Month: September 2018

Categories
Technology

What many companies are not doing about Inventory Management

The essence of a company’s supply chain is inventory.  It is important to keep track of what moves from place to place.  At each place, it is important to be able to know the balance of supply and demand or suffer the consequences.

Consequences

If your company has too little inventory you risk losing sales and customers from “out of stock”.  If you have too much inventory you will need more of everything – more space, more transportation, more labor, more handling and more money.

Manage the flow

To be able to figure out the correct number to keep in stock, you still need to implement the proper flow.  But it is not just about the timely movement of the products from your suppliers in Asia to your stores all around the United States.   It is also about managing the vast measure of information linked to these goods to keep it moving to the next location. This is known as intuitive inventory management.

What experts say

Experts studying this exercise from both execution and planning outlooks and investigating the latest in leading-edge technologies that can be used to put these guidelines into action.  A panel of experts advises getting back to the basics, reviewing serious strategies that some companies have been disregarding over the past several years.

Inventory optimization tools

Inventory optimization tools have been growing in popularity as companies more and more seek to estimate their entire network and determine the best inventory policies for every product.

Use real-time analytics under one platform

Powerful solutions of operations and sales are now using real- analytics that takes a combined data model of a supply chain, demand, as well as financial data, analyze them at any level and instantly be able to provide responses.

Don’t treat all SKUs the same

There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution.

Keep an eye on your suppliers

Many suppliers do not deliver as committed or stay on their schedule.

Track essential attributes

Over the past several years, tracking product lineage and traceability should be at the top of any inventory managers’ must-have lists.

Leveraging mobile devices

Mobile technologies and user interfaces are not widespread for catching data on inventory.  It is now the time for every business to look for ways to form flexible solutions for accuracy.

Categories
Programming

Top Tips on Choosing a WordPress Template

WordPress is the most famous content management system on the internet today. If someone wants to create a blog of his own, this is perhaps the only name that comes to your mind at first. This is because most of the people always look for the most responsive WordPress themes for themselves and when we talk about responsive themes, WordPress is the only name that you can count upon. Most of the blogs that you visit are made using this system.

If you have already decided to use this system to create your blog of any kind, you must know some of the best tips that can help you choose the right template for yourself, since it is all about having the right template. Read the list below to get the tips:

  • Find a template that matches your business: You have to choose a template that has to match the products or services your business is into.
  • Find out if you have free templates, instead of choosing the paid one: If you don’t want to spend money at first, you can always go for free templates. It is not that free templates are bad.

  • If you don’t like the free templates, choose a paid template that matches your need: Sometimes, free templates don’t suffice your needs; this is when you need a little bit of money to buy a premium template that looks really good.
  • Check some of the top themes on WordPress: Once you know about the top WordPress themes, you can always make the right choice.
  • Learn about the features that you want and the features that different themes have: Always check the features before deciding upon the final theme for your blog.
  • Never choose a theme that has ugly fonts: Fonts are the things that are going to portray your business on the blog.
  • Test the theme nicely before you choose it: Testing is like experiencing how the template is going to look when you have selected it for yourself.
  • Color combination matters the most when it comes to choosing a theme: If you have a logo or brand name already, you can always match the color of your brand with the color of the template.

Now that you know how to choose the best theme for your WordPress blog, go ahead and choose the best one for your blog.

Categories
Technology

Using Predictive Analytics and Predictive Marketing in Any Business  

Predictive analytics has been the most substantial idea to have infiltrated itself into almost every facet of the business world over the last years. Every company wants to say that they’re making decisions that are data-driven, have a data-driven culture, and use data tools that non-data people have probably never even heard of. While all this data is a valuable source and analyzing it can convey incredible assistance, it is redundant in gaining what is known as the ‘competitive edge’ if the predictive analytics to control it are not in place.

History and current advancement

All though predictive analytics has been around for many decades, it is a technology whose time has come. Every day more businesses are turning to predictive analytics to help increase the bottom line and give them the competitive advantage. Why now?

Types of data

Growing and volumes and the types of data, and more interest in using data to produce insights that are valuable:

  • Cheaper and faster computers;
  • Software that is easier-to-use;
  • Tougher economic conditions and a need for competitive differentiation.

 

Easy to use software

With easy-to-use and interactive software becoming more dominant, predictive analytics is no longer only the field of statisticians and mathematicians. Business analysts and line-of-business experts are using these technologies as well.

Why is this important?

Businesses are turning to predictive marketing to help solve problems that are difficult and to find new opportunities. Common uses include:

  • Detecting fraud;
  • Optimizing marketing campaigns;
  • Improving operations;
  • Reducing risk.

What businesses are using it?

Almost any industry will make use of predictive analytics to decrease risks, improve operations and increasing revenue. Here are several examples:

  • Banking & Financial Services –

These services use predictive analytics to detect as well as decrease fraud, measure credit hazard, exploit cross-sell/up-sell occasions and hold on valued customers;

  • Retail –

Retailers are using predictive analytics to control which products to stock, how effective are promotional events as well as which offers are most appropriate for consumers;

  • Oil, Gas & Utilities –

Predicting failures of equipment and future needed resources, modifying safety and reliability risks;

  • Health Insurance –

Detecting claim fraud, identify patients at risk of chronic diseases, and what interventions or treatments are best.

Categories
Hardware

HP Envy 4500 e-all-in one Review

The business has moved part of this concept to its entry-level machines and produced the Envy 4500, still geared towards mobile devices and leisure printing, but at a substantially lower price.

HP Envy 4500 — Layout and Features

It does this with a comparable, two-cartridge print engine, with black and tri-color cartridges. This makes the machine easier to maintain, but can lead to ink wastage, if you print a great deal of one color.

HP Envy 4500

The 1,200ppi flatbed scanner doesn’t have Automatic Document Feed (ADF), which you would not expect on this type of machine, but the lid is substantial and avoids the fingerprint-hungry, high-gloss end of earlier versions.

The control panel, on a steeply raked facia in the front, has a 50mm LCD screen set into it. This is not as restricting as it may seem. Even though you can not see thumbnails of photos, the printer doesn’t have any card or USB slots, so there is very little call for any.

Front panel folds down and becomes both feed and output, with a swing-out and fold-up support in the front edge of the tray — a very similar concept to Canon’s FastFront. Here, however, the tray pulls out for easier paper loading.

Hinging up the top scanner segment gives great access to the twin cartridges, which slide forward in their holder and are held in place by 2 flip-over levers.

In the back is one USB socket, but the majority of people will connect via wireless, as this provides access to Wireless Direct print from mobile devices, such as both Android and iOS through AirPrint. You could even download HP’s Printable pages, most of which are coloring and join-the-dots-style amusements for you or your children.

He printer functions fine, but I sure went through a workout to get it attached to my Wi-Fi. Be aware that I am a former computer coach and I certainly can read and follow instructions. What I eventually discovered, after so much frustration, is that HP Driver has made the installation procedure to make you register for the instantaneous ink. I went through the installation about 10 times and every time I tried to diminish the instantaneous ink, my home Wi-Fi has been disconnected. I don’t print much, so I finally signed up to the 1-15 pages per month, which was liberated. Once I place my credit card information in, I got a message they were sending me new cartridges in about ten days. I didn’t want new cartridges that immediately, so I named the instantaneous ink amount and the rep said that I wouldn’t have to pay for the cartridges. He said they had to find the brand new cartridges to me so that they could detect if my printer was low on ink. So, there must be some digital device in the new cartridges. If they had made this more clear on the site, I’d have signed up . I am still a bit skeptical about getting free ink for life in case you simply publish 1-15 pages per month. I will return and edit that if a”but” come up.