Blogs

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in February 2015 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

A big part of the latest project you signed on to do for an oil and gas company is providing geophysical consulting at several of your client’s new sites. To challenge your bottom line even more, you also agreed to have several crews working at multiple sites for an extended period.

When we look at diagnosing business problems, we must be wary of not just treating the symptoms – that's like treating a broken leg with nothing but Ibuprofen! If we don't know that the leg is broken, our thought process is that the leg hurts, so pain is the problem to fix. If you dig deeper, though, you soon find that there are other – worse – symptoms, such as the inability to walk.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in September 2014 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

Poor money management can spell the end for any business. Good money management includes saving records, managing payroll, protecting your information, and budgeting for your expenses as well as a “rainy day.” The best way to practice good money management is with a good software accounting system. Accounting software is a safe, reliable way to manage your business's finances and achieve financial stability.

Whether it is company growth or the annoying accumulation of system inefficiencies that serves as a catalyst, you're at the point where you realize it's time for a change. And there's great news: with the tools and resources currently available, upgrading your system is less intimidating and less expensive than you think.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in September 2014 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

Construction deals with buildings like houses and offices, whereas heavy construction deals with roads, infrastructure, tunnels, utility sites, etc. With such diverse, frequently city-wide projects, it’s easy to see why the demands for heavy construction management exceed those of lower-key construction projects.

Congressman Donald Rumsfeld said, “There are also unknown unknowns … the ones we don’t know we don’t know … it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”

Rumsfeld is right. You don’t know what you don’t know, and it's impossible to know everything. Being mindful and prepared for potential unknowns, however, will help you avoid making poor business decisions down the road. This strategy is about being aware of and managing unknown factors as well as implementing plans to reduce potential risks – versus fearing the unknown.

You might be asking, “Why should I pay for a business process review? Aren’t they just trying to sell me something?”

Unfortunately, the answer is “maybe.” If the business consultant doesn’t share everything they learn and offer advice based on the business process review then yes, they were just selling it to you. If, however, the consultant uses the business process review as a springboard to learning about your business and go through the learning process with you, you should expect to pay for the knowledge and results gained.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in October 2014 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

If your business is growing and you’ve been looking into a new business management software system, you’ve run across enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Now that they’re widely available for businesses of all sizes, they’re something you should strongly consider.

Every organization operates differently, and not all systems provide the same features and benefits. However, you don't need to recreate the wheel. Taking a moment to understand current business requirements and future goals will allow you to prioritize your “wish list” and create a detailed roadmap that leads to implementation success.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in April 2015 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

Did you know that, statistically, over 60% of enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations fail? That's a lot of failures.