No matter the industry or size of the business, scaling is a critical component of achieving success. Many of the most successful companies in the world have developed swiftly by doing so—think Amazon, Uber and Airbnb. Scaling can take different forms, including expanding services and products, increasing resources such as personnel or funding, and enhancing marketing efforts. Each option requires careful planning and implementation to achieve success. This is why, according to France’s NEOMA Business School professor Vijay Pereira, “The ability to scale rapidly is a key factor in determining the success of any business venture.” After all, if you don’t scale, you don’t grow. When scaling, think of it like climbing a mountain—start with small steps. Don’t rush into anything without doing your due diligence first. Collect data and use it to inform your decisions, manage your resources effectively, get the right advice from experienced professionals and ensure that you have a solid strategy in place. Then, with the proper foundation, you can scale your business towards success. That said, the process can be both exciting and daunting because it requires careful planning, strategy and execution to ensure that you don’t overextend and become overwhelmed. Bare in mind […]

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KNOW YOUR ASSETS: Cows often hold a sentimental place in a farmer’s heart. Taking time to study each cow on what they bring to the beef business may determine if they are profit-makers or keepers. Business Basics: Beef #herd managers need to know their cow performance and profitability. Do you have a favorite cow or two or three? Maybe she greets you each morning and waits to be scratched behind the ears. Maybe she looks picture perfect like she just stepped off a glossy magazine cover, or consistently raises the biggest calf each year. Maybe it’s sentimental. My favorite is my daughter’s very first bucket calf she showed at the county fair. I’ll bet if we are honest, we all have a few favorite cows. But which cows in your herd are the most profitable? Can you identify them? Years ago, while visiting one of my local dairies, the producer commented how his “anonymous cows” were the key to the operation. For instance, his father asked, “Who is cow 215?” After thinking about it, he responded, “I don’t really know. I know she’s not one of our top producers, but looking back at the records, I can’t see where […]

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LONDON and BOSTON, Jan. 30, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — ESG and sustainability continue to remain top of mind for both business leaders and consumers. And survey research conducted by global strategy consultancy L.E.K. Consulting indicates both groups are committed to becoming more sustainable – and are willing to pay a price and make trade-offs for it. In fact, according to an L.E.K. Consulting survey of over 2,700 consumers in the UK, U.S. and Australia, more than half report they’re turning their backs on unsustainable products and services – while 55% report they may change brands due to ESG considerations and 56% said they’re willing to pay up to 40% more for sustainable products. And the hunger for sustainability is the same inside organizations. The majority of large companies around the world have made net-zero carbon emissions commitments, and 54% of executives say their companies should address ESG issues – even if doing so reduces short-term financial performance, according to an L.E.K. survey of 400 C-suite global leaders. But there’s also a large gap between the desire for progress and the capacity to make it happen, says John Goddard, Partner at L.E.K. Consulting and Vice Chair, Sustainability. "Unless the disconnect can […]

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Email, voice calling, webchat: today’s businesses need them all in order to stay connected with their customers. The always-on modern world has seen a rapid and far-ranging evolution of the powerful, cloud-based technology upon which it all depends. However, simple SMS is fast becoming the channel of choice — and smarter businesses are rightly putting it at the heart of their customer service strategy by deploying a communication platform as a service (CPaaS) that has messaging fully covered. CPaaS provides an easy way for businesses to add new communication capabilities to existing applications without having to build those capabilities from scratch. This can save businesses time and money, while also providing them with more flexibility in how they communicate with customers and employees. In a recent survey, 85% of smartphone owners said they prefer texts to calls or emails — a reflection on how much we all look to our mobile phones to help us run pretty much every aspect of our lives. Speed and convenience, it seems, are more important to us than pretty much anything else. In the hospitality and travel sector — where those two imperatives are perhaps most at play — the ability to communicate […]

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The Hispanic business community continues to be underserved by the financial services industry, according to a recent Nationwide survey. (Image: freshidea/Adobe Stock) I grew up around Hispanic entrepreneurs. My father was a former Mexican migrant worker who, along with others in my family, went on to build businesses that are still successful today. While they faced many challenges along the way, they succeeded in the end because they believed in themselves. Want to continue reading? Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader. INCLUDED IN A DIGITAL MEMBERSHIP: All PropertyCasualty360.com news coverage, best practices, and in-depth analysis. Educational webcasts, resources from industry leaders, and informative newsletters. Other award-winning websites including BenefitsPRO.com and ThinkAdvisor.com.

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Photo – Sam’s Club Sam’s Club plans to open a new warehouse club next year in Florida. It will be the first new club the chain has opened since 2017. The second largest warehouse club chain in the U.S. last week said it intends to add 30 new clubs “over the next several years” as it seeks to build on “historic comparable sales growth” sustained since the outset of the pandemic. “We’ve seen remarkable growth over the past few years with a record number of members, and we’re excited to bring the experience of Sam’s Club to even more markets as we expand our footprint,” Sam’s president and CEO Kathryn McLay said in a statement . “And as we open new clubs in new locations, we’ll continue to innovate so that our members shop and save whether in person or online.” Sam’s may not have opened new clubs in recent years, but it has invested in its existing locations to make them more welcoming to its members. The majority of the chain’s 600 clubs have been remodeled to be brighter and easier to get around. Service desks have been upgraded to better serve customers and Sam’s Scan & Go […]

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In the Know is a monthly partnership between LP Gas and Propane Resources . This month, Adam Zoellner and Sean McCann explain why implementing software can improve your propane company’s value proposition. QUESTION: How does software impact the value of your business? ANSWER: When was the last time you modernized an aspect of your company? Was it this year, last year, five years ago, even longer? Photo: ipuwadol/iStock / Getty Images Plus/Getty Images Your competition is always modernizing and so should you. A reluctance to modernize and adapt to ever-changing technologies will decay your company from the inside out. A successful propane company requires implementation of modern technologies to remain competitive. Negligence to adapt will result in an antiquated operation. Technological adaptation can improve all aspects of your company’s functions, including routing, customer management and weather-based operations. Business owners will see tremendous value in software applications that are on the market today. The value of these new system upgrades will spill over into other aspects of your business. From the smallest operation with a handful of employees to companies with several dozen, every company has a routing method that “works” for them. One big difference is the amount of […]

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Retrieved from Danone. Dive Brief: Danone said in a statement it is exploring strategic options, including a potential sale, for its organic dairy business in the U.S. The segment is made up of the Horizon Organic and Wallaby brands. Horizon Organic and Wallaby, which offer organic dairy products, including milk, creamers, yogurt, cheese and butter, represent about 3% of Danone’s global revenues. Antoine De Saint-Affrique, Danone’s CEO, vowed last March he would improve performance in troubled offerings including Horizon Organic and traditional dairy, invest more in winning products and create value by selling existing brands or buying new ones. Dive Insight: Before De Saint-Affrique’s arrival, Danone, whose brands include Activia yogurt, plant-based Silk and Evian water, struggled with a stagnant share price and pressure on many of its key businesses. In the time since he took the helm, the former Barry Callebaut chief has wasted little time making changes and pushing for growth at the France-based food and beverage giant. Earlier this month, Danone appointed three deputy CEOs to improve its decision-making, execution and growth. Danone has also pushed innovation in many of its key brands. This includes two dairy-like plant-based alternatives , Silk Nextmilk and So Delicious Wondermilk, […]

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With Developers Focused on Building Massive New Distribution Facilities, Small, Blue-Collar Businesses in High-Growth Sunbelt Markets Face a Space Crunch In southern U.S. port cities such as Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida, blocks of available industrial space that are smaller than 50,000 square feet typically spent an average of about nine months on the market before leasing during the 10 years prior to the pandemic. Since then, the median time to lease for these smaller industrial spaces has plunged to a record low of between two and three months in all three locations in 2022, a leasing speed typically only seen in Southern California, which has long been widely regarded as the tightest industrial market in the U.S. This news story is available exclusively to CoStar subscribers. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Mute Current Time / Duration Loaded: 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind liveLIVE Remaining Time – Share 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off, selected Captions captions settings, opens captions settings dialog captions off, selected Audio Track Picture-in-PictureFullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. TextColorWhiteTransparencyOpaqueBackgroundColorBlackTransparencyOpaqueWindowColorBlackTransparencyTransparent Font Size100%Text Edge […]

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In December, Cometeer quietly conducted layoffs and installed its chief operating officer as co-CEO. Former employees spoke of dysfunction and high executive turnover as growth has slowed at the most-funded coffee startup ever, where headcount is down nearly 50%. To the outside world, Cometeer was buzzing. Its coffee — roasted by elite partner brands like Counter Culture and Joe Coffee, flash-frozen and shipped in recyclable aluminum pods that needed only to be dropped into hot water to serve — was beloved by tech influencers and venture capitalists alike. When Cometeer announced $35 million in funding from name-brand investors in October 2021, taking its total raised to $100 million, the startup became the highest-funded coffee startup ever. “We’re hiring folks from Apple, Tesla, Palantir and Wayfair,” founder Matthew Roberts told Forbes then. “We are talking about real tech companies, real tech employees coming into the coffee industry because they see the opportunity to change an industry that’s really been stuck in its old ways.” But behind the scenes, it’s Cometeer that’s been stuck in a cycle of layoffs, executive departures and dysfunction that has contributed to slowed growth and a doubtful future. June and December layoffs, never publicly acknowledged, each […]

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