To improve anything one must first understand what need to be improved. In improving all aspects of your company the first thing that must be done is an audit of accounts receivables, accounts payables, cash, profit margin, human resources, and quality. Since these are the core functions of any business a thorough knowledge of these is critical to improving the company.

When this information is gathered from the audit an analysis need to be performed on each area and strategies need to be developed that will guide the transformation process. Many of the core areas are involved with finance and therefore undergirdes all attempts to performance improvement. Once these analysis have been done the next step will be the development of a transformation plan with strategies for each core activity of the business entity. This will ensure that each core area an its corresponding support function is addressed.

In the audit and in the transformation plan the questions of who, what, when, where, how, and why must be asked and answered. Answering these questions will yield critical information that will help in developing the implementation plan after all the strategies have been developed. These questions will lead the company to do a situational audit so that it may determine its postion in the market in which it competes in relationship to those companies that make up the market. Such a competitive analysis will provide greater insight into what needs to be improved in order to enhance the company’s competitive position in the market.

Improving all aspects of your company will hopefully make the company more competitive and maybe an industry leader. Any company that will take the time to do market research will understand why it is necessary to perform an overhaul of all aspects of the company. Since the company competes in a global marketplace and the economy is in constant change it becomes necessary for the company to keep up with that change which therefore makes improving all aspects of your company critical.

The simplest way to go at change is to develop a systems view of the company. Every company has several systems at work at all times. When these systems all work in synchronization then the company will function smoothly. These systems; materials, people, finance, benefits, and education must all be of high quality and high functionality in-order to maintain constant improvement in performance. By looking at the systems and core functions of your company on a periodic basis you can maintain an ongoing quality improvement program that will ensure continued improvement on into the future.

What does it mean to put one’s money to work? Basically, when we have money, 99% of the time it is sitting in a checking account. Most people that have their money in a checking have it in a non-interest bearing checking account. There are many reasons why this could be. First, the account minimum for an interest bearing checking account is almost always higher than for a regular checking account, and we may not have the additional necessary funds. Second, we may not know whether our bank offers an interest bearing checking account and, therefore, have never inquired about such. Last, we may not care.

Let me clear something up before we move on. Interest bearing checking accounts are not going to make we rich, however, why would you pass up free money? Additionally, this article is intended for our normal money supply (normal money supply means the money you use to pay bills, buy groceries, and use for all of your other living expenses), not money that you have set aside for investment. It would not be practical for us to move all of this money to a savings account, because savings accounts usually do not come with check writing privileges or debit card options. Therefore, we would have to constantly move money between your savings and checking accounts in order to pay bills. What is the solution? The solution is to find a bank that offers a decent interest rate and a low enough minimum balance for you to take advantage of interest bearing checking. Note that we may have to look beyond the “major” banks in order to find something like this.

Interest bearing checking is not the only way to make your money work for us. Investments such as real estate and the stock market can offer continuous returns (appreciation and rents in real estate and dividends and capital gains in the stock market) on your money. The problem that rises with these investments is the level of risk involved. As many people recently learned, it is easy to lose your real estate investment if we get in over your head. Additionally, unless you know a little bit about financial speculation, the stock market may prove to be a waste of time and money. Also, these investments may need a lot of initial capital to start and, therefore, may not be appropriate for your “normal money supply.”

Under the worst case scenario, we could put your money in a savings account. It will offer a higher interest rate than will interest bearing checking, but will have the disadvantages discussed above.

Find ways to get our money working and you will find that all of those extra dollars acquired by way of interest or investment will really start to add up