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Managing risk is essential in every organization to accomplish its key objectives effectively. Risk management not only requires a reliable process to capture risks, but also needs a mechanism to document and administer the organization’s response.An appropriate risk management tool always helps the risk managers to identify, assess, and prioritize the risks which can be prevented. Here, we will discuss about spreadsheets – commonly used risk management tools and their true costs. We will also know about the best tool to replace spreadsheets for effective risk management.Spreadsheets are commonly used management tools because they are
• Convenient to use: Many people believe that spreadsheets are convenient to collect, code, sort and analyze data. Yes, they are better than paper based management systems, but they are risky.• Flexible to enter data: With some basic encoding, spreadsheets offer flexible arrangements of rows and columns to enter data. They allow the user to configure and enter information in a way that suits his unique needs. But risk management involves analysis of various factors and a spreadsheet may not be helpful.• Low cost or free option: Spreadsheets are either available as freeware or at low-cost. That is why organizations use them extensively. But they fail to understand the fact that the true cost of a tool should be defined by the operational costs that affect the business on long-run; not by the initial cost of the tool.Are they really beneficial?
Many business owners and risk managers today are using spreadsheets as risk management tools unaware of the risks involved (however some are aware). Here are the risks involved:• Inability to process huge amounts of data: Although spreadsheets are a good solution for small volumes of data, the processing and calculation will become complicated with the continual growth.• Time consuming: Risk management requires collecting great deal of information, which often results in huge number of spreadsheets interlinked to each other. A little change to the data structure becomes a great task. This makes risk managers spend countless hours validating data, double checking formulas, and updating values, which is as a time-consuming process.• Complex to find mistakes: It is quite difficult to find mistakes in a spreadsheet with lot of data. It is often time consuming process to find where exactly the mistakes have occurred.• Limits the depth of risk analysis: With each change made to a spreadsheet, links between the information are lost making it difficult to analyze relationships over time. Without these links, it becomes tough to link risks and their controls. Also they offer limited access to past and current data making it difficult to compare data overtime.• Intensive labor: The process of risk management involves continuous updating of data and it increases day by day. Updating data and using spreadsheets effectively requires lot of time and effort. So intensive labor with good knowledge of using the shortcuts and formulas is compulsory.• Lacks security: A user can accidentally or intentionally delete vast amounts of critical information. Spreadsheets are highly vulnerable to virus attacks, hard disk crashes, and other unexpected disasters.Underlying costs of using spreadsheets
In general, people think that spreadsheets are free, but they never calculate the underlying costs that can impact the business. Following are the true costs of using them.• Labor costs: As discussed earlier, it takes lot of effort to create, maintain, organize, and report using spreadsheets. However, the fact that these things require labor, which in turn results in huge costs to the company, is often ignored.• Opportunity costs: Spreadsheets consume lot of your time and effort, which you can productively use for adding value to the organization. Many business owners, in fact, lose many opportunities hanging around with spreadsheets.• Risk and non-compliance costs: Spreadsheets lack in company wide visibility, accountability, security and control which results in increased costs in terms of failed audits, unforeseen events, increased insurance costs and so on.• Scalability costs: A small company can manage and use one spreadsheet to track all records. But as the business grows, the effort of maintaining and consolidating these records increases exponentially. At one point this process fails and negatively impacts the business.• Human error costs: Spreadsheets are vulnerable to manipulation, which can dramatically impact the company. Moreover, with the increasing chances of human errors, it is difficult to consider that the data is valid and reliable. These human errors can cost a lot to the company.Effective tool to replace spreadsheet – Risk Management Software
After seeing all the risks and costs involved with spreadsheets, one would certainly ask for a better tool to manage risks and here is the solution – the Risk Management Software. It can effectively replace spreadsheets in the risk management process. Following are the benefits of using risk management software.• Effective control over GRC processes: Risk management software helps in the effective control over the GRC (governance, risk management, and compliance) processes with proper documentation and work flow. They also help managers in risk assessment and analysis, visualization and reporting.• Data security: User can limit the availability of data by creating passwords. He can also give full access to all the data to a particular group of people within the organization. This feature eliminates the risk of manipulation of data.• Real time recording: Recording and updating information regarding risks is easy using this software. You need not spend hours to update the data.• Reliable audits: This software offers full protection to all the data in the system with fully automated backups. This allows auditors to extract robust and reliable audit trails without unnecessary effort and thus it helps them in identification of risks, and creation of risk management strategies.• Automated risk reporting: It provides the user with clear information on their objectives and risks associated. It also informs about the required actions and scheduled dates to implement them to prevent risks.• Clear and consistent reports: A unique feature of this software is that it provides clear and consistent reports making it easy for managers to view the risks in real-time.How to choose effective risk management software
With growing demand of the risk management software, many companies offering this software evolved in the market. Therefore it is important to choose the effective one to reap the maximum benefits. Following are some tips to choose a good one.• Reputed vendor: A well established and experienced vendor definitely offers standard products as he fully understands risk management standards.• Maximum features: Before buying the product, make sure that it has all features to help you in managing the risks properly.• Customer service and tech support: As this product is new for the organization, it is important to choose a company that offers 24/7 tech support and timely customer service. Moreover, as risk environment demands a constant change of compliance, make sure that the vendor is offering regular product updates and maintenance releases.An upgrade in the existing technology never says that the existing product is of no use, instead offers the user with more useful features. Upgrading to latest tools like risk management software enhances the organization’s capabilities in managing risk.

Digital Marketing / Internet Marketing / Online Marketing are one of the most used terms of the industry today. However, it is sadly just a bunch of jargon for most of the people who hear it and use it to convey their mind. What exactly is digital marketing and what part of it is essential for today’s business person? We’re here to break it down for you in the simplest words possible.Online Marketing is simply marketing of your product or service onto digital platforms so as to hold onto your loyal consumers as well as increase your reach to new potential target audience swiftly.That is it. That is what Online marketing is. There are some further questions that need attention to solve your confusion; such as:Is digital marketing the same as social media marketing?The answer is yes. Digital / Internet marketing is a wider concept as compared to social media marketing in the sense that, all social media platforms are available digitally i.e. via the internet. However, there are other platforms that come under digital marketing other than social media marketing.What are the concepts and platforms of digital marketing?The search engines that we use to search our queries and requirements are in themselves a humongous platform for online marketing. This concept is called “Search Engine Marketing” or SEM.Search Engine Marketing is marketing of your product on search engines such as Google and Bing by Yahoo. This platform is of utmost importance for businesses that are into a B2B industry.Another concept that comes under the wing of digital marketing is “Search Engine Optimization” or SEO. Search Engine Optimization is a way of developing your website’s content in a way that allows the search engine’s algorithm to crawl and test your website efficiently. It is a way to get higher rankings in the search results on the search engine; helping us to have a better hand at SEM.SEO is a primary necessity of any and every website owner as it helps you stand out among the sea of websites we see today.Social Media Marketing is a concept that comprises of campaigns designed to market your product or service on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. SMM is a great tool when it comes to products that have a B2C segment.There is an interesting concept called Re-marketing in Internet marketing which enables us to reach out to the potential consumer base multiple times. It can be seen as following your consumer on various platforms, websites and showing your personalized ad copy to them so as to keep reminding them about their visit to your website.This also enables us to work on another factor called Consumer Lifetime Value wherein we can increase our reach to existing customers and improve our ROI from these consumers through various practices such as Email Marketing, Re-marketing, Paid Ad campaigns, RSS Feeds etc.However, for a great digital / Internet marketing experience, a campaign needs to be developed using all the above mentioned platforms.How is digital marketing different from traditional marketing?Digital Marketing is cost effective in terms of better reach and results.Internet Marketing lets you target specific audience based upon demographics, interest and devices.Internet Marketing gives us factual data that can be statistically analysed. For instance, if a hoarding is marketing your product, you have no clue how many people saw the hoarding, read the content and actually became customers because of that hoarding. However, in Digital marketing, say we run a campaign marketing the same product, we can analyse the data produced by different marketing platforms that can show us how many people saw the product, how many actually became consumers and which consumers came via which of the used platforms. This allows us to find glitches in our campaign and work on it to make it even more action driven.But then should traditional marketing be stopped completely?Of course not! Traditional marketing, in fact, paired with digital marketing can give results superior than just traditional or digital marketing.However, one thing that people mistake about digital marketing is that it can be done for free. It is true to an extent; however, to get the best results, digital marketing needs to have an independent budget. Money must be set aside to be able to exploit all the opportunities that digital marketing has to offer to your business and its glorious future.

Start A Home Business And Get In The Black The Next DayThis is that wonderful time of year when the frost starts to thaw, flowers begin to bloom and everyone is either doing their taxes, finishing them,or fretting about said taxes. And possibly contemplating a revolution.It’s no secret that in today’s economy, countless numbers of people are tying t find ways to make more money and quickly. The best way to make money fast is by starting a home based business; therefore it might come as a shock to some when I say it is possible to profit immediately when you start a home based business simply by applying some techniques to shield more of your hard-earned income from taxes instead keep it in your pockets.However, I was taken aback at how many people who start a home based business don’t take full advantage of the assets that this sort of opportunity presents. In fact, the minute you start a home based business opportunity, you become privy to a number of benefits you didn’t have available before. Even if you’re not making any money in your business, if you apply proper techniques available to a business owner, you will be saving money you otherwise would parted with to Uncle Sam. ( Or whatever uncle is in charge of your respective government. )But maybe not as manyNow when you elect to start a home based business there are of course some elements you need to examine first:
The type of business: is it something you can succeed in, and believe you can enjoy?
What kinds of new skills will you need to develop for this business, and will you have either someone or a quality system to help you develop those skills necessary to thrive?
What is the leadership like of the home based business opportunity you decide to join? What is their reputation?
Research the history of the company and whether other people are finding success with whatever system or endeavor you decide to explore. There are an incredible number of “programs” on the internet that promise one they can work 15 minutes a day and bank huge amounts for doing nothing. Be careful when you come across these types of opportunities because the majority are affiliate products designed to make money for the person marketing the program, not necessarily for the buyer. Some of them may work, when it comes time for you to start a home based business you just need to do your due diligence.
A quick note for when you’re doing your research about starting a home based business: when you research a business and find the word “scam” frequently appear in the search engines, don’t let this immediately deter you: continue to do your due diligence and explore why exactly someone is saying that opportunity is a “scam”. the reason is many marketers target other businesses, hoping to leach traffic off one opportunity onto their own by catching people’s attention who don’t know better. In the old days, one could trust what they found on the internet; you have to be much more careful now. Measure once, cut twice, that is the carpenter’s rule of thumb and one you should heed when you decide to start a home based business. You want to be able to enter with confidence and excitement.One caveat before I proceed: everything that follows is simply a suggestion and I highly suggest you stay within your limits and do not exaggerate any of your tax deductions. The IRS is hurting right now just as many citizens are- and would just love for you to finagle with your taxes and invite an audit. ( In fact, there is an entire departments of the IRS that have been mobilized over the last couple of years simply to pore over older tax records in the hope of finding past discrepancies that they can then fine someone for.) So don’t invite the wolf in and you should be fine.He’ll come and knock on your door…Start a Home Based Business and Profit ImmediatelySome of the items you can profit from once you start a home based business:Office rent-This is one everyone should know and use but I’m including it because like I mentioned before, a lot of people overlook these benefits. Even if you’re using a spare bedroom, you can take your office space and ( the size of the bedroom or a percentage of your house-don’t go overboard with this and claim like ” All of my house is an office because I work in every part of it!” or anything, this won’t fly with the IRS. There are ways to use tax laws to your advantage but not abuse them. )Typically you can deduct somewhere around $1.75 per square foot, so if you have an office that is only 120 square feet, you can deduct around $210. But that’s every month.Computer-You are allowed to write off around $25,000 annually for equipment and business assets, so a new computer, printer, fax, modem, etc. all fit into this category.Health Insurance- medical, dental, and even disability. Smart.Start-Up Expenses and Marketing- business cards, the expenses of joining, and if you enter into network marketing,( one of the best forms of home based business) you can even deduct the PRODUCT as well.Meals-you have to eat right? And sometimes have business lunches. A word of caution with this one: don’t overuse it by claiming an inordinate amount of meals eaten were business related. When traveling one can only write off 50 % of meal costs as well.Telephone- this is only related to a separate business line, not your regular home phone; but you can write that second line off, along with internet too.Auto -It is important to keep good records with this one, but when you start a home based business you are allowed an monthly auto allowance according to how many miles each month the car is driven. Right now I believe it is allowable to around 50 cents/mile currently for all miles you’ve used that go toward business purposes. It is up to you to determine exactly what those are, -but can include meetings, meals, and…Travel- one can deduct half their meals, plus lodging and transportation. Foreign travel is a bit different, but basically is three quarters of the trip is spent on business, you are good to go.Subscriptions-these of course have to be related to your type of business- magazines, business clubs, and even college courses can be deductible if they fit the right description, meaning they can further your business.Retirement plans-This one could be an article unto itself, so perhaps it is best saved for another time. But basically refers to setting up and contributing to a tax beneficial 401k or IRA.Other benefits include a cafeteria plan, dependent care, and if you elect to start a corporation ( which you can do for less than 500 bucks and as little as 145) you can also get a lower tax rate for your business and the income you generate through it. )So the lower tax rate and many of the other benefits one can apply from the moment they start a home business even part time are obviously a huge boon. If your business is more mature, you may want to look into an S or LLC. It’s wise to consult with someone that knows your situation for any final decision, because ultimately you want your corporation to work for you.Start A Home Business And Never Lose.Starting a successful home venture consists of 2 aspects, and while you can find plenty more on my site about the various ways to achieve this- they are…1) Cash flow2) Leads- which are basically people interested in your business, no matter what your particular business consists of.