What Makes a Good Manager?

By Lea Dehne

Job Vacancy Indonesia, Employee, Vacancy

The question is what makes a 'good' manager, not a perfect manager. Perfect managers do not exist because perfect people do not exist. But there is a big difference between good bosses and bad bosses. So what can you do to be a good boss?
Ask questions
Nobody likes to work for a know-it-all. Managers who 'know it all' make employees feel unappreciated and as if they were not needed. Good bosses realize that their employees operate in the value zone - they have direct contact with customers or produce the goods the company is selling. Employees often have the expertise to tell the higher-ups how products or customer service could be improved. Asking questions often and including employees' expertise in the decision-making process can fast-track a manager's career and increase productivity. Implementing processes to continuously seek employees input can help in creating a 'best places to work'-type organizational culture.
Be interesting
It is amazing how many managers still operate in 'command and control' mode. Think of comics depicting 'the nagging wife' - the concept of 'nagging' does not produce desired long-term results. You want your employees to be creative, accountable and take charge. You want them to be proud of what they do - even if their job is to clean the bathroom in a fast food restaurant. Convey to your employees the mission, vision and values of your organization and make them part of the business. Connect them to the organization. By doing so, you will make their work more enjoyable. Show some humor, learn about employees' hobbies, be authentic and show that you are about a greater vision - not just about yourself. By being interesting and shifting focus on your company's mission, vision and values, you will create a solid foundation for motivating your staff.
Control your emotions
The Leadership Freak suggests doing the opposite of what one feels. If you feel like you deserve praise, give it. If you feel like pitying yourself, pity someone else who works longer or more difficult hours (many people never have a weekend off and work on holidays). If you feel like you deserve attention, pay very good attention to someone else's problems or accomplishments. You will learn that this is one of the best ways to 'get over' yourself. In addition, if you have had a bad day and are about to bark at your cleaning service, ask yourself, "Do I really mean to act negatively?" In reality, you probably want these particular workers to continue doing a great job. So tell them that and smile instead of venting your frustrations. It is surely difficult to always appear as if you have all your ducks in a row and to not become unkind when stressed, but with a little bit of experience and an informal network of friends, family and peers who will help you find balance, you can learn to effectively control your emotions without feeling burned out.

Data Warehouse Ownership

By Bozidar Kralj

Job Vacancy Indonesia, Employee, Vacancy 

Who is the owner of Data Warehouse? It is very important issue but hard to answer. Here are several examples from the practice of how to apply Data Warehouse ownership.

First, there can be two levels of data ownership: production data level and cube/theme data level. Ownership on production data level is clear to define because users who want data from productions systems have to ask production system owner for permission and access rights. Production system owner allows data cube, data theme or report initiator to use data from production. Data organized in new environment like cube or theme mean new information. It is so because situation is more complicated, cubes or themes are made from usually made from several production sources and data is worthless without good context. Who is the owner of the cube? It is the person who initiated cube building, request who started building of the cube. Owner of cube or theme is second level owner. Anybody who would like to use data from reporting cube, reports or themes must ask second level data owner for access rights. Owner of the cube asks for data access from source systems but potential users of the cube ask cube owner.

Making fragmented ownership by dimensions and measures ownership is too complicated and messes complete procedure.

Who is Data Warehouse owner? If the ownerships has to belong to only one department it is a little bit risky decision. For example if IT is owner, they are just service providers without in deep knowledge what to do exactly with content. Perhaps better variant is to give ownership to strategy or to finance, to be more precise to controlling. Reason for this decision is general view over definitions. Definitions are necessary for solid external and management reporting. Controlling knows best what kind of products will be made upon Data Warehouse for official reporting. If this solution is still not adequate perhaps best solution would be to establish committee of experts from all business areas with lead from controlling and to give ownership to this body.

Without ownership there will be no strategic development of Data Warehouse system. It will only run for coverage of current needs without any pro active approach. Data quality management will be very doubtful and at the end there will be no one to decide how to handle vast quantities of needed actions.

There is a strong need to declare officially Data Warehouse ownership and to establish data security procedures as soon as possible.

Information Technology and Textile Industry

By Gaurav Doshi

Job Vacancy Indonesia, Employee, Vacancy

Today, Information technology (IT) plays a vital role in the field of textile industry. Any manufacturing unit employs four Ms that is, Men, Material, Machine and of course Money. To get organizational success, managers need to focus on synchronizing all these factors and developing synergies with in and outside organizational operations. With the increased competition, companies are taking support of IT to enhance its Supply Chain Management (SCM) and using it as a competitive edge. In short, many textile companies are leveraging the technological power to adding value to their business.
Supply Chain Management includes: sourcing, procuring, converting, and all the logistic activities. It seeks to increase the transaction speed by exchanging data in real-time, reduce inventory, and increased sales volume by fulfilling customer requirements more efficiently and effectively.
Why Textile Industries Need IT Support?
Lack of information on demand and supply aspects
Most of the decisions a manager takes are related to demand and supply issues. But unfortunately very few are able to get it, as a result decisions taken carries risk and uncertainty. Excess inventory is one of the most common problems faced by managers which further results in long cycle-time, outdated stock, poor sale, low rates, and reduction in order visibility and finally leads to customer dissatisfaction.
Long procurement time
In a traditional textile industry, procurement process takes a much longer time. So, the retailers need to forecast demand and identify consumption trends at a much earlier stage. Lack of clarity about future can either result in early stock out, delay or overstock.
Supply chain in-competency
With the urge for getting global, apparel and textiles are facing hurdles of inefficiency in carrying out various processes involved right from designing, developing samples, getting approval, manufacturing, dispatching to payment procedures. The total time taken can get extended to one year or even longer. If we calculate, production actually accounts for just ten to twenty percent of the total time. Rest of the time is taken for the information processing from one end to the other.
The trajectory of development of Information Technology has intersected every application in textile industry. From enhancing performance of textile manufacturing and tighter process control, IT has inserted intelligence at every node of textile supply chain.
Step into the global trade
It is a fact that a company going global is opened with lot of opportunities as well as threats in terms of competition, changing trends, and other environmental changes. It necessitates managing every kind of information efficiently and at much faster speed.
Interaction of Information Technology with Textile Supply Chain
Sharing of Information
Proper flow of information among supply chain member is very crucial. Such flow of information can influence the performance of overall supply chain operations. It includes data about customers and their demand, inventory status, production and promotion plan, shipment schedules, payment details, etc. Bar coding and Electronic data interchange are the two information technology tools which can facilitate information integration.
Bar coding facilitates recording of detailed data by converting it to electronic form and can be easily shared among members through EDI system. EDI with its high efficiency is able to replace the traditional ways of transmission like telephone, mail and even fax. EDI enables managers to analyze and apply it in their business decisions. It also helps in expediting order cycle that reduces investment in inventory. EDI based network enables Company to maintain quick response and closure relations with suppliers and customers, who are geographically dispersed. Manufacturers and retailers can share even new designs developed through CAD/CAM.
Supports planning and execution operations
Planning and coordination are very important issues in supply chain management. The next step after sharing information is planning which includes joint design and implementation for product introduction, demand forecasting and replenishment. Supply chain members decide their roles and responsibility which is coordinated through the IT system.
Various software tools like MRP, MRP-II, APSS facilitates planning and coordination between different functional areas within the organization.
Material Requirements Planning (MRP): It helps in managing manufacturing processes based on production planning and inventory control system. Proper implementation of MRP ensures availability of material for production and product for consumption at right time optimizes the level of inventory and helps in scheduling various activities. MRP system uses computer databases to store lead times and order quantity. MRP includes mainly three steps: first assessing the requirement of how many units of components is required to produce a final product; here it applies logic to implement Bill of Material (BOM) explosions. Second step includes deducting the stock in hand from gross to find out net requirement. Finally, scheduling manufacturing activities such that finished goods are available when required, assuming the lead time.
Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRPII) system is a logical extension of MRP system which covers the entire manufacturing function. This typically includes machine loading, scheduling, feedback and Software extension programmes in addition to material requirement planning. It provides the mechanism to evaluate the feasibility of a production schedule under a given set of constraints.
A textile company which has multipoint manufacturing and engaged in global business necessitates something more than MRP and MRP-II like Distribution Requirement Planning (DRP), it has ability to solve both capacity and material constraints and quickly propagates the effects of problems in both backward and forward direction throughout the supply chain.
The Advance Planning and Scheduling (APSS) system includes both material focus of MRP and rapid response scheduling power of MRP-II.
Coordination of logistics flows
Workflow coordination can include activities such as procurement, order execution, implementing changes, design optimization, and financial exchanges which results in cost and time efficiency. The results are cost-effective, speedy and reliable supply chain operations.
IT contributes towards the maximizing the value of textile supply chain through integrating supply chain operations within and outside the organization and collaborating the acts of vendors and customers based on shared forecasts. Internet adds to IT contribution towards supply chain management through coordination, integration and even automation of critical business processes. New system of the supply chain game emerges as a result of business innovation fuelled by the Internet.
Many supplying companies maintain demand data by style, size, fabric and color to replenish inventory at retail outlet. Level of replenishing is predetermined by both parties after reviewing history of sales by product and buying behavior of the community.
New Business Models:
Data mining and data warehousing
Data mining is the process of analyzing data from different viewpoints and summarizing it into useful information that can be used as a basis of monitoring and control, enabling companies to focus on the most important aspects of their business. It allows users to analyze data from many different dimensions, categorize it, and summarize the relationships identified. In short it is the process of finding correlations or relationship among dozens of fields in large relational databases.
Data warehousing is the repository of data and can be defined as a process of centralized data management and retrieval. Centralization of data maximizes user access and analysis.
E-commerce
E-commerce can be B2B (Business To Business) and B2C (Business To Customer). B2C commerce is the direct selling to consumers through Internet. While B2B marketplace can be defined as neutral Internet-based intermediaries that focus on specific business processes, host electronic marketplaces, and use various market-making mechanisms to mediate transactions among businesses. B2B appears to be more prospective than B2C.
E-retailing
The textile-retail giants are adding an Internet shopping-component to their offering. It has affected their distribution and warehousing infrastructure. As a result of going online, retailers have changed their supply chain strategy. High volume products with stable demand are stocked in local stores, while low-volume products are stocked centrally for online purchasing.
Companies prefer a direct route to consumers by closely scrutinizing individual customer's tastes, preferences, habits, and buying patterns. Instead of waiting for consumers to visit their stores, retailers simply send them e-mails with offers. Internet has facilitated quick response system. With the use of web-enabled technology it is possible to have automatic customer replenishment system.

Fibre2fashion.com-Best B2B Marketplace of Textile, Apparel & Fashion Industry. It provides free online Industry News, Industry articles, Textile Fashion Jobs, Trade directory, Trade Leads, Marketwatch Report, World Trade fairs Directory, Stocklots Business Offers etc.

Role of HRD in Textile Sector

By Gaurav Doshi

Job Vacancy Indonesia, Employee, Vacancy    

The advent of technological advancement in industrial set-ups has altered the working conditions and requirements on the part of employees and employers. Also the changes in government policies have also been taken place since the last decade. Different work patterns like night shift, part time work, overtime, etc is being experienced. The situation is same in textile sector also.
Now-a-days the recruitment of the workforce has become a specialized field. The main motive is skill development as technical jobs are becoming more complex and demand more professional skill. As at managerial and marketing level, skills and knowledge demand have increased in importance. So before imparting training with respect to textile or garment industry the training program should be so designed that it covers the skills that will be required in long term and short term basis.
Many countries of the world have understood the importance of human resource development, thus encourages the business organizations to take active part in designing and execution. The changing face of business organizations in national and international markets demands a new breed of skills that are non-technical in nature.
Generally, when some new skills are to be taught to upgrade the ongoing work profile, on the job training and special course classes could be arranged to upgrade the employee's skills and knowledge. But after a certain level, the recruitment of higher posts requiring specialized skills are done through direct recruitment method. If the employers wish to extent the contribution of laborers in growth in textile industry, then the laborers should be given technical as well as non-technical training to enhance their skills and knowledge base.
HR inference
Introduction of new technologies and processes in the textile industry have increased productivity on the one hand, but had been the cause of redundancy and eventual retrenchment for a lot of workers who used to work in repetitive, boring but labor intensive job in this particular sector. This condition is happening not only in developing countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. but in industrialized countries as well, which were able to increase productivity through developments in technology.
With the technological advancement in the textile industry the overall production with higher quality is been seen, due to usage of high end machineries and technologies it has been a witnessed that the number of workers employed in the textile sector are facing job-loses. This scenario is same in developed as well as developing nations where there is increased productivity due to advanced technology, but cut in the number of laborers.
There are four elements of production namely manpower, time, materials and machines. Due to globalization seen in the textile industry out of these four elements of production, the two viz. manpower and time are to be cut down, i.e. sacrificed as the invent of improved machines and the cost of materials.
Due to the modern HR practices are affected by terms such as multiskilled, production measures, advantages of competition, casual labor, social security, subcontracting, etc. Now-a-days a lot depends on the bargaining power of the labor, legal policies and the scenario of the labor market. This has started since the foundation of WTO (World trade organization).
Human resource development
Textile industry gives employment to millions of people. In order to recruit skilled workforce in textile sector, proper training programmes would thus facilitate in supply of well qualified workforce. Thus the role of HRD has gained momentum in terms of employing manpower that satisfies the professional requirements of this sector and that is well skilled. Thus many collaboration among many multinational companies and educational institutions is been observed.
The HRD department of any company is responsible recruiting skilled labors and executives, allocation and planning of work, monitoring of workforce and performance appraisal. It is also responsible to timely upgradation of skills of the workforce by organizing educative professional workshops or seminars. If HRD activities are carried out in proper professional manner it could result into minimization of cost and wastage, right recruitment of workforce, increased stability of the company, flexible enough to cope up with futuristic developments and most important maximizes production.
Human Resource in textile sector
The advent of HR practices in textile sector was rather slow in comparison to other industrial sectors. But due to globalization there is increase in competition as a result development of human resource has become essential. However organized HR practices are being adopted mostly by the mill sector. In last decade we have seen not so good performance by textile sector, this was because of lack of HRD department in many mills. But the scenario has changed as HRD departments have taken up their role in textile sectors. Various training programmes pertaining to training of workforce, textile related topics have helped in enhancing the overall performance of the textile companies.
In order to get increased productivity from workforce it is essential to have a well framed HRD system in the organization. If the principles of HRD are adopted it could result in decrease in non-attendance by 20% and increase in productivity by 30%. So to cope up with the market competition HRD is very essential element for the textile industry.
HRD department is responsible for developing the feeling of motivation in the employees, this motivation in other words is the commitment of the employees towards the job and the organization. When the work of HRD is done effectively it would result into co-operation among team members, demolition of centralized system of decision making, creates homely environment, feeling of ownership and positive working atmosphere.

Fibre2fashion.com-Best B2B Marketplace of Textile, Apparel & Fashion Industry. It provides free online Industry News, Industry articles, Textile Fashion Jobs, Trade directory, Trade Leads, Marketwatch Report, , World Trade fairs Directory, Stocklots Business Offers etc.

Sales Training - Top Sales Performance Starts With Good Training

By Tim I Millett

Job Vacancy Indonesia, Employee, Vacancy     

1) Understanding the Sales Dialogue

Training your staff in the art of selling will help them to recognise important elements of the sales dialogue. Sales dialogue is different to regular forms of communication. While an extroverted person might make great conversation, they may not be able to close a deal. Sales training will teach your staff techniques that will help them:

• Start a dialogue with a customer
• Find out their reason for the purchase
• How to capitalise on that information to ensure the customer makes the purchase.

2) Understanding the Customer

Sales training that takes into account the customer's buying experience will increase sales and improve customer service. It will create in your staff a better understanding of the link between customer service and sales. When your sales staff are taught how to read customers and interpret the signals they give out, they are better able to respond accordingly and effectively. This will not only improve the chance of a sale., it will also result in excellent customer care and attentiveness. If a customer feels as if they have been looked after, they are more likely to return and talk positively about your business.

3) The link between Customer Service and Sales

Training your sales staff will help them to connect the concepts of customer service and sales. Customer service is about understanding the needs of the customer. Sales is about providing a solution to those needs. By understanding the connection between these concepts your sales staff will improve their communication with customers and increase their sales. They will effectively be creating an ideal environment for your customers. Sales training will help your staff to understand that providing outstanding service will lead to effective selling.

4) Cross Promotion

Training your staff in the sales techniques of cross promotion will help your sales team to focus on up-selling, cross-selling and on-selling within your business as an extension of excellent customer service. There is a reason McDonald's trained their staff to ask every customer if they want fries with their meal, because it works. Teaching your staff the complex reasons about how and why cross promotion works will demystify the concept. Training and education will provide them with the tools to open up opportunities for more sales. These invaluable techniques will not only improve customer service but will also increase sales.

When you are looking for courses to train your sales team, remember to look for ones that include these important sales training modules. Look for courses that will educate your staff about the relationship between customer service and sales, teaching them a better understanding of the customer experience. Stick to outlines that will encourage your team to discover what makes a customer buy and how cross promotion techniques will help to increase sales.