Category: Business

Your business location should be tailor-made to fit with your company budget, spacing requirements and ease of operation. For some business owners, leasing affords a sense of freedom and relieves the financial burden of a down payment, yet may be too restrictive for some kinds of operations. The decision to buy a piece of commercial property offers its own set of risks and rewards, and should be considered carefully before entering into a mortgage contract.

Leasing Commercial Space

1. Cost Effective

Leasing a commercial space will usually require a one to two month move-in deposit, making the rental space a cost efficient way to do business. New business owners may be strapped for cash, and by leasing, rather than purchasing, your storefront or office is cost effective to set up shop with minimal funding.

2. Flexibility

Leasing a commercial space gives the entrepreneur plenty of room to grow, downsize or change locations. Although once you sign a lease, you are locked into a fixed amount of time to make the lease payments, the terms may be only a matter of months to be released and start over in another location.

3. Freedom

Setting up shop without the burden of a mortgage to pay allows a sense of financial freedom. Albeit, a purchased piece of commercial property could be leased or sold to another, there could be months before the owner receives any income from the property. A hefty mortgage may also interfere with business profits and may demand downsizing of personnel.

4. Maintenance

A leased office or shop has a landlord to lean on, taking away tedious responsibilities with the plumbing, electricity and security. In a leasing situation, any repairs or legal liabilities are left in the hands of the building management team.

5. Subletting

In some situations, you may sublet your leased office space to another. However, this must be cleared in writing from the management office, and careful attention given to their rules and regulations for renting out the space.

Buying Commercial Space

1. Secured Location

Buying a piece of commercial property adds assurance that the space is secured and cannot be given to someone else. In a leasing situation, when the lease expires, the renewal process may not have the same initial terms, thus proving unfavorable to renew. However, when you purchase, your prime location is secured.

2. Equity

As with a residential piece of property, a commercial owner may take out cash against the mortgage. In an emergency financial crisis, having a mortgage to borrow from lends a sense of security and provision of funds. Most commercial purchases will require 20 to 25 percent down on the purchase price, giving instant equity to the business owner.

3. Remodeling

When you have bought a property, it is your to do with as you wish. Remolding, expansion and reconfiguration are yours for the taking. The ownership allows the business structure to be molded around the enterprise for a perfect fit and usage of space.

4. Tax Deductions

The interest on a commercial loan is tax deductible, with allowances for deducting any depreciation.

5. Lease Your Excess Space

If you own the property, you may lease your excess space without any restrictions from a third party over your head.

A business owners exit is a once-in-a-lifetime transformation. Were not talking about selling a house or a car. This is a complex process that requires the technical expertise of a team of trusted advisors. The key to any successful business exit is planning. It must begin with personal reflection on the part of the owner regarding what he or she wants out of the business exit. Only then can the owner, along with his advisors, design an appropriate exit strategy. The five (5) planning steps outlined in this article are designed to help business owners define their personal goals, understand all the transfer options and work with an advisory team to execute a successful business exit plan.

Step 1: Define the Personal Goals of the Owner

Since personal goals intertwine so closely with the daily existence of a private business owner, it only makes sense to begin with the basic albeit crucial question, What do I want to accomplish with my business exit? The answer seems obvious–make the most money after taxes and fees. Often, however, it isnt this simple. Owners have nourished and raised their businesses from infancy; they typically care a lot about who will take the reigns. Family members might also be involved in the business. Their fate will also be dependent upon what the business owner ultimately decides.

Aside from money, other motives for a business exit can include transfers to family, transfers to employees, transfers to co-owners, partial transfers to gain some liquidity today but still run the companys day-to-day business, or an initial public offering. The decision often comes down to a question of liquidity. A substantial source of liquidity outside the business makes for a much easier choice.

However, more often than not an owners wealth is tied up in the business. The owner must therefore balance his financial and interpersonal goals in order to find the best possible exit strategy. Therefore, an assessment of the range of values for the business is the crucial next step.

Step 2: Understand that a Range of Values Exist for the Business

The value of a privately-held business depends largely upon who buys it. Its not as simple as watching the ticker tape for todays stock price. The type of buyer can impact both the price placed on the shares (or assets) of the business and the tax consequences to the selling owner. Value (net transfer price) is therefore a range concept.

Internal transfers to employees, family, and co-owners provide fewer dollars up front, but allow for greater control of the business, continued income, and flexible timing and tax characterization of payments to the exiting business owner. By contrast, External transfers to other industry players, financial groups, or by initial public offering command more liquidity up front while the owner relinquishes more control over the Company and the timing and tax characterization of payments. A closer examination of the transfer options can help an exiting business owner determine the right balance of money and control over the future of the business.

Step 3: Examine the Options Available for the Transfer of Shares

There are seven (7) primary purchasers of privately-held business stock (or assets). Below are listed the Parties to the Transaction and Types of Transactions Available (samples; not a complete list)

Internal Parties:

Employees – Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP)
Charity – Charitable Remainder Trust
Family- Gifting Program
Co-owners – Leveraged Buyout

External Parties:
Financial Groups – Recapitalization
Industry Buyers – Acquisition (at Synergy Value)
Initial Public Offerings – IPO (at Public Market Value)

Based on the primary goals defined in step one (1), an exiting business owner chooses the party to whom the business will be transferred. That designee, once chosen, will determine the limits or expansion of the Value. At the end of this phase, the process comes full circle as the Value (after taxes and fees) is matched against the owners goals. If the two meet as one, congratulations! A successful business exit strategy has been devised. Now its time to execute.

Step 4: Provide Full Financial Disclosure to the Buyer

This step isnt going to be easy on the business owner. Assembling financial records and presenting them to a buyer/successor is a very time consuming, very personal survey of how the business is run. It can be huge psychological block for many exiting owners. Remember, any savvy buyer (or successor) to a business will need to understand the financial condition of the Company. When an owner fesses up to any creative accounting they may have employed over the years to help build wealth and reduce tax bills, the process goes smoother. Full disclosure is the best path to a seamless process. There is an old saying – if the truth will kill a deal, then there is no deal.

Not only that, but it may reward the owner in the end. Full disclosure is not about passing judgment, but instead affords the buyer (or successor) an opportunity to assess the businesss true profit potential. The astute exiting business owner will recognize this in advance. Why? Because most creative accounting practices depress the profitability of a business. Clear those away and the Buyer will recognize a higher earning power and in turn a higher Value for the Company.

Step 5: Assembling the Advisory Team No One Should Go It Alone

Planning and executing a successful business exit strategy is a complex process that requires the technical expertise of a team of trusted advisors. Its not the time to take short cuts or pinch pennies. Time and money should be invested in assembling the right team of advisors; a successful business exit is more than worth it. It should be viewed as an investment in success.

We must understand that business owners are independent self-starters. If they werent, their businesses wouldnt be so successful and we wouldnt be talking to them. But some of their strengths and characteristics can lead many business owners to attempt the do-it-yourself business exit strategy. This can create an unnecessary drain of time and money on both the business owner and their business.

A business owners exit is a once-in-a-lifetime transformation. It is an important milestone that is sure to provide any business owner with one of the most challenging yet satisfying sense of accomplishments.

So remember, planning is the key to any successful business exit because a proactive approach to an Exit Strategy is the only approach to a successful Exit Strategy. If youve come to the end of this discussion, youre already ahead of the game.

As broadband speaks to the measure of data that could be exchanged through a rapid internet connection, business internet broadband with higher data transmission empowers get to and exchange of considerably more data and data, an extremely urgent element in today’s period of corporate rivalry. The criticalness of internet broadband for businesses can’t be undermined. With mechanically exceptional online apparatuses, the long haul business objectives and systems best suited for development and extension might be dead set.

The three most important features that make business broadband so mainstream are:

Connection Speed: Business internet broadband associations are generally high velocity associations as contrasted with a standard dial up association. Furthermore, diverse speed extents with changing expense alternatives are accessible, permitting the client to exchange no less than twenty times more data at any given time. Such a speed is exceptionally successful for a business in the accompanying ways:

Larger file transfer in matter of seconds

Cost powerful as enormous documents could be sent over the net as opposed to being couriered or faxed

Security issues took care of with quick upgrades and programming redesigns

Fast transfer of immense film documents, pictures and representation

Virtual gathering progressively conceivable.

Enables sound and feature conferencing, therefore decreasing phone costs

Installation of online security Cameras.

Round the Clock Connectivity: A broadband connection permits fast network to the net at whatever point the workstation or computer is exchanged on. Dissimilar to the dial up connection, this peculiarity encourages the business by staying constantly connection with the customers. With round the clock network, the internet serves as an included to a great degree huge estimated hard drive with endless data storage.

Business internet broadband arrangements are generally chargeable at a settled rate for boundless utilization, henceforth business clients can profit without bringing about additional expenses for included data utilization. Likewise, steady connection guarantees continuous data stream alongside:

Elimination of postponement in accepting and answering to critical business messages

Permanent round the clock integration to all the workplace extensions. Change in any office setup might be upgraded immediately

Remote servers guarantee safe data storage and get to whenever and from anyplace, be it office, home or amid travel

Use of internet for ease or free voice calls

Serves as a Standalone Connection: Business internet broadband requires

Establishment of a modem much the same as a standard dial up connection, the main contrast having the capacity to make calls all the while as utilizing the internet. A handier focal point is the profit of identifying with clients while taking them through the website pages for particular data they need. Additionally, it spares expense of additional phone line introduced for internet connection. The business broadband connection likewise allows the utilization of more than one machine for the single connection line.

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E-Commerce and E-Business are two completely different terms but unfortunately they are always used interchangeably by many of us. The reason behind this lies in the meanings of business and commerce in English language. But there is a difference between e-commerce and e-business. There are many people who understand the subtle differences between the two and there had always been a debate among these two groups about the differences and similarities between e-commerce and e-business. The aim of writing this article is to clearly bring out the differences between the two as both of them are completely different phenomenon.

The differences between the two are as follows:

1. E-Commerce is the subset of E-Business. If you remember the Venn diagram you studied in school then you can very well understand what I am trying to convey. The later one is a very broad concept while the former one is just a small part of it. This relationship will be cleared in the subsequent points.

2. Those activities which essentially involve monetary transactions are termed as e-commerce. However, e-business is a much broader term. There are many other things besides selling including but not limited to marketing, procurement of raw materials or goods, customer education, looking for suppliers etc.

3. To sell online is e-commerce but to bring and retain customers and educate them online about the product or service is e-business. Having a website to do it is not sufficient. But, having a professionally built website loaded with latest technologies to capture the attention of the visitor and win his/her appreciation is required. When money is involved then the first thing which user looks for is safety and security of his/her money. Having a website laden with such qualities is important.

4. When Dell sell computers, laptops, monitors, printers, accessories etc online then it is not engaged in e-commerce but e-business. Let me tell you how. When a visitor comes on the website, the first thing he see is website design and navigation as well as those things which are going to help him find what he is looking for and if he directly lands on the page he was looking for, he looks for the information related to it. The information provided should be appealing and clear maximum doubts of the visitor so as to convert him in a client. Till now no money has been exchanged nor been talked about. So, was this e-commerce? No, it is e-business which guides the visitor.

5. E-commerce has also been defined as a process covering outward processes that touch customers, suppliers and external partners while e-business covers internal processes such as production, inventory management, product development, risk management, finance etc.

In all, e-commerce can be described as the use of the Internet and the web to transact business. More formally, digitally enabled commercial transactions between and among organizations and individuals. On the other hand, e-business can be described as the digital enablement of transactions and process within a firm, involving information systems under the control of the firm. Moreover, e-business applications turn into e-commerce precisely when an exchange of value occurs.

The smart phone industry is expanding greatly, and business users are left wondering which smart phones best match their needs. While BlackBerry has been the historic winner, many businesspeople are starting to look much more seriously at Android as a strong contender.

What makes Android so attractive to business users? This can be broken down into a few key areas: flexibility and choice, pricing, apps and software, and business integration.

Flexibility: On the whole, Android presents a lot of flexibility for users – they can choose from a variety of phones, a variety of providers, and an app store that is not heavily regulated (unlike Apple’s App Store). Business users have differing needs depending on their industries, position, and even lifestyle, and Android makes it easier to find a smart phone that’s a perfect match.
Applications: On other mobile operating systems, applications are heavily policed. While this has some advantages in terms of reliability, it also means that one company is choosing exactly what people do and do not want on their mobile phones. It excludes small niche programs designed for specific types of business people from existing – a problem that is rectified on Android. Android’s applications are open to all software developers, which means more innovation for the business user.
Strong web browsing capabilities: Android supports Adobe Flash – a popular way of encoding web pages that the Apple iPhone does not support. In other words, Android users are able to view a number of web pages that iPhone users would not otherwise be able to. This is important when you need one quick piece of information on the go!
Prices are much more competitive: Because Android is available on many different types of phone, there’s much more room for the budget-minded businessperson to find a price that works for them.
Strong Exchange integration: Many businesses use Microsoft Exchange, though mobile support for Exchange is sometimes hit and miss. BlackBerry requires of the installation of their BES server. However, Android integrates with Exchange without any need for add-ons – perfect for easy integration into the business world!