Remote Access working - boost to productivity

After having wasted several hours, and several attemptes over several days, I have given up with LOG ME IN.

Small businesses don’t have the time to waste. Several frustrating hours on a couple occasions, and a cul-de-sac conclusion makes me  believe that this is a corporate strategy on behalf of LogMeIn (based in the US). LogMEIn seems uncessarility complicated, has restrictive timelimits etc. It pertains to offer a Free service but I have a distinct feel that it is merely a cheap trick and sales gimmick to entice the hapless consumer to pay £60 a year for a service that is free with other free Log Me In software reputable services such as TeamViewer. If this is for personal use it is free.

Business Consultants could use this software to log in to their pcs at home to access sensitive data and to reduce the requirement to carry expensive it equipment with them out of their office and away from home.

How Will VAT Increase Affect Businesses

On January 1st the VAT rate will go back to its normal 17.5% against 15% over the last year, for most businesses they believe it made no difference at all, 2.5% reduction on a price just isn’t that attractive in a world where 50% off is more the norm. There is an arguement that international contracts have been made in areas wher 2.5% could mean a few million here and there, but most small businesses have not benefitted from the reduction.

An area that may have gained is the new car market. Take away a few grand for the scrappage scheme then another 2.5% on the balance can make the difference between affordable and too expensive. But on new years day, we all be faced with an increase or will we?

Looking through many shopping sites for Chistmas I noticed all prices still ending in 99p. Considering most prices tended to end with the 99p anyway before the VAT reduction, I find it hard to see when we actually got the extra 2.5% back for anything. The reality is more like businesses just charged the same and gained a bit more into the bargain. So it is very likley that the consumer will not lose out for the VAT increase but business mat suffer.

Even business services are unlikely to be affected returning to the motor trade take business car lease as an example. Business car lease may cost more as a monthly payment, but as VAT is refundable and business lease falls into that bracket depending on CO2 emmissions, the executive owner will be no worse off. In fact it is hard to understand if the benefits of the lower VAT rate actually covers the costs of outting this into practice. Take accountants, or pricing within the retail sectop, it cost money to report takings and purchases in a different tax code.

So on January 1st will we see prices rise? I think there is a good chance we will, including those who did not reduce prices when it was reduced. More money to the accountants.

Abbey Business - customer service quailty standards being met?

Thanks to Jasmine Birtles of MoneyMagpie in her article ‘The misery of Abbey Business‘I don’t feel so alone in my desperation and frustration of Abbey Business Banking. I ma grateful to her for sharing her personal experience. I too have had problems in accessing my money deposited with Abbey Business in the UK. Abbey is part of the Santander banking group allegedly one of the Top 10 global banking institutions.

I have been obliged to ring them 6 times today (no regard for the customer’s valuable time) and I have been obliged to repreat a lengthy series of security questions (no regard for the customer’s level of acceptance, tolerance and frustration levels).

Previously I was offered a telephone reply by an Abbey supervisor or departmental manager. No telephone contact with me was made. To add to my injuries an unprofessional member the Abbey Business fraud department, who declined to offer her name (which I suppose is understandable - why publicise that you are a bad employee) and made the decision by herself to terminate the call despite.

Finally today I’ve been told that the Abbey Business ecommerce team have identified the problem (this is after other members of the Abbey Business team had previously identified the problem and failed to resolve the issue affecting my business account), and I’ve been told it will take the system 24 hours to update.

All in all I have had very little access to my business accounts in three weeks.

It is a good job I have been able to survive in the meantime, because 98% of all businesses would not have been able to trade through such poor level of business banking service. I would be most interested in the comments of a Professional business adviser in business banking, and his suggestions?

In conclusion, without prejudice, here is a summary of the Abbey Business bank customer experience I have witnessed. I am unable to say whether other Abbey Bank customers would experience the same below par levels of customer service or what impact that it might have on their business performance. How many businesses would be willing to chance it?

1.  After I reported my involvement is a fraud phishing scam, Abby responded quickly to stop any transactions out of the account. They were unable to set account quickly to keep me going, but offered to transfer monies to a new account to keep me in business. Fortunately I had just opened another business bank account with another bank. Yet the monies transferred by the Abbey representative never arrived in the new account, and were returned or transferred to my new Abbey current account 5 days later with no explanation ever given.

2. I was told I had failed a security check (quite hard since it was me, and I do not believe I had behaved differently from any other occasion.) I was threatened with my account being put on hold.

3. I rang to make a complaint. I was promised a telephone response by a Manager, which I never received.

4. I rang today 6 times to get access to moving monies. I was passed from Abbey Business Banking to ecommerce department and back again. The Abbey Ecommerce member of staff did not advise me why he asked me to return to the main department, nor did he speak to a member of staff to instruct them what to do. As a result I was left “hanging in abeyance”. Eventually a helpful member Greg, told me that he had contacted ecommerce again and they have identified the problem and it should be resolved within 24 hours.

What impression can I have with the low level of customer service I have received?

I am sure someone senior on the Santander banking group would be scandalised to learn of my Abbey Business customer experience.

As a business analyst, and business consultant involved in best practice would do as well, I could implement several quality control measure to transform the customer experience and at the same time vastly reduce time wasted, simultaneously massively increase individual productivity, and undoubtedly staff morale as well.

Business experts on personal development can help today’s managers.

In my humble opinion In the UK there is a shortage of business gurus.

Names like Robert Craven nicknamed by the Sunday Times as the ‘entreprenueur guru’ spring to mind, but there are not many.

In the US it is a different story. Whatever one may personally think of Anthony Robbins, one cannot ignore the significant contribution he has made to the field of personal development, which he suggests is ‘the source of all one’s business’ and therefore his contribution to business performance.

His message is that there are 5 things to help (managers) face adversity and crisis.

1. Be decisive. (whatever happens, make a decision, learn from it).
2. Get resourceful (get help from a mentor, business adviser, colleague)
3. Get a vision (of how change will happen. If you can’t think of a positive one, think of the most negative one, and then do the opposite)
4. Get a proven plan (ideally, model on somebody who’s been through the same and who’s succeeded. Athony Robbins says “success leaves clues”).
5. Take massive action.  (5 frogs sitting on a log floating in a lake. One decides to go for a swim. How many are left? Answer: the same number since the frog who made the decision has only made up his mind, he hasn’t taken action yet. So this step is equally crucial).

So as a manager we need to think deeply with our minds (using Stephen Covey’s terminology) how best we can respond to the current situation, bearing in mind the current economic climate, and the current activitiy of our competitors. In my mind, as Robert Craven always reminds the UK SME business community, we don’t get far trying to go it alone. I have learned this from personal experience. For outstanding results we need outstanding business improvement, and that is likely to come from seeking external business advice and assistance. Do you agree?

Have we learned the lessons of too much dependence on the US for growth?

If the current opposition party wins the right to govern the UK at the next election, they will have an almost impossible challenge. The present incumbents (presently on the Government benches of the house), will ‘hound’ every move by any Minister who advocates spending cuts. Obviously, the very best solution is not to spend it in the first place. The rising debit of the UK is unsustainable, despite the UK retaining its TRIPLE A status. Making cuts in the here and now for monies (mis)spent in the past may turn out to be political suicide, but was it financial prudence by Alistair Darling? Gordon Brown made a courageous move and motivated US, Asian and European finance ministers to agree to certain measure to help the macro economy of a global scale. He did this against a background of the experience of the Great Depression of 1929 (which almost certainly paved the way for WW2). The great debate is were the measures taken the right ones. Evidence seems to suggest that the recession is shorter than it could have been, with the highly respected CBI forecasting recovery turnaround in 2010. It could have been much worse. In the US the sub-prime market was a scandal. Many consumers of sub prime mortgages were in no position to afford the US$600,000 homes they were being sold. Millions are now destitute, through criminal behaviour of US financial institutions. I do not believe the situation was so irresponsible here in the UK, but the impact to the UK economy, and to finance in particular was devastating. My own (inadequately informed) opinion is that Mr Brown and world leaders acted swiftly avert a global catastrophe, but as Mr Alan Greenspan alluded to recently in his interview as part of BBC2’s Love of Money season - “it will happen again - ITS HUMAN NATURE”.

Alan Greenspan - BBC\’s Love of Money season

Have we learned the lessons of too much dependence on the US for growth? Have we learned what was flawed in our human nature - insufficient governance?

The financial decisions we make.

Julian Rowe, Business Correspondent, Business Service Finder, reflects upon analysis by economist, Dan Ariely, in his interview with the BBC World Service concerning Predictable irrationality (regarding money).
Regarding money, Ariely suggests we make repeatable, predictable mistakes - the recording of his interview is still available on the BBC World Service website.
Ariely is a behavioural analyst, concerning himself with ‘Behavioural economics’ i.e. Human irrationality and money. Ariely quotes Greenspan, in front of Congress, who is alleged to have said, “Oops I made a mistake”. Ariely points out that this shows ‘irrationality’ is not just confined to the lower eschelons of society i.e. we at the bottom of the heap.

The main reason for the mistakes we all make with money, Ariely argues, is because it is actually a very hard subject to master. Everytime one spends something, e.g. a cup of coffee, one should really ask oneself “what I am giving up in the future” in order to enjoy this cup of coffee now? What will I not be able to do in the future? In reality, as Ariely points out, it is this concept, or thought, that is actually very complex. For example, if I buy this now I may not be able to go to a movie in ten years or buy this book in fifteen years time is a very challenging decision. Because of this challenge, we often resort to “simplified juristics” (i.e. reasoning) or simple ‘rules of thumb’.
One of these (rules of thumb) is ‘relative comparison’ – i.e. how much does this cost compared to something else. The fact that something is on discount today as opposed to yesterday, why is it such a big deal, Ariely asks?  It is because we don’t know how much something is worth, so we compare it to what it used to cost. In the same way we compare our salary to other peoples’ because we have very little way to evaluate it.
What can we do or how should we learn to stop getting ourselves into this kind of (financial) mess?
In the current downturn, many people are trying to cut back on expenses, realising that the financial future may not be quite so bright as it was. The big question is “How does one cut down”?
People always look at ‘discrepancy spending’ i.e. not buying a coffee or a sandwich – the expenses they can physically see coming out of their wallet or purses. However Ariely argues that most people do not pay attention to the expenditure - things directly deducted from our bank accounts or credit card i.e. whatever is on one’s automatic payment schedule. So we sometimes cut the wrong things, i.e. the things that have a direct impact on our pleasure, and not much on expenditure and ignoring things hidden which might greatly reduce expenditure yet hardly impact on our pleasure.

Ariely states that regardless of most people’s financial astuteness the odds are that people will make the wrong cuts. One reason for this is that often we are very bad at predicting what our life might look like in the future - The change in circumstances. When we look to the future we think it will be terrible. It turns out to be so in the short term but then it is quite manageable.

For business owners financial decisions are better made with a business finance consultant specialist, and a good online resource in the UK is Business Support Finder.

All specialists are accredited, offering current liability cover which in this case would be Professional Indemnity Insurance for financial specilaists.