Submitted by: Jessie L Warner

This is the last article in a series of articles discussing how to effectively use project portfolio management in your business. In this article, I want to talk about how projects should contribute to the firm s health and help position the firm for future success.

Remember, for project portfolio management to be effective, projects must:

1.Be aligned with the firm s strategy and goals

2.Be consistent with the firm s values and culture

3.Contribute (directly or indirectly) to a positive cash flow for the enterprise.

4.Effectively use the firm s resources both people and resources

5.Not only provide for current contributions to the firm s health but must help to position the firm for future success.

Projects Must Contribute to the Firm s Health

When we talk about a firm s health, we are typically referring to the financial stability of the company. In an article by Lynn Westergard titled Measuring Company Health Via Cash Flow Ratios he refers to the Statement of Cash Flows as being the best indicator for measuring health. The most useful cash flow ratios fall into two general categories. The first group consists of ratios that test for solvency and liquidity: operating cash flow, fund flow coverage, cash interest coverage and cash debt coverage. The second group of ratios indicates the viability of a business as an ongoing concern. It includes “cash to capital expenditures” (CE) and “cash to total debt” (TD) ratios.

Without going into a class on how to interpret financial statements, let s summarize what Lynn Westergard said by simply stating that for a firm to be healthy it must be able to meet its current liabilities and be in a position to finance its future growth. Because projects are often resource and cash intensive, selecting the right projects are key to the health of the firm. Projects that contribute to the financial stability of the company provide additional cash flow and financial leverage to help the company be profitable today and in the future. Selecting the wrong projects can cause unnecessary debt in both the short-term and long-term, as well as significantly impact the firm s ability to grow.

Projects Must Help Position the Firm for Future Success

Along with their ability to contribute to the firm s current health, projects must help position the firm for future success. Below are few questions to consider when selecting projects:

– Will this project provide a competitive advantage for my company?

– Does the project enhance my product or service offering?

– Can I use the project to demonstrate company stability?

– Can I use the project as a reference to help me get more projects?

– Does the project provide future cash flows to help sustain my company s growth?

– When can I expect a return on my investment? Is it a short-term or long-term return?

I m sure that are many more questions you could ask, but the real point here is that for project portfolio management to be effective, you must consider the company s future when selecting projects. Will it help the company be more successful or will it hurt the company?

About the Author: Jessie L. Warner, MBA and a life-long student of project management, seeks to promote the need for and benefits of project management software. Learn more about AtTask by visiting

attask.com

Source:

isnare.com

Permanent Link:

isnare.com/?aid=579292&ca=Business+Management

How Can Social Media Management Help SEM?

by

BroadPlace

If you look at the bigger picture you ll see that there s a whole world out there just waiting to be tapped into through social media, no matter what your product or service may be. Take Twitter for example; this totally free social media platform is used by millions of people every day, and is often favoured by those who are part of a community and who want to have their say.

Through this site you find followers rather than friends, most of whom will have a common interest with you or just like what you Tweet about. This is different from a site like Facebook, which is more likely to be used for when people want to chat to their real life friends, and is therefore a much more difficult platform on which to build a brand identity which is what social media marketing is all about.

By using a site such as Twitter to build your brand identity or personality, you will find it easier, as this is essentially what this platform has been used for already. All in all, you want to create a buzz here. This means getting people Tweeting about your URL and linking back to your site. This in turn will generate more followers and more clicks to your website. To create a buzz you really need to get people talking, so you ll need to do your research by targeting certain online communities relating to your product or service and get involved with what they re talking about. This will make you part of a community yourself, which can earn you vital clicks and increased traffic sometimes just as much as you would get through pay per click advertising.

This isn t all it can do though. Google has become very clever these days, and can detect when a buzz about a brand is happening online and through social media. Once it detects this genuine reaction, your website will automatically be ranked higher on search engine results pages therefore improving your SEM.

All in all, along with

pay per click

advertising and other SEM techniques, social media management has become an essential part of internet marketing and building a brand, that shouldn t be overlooked. It s all about having a strong social media presence so that Google recognises it on its own. By being aware of your main objectives to create a personality/identity, get involved with hot topics and generally be active online then this in time should grow organically.

Visit http://www.broadplace.com for more information on

PPC consulting

and SEO packages.

Article Source:

ArticleRich.com