Sourcing Agents – How Do They Increase the Profitability of an International Business?
In today’s international business market, where competition is so fierce, the importance of choosing the best off shore or on shore sourcing agents has occupied the front seat. Owing to the expertise of different countries in different fields such as manufacturing, product building, etc., it has become increasingly difficult to keep up with their pace.Many business firms irrespective of their sizes are constantly checking and giving utmost importance to the questions like, “Are we getting the best price quotes for the source we are using? Are the sourcing materials and products bought from the best possible source?”In order to avoid all these potential complications and have a clear picture of the source, most of the International businesses are using the expertise of sourcing agents both at national and international level. Following information throws some light on the importance of role of sourcing agents and how they can help your business develop at both national and international level.Sourcing AgentA good sourcing agent must be capable of reducing at least 20% of the overhead on the purchase department. This includes both the hidden costs as well as the standard costs.Standard Costs: Some of the standard costs that a sourcing agent should be capable of reducing include and are not limited to the cargo, shipping insurance, customs fee, import tax, dock fee, etc.Hidden Costs: A good sourcing agent should also be able to minimize some of the hidden costs such as contract fees when hiring new supplier, costs of visiting the supplier, fees incurred due to delay in shipping, custom fees accrued due to inappropriate documentation or due to some missing docs, anti-dumping fees, delays at the shipping terminal due to congestion etc.International Sourcing AgentsGood international agents make international process of sourcing as easy as a domestic one. These global sourcing companies often offer services such as taking care of the entire offshore manufacturing process along with purchases. International business transactions are made easy with global sourcing companies as they are well versed with all such processes.IB’s often do not hesitate to pay a ten to twenty percent extra on top of the agreed price to these agents, because of the following benefits:International Sourcing Agents Often Represent the SupplierProvide an immediate access to the best suppliers and trustworthy companies that offer the most relevant expertise in minimum time frames.Some of the global sourcing companies also offer engineering services and lend a hand in the development of new products.Keep an eye on the price quotes from various all over the world if found necessary.International agents apart from managing the international communications also handle the translations and arrange site visits at appropriate times.Sometimes, they can also turn out to be buying agents or project managers for projects that require multiple overseas suppliers.The above mentioned are only a few of the benefits that an International Business can enjoy by hiring a good agent. Hence, it might be a good idea for you to try out one of these International or domestic agents on you next project and reap the benefits that come your way.
Social Bookmarking Tools – Why You Need Them
Lately, I’ve been messing around with a lot of social bookmarking tools. My team and I have hit niche markets hard, both as affiliates and as product creators and it’s absolutely necessary to rank for key terms quickly. We’ve built probably 60 sites or so, each in different markets with different monetization methods…You and I know that in order to succeed in Internet marketing, you’ve got to have traffic. Without traffic, any startup or project is a catastrophic fail.So what I thought I’d do is talk a bit about why the idea of bookmarking is awesome and then leave you with some bookmarking tools you can test out.Social Bookmarking Tools – Why They’re ImportantAs you probably know by now, bookmarking is a very quick way to get tons and tons of backlinks to your site. High quality backlinks at that. Gone are the days that you need to send ‘reciprocal link requests’ to potential linking partners.With social bookmarking, all you have to do is create an account on a bookmarking site, enter in your URL, add some keywords and hit enter… 1 linkback.The idea behind web 2.0 bookmarking services was to make it easy for people to share their favorite stuff with their friends and to keep track of lots of bookmarks easily. And that’s a very noble cause.What marketers quickly figured out was that those links, most of the time, got spidered by Google and a fair share of them are ‘dofollow’ so they give you some ‘linkjuice’ in the process. Meaning, Google awards you when it finds the link going to your site.With the proper bookmarking tools, you can automate the process of linkbuilding on these social sites, saving you both time and money!The Problem With Manual Social BookmarksAs with anything, there are drawbacks to bookmarking. Especially when you’re doing it manually.First of all, social bookmarking takes a ton of time. You have to create 50 or 100 social bookmarking accounts, then you have to verify all those emails, keep all those passwords straight and so on.To submit a bookmark (aka. get a linkback) you’ve got to log in, fill in the form and hit submit..Do that 100 times and you’ve shot the better part of a workday. Not cool.The Darkside Of Social Bookmarking ToolsSo great, social bookmarking tools is the way to go, right? Well, there are a couple things to consider first.One darkside of social bookmarking tools is that you may think that it’s too spammy – creating hundreds of links to your site for the benefit of Google. And I’ll give you that. But we’re not really creating these bookmarks for anyone. Very few people, if anyone will ever see them… But they will see your ‘money site’ in the search engines BECAUSE of all the social bookmarks!One other negative side to social bookmarking tools is that fact that my two favorites charge monthly for access.. They do that to keep the software updated… The social, web 2.0 scene is growing so fast and has so many updates to their sites that in order for the social bookmarking tools to consistently work – they have to be updated… In fact, the one piece of software that doesn’t have a monthly fee has terrible success rates.
How to Start a Blog: What Every Newbie Should Know
Why Would I Want to Blog?A blog? You’re wondering what it is exactly right? You have heard of it… but you just aren’t really sure what it means and how to even get started. You see so many people popping up all over with these new blogs and you’re curious why it’s becoming such a fad. You’re wondering what’s in it for me or you’ve heard that people are actually making money with their blogs. It’s starting to sound kind of good to you right, but you just don’t know where to start. Well first of all a blog is a platform where you can write about anything your heart desires. There are many blogging platforms available for people to choose from and I’ll talk more about that later, but lets understand what blogging is first. Many people write about things that are of interest to them. For instance an artist wants to start a blog to talk about art, she knows just about all there is to being an artist and wants to share it with the world. She’s so well informed and people all over the internet who are searching for information on art start to find her blog and think it’s soo cool! Those people come back to the blog almost everyday because this girl is amazing the information she’s giving and the tips she offers are so informative. She starts to build a following and she looks up and thousands of people are visiting her blog everyday… she thinks this could be the start of something!Time to Make Money with My BlogSo the artist heard that she could actually start making money with her blog by monetizing it (putting stuff on it that will make her money). She just had to figure out how she wanted to monetize her blog, there are so many ways to do this it all just depends on what you feel will work best for you. Well the cool thing about this artist is she had her own art to sell. So guess what she did, she incorporated a way to put her paintings on her blog for people to buy. She would discuss her paintings and add a photo of her paintings to her blog and made them clickable so when someone clicked on her painting they would be taken to her online store where she sold her paintings. Isn’t that awesome! So… yes.. people who already have a product they are selling can use a blog to sell even more of their product!Now that’s just one way to make money with your blog. Suppose you don’t have your own product but you have something you love to do and you know a lot about it or you have something you want to learn more about and master it, well that could be what you write about and start providing information to people about the subject you are interested in. There are many websites that offer you the ability to market their product and make a percentage of the sales, like ClickBank or Commission Junction (just to name a few). Many of these websites offer this ability to market their products for absolutely free. This is called becoming an affiliate, you would be an affiliate and market someone else’s product on your blog. For instance say the artist didn’t have her own product but she found an awesome art company that had an affiliate program which would allow her to market the products of that art company for a profit on her blog! Oh YEAHH! She’s now making money from the sales that she’s getting when people visit her website and see her talking about art and they are so thrilled that they take out their credit card and buy! The artist sees that this is a great way to help people out who are looking for information and also build an income that will change her life forever! But there’s a piece missing she is getting money, but not enough to really be financially free. She asks herself what would she need to do further to her blog to make more sales. After thinking hard about it she understands that she needs to get MORE people to come to her blog.Getting Traffic to Your BlogDING DING DING!! That’s it… the artist needs to get more people to her blog and see the products… this is called generating traffic! So how does she get traffic to her blog? Well there’s something that she needs to learn about and that’s called SEO (search engine optimization). Hmmm uh what? “I don’t know what SEO is”… she thought? In basic terms SEO is the a way of getting your website or blog ranked high on the search engines which in turn brings more traffic! So when people go on Google, Yahoo or bing (which are the top 3 search engines) and they search for let’s say “unusual art pieces” the websites or blogs that talk about that particular topic should show up in the search, and if that website is good at SEO then they should be on the very first page of the search results. That is where you want to be..you want your website to show up in the search results on the very first page of the search..why? Ask yourself this question… when you are searching for something how often do you go to the bottom of the page and click on page 2 or 3 or 4? Not often right usually you don’t go further than the first page. That’s pretty much what everyone else is doing too, no one has time to search pages and pages they usually look at what’s going on, on the first page… period! So our artist decides to search for how to use SEO for her blog and learns just what she needs to do when she’s writing her articles to optimize her blog so the search engines know she’s talking about art. Then those search engines recognize there’s a girl over there talking about art lets see what else is on her blog about art. After adding in SEO techniques to her blog the artist starts checking her stats everyday to see how many visitors are coming to her blog and low and behold everyday the number got bigger and bigger and she started to see her sales going up day after day! Wow!! Who would’ve thought you could make money talking about what you love! Sure beats the you know what out of working a JOB you dread going to, right?How do I build my Blog? So now what, you are ready to start writing about your great idea, but where do you write it? For anyone new to blogging I recommend using a blogging platform that is already built for you and you can be up and running in 30 minutes or less. You want to look for one that already has authority with the search engines, you can do that by checking how much traffic is coming to a particular blogging platform. Also check to see if the blogging platform provides educational material on how to get ranked fast with the search engines for each of your blog pages. So do your research to find the blogging platform that fits your needs. Happy Blogging!
Different Types of Health Care Services at Home
Home health care encompasses many different types of health care services which are provided in the patient’s home. This can include visits from nurses, physical therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, social workers, and nursing assistants. Home health care can mean a one time visit or 24 hour a day care.The patients who receive health care from home are just as diverse. They can be the elderly who live alone or an infant who is on life support. The goal of home health care is to keep the patient in their own home while ensuring good medical care. This kind of health care reduces overall health care costs since these patients do not have to pay for hospital rooms and services.Health care services at home may be administered by a local hospital or an independent agency. End of life health care from home is often provided by Hospice. It is important to make sure you hire credentialed home healthcare workers when you are looking for home health care. Healthcare practitioners who provide this service must be fully licensed just like their counterparts who work in hospitals or nursing homes.This particular service is usually covered by insurance, at least in part, if it is ordered by a physician. Insurance companies are generally supportive of home health care because it costs them less money to cover a patient at home as opposed to covering the cost of a hospital stay.This services may include the following:1) A visit from a registered nurse for evaluations or to administer IV medications.
2) A visit from a respiratory therapist to maintain medical equipment.
3) A visit from a physical therapist for a session of rehabilitation exercises.
4) Around the clock care by certified nursing assistants.
5) Overnight coverage by a sitter.Health care services at home will usually be arranged by the hospital, nursing home, or physician after a hospitalization and before the patient is sent home. Insurance arrangements will be made before hand and the approved number of visits and type of care will be determined. If the patient does not need much hands-on care, but requires supervision, a sitter may be indicated. If the patient needs to be fed, bathed, or given medications, a nursing assistant may be sent for part of the day. Home health care workers have specific tasks which they are and are not allowed to do according to their license.
Finding The Right Health Care Attorney For Your Health Care Concerns
With the growing need for proper healthcare administration, it cannot be denied that the medical industry is expanding its services as well. Due to these, getting appropriate medical care can be quite difficult for many, especially with the existing laws that cover certain health concerns. The so called healthcare law encapsulate the statutes and regulations that regulate hospital and general medical administration. However, as these governing body is truly complex, the need for healthcare lawyers, who could provide answers to relating questions, has also been growing exponentially.A health care attorney is capable of interpreting highly complex regulations and statutes. This type of lawyer advises hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, physicians, insurer, other providers, and even patients regarding matters that are under the governing body of the law. This means that they are highly qualified to provide medical professionals and patients alike with information about medico-legal concepts that are hard to understand and synthesize. Licensing, reimbursements, malpractice litigation, medical insurance, risk managements, and general corporate management issues are just some of the many medical matters that can be properly addressed by lawyers.Because of the wide scope of the law, providers and patients alike definitely need to employ the service of a specialized attorney so as to receive appropriate legal counseling that could address their issues. For health care practitioners, healthcare lawyers are helpful in furnishing information as well as answering questions about the legalities of different matters including bioethical issues like Medicare and Medicaid compliance, assisted reproduction and introduction of new technologies in accordance to patient privacy laws. In addition, they collaborate with hospitals and other institutions and organizations for litigation such as defense for medical malpractice, commercial and labor disputes, antitrust and abuse litigation, and fraud. As for patients, lawyers can assist them with their private insurance policies, estate planning as well as their patient rights.These lawyers have a wide clientele base. In fact, aside from their physician and patient clients they also work for health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and other known and registered health organizations. Similarly, they also legally stand in behalf of ambulatory surgical centers, dental practices, laboratories as well as nurses, chiropractors, dentists and podiatrists. Seemingly, this client base is a clear evidence of the growing demand for these kind of lawyers.As with any law practice, strong logic and analysis are two important characteristics that a practitioner must exude. When it comes to practicing health law, it is essential to have strong affinity towards the policies and legal process of the health care system. Hence, if you are looking for an attorney who would address your health care concerns, make sure that the person you would employ has acquired a Juris doctorate degree, has a license and had passed the Bar examination. You have to consider all these things for you to ensure that you would be getting appropriate legal counsel.There are myriads of law firms today that offer specialize in healthcare law and offer the services of these types of lawyers. However, before you contact them, make sure that you do extensive background check about your prospective law firms or health care lawyers. One of the best things you can do is to ask your fellow medical professionals or patients who have already tried the services of health care lawyers, so that they would be able to make recommendations that could help you with your decision. Although you may not be experiencing any issues concerning your health care practice or needs, it is always best to have a legal counsel to prepare you in case problems arise in the future.The health system has complex laws that are not fully understood by most medical practitioners and patients alike. Because of this, employing the services of a health care attorney is therefore imperative in order to have better grasp on these governing laws. Lawyers who specialize in this kind of laws can provide medical practitioners and organizations with medico-legal counsels that are essential for the improvement of providing medical services to people.
What the Diet Industry Isn’t Telling You About Weight Loss
At any given time, more than half of U.S. residents are trying to lose weight. With overall body weights increasing, along with the rates of diseases that have been correlated with higher weights, many people feel that dieting is their only option for good health. Unfortunately, not everyone who wants to reduce is doing it in a healthy way. Weight loss is an industry worth more than $60 billion dollars in the United States, and much of that industry is dedicated to selling products rather than keeping people healthy. Here’s a look at what you may not know about losing weight.Types of Weight Loss TechniquesThere are many methods available for trying to lose weight. Restrictive diets are among the best-publicized. These include calorie restriction, in an attempt to take in less energy than you expend, as well as diets that restrict food by type, such as low-fat, low-carbohydrate and low-sugar diets.In addition to using restrictive diets, some people also attempt to significantly increase their activity. This has a similar effect to that of a calorie-restricting diet, but it increases the amount of energy spent rather than decreasing what goes in. Increased activity tends to require greater schedule and lifestyle changes than simply changing your eating habits, but it comes with added benefits such as increased strength and better cardiovascular health.Last, and potentially more profitable for the weight loss industry, are devices, supplements and other products intended to produce weight loss. These include diet pills, natural weight loss supplements containing acai, African mango and a range of other substances, plus belts and other devices. The basic principle behind some of these products has been shown to help with reduction when it’s combined with other mainstream methods, but the majority of diet pills and other products don’t do much to help. They can even be harmful to your health.Weight loss EffectivenessWith more than 50 percent of the population paying attention to weight, you’d expect the pounds to be coming off. Most people, however, are experiencing little to no weight change. Some people even find that their weight goes up after they attempt to reduce. Depending on the study, statistics show that between 30 and 60 percent of dieters not only regain all the weight they lose while dieting, they actually become even heavier than they were before they started the diet. These patterns hold true across a wide spectrum of weight-loss techniques. Only about 10 percent of all dieters are able to maintain their loss after several years, no matter how much weight was lost during the dieting period.Out of people who do lose weight effectively, the most viable target is a loss of about 10 percent of their highest weight. That’s the number recommended by the National Institutes of Health for people who are obese or overweight. Losing more than this can be difficult and is rarely effective.Many people attribute this lack of effectiveness to poor willpower on the part of the dieter, but recent research has shown that the problem is more complex than this. A 2011 study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that losing weight changes the way the body produces hormones associated with metabolism. This means that people who attempt to reduce are hungrier and suffer from higher appetite levels than they did before the loss. This lasts for at least one year after weight loss, making it far more difficult for someone who has dieted to maintain a lower weight than it is for someone who has never undergone a weight loss program.Dangers of DietingIt’s not just poor rates of effectiveness that make weight loss a complicated subject. Trying to get rid of fat can also be dangerous. This problem is greater with extreme diets that promise to take off a lot of weight very quickly. These diets can encourage loss of muscle instead of fat. They also increase the risk of heart disease, a slowed metabolism, and other health problems. Liquid diets, extreme calorie deprivation, and fad diets that eliminate whole categories of food are the most dangerous; but any kind of diet can be hazardous to your health if you repeatedly lose and gain weight, or “yo-yo.”Diet pills can cause serious health problems, too. These weight loss supplements are usually made to be taken for only a short period of time and often contain large amounts of caffeine and other stimulants. This type of diet pill can increase anxiety and irritability, produce insomnia and other sleep problems, and even cause cardiovascular problems in people with existing heart weakness. Fat blockers can produce intestinal discomfort and other digestive problems. They can also produce malnutrition by blocking the body’s ability to absorb important vitamins and minerals. Diet pills that work as appetite suppressants can raise your heart rate and blood pressure. Even herbal weight loss supplements can have unpleasant side effects, especially in people who are allergic to some of their ingredients.Weight Isn’t EverythingThese questions about health and effectiveness are often met with the assertion that fatness is fundamentally unhealthy, so everyone should try to lose weight. In fact, while there are several diseases and conditions associated with higher weight, they aren’t necessarily a direct result of it. While fat people are much more likely to suffer from diabetes, high blood pressure and other metabolic problems, the correlation reduces significantly if those fat people are active and eat a good diet. Thin, sedentary people are actually at greater risk than people who are fat but otherwise in good physical condition. You may be fat and unhealthy, but your weight isn’t the biggest factor. However, that doesn’t mean that weight loss isn’t effective.Who Should Reduce?Studies show that if you have diabetes, pre-diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, your condition will probably improve if you lose about 10 percent of your body weight. Losing more weight than this doesn’t seem to provide additional benefit, though it could help you wear smaller clothes. If you have any of these conditions, it’s important to be careful how you lose the weight and to do it only in conjunction with good diet and regular exercise. These seem to be the most important parts of staying healthy, no matter how much weight you carry.The Healthiest OptionWhat the diet industry doesn’t want you to know is that most diet pills, weight loss supplements, and diet programs don’t work very well and can even hurt your health more than being fat. If you’re interested in being truly healthy, your best option for weight loss is to look at your activity level and the nutritional content of your diet. Work on making fresh vegetables at least half of your diet and take up moderate exercise at about a half hour per day. That’s what the U.S. government recommends for optimum health.If you do decide to reduce your caloric intake, use a balanced diet that doesn’t cut out any important food groups, and look for weight loss of no more than one to two pounds per week. This rate is more likely to produce permanent loss without serious health side effects because it’s so slow that your body has the ability to adjust more effectively. You may not be able to drop a dress size in a month, but you’ll feel better and stay a whole lot healthier in the long run.
What are anti-ligature blinds?
Anti-ligature blinds are becoming increasingly popular in a range of different settings. The way these blinds differ from traditional blinds is that they are designed to prevent suicide by hanging.
Initially, uptake for this type of blind was largely restricted to high-risk environments such as psychiatric hospitals and prisons, where suicide is common. In mental health environments and detention centres, suicide via hanging is common and preventative measures must be implemented. A huge range of objects could be used to create a ligature point, meaning anti-ligature systems are highly important.
Over the years, anti-ligature blinds have been supplied to hospitals, schools, student accommodation and even hotels.
How do they work?
There are a range of different systems on the market, but the most reliable could well be the magnetic anti-ligature system. YewdaleKestrel® products utilise load release magnets which separate when a downward force is exerted on the product. This means that the product falls to the ground safely and prevents suicide via hanging.
The magnetic systems used in Yewdale’s products are highly reliable because magnets don’t lose their strength for hundreds of years, guaranteeing a lifetime of lifesaving functionality.
Anti-ligature blinds usually have a magnetic connection point above the blind’s barrel. The blind is easy to reconnect to the magnetic bracket after it has fallen to the floor.
If you are considering an anti-ligature blind, Yewdale is a highly recommended company. Based in the UK, Yewdale produce a wide range of anti-ligature products, commercial blinds, and healthcare products including hospital cubicle tracks and medical curtains.
Yewdale produce other anti-ligature products too including a soft, lightweight en-suite door and other accessories such as soap dispensers, toilet roll holder, shelves and artwork. You can see the full range on the website using the link below.