Develop a debt management process

On March 24, 2010, in crisis, debt, economy, finances, foreclosure, by admin
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In the early 1990s, I was consulting with a large telecommunications company. I was part of a team that developed a partnership between management and the union to improve the quality of work processes. When I asked the management and union representatives to describe the company’s culture, I heard: “It’s like living in the old Soviet Union.” The number of times I heard that analogy made an impact on me. Since I knew none of these people had lived in the Soviet Union, I asked them to elaborate. They gave me this list:

  • Autocratic management style
  • Dictatorial decision making
  • No meaningful input from employees
  • Closed access to information (secretive)
  • Mistrust among employees
  • Resistance to change
  • Motivation based only on self-interest
  • Favoritism

Now contrast that list with the list of positive components of interdependence given to me by Jack Stack, general manager of Springfield Remanufacturing:

  • Embracing change
  • Development of trust
  • Meaningful contributions to decision making by employees
  • Open management style
  • Fewer employee problems
  • Win-win conflict resolution
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Collecting credit information

On October 15, 2009, in foreclosure, get out of debt, income, income improvement, investments, loans, making money, by admin
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Computer systems are used widely to record and analyse every part of the transaction between businesses and their customers. In using technology in this way, the following principles should be followed.

Decide what information to collect. It is important to avoid drowning in information about customers that is of little or no real use. Work out what information is desirable and focus on collecting it in order of importance. For a shoe firm, shoe size will be crucial, whereas head size will be of no use at all unless the shoe firm is planning to diversify into hats. Work out where more than one set of data needs to be assessed before a conclusion can be drawn. This interrelation of information is important when analysing data that has been aggregated from a range of sources. The focus for information collection needs to be on building better one-to-one relationships with individual customers. With data mining, the objective is to provide an information engine that will drive the organisation so customers receive a continuously improving service.

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Approach to credit data collection

On October 11, 2009, in making money, money advice, money issues, money management, money problems, money tips, by admin
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Decide how best to collect the data. Data collection requires a sophisticated approach. It may involve just a few simple, easy-toanswer questions, but it may depend on them being asked at the right time. For example, when a customer has decided to buy online and is at the order screen, provide them with payment options asking how they would prefer to pay, or whether they would be prepared to pay a premium for delivery. Competitions are another popular method of gathering data, as are online surveys.

Test the effectiveness of data collection. The process of data collection may seem logical and necessary, but does it seem so to the customer? Will customers think they are being asked questions that are time-consuming, annoyingor pointless? If so, the cost of acquiringsomemarginally useful datamaynotbeworthit. Theremayalsobeobvious questions such as “How canweimprove our service to you?” that are going unasked, so it helps to consider the obvious before attempting to be too clever. There are three simple rules for data collection:

Put yourself in the customer’s place.
Keep it as simple as possible.
Apply common sense.

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