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According to the BCS Alliance, the credit card industry is one of the most profitable lines of business in the United States. Not all credit card companies are corporate monoliths or divisions of large multinational banks. Many are smaller entities acting as credit partners to retail stores. Critical components of a credit card company include divisions responsible for marketing, risk management, customer service, recovery and regulatory compliance. Create a division dedicated to customer service. Ensure this division responds to all customer requests, complaints and other feedback. Include within the division a traditional call center along with methodology to provide customer service via the Internet. Assign to the risk management division all tasks surrounding the approval of credit card applications. Allocate the responsibility for charge authorizations as well as credit line increases to the risk management division. ...

Management reporting has evolved along with technology. What traditionally occurred as verbal reports to leadership within companies has grown into ever-more sophisticated analysis and statistical work product prepared to dig deeper into business operations. Typically, Excel and PowerPoint are the primary tools used to provide management reporting to a company's leadership. Significance Good management reporting provides key leaders with information that often goes beyond accounting financial statements. It can outline detailed cost and margin information, productivity statistics, variances from budgets to actual performance, and returns on investment. Function Management reporting serves the function of highlighting company performance against the goals and objectives that have been set for it. For example, cost-cutting objectives can be examined. Targets for growth, earnings or cas...

Starting a mobile food concession is an inexpensive way to break into the food business. If you can find a commissary where you can rent space for prep work, you may be able to start your business for only the cost of permits and the portable equipment that you will be using. A mobile food concession can involve hauling equipment from one location to another, but the variety in locations will enable you to meet different people and become familiar with new parts of town. Purchase equipment that will fit in your vehicle. Choose items that you can easily load and unload, and avoid fragile gear that can be easily damaged in transport. Start your operation with the minimum amount of ingredients necessary to cook a handful of items, and add to your setup as your business evolves. Plan your menu. Choose items that you can produce profitably and that you can cook quickly. If you can plan a menu that uses the same ingredients in multi...

Running a dental practice is a competitive business. You must continually advance your dental practice by attracting new patients, maintaining the ones you already have and incorporating new technology and other techniques in your work. This is something you must keep doing or your dental practice will stagnate and you will lose revenue. Advancing your practice will keep it viable and allow it to expand. Attracting Patients You must continually attract new patients to advance your dental practice. You may have a large patient base, but over time some will stop doing business with you for various reasons. They may move, lose their insurance or simply decide to try another dentist. Marketing for Dental Specialists says you can attract new patients through traditional means such as advertising in the local phone book or newspaper and having a website, but it also advises doing community outreach. You can advance your dental practice by v...

You can measure the success of your business in many ways. Check to see whether you are achieving your strategic goals and objectives. If you want your business to be successful, everyone must take responsibility for making it happen. It's a good idea to let everyone know what you are trying to accomplish and why their contribution is important. Mail surveys to your customers or have them complete online surveys. Surveys will give you an idea of whether they're satisfied. You have to know your customers' needs and what they think of your products, service and management. This gives you an opportunity to increase customer satisfaction. Review your customer base over a period of six months. If it's growing on a regular basis that's a good indication of success. Chances are you are getting customers from a competitor because you offer a better product or service. Often, it's by word of mouth that businesse...

UPS is a shipping company that offers a variety of services, including mailboxes for individuals and businesses. The mailboxes are available at UPS Stores around the United States. A UPS mailbox is ideal if you don't want to or can't receive postal mail at your home or business address. Obtaining a UPS mailbox is not difficult--you just need to provide two forms of identification and complete a simple application. Tell the clerk you want to obtain a UPS mailbox. Visit a UPS Store. Note the location, as this is where your UPS mailbox will be located. Complete the mailbox service agreement form. Gather your two valid forms of identification. One form of identification must be a picture identification card like a driver's license or state-issued identification card. The other can be a credit card, passport or college/work identification card. ...

Starting a small business in Ohio can be easy. The state has set up the Ohio Business Gateway. It contains all the information you need and links to applicable information and forms to get your business started. Ohio requires an Federal Employer Identification Number, EIN, be used as the Ohio Tax ID number. The EIN allows businesses to open accounts and file business taxes in Ohio. Complete the online application using your personal and business records. This is the preferred method of application and you will receive your EIN immediately. Apply online by going to the Internal Revenue Service website, www.irs.gov. Under the business section there is a section called Employer I.D Number, or EIN. Click on this link. If you are unable to complete an online application you can also download IRS From SS-4. Fill the form out completely and fax or mail it to the Internal Revenue Service. ...

DISC assessments are personality profiles developed from the answers to a series of questions. The profile will indicate the natural tendencies that you have toward dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness (DISC). A profile can be used to learn more about yourself interpret your interactions with others and help to build organizations and teams using the best people for each role. History The DISC theory was introduced in the book "Emotions of Normal People" written by psychologist William Moulton Marston. It was published in 1928. His ideas have been validated by research. Although Marston did not mention DISC after 1931, it is still used today by many businesses to profile prospective employees for specific roles within their organizations. Assessment A DISC assessment is a questionnaire that is prepared by a testing agency or organization. Questions will vary depen...

Grants for child care centers can be a limited source of funding, because many day cares are for-profit organizations and most grants are available only to schools and nonprofit organizations. However, grant opportunities do exist for both for-profit and nonprofit child-care centers. Types Most grants are awarded for specific purposes, including: capital upgrades, renovations and playgrounds; snacks and meals; and staff development education. For example, the USDA sponsors the Child and Adult Care Food Program to help cover the cost of food. Grants are also available for child care centers that focus on education. The Lego Children 's Fund provides grants to centers that inspire creativity and innovation among their students. Benefits Although many child care centers are for-profit businesses, some serve low-income families who need these services while the parents work. Grants for these ...

Decision-making in business, particularly in times of uncertainty, is the most important role of management and leadership. Making classic business decisions involves good listening, careful thought, focus, execution and evaluation of results. Focus. Break the decision's impact down into areas such as operations, marketing, employees, investor relations, finance, technology and costs. Avoid distractions that are not relevant to the specific decision at hand. Be aware of alternative paths and analyze how these are different from the decisions that appear to be the right answer. Remove emotional considerations from the process. Think. Making decisions under uncertainty does not mean that all consequences can or might be evaluated, but they can be identified. Quantify potential results wherever possible. As managers gain more experience, they tend to rely more and more on instinct to make decisions. Experience is criti...

According to industry researcher Plunkett Research Ltd., nearly $150 billion in online sales transactions took place in 2008. Yet there's always room for even more e-commerce stores. If you'd like to get started in the online world by creating your own product catalog, first decide whom you're selling to and what products you want to offer. After you've uploaded the shopping-cart program, input the basic settings you'll need for your online product catalog, including store name, contact address, and telephone number. Install the shopping-cart program on your website by uploading it to your Web host. If your host lacks an upload utility, free FTP programs such as FileZilla can help. Enter information on payment options. Most shopping-cart programs allow free and simple integration with PayPal and Google Checkout, in which case all you need to do is enter your PayPal address or your...

Fortune magazine began its list of the 500 largest U.S. companies by gross revenue back in 1955. It has become an important, if not symbolic, indication of a company's arrival in the big leagues of the corporate world. Operating a Fortune 500 company is a demanding, complex and public job requiring multidisciplinary skills, talent and experience. Communicate with honesty and clarity. This means externally and internally. There have been enough corporate scandals over the past several years to make it clear that operating a Fortune 500 company requires more transparency than it used to. Every single individual within the company should share the same understanding of the core values, culture and goals of the company. There should be one, very stringent set of ethical standards communicated repeatedly to the entire organization. Identify the talent. Operating a Fortune 500 company cannot be done alone. Use the talent ...

Infrared LED (light emitting diode) came into realization in the 1960s. It was the product of decades of theories waiting to be applied. Round An assistant to inventor Guglielmo Marconi, H.J. Round, made a "bright glow" detection and published his findings in a 1907 article that was soon forgotten. Losev Russian scientist and inventor Oleg Vladimirovich Losev used the same compound as Round (silicon carbide or carborundum) to produce light emission via diodes, thus making him the father of the LED. He wrote extensively about his findings but died before it could be put to practical use. Biard and Pittman It was Texas Instruments' employees Robert Biard and Gary Pittman who discovered infrared LED and received a patent for it. They did this by passing electric current through gallium arsenide (GaAs), thus producing infrared radiation. ...

If you love to write and wish to be self-employed, you can make money with your own publishing company. Like any new business it requires discipline and hard work. You may be surprised to find that it does not take a lot of start up costs to get your new venture off of the ground. Sell ad space in your publication. If you aren't comfortable selling to people, hire a sales force on commission. Unless you have the proper software and the talent to go along with it, you'll also need to hire a graphic designer to lay out the ads in your publication. You should price your ads high enough to cover the costs of printing the publication, paying the sales team, the graphic designer, and yourself. Many publishers choose to give their magazine away as a service to the community. This increases readership, which in turn increases exposure to the businesses that advertise in your publication. Research your printing costs. For exam...

You can start a small business on a thin budget. Promotions with your business cards and a free website can generate super results. Distribute your business cards. Make an effort to give out at least 5 business cards per day to people that you interact with. Your business cards won't do much good in the box, so try to give them to businesses that you patronize. Explain to them that you have started a new venture and to contact you should anyone need services that you provide. Order your business cards. Take a trip to your local office supply store such as Staples, Office Depot or Office Max. Visit their printing services department. You will be able to view different styles, colors and shapes of business cards. If you see business cards that you like, place an order and you'll receive your business cards in a few days. Also, if you decide to make your own business cards, these stores carry different card stock...

Business grants can be found and applied for online. Many new and existing business owners miss out on various opportunities throughout the year to apply for free government grant money dedicated for small businesses. Here are a few steps to help you find and apply for a business grant online. Have all your business information, documents and paperwork ready for the application process. To secure a business grant you'll need all the information you can get so that you application and proposal letter stand out when grants are selected. There are companies online that can help business secure grant money by helping with paper work documentation and grant proposal letters. Check on business grant availability. Business grant are not available all the time, the government will issue and allow a certain amount of money each year for business grants. So times the amount of grant money is high, sometimes it;s low. So it i...

Blogging is a great way to make money. You can actually turn a profit from typing about what you love. Don't over advertise. While advertising is a great idea, there can sometimes be too much of a good thing. If you over advertise some readers may consider your website or blog just spam. So make sure you do not overdo it This could make you lose potential readers or readers that you currently have. So choose some online advertisements but do not choose them all. There are some websites that show you great ways to optimized you website or blog. Topics. Depending on what you are writing about will depend on the amount of money you can make. So start searching online to see what topics have the most expensive ads. Once you have found these you may want to start blogging about them. Or you might find out that what you have already been blogging about can make you a lot of money. With the combination of traffic and ...

We cannot solve today's problems with yesterdays way of thinking-Ephran Taylor. Cut debt Destroy credit cards. And I mean all of them! Credit cards are evil! That way you won't be tempted to spend money that you don't have. Just think of it like this, Anything that you "buy" from a credit card that you don't pay back is not yours anyway. So since it is not yours leave it with it's owners. Focus good 'ol pay-upfront-ownership. Before you do anything you must change the way you think about money management. This means controlling spending and maintaining consistency in improvement. You have to want to change it bad enough to actually change it. Pull a free credit report. You can do this at myfreecreditreport.com, equifax, transunion, etc. Do this to find out exactly where you stand, how muc...

Have you ever struggled to come up with employee incentive ideas that work? Do you stink at picking good employee rewards recognition programs that your employees actively participate in? If so, then this article is for you! Here's a few pointers to help you put together your own custom made recognition program that will motivate and challenge your employees. Keep your team in play with the right rewards Group incentives are also a great tool in getting employees motivated. I really like using food as an incentive because itís versatile and can be tailored to fit the occasion. It can be as simple as serving a soda and chips at a team or crew meeting or a steak dinner. If you are the boss, cooking food or serving something you've prepared at home for your employees can get you lots of accolades. Remember when using food as an incentive simpler is better. ...

The last census was in the year 2000. A lot has happened in 10 years. You may not have been old enough in 2000 to have had children but now you have three. You may be like the other millions who have moved from one state to another. You may have moved away to college, or into an apartment, or into your own home. You can make a difference by being counted in the 2010 Census. April 1, 2010 is what the U.S. Census Bureau calls Census Day; the day to be serious about being counted. Here's how. The importance of being counted is so that the government can count the population of states and figure out how many seats each state will have represented in the House of Representatives. So when you receive your questionnaire in the mail in about March 2010 you should complete it in blue or black ink and send it back as soon as possible. If you do not respond you will not be counted. I've read that the federal government ...

Small business grants are given by the government to new and small business to help economic growth and development for certain geographic locations. Today small business grants can be found and applied for online, here are a few steps to help you locate and secure a government grant for a small business online. Be sure to also look at alternative funding sources, this includes business loans, investment groups and gift and grant programs from non-profit groups, foundations and organizations. Prepare a business grant proposal letter, this letter will include all of your business information such as your type of business, business location, business plan and more. The grant proposal letter will also include a detailed explanation of how you plan on using the grant money to help build your business into a company that can help the economy. There are companies online that can help generate a grant proposal letter. ...