Advanced E-business Concept: Checking the Pulse of Your Business

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Volume 2 Issue 34

August 26, 2008

How's Your Business Heartbeat?

A business is like the human body. You have to monitor its working parts to avoid unhealthy surprises and keep things running smoothly. While the notion of "financial analysis" is scary for many business owners, it breaks down to a few basics that you can learn without much time or trouble. They're right here in this issue of WhatWorks, including how to perform a breakeven analysis, analyze a balance sheet, find and use a business dashboard, benchmark your business financials and give your biz a checkup.

For updates on the latest ideas, trends and solutions for small business, visit the new Technology Channel and Money Channel pages at our sister site Business.com, where you'll find anything and everything for your business in 65,000 categories.

– Daniel Kehrer, Editor

Measuring Up
How to Benchmark Your Business Financials
By Greg Brown
Checking your company's numbers against your industry peers -- a process called benchmarking -- is no exercise in silliness. It can point out big gaps in efficiency and suggest changes you should make but can't see for the fog of day-to-day managing. Likewise, starting a new business without first seeing how the sector works financially is like jumping off a cliff in the hope that a pile a mattresses awaits you below... Read Full Guide

The Biz Doc is In
Giving Your Business an Annual Checkup
By Daniel Kehrer
Annual business checkups are an excellent way to keep a company in top condition. Small business owners faced with minimal staff and tight deadlines may put off addressing issues like obsolete accounting systems. But delaying key projects can result in lost time, money and productivity. View slow periods as an opportunity to check up on systems that can fall through the cracks. Take a hard look at your business and ask yourself these tough questions: Read Full Guide

Making Money Yet?
Performing a Breakeven Analysis
By Meagan Francis
It's not enough to know how much money in sales you think your business will do each month or year. Whether you're trying to figure out how much start-up money you'll need or the salaries you can afford to pay, you'll need to know when your business will hit the "break-even" point, stop losing money and start making a profit. Read Full Guide

Check Your Gauges
Small Business Executive Dashboards
By Chris Caggiano
When you peer at your car's dashboard, you can quickly assess how the vehicle is functioning. Small business dashboards offer something similar to business owners: a consolidated view of key information about the business, including alerts when trouble looms. Dashboards are essentially one-screen, customizable computer snapshots comprising charts and tables of your company's key indicators: Read Full Guide

Finance Basics
How to Analyze a Balance Sheet
By Tom Nutile
A balance sheet is a report that shows all the items owned or controlled by a company, the ownership interest in the company, and the debts the firm has incurred. Knowing how to analyze a balance sheet is essential, whether you're considering acquiring a firm or just trying to strengthen and troubleshoot your own business. Here's what you need to know: Read Full Guide

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FAST TRACK

Quick reads, hot topics and cool tools for your business

Sales Incentives: Xactly, which offers web-based sales performance management solutions, has teamed with SalesForce.com to offer a new system called Xactly Rewards that helps businesses offer a wide range of non-cash rewards pegged to sales force performance.

Your Online Reputation: Managing a business reputation online is fast becoming a critical task for companies of all sizes. RatePoint.com is a web-based solution that helps you collect, manage and promote authentic customer feedback, improve customer service, strengthen customer relationships and build trust.

SOLUTION OF THE WEEK

Rethinking Web Blocking: U.S. businesses spend millions on web blocking and filtering software to keep employees from surfing the web. But such software can also be counter-productive. BeAware takes a different approach by helping businesses monitor what employees are doing on their computers, both online and offline.