Author: Pamela Swift

Categories
Business Trends

15 Facts That Can’t Be Ignored about U.S. Manufacturing

 

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While it’s true that the number of jobs in the United States’ manufacturing sector fell in recent years, manufacturing still plays a crucial role in the country’s workforce, gross domestic product, exports, and other economic factors. In fact, today’s manufacturing companies make more products than they have in decades. Even though the manufacturing sector struggled to add jobs during the economic challenges of the early 2000s, productivity has increased dramatically. This improved productivity makes the United States one of the world’s top manufacturers.

Things may change in the near future. With some luck, the manufacturing sector will benefit the country even more. It’s estimated that manufacturing companies will need 3.5 million more workers over the next decade. That’s especially good news when you consider that manufacturing workers earn higher than average wages, and over 10 percent of them are eligible for health insurance. Besides, the service industry relies on manufactured goods. Without products to sell, the service industry would flounder quickly.

Manufacturing is also important to the economy on a macro level. Every dollar spent on manufacturing adds $1.40 to the country’s economy. Many policy analysts want the United States to invest more in domestic manufacturing, because doing so is one of the most effective ways to build a more robust economy.

If these facts are surprising to you, you can learn more about the role manufacturing plays in the U.S. economy by checking out this infographic. It offers some enlightening data that may change the way you think about the future of manufacturing in the United States.

Categories
Operations

Able2Extract: Business-Grade PDF Solution

Finding a business-grade PDF software solution can be tricky: they are either too expensive or lack important features.

The good news is that there is a budget-friendly solution like Able2Extract Professional that you can use to get full control over your important business PDF documents.

To start with, Able2Extract Professional is a professional-grade PDF software solution featuring powerful PDF conversion, editing and creation capabilities.

Creating and Converting PDF Documents

Able2Extract Professional can create PDF from any printable file format.

The software can accurately convert PDF to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other popular file formats hassle-free. One time-saving feature of Able2Extract Professional is the ability to convert multiple PDF files or even whole folders in one go thanks to the batch conversion functionality.

Likewise, the software helps save valuable time when working with image-based PDF documents thanks to the advanced OCR technology. Forget about retyping text from scanned PDF documents ever again.

Editing PDF Documents

Besides being able to convert PDF documents, Able2Extract Professional can make various instantly-visible modifications to PDF documents. It can edit PDF content and pages in a number of ways.

On a content level, it can make direct changes to text and images, customize font attributes, and adjust text alignment. These features can prove to be a real time-saver when having to correct a typo or two in a contract or an invoice.

On a page level, it can add or delete new pages, re-shuffle the order of pages, split and merge PDFs, insert blank pages and attachments, and more.

Users can also annotate PDFs with comments, sticky notes, highlights, watermarks, strike-throughs and watermarks for their colleagues to see and revise.

Able2Extract Professional can also create, edit, fill and submit PDF forms. Businesses that depend on data collection can use Able2Extract Professional to create business forms and gather valuable data.

PDF Document Security

Able2Extract Professional takes documents security seriously. The software packs advanced security features such as content redaction, password encryption, and numerous access restrictions. It can permanently redact any classified data such as financial and personal information, password protect PDF documents and set different file permissions to disallow printing, copying, adding comments and so on.

In short, Able2Extract Professional makes it easy to work with business PDF documents. It offers a full set of useful features that can cater even to the most demanding PDF needs.

Categories
Teamwork & Leadership

How to Establish Roles in a Startup

So, you’ve started your very own business. It’s making a decent out of money even though it’s still only small and you want to expand. Either by growing beyond the four walls of your home office and into a real office space or into a much bigger corporate space. Whatever is the case, you will need employees and other staff members in place in order to make this growth feasible. After all, Rome was not either built in a day nor by one person alone.

For this reason, you will need to fill a number of roles in your startup. Some of which may be more obvious than others to a first-time entrepreneur and business owner. So, here are a few which might be in your best interest to fill as soon as possible:

The Leader

This is you or maybe it’s not you. It depends on whether or not you feel you can lead your startup idea to greatness, or if you would prefer to give the reins to someone else. In a startup, you need to establish yourself as the natural leader and you may also need to convince everyone else about the viability of your business. After all, if you don’t believe in your dream then you will be very hard-pressed to get anyone else to do so either.

A successful startup needs a strong leader and CEO at its heart, so this is where you will need to cement yourself. If you don’t, then your startup could start off with a weaker than average footing as a result (or even total failure in some cases).

Directors

Other than your own leadership there needs to be a clear set of directors within your growing startup. A full set of dedicated, knowledgeable leaders is the best way you can boost your business in its early days and therefore you need a set of strong directors to back you up in this. People who know how to manage teams, know your specific industry inside out and ultimately share your specific dream.

This can be one or more people, but ultimately he/she/they need to be your right hand when it comes to running your business. Choosing your board of directors can be difficult, but ultimately it can be very rewarding for your business.

Sales

As a startup, there is one thing that you need to be doing above anything else: selling. In order to do this as effectively as possible, you need an all-around hustler on board. Someone who gets your business and therefore knows how to sell it well. This is the person you will charge with the responsibility of building revenue and driving your business forward.

Marketing

If your business is unknown then one of the key steps you need to take is changing that fact. Simply creating a business and putting it out there isn’t enough in the modern age, you need to make yourself stand out. Otherwise, no matter how good your product, there is a very real chance you will be overlooked. This is where a great marketing person needs to come into the picture.

Your marketer needs to be marketing savvy, but also have an understanding of your industry. They will be in charge of your website, your social media and the materials which you put forward to the world. Marketing is something which if your business is short of it then you will see the impact in terms of fewer sales and consumer awareness.

Newbies

Obviously, everyone in your business can’t be established and great at their jobs already. In some ways, it can pay to have a few less experienced people on staff. For one, you can obviously save money and pay them less, but for another, they can bring a lot of new ideas to your business. If innovation is how you want to base your startup then new blood is the best way to do it.

At the end of the day, your business can’t be made up of not only leaders and senior members of staff. It would not be feasible in the short term let alone long term. As, if everyone is on top then no one is. Hiring more junior members of staff also gives your startup the opportunity to grow its own identity. As you can train this staff in your culture, attitude and the exact way you want to run your business.

Overall, it is vital that you set up your startup for success from day one. And this means ensuring that you establish the right roles. You also need to ensure you have strong, ironclad, employee contracts which protect both you and your startup, as well as the employee themselves. You will need to invest in the services of corporate solicitors to ensure this, but you will undoubtedly thank yourself for it in the long term (as employer/employee lawsuits can be extremely messy).

No matter your vision you will need a team in place who can help to make it a reality. So, choose wisely and you will be setting your startup to great success from day one. Without these vital staff members, you may never be able to achieve the proper level of success that you desire.

Categories
Human Resource

More Than Money: The Modern Ways To Motivate Employees

As countless studies have shown, there is more to work than money. As strange as this might sound, this is something that a lot of research has shown; employees are motivated by a lot of things, and money is quite far down the list.

As the title of today’s post might have suggested, we are going to take a look at some of the other ways which can motivate employees. With some sources suggesting that revenue can increase by as much as half with a motivated workforce, it stands to reason that this is a hugely important subject for business leaders to get their heads around.

The importance of recognition

It sounds basic, but let’s start with the premise of recognition. Whether it’s simply complimenting an employee on their work, or handing out physical employee awards, making an individual feel as though their work is valued is something that is especially important in modern-day business.

Recognition doesn’t have to just exist in some businesses either. For example, the sales industry was commonly associated with recognition, usually with leader boards and cash incentives. Nowadays, rewards are commonplace in every industry, and tailored accordingly.

In fact, some companies will even have recognition stand-ups. This involves a department naming a person who has contributed a lot over the past few weeks, or days, depending on the pace of the industry you are involved in.

Understand that each employee is different

This is something that a lot of companies, and people for that matter, fail to grasp. Just because some forms of motivation work for some workers, doesn’t mean to say that they are going to work for others.

For example, something that might be important to one worker might be flexible hours. Another, on the other hand, might have his or her mind fixed purely on professional development. As such, these employees would react completely differently depending on the reward on offer.

The open door policy

Something else that has been proven to act as a motivator in the modern-day business world is simple manners. That’s right, if senior management address their workers in the same way in which they do everyone else, it immediately makes all feel as though they have a voice worth listening to.

Give everyone a purpose

Another key motivator is every employee having a purpose. One of the big problems that a lot of employees have is that they don’t feel as though they fit into a business. In their eyes, their role is small and this means that they don’t feel as though they have a purpose in the company.

This is something that you need to change. Each employee needs to understand that their role, regardless of how small it is, has an impact on the business. Some companies will educate them by showing them figures from their area of the business, and how this corresponds to the total turnover. If employees can learn to understand their role, they can immediately feel as though they have a purpose with their job.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Sport Management Careers: Not Just About Stereotyping

When one starts to mention careers in sports management, the idea of an NFL coach quickly springs to a lot of minds.

Of course, this was the basis of the field a couple of decades ago. Now, things have changed.

A lot of universities are starting to offer graduates a path into sports management careers, and suffice to say, it doesn’t involve being the coach of an NFL team.

Instead, this is a career type that now spans far and wide. As most of us have come to know, sport is an industry which is worth billions. This is made up through a whole concoction of different areas, including hospitality, broadcasting and more. It means that there are a lot of vacancies – some of which pay very high salaries indeed. Or, as is the case with Get Entrepreneurial, they present some fantastic opportunities to stretch into your own business – and offering your services to these sporting organizations as a consultant.

Following on from the above, let’s quash all of the stereotypes that are associated with sports management careers, and show what the modern-day graduate really can move into.

Sports marketing

This is one of those areas of the industry where the ceiling really can be as high as you specify. At the top end, you’ll be dealing with athletes themselves, attempting to broker the best sponsorship deals for companies that will involve the individual in question being at the centre of various products.

If we move down a notch somewhat, sports marketing opens up some more. Looking after a social media account might seem quite small, particularly when compared to the above, but with many sports teams and companies having followers in their millions this is something that carries a lot of responsibility.

Ultimately, careers within marketing in sport have exploded over the last few years, and it’s only going to get bigger.

Corporate partnerships

Another hugely lucrative career to move into involves corporate partnerships. While the big TV broadcasting deals might often steal the headlines, one only has to delve into the finances of sports clubs to see exactly how much they are coining in through partnerships. For example, if we head to the UK, Manchester United charge £125,000 for a corporate suite for a season. Considering the fact that this is just a fraction of their corporate activity, one can start to appreciate the huge numbers relatively quickly.

Financial and contract analysis

Next on the list is a type of profession that is available in most industries, but a lot of people see financial and contract analysts in the sports industry as quite lucky. After all, these are the individuals looking after some huge player contracts, and negotiating huge deals in the process.

To say that they have a lot of responsibility would be an understatement, particularly with the outside influence of fans of the team regularly having their say on how a club might be spending its money.

Facility operations

Next on the list are those involved in facility operations. Again, when it comes to sport this is quite a niche role – one that isn’t really the same as any other industry.

If you become a facility operations manager, you are responsible for the venue in question. The fact that one day might relate to ticket sales, while another might relate to the aesthetics of the arena, means that it’s a varied role to say the least.