Change Archives - TODAY INDIA

Gain Problem Solving Skills and Become Change Agent With Green Belt Certification

Problems will always be a part of the organization. They won’t go away unless handled with care. For that reason, top talents are hired, paid handsomely to work as change agent and ensure growth for the company. You too can be that professional with six sigma green belt certification as add a new dimension to your stagnated career. Green belts are demanded a lot for their cutting-edge problem solving skills and also for their ability to manage by facts and data. They ensure that opinions won’t ever have a say in the daily running of the business and rather look to rely on hard data to drive the growth.

More so, green belts know the art of boosting profit and reducing cost on the back of supporting creative endeavors within the organization. With six sigma green belt certification, you’re imparted a deep knowledge of the tools and techniques required to ensure growth to the business. Green belts are the professionals with a better understanding of both people and processes within the organization. They not only understand business and its valuable connections but also have a grip over Lean Six Sigma’s DMAIC methodology. This helps them solve problems of any complexity to add value to the organization. This is why green belts are demanded so much in the industry.

More so, green belts know how to bring change by collaborating with the right people without looking to bypass responsibility. With six sigma green belt certification, the participants are taught to focus on fixing the process rather than evading responsibility. What’s more, green belts are among those rare breed of professionals with the freedom to take up job anywhere in the world, which is deservedly a great flexibility. Even if they are not a hard-core statistician but this does not take away their comfort level with data. In fact, they are trained in data analysis and can make process improvement as simple as needed.

Similarly, organizations can also look to fix processes and achieve growth targets by several other means to have an edge in the industry. They can benefit from the power of RPA consulting or Robotics Process Automation consulting to automate and achieve the desired growth results easily. This consulting is about letting software robots contribute to process automation across enterprises. They look to ease the burden on employees and get bots or configurable software to do process instead. And when business processes are automated in this way, the organization can be sure of superior speed and efficiency. This is how a business can become cutting edge without investing a lot.

Some companies also look to benefit from RPA consulting to bring flexibility & resilience to processes after automation. And when RPA is implemented by an expert consultant, it becomes easy to realize reduced cost and improved productivity. This is how businesses can become more accurate on the back of automation and create difference to their prospects in the industry. With an experienced consulting partner, it becomes possible to boost ROI and reduce cost and go on the right path of growth. The good thing, you can go automated irrespective of the industry or sector you’re part of.This is how your business grows and adds value.

A Look at How the New Epson ColorWorks CW-C6500 Will Change Enterprise Label Printing

The New Year is coming, and with it, plans for personal and workplace improvements. Come January 2020, Epson’s new ColorWorks CW-C6500 color label printer will arrive, making it the perfect addition to your enterprise label printer fleet.

Companies that print high volumes of labels have historically relied on large fleets of thermal transfer printers and pre-printed color label stock to produce their color labels. The pre-printed stock has blank areas which are later printed with the black thermal transfer printer. This allows for some customization, but, as you can imagine, has some limitations.

For example, where are you going to get the pre-printed label stock in the first place? Through a third party print service provider most likely. That incurs setup and die costs. It also usually requires a large minimum order. Should the labeling requirements change, the pre-printed labels must be discarded. Meanwhile, staff must constantly manage label inventory. If they run out of pre-printed labels, it will cause some serious downtime until new labels can be ordered, printed, shipped, and delivered.

Epson ColorWorks CW-C6500 Label Printer is Designed to Replace Thermal Transfer Printers

This is where the Epson CW-C6500 color label printer shines. Not only does it allow companies to print in full color, it does so on demand. There’s no need to order, store, manage, or potentially waste pre-printed labels. The Epson CW-C6500 color label printer comes in two versions, one with an auto cutter (CW-C6500A) and one with a peeler (CW-C6500P). Both are 8-inch ColorWorks label printers with comparable features, media handling capabilities, and connectivity options as the leading thermal transfer printers currently in use in today’s enterprise label printing environments.

Epson CW-C6500 Features

Among the many features of the Epson CW-C6500 color label printer are:

8-inch print width (a 4-inch model, the CW-C6000 is coming in May 2020)
1200 dpi print resolution
Up to 5 inches per second print speed
PrecisionCore TFP serial printheads
GHS BS5609 certification when used with certain DuraFast pigment ink chemical labels
ESC/Label and ZPL II interface language
Remote printer management
Seamless integration with SAP, middleware, Windows, Mac OS, and Linus
Applicator I/O port
Low cost

Business Benefits

Adding Epson CW-C6500 color label printers to an existing fleet of thermal transfer printers is just as easy, reliable, and affordable as adding thermal transfer printers, but with the added benefit of full color label production. This printer and its 4-inch sibling are set to transform the enterprise label printing industry in 2020.

Rethinking The Oil Change Business Venture

Annual quick lube survey, is it still viable?

I wish to comment on the Fast Lube Business and the annual survey done by Auto Laundry News, one of the few Industry Magazines for the car wash industry. In this 2001 survey, we see an increase on the number of locations out there. Yet the leader of the Industry is by far Jiffy Lube. We see variations on theme, but we can safely say that Jiffy Lube has adapted best to the American public and their desires when it comes to oil changes.

This survey showed the average customer would drive 5.7 miles to get an oil change. If 50% of the customers would drive 5.7 miles and 80% of the customers usually come from a three-mile radius to get a car wash, I see additional synergy. These car washes with oil lube centers are getting a further reach than the industry average. This is great news for those carwashes adding oil lube bays, but also it takes up space and if not marketed correctly it will not work. The survey was quick to show that oil change facilities do best in middle class areas, not high-end areas. They do poorly in low-income areas. This all makes sense. Free standing car washes were the most likely to have oil lube facilities on there properties. Interesting too is that minimum wage was not prevailing, normally the companies pay $8.00-10.00 per hour. Makes realistic sense and I believe good help starts in this country at $10.00 per hour in most metros and $8.00 hour in rural.

Only 23% of the fast lubes had a website. Only half had internet access in the locations. Average employees were 5 full time and 3 part timers. Luckily for the image of this industry 74% had specific uniforms. The average shop had 3 bays, not enough to do the volume if adequate blitz marketing and community based marketing were taking place. Average revenue was $32.00 per car. That is an awful lot of upselling since the average advertised price that I have noticed is around $19.99. Less than 30% were open on Sundays? Bad mistake since there is no time to change oil and wait in line for most Americans. Average monthly gross was $2,400.00 per month per bay?

This is shit, this is not even a viable business, these people are wasting their time. Think about it, you have cost of oil and filter too and labor? Forget that news. I question the viability of the entire oil change industry. The largest Jiffy Lube franchisee in the country with 180 units was de-listed from NASDAQ and so was another prominent auto care and lube company recently. I like the Kwik-Lube Company and feel they are doing it right, but also question the ROI of such an endeavor seeing these results and the cost to build the building and time to build it. One good thing that the oil lube bays have going for them is the up-sell, but as the consumer dollar gets tighter and the credit card debt gets higher and the fall out rates increase where will this extra impulse revenue and up-sell cash be coming form?

The Industry is still expanding and new entrants to the market place are hurting existing units and I question the saturation point, not on need, but on desire. No one wants to spend money on oil changes, they need to. People buy what they want, satellite TV and beer. Not what they need, so I see a frequency problem issue brewing and people waiting 5-6-7 thousand miles between changes. So I believe that if an oil lube bay is not already attached to another reason to frequent the facility it will soon be in desire straits. The survey also showed that 93% OF THE OIL LUBE BAYS USED ADVERTISING TO GET THEIR CUSTOEMRS? WHY? We do not advertise, word of mouth and happy customers advertise for us. There you go again more cost.

Also 60% of the surveyed said that competition was discounting. HMMM? You have labor costs that are high, frequency is down, new car technology on the horizon, cost of oil going to the big guys and throw in a price war? I see problem as the non-savvy operators leave facilities for sale and exit the market place. By eliminating the facility and going mobile with the existing customer base of let’s say a mobile truck repair business which can co-band and fleet services available you could beat these other companies since they running redline over saturations of mailer coupons and phone book ads and no web sites. Many companies are not watching the changing demographics at their locations and lease or property costs and unable to sell or borrow more due to their lousy profit margins. And what can you convert and Oil change bay into? Cover up the hole for a tire shop? What happens when Hydrogen cell comes and no one changes oil. Can you convert to filter type operation? Not really since often the tires and wheels are offset and will land the modular car into the lube bay hole. We have the solution and we can beat them in almost every aspect. Some consultants have said; “Bunch of dummies copying each other.”

Listen to this part of the survey, advertising dollars were spent on, here is where the respondents said they advertised; TV 15%, Direct Mail 51%, Radio 38%, Newspaper 35%, Bill Boards 18%, Yellow Pages 53%, other only 13%. Scary, all that costs money and everybody is running redline copying each other. This is what happens when people cannot think any longer and cannot adapt and do business at the speed of thought,

[http://www.speedofthought.com]

81% of respondents said they would honor competitor’s coupons? Whatever, why print them then. Let everyone else spend the money and take theirs? 80% said they have tried to use discounting to lure customers from other lube places to theirs. Boy this sounds like the carpet cleaning industry to me.

Breakdown in costs per job. 10% rent or property, 3% maintenance of facility, 26% labor, 30% materials, 4% utilities and many reported expecting that to double and some have already in the west experienced a tripling. Insurance 4% and that to expected to keep rising and some said 8%, Customer claims for damage 1%, this is in-excusable, Advertising 10%. Want to add those up for me. Why are they doing it?

Average new facility costs were; Land $206,000, Improvements $505,000, New equipment $36,000. WOW all that for little or no return? Average number of competitors within 10-mile radius? 36% said 3, 19% said two, 19% said 5, 7% said 5 or more. How can anyone invest this kind of money per location when we can build a couple of units for a total of $65,000 and nearly equal the number of potential vehicles to service? Also with AAA building oil change facilities and Wal-Mart getting into things, the competition will be bloody and that is a lot of money to invest in a business with an uncertain future. Not a good bet, if you were a betting man.

We are very much liking this Industry because we know things the Industry does not and we can slam them because they have missed the boat. We have seen a few companies which are looking into ways to change the oil on the water for yachts. What is even better is that they all missed the boat at the same time and are fighting on shore for a few little boats to get to the ship that is leaving the harbor. Who will survive this oil change war. The one who bests services the customer, they way the customer wishes to be serviced.

How to Apply Think and Grow Rich to Change Your Life!

Napolean Hill is a very intelligent man who dedicated 20 years of his life to study multi-millionaires and see with his own eyes how they become successful. Not only did he become very successful at accomplishing his goal, he also applied what he learned into his life and became extremely wealthy himself.

I have read Think and Grow Rich over five times and I have to say five is nothing compared to those who have read this book over sixty times. The power this book contains can change your life forever and I want you to get started today without any confusion and have a clear mind to where you are headed.

If you have read this book only one time, I suggest you to read it more than once in order to get a better understanding. When reading it the second time, keep a highlighter next to you and underline the best parts in the book.

For those who have already read this book more than once, I want you to take a pen and paper and draw a line on the paper. On the beginning of your line, put the year we are in. Below or above that line write how much money you want to make and put a deadline at the end of the line so you will know when that goal is going to be achieved.

Add what you will give in return to you accomplishing the goal. For example, I will imagine and believe myself already being in possession of the money, and I will take action every day until my goal becomes a reality.

Once you got your goal written down, take the paper and tape it somewhere in your bedroom, so when you go to sleep and wake up every morning, the written goal will be in front of you. Read your goal outloud to yourself three times every day with a very strong and positive feeling.

Next, take another piece of paper, and write down why you want to earn that much money. This will create a burning desire in you so you will burn the bridges behind you so there will be no going back.

Like Napolean Hill said, it is not just about hard-work. Of course, hard-work is a big part of being successful. But, there is vision, burning desire, faith/belief, and than the will to take action will come along.

How to Change Your Business Name

Was there a time when your business name fit you like a glove? Do you wonder if it’s helping or hurting in reaching your goals? If you’re thinking of stepping into the name change game, it can become overwhelming without a plan. For better results, make sure your business goals come into play during the naming process.

Changing a business name involves challenges you may not have thought of or faced before, both tangible and intangible. What is the reason for changing your name and what is the key message that your new company name needs to convey? Does your business have a story to tell or is it a new focus on a product or service? A new name needs to connect with your target market, be memorable, and still fit you, your business and marketing goals. What is the signal that you want to send?

1. Discovery

First, evaluate of your current name’s equity, what does it have going for it? Get input from your employees and customers, you may need an outside research firm to support this effort. Next, define the objectives, challenges and goals for your name change. Now you can create clear and measurable naming criteria. A clear plan will help to establish consensus with stakeholders including your board and management.

2. Creation & Securing

Come up with a list of relevant possibilities for your new name based on your industry, business style, and audience. When you evaluate those names consider a few basics like; is it easy for people to say and spell; is it easy for people to remember; could it be confused with similar names? Create a list of considerations for evaluating your company name possibilities. When you narrow your choices do the preliminary trademark work, this is critical and requires legal research and web searching. Final trademark research by a trademark attorney is recommended.

3. Customer Retention

Name change is always concerning and can be unsettling. Take your time, develop a risk assessment of target audiences, and create a communication plan to support your name change choice. Have a plan that introduces and explains the changes, and what won’t be changing, so customers and employees accept the change.

4. Logo & Standards

With selection and approval of a new name, your design team can develop a new logo that embodies the new name and brand attributes. Have a Graphic Standards Manual on hand that contains all the specifications of your new name, logo, and related information- make sure it’s available to everyone.

5. Education & Launch

Internally, everyone needs to be on the same page for the introduction of the new name. Externally, the questions need to be answered before they are asked. Have a communication plan and education materials to make sure your launch is smooth and synergizing.

FOCUS ON YOUR CUSTOMERS.

Now that you have a grip on a great new name for your business, make sure your branding, marketing, and sales tools are ready to go. Review your goals along the way to make sure you are building a positive experience and delivering the products and services that you’re promising in the way they expect.

Visit our site http://www.JCDI.com to read case studies and get more information about naming and marketing your business.