finance-worldwide

Branding a Business? Benefits and Costs

By: Mary W Brophy

Many business owners consider a company’s brand to be one of its greatest assets. How can you create a brand for your small business that will deliver this value premium? How much will it cost? And, perhaps most importantly, is it worth it?
Branding: Inherent Part of a Company

A brand is more than simple logo development, although the way the company name is displayed is an essential component. Every customer interaction contributes to their perception of your brand – from communicating with the sales staff to how a purchase is shipped and packaged to messages from customer support. All indicate what values your company holds. Identify what is important – honesty, level of product quality, and post sale customer satisfaction – and implement plans to achieve them.

Your branding strategy needs to be an integral part of your operation. If your branding strategy requires high quality customer service, you need to consider your customer’s needs during order taking, billing, returns and exchanges, and then during a post sale thank you by mail or telephone and by sending a buyer satisfaction survey.

What will it cost to brand your company? Because we think of “brands” as large national or international corporations, we often assume it takes huge advertising budgets. This is not the case. Many companies build grand brands without investing in pricey television or banner advertisements.
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4 Compelling Reasons for Starting a Dollar Plus Store Today

By: Bob Hamilton

In today’s marketplace there are so many different forces tugging at those who are ready to open a dollar store. On the one hand there are big, national competitors that continue to firmly maintain a one-dollar format, and establish stiff competition in their chosen locations. On the other hand the cost of almost everything is going only one direction; upward. Yet as prospective owners examine dollar store merchandise costs and dollar store profits, the picture is not all rosy. If you are weighing your options about starting a dollar plus store or sticking with the dollar only strategy, read on. In this article I present 4 compelling reasons for starting a dollar plus store.

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Corporatization Of Healthcare In India: The Liberalization Effect

By: Dr. Shikha Suman

One of the most significant trends emerging in the wake of liberalization is the new vigour of the entry of corporate hospitals and multinationals in the health care scenario. The reason for this new tempo is the potential that India offers to NRIs and multinationals. With the current ratio of population to all types of beds being 1300: 1, it has been estimated that there is a huge demand–supply gap which may require nearly 3.6 million beds to overcome it. Taking into account the requirements of primary and secondary health care, the shortfall is estimated to be around 2.9 million beds. In tertiary health care, the gap may be somewhere around 20% of the above total, which amounts to some 0.58 million. (more…)