Click below to hear David Rudofsky being interviewed by Anita Campbell of "Small Business Radio" on the subject of Strategies to Survive a Recession.
Strategies to Survive a Recession (26:44)
Click on this link to hear a brief segment on "SmartMoney" television of David Rudofsky being interviewed on the subject of Recession Growth Strategies for Small Businesses:
Click below to hear an outtake of David Rudofsky speaking to his NYU class, "Fundamentals of Corporate Finance," on 4/17/2008, on the topic of Share Repurchase Strategy, including how Coca-Cola's share repurchase program helped it achieve 30% annual stock price appreciation over the 1987-1997 time period.
"Best Financial Practices for NASFT Members"
Booklet written for National Association for Specialty Food Trade members, to help them become aware of best financial management practices for their business. It is now also available for sale to non-NASFT members at this website:
Small businesses should leverage advantages
(published in “Westchester County Business Journal”, 6/7/2004)
The conventional wisdom is that when it comes to realizing purchasing
savings, corporate giants such as IBM, United Technology and Unilever
have it easier than small businesses. While being big can be a plus, small
and mid-size businesses have some purchasing advantages of their own,
such as speed, flexibility and data-access, if they know how to leverage
them.
At many small businesses, one person, most likely the owner/ceo, is responsible
for all purchasing decisions, which puts him or her in an ideal position
to affect significant savings. Consolidating total purchase requirements
into a single contract or stream of requisitions will maximize the chance
of getting favorable quantity-related pricing from suppliers.
With a small business, consolidating purchasing requirements should be
easy, because the data-access is typically fairly straightforward. However,
a small business owner with responsibility for marketing, sales, operations
and human resources will not have much time to identify and qualify a
potential new supplier that meets quality, service and delivery requirements
at a lower cost than incumbent suppliers.
Since competing for a qualified suppliers’ full attention can be
an added challenge for a small business, it is often a matter of identifying
not one alternate supplier, but an entire group.
These days, the Internet can help time-strapped small businesses owners
broaden their choice of suppliers.
Electronic Directories
For example, Thomas’ Register, the standard reference for purchasing
agents has been on-line at www.thomasregister.com
since 1995, and serves as an electronic directory of over 173,000 suppliers,
searchable by category.
BuyerZone.Com is a leading e-marketplace for small and mid-sized businesses
providing buying advice, and creating an on-line marketplace in over 100
categories, where 10,000 suppliers respond to requisitions for goods and
services ranging from call centers to postage meters. Found on the web
since 1997 at www.BuyerZone.com,
BuyerZone.Com achieved profitability in 2002, and is succeeding in a difficult
category where Mercata.com failed and Priceline.com stumbled.
Manufacturers Mall should be of interest to small business owners looking
to gain the benefit of group buying and to form affiliations with other
companies doing business in the Hudson Valley. It can be found on the
web at www.mfrmall.com.
Launched in late 2001 by the non-profit Hudson Valley Technical Development
Center, this fast-growing virtual mall has over 250 on-line members who
are enjoying significant savings on office supplies and freight services.
Greater Efficiencies
Mid-sized businesses may have purchase requirements that allow them to
take advantage of internet based eAuctions, getting suppliers to compete
online for requirements of $3 million or more of a single good or service.
This definitely requires developing an enterprise-wide total of purchase
requirements. If data resides in many different silos, this can be a challenge,
especially if individuals’ PC’s have not been put on a common
network. IBM, Microsoft and others have made increasing efforts to help
small and mid-sized businesses reduce integration complexity, and achieve
greater purchasing efficiencies.
Large corporations have the purchasing scale needed to extract the greatest
possible price discounts from suppliers as well as the financial resources
to hire and develop purchasing staff with deep expertise in specific commodities.
But leveraging that scale demands consolidating purchase requirements
across the enterprise, potentially an expensive and complex challenge.
David Rudofsky, president of Rudofsky Associates (www.RudofskyAssociates.com),
in Sleepy Hollow, can be reached at
David@RudofskyAssociates.com