Management

In a session at this month's Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in Chicago, Paul Holstein, vice president of CableOrganizer.com, an online retailer of cable, wiring and equipment management products, listed three ways that retailers can use feedback from their customers to better their operations.

Wal-Mart announced a program Thursday in which its workers can receive college credit from the online American Public University and receive a tuition discount from the school. The company also said it will commit $50 million over three years to help workers pay for books and tuition above the reduced tuition rate. After the reduction, tuition will cost $212.50 per undergraduate credit hour and $255 for graduate credits.

Tying the results of a marketing tactic to the actual financial performance of a company is no easy feat. You may not have ready access to business performance or transaction metrics to allow correlation. The sheer array of channels and options available to marketers, and the rise of new marketing tactics such as social media, only add to the difficulty of measuring clear results.

Much like a four-letter word, disasters happen in all forms just about anywhere, without warning, at any time. So prepare your company and yourself. Here’s a disaster-readiness checklist I suggest you look over carefully. If you think you’re on top of it, compare your list to this one to ensure you have all the bases covered.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) Board of Directors today announced the election of G. Steven Dapper, chairman and founder of hawkeye, as chairman of the board. Don McKenzie, CEO of Direct Group, was elected vice chairman of the board.  The terms of office commenced at DMA’s board meeting today in Washington, D.C.

This year is proving to be a year of growth for many retail businesses, and there's no reason yours can't be a part of that. Here are five straightforward but important steps that you can take to help reinvigorate your retail business’s performance and get it on track to achieve your long-term goals.

In an entertaining keynote speech that kicked off the National Conference on Operations & Fulfillment in Orlando, Fla. last week, Shep Hyken, author, professional speaker and consultant to companies on building loyal relationships with their customers and employees, listed 10 "Moments of Magic" that'll help businesses win customers for life.

The Labor Department reported that 36,000 jobs were lost in February, in addition to the 8.4 million that have vanished since the Great Recession began. The unemployment rate still sits at 9.7 percent. But not every big company has been hunkering down and waiting for the economy to recover--some are expanding right now to gain market share while their weaker competitors flounder. Looking at data from publicly traded companies, Forbes created a top 10 list of publicly traded companies that added the most workers organically in 2009. It includes blue chips like Amazon.com, Comcast and Lowe's. The group is a window into where the recovery will take place.

If your company or unit is growing quickly, you might have five people in a small group who are playing three or four roles each. As you grow, you might have more people playing these roles. You could have 20 people, each of them finding new roles all the time. Each role demands resources needed to support the role.

In part 2 of this multipart series on the steps businesses must take to become networked organizations, which details how organizational structures and processes can make managing the demand of a product or service a process-based, predictable and repeatable science, we look at four tips to consider when tackling the optimization of your value networks.