Business Acumen for Management

Business Acumen for ManagementBusiness Acumen for ManagementRunning any business is a complex puzzle. In buchen to look at the big picture in your business, you need to know the answers to some basic financial questions. It is bedrngnis enough for your CFO or some other bean counter to know this information. Business acumen requires every manager to be aware of these answers so that you will be able to guide your company to success. Managers also should be able to answer each of the following questions for their employees as well How Your Company Makes Money The purpose of every business is to make a profit. You need to make money in order to survive, but in order to do this you must identify what makes your company money. You need to examine your products and services to determine which ones are actually making money for the company. For example, a bakery makes croissants, cookies, and cakes. The croissants account for 80% of the sales, and the cakes make up 15% of the sales. Co okies make up 5%, and some days most of them are thrown out. Knowing what makes your company money will help guide your strategy and enable you to make smarter, better-informed decisions. Know Your Sales Companies need to grow to stay competitive. You are able to identify growth only when you see an increase in sales over time. Knowing last years sales and current sales is essential to understanding the current status of your company. The Profit Margin Every business needs to make a profit. The profit margin indicates how well the company is running. A large, successful company typically has a 13% net profit margin. The higher the profit margin, the more efficient the business is run. There are two types of profit margin gross profit margin and net profit margin. Both are found when the profit is divided by the total revenue. The difference between the two is that the net profit margin is profit after tax and operating costs. Example Revenue $150,000Gross profit $50,000/15 0,000 33% gross profit marginNet profit $10,000/150,000 10% net profit margin The Costs A companys costs affect other financial aspects such as profits. This is why it is so important to control costs. Many companies choose to increase profits by cutting costs. However, this can backfire when the costs you cut directly affect quality, employee satisfaction, or customer satisfaction. There are two basic kinds of costs COGS Cost of goods sold is also called direct cost. This includes costs associated with production, materials, labor, inventory, distribution and other expenses. The individual COGS must stay below the sale price to make a profit.Operating expenses Overhead expenses are included in operating expenses, which is any expense necessary to keep the company running that is not COGS. Examples include support function salaries, rent, marketing, RD, utilities, equipment, travel, etc. If you dont know the answers to each of these questions, then do some digging to find out Talk to your Finance expert, most are happy to share their knowledge. Take Finance and Accounting for the Non-financial Manager course at your local business school. Most offer some version of this kind of management training. Read your companys annual report. When you can answer these 3 essential business acumen questions, youll be able to provide direction, prioritize and make better decisions.

When I asked her for a reference, her reaction blew me away

When I asked zu sich for a reference, her reaction blew me awayWhen I asked her for a reference, her reaction blew me awayHeres an easy way to turn dreaded employment networking into deadly effective bondingWhen youre networking, ask for a reference, not a job. Whether youre doing catch-up drinks or grabbing lunch to reconnect, your primary need is to get an ally, not a tally of job listings. Recruiting a helping hand to your search is your goal.So dont ask your college friend if she knows of any jobs for people like you. How would she?And dont ask your boss from two jobs ago if she has the names of any people who are currently looking to hire somebody like you. It puts her on the spot. Uncomfortably.No, instead, ask for a reference. Mention that youre going to be moving on, or youre already looking, or that youre actively out on the street. Let them know the type of positions you are and are not suited for, and what youre hoping to achieve in your next opportunity.And then ask them if when it gets to that happy place in your search if it would be OK to use them as a reference.By not putting them on the spot about specific job openings, you reduce the awkwardness inherent in the networking conversation.And by letting them know that you hold them in high enough esteem to potentially use them as a reference, youre actually paying them a compliment.Youre also making it easier for them to say yes, and to feel good about themselves for being a good friend and helping you out with a little favor.All of which means that you have a new buddy in your search one whos going to be thinking about keeping an eye out for new opportunities and an ear open for fresh possibilities for their reference-able friend you.Its wins and grins all around.Now, this doesnt work for just any old person you meet on the street. Theres probably a pretty good match between people youd take to lunch and those you could ask to be a reference. So my advice would be to stick to asking those you know well enough.Being realistic, the widely offered and deeply wrong advice from the past decade that you should try to extract favors, concessions, names, jobs, and career assistance from people youve only met over the phone is not only useless, it can be counterproductive to your aims by antagonizing your broader network.By making your networking about compliments, youll find it pays dividends.Good luck in the search this week

2D Nanomaterials Revolutionizing Device Design

2D Nanowerkstoffs Revolutionizing Device Design 2D Nanomaterials Revolutionizing Device Design A new generation of nanoelectronic devices is emerging as a result of recent advances in research involving two-dimensional (2-D) nanomaterials.The fruchtwein widely studied 2-D nanomaterial is graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms only one molecule thick and packed in a hexagonal lattice. The material exhibits exceptional strength and possesses many other novel electrical and optical properties that have scientists buzzing since its first isolation in 2004. The electronic, thermal, and mechanical properties of graphene make it attractive for a variety of potential applications, including aerospace, automotive, electronics, energy storage, solar, oil service, and lubricant sectors.However, graphene lacks one key property that has hampered development in electronic devices. Researchers have struggled to build electronic circuits out of graphene because the material lacks a bandgap, an imp ortant property that allows it to stop conducting or switch off, and is essential for many electronic applications.Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), another 2-D nanomaterial, is proving to be much better suited for designing electronic components. MoS2 has been used as an industrial lubricant for decades, but a Swiss research team uncovered its 2-D potential in 2011 for creating highly flexible thin-film transistors.Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is proving to be better suited for designing electronic components.Improved PerformanceA report on the production of complex electronic circuits made from MoS2 was published in Nano Letters in August 2012. The paper, titled Integrated Circuits Based on Bilayer MoS2 Transistors, was co-authored by Han Wang and Lili Yu, graduate students in the department of electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the direction of Toms Palacios, the Emmanuel E. Landsman Associate Professor of EECS.Accordin g to Placios, MoS2 has a natural bandgap and overcomes the shortcomings of graphene while still exhibiting many of graphenes advantages for electronic and optoelectronic applications.The future of electronics is based on fabricating devices with these new, thin, 2-D materials, says Placios. Graphene is only one atom thick while MoS2 is three atoms thick. The performance of many semiconductor devices, from transistors, to LEDs and sensors will significantly improve when we use these new 2-D materials.Graphene lacks a bandgap which is essential for many electronic applications.Wang and Yu described a variety of basic electronic devices that were fabricated on the material an inverter, which switches an input voltage to its opposite a NAND gate, a basic logic element that can be combined to carry out almost any kind of logic operation a memory device, one of the key components of all computational devices and a more complex circuit called a ring oscillator, made up of 12 interconnected transistors, which can produce a precisely tuned wave output.Potential ApplicationsPalacios envisions a wide array of potential applications for MoS2 and other 2-D materials. At the beginning, it is most important that we dont try to compete with existing applications of high-tech electronics. The entry barrier is too high. For a completely new material and technology to be successful, we need to find completely new applications that cannot be done with existing semiconductors, he adds.One of those applications envisioned by Palacios and his group is flexible and transparent electronic devices, such as displays embedded into a window of a house or office. We want to enable ubiquitous electronicswe want electronic sensors in every building and we want clothes with electronic sensors, systems, and communications devices. We need a new type of material that can be fabricated in very large areas on a flexible substrate. You cant do this with conventional silicon, he says.Another key ap plication for MoS2 is chemical and biological sensors. According to Palacios, thanks to the electrical conductive properties of these thin 2-D materials, chemical sensors with extremely low noise performance and very high sensitivity could be fabricated. He also sees potential for light emitting devices such as LEDs and lasers.Palacios predicts initial commercial applications of devices using these new materials could happen in 3-5 years. However, several challenges must still be solved.It is important that we find a way to fabricate very large areas of MoS2 at low cost, says Palacios. fruchtwein of the results reported in the literature are based on small flakes of MoS2, just a few microns in length. We need to develop high-yield techniques to grow very large areas.He adds that researchers need to understand how to reproducibly modify the charge density of the material in a controlled manner and further research on how light emission occurs in these materials.MoS2 is only the first material of a new family of 2-D semiconductors, says Palacios. We need to perform more experimental and theoretical studies to see whether MoS2 is the best material or not. However, from what we know today, it looks very promising. We believe that the twenty-first century will be all about 2-D materials in the saatkorn way that the information revolution of the twentieth century was based on 3-D semiconductors, like silicon.Tom Ricci is the owner of Ricci Communications.The future of electronics is based on fabricating devices with these new, thin, 2-D materials.Toms Palacios, Emmanuel E. Landsman Associate Professor, EECS, MIT