"Business Management" Posts
Who Turned The Lights On?
By Ken DiPrimaOver the past ten years, the business world has exploded with the creation of companies that utilize an incredibly wide array of innovative, world changing ideas. These companies soared to the top of market capitalization value faster than businesses in the United States had ever grown, and their growth is only just beginning.
They have redefined business models, business practices, as well as asset and personnel utilization. A veritable business and social revolution has occurred.
On-line retailers, like Amazon.com, have changed how America goes shopping. Anything and everything a person would want is now available on-line and offered by thousands …
What Are My Chances?
By Ken DiPrima
In 2014 Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor, challenged the betting world by announcing his own bracket contest for the Annual March Madness; The NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament. He offered $1 Billion to anyone who correctly picked the winner of each of the tournament’s 63 games. Each year hundreds of thousands of people make their picks in brackets offered a variety of different places—from the office pools to the March Madness junkies, through major newspapers and sports channels. Mr. Buffet’s bracket challenge had an extremely large payoff, but only for perfection. There are winners in the rest of the pools, …
“Not Now!”
By “As soon as I finish this, we’ll address that issue.”
“I’ll do that tomorrow.”
I haven’t decided yet.”
“That can wait.”
“I’ll get to it when I can.”
“If I only had more time…”
Have you ever caught yourself using one of these excuses? Or heard your boss use them with you or a colleague? If you answered yes, you are not alone. We are all guilty to varying degrees of this common, but costly practice of putting things off. Everyone procrastinates at one time or another. When a particular task seems unpleasant or undesirable, we tend to put it …
The Risk Of Being Satisfied With The Status Quo
By Tom Ryan
After Prohibition ended, there were two prominent family breweries in St. Louis, the Busch family (that controlled Anheuser-Busch) and the Griesedieck family. The Griesediecks, at that time, operated two different breweries, Griesedieck Bros. Brewing Company and Falstaff Brewing Company. The two entities would later become one company under the Falstaff name. While unknown today, in the 1960’s, Falstaff outsold Budweiser by a 50% margin in St. Louis in a battle of the local beer brands and, at the height of its popularity, it was the third largest selling beer in the United States—a fact, that, most likely, surprises many of …
How To Avoid Bad Management Decisions: The AT&T Case Study
By Tom Ryan
We say that every business owner needs, from time-to-time, a third-party objective analysis to avoid serious mistakes, keep his business on track, and take advantage of an opportunity that he otherwise could miss.
While there are many examples of business executives failing to heed this wise advice, one of the more striking examples involved the executives from the original AT&T. It’s important to keep in mind that when referring to AT&T in this article, I am referring not to the AT&T that we know today, but the executives of the nation-wide monopoly that provided all U.S. local telephone service. This …
Wake Up & Smell The Coffee!
By Tom Ryan
Sometimes the difference between success or failure is simply having the wisdom to seek an outside opinion. The one thing that you can’t provide, yourself, is an objective point of view. No matter how smart you are, your viewpoint will always be subjective.
In business, not having this impartial, third-party perspective, on occasion, can lead to failure. Failure doesn’t have to mean closing your doors; failure could be missing an important business opportunity, or, perhaps, the opportunity of a lifetime.
Thirty years ago, if you asked a person what brand came to mind when you said the word ‘coffee,’ he …
What Is A Benefit Or ‘B’ Corporation?
By 
Previously, when a new business was formed, there were only two legal entity structures to pursue, either your organization was for profit or it was a nonprofit. That is no longer the case with the development of the Benefit or ‘B’ Corporation. In the simplest terms, a Benefit Corporation exists in the nebulous middle. This allows a corporation to be for profit as well as for the benefit of some worthy social or environmental commitment.
Per ‘The For-Benefit Enterprise’ article by Heerad Sabeti, Harvard Business Review (November 2011):
In the past several decades a steadily growing number …
Women In The Workplace: One Small Step For Man, One Giant Leap For Mankind
By Zach Miller
Recent legislature, like ‘The Women’s Small Business Ownership Act of 2014,’ which addresses critical issues facing women entrepreneurs, highlights the fact that women have yet to acquire full equality with men in the professional world. While legislature addressing these problems will help the situation in many ways, it is only one step. In order to reach workplace equality for women, business owners, managers and executives must take the next steps themselves.
It’s Not Easy
The lack of women in managerial, or ownership positions, is due to the residual effects from societal norms of the past. Historically, women were barred …
Highlights: Women Employed’s The Working Lunch
Women Employed (WE) is a Chicago advocacy organization, which for more than 40 years has been dedicated to creating fairer workplaces and expanding economic opportunities for women. We were excited to fill a table at their annual ‘The Working Lunch’ on May 21st. It was, as always, an extremely well attended, efficiently run and organized event with awesome networking and thought provoking speakers.
A Bill to Prevent Discrimination of Pregnant Workers
After a delicious luncheon, we had a line-up of three great speakers. First, Anne Ladky, Executive Director of WE, announced the exciting news that a bill to offer protection …
You Can’t Handle The Truth
What you tell your CPA can be used against you.
Can you confide in your CPA? Are your conversations about your business protected? In reality, the law affords those conversations about as much protection as an umbrella in a hurricane. There is a privilege for federal tax preparers that applies to memos, opinions or other documents pertaining to your actual or potential tax liability, but the privilege does not apply to any work papers used to prepare the tax return. Your CPA may also be forced to reveal his knowledge in matters involving state, local or any jurisdiction other than …
