Elements of a Mission Statement

No one can deny the importance of a mission statement in motivating a business. Mission statement not only helps the business to remain on its track but also helps determining the very purpose of its existence. Finding a perfect mission statement is never possible. Mission statements are made, followed and updated continuously. Updates are made due to many reasons like change in business, change in business philosophy or any other major change that would result in substantial deviation for the organization from the earlier path it laid down in its mission statement. There are nine elements which involve in making a mission statement. Each good mission statement incorporates all of these elements in it. These elements are.

1.Customers
2.Products or Services
3.Markets
4.Technology
5.Concern for survival, growth and profitability
6.Philosophy
7.Self concept
8.Concern for public image
9.Concern for employees

Here is a glimpse of what each of these elements states about in a mission statement

1.Customers
In this element the organization mentions who are its customers or potential customers. What will it do to serve them and how will its customers find this organization different from the other organizations providing similar products or services in the market.

2.Products or Services
In mission statement a business has to mention the producer or service or both they are providing. By defining products or services the company distinguishes its offered products or services from competitive products or services of similar nature provided by other competitors in the market.

3.Markets
By defining markets, the company is declaring which types of customers it will target. Or who will be the intended audience for which it will produce products or services. For example, a luxury car maker like Rolls Royce has a potential market of only the richest of the rich in the world.

4.Technology
By defining technology, the company tells its current technology use in making of its products. It also tells about the unique ways in which its products or services are technologically more advanced then their alternates.

5.Concern for survival, growth and profitability
In this element of the mission statement business defines the means it seeks to survive in the longer run. It not merely lists them out but also defines the logic behind them and how will the company strive to achieve them.

6.Philosophy
Philosophy of a company is a much wider term to cover. By defining philosophy, the company defines its way of working, its culture, its beliefs and how it sees work to be carried out. It is also an analytical way of defining the norms on which it runs.

7.Self concept
By defining the self concept, the business is telling its heart out to the world. In this the company shows the outside world, its core strengths and the place it sees itself in the future.

8.Concern for public image
The buzz word is usually corporate social responsibility mixed with concern for public image. First of all these two terms are totally different and they can by no means be intermingled with each other. Corporate social responsibility points the ways in which the business wants to contribute towards the betterment of the society. Concern for public image is a much wider term and can include not only the corporate social responsibility but the overall impact of the actions taken by the company on its image. This may include from minor issues like installing manufacturing recycling plants by a company for pollution reduction to improve its packaging to enhance a better brand image for one of its top line brands.

9.Concern for employees
Earlier day corporations didn’t care much about their employees. Thankfully the trend has started shifting from no focus to a lot of concentration on working environment. In a mission statement a company also defines the ways in which it is beneficial for potential and currently working employees to work at a certain organization. This also includes the ways in which the company will treat its employees and how will it look towards this relation in a longer period of time.

Source:
UK Wholesalers

Hone your skills to provide better customer service on phone

If you’ve got the experience of calling some company’s helpline and talking to their representatives, you must be having an idea of the difference that the person on the other side of the telephone line can make. Some representatives are able to make a positive impression even before the actual conversation take place. Research shows that a good percentage of angry customers skipped the idea of getting rude and using foul language, just because the person who received the call sounds too polite and erudite. We can safely assume that a big majority of these customers must have skipped the idea of bad mouthing that particular business in front of their friends, as well.

On the contrary, some representatives take pleasure in poking fun at customers and making them feel sorry for even thinking about complaining or making an inquiry. Sometimes it can be due to insufficient training or little or no check over your CSR. Sometimes little things like advising them to call to another number or sending an email to some specific address can prove to be a big enough turnoff (ideally it should be the customer service representative who’ll forward their complains to the concerned department). At times the prospective customer calls a new business and upon hearing a somewhat discourteous greeting, the first thing that comes to his/her mind is “if hiring their services means hearing such displeasing response more often, then there’s no way I m getting into business with these fellows”.

Your customer service staff needs to be au fait with the main idea that they are there for customer’s service. What a “shocking revelation” Mr. writer, you must be thinking, but this obvious point is ignored by customer service staff quite often. CSR people are there to serve the customers, not for giving short answers to their questions and hanging up the phone instantly or take another call. However, it’s not always the customer service staff that makes this mistake, sometimes business owners are themselves the culprits, without even noticing it. If you are a small business and you don’t have the need or resources to hire specialized staff, you must hone your skills to give a better impression.

You don’t necessarily need to join some crash course of improving your telephonic conversation; some mock calls with your family members or friends can give you plenty of advice to work on. All you need is to ask them to comment on your voice quality, selection of words and convincing techniques.

Source:
UK Wholesale Suppliers, Distributors, Dropshippers & Manufacturers
Computers Wholesale Suppliers

Full service wholesalers vs. Limited-function wholesalers

A wholesaler purchases directly from manufacturers, in large quantities and then sells the products to retailer, who then sells them to consumer. The difference between a wholesaler and retailer in this transaction is the nature of the customer they are selling to. A wholesaler is selling to another business for reselling purposes, while the retailer will be selling to the consumer, who is buying that product for his/her personal usage. Remember, this is just a general description of wholesaler and there can be some variations. For example, a wholesaler doesn’t always sell to a retailer, or sometimes a business listed as a retailer can act as a wholesaler when it sells a large quantity of products to another business for commercial use, and still this transaction will be regarded as a wholesale deal.

Full Service wholesalers:
As the name suggest, full service wholesalers offer a complete range of wholesaling services to their clients. These services are
Buying & Selling:
This is the very basic of wholesaler’s functions, buying directly from manufacturers in bulk and then selling it to the customers in smaller quantities, which suits both, the producers and the customers.
Providing storage facilities:
As stated above, wholesalers buy in large quantities, but they can not sell out these products right away, because the customers do not have the space to store these products. Hence, wholesalers take up the task to preserve these products in their warehouses.
Freight & Transport Services:
Again, buying in bulk and then storing the inventory at some place near to the consumer markets can reduce the cost of transportation; it also ensures a speedy delivery of the product on timely basis.
Expertise of Market:
Interaction with both producers and buyers allows them to understand the demands and limitations of both parties; in most cases they understand the market better than the producer, mainly because of their experience.
Apart from these, a full service wholesaler may also indulge in marketing the products, conducting surveys, and even providing after sales customer service.

Limited Service Wholesalers:
We are living in an era where the focus is shifting towards specialization from businesses that fall in jack-of-all-trade category. A business that specializes in any of the above mentioned services can provide much better service at much lower cost than any of the full service wholesaler. Another reason behind the rise of limited service wholesalers (e.g. drop shippers) is more and more people looking to start their own businesses. Since these individuals do not have financial or other resources to start as a full fledge wholesaler, they prefer offering limited services according to their expertise.

Choosing the right bank for international trade

International exporters need the services of banks or financial institutions at many stages of their trading business. They need loan to help with initial setup, they need financing for production phase, and they need the services of banks to make or receive payments (letter of credit, wire transfer, etc), they can avail lots of other services like online banking, small business loans, credit cards, etc. When deciding on your bank you should consider following points carefully, because you can't keep changing your bank often.

Interest Rates and Service Fee:

Normally, there’s not much difference between interest rates offered by various banks operating in the same market and circumstances, mainly because of cut throat competition. However, that doesn’t mean you should completely ignore the small differences at hand. Similarly, banks charge different fees for different services, if you have a clear idea of the services you are going to avail, you can easily decide on the most suitable bank. Banks have to rely on these service charges and fees for their profits, but you must make sure that you are not getting ripped off by your personal bank.

Repute & History:

A well reputed bank of good standing will also speak for your business credibility at international export, so you better go for some bank, which is highly regarded among business circles. If you are choosing a bank for long term relations, you should go through its business history, past performance and achievements. Another question to go over is how financially strong that bank is, especially after we have seen more than 15 US banks failures in first three months of 2009. Just because they deal in money, doesn’t mean they’d never run out of it.


Customer Relations & Customer Service:

Good banker-customer relations are a result of mutual understanding and collaboration. Bank staff normally consists of well mannered and courteous individuals; still some banks go that extra mile to please their customers and establish long term relationships. Customer service can slightly vary on branch to branch basis as well. Don’t get overwhelmed by the politeness and the display of utmost sincerity when going through the procedures of opening an account, instead you should talk to some existing customers to make sure they are satisfied with the banking services and the behavior of staff.

In addition to the points described above, you can look for the quality of products and services offered by the bank.