Consider your investment plan carefully

Retirement is a necessary event which everyone faces in life. When one thinks of his income after retirement, several options arise. During his service, the person has to save some amount every month for his retired life. The person invests this amount in Annuity schemes which fetch him some periodical income so that after retirement he can lead a normal life. Before choosing the appropriate investment plan, the person has to evaluate his needs. His immediate commitments like education of children, expenses on health, renovation of house, legal expenses if any are some of the factors which may require careful consideration. The next question that he has to consider is the marriage of children, tour plans, etc.

Where to invest the savings?

This is a vexing question that needs careful consideration. Many employees invest the amount with their employers. In return for this investment, the employer normally gives the employee a fixed amount periodically as Annuity. Of course in the beginning the Annuity which the employee gets would seem to be reasonable. But with inflation, the fixed annuity will not be sufficient in the coming years. Even with an inflation of about 3% every year, in about 4 to 5 years the person will feel the financial crunch.

The alternative is to invest in Stock market. But this requires specialization and careful market analysis. Everyone may not have this quality. So this is a risky investment.

As an alternative, the employee can consider the investment plans offered by different investment companies. Many of the investment agencies have several attractive plans like Annuity with health insurance coverage for the spouse, burglary insurance, etc. Such investment could be another better option to choose.

Some persons may consider investing in real estate. But if such investment is made, the person may not have fixed returns unless the investment fetches him some amount by way of rent. If such investment is made when there is a favorable market, the value of real estate would appreciate and this may fetch attractive returns.

However, as far as investment plan is concerned, all that matters is the wisdom of the investor. Wherever necessary, he can take the guidance of professional investment planners who would be able to guide the investor appropriately.

Improve Your Businesss Freight Management Systems With These Four Solutions

Freight management is a current hot spot within the logistics industry. Often time businesses have a disadvantage when looking into ways to reduce freight costs. They think in the box to often looking at the obvious cost saving techniques. Individuals working within a company have a hard time separating themselves to look at what is and has always been in order to find new and unique ways to change and in turn reduce costs.
This is the exact reason supply chain, logistic consulting companies are hired. When an outside consultant is able to look at the current freight management of a company they see everything for what it is at the point of analysis. This makes it easier for them to determine areas that are proficient and those that are not. Consultants take the not so obvious and suggest putting actions into place within small parcel, ground parcel and international post freight management that will improve service, customer satisfaction and reduce freight costs.
The obvious way to decrease freight costs is by seeking a lower shipping rate with carriers. This is often an area where businesses are lead to believe they are already receiving steep discounts and the room for negotiation is zero. This however is often not the case. Many carriers will lead customers to believe that their steep discount of say 75% is the highest they give anyone. While this may be the case it is important to realize that their lowest price is not always the industrys lowest price. Carrier A may think their 75% discount is incredible but when Carrier B is offering the same service without any discount at all at a lower price that is obviously not the best deal you can be negotiating. Negotiate with Carrier B for a discount on their already lower price is the answer to cost savings in this situation.
Important Freight Management Money Saving Tips
1)Discounts verse Actual Rates: As proven in the above situation a discount is not always leading a client to the lowest actual rate. Even if a carrier is offering a steep discount look to see how overly inflated the original shipping rate is. It is important to determine a firms typical shipment fees rather than their discount. A typical fee schedule lower than other carriers discounted fees shows how jaded discounts or percentages off can really be. It is not a deal to buy a twenty-five dollar crate at a 50% discount form Carrier A when the same crate and service from Carrier B is originally only ten dollars.

2)Fuel Surcharges: This is another area in which companies often get handed extra fees. Many firms think that fuel surcharges are fixed at a certain rate. This is not something that should be assumed. Unless it is written in your agreement with a shipper the freight fuel surcharge they are charging your company could be double what could have been negotiated. This is often an area where a lot of money can be saved.

3)Behind The Scene Daily Operations: When looking at the employee expense involved with freight transportation management you will need to look at the amount of time that is spent daily receiving and reviewing shippers quotes. Even if the company is receiving a smaller number of quotes per shipment and the average shipment per week are ten that are sixty quotes that need to be looked at and evaluated.

If each quotes analysis takes ten minutes you are looking at six hundred minutes or ten hours each week that the transportation manager is tied up reviewing quotes. With the technology that logistic consultants are able to implement now-a-days that time can be decreased substantially. Web based logistic software will help decrease the time spent over the tedious tasks and increase the time spent on money making operations within the firm.

Software implementation helps in other arenas within freight transportation management such as the review and auditing of freight bills. Inaccurate billing leads to lost revenue within the freight division of a firm. It is pertinent that software be implemented to check for inaccuracies within the auditing process to save.

4)Parcel Management: When hiring a freight management consulting firm they will audit the current backend process thoroughly. They will then implement a plan that will work within the organization to minimize time spent handling damage claims, lost shipments, reconciled claims, shipment schedules and paperwork prep. Minimizing the time spent on these aspects with the use of tools and technology specifically designed for the individual operations will increase the profitability of your supply chain. They do this by decreasing human processing errors and employee time wasted finding the problems that need resolved. When the technology finds an error than it is up to the employees to seek out solutions that cannot be handled through the software.

Open Innovation In The Food Industry

The point of inception for any enterprise, big, small or
medium has been an idea. The thought of coming up with a product,
service or initiative that would be of use to the global consumer, has
resulted in the emergence of numerous brands globally. However, the
success of continuously developing new products and better services does
not only depend on market research and branding activities or new
business development strategies. What is needed is an environment that
is conducive to ideas and knowledge sharing that brings together
multiple views and feedbacks. This too is not just limited to the
organization’s employees, but rather is open to all. This process of
sourcing meaningful ideas is termed as open innovation.

Over the past few years several brands have been
resorting to open innovation and crowdsourcing techniques for new
product development. One of the industry vertical making active use of
this technique is the food industry. Let us look at the multinational
food manufacturing company Kellogg’s (United States). The company
launched a creative initiative that enabled it in creating a new product
variant of Cereal Straws. This initiative originally started in Spain
where children between nine to ten years shared their breakfast concerns
and probable ways to resolve them. The result of from these detailed
discussions was that one should not only drink milkshakes through straws
but eat the straw afterwards that is crunchy and tastes good. The final
outcome was a brand new product named Kellogg’s Cereal Straws with its
target audience defined way before the product released in the market.


Therefore we see that open innovation often helps food brand to have a
clear idea of their target consumer group prior to product release. This
gives the brand the assurance that the capital and other resources
invested in the product development will not go waste. More than that,
it allows the brands to actually come up with products that are a blend
of proper nutrition and taste. Furthermore, innovative ways of mass idea
capture and idea management tactics can not only be used for essential
foods. The same can be applied to fancy food and confectioneries as
well.


This is what the multinational confectionery company Kraft Foods,
United States did by setting up an Idea Cafe along with Insites
Consulting to welcome new ideas. The company was looking for
consolidated ideas that can be incorporated on a day to day process. For
this the company also invited 50 Belgian Kraft consumers to be a part
of this three week idea generation process and Concept Development
Community. The final outcome of this open innovation practice was that
the company gathered more than 60 creative food ideas both for short
term and long term development.

Thus the future of any company
in terms of coming up with better products and meaningful practices
depends on the way idea management tactics are harnessed. Furthermore,
this also helps in setting a deeper audience connect that boosts sales
and results in increased goodwill.

What Is Sales Recruitment And Who Conducts It

Recruitment activities are sometimes conducted by the organization itself, or it can be outsourced to an external agency that specializes in sourcing and screening candidates.

The recruitment industry operates through four main types of media: (i) employment agencies, (ii) “head hunters”, usually for executive level sales recruitment roles, (iii) in-house recruitment, usually via an internal Human Resources department, and (iv) passive candidate research firms.

The stages involved in sales recruitment can vary depending on the needs of the organization and the type of sales role in question. Generally, recruitment for most types of jobs involves several steps and includes sourcing candidates by advertising or “head hunting”, followed by screening and selecting candidates using tests and interviews.

Agency Types

There are four main types of agencies who conduct recruitment, with some agencies specializing in certain job markets, for example sales recruitment or hospitality recruitment or secretarial recruitment.

The recruitment agencies are usually paid by the companies wanting to fill a position, and not the candidates.

Traditional Agency

Traditional agencies are also known as employment agencies. Candidates can and do approach them directly, either by responding to an advertised vacancy, or to register onto the agency’s books. Recruitment consultants then work to match their pool of candidates to their clients’ vacant positions.

Those candidates who best meet the selection criteria of the vacancy are short-listed and put forward for an interview with their clients.

Recruitment agencies are usually paid a contingency fee by the client once a recommended candidate accepts a job with the client company.

Typically, the fee is 20% to 30% based on the appointee’s first year base salary and usually comes with some form of guarantee (30 to 90 days is standard). Should the appointee fail to perform or leaves the company during the guarantee period, the agency would normally offer a replacement candidate at no further cost to the client company.

Headhunters

A ‘headhunter’ is a term used to describe a recruiter who seeks out candidates, often when the usual recruitment processes (e.g. advertising through an agency) fails. Headhunters usually have extensive industry experience and source their candidates through their contacts. There are headhunters who specialize in the sales recruitment industry.

However, because headhunters typically charge more than agencies (often more than 30% of the candidate’s annual compensation), they are usually employed to fill more senior sales management and executive level sales roles.

In-house Recruitment

Larger employers often will undertake their own in-house sales recruitment, usually through their human resources (HR) department. In-house HR staff either (i) co-ordinate external recruitment agencies who have been commissioned to find staff for the company, or (ii) conduct the end-to-end recruitment processes themselves, from advertising through to interviewing and hiring.

Passive Candidate Research Firms / Sourcing Firms

These firms conduct research to identify potential candidates and generate information about them. Often these research firms uncover candidates that cannot be found using other, more traditional methods. These firms usually charge a per hour fee or by candidate lead.

Accepting Payment Online 7 Steps to Improve your Customers Buying Experience

Of course, the number one way you can improve your client’s online purchasing experience is to accept credit cards on your site, because most of your clients will prefer to use their debit or credit card, rather than send checks through the mail. Credit and debit card purchases are immediate and secure; paper checks are the least secure method of making a purchase from an online seller.

Accepting payments online will also make it far less likely that customers will forget about your site or its address, decide to buy from a competitor who accepts online payments, or put off making a buying decision.

Once you’re accepting credit cards online, there are several other ways that you can improve the buying experience, particularly for those who are new to the Internet and may be apprehensive about completing a transaction online.

#1 – Explain what will happen during checkout and keep the customer informed during the buying process.

Giving a brief description of the process, reassures the customer that they’re on the right track to a successful purchase and let them know when the transaction is complete. For many people, buying online is something they do with great hesitancy; anything you can do to lessen their concerns will be appreciated by your customers.

#2 – Let your customers know that their information is protected and their transaction is taking place on a secure server.

Ensure that your payment page can be clearly identified as a secure site. The components of a secure site include a web address that starts with https; that indicates that the payment page is located on a secure server, and the display of a padlock symbol or logo that can be clicked on to confirm that there is a valid secure certificate associated with the secure server.

It can also help if your secure page starts with the word “secure” as the first part of the web address.

#3 – Send automated Thank You Notes and Personal Receipts to your customers

The transaction isn’t necessarily over when your customer has paid their money and collected their goods. One of the ways you can follow up with your client is to send them an automated note thanking them for their business, as well as a means to contact you after the sale. This also allows you to mention other services and products that you sell, that your customer may be interested in at a later date. Many merchants don’t do this – going the extra mile sets you apart from the crowd.

Subsequent to the thank you note, give your clients another indication that you’ve received their order, by sending a personalized receipt once the order is complete. That way, they have an immediate record of what they’ve bought and can print it for their records.

#4 – Brand your Payment Pages

Having a branded payment page not only makes you look more professional, it will increase your conversion rate and reduce your abandonment rate. Customers will be more trusting and therefore more likely to complete a purchase online if your payment page has the look and feel of your web site. This is especially true of individuals buying online for the first time and those who are buying from you for the first time. Trust, comfort and confidence play a major role in the buying decision of all online customers.

Panyu Jewelry Processing Industry’s Development History

Most jewelry practitioners know that Panyu, Guangdong, China is a well-known jewelry processing base, but few people know the developing history of China Panyus jewelry industry, following is a brief introduction of Panyu jewelry processing industry’s development history.

The embryonic stage of Panyu jewelry industry can be traced back to 1985, at that time, Panyu had only one collective enterprise began to engage in processing gold and silver jewelry business.

Around 1986, some Hong Kong jewelry processors began to travel to Panyu for seeking cooperation opportunities, to take advantage of the cheap cost to train jewelry processing talents. They mainly contracted jewelry processing business, at first, there are only seven or eight processing enterprises, the scale of productions are very small.

The late 80s to early 90s, Hong Kong jewelry companies have entered Panyu, Panyu jewelry processing industry has grown and developed increasingly. Now there have more than 200 jewelry processing enterprises in the base, the Hong Kong-funded enterprises account for around 60%.

What is the reason of Panyu attracting so many jewelry manufacturers? Firstly is its abundant resources of the geographical location, its very convenient transportation, land and sea transport the smooth Road, and travel between the Hong Kong and Panyu is very convenient. The second is that the processing fees, wages, land rent are relatively low, coupled with the strong support of Panyu government departments, provide a variety of convenient measures, making Panyu jewelry processing industry rapid developing, and forming a good reputation.

The processing amount of Panyu constitutes sixty percent of Hong Kong transit trade.

Although Panyu jewelry retail is still in its infancy, but compared with Shenzhen, its jewelry processing export is no less significant. The last year, the output value of Panyu jewelry industry reached 4 billion Yuan , export value of nearly $ 500 million, the processing amount of Panyu constitute sixty percent of Hong Kong transit trade. At present, Panyu processing jewelry industry covers jewelry making equipment, diamonds polishing; silver jewelry manufacturing and precious metal manufacturing and other areas, employing over 45,000 people, No matter the plant size, design or processes have enjoyed a certain degree of fame in the world.

To build a jewelry processing capital of the world

Panyu jewelry processing industry develops rapidly, at present, five jewelry processing areas, Shiqiao, Lanhe, Dagang and other towns (street) has succession absorb. To enhance the development aftereffect, The Foreign Trade Bureau of the area has initial planed of a new jewelry processing zone, it has about forty million square meters. According to the international standards production, the new jewelry processing zone is expected to put into production, after that, its employees will up to 20,000 people, the output value will up to $ 250 million.

To strengthen jewelry retail,jewelry CAD design, Panyu jewelry Street has more than 60 jewelry stores of not less than the minimum investment amount of 60 million Yuan. Although compared to other jewelry processing places such as Shenzhen, Panyu jewelry processing industry start relatively late , but its hardware facilities is not inferior, it also has many good technology personnel, all of these will make Panyus future a famous jewelry processing capital of the world.

All the original articles are authorized by jewelry wholesale china ,welcome To Transshipment But Please Retain the above.