defining project scope, analyzing risks, developing budgets and allocating resources. It's catching on because it has massive implications. 

For the rest, have a look at the American Express Business site.

The Pros and Cons of International Entrepreneurship

 

In an increasingly global world, the advantages of international trade can give your business a substantial boost.

According to Abhi Golhar, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Nurse Practitioners Clinical Rotations, chief among the advantages of international trade are market-risk diversification and less competition.

“If there happen to be increasing regulations in the business owner's home country that may inhibit the sale of the business's widgets, identifying other markets with less regulation could be vital for the longevity of the business," Golhar says. “Also, the business owner may find that by expanding into a different market, there may be fewer competitors, which can result in higher profit margins and more business volume."

Added to the advantages of international trade are lower production costs. 

"Business owners should consider international trade when the cost of labor or products they can source locally negatively impacts their bottom line," says Scott Kacmarski, CEO of business process outsourcing company Reps Direct.

Additionally, becoming proficient in international trade in the early stages of your business can help you avoid prohibitively high costs down the line—another perk of expanding globally.

“The cost of one product or service may seem like a small issue at the beginning," Kacmarski says. “The problem comes when you have many products or employees. High costs then lead to cash-flow problems, and it's harder to go international once your business is more mature and operating at a larger scale."

International Trade Has Its Downside

Of course, there are disadvantages of international trade as well.

For one, if you don't have what Golhar calls “boots on the ground," it could increase your probability of failure.

“When my father opened a business in his hometown in India, his brother—who he trusted completely—assisted him," he says. "Without a partner with an established track record and contacts, international trade can be enormously difficult."

To read more, check out the full piece on the AMEX OPENForum.

 

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Should You Pursue Foreign Markets?

Operating a business outside your home country sounds appealing, and can in fact be an excellent way to take your organization to the next level. But, in addition to ensuring that you've perfected current processes first, expanding to foreign markets requires substantial time and resources and careful consideration of several factors. 

Haithem Elembaby is a startup founder with multiple exits, and is now an SVP at Harbinger, a firm that helps foreign startups gain sales traction in the U.S. market.

“An initial step is understanding where your value proposition will be most compelling. Sometimes, carving a niche that your competition has avoided is a much easier strategy than going head to head," he says.

But before you embark on that strategy, consider the following advice to help lay the groundwork for success abroad.

1. Join forces with the locals.

Certain markets may require collaboration with a local partner.

“Make sure you assess local regulations and expectations from new market entrants when determining which foreign markets to pursue," suggests Elembaby.

Tim McHugh, CEO of global book publisher Saddleback Educational Publishing agrees, citing the example of Starbucks. “For years, Starbucks didn't know how to enter India as coffee is not as big as tea in India," McHugh says, "but recently [they] partnered with a local company, Tata Beverages to have a better chance of success."

When considering foreign markets, it helps to learn the nuances of how your new audience makes purchases. 

“Map the key stakeholders and understand how to interact with them," says Elembaby. “For example, does the culture value directness or is relationship building more important? What works in New York will not necessarily work in London, let alone Beijing."

You should also think through the economic and political stability of the region you're targeting.

For the rest of the piece, head on over to the AMEX OPENForum.

Why Compliance is Relevant for Everyone

 

Regulatory compliance is the act of adhering to laws, regulations, standards or guidelines relevant to a particular business. High-profile examples of such laws are the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).

 Since violations of regulations often result in legal action or fines, many organizations have responded to these laws by hiring regulatory compliance officers to manage the process. Smaller businesses may not have this option, but it's important for owners to fully comprehend the role that regulatory compliance plays in their organizations.

According to Russell Kommer, CEO of Microsoft support services firm eSoftware Associates, this is true even if a company is not in a traditionally regulated industry. 

“Not understanding how regulatory compliance and its applications could cause either long- or short-term issues with the potential to derail your business," he says.

Michael Fellows, CEO of software development firm Broadway Lab, offers an example. “Acquiring customer trust should be every business's main focus," he says. “Regulations are there to protect the customer in many cases. A failure to comply can result in financial loss due to legal repercussions like fines, but also from customers choosing more trustworthy alternatives."

Creating Your Regulatory Compliance Strategy

Regulatory compliance strategies should include:

• how your organization will address relevant standards from an operational perspective;
• how you will establish or modify corresponding processes; and 
• how effective risk mitigation and overall compliance success will be measured

For more where this came from, check out the AMEX OPENForum.

Are Your Operations Lean?

The days of spending months strategizing the best path forward are over for most businesses. Imagine proudly presenting a 100-page business plan to your stakeholders only to realize that half of your material was already outdated and your customers had moved on? Considering the current pace of change in today's marketplace, a lean business model has become more and more attractive.

Traditionally, being “lean" has meant doing more with less, but the concept has expanded.

Today, a lean business model is a strategy that streamlines processes to rapidly address customer requirements. It involves fast cycles of surveying customers about their needs, developing and prototyping new products and services accordingly and adapting to shifts in demand.

“To be lean, you need to make it a part of your company's DNA to prioritize ideas based on ROI as well as continuously test your assumptions and make adjustments based on the results," Lobo says.

“For example, when we started out, we used several marketing channels," he continues, "but eventually zeroed in on direct sales and in-house events based on our hypothesis of the potential ROI. Hosting large events has not only allowed us to generate new clients, it has also generated revenue via ticket sales and sponsors and helped us barter for business services with several vendors."

A lean business model often rewards experimentation and can be more cost-effective because they avoid lengthy implementations of unproven strategies and investments.

 

For the rest of the piece, head over to the AMEX OPENForum.

 

How to Know When To Take a Risk

Starting a business usually involves significant personal, professional and financial risks. But while most business owners and entrepreneurs are hardly strangers to business risks, it's often hard to know what constitutes a risk that's likely to succeed.

Adam Mendler, CEO of technology venture company The Veloz Group, says that an acceptable risk is one that's well-justified and offers a higher expected value than alternatives.

“Before taking significant business risks, it's important to identify, research and evaluate all your options—which may range from radical action to doing nothing," he says.

According to Dan Spalter, co-founder of roommate matching service Circle for Roommates good business risks should be taken with the big picture intention of improving pre-determined KPIs.

“Before taking any substantial risk, your team should try to find less risky means of achieving the same goal," he says. "If a safer alternative does not exist, a business owner should brainstorm creative ways to reduce the potential loss."

Both Mendler and Spalter have taken valuable business risks to drive their organizations forward, including the following:

Going All In

"The biggest risk was taking the plunge, leaving a corporate career to start something from scratch," says Mendler. "The entrepreneurial journey has been invaluable, though, as I have learned, grown and developed in ways unlike any others in my professional or educational careers."

Competing With Established Companies

Many owners are in the business of disruption. This means, however, that you're competing with organizations with multi-million dollar budgets, and the ability to take and implement your concept.

It may seem like there's no way to win in this scenario, but by being agile and innovative—and by taking calculated business risks that other companies won't touch—you can be competitive.

For the rest of this piece, check out the AMEX OPENForum.