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Where to find your untapped profit potential…

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 Let
us make the point that, it is not just one solution that works, but more a
number of simple solutions (let’s call them profit-drivers) that can be applied
throughout many areas of your business, to work in combination, and to drive
and multiply your bottom-line profits. 

A number
of years ago, Trevor Nel developed a series called the GROWTH PROFIT-DRIVERS,
which we would like to share with you.

The GROWTH
Profit-Driver Series

  1. Your PHILOSOPHY
  2. Your BUSINESS STRATEGY
  3. Your BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS
  4. Your BUSINESS OPERATING SYSTEM
  5. Your USP – UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION
  6. Your MARKETING STRATEGY
  7. Your PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
  8. Your SELLING PROCESS
  9. Your PEOPLE PROCESS
  10. Your CAPITAL RESOURCES

These
PROFIT-DRIVERS are very simple to apply, but it takes courage to make a
decision to actually apply them and learn from them, to proactively commit to
action them, and to persist with them long enough to see a trend or result
appearing.

 What
it takes is a good positive entrepreneurial attitude towards yourself to learning
new concepts, to looking at business principles in a new light, to your
business and staff, and to your current and prospective customer-base.

In essence
what we are saying is that, the key to successfully building your business is
to be found in your determination and enthusiasm to learn and implement the simple things and remember that life is
controlled by a very simple law called the Law of Cause and Effect.

It is the inevitable process that is the
thread throughout your business framework and methodologies, each step being a
cause, step or action that results in the ultimate effect or desired result.

The universal law
of cause and effect states that for every effect there is a
definite cause. So, if you decide on a desired effect, such as to run a
marathon, the causes or actions required are regular and specific training and
personal development that will allow you to achieve your desired effect, which
is to run the marathon.

The law of cause and effect relates to your thoughts as well. Your
thoughts express themselves through your behaviors and actions which create
specific effects that in turn manifest and create your life.
Negative thoughts will create negative behaviors; similarly, positive thoughts
will create positive behaviors.

If you are not happy with the effects or the results you are getting
in your business, then you must change the causes or actions that
created them in the first place… which is the essence of what the book “The Fixer – simple ideas to grow your
business” program is about, offering guidelines, rules, ideas and processes
to assist you in managing the causes.

The point of this process is to do the small
things extraordinarily well all the time and remember that consistency is the
key to successfully achieving your objectives.

This article is an excerpt from the book “The
Fixer – simple ideas to grow your business” by Iain Johnston and Trevor Nel 

For
more information and to purchase a copy of The Fixer contact Iain at iain@fccc.co.za


About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

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Employee Engagement through management communications

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One of the unique features of the ‘An Even Better Place to Work” (BP2W) engagement solution is the “Satisfaction at Work” (S@W) diagnostic, which allows individuals, in a team, department or group environment to measure their level of engagement around 7 key areas, and then more importantly take responsibility for addressing and improving the concern scores that are indicated through online speed training interventions, resources and supporting materials.

By having each team in the organisation complete the S@W diagnostic, it provides even more meaning for senior leaders who are able to see the levels of engagement across their teams and in so doing, gives them an indication of the effectiveness of their leadership.

An elegant way to grow leadership across the business is for the MD/GM/directors to have conversations with division leaders about the S@W scores for their part of the business, division leaders can then have conversations with team leaders and then team leaders with individual team members.

What is happening in some organisations (which is encouraging) is the MD puts aside an afternoon and invites all the division leaders to present the S@W data for their part of the business to the leadership team. This ensures the leadership team has up-to-date people data and can make interventions to ensure there are no people crises.

We spend lots of money supporting IT, preventing computer breakdowns and under- performance. How much is spent supporting people, preventing their under-performance? We need to take a different approach to leadership, employee engagement and the art of ‘simply getting the best` from people, by utilising, empowering and developing junior and middle managers in the art of engagement, as they are best positioned to engage at team level.  Using this approach the question constantly asked by the people and their teams is “What are we going to do?” not “What is management going to do?” The result is that BP2W is 5% diagnostic and a 95% people solution that is driven by individuals not management.

But I don’t have the time you might say! People come to work to have their needs met. If their needs are not met in the workplace you can expect, higher absenteeism, blame, criticism and increased disengagement. If all your people ever hear is management’s agenda and the business agenda but never their own agenda, expect them to disengage and underperform.


Leading your people and getting the best from them is about connecting with their needs. Do you know the needs of your people? If not how can you lead them effectively?

To take the ‘hit and miss’ out of your leadership, talk to your people about their needs – What are their needs? – Are they being met? – What can be done about it?

“But I haven’t time for these conversations, we need to deliver the numbers” There is always pressure to deliver the numbers and your ability to deliver these numbers is linked to how motivated your people are. That motivational energy flows from people’s needs being met.

Do you know the motivational needs of your team? “But I don’t have the time” you reply, which is a bit like saying “I want to go to Durban, but I haven’t the time to travel”. In other words leadership is not going to happen. You just cannot lead effectively if you don’t connect with the needs of your people.

If you genuinely cannot find the time to get to know the needs of your people, you may wish to discuss this issue with management. For leadership to happen, we need to budget time for people to lead and resource them – give them a system, tools and information.

Adapted from a post by Shay McConnon CEO of McConnon International and our website www.anevenbetterplacetowork.com

For more information www.anevenbetterplacetowork.com  or contact Iain Johnston on 0834104440 or iain@ijc.co.za

THE UNDERLYING MODEL OF LEADERSHIP

Leadership is about individualising not universalising. It is responding to the specific needs of an individual rather than behaving in standard, generic ways.

Leadership is complex. It is not realistic to expect one person to be “getting it right” for his/her colleagues no matter how many leadership courses they have attended. Leadership is likely to be most effective when viewed as a partnership between the leader and the led. When people are willing to engage and take ownership for being led rather than sitting back and expecting the team leader to be solely responsible for leading.

Do we pass ownership for my health to my doctor? Of course not! While the doctor is a significant resource in maintaining my health, we are responsible for my own well-being. Do we pass ownership for our appreciation and motivation levels onto our team leader? This happens in the “entitlement” culture where people blame others for not meeting their expectations and often do little themselves.

At the heart of the An Even Better Place to WorkTM solution is this engagement of colleagues and people taking ownership for their issues and Satisfaction @ Work levels. This will only work in a culture where people are open, welcome feedback and connect with each other’s needs. It is precisely this culture that An Even Better Place to WorkTM is designed to create.

It is in the context of joint responsibility for leading and being led that leadership across the company grows. This model of shared leadership will not only improve satisfaction levels for your staff but will free up your managers’ time to focus on the strategic side of their role.

The question constantly asked is “What am I going to do?” not “What is management going to do?”

THE 7 KEY INDICATORS

The approach uses seven indicators to measure Employee Engagement and by implication the impact of leadership in your company. 

People who are well led:

  1. Feel Valued – they feel appreciated and appropriately rewarded – people believe in them – they are made to feel special and hence they act special.
  2. Are Open – they are receptive to new ideas and engage in genuine two-way communication – can talk freely about a wide range of topics including those delicate and difficult issues.
  3. Engage in Feedback – they recognise the importance of regular constructive feedback to improving performance levels.
  4. Are Motivated – their abilities are recognised and utilised – they have positive feelings about the job and their colleagues and have an intrinsic drive to achieve and support each other.
  5. Manage Differences – they create collaborative relationships with colleagues and ensure that differences are not allowed to get in the way but are seen as a source of strength.
  6. Take Ownership – they take ownership for getting their needs met rather than moan behind backs. They view leadership as a partnership and take joint responsibility with the leader for being led.
  7. Are Conflict Free – they engage in proactive feedback and hence dysfunctional conflict is minimised and time is not wasted.

An Even Better Place to WorkTM quickly creates a well-led, motivated and highly productive workforce. For more information contact iain on 0834104440 or iain@ijc.co.za

Adapted from a post by Shay McConnon CEO of McConnon International and our website www.anevenbetterplacetowork.com

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

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Want to stir up your working world?

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Start by asking a different question

The thought experiment goes like this: imagine a hypothetical factory that is subdivided into areas of specialty. Each area has its own boss, and they, in turn, are watched over by a foreman from above. The chief executive of this hypothetical factory is a dedicated man with a performance orientation, arriving early and leaving late every day, and personally making all of the important decisions in between…

Ricardo Semler, the CEO of a highly-creative company called Semco in Brazil, likes to pain this picture when he addresses audiences. And they find nothing strange about this – it’s a typical pyramid-shaped business with hierarchical structures of authority. That is, until Semler reveals that he is describing an actual English textile factory that existed a long time ago. In 1633, to be precise.

Why, he rightly asks, given the advent of computer technology, automated machinery, rapid new product development and efficient global communication, do we still work this way? That’s how we worked before there were complete maps of planet earth!

Inherited thought is invisible

The answer is: Because the thinking that gets handed down to us becomes invisible to us. It is an extremely human behavioural pattern to do things the way they’ve always been done, on the merit that they have always been done that way. Over time, the goals may change. But the behaviours that informed the original goals remain, adding the burden of senseless labour and the cost of time to our processes.

Studies are increasingly showing that disruptive innovation almost always comes from outside of an industry, and rarely from within. That’s because individuals who did not inherit ‘the way things have always been done’ can often see more clearly, unburdened by precedent.

So how can you buck this trend? How could you disrupt your own industry from within?

In ‘They’re Your Rules, Break Them!’ I suggest asking a different question. Here’s the psychology. If you pre-load a scenario with an alternative question, you will cause yourself to see it differently. By way of a simple example, if you go into a sales scenario consciously asking yourself the question: ‘What’s interesting about each participant’s body language in this meeting?’ you might then notice specific information that you may not have registered otherwise.

Which question?

Perhaps the strongest question to ask, in order to intentionally disrupt your own business, and your own industry, is: ‘What’s awful about us?’

By wilfully seeking out soft-spots, sore-points, bones of contention and customer complaints, you pour into your mill the gristle necessary for serious innovation.

Track your customers’ experience. Begin before they even encounter you. What do they have to do? What must they go through? And what’s awful, ugly or inefficient about it? Innovate there. You just may change things in ways that your competitors never considered.

Douglas Kruger specialises in dismantling needless rules. A business coach and author of 6 books with Penguin Random House, including ‘They’re Your Rules, Break Them!’, he speaks locally and internationally on the topic of disruptive innovation and how to reduce your own rules in order to achieve it. Douglas is also a multiple award-winning speaker, who was inducted into the ‘Speakers Hall of Fame’ in 2016. See him in action at www.douglaskruger.com.

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

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How to run an Awesome Small Business: When is a plan not a plan?

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The answer is when it is a business or financial plan.

Sometimes it’s hard to run a small business.  Where are all the good people to be found? Why are they so expensive when you do find them? Who to trust? Why aren’t you making any money again this month?  How on earth have you just lost that key customer?

A business plan, complete with sales projections and growth plans, is probably something you wrote in order to raise some bank money and you’ve not necessarily looked at it since.

A financial plan is something you might have created to pitch to investors somewhere along the way.  Maybe you’ve looked at and acted on it in small ways since.

Chances are that neither these plans, nor any others that you’ve created, are live working documents, because they are written looking forwards and they were mostly created to fulfil a particular need at a particular moment in time. Their value usually does not extend very far beyond meeting that need.

As a small business owner you need to think differently about your plans by creating and committing to a different sort of plan, a strategic, lived and acted-upon plan which will form the heart of your thinking. This plan must help you to:

  • Define your most valuable customers
  • Map sales by your products and services
  • Align forecasts to both existing and new customers
  • Establish real sales targets 
  • Work out exactly what activities, skills and systems you need.

Most small business owners fall into one of a few traps when it comes to business planning.

  • They don’t plan at all
  • They don’t know how to plan, so their plan does not cover the questions and actions that will improve their chances to succeed.
  • They plan but do not go back weekly, monthly, quarterly to check that what they are doing is in line with achieving their plans.

One of the easiest ways to make sure that you do not fall into these traps is to get a trusted advisor into your business management habits. This could be a friend or family member, but they are usually not completely honest because they believe it will spare your feelings.

The better way is to join a network of like-minded individuals, such as the Fourways Community Chamber (see them on Facebook) or mentoring groups, or to engage a business consultant or coach.  These advisors and networking groups should be selected on their ability to bring the right questions to the discussion, and their willingness to be honest with you to make sure you stay on track.

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

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Communicating through 0’s and 1’s

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Reducing human interaction to a string of digits – the great misconception.

In an already highly digitised environment, corporate environments need to mindfully adapt their approach to engagement, with employees, stakeholders and customers.  The approach that needs to be taken is wilful adaptation.  This means that corporate environments should only progress with digital advancement if they have sufficient resources, capacity and capability to manage developments that come with the advent of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the 4IR (4th Industrial Revolution).  

A simple example is activating social media platforms, when as a business you do not have the capacity to respond to your audience.  It is far wiser to not engage on social media at all, than to be seen as an unresponsive and unengaged business.  In addition corporates need to understand the implications of instant, messages that are not in-line with business values can have devastating consequences for corporate reputation.  Businesses should also ensure that implementing advanced communication platforms should never replace person-to-person communication but rather compliment it.  This is often where corporate environments fail.  Social media should never take-away from existing constructive stakeholder engagement platforms. 

It is less about the exchange of human intervention for AI and far more about being mindful of the impact that the removal of person-to-person engagement has on the psyche of the individual in a corporate environment.  Already, there has been a significant reduction in telephonic and face-to-face communication, which has been replaced by e-mail and instant messaging, with the addition of even more instant highly advanced sharing of information, the risk for a person to process information becomes greater as technology develops. 

In an already highly digitised environment, people are currently unable to cope with the large amounts of information churned out daily, thus we are already living in an environment where people rapidly scan information for personal applicability and taste.  This has already greatly impacted the advertising industry as it is almost impossible for individuals to pay attention.  Often this high overload of information is why employees and stakeholders believe that corporate environments fail to communicate, there is far too much information for employees to constructively extract meaningful information. 

The added concern with the dramatic advancement in technology without acknowledging the disruption to human relations is that people are already so consumed with digital that they forget what it means to look someone in the eye while having a meaningful conversation.  The more accustomed people become to reducing interaction to words on a screen, the more removed they will become from the spirit of humanism.

In order to protect good corporate cultures, business leaders should therefore apply wilful transcendence that is aligned to the strategic intent of the business. 

Deirdre Tholet

SMC Incorporated

083 324 3163

deirdre.tholet@smcinc.co.za

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The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

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Why a Corporate Entrepreneur is the Antidote for a Bad Economy

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When bad times strike, they strike hard and leave very few prisoners. To survive, companies of all sizes must act and look at different ways to see the bad times through. After years of downsizing and cost cutting, corporations have now realised that they can’t shrink their way to success. All they have achieved is survival and surviving does not allow quick growth. A company that is just surviving is a company that is not in business. There is only so much one can do to tweak existing products or services, taking over rivals, or moving into developing countries.

A new imperative is clear: Companies must create, develop, and sustain innovative new businesses. Elon Musk agrees, “Failure is an option. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”

All businesses require innovation. Innovation is a compilation of fresh ideas, and fresh ideas stem from those that are passionate about their organisation. These are the Corporate Entrepreneurs, or now known as Intrapreneurs.

So why should companies create more Corporate Entrepreneurs?

We are so often reminded of stories about decision makers trapped by conventional thinking:

Blockbuster – the company that hired out movies. They had the option of buying out    Netflix, who sent videos through the internet directly to your home.        Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010.

Blackberry – almost everyone had a Blackberry phone in the mid 2000’s until the          iPhone was released in 2007. They never believed that the touch screen             technology would survive. From having 50% of the market share, they now         own 0.8%.

Publishing Industry – instead of embracing the digital generation, publishers have        been dragging their heels trying to slow it down.

There are many more organisations who have refused to be innovative and are now just ‘surviving companies’ or worse, no longer in business, like Xerox, MySpace, Polaroid, Yahoo, Kodak, Atari, AOL, and many more.

Do you ever want to see your company in this list?

This illustrates how important it is for organisations to create more Corporate Entrepreneurs.

Any corporate person will tell you that to be a good manager, he/she has to have and practice the 6 management traits to be successful. These are:

1. Leadership

2. Communication

3. Adaptability

4. Developing Other People

5. Building Relationships

6. Constant Development

So yes, these are important when one is employed to run a department or even a company. These are very necessary when their mandate is to ensure profitability of their department, to ensure employees are doing their work, and ensuring that all the paperwork is in line with the company’s processes.

However, when all these boxes are ticked, the manager gets rewarded with a bigger department consisting of more employees and a fancier title with a bigger office on the 6th floor. This process gets repeated until our manager becomes too old for the job and goes into retirement to the coast.

Sitting on the patio overlooking the sea, our manager looks back at what he has achieved in his life – his story: being a highly paid manager that was responsible for a big department.

The question I always ask is, “What value did he really make in the company?

How different will the picture really look if we turn the manager into a Corporate Entrepreneur?

What would happen if we placed                                                    

Richard Branson on the patio next to our manager?

How different would that story be?

So how would your organisation fare if your managers could think like a Corporate Entrepreneur?

Corporate Entrepreneurs do share a collection of these management characteristics; however, they require the ability to take risk, demonstrate initiative to ensure a successful venture as well as the following characteristics:

1. Tenacity

Corporate Entrepreneurs constantly thrive under the cloak of uncertainty. They have the tenacity which helps in dealing with the repeated challenges they experience day in and day out. They have perseverance, persistence, determination, commitment, resilience. They know they are the ones who create control.

2.  Passion

Money is not always the driving force behind their motivation, but that deep passion and strong belief in the offerings. Their belief that they can solve life’s’ problems and make life so much easier, better, cheaper. They believe they will change the world. Their passion in what they’re doing is what gets them through these challenges.

3.  Tolerance of ambiguity

This is where the risk-taking comes in. Corporate Entrepreneurs have the ability to master the Fear Factor; endure the fear of uncertainty and potential failure. It is really the art of successfully managing the daily fears; fear of humiliation, fear of missing deadlines, expectations, fear of failure, bankruptcy, and so on. Their ultimate entrepreneurial test takes place in their attitude and abilities of mental control and stamina. Managers do go with the fear – but then they quit, whilst the Corporate Entrepreneur will take it on and push through it. The Corporate Entrepreneur looks at the situation and knows they have some control over the outcome.

4.  Vision

Corporate Entrepreneurs are able to identify opportunities and delve in the space where others have yet to explore. They create niches that managers cannot identify, which opens up opportunities in innovation and evolving areas. These they visualise well and are able to effectively communicate them to those around them. They strive to operate where angels fear to tread.

5.  Self-belief

Their belief in what they do is so strong that it rides on the back of self-confidence. This strong belief helps to overcome the risk factor. The energy created is so contagious that others are sucked in willingly and enthusiastically.

6.  Flexibility

They are the masters of adaptation and are fully aware that their success depends on it. How things were originally planned, may never end up looking the same. This level of flexibility creates the response to the ever-changing market conditions and the environment and staying on top and in control.

7.  Rule-breaking

This is one factor that scares the Executive in many organisations. The Corporate Entrepreneur exists to defy conventional thinking. Doing what others are not doing is the natural way the Corporate Entrepreneur operates – yet they get results and are the ones responsible for taking organisations to the next level and seeing it through.

Several big companies today actively promote Corporate Entrepreneurship, allowing their employees to spend 10 to 20 percent of their time on innovative ideas that are unrelated to their normal jobs. Companies such as Google, 3M and Intel are well known for their efforts in this regard. Not surprisingly, these are some of the best performing big companies in the world of business today. 

Some of the best products that were born out of intrapreneurship:

  • Apple – Mac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iCloud
  • Google – Gmail, Google News, AdSense, driverless cars, Google Glass and other innovations
  • Virgin – The numerous divisions launched by Virgin: Air, hotel, casino, books, music, Megastore, mobile, wines, games, Galactic
  • Sony – PlayStation
  • 3M – Post-It Notes
  • Discovery – Medical, Life Cover and Investments
  • Kreepy Krauly – swimming pool cleaner
  • Pratley – Glue and Putty
  • Hippo Roller – Water roller

… and there are many more.

Can your company afford NOT having a Corporate Entrepreneur? Certain managers can be trained to become a Corporate Entrepreneur.

Trevor Ketler is the founder of the Corporate Entrepreneur Academy and has been training Corporate Entrepreneurs for the past 30 years. http://www.ketler.co.za/entrepreneur-academy/

Find out how Trevor can add value to your company, call him on 082 447 5150 8�

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

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Augmented Reality – Welcome to the 4th Industrial revolution

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Augmented Reality (AR). A quick search on Google will tell you that this means a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, thus providing a composite (something that is made up of various different parts) view.

Everyone has seen the movie images of fighter jet pilots with augmented reality images of critical data being screened onto the inside of their visors as they hone in on their targets. All they have to do is look at their target to lock onto it, and flip the switch to fire.

Augmented Reality is simply the blending of interactive digital elements – like visual overlays, into our real-world environments, namely your business

But what is AR really? And how can AR benefit you? Well, the Pixzar logo, the dinosaur or the phone image in this article is an example of augmented reality, read on to see just how it works!

Technology exists to make life easier. We live in the age of information where everything is readily & easily available at your fingertips, or more specifically, your smartphone.

Your smartphone is your window to the world giving you access to all types of applications, in particular: Augmented Reality – that will enhance your ability to enter a new world of instant access to information, knowledge and understanding!

We have entered into the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, a new immersive wave of computing, to which AR (Augmented Reality) together with VR (Virtual Reality) will lead the way in definite changes to the way we access information and sift out right from wrong, and wanted from unwanted. In essence, saving you time.

Consider this, you’re looking through this publication and an advert or article grabs your attention and you would like to know more.

What are the steps you would take to access further information on that particular product?

  • You could call the number displayed and hold on while a receptionist tries to locate the correct department to put you through. By this time you’ve wasted valuable time holding on the phone.
  • You could visit the website and view further details on the product. Of course, you are interrupted with pop-up ads continuously.

Both these actions require user input as well as considerable time. AR allows you to access the relevant and specific information that interests you by using the new PIXZAR app created in South Africa. PIXZAR is a free download.

PIXZAR changes the way you are now able to interact with advertising, marketing, books, newspapers, logos and other media.

How does it work? Once you have downloaded the PIXZAR app onto your phone, scan the PIXZAR logo at the bottom of this article and you will have access to a whole range of additional, more detailed, relevant digital AR and PIXZAR information.

By using AR in your articles or advertising you can now take your audience into your world of technical specifications and information on your product, videos or educational material, as there is no limit to the journey you can take the reader on, without them having to leave the screen of their smartphone.

Another example would be if you saw an outfit that you liked, and you would like to see it in another colour or design, the manufacturer, using AR, would allow you to scan the item and you would immediately be taken to a site where more detail on that specific item is located rather than going through the website and spending time scrolling a myriad of pages & links looking for that specific item.

The steady growth of AR globally, and various applications to use it, is taking the marketing industry by storm.

There is no limit to where the PIXZAR application can be used together with VR – from the education sector to manufacturing and even a simple scan of a page of an instruction manual page would bring it to life and show how to do something.

Gone are the days of researching encyclopaedias, history books, etc., manually.  

All vital information for every conceivable subject may be brought into the 21st century by simply augmenting the pages.

No need to change the print, just implement or update the digital content. This in turn gives added value to current media all the way from famous fairy tales to history to complex math and physics problems.

AR is more than just cool digitally generated information. It, like many of the technological advances, make your life easier and effectively gives you the most accurate and relevant information WHEN YOU want it.

Download PIXZAR and Scan the dinosaur below. Look for the “AR augmented” adverts and articles, scan them with your PIXZAR app and see where they take you.

Contact us If you are interested in AR advertising in the Northern Business Review.

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The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

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Meet the Eagle’s Nest Family

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Article by Jasper Cloete

Since it opened its doors for business as a family owned Guesthouse and Conference Centre in 1997, Eagle’s Nest helped launched many businesses, churches and became an active part in the lives of many individuals with interesting stories.

One such individual is Andre van Zijl.

Andre finished school in 1965, started his working career in the Permanent Force from 1966 to 1971, joined the SAA in 1971 to 1979 and took his final job as a high school teacher of Afrikaans and History from 1978 to 1984.

Then his life collapsed! As a result of poor lifestyle choices earlier in his career, he was diagnosed with HIV in 1984! He lost his job as a teacher and for the next 4 years became a recluse working through his emotions and options. During this period of utter despair, he had a dramatic spiritual encounter which led him to become a committed confessing Christian with a purpose to make the rest of his life count by making a positive impact in the lives of as many people possible.

Being an energetic sportsman all his life, he used the method of attempting unusual World Records as his platform to do motivational talks as an HIV activist and to raise funds for various charities.

Since 1988 to 2017 he successfully attempted and set 54 such records which ranged from:

  • Roller skated from Cape Town to Johannesburg in 19 days
  • Sang for 28.5 hours
  • Climbed Table Mountain on roller skates in 41 min 27 sec
  • Roller skated from London, England to Edinburgh, Scotland in 7 days
  • Danced for 345 hours nonstop
  • Drank 20 litres of milkshake in 4 hours
  • Played chess for 150 hours
  • Roller bladed 85m down the Old Parktonian Hotel (secured with ropes) in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, in 1 min 47 sec.
  • Pumped petrol for 1,000 hours

To

  • Sitting in a jacuzzi for 10 days

During the period 1988 to 2017 he collected an estimated R86m for various charities, amongst other:

  • Abraham Kriel Children’s Home
  • Cotlands
  • Various SPCA’s
  • Epilepsy SA and the
  • School for Blind and Deaf

In 2010 he exchanged his roller blades for a bicycle and started to crisscross South Africa and the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique to do his talks and raining funds. These travels were made possible with the sponsorship of various companies eg. Spur, Protea Hotels and various restaurants and guest houses.

This is how he met Helen Cloete, owner of Eagle’s Nest in 2014. He frequented Eagle’s Nest more and more and soon developed a strong friendship with the owners. In 2017 he was exposed to the Generational Inheritance Group (GIG) message, founded by Jasper Cloete. After having gone through the training on how to develop a generational legacy, he realised the time had come to re-invent himself as a businessman.

With the support of Jasper and Helen, he explored various opportunities until he settled on his NeoLife business (distribution of health and cleaning products) and his Water Filtration business (operating as HydroBev Fourways). His Mineral Pot is fast becoming a best seller to households and offices because of the fact that the filtration unit does not require electricity to work and filters 12 litres per cycle.

Today, Andre has developed 4 income streams and is a staunch believer in the GIG movement. To talk to Andre on either GIG, NeoLife or Water Filtration units, he can be contacted at 072 206 6355 or email at ahvzijl@gmail.com

Eagle’s Nest Lodge and Conference Centre is proud to be part of the story of Andre.

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

@NsabasiNBR

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4th Industrial Revolution Embrace it!

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Bring up the subject of the forthcoming ‘Jobless Economy’ and it is enough to send a cold shiver down the spine of most South Africans who see the current dehumanising social impact of massive numbers of unemployed on almost every street corner, just struggling and hustling day-to-day to survive as best they can.

Ask for solutions from our politicians, academics and economists and all they seem to come up with is: ‘Ours is a labour-intensive economy, we’ve got to create jobs’.

Well, good luck to their elbows, let them stop talking about it and get on with the task of creating those labour-intensive jobs. If this is your solution, then make it happen!

In the meantime, a funny thing happened while most South Africans blinked in 2018.

While many weren’t looking, the rapid convergence of hugely disruptive, innovative advances in the world of business technology exploded: from automation (robotics), to artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT),  Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality (AR/VR), 3D printing, energy, autonomous driving and Blockchain. All are poised to radically transform traditional industries and business models as we have never seen before.

The advent of faster, cheaper, computing power is driving exponential increases in productivity & performance in almost every sector of business & lifestyle.

Peter Diamandis & Ray Kurzweil, founders of Singularity University, believe this rate of change to be ‘fundamentally different than ever before. All of these technologies are doubling in power ever year. This will create Disruptive Stress or Disruptive Opportunity, depending which way you choose to look at it.’

It is estimated that almost half of the best companies globally in their respective sectors will disappear in the early 2020s – www.imd.org/research-knowledge/reports/digitalvortex/ – with massive disruptions expected in the sectors of Manufacturing, Mining, Finance, Insurance, Law, Real Estate, Healthcare, Retail & Advertising. Business can fear it or embrace it.

‘At FOURWAYS Chamber, we embrace the concept of Disruptive Opportunity and are enthusiastic enablers of the 4th Industrial Revolution.’ Says FOURWAYS Chamber CEO: Trevor Nel

‘Imagine the collaborative innovation potential of 5 billion connected smartphone-users with almost unlimited access to education. I concur with those global abundance-thinkers who believe that we live in the most exciting of times ever in history. ‘

FOURWAYS Chamber members & local business operators (first-timers: complimentary access) meet & network every Friday – 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 – at Eagles Nest Lodge & Convention Centre, 373 Leslie Ave., cnr. William Nicol & Leslie, Fourways. Register on www.fccc.co.za

Trevor Nel can be contacted on:

T: 084 332-4421

E: trevor@fccc.co.za

www.facebook.com/fourwayschamber

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

@NsabasiNBR

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AUGMENTED REALITY – PixzAR

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Augmented Reality! A quick search on Google will tell you that this means a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, thus providing a composite view. But what is it really? And how can it benefit you?

Technonogly exists to make life easier. We live in the age of information and everything is readily and easily available at your fingertips…the only prerequisite is a smart phone. Though this may seem incredible, and it is, having access to everything means just that. You have access to all types of information.

This is one aspect that Augmented Reality can really shine and enhance! Considered the 4th immersive wave of computing, AR (Augmented Reality) together with VR (Virtual Reality?)definitely changes the way we access information and sift out right from wrong and wanted from unwanted. It can, in essence, save you time.

Consider this, you’re flipping through a magazine and an advert grabs your attention. What are the steps you would take to enquire further information on that particular product?

  • You could call the number displayed and hold on while a receptionist tries to locate the correct department to put you through. By this time you’ve wasted valuable time holding on the phone.
  • You could visit the website and view further details on the product. Off course, you are interrupted with pop up ads continuously.

Both these actions require user input as well as considerable time. AR allows you to access ONLY that most relevant information via one of the many apps available today. One such app is PixzAR. Created in South Africa this App aims to do just that. Pixzar Changes the way the public interacts with advertising, marketing, books, newspapers, logos and other media…

For instance – A particular car ad commands your attention – All you need to do is use PixzAR to scan said ad and have access to a whole range of additional, more detailed and relevant & digital information. This App takes you into the configuration details of the car, videos of that particular vehicle. You could practically see every aspect of the vehicle ….on your smart phone.

Another eg. if it was an outfit that grabbed your attention…and you would like to for eg. see different colours, that too would be made available digitally with a simple swipe option, rather than going through the website and spending time scrolling looking for that specific item.

The steady growth of AR globally and various application to use it, is taking the marketing industry by storm. Another application that can be used together with VR is the education sector. Gone are the days of researching encyclopaedias, history books etc, manually.  All vital information for every conceivable subject may be brought into the 21st century by simply augmenting the pages. No need to change the print, just implement or update the digital content. This in turn gives added value to current meduim all the way from famous fairy tales to history to complex math and physics problems.

What about the DIY groups I hear you ask? How often do we get a one page instructional diagram that make little to no sense? With AR, a simple scan of that page would bring to life in 3D excatly how A should be slotted in B and which screws goes where!

So what is AR exactly? AR is more than just cool digitally generated information. AR is a time saver. It, like many of the technological advances is to make your life easier. To give you the most accurate, and relevant information WHEN YOU want it. Also, it’s damn cool! Don’t believe us? Just download PixzAR and Scan this very article.

Have an article or advert under this and invite the readers to download the app and scan the article and see how AR really works

About Us

The Northern Business Review is a business community newspaper that provides a platform for businesses to market their products and services, as well as build their brand, but equally important the publication provides information, advice and topics of interest, including business, entrepreneurial, economic reviews and simple ideas to grow your business. The publication has a primary objective to “uniquely” represent businesses to a wide audience across the community as well as provide a media platform of business articles and information that affect, influence and uplift the business environment within our defined geographical and cultural community.

@NsabasiNBR

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Designed by Nsabasi Publishing©2020