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As Health Reform continues to unfold, the pace of change is picking up speed, as new models of reimbursement, care delivery and access are taking shape.These shifts on the provider side should represent good news for millions of Americans that need better support from the healthcare system, especially since many of those with chronic disease aren’t currently getting recommended care. Coupled with the fact that most patients do not adhere to their medication and treatment regimens or recommended lifestyle and health behavior changes, and it’s easy to spot some of the challenges ahead.Here’s where the payer side, particularly health plans, can really help.Health plans have ready access to claims data and other relevant clinical information plus a direct line to their members for targeted messaging and clinical interventions. While not a traditional strategic imperative, health plans do have a significant opportunity to help drive behavior change, reduce risk, and produce positive health outcomes for their members.Most plans already provide member portals and other helpful resources, and many have begun to focus on enhancing these activities and initiatives to enhance their value and impact. But, to compete effectively, in this rapidly shifting market, they will need to re-orient their mindset and approach to be far more consumer-centric.Consumer PowerAfter a decade of slow growth, Healthcare Consumerism has begun to take hold. Participation in high deductible health plans (HDHPs) is at a record level with 23% of all those with employer-sponsored insurance now enrolled in an HDHP. Other emerging factors such as price comparison tools, quality ratings, and retail health alternatives will continue to put more power into the hands of consumers.Health plans need to respond to this trend and design strategic solutions or partner with best-in-class service providers for their member populations. This puts a greater burden on member engagement outreach and interactions that are positive, relevant and trust-building.This will not be easy. Recent surveys reveal a deep trust gap between insurance companies and their members. The KMB Group survey of 34,000 consumers, find that only 22% of members identify their health plans as a “trusted source.” This compares to 80% for physicians.And this year’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) report indicates that customer satisfaction with health plans declined between 2013 and 2014, stating, “There is no area where health insurance companies offer an outstanding experience.”Member EngagementMember engagement is new territory for most health plans, and with Medicaid expansion, the influx of age-in Medicare members and the newly insured, it is increasingly important to provide consumer-oriented communications interactions, and interventions.As Star Ratings and other quality metrics rise in prominence, and consumer brand preference and loyalty begin to become important factors, health plans will find themselves striving for excellence in consumer experience, though outstanding member engagement.We see a number of areas that need to be addressed in developing an effective member engagement strategy:1. Understand how consumers think and operate in their own health and healthcare world.Health plans need to conduct a thorough and honest review of the outreach that goes to members, along with any and all on-going interactions, the customer service function, and related areas. This is the essential starting point for meaningful change and can help uncover insights about the consumer decision process. Additionally, areas such as behavioral economics provides many important learnings and can be a good guide for creating a messaging strategy to members.2. Adopt a member-centric marketing system designed around their concerns and interests.Using a consumer marketing mindset in establishing the communications strategy and identifying measurable actions, health plans need to become be a valued partner. Strategic messaging needs to be incorporated into all member touch points and aspects of outreach. Too many health plans still rely on dated letters from their Chief Medical Officer as the introduction to any number of health enhancement initiatives. Scrap them and find ways to make the content meaningful, relevant, and credible to the recipient.3. Strategically align and integrate all health improvement service offerings.Most health plans can check all the boxes relative to their service offerings in wellness, care management, disease management, pharmacy coordination, and an array of other services – but bringing them all together in a seamless solution is what members truly want and need. And by providing an overlay of measurement and feedback, plans can help ensure members receive what is most meaningful to them.These are ways health plans can think about advancing their capabilities toward being member-focused and engagement-oriented. There’s a lot they can do to actually change member behavior, lower risk and contribute to better overall health outcomes – which should produce stronger margins and returns.Health plans can learn and adopt many consumer marketing strategies from other industries, all of which can more create positive experiences in healthcare. In a consumer health plan market, the winners that emerge will likely be those that excel in member engagement.

Buying a business in Canada via the right acquisition financing will often involve looking beyond the numbers when it comes to ensuring business purchase financing options are in place. Business loans to buy an existing business is not just all about negotiating the sale price – it’s also about the necessary funding solutions that must be put in place to ensure business survival and profitability. Let’s dig in.The pros, of course, call it ‘ due diligence’, when it comes to considering a business investment loan and how to buy a business, as well financing a business for sale is all about a pretty basic common sense premise: ensuring sales, inventory, accounts receivable and accounts payable are all reasonable, and that projected sales volumes make sense in the long term.Bottom line- the proper business purchase loan finance solutions tie together your plans for mgmt, mfg or delivering services, and marketing.The essence of any business, large or small, is cash management. Working capital solutions and business financing rates must also be considered for effective ongoing operations.A/R Financing/factoringBank revolving credit linesNon bank asset based lines of creditInventory FinancingTax Credit FinancingSmall business govt guaranteed loans (maximum 1 Million $) Small Business Loans To Purchase A Business Can Often Come From The Government Of Canada Small Business Loan ProgramFirms that are not profitable or that have ‘ challenged’ balance sheets will not qualify for what we call ‘ traditional’ finance. These types of companies can’t comply with the financial ratios and collateral demanded by our Canadian chartered banks. Almost all businesses that sell on credit, large or small, need some sort of business credit line.Numerous alternative financing solutions are in fact available – but at the same time new owners/mgt must be able to address and talk to items such as gross margins, operating inefficiencies, etc.At 7 Park Avenue Financial we speak to many clients who wish to purchase a franchise business. That can be achieved via various financing programs, and might often include some ‘ seller financing ‘ when it comes to an overall finance strategy. That seller finance assistance in essence is another alternative capital that can allow the buyer to successfully complete the transaction. We also note that both new and used franchises can be purchased and financed.Business Acquisition Financing CanadaBuying a business for ‘ all-cash ‘ is almost never the option available to purchasers. Top experts tell us than not even a 1/3 of businesses purchased are done via 100% financing. Unfortunately sellers like/want cash! More often than not the final structure of your transaction will be:Owner CashExternal FinancingVendor Take Back/Seller Financing (not always, but often)’ABL ‘ (Asset Based Lending) is often a solid solution for a business financing strategy. These types of facilities allow you to borrow heavily against inventory, accounts receivable and equipment/fixed assets.One legal/technical issue often becomes a critical point in acquisition financing. That is the issue of ‘asset sales’ vs. ‘share sales’. From a buyer’s perspective asset sales tend to make more sense – sellers focus on share and tax strategies for selling their businesses. This can often complicate financing.We’ve seen there are some critical issues that can make or break the success of financing a business purchase. Those issues include:Proper valuation pricingDebt loadWorking capital and cash flow financing challengesIf you’re focused on a winning deal and financing a business purchase properly seek out and speak to a trusted, credible and experienced Canadian business financing advisor who can assist you with your funding needs.

The increasing importance of technology in every industry continues to drive the need for a diverse group of qualified professionals to manage the implementation and changes in technology. Pursuing a degree at a technology management graduate school can be the right step for beginning a rewarding career in the management of everything from computer hardware to information security within an organization.Overview of Technology ManagementTechnology management professionals are in high demand because of the unique set of skills they possess. In this field, professionals are able to make leadership and management based decisions, develop solutions to technology issues, and approach the management of technology from a systems thinking perspective.For any management professionals, some of the skills that are required include being able to manage personnel, organizational design and communication, and financial analysis and decision making. Technology management professionals combine this knowledge with specific information technology and systems technology skills and knowledge to effectively lead and make decisions for the assessment, forecasting, strategies, and decision making with a number of different information technology departments.Technology Management Graduate Degree CurriculumThere are a number of technology_management graduate school choices for prospective students. While there are differences depending on the individual program and school, students most often complete a set of core courses, electives, and a graduate program in order to complete the graduate degree. This combination helps to prepare graduates to transfer relevant, useful skills into the workforce.From graduate level courses in technology to business, students are able to learn a variety of skills and gain valuable knowledge. Some courses in technology often included information technology_management, operations, emerging technologies, and ethics. Additionally, students will take business and management courses such as supply chain management, sales and marketing, and accounting for technology.These courses give students the opportunity to gain a broad foundation to develop an understanding of the basic fundamentals of technology management. The electives and the master’s project build on that foundation to help students begin to focus their education on a specific area of technology_management. Some examples of electives include knowledge management and relationship management. The master’s level project combines the knowledge, theory, and skill a graduate student has gained though academic coursework to examine how that ability can be transferred to a real-world, challenging business issue or problem in order to find a solution or manage a specific scenario.Career Development with a Technology Management Graduate DegreeTechnology professionals must develop a variety of skills. In addition to understanding information technology, professionals in this field must also be able to manage change with technology and technology systems, integrate functional areas of business, leveraging technology, and business management principles to effectively lead the technology driven functions of a business.These skills are needed in many different types of positions across all types of workplaces, from the federal government to non-profit and educational organizations to private corporations. From the chief information officer to information technology manager, a degree in technology_management is a helpful tool to gain the experience and skills needed for all types of management positions of technology-driven departments.

Dynamic markets create opportunity Markets create energy because they are dynamic. They are constantly evolving in response to changes in the economic, political and technological environments. Understanding what causes a market to evolve helps you predict where opportunities will emerge; how fast they will develop, and when and whether mass adoption will occur. If you can capture this energy, you can use it to drive the sales process.Dynamic systems create energy. If left unchecked, any systemic change tends to grow. A snowball rolling downhill gets bigger. Growth creates momentum. As the snowball grows bigger, it goes faster. Momentum creates energy. The faster the snowball rolls; the bigger it gets; the harder it hits the tree. Energy drives change. (Source The Fifth Discipline)You can use the energy sources created by an evolving market to motivate prospects to buy your solution. Persuading people to try out a new technology is an uphill battle. You have to invest a lot of your precious energy – sales resources, capital, technical expertise, etc. – into convincing prospects they can benefit from using your technology to support their business. However, if you understand what is driving market change- an increasingly mobile workforce, higher need for personal security, faster access to global markets – then you use the energy created by the market to motivate prospects to buy. Thus, you need to invest less of your own resources and you can sell more productively and efficiently.Technology markets create abundance.There are two laws that explain why technology-enabled markets generate extraordinary amounts of energy.
1. Moore’s Law predicts that technology is going to improve in the future and cost less.
2 Metcalf’s Law states that technologies become more useful as more people use them.The combination of these two laws creates an economy of abundance that is unique to technology markets. As Moore’s Law predicts an endless supply of ever-increasing resources and Metcalf’s Law promises that innovations will be quickly adopted, the nature of the economy changes.Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel, said, “Every 18 months processing power doubles while the cost holds constant.” The implications of Moore’s Law are that every 18 months technology is going to cost half as much and be twice as powerful. Moore’s Law has held true for over 30 years. Previous economies were based on the laws of scarcity, where you have a limited amount of resources and value is based on how scarce they are – gold, oil, land, etc. The more you use up the resources the less energy you have.A technology-based economy is based on the laws of abundance. According to Moore’s law, there will always be cheaper resources tomorrow. This ever-increasing pool of resources enables customers to implement new business strategies. If it isn’t possible today, it will be possible tomorrow. Improved technology is constantly fueling the market, creating energy.Furthermore, thanks to this simple formula technological obsolescence is only a few months away. Customers can never afford to sit still for fear that a competitor will be able to leapfrog ahead of them if they adopt the next generation of technology faster. This anxiety is another powerful source of energy that you can use to drive your sales.Metcalf’s Law also has a powerful effect on developing markets. Robert Metcalf, the founder of 3Com, said “New technologies are valuable only if many people use them… the utility of a network equates the square of the number of users. ” This means that the more people use a technology, the more useful it becomes. If there was only one fax machine in the world, it wouldn’t be useful. With two fax machines you can send mail back and forth faster and cheaper than if you send it through the post office. With 2,000,000 fax machines, you never have to wait in line at the post office again. According to Metcalf a technology’s usefulness equals the number of users squared. If two people use a fax it is four times easier than using the postal system. If 20 people use the fax machine, it is 400 times easier. This creates a geometric increase in the technology’s utility, which is just another way of saying why customers would want to buy it. So if 2 people want to buy a fax machine today; 4 people will want to buy it tomorrow; 16 people will want to buy it the day after tomorrow; 256 people will want to buy it next week, and 2,147,483,648 will want to buy it by the end of the month. That is a lot of potential customers lining up to buy your product, which is what market energy is all about.Abundance creates demand for your technology. Since technology markets create abundance they are not subject to the constraints of scarcity. They have unlimited growth potential and consequently unlimited potential to create wealth.

Though some people say that telepathy exists and that there are mind-readers in this world, most of us have got as far as online communication. That’s not to degrade communication over the Web. Just as the discovery of fire was an important milestone in the lives of stone-age men and women, online or electronic communication has been a significant achievement of the modern world. And if you had lived in the middle-ages, you would have equated online communication with magic of some sort.What’s Online Communication All About?Online communication is a subject that’s diverse and multidimensional and which includes several aspects in its gamut. The domain of online communication includes everything from emails and online chats to web conferencing and video conferencing. While chats and emails help you to communicate with people without seeing them, video and web conferencing allow you to link up with people, talk to them, brainstorm, explain things to them and do a lot more, while you see them. Moreover, video and web conferencing help in real time collaborations and in smarter online communication.Online Communication: Video ConferencingOnline communication in the form of video conferencing has many applications and advantages. Video conferencing is used extensively in corporate offices for meetings. That’s because this form of online communication is relatively cheap as compared to communication through formal meetings and conferences. A video conference is a type of online communication that can be organized in a jiffy, depending on the video conferencing software that you’re using. Most branded video conferencing software allows you to set up a platform for multipoint online communication, in no time. You just have to inform the conference attendees so that they can join the conference. Video conferencing software can generally be integrated with video chat facilities and the VoIP facility so that people can chat with each other and talk and listen to each other through headphones while conferring. Product demonstrations, on-the-job training sessions, PowerPoint presentations, and other explanatory sessions can easily be hosted effectively through video conferencing.Video conferencing software also comes with whiteboard facilities so that presenters can use the virtual whiteboard to make the subject-matter of the conference more comprehensible. Bullet points and diagrams displayed on the virtual whiteboard can help attendees make sense of the virtual conference and understand the subject-matter better. Video conferencing software also permits the facility of ‘remote desktop sharing’. This facility allows conference participants to access and manipulate the presenter’s desktop. The remote desktop sharing facility is of particular utility in training sessions. Complicated processes become lucid as trainees get a chance to perform or try out the processes on the presenter’s computer screen via remote desktop access. The remote desktop access also enables the participants to understand the features of an application as they can actually fiddle with the software from their own desktops while it is being shown on the presenter’s desktop.Video conferencing is a type of online communication that diminishes the costs of hosting a normal and formal meeting by a substantial extent. A formal meeting entails all sorts of expenditures. These may be in the form of venue charges, meeting snacks, luncheons and dinners, accommodation charges for out-station participants, meeting stationery and kit charges, meeting equipment charges, etc. An online communication in the form of a video conference saves a lot of finances as people can attend the conference even though they are located far away from each other. There’s no need to spend money on the venue, food, equipment, stationery, and hotels and guest houses, if you host a video conference. The benefits and dynamism of a web or a video conference have made this form of online communication more popular than the traditional conference.Online Communication: Emails and ChatsOnline communication makes the communication process more rapid. For instance, if you sent a letter to your friend, the letter would take some time to be delivered. Whereas, if you communicated with your friend via the email, you’d be able to communicate at a greater speed. And chats can make the communication process even faster by allowing you to communicate with people, instantaneously.Importance of Organization in Online CommunicationBut online communication has to go hand-in-hand with organization, if it is to be effective online communication. Even video conferencing needs proper organization. Most platforms for online communication that are available in the market today, concentrate only on the presentation part of the communication. But presentation is only the end-product of online communication, not the source or the basis. The chief ingredient of any effective online communication is organization. Presentation is only the outcome, the success of which rests on the foundation or bedrock of organization. So, if online communication’s got to be productive, result-oriented, emphatic and informative, it has to be organized and methodical. Meaning that what you’re going to say and whom you’re going to say it to, are things that have to be pre-arranged. While video conferencing takes care of the ‘how’ part, i.e. how you’re going to say what you have to say, something or somebody has to take care of the ‘what’ and the ‘whom’ facets.That’s where the online diary planner figures. A web-based application that’s been built using cutting-edge technology, the online diary planner provides advanced conference and business solutions and enhances the process of online communication. A reliable online diary planner helps you to map out strategies and chalk out goals and provides you the expertise that you need for conference and business organization and management. Apart from allowing you to store data of various categories, retrieve data in seconds, it offers you the benefit of professional networking. With a reliable online diary planner, you can share your meeting and agenda details with the people you want, instantaneously.It boosts the process of online communication dramatically as it helps people to engage in meaningful online discussions before the meeting so that they can decide and agree on the meeting agenda. You can also send emails through an authentic online diary planner to people who have and who don’t have accounts with the webapp. When sending emails through an online diary planner, PDF versions of the meeting and agenda details are automatically generated and sent as attachments. A genuine online diary planner is a substantive web-based application as it is one of the few online gizmos that aids in collective data organization as well as in online communication. It helps you to be the dominant player and a winner in a fast-paced, competitive environment. A genuine online diary planner compels you to work with robotic precision while enabling you to think creatively. For convincing and potent online communication, use the online diary planners for meetings and conferences that have been recommended by Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and a source of unbiased and authentic information. When Wikipedia recommends and mentions the names of some online diary planners for the effective management of meetings and conferences, then those online diary planners must be truly excellent for the glitch-free management of meetings and conferences.

What makes rich people rich? Looking at the spending pattern of various income groups in the U.S. makes it clear: Savings. The real difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich spend a larger share of their income on savings (pensions and insurance) and education.Source: WSJ, Labour Department,When building wealth, preserving wealth, and passing it to the next generation is the formula for financial success it is surprising that less than 20% of Americans do have a written plan when it comes to investing and even retirement [1].The paradox in human behavior is that we are perfectly rational and capable of planning for a major event in our lives, but this is usually forgotten when it comes to investing. In fact, you will find that only a third of investors have a written plan guiding their investment strategy and retirement plans.Why is a plan needed?
The investment world is a harsh jungle, a world of murky waters where the smartest and the most organized survive and become successful while the rest are gobbled up. A written plan short circuits our normal response to something as emotional as money. It prevents us from resorting to our gut feelings and emotions. Instead of following the herd mentality that may prompt you to make unwise investment decisions, a plan will force you to stick to a rational strategy that is underpinned by fundamental investment principles. Some of the difficult emotions that you will have to overcome while investing include:
1) The fear of failure
2) The tendency to continue with a certain approach just because you started it
3) Personal matters such as relationship issues at homeIt is also important to point out the main reasons why investors fall prey to the market and lose their precious funds:
1) Omitted facts and figures mislead investors into investing in a structurally unsound company or financial instrument
2) Overconfidence makes some investors think that they are invincible and that they can always beat the market.
3) Everyone wants to be seen as a champion, the successful general capable of leading an army to victory. This can make you make investment decisions that are not based on rational thinking but rather the desire to impress your friends, co-workers or family membersBy having an investment plan written down and actually following what it says, you will have dramatically increased your chances of winning and increasing the size of your nest egg or investment portfolio. The following are simple steps in creating a plan and avoiding the herd mentality and instinctual impulses that turn us into fools when investing:1. Set up specific and realistic goals
For example, instead of saying you want to have enough money to retire comfortably, think about how much money you’ll need. Your specific goal may be to save $500,000 by the time you’re 65.2. Calculate how much you need to save each month
If you need to save $500,000 by the time you’re 65, how much will you need to save each month? Decide if that’s a realistic amount for you to set aside each month. If not, you may need to adjust your goals.3. Choose your investment strategy
If you’re saving for long-term goals, you might choose more aggressive, higher-risk investments. If your goals are short term, you might choose lower-risk, conservative investments. Or you might want to take a more balanced approach.4. Develop an investment policy statement
Create an investment policy statement to guide your investment decisions. If you have an adviser, your investment policy statement will outline the rules you want your adviser to follow for your portfolio. Your investment policy statement should:Specify your investment goals and objectives,Describe the strategies that will help you meet your objectives,Describe your return expectations and time horizon,Include detailed information about how much risk you’re willing to take,Include guidelines on the types of investments that make up your portfolio, and how accessible your money needs to be, andSpecify how your portfolio will be monitored, and when or why it should be rebalanced.A smart investor with a written down plan and strategy has already won half the battle without making a single financial decision. By implementing the plan and adhering to laid down rules of operation, the smart investor will avoid the pitfalls caused by human emotion and behavior and end up winning big.