Business

Archive for May, 2009

Before discussing strategic plan management, it is important to understand the basic concept of a strategic business plan. This is a management tool used to decide the values, objectives, goals, and responsibilities of your company. Your strategic plan provides proper direction to your company by ensuring that all the members are working in a unified manner towards a common purpose. Hence, strategic plan management is important for the better utilization of your resources and ensuring you adapt to a changing market place.

What does strategic plan management entail?

The very significance of strategic plan management lies in the word ‘strategic’ itself. You refer to this business plan as strategic because it prepares your organization in advance for facing changing environments and circumstances. This can be achieved only when you are sure about the objectives and resources of your company and know how to combine both for facing your competition.

You start by making plans, setting down goals and time lines to meet these aims. During the implementation of the strategic business plan, your employees share the focus, and through implementing required actions and reviewing the results, assess the effectiveness of strategic plan management. The best approach uses a systematic questionnaire for finding out information about the present and bases future assumptions upon that discovery.

At the end of the business planning stage, some crucial decisions have to be undertaken that will determine the practical steps you need to take. Hence, the entire business plan boils down to these action steps, which are of critical importance. Once the plan is documented and the scheduled actions have been determined, the strategic plan management process really begins. Apart from the basic purpose, what matters most now is the discipline needed for implementing the strategies and a determination to make it happen. Many business plans never see the light of day once the ink is dry. Strategic plan management is the process that follows the planning.

The elements of a strategic business plan

Strategic plan management incorporates three levels of plan making:

1.Organizational: This level determines the organizational purpose, or mission, and the strategies that lead to organizational development.

2.Programmatic: This will involve initiatives for managing, developing and delivering certain programs.

3.Functional: This has to do with satisfying the means to influence the effectiveness, administration and efficiency of your organization.

After you have taken an analysis of the in-house information, you have to turn your focus to the external market data and use these in the development of the strategic business plan. Only this depth of analysis can make the process of strategic plan management effective. The formation of strategies can prove to be rather interesting and easy if you know how to inspire your workers to participate in the whole affair. However, the real results come from the management of the process once the business plan is completed.

Q. I want to immigrate to Canada. I’m 28 yrs old and married with one child. I’m fairly fluent in English but I don’t speak French. I have more than 10 years experience as a Student Counselor. I lack money and don’t have a sponsor in Canada. I haven’t been offered a job in Canada. What’s the cheapest and easiest way to migrate to Canada from Pakistan?



A. A TVR (Temporary Resident Visa)  will ensure that you’ll enter Canada legally. CIC (Canadian Immigration authority) will take a number of factors into account. This includes any relevant visas that you may have been issued by other countries and your record of immigration compliancy. They’ll also consider whether you’ve skills that are in shortage in Canada. If you’re able to show you’ve acquired a suitable offer of employment in your skilled occupation, this should strengthen your TRV application considerably.

Immigration Unit assists you in securing a job offer with a Labour Market approval. However, there’s an element of risk involved as CIC must first approve your  TRV  for entry into Canada. As long as your skill level, age (under 49), health and character (no criminal record) is acceptable there is a very good probability that your application will be approved.

Answered by Guy – Immigration Group Senior Migration Consultant based in Manchester, UK.



Q. I am planning to emigrate to Australia or Canada. Why should I consider Canada or Australia? When thinking about migration, I think about equal opportunities, a job, education for my child, healthcare and a peaceful country, etc. I’m married with one child aged 6. My partner and I have attained BA Degrees in business.

A. The choice between the two countries is primarily about eligibility and preference. Both countries have similiar populations (Aus 22m; Can 30m); both are primarily English speaking countries; they’ve been relatively unaffected by the global credit crunch and continue to have robust and thriving economies. They’ve excellent universal health care, an outstanding reputation relating to their education credentials throughout the world and they enjoy relatively crime free urban and rural communities.

Generally speaking, the west coast of Canada is one of the mildest parts of the country with Vancouver experiencing the fewest days of snow. Yet, you can head to nearby mountains to find snow, skiing and snowboarding.

Australia’s northern states have a more humid and tropical climate than further south which experience a colder, wetter climate.For a free professional assessment of your circumstances, fill out our free assessment form or call 0845 2 606030. Want to know more about emigrating to Australia, Canada and New Zealand? Visit our website: immigrationunit.com

Answered by Marisa – Immigration Unit Case Officer based in Cape Town, South Africa

Public relations is fundamentally the art and science of establishing relationships between an organization and its key audiences. Public relations plays a key role in helping business industries create strong relationships with customers.

Public relations involves supervising and assessing public attitudes, and maintaining mutual relations and understanding between an organization and its public. The function of public relations is to improve channels of communication and to institute new ways of setting up a two-way flow of information and understanding.

Public relations is effective in helping: * Corporations convey information about their products or services to potential customers * Corporations reach local government and legislators * Politicians attract votes and raise money, and craft their public image and legacy * Non-profit organizations, including schools, hospitals, social service agencies etc. boost support of their programs such as awareness programs, fund-raising programs, and to increase patronage of their services

Public relations in present times employs diverse techniques such as opinion polling and focus groups to evaluate public opinion, combined with a variety of high-tech techniques for distributing information on behalf of their clients, including the internet, satellite feeds, broadcast faxes, and database-driven phone banks.

As public image is important to all organizations and prominent personalities the role of public relations specialist becomes pertinent in crisis situations. Public relations agencies provide important and timely transmission of information that helps save the face of the organization. In the words of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), “Public relations helps an organization and its public adopt mutually to one another.”

Experienced public relations agencies have formulation press releases into which they can plug the company news, as well as a targeted list of publications for their industry. Truly good public relations agencies generally have a good working relationship with key reporters, boosting their chances of getting coverage. Some public relations agencies deal only with large, established clients, while smaller boutique public relations agencies specialize in certain areas.

At present public relations as a career option exists in private companies or government institutions that actively market their product, service and facilities. Public relations training courses are widespread in educational institutions. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 122,000 public relations specialists in the United States in 1998 and approximately 485,000 advertising, marketing, and public relations managers working in all industries.

Most public relations practitioners are recruited from the ranks of journalism. Public relations officers are highly trained professionals with expertise and knowledge in many areas, for example shareholder management during a crisis, the evolving role of the in-house public relations professional, account management skills for public relations, an introduction to financial public relations, an introduction to consumer public relations, an introduction to public relations software etc.