Archive for November, 2011

Pros and Cons of Reseller Hosting

November 28th, 2011

Begin a web hosting company with reseller hosting

Got $35.00?

You can start an internet hosting business. Hey, in case your like the majority of families, you spend a lot more than thirty-five bucks on french fries each month. Skip a few junk food meals and begin a company.

Debra’s story

For 8 years, Debra had been an executive assistant for any company in an affluent, Texas community. She WAS the office with this sole proprietorship so Debra had developed an enviable skill set. She did order capture, kept the books, maintained the customer d-base and she was the only one whatever person figured out how to use the dusty old copy machine. She was indispensable to the company, approximately she thought. In 2011, with the U.S. economy stumbling along, Debra was let go in a last-ditch effort through the company owner to remain afloat. So, in the chronilogical age of 54, Debra got her pink slip and created a career that had helped offer the family since 2003. Stunned, she wasn’t worried. Like the majority of people, she figured another job was just a free classified away. Didn’t happen. Debra updated her resume and cover letter and undertook a methodical campaign to locate a new job. But despite an enviable listing of office skills, Debra couldn’t even get an interview, a smaller amount employment. No one was hiring and living off unemployment didn’t cover her bills. Learn more knowledge about that by search online loan resources that related of the finance advice.

So, Debra chose to brush off her web design skills, setup a reseller web hosting account, then she got busy selling hosting to her friends and business acquaintances. Debra calculated that for $35 per month, if she would acquire one, maybe two web hosting accounts, she’d be profitable. Sounds simple? Right. Not so fast. Debra focused on the advantages of a web host reseller account, but she forgot to tally in the disadvantages. In addition to the obvious advantages such as making money at home, Debra didn’t understand that she was jumping head-first into an industry that is competitive and fast-paced, not to mention the fact that she found herself inside a profession that never sleeps. Yes, Debra was making enough money to cover her expenses, and more, but what she didn’t realize is the fact that her business plan that she had written around the back of a cocktail napkin didn’t include the pros and cons of her start up business venture.

Debra’s website hosting business will take off

Some tips about what happened. Her first client was a local caterer who worked out of her house, so, she needed someone who could take their existing web site to a higher level. Debra sold the caterer a web hosting account, setup their email and spam filter, optimized their pages, as well as charged the catering service for establishing a blog. A simple assignment and something Debra could easily handle, although the client was just willing to pay Debra $250 a month, way below what she’d been earning. But it would be a start so she took the long-term assignment. With one sale, Debra was profitable. But she’d a long road in front of her.

A couple of days later, Debra gets another call from a small catering service looking for Internet exposure. $150 per month and a lot less work than Debra’s first account. This company must be setup having a simple brochure site and a WordPress blog. Bam! Now Debra was making $400 per month, gross.

Next, she received a phone call from a law office that had met the caterer at a small local gathering the evening before. Debra submitted a proposal for any new web page design and web hosting. Pay? $175 per month. In under 14 days, Debra had landed three regular clients – one from the most well-established law firm in her own local community – and Debra was earning $550 a month, after her $25 a month reoccurring expense for the reseller website hosting account. And the best part is, Debra was doing all this in her slippers.

In Fourteen days, Debra had made a successful on line business Body that she controls. She cherry picks requests for work, she’s gradually raised her rates, she’s capable of say ‘no’ to prospects to best manage her workload and, best of all, Debra started her on-line business for $35.

Just $35.

Debra’s marketing strategy

In Debra’s case, she localized her on-line, social media advertising, emphasizing that they is at Texas, serving Texas businesses. Despite the fact that Debra offers virtual assistant services, her CriagsList.com listing is posted under Texas providers.

Plenty of prospects prefer conducting business locally, despite the fact that in the current on-line business realm, any outsource can be located anywhere through the use of on-line collaboration software – a freebie your internet host might offer.

Debra’s growing pains

The internet is the fastest growing marketplace in the history of commerce, so Debra decided to take a step back, stop and think about what she was engaging in. What were the professionals of her start up business venture? What were the cons of reseller web hosting? Small steps. Maybe it was too late? Debra thought she better evaluate her situation, and fast, before the phone rang again and boom-she was committed (again) to a different client.

Do you know the benefits and drawbacks of Reseller web hosting?

Here’s the thing. Debra was making a good living reselling website hosting and offering design services, but she was working in a large amount of long hours. She knew that every new account would lead to more design work. Unless Debra decided to offer hosting only! Did Debra create a snap decision? Let’s discover…

Pros of Reseller web hosting

Reduced costs for website hosting can be obtained for resellers.
Unlimited domain hosting with reseller plans-Debra could host as numerous domains on her behalf reseller plan as she could sell.
Reseller web hosting is a lucrative way of which to create a living.

Cons of Reseller web hosting

Web hosting is a 24-hour a day industry.
Web hosting if fast paced-so Debra’s imagine casually working every morning together with her laptop in the local coffee shop went to the way-side.
Debra found herself relying-I mean REALLY relying-on her web hosting provider. She did not have root access to the server, but that did not bother Debra because she was without the technical knowledge to perform root commands, but she did mind needing to contact her upstream provider anytime she had a problem.
Debra desired to provide a correct level of support so she worked a lot!

Debra built a great, profitable business with no lot of expense. And never a lot of start-up web companies are profitable in Seven days. Eventually, Debra paired down her design schedule and concentrated mainly on selling website hosting accounts. She learned that with this particular business model, she could work fewer hours, but she’d to be sharp in order to sell website hosting.

A vital answer to the success of Debra’s new web hosting endeavor is making the best decisions in early stages – and fewer than the usual month after Debra started, she could take a day or two off. That’s about how long you have prior to the next assignment! However, if you keep clients coming back and if they refer their friends and business acquaintances, then you are providing a helpful service-light around the sales hype, heavy around the quality.

Knowledge Management Study: Concentrate on Leadership and Culture, Not Technology, to Gain the Edge

November 28th, 2011

The purpose of the article, study and website would be to encourage the reader to consider a step back in the technology element of knowledge management and widen his or her field of vision to incorporate performance drivers around leadership, culture, organization and process.

The research is based on in-depth interviews with key executives in some of the most admired knowledge enterprises on the planet. Study participants include BP, Buckaman Laboratories, PeopleSoft, Sainsbury’s, Simens and also the World Bank. Some participating enterprises have chosen to not be directly named and also provides of the review in fastcash site.

What’s knowledge management?

Knowledge management is capturing, structuring, enhancing and disseminating the knowledge of an organization. Knowledge management involves:

Getting the best information, to the right person, at the proper time and price
Organizing, distilling and presenting information in a timely, relevant, accurate and simple manner
Leveraging both tacit and explicit knowledge in a systematic way
Using the information sent to enable informed making decisions

Knowledge management helps problem solving, dynamic learning, collaboration, strategic planning and making decisions, as well as protects intellectual assets from decay. With this thought we now have created a knowledge management framework to determine how enterprises achieved great success.

What does knowledge management best practice look like?

Leadership and culture are the critical success factors in building world-class knowledge management – enabled by good process and technology practice. We checked out knowledge management best practice against a number of performance dimensions: strategy, leadership, culture, process and technology.

KM Strategy

Alignment of data management with the business technique is a definite benchmark of success. We identified the following best practices: The introduction of an enterprise-wide knowledge strategy which links all knowledge management initiatives:

It is important to recognize organizational and knowledge priorities
Promote full organizational participation
Knowledge strategy clearly aligns with a core element of business strategy – for instance:
A customer centric approach: KCS (annual efficiency saving of US$ 1.5 million)
A drive towards operational excellence: BP (US$ 2billion over Four years)
The knowledge value chain is managed in an enterprise level:
Determine knowledge needed
Determine knowledge available
Assess knowledge gap
Developing or buy relevant knowledge

KM Leadership

Leadership is an important dimension in driving the success of any organizational initiative. The impact of leadership is much more pronounced given the cultural implications and low maturity of knowledge management within most organizations

Enterprise knowledge strategy is deployed underneath the guidance of a ‘Chief Knowledge Officer’:

Each of the world-class companies have mandated a senior leader to supervise and steer the enterprise knowledge strategy
The CKO need not be a permanent role yet has been proven as instrumental within the establishment of first class knowledge management within enterprises:

In Buckman Laboratories, knowledge sharing and collaboration have started out a high down prescriptive approach towards knowledge sharing into a pan organization imperative. The organization highlights that they do not have only one Chief Knowledge Officer, but rather all personnel are knowledge leader

Similarly, a global software company points to its leadership programme, in which knowledge-sharing and collaboration are emphasized, and is a vital reason the have no Chief Knowledge Officer. A programme is designed to identify and foster knowledge leaders throughout the enterprise:

In addition to a Chief Knowledge Officer, leading knowledge management enterprises built another tier of data leaders – as ‘knowledge champions’, ‘knowledge mentors’ – at different levels across the enterprise
The enterprise leadership itself should be seen to do something as knowledge mentors and collaborators:
This is leadership by example: – they’re seen to model the behaviours they are attempting to promote inside their employees:
Software Company, CEO, is known to contribute to the business’s many discussion forums
Buckman Laboratories: Bob Buckman, ex-CEO now Chairman of the Executive Committee, would contact employees that have not been participating in the business’s knowledge sharing system and asks what assistance the leadership can provide to assist them to contribute more

KM Culture

Cultural change inside an organization is highlighted by all world-class KM enterprises because the most important success factor in of the KM programme. The introduction of a typical language and understanding of KM based on key small business:

Even the naming of KM projects can be problematic as well as their success relying on predetermined attitudes to KM; some companies taking part in this research chose to abandon the word ‘KM’ altogether due to a negative connection to the term
Knowledge sharing becomes culturally embedded faster when knowledge objectives are articulated within the language of an organization’s business objectives. These include:
‘Operational Excellence Programme’
‘Knowledge Centred Approach’
‘New Ways of Working’

Understanding what compels knowledge sharing behaviour inside the organization:

The use of financial rewards only is not necessarily the best answer; internal and external recognition for knowledge sharing (e.g., published metrics, Company Knowledge Award) motivates many people to contribute (although not all)
Ensure contributors and sharers of knowledge know that their work is visible to senior executives
Design appraisal, performance and promotion with knowledge sharing behaviors in your mind
Explore innovative approaches promoting knowledge sharing behaviors – e.g. Global software company uses oral histories or organizational storytelling
KM Process
World class KM enterprises have focused on developing consistent and robust processes to support best practice KM.
Build a strong Content Management process:
Facilitates adding content to the system and provides guidance for that ‘Collection, Creation and Validation’ of content
Have no shocks on the content life cycle for maintaining and retiring content
Ensures relevance and accuracy of content and increased user confidence

Ensure content flows from the standard central control point:

Both distributed and centralized content management designs include been identified in this sample group however centralized content management is used throughout
Creates a typical understanding of employee and customer requirements
Makes sharing and disseminating content easy and consistent
Ensures reduced duplication of information

Understand the process by which users retrieve information:

Content must be readily accessible – the ‘three clicks rule’ is used
Structured content based on a developed taxonomy enables content search through full text search or browsing
Critical submissions are pushed out to users, information they require may be pulled whenever needed
Ensures effective use of the system, reduced search times

KM Technology

In best practice KM organizations, technology is an enabler of KM behaviors and should be tailored towards the needs of users.

From the beginning focus on the business and user requirements:

Prevent too much focus on exactly what the tools can do and increases focus on the requirements of those who use the tools
“If you don’t have for which you are doing in the organization (technology), it won’t be successful” – Bob Buckman, ex CEO, Buckman Laboratories, Chairman of the Executive Committee

Develop and leverage custom made KM methods to meet business and user requirements:

Easy to use applications developed built on strong knowledge of user requirements
Tailored towards the requirements of every user community

Exploit and leverage existing tools on current architecture:

Focus on tools that employees currently use and make them more effective – e.g. MS Outlook employed for discussion groups functionality

Integrate KM tools into key applications where appropriate:

CRM System
Extranet
Intranet
Marketing systems
Product