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Monday, August 30

Honor,Courage & Commitment by Biznet Productions editor

by D-Team on Mon 30 Aug 2004 11:38 AM EDT

Worn with pride and respect

HONOR guides Marines to exemplify the ultimate in ethical and moral behavior as detailed in the following list:

Obey the law

Lead by example

Respect yourself and others

Maintain a high standard of integrity

Support and defend the constitution

Uphold special trust and confidence

Place faith and honor above all else

Honor fellow Marines, the Corps, Country, and Family.

The qualities of maturity, dedication, trust and dependability commit Marines to act responsibly; to be accountable for their actions; and to fulfill their obligations.

COURAGE is the mental, moral and physical strength ingrained in Marines. Courage is the ability to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. It carries Marines through the challenges of combat and aids them in overcoming fear. It is the inner strength that enables a Marine to do what is right; to adhere to a higher standard of personal conduct; to lead by example; and to make tough decisions under stress and pressure.

COMMITMENT is the spirit of determination and dedication found in Marines. It leads to the highest order of discipline for individuals and units. It is the ingredient that enables 24-hour-a-day dedication to the Corps and country. It inspires the unrelenting determination to achieve a standard of excellence in every endeavor.

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Consumer trends - by Denny Smith of Biznet Productions

by D-Team on Mon 30 Aug 2004 11:29 AM EDT

Keeping up with the ever-changing demands and expectations of consumers is an endless challenge for any business. Businesses today must constantly adjust to the rapid growth of technology, the demands of baby boomers, generation X'ers and Y'ers and increased competition in a global market. Yesterday's consumer expectations will dramatically change in tomorrow's business environment. As exciting as the dawn of the new millennium may be, the key to business success, or failure, lies in understanding consumers needs, wants and expectations, and then meeting them.

There are a variety of consumer trends that can affect the dietary supplement, functional food and nutritional beverage industries short term and into the new millennium. The following trends are in no particular order, given that all these considerations will have a significant impact on the business.

Consumer demands and expectations for the new millennium will be tougher than what we have seen in the 90's. Consumers will want things faster, easier, simpler and NOW! Business' emphasis in past years on improved customer service has resulted in increasing consumer expectations. Being one step better than your competition will continue to influence consumer choice.

In the future, consumers will increasingly look for "total value." By "total value" we are not only looking at price, but availability of product, ease of use, company availability and willingness to solve problems on time. All these factors make up an individual's perception of value. Statistics continue to demonstrate that a majority of people will pay more for a product or service when the "total value" element is met.

And just who is your customer for the new millennium? It's the baby boomers. Understanding the purchasing habits of an older core customer base will be a crucial element for business. The aging of America is real and midlife now occurs at the age of 43. Baby boomers who started turning 50 in 1996 are doing so at a rate of 300,000 per month. The baby boomer generation will be the largest buying consumer group in the years ahead. Baby boomers are seeking the "fountain of youth," looking for anything that will bring personal health, well being and satisfaction to their lives. Last year marked the first time that we spent more on services than we did on material items, demonstrating the trend to increase personal satisfaction and enjoyment. In the quest for an extended quality of life, consumers will increase their purchases of products that assist them in this goal.

Another element to consider with the future consumer is the importance of time. Consumers today are combining work in the office with work at home. Time and the juggling of work and family life will continue to be a major concern, with the resulting desire to reduce the stress of their busy life. Because of a greater focus on personal time, consumers will seek simple, time-saving solutions. They will want one-stop shopping, easy access to information and immediate attention. This means that businesses will continue to form partnerships, offering multiple products and services in an easy-to-access venue, providing a valuable time-saving service to their consumers and a cost-effective means of operating their business.

Technology Will Also Play A Role
Once we understand the core customer base of the new millennium, we can then move on to another critical consumer factor, technology and the Internet. Businesses, in order to be successful, must effectively integrate future technology with current communication avenues. Consumers' primary means of contacting a company by letter or toll free number will continue, though letter writing will be increasingly replaced by e-mail. But as baby boomers grow increasingly more comfortable with computers and the Internet, they will move in that direction to obtain information about companies and products. Baby boomers are information pack rats, seeking bits and pieces of information from numerous sources to assist in their buying decisions. It will be imperative that your business has a website and that the website offers information about your products and why consumers should buy them as well as providing a vehicle for the consumer to contact you. Not having a website in the future is comparable to not having a business telephone number today.

Computers in general will dramatically change our lives in the future. While the number of people owning a computer in the past has remained relatively low, that trend is rapidly changing. Various studies indicate that roughly 50% of American households now own a computer, with about 30% of those owners browsing the Internet. That number is expected to grow dramatically in the next few years as computer prices continue to drop. As much as baby boomers are not particularly fond of new technology, they are learning that the Internet is a valuable resource.

On-line demographics are also rapidly changing. Depending on the particular study you review, roughly 54% of Internet users are men; 46% are women. The Internet was dominated by males as recently as two years ago. Women are currently the fastest-growing segment of Internet users and more and more seniors are buying computers or using computers at centers to surf the net. These two groups, women and seniors, will play a critical role in the rapid success of Internet commerce. Women make many of the purchases in households and seniors have the financial resources to make on-line purchases. According to the 1998 Spring Mediamark Research study, 61% of on-line users have household incomes between $50,000 and $150,000. Studies also indicate the highest user group on the Internet is the 35-55 age group, which clearly defines the baby boomer generation as the key consumer group that will dictate how business is done in the future.

E-commerce (buying on the Internet) is expected to increase dramatically, in certain markets, over the next few years. However, a recent study conducted by Yankelovich & Partners showed that 63% of web users are unwilling to purchase products on-line until there is more human interaction involved. There is still the reluctance by many consumers to give out credit card information over the Internet. (As a side note to the power of the telephone, consumers will freely give a credit card number over the phone.) This reluctance is decreasing with the improvement of secure websites and all eyes will be on 1999 to see if e-commerce really takes off. One forecast states that the number of people buying groceries on-line will jump from 10,000 in 1997 to about seven million by 2002. One need only to look at the success of Amazon.com to see that the Internet is already a strong viable market provided you are offering the right product.

The benefit to Internet buying for the dietary supplement and functional food industry can and will be enormous, with one caution. Baby boomers will typically not purchase dietary supplements until their questions are answered. This is one product area that really reflects the concern stated earlier regarding consumers' decision not to purchase until there is more human contact. It is not enough to set up shopping services on your website. You need to provide means for consumers to get information through real-time, interactive sales and service across the Internet. This can be accomplished through e-mail and chat functions as well as web call (simultaneous on-line calling and web page viewing), which is already available, though few consumers have the correct equipment to do this as of yet.

While the Internet will be the wave of the future, never underestimate the value and power of the telephone. Toll-free numbers have been and will continue for some time to be the primary means of contact between business and consumers. This is due in part to the ease of use and time element. It is still much easier and quicker to pick up the telephone and ask someone your nutritional question than it is to sign on to a computer and send an e-mail.

As product lines continue to grow rapidly in the dietary supplement and functional foods areas, the need to assist consumers in making informed purchasing decisions will increase. Already the Internet and media are major sources of misinformation among consumers. While technology is advancing, it is critical that dietary supplement and functional food companies offer consumers information about their products. The best means is through a toll-free number with live representatives and not automated voice response units. Consumers are calling to ask health and nutrition questions, not check an account balance where automated systems can be very effective. While this may initially appear as an additional expense, the truth is it will improve your bottom line through increased sales by providing consumers knowledge about your products and helping build brand loyalty. But don't feel you need to house this function within your offices. A continually growing number of businesses are outsourcing their toll-free number services to an outside service provider. This allows you to continue your focus on your core business objectives and allows the outside service supplier to use his or her expertise in providing quality service to your valued customers.

The dietary supplement and functional food industries will face some unique consumer challenges in the future. Because of the nature of the products, there will be at the same time both high consumer interest and equally high consumer confusion. The companies that will succeed will be those who pay close attention to their consumers and provide the answers to consumers' questions in an easy to reach format. The Internet will play an important role to the extent that backup information services are offered to the consumer. In what promises to be a highly competitive marketplace, those businesses that value their customer relationship and provide quality products and services will be the winners.

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Coach Woodens seven points - by Fred Harteis

by D-Team on Mon 30 Aug 2004 11:20 AM EDT

1. It is crucial to define a cogent philosophy of life, then refer to it constantly.

It is important to have things you believe in that you constantly come back to, regardless of the circumstance or season of life.

The timeless wisdom Coach Wooden received from his father:
° Never lie.
° Never cheat.
° Never steal
° Don’t whine.
° Don’t complain.
° Don’t make excuses.

Coach Wooden’s 7-Point Creed:
° Be true to yourself.
° Help others.
° Make each day your masterpiece.
° Drink deeply from good books – especially the Bible.
° Make friendship a fine art.
° Build shelter against a rainy day (faith in God).
° Pray for guidance and counsel and give thanks for your blessings each day.

2. Continue to cultivate a lifelong network of relationships and contacts.

Even if you don’t have a system, stay in contact with people and allow them into your life.

Don’t stay in contact with others in a “quid pro quo” sort of way, in which you remain friends because they can do something for you. Maintain relationship for the sake of relationship.

3. Learn from everyone.

There is nothing you know in life that you did not learn from someone else.

Some people have much to offer – like parents and mentors. Some have less, but nevertheless are worth listening to and learning from.

4. Be gentle.

Sometimes people need a slap on the back to encourage them to move along – pure affirmation. Sometimes the slap needs to be a little lower, but nevertheless ought to be gentle.

People respond to gentleness in a way they don’t respond to yelling.

5. Know how you define success – what it means to “make every day your masterpiece.”

Coach Wooden’s pyramid allows him to always know what the components of success are.

Coach Wooden’s definition of success: Success is peace of mind, attainted only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you’re capable.

6. Give credit to those under your supervision.

Don’t take the credit for what others have done. Even if you have had a hand in the result, allow others to take credit.

You grow your people, and you position them for greater results in the future if they are able to reap some of the “credit benefit” from the effort they exerted.

7. Treating every equally shows partiality.

Everyone is different, and there is no formula for making a group of people successful.

You have to make some people mad to get them to perform; for others, you take a much different tack.

You should give each individual the treatment they earn and deserve; it is wrong to treat everyone alike.

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John Kerry

by D-Team on Mon 30 Aug 2004 11:12 AM EDT

We make jokes about it but the truth is this presidential election really offers us a choice of two well-informed, opposing positions on every issue. OK, they both belong to John Kerry, but they're still there." —Jay Leno

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Thousands of call center jobs go overseas

by D-Team on Mon 30 Aug 2004 01:33 AM EDT

Call centers won't disappear overnight, but the industry's days of expansion appear over, Datamonitor said. About 50,600 U.S. call centers now employ 2.9 million people. Datamonitor expects those totals to dwindle to 47,500 call centers with 2.7 million employees by 2008.

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Once thriving, call centers now are shrinking, a trend that could threaten thousands of jobs.

Because of lower wages overseas, technological advances and new do-not-call regulations, call center jobs are leaving the United States, according to a study released yesterday by Datamonitor, a London-based research firm.

Call centers long have been touted as an opportunity for unskilled workers, and taxpayers in such place as Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties in Florida have rewarded call centers with job incentive grants to add employees.

Lower-Wage Countries

Many of the jobs will move to lower-wage countries such as Canada, India, the Philippines and Mexico. While the typical American call center worker makes $10 an hour, the average wage for the same job in India is $1.20 an hour, Datamonitor analyst Mark Best said.

Large companies such as Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT)

and Dell (Nasdaq: DELL)

already route customer service calls to India.

So does West Palm Beach-based mortgage company Ocwen Financial, which pays Indian workers to answer calls from borrowers. Ocwen once had more than 1,000 workers here, but it now employs more people in Bangalore, India, than it does in West Palm Beach.

Still, the news isn't all gloomy. Home-shopping channel QVC, which employs 1,000 people at its call center in Port St. Lucie, Florida, has no plans to downsize.

The company will add hundreds of temporary workers for the holiday shopping season and has rejected the idea of shipping jobs overseas, General Manager Diana Rupert said.

Control Issue

"We've certainly looked at it as a business strategy and feel it wouldn't be the right decision for us right now," Rupert said.

QVC thinks it can keep tighter control of its customer service with its employees in the United States, she said. Catalog company Levenger of Delray Beach, Florida, cites a similar rationale for keeping its 40-worker call center there.

St. Lucie County, in particular, has been a beneficiary of the call center boom. Cincinnati, Ohio-based Convergys (NYSE: CVG) , for instance, employs 900 people in Fort Pierce, Florida, where its call center filled an empty department store at the struggling Orange Blossom Mall. And Aegis Communications of Texas employs 800 in Port St. Lucie.

St. Lucie County's call centers are expanding, not shrinking, said Don Root, executive director of the Economic Development Council of St. Lucie County.

Various Cutbacks

In Palm Beach County, however, many call center jobs have disappeared.

Credit card company Applied Card Systems has shrunk its Boca Raton call center from 2,000 employees to 500, although spokesman Barry Epstein said the company is hiring now. ANC Rental's call center in Boca Raton has contracted from 700 workers to 200.

And credit card company MBNA last year closed its Boca Raton call center, which employed 950 people. Office Depot (NYSE: ODP)

is an exception; the retailer plans to expand its 500-worker call center in Boca to 650.

"Any jobs we're losing are a concern," said Gary Hines, vice president of the Palm Beach County Business Development Board. "You've got people trained in one specific set of skills, and we've got to do our best to retrain these people."

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