Does Your Company Have a Blog?

As we mentioned in our webinar earlier this week, blogs are now an important marketing strategy. Blogs are inexpensive, they help companies to connect with other leaders in their industry and current and prospective clients, make them a trusted leader, build your company's brand, and help with search engine optimization.

Yet, many companies, especially small businesses, do not have blogs, and they do not know of their Return on Investment. They are missing out on tremendous opportunity. In fact, a recent study concretely shows how blogs can improve a business' operations. In the study, businesses that had blogs experienced:

• 55% more visitors to their website
• 97% more links to their website
• 434% more indexed pages
  

Continue reading our blog and newsletter for more tips on how your company can build or improve its blog.

Analyzing Your Company's Supply Chain

If you attended our webinar, one of the things you probably took from it was the importance of continually analyzing your company's supply chain. You cannot change what you cannot see, so you cannot make any improvements on your company's supply chain unless you really know what you are dealing with. So how do you figure out what you are dealing with?

Here are some tips on what to look for when analyzing your company's supply chain:

1. Look for problems
Obviously, if something is a big enough problem, you may not necessarily have to look for it. However, smaller problems that may fall through the cracks may be costing your company money. Go through your company's departments and ask if there are any production problems, and ask if things could be done more efficiently.

2. Look at your company's processes
Could any processes be done more efficiently with a bit of tweaking? See what it would take to achieve more efficient production. Short gains can lead to big rewards.

3. Look at your company's relationship with distributors and suppliers
Do you have a good relationship with your company's distributors and suppliers? Are your orders on time and of the highest possible quality? If not, you may want to reevaluate your company's suppliers.

4. Develop contingency plans
Does your company have contingency plans for natural disasters, international issues, logistical accidents, and changes in supply and demand? If not, think about developing plans.

5. What is your company's supply chain doing well?
You can learn from what your company is doing well in its supply chain. Analyze your company to determine what its competitive advantages are, and then see if you can use that to improve the remainder of the supply chain.

Webinar: Top 10 Tips to Build and Improve Your Company's Blog

Top 10 Tips Webinar Series

Top 10 Tips to Build and Improve Your Company's Blog

Tuesday, October 27th 2:00PM – 2:45PM ET

Top Ten Tips is a series of practical, fact-based webinars using the Path To Success methodology developed at IntellaCore. The webinars are short, hard-hitting, and are always combined with a whitepaper. Each webinar breaks down an important way that a company can increase revenue, reduce costs, and become a sustainable, competitive business.

You probably know what a blog is. You may even have one for your business. But you may not be aware that blogs can enhance your company's marketing capabilities by attracting a larger audience to your company and its website. Attend this webinar to learn how to set up your company's blog, and how to start using it to effectively reach new customers and engage current customers.

This webinar will be held on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 2:00 ET. Click here to register (http://actevarsvp.com/event/a0E80000002gWnc). Please enter RCA in the Invitation Code text box.

The top ten tips you will learn about in the webinar are:

1. Set goals for your company's blog
2. Survey the Internet and other blogs
3. Decide on a blogging platform
4. Customize your company's blog
5. Add web analytics to the blog
6. Start writing
7. Market your company's blog
8. Build your blog's personality
9. Increase the traffic to your company's blog
10. Build participation on your company's blog

While there are many international experts or technology experts, we are both. IntellaCore has a unique point of view because we are positioned at the critical crossroad where very few are -- that place where the global economy meets the Internet. Based on decades of experience in both International business and Internet-based activity, Path to Success aligns technology to the business plan, internally transforms the operations of the business, and expands their market presence into new domestic, international, and virtual markets.

The Productivity Loop

As we discussed in our webinar earlier this week, supply chain management is quickly becoming an important business discipline. Many companies are finding that they can study their supply chains, make improvements, and reduce costs tremendously.

The supply chain covers everything involved in moving a product or service from suppliers to customers. This process of converting raw materials into finished goods involves people, information, and resources. The goal of supply chain management is to fulfill customer demands as efficiently as possible.

However, there needs to be a shift in the way companies fundamentally view their competition. Companies no longer compete against other companies. Instead, networks compete against networks, supply chains compete against supply chains.

Take Wal-Mart as an example. It sells similar products as its competitors, yet it is more successful than its competitors. The Wal-Mart and Kmart in the same shopping complex do not compete against the each other. Instead, the supply chains of each company compete against each other. How? Wal-Mart has always focused on improving sales, cutting costs, achieving greater efficiency in distribution, and using innovative IT tools. All of these strategies allow Wal-Mart to lower prices. Additionally, the company has a bigger supply chain, with more suppliers, and then has more opportunities to bring customers into their stores. Therefore, Wal-Mart is more competitive. This example illustrates the productivity loop - lower costs, then lower prices, sell more, and then increase profits.

What is your business doing to make the supply chain more efficient? Is your company in the productivity loop?

You can see more about supply chain management in our newsletter, Intelligent World, that will be released on Monday.

Top 10 Tips to Improve Your Company's Supply Chain Management

Top 10 Tips Webinar Series

Top 10 Tips to Improve Your Company's Supply Chain Management

Tuesday, October 6th 2:00PM – 2:30PM ET

Top Ten Tips is a series of practical, fact-based webinars using the Path To Success methodology developed at IntellaCore. The webinars are short, hard-hitting, and are always combined with a whitepaper. Each webinar breaks down an important way that a company can increase revenue, reduce costs, and become a sustainable, competitive business.

Companies are always focused on cutting costs, especially now in this economy. The supply chain is one of the best places for businesses to cut costs. When taking a closer look at the supply chain, companies often find that they can improve their efficiency as well. It is not always who can reduce costs the most, but it is about who has the most flexibility when it comes to their supply chain. Attend this webinar to learn how your company can analyze its supply chain to cut costs and become more efficient.

The next Top Ten Tips webinar will be held on Tuesday, October 6th at 2:00 PM EST. The topic will be Top 10 Tips to Improve Your Company's Supply Chain Management. Click here to register. Please enter BLOG in the Invitation Code text box.

The top ten tips you will learn about in the webinar are:

1. Analyze your website's current traffic
2. Research your target audience, and develop relevant keywords
3. Review your website design if needed and focus on delivering relevant information to the identified audiences
4. Establish an online strategy
5. Keep the design of your website simple
6. Search Engine Optimize your website
7. Ask other relevant sites in your network to link to yours.
8. Try to create buzz around your products and company by using social media daily
9. Advertise
10. Add your website address to your packaged products and business cards

While there are many international experts or technology experts, we are both. IntellaCore has a unique point of view because we are positioned at the critical crossroad where very few are -- that place where the global economy meets the Internet. Based on decades of experience in both International business and Internet-based activity, Path to Success aligns technology to the business plan, internally transforms the operations of the business, and expands their market presence into new domestic, international, and virtual markets.