SWOT Analysis -the key to business planning!

by Orla Leydon of Office and Training Solutions Ltd.

SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses (internal to an organization) , Opportunities & Threats (external to an organization) and is a popular method for helping businesses take stock of their current situation and support decision-making.

The SWOT analysis process……


Step 1 – In the here and now… List all strengths that exist now. Then in turn, list all weaknesses that exist now. Be realistic but avoid modesty!


Step 2 – What might be…List all opportunities that exist in the future. Opportunities are your potential future strengths. Then in turn, list all threats that exist in the future. Threats are your potential future weaknesses.


These CONDUCTING A SWOT ANALYSIS questions will provide a basis for this analysis and will help greatly when brainstorming to thoroughly identify these strengths and weaknesses


Step 3 – Plan of action…Review your SWOT Analysis Grid with a view to creating a structured Action Plan to address each of the four areas. In your action plan remember to 1) Allocate timescales, tasks, people responsible, finances and 2) Build in a review process…when, who how…this is VITAL!


In summary; Strengths (maintain, build and leverage), Opportunities (prioritise and optimise), Weaknesses (remedy or exit), Threats (counter)


Good luck with your SWOT and dont hesitate to contact Orla on 086 3807802 or orla@ots.ie if you would like support to facilitate this process.

Established in 2003 Office & Training Solutions is a FETAC approved training provider and a vibrant and innovative consultancy practice.

Using the Right Keywords - The Key to Success Online!

By Louise McDonnell of http://www.2Market.ie

So you want your website to be found by potential customers? Well, the first thing I recommend for my clients, is to research what words and phases people are using for searches relating to what they are selling.

Don’t use guesswork!

I come across companies all the time that use words throughout their websites, that they think people are using to search for their products. Not only that, they also monitor their websites’ performance in Google vis-à-vis these words and phrases.

But what if you’re optimising your website for the wrong words and phrases?

Google takes the guesswork out of this important task by providing a tool which clearly reports how many searches that actually took place for whatever word or phrase you select. Not only that, you can monitor monthly searches for any country in the world.

So whereas “Irish Gift Store” had 1600 searches in Google in the USA in December, the term “Irish Gifts” had 33,100.

Similarly “slimming tablets” had 8100 searches in Ireland in January 2011, whereas “diet pills” had 5400 and “slimming pills” had 1300.

This tool will identify the best selection of words and phrases to use. It eliminates guesswork!

So before you write the content of your website, choose your meta titles, description or analyse your performance in Google – make sure you research what you want to be found for!

The Google Keyword Tool will also show you monthly variations for your keyword searches – thus allowing you to plan your online advertising campaigns. So my client selling diet pills will run a campaign in January and May when searches for their products are at their peak.

So – what are you waiting for – check out Google’s Keyword External Tool at: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

5 Tips for Marketing your Business During the Recession

In our latest blog Louise McDonnell of 2Market gives us 5 tips to help you market your business in difficult times.

1. Look After your Existing Customers: Remember it's 8 to 10 times easier to sell to an existing customer than to find a new one! So think about "customer service", "moments of truth" and product or service "add ons" . Make sure everyone in your business is out to impress your customers.

2. Email Marketing: Email marketing using specialist software is cheap and effective. You can email customers or potential customers and track who is interested by monitoring the number of times your email is opened and links are clicked. This will help to identify your hottest targets!

3. Search Engine Optimisation: Keep your website content up to date, ensure your page titles, description and metatags are accurate, investigate possibilities of increasing "backlinks" from other relevant websites to your own. Ranking high in the search engines is a very cost effective way to drive traffic to your website.

4. Social Networking: This involves using social networking sites to generate traffic to your website. The underlying principle is that people make recommendations to people they know. You can then expand your network through your contacts' contacts.

5. Public Relations: Public relations adds credibility because stories are perceived to have gone through a third-party – a journalist or editor – rather than the companies making their own claims'. PR translates into your company getting “free” editorial coverage in a publication rather than paying for advertising space. The materials generated as part of your public relations activities can have multiple uses as a means of fulfilling your campaign objectives. For instance, press releases can be posted on your website or used as part of an online newsletter. Public relations is cost-effective when compared with other marketing techniques, particularly advertising. But remember that “With Advertising you Pay and with PR you Pray!” – Coverage is never guaranteed.

Call Louise McDonnell on 096 37777 or feel free to fill out an online enquiry form at www.2market.ie.

Cash Flow is the Pulse of your Business

by Anne Feeley

Affordable Accounting Services

 Cash flow is the life-blood of every business. If you fail to have enough cash to pay your suppliers, creditors, or your employees, you’re out of business.

Cash flow is concerned with the timing of the movement of money. Inflows occur when you make a cash sale, collect from debtors, have investment income, or borrow money, etc. Outflows are generally the result of paying expenses such as wages, stock, taxes, purchasing fixed assets, etc. Cash Flow is not the same as “profit”, which is a snapshot of income and expenses at an event or over a certain period of time. You can make great profits, but if it’s all in accounts receivable, you have no cash to pay your daily expenses.

Four basic but important components to examine:

Accounts Payable & Cash Flow

Accounts payable and cash flow: Without payables and trade credit you'd have to pay for all goods and services at the time you purchase them. For optimum cash flow management, you'll need to examine your payables schedule.

Ensure you are purchasing at the best deal you can get. If you can’t get a better price, get better terms.

• Ensure you get appropriate discount for early payment.
• Only pay on the due date and not before.
• Review contracts to ensure you only pay for what you want/get.
• Negotiate volume discounts.
• Review supplier contracts on a regular basis.
• Aim to reduce the number of suppliers to leverage spend and prices.

Accounts Receivable & Cash Flow

The longer it takes for your customers to pay on their accounts receivable, the more negative your cash flows will be. Stay on top of your collection efforts.

•  Issue invoice straight away and ensure it is correct.
• Have the sales person do the collecting of cash.
• Link any bonus to cash collection.
• Review credit limits on a regular basis and reset based on current, not past, levels of business.
• Implement strict early payment discounts.
• As soon as credit period elapses have a regimented debt collection procedure in place.
• Initiate credit collection procedures before invoices become due.
• Trust your instincts. Sometimes it might be better to take less than 100% to get the cash rather than wait and/or never get the amount owed or go through expensive litigation.

Credit policy and terms form the blueprint you use when deciding to extend credit to a customer. The correct credit policy is necessary to ensure that your cash flow doesn't fall victim to a credit policy that is too strict or to one that is too generous.

Stocks & Cash Flow

An excessive amount of stock hurts your cash flow by using up money that could be used for other cash outflows.

•  Don’t order more unless absolutely necessary.
• Enter all stock on your system as soon as it is received to ensure full transparency.
• Identify slow moving stock and repack, re-price, re-use to generate cash.
• Renegotiate lead times from suppliers and reset minimum stock levels and order levels accordingly.
• Negotiate consignment stock from suppliers.
• Introduce/modify approval levels for stock purchases.
• Discontinue slow moving / loss making product ranges.
• Ensure ownership and accountability exists for every item of stock (i.e. stores manager)

VAT & Cash Flow

•  Ensure you claim any VAT re bad debts written off in your VAT return.
• Process supplier invoices as soon as they are received/issued.
• Consider timing of invoice issue at month end to optimise credit on VAT return.

Four tips on managing your cash flows:

1. Contingency plans. You should keep three plans at hand.

a. Cash flows requirements when business is going according to plans.

b. When business is slightly lagging.

c. When business is hit hard (such as during these economic times).

2. Cash Forecasting. Forecast, make a budget, stick to it. Modify your budget only after thorough ongoing reviews of your cash flows and remember to include expenses that may not be due each month, such as annual insurance premiums and taxes.

3. Spending Controls. Make sure you carefully negotiate leases and look for price quotes. Frequently analyse operations.

4. Add Employees cautiously. Actively seek ways to maximize your and your employee’s productivity. You may also want to remember to consider alternatives such as outsourcing.

Cash Flow is the lifeblood of every business. The concept is much broader than that of profit, alone. Close monitoring is critical to success. You must have a firm grasp on carefully monitoring and managing the cash-flow pulse of your business. For more information on Anne Feeley, Affordable Accounting Services see http://www.affordableaccounts.ie/  or call 071 9174132 / 087 9719606. See our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Affordable-Accounting-Services/167511786616146?v=wall

How to lower your insurance costs

by Enda Candon of Firstwestern


Insurance is one of those dead money costs that we all in business have to have, but in many cases consider it as dead money as we rarely get an economic return on it. Cost containment and control are essential in these tough economic times, so a saving on any overhead is welcome. Here are some practical tips that we have used with clients to save them money on their insurance costs. In cases we have helped achieve 25% discounts on individual policies.

Increase your excess

Raising the excess on your insurance policies usually lowers your premiums. This can lead to savings of up to 10% on policies.

Bundle your Policies

Even though your policies may fall due for renewal at different times of the year, bundle all your policies and ask insurance companies / agents to quote you for all of the business.

Use a Broker

Work with an Insurance Broker to help you figure out what coverage you need and get it at a competitive price can be a good option, if you are unsure of the precise cover you need. An independent agent or broker is paid by commission, but will shop around to find you the right coverage at the right price.

Reduce Risks

Risk management minimises your insurance claims and brings your premiums down. Implement procedures to make sure that you aren’t taking on risky employees—for example, by checking the driving record of anyone who will drive for you. Many companies offer lower premiums or discounts to policyholders who take certain safety precautions. Installing smoke detectors or a security system is a couple of steps you can take that may get you a lower-priced policy. Always make sure that your business is adhering to relevant legislation such as health and safety and employee legislation as in some cases insurance can be invalid if you do not.

Levels of Cover

Evaluate all your insurance policies for their risk/benefit, and decide which ones you think you will really need. Don't over insure. Do you really need cover for old and low value office equipment and computers?

Motor Insurance

Consider dropping collision cover on older vehicles. If the car is only worth €1,500, why pay €200 per year extra for collision cover.

Prioritise your Greatest Risks

Once you’ve dealt with required coverage, spend your money where you need it the most. If you face a serious risk of a loss that could wipe you out, put your insurance cover there first.

Don’t Duplicate Coverage

A business can have so many policies in place that you may find some things being insured more than once. For example if you have only a few relatively inexpensive pieces of business equipment, your existing property coverage may be adequate. Or, you may be able to purchase an inexpensive endorsement to increase your coverage. Review all your policies carefully, or have your broker do this. Eliminating dual coverage should save your money.

Group Insurance Schemes

If you belong to a trade organisation, professional group, or other business association, you may be eligible for special rates on certain types of insurance.

See the first western blog at http://endacandon.wordpress.com/


Contact Firstwestern at http://www.firstwestern.ie/ or e-mail: Info@firstwestern.ie phone: 071 912 2834 http://ie.linkedin.com/pub/enda-candon/6/839/224

Email Marketing – But Not As We Know It!

By Louise McDonnell, 2Market

Okay first things first, I’m not referring to sending hundreds of emails using Outlook or Outlook Express (or whatever mail server you’re using). Even if you are smart enough to be using the BCC option. No – in fact, Email Marketing is much more powerful than that. And the good news is it’s cheap as chips and very effective.


So what is it? Well – there are special applications you can use online which allow you to send emails to targeted lists. Emails will not be treated as spam by your recipients’ mail server – so already that’s an advantage. But the main benefit of using these packages is that the actions of the recipients can be tracked. So you’ll be able to see, who opened your email, how many times they opened it, if they clicked any of the links from your email to your website and what links they clicked.

Think about it – you send this email to a few hundred addresses, who are you going to follow up first? Pick out the recipients who opened your email the most. And if you’ve been pitching a few products – you’ll even be able to tell which product they were interested in by reviewing links they have clicked.

It’s no wonder that email remains the most popular online promotional format for Irish Marketers, according to the second Online Marketing Sentiment Survey conducted by AMAS among members of the Marketing Institute f Ireland (MII).

So where does 2Market come in... well, we can help with creating email content which will have maximum impact, setting up the campaign, seeing it through to delivery and monitoring the results. We can also update your website to ensure your email campaign has the greatest impact. Sound interesting – Call Louise McDonnell on 096 37777 or feel free to fill out an online enquiry form at www.2market.ie.

Considering Computerising your Financial Accounts

By James Doyle, Synergy Network Ltd


You have already taken the difficult step of setting up a business and are using either manual books or a spreadsheet to record your transactions. You realise that you could be getting better information and that many small businesses use computerised accounts system.

So what is involved and why would you do it. Well, for one thing you will save yourself time as you only have to enter a transaction once in the system.

It is very easy to run a report which will show who owes you money and more importantly for how long. Do you spend much time preparing the Vat return or do you hand it over to your accountant – now with either Sage or TAS you can run a Vat return at a click of a button. Instead of using a word processor you can produce a professional looking invoice or statement with your own logo from the system. You will have a better handle on the overall performance of the business by running regular profitability reports.

As your business expands your system may need to record sales orders and deliveries and check whether a particular item is in stock. You may need to open a Sterling bank account to deal with UK suppliers or customers. If you have Sales reps you might want them to take orders on handheld systems and download them into your accounts system.

Before deciding which system to implement you should be clear in your own mind what features/modules you want from the system and the benefits you expect it to bring to your business. You should also look for assurances on the following issues:

1. Is the system proven in the marketplace (as opposed to being developed by the neighbours child !!)

2. Will the system be capable of growing with the business in terms of extra modules and users

3. Can the system provider also deliver training and ongoing support afterwards

4. Are references available from other users of the software

5. Is the system capable of being backed up for security purposes

6. That your staff who will operate the system are buying into it

Once you have chosen the appropriate system (whether it be Sage 50, TAS, Exchequer Enterprise or some other system) for your business you need to plan the implementation. What date is the system going to start from and have you got all your manual or spreadsheets up to date. It might be advisable to concentrate on getting your customers and sales invoices up initially and follow on with your suppliers and purchases. You will need to consider whether you will attend a classroom training session or get onsite training which will be more specific to your requirements. You will also need to specify the reports which you will need from the system as this will have implications for the set up. The main thing is to have a plan and get assistance and training from experienced systems providers.

If you wish to discuss computerising or upgrading your accounting system contact James for a free consultation at 071-9146815 , jdoyle@synergynet.ie or check out the website http://www.synergynet.ie/.