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The Business Owner and Business Information

Either a small business owner or you are a big business owner, or maybe yours is just a Start-up, you need all the vital information about your field. Business information is peculiar to whichever field you choose to delve into.

BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS

If You have a business in this 21^st century. You must pay attention to “information” (ICT). Almost all business is found on the internet, whether you are buying groceries, land, house, a car or even books you’ll find almost anything on the internet.

Business Information Systems play a pivotal role in the new economy and enterprise setting characterized by strategic procurement, global outsourcing, physically distributed operational environments, and global business alliances. Business Information Systems is a boundary-spanning field of study relating to how information and communication technologies (ICT) can be deployed to improve business processes and enhance the organization’s value chain networks, which organizations use to acquire, produce, and deliver goods and services all over the world, through efficient, effective and competitive use of ICT.

An understanding of Business Information Systems will help you as a business owner develop critical skills needed to function effectively in a global information-based and technology-driven business environment in order to improve business efficiency, develop effective decision making, and maintain competitiveness in your industry.

For most businesses, there are a variety of requirements for information:

Senior managers need information to help with their business planning, Middle management need more detailed information to help them monitor and control business activities, Employees with operational roles need information to help them carry out their duties. But you as a business owner or an entrepreneur you need all the information available if you will manage your business more effectively.

Try as much as you can to seek out information regarding your field of business.

Here are the categories of the business information system.

Executive support systems (ESS)

Designed to help senior management make strategic decisions. An ESS gathers, analyses and summarizes the key internal and external information used in the business. ESS typically involve lots of data analysis and modeling tools, such as "what-if" analysis, to help strategic decision-making.

A good way to think about an ESS is to imagine the senior management team in an aircraft cockpit, with the instrument panel showing them the status of all the key business activities.

Management information systems (MIS)

Primarily concerned with internal sources of information. MIS usually take data from the transaction processing systems (see below) and summarizes it into a series of management reports. MIS reports tend to be used by middle management and operational supervisors.

Decision support systems (DSS)

Specifically designed to help management make decisions in situations where there is uncertainty about the outcomes of those decisions. DSS use tools and techniques to help gather relevant information and analyze the options and alternatives. DSS often involves the use of complex spreadsheet and databases to create "what-if" models.

Knowledge management systems (KMS)

Exist to help businesses create and share information. They are typically used in businesses where employees create new knowledge and expertise, which can then be shared by other people in the organization to create further commercial opportunities. Good examples include firms of lawyers, accountants, and management consultants. KMS are built around systems which allow efficient categorization and distribution of knowledge. For example, the knowledge itself might be contained in word processing documents, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations. Internet pages etc. To share the knowledge, a KMS would use group collaboration systems, such as an intranet.

Transaction processing systems (TPS)

Designed to process routine transactions efficiently and accurately.

A business will have several TPS; for example:

1. Billing systems to send invoices to customers
2. Systems to calculate the weekly and monthly payroll and tax payments
3. Production and purchasing systems to calculate raw material requirements
4. Stock control systems to process all movements into, within and out of the business
5. Office automation systems

Try to improve the productivity of employees who need to process data and information.

Perhaps the best example is the wide range of software systems that exist to improve the productivity of employees working in an office (for example, Microsoft Office XP), or systems that allow employees to work from home or while on the move.

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7 Practical Guide to Financial Freedom .

Your Finance and Your Friends

You know that saying "show me your friends and I will tell you who you are"? Well, it's true with finance too, one of the easiest way to Cultivate your saving habit is to hand around friends that  save. Stay around those that save regularly. Ten or fifteen years from now, you will be the same person you are now except for two things ; friends you hang out with and the books you read.

Take note of these 7 points. They will help you:
1. Don't live your life for others; your colleagues are not your friends, take your money and go home. Many people spend money just to show people around them that they have arrived. There's a big difference between hanging and lifting. Though they are both suspended from the ground, the former is under pressure while the later is enjoying pleasures.
2. Stop buying expensive things : don't get me wrong, luxury is good but while you're trying to save and invest, don't buy expensive things. Every time you want to buy anything, find out where you can get the same quality at a lower price. It doesn't have to be the same place your friends are shopping. You're not in competition with anyone. You have a target.
3. Before you buy new items sell off old ones: it may sound a little crazy but come to think of it, how may of those junks in your basement are you still going to use? Before you make new purchases, look around your house and sell of those old furnitures, clothes, baby walker etc. You need the space after all. And the extra money won't be a bad idea.
4. Withdraw that amount you need: there's really no need for miscellaneous, if you've gone to the bank to make a withdrawal, try as much as you can to take only what you need at that moment. I've battled with this for so many years, I had to start writing down what I need, make a calculation of how much I need before I make a withdrawal. That's where budget comes in. "budget is control" so learn to control yourself.
5. Need and want: the place of need and want can never be overemphasized, learn to differentiate between your needs and your want. Learn to delay gratification that way you'll be able to tell what you need at the moment and what you actually want to buy. A couple of weeks ago while I was coming out of the bank I spotted a vegetable seller by the corner and those vegetables were very fresh and because I had money with me I bought some and they ended up wasting because at that time I didn't quite need them I just wanted to buy in case I want to cook. Buy only what you need.
6. Association and company: try as much as you can to control the caliber of people who come into your life because they will definitely influence you. You know how they say "the poor associate with the poor and the rich with the rich." well it's true. That's one of the reasons why the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. Success rubs off on you when you associate yourself with successful people. "what we have become, to a large extent is determined by the kind of books, people and lifestyle we've had"
7. Mentor: This is very crucial, when it comes to financial issues, you need a mentor. Someone who has gone ahead of you and can guide you or direct you. "you need a mentoring relationship for counsel and to improve on yourself" Dan Okeji. You can't achieve all you want to achieve just standing alone. You may need to stand tall on the shoulders of a mentor.

Bad financial management will lead to financial troubles. Stop being careless with your finances. Don't forget forget money in your pocket before doing laundry. Pay apt attention to your finances.

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3 important keys to mastering saving.

Let's talk about savings. I've got to tell you. There's one word you must look out for if you really want to save. "Discipline", this word is more important than the word Savings. It has taken me so many year to Cultivate the habit of saving, and I have talked with a lot of folks that lament on how difficult it it to save. You'd hear stuff like "let me borrow some money from my savings to sort myself out. I'll return it later" it doesn't work. You will never return it.

1. Make up your mind on how you want to save, how much you want to save, where you want to keep the money. Let me also tell you this IT'S NEVER EASY TO SAVE AT FIRST. No matter how much money you have if you are not disciplined, you'll find it difficult to save consistently at first.

2.  You have to also define what you are saving for, if you don't, you'll use the savings for the wrong things. Now let's say you start putting away $100 a month and by six months it's $600, if you had no plans for it you may be confused on what to do with the money. That's if the money survives until 6 months. If you had no plans you won't have a defined duration. I saved for 2 months to buy my first television set. I knew how much I needed and I knew when I needed it.

3.  Fix a certain duration for the maturity of the savings. If you've decided to make it 1 year. Then go for it, if it's 6 months, prepare your heart and discipline yourself to wait.

See your savings as "not your money" until the maturity date.
The fixed time duration also helps you to maintain discipline.

It is worthy of note that savings should primarily go into investments. The best reason to save is for investment. While you're saving, you're thinking about how much profit you're gonna make from the investment you're yet to do.

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The Business Environment: External Factors

Businesses are impacted by a number of factors, some internal and some external. While managers may not be able to control external forces, it is essential they identify and understand them.

What Are External Forces?

No business operates in a vacuum. Even the most powerful monopoly - a business with essentially no competition - needs to pay attention to factors outside the organization that are beyond their control. These factors impact each business and industry differently, which only increases the importance of managers understanding these external forces.

Types of External Forces

There is no shortage of frameworks and acronyms that attempt to summarize the types of external forces that impact businesses. One of the most common - and simple - is PEST which stands for political, economic, social, and technological. It's easy to remember because, to many managers, factors that impact their success so much but that can't be controlled are exactly that - a pest! This image represents the PEST framework.

Political

Political forces include regulatory requirements, legal concerns, and any impact from the current political climate of the country or region where the business operates. For example, beginning in 2008, health care companies began anticipating dramatic changes to the US health care system as President Obama made health care reform his top priority.

Political forces do not only exist in the home country of a business. Many US companies operate in China, a country where the government has much more influence over business behaviors. These US companies must be aware of the political pressures in China if they want to be successful in that attractive market.

Economic

The financial crisis of 2007-2008 demonstrated the impact that economic forces can have on companies. Businesses that had nothing to do with banking or the housing industry saw their revenues drop, sometimes dramatically, as unemployment rose and disposable income dropped. Those companies that were in the financial and housing industries were fighting for survival every day - a battle that some 100-year old companies lost, such as Lehman Brothers and Bear Sterns.

Any change in the economy that impacts the supply or demand for a company's products and services fits into this category. Sometimes, they have a positive impact, like when a country's gross domestic product (GDP)increases more than expected. Other times, economic forces can hurt a business, like when consumer confidence drops, and potential customers spend less and save more.

Social

Social factors are those that reflect the preferences, fads, and trends in society. Media companies are very sensitive to social trends as their business model is to produce content that reflects society's interests. Reality TV, unheard of 20 years ago, is now some of the most watched productions in prime time. Social trends often follow technological trends. For example, technological forces made email possible, but once available, society quickly demonstrated the preference to email over sending a letter or making a phone call.

Technological

Advancement in technology has had a dramatic impact on the business world over the last two centuries, and especially over the last 30 years. Anticipating changes in technology and capitalizing on those changes can become a competitive advantage - like when Apple anticipated the shift away from CDs to electronic media and introduced the iPod. That single product innovation put Apple on the road from a failing company with a stock price of $6 in 2001 to the largest company in the world and a stock price of over $700 in the fall of 2012.

While anticipating technological changes can transform a company, ignoring those forces can destroy a company. Kodak was the market leader in photography and film until the 1990s when digital cameras started becoming popular. Kodak managers saw digital photography as a fad, believing that consumers will always prefer hard copies of their photos. Wrong! While Kodak still exists today, it is not much more than an afterthought in the digital media industry.

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