Published on: 27 December 2018
Last Updated on: 31 October 2024
Gas and oil are commodities that will always be in demand globally. No matter where you are in the world, people seem to be needing oil and gas more and more, be it for transportation, to run businesses and factories, and machines, and to do daily tasks such as cooking. Because of its increasing demand, it’s a highly favored investment choice by business owners and investors around the world. However, as with all other industries, the petroleum industry does have its pros and cons. Here are some of them:
The Pros:
1. There Are Tax Benefits And Advantages:
Naturally, economists and the respective governments encourage investors to put their money in the energy and petroleum industry. The more businesses in the energy sector, the higher the demand for this commodity, as the price per barrel of oil also tends to stabilize more. Remember this is important as almost all aspects of man’s daily life are highly dependent on the energy and petroleum industry.
To encourage investors to stay attracted to gas and oil businesses, governments provide for annual tax benefits and deductions. Some of these include the following:
When you invest in a limited liability partnership/gas company, such as the CEFM Oil & Gas Investment Fund, 15% of your share can become a part of your tax-sheltered income, which means that this 15% of your total stock will not be subject to taxes.
In the event of stock depletion, governments can allow for certain allowances to keep your company’s cash flow reports stable.
2. The Gas and Oil Industry Is a Lucrative Trade:
Gas and oil are both commodities. You cannot go through your daily life without either of these two. Even the simplest and most rural forms of living require gas, such as lighting up gas lamps at night. At present, the petroleum industry makes up 10% of the total gross domestic product of the world, representing an amount of around $10 trillion. This figure does not end here, as it is bound to grow even more as the global population increases in number.
3. The Rate of Return on Investment Is High:
Economists around the world found that the return on investment from oil and gas companies is usually around 5 to 10 times more than the capital that you put in. It is tough to find any other investment opportunity that allows for the same favorable returns. When exploration of an oil reserve starts, profit can begin to accumulate after the first two months; this speed is unrivaled by any other business sector.
The Cons:
1. There Is a Limit to Growth:
Oil and gas reserves are not taken from a renewable source. Eventually, the time will come when these resources will be fully depleted. As the demand for oil continually increases by the day, so does the rate of these reserves eventually being maximized and fully depleted. You can only do so much.
Further, this industry needs to fulfill a lot of environmental responsibilities, such as the rehabilitation of the reserve that was drilled up for oil explorations. Doing this entails costs for the company.
2. There Is a Huge Political Risk Involved
Because oil is a commodity, it is but natural that political governments intervene. As much as they would want to protect a private company’s interests to make sure investors in the market will stay, they are also protecting their political interests. Therefore, any change in trade factors concerning political state agreements, tax reform laws, treaties, and the like will significantly affect the price and stability of the oil. This would mean that you cannot ever shy away from any involvement of politics in your business if you decide to invest in the petroleum industry.
3. The Market Price of Oil Is Always Fluctuating:
As more and more individuals demand gas and oil, its market price will continue to fluctuate as well. Increased demand for goods will increase the supply; hence, the competition is high, so the costs have to decrease. This economic fact is good for the consumers but bad for you as the business owner. Profit is always what you have in mind, and in the oil industry, there is a ceiling as to how much you can increase the price of gas and oil.
Conclusion:
As lucrative as the oil and gas trade may be, do remember this list of its pros and cons. The disadvantages are not to discourage you from investing in this business sector, but it will help you make a better and wiser decision on where to plant your hard-earned money. Anchoring your investment in an informed decision will help you earn better growth on your commodity investment plan.
Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.
The idea of expanding globally is enticing for any growth-hungry entrepreneur, but it’s also been said that good things come in small packages.
It's crucial to weigh the benefits of staying local vs. expanding globally so you can make an educated decision about what's best for your business.
Expanding your business globally
One big advantage that comes with taking on an international market is the ability to tap into a larger consumer base. There are many potential customers around the world who you can reach if your business has an international presence.
One of the easiest ways to establish your business presence in international markets is to use a virtual office service like iPostal1. It allows you to immediately create a professional presence in any market where you want to plant your flag. The virtual office can intercept mail on your behalf as well as give you a local phone and fax number, so you can manage your new expansion from the comforts of home.
Another benefit of expanding globally is the ability to gain access to a new pool of talent. You can hire employees from all over the world if your business reaches international customers. You'll also gain the ability to find suppliers worldwide that meet any requirements you may have around cost or availability.
The downsides for this type of expansion are that marketing can become a lot more complex, and employees may be scattered across time zones, making labor-management difficult.
Keeping your business local
The first benefit of keeping your business local is that you can provide better customer service. You're able to respond more quickly and efficiently than if you had customers around the world.
Another advantage is having all of your employees in one place. The team can schedule meetings and solve problems faster than if you had to navigate around time zones and remote work. Often, the result is that you can innovate more quickly than if your employees were working remotely.
The final benefit of keeping your business local is that marketing remains simple. You can use the home-field advantage to cater marketing efforts to your community.
The downfall here is that you will reach a limit to how much the company can grow, and your team may not be as diverse.
How to expand your business internationally
The first step is determining the resources you need for expanding globally. Make sure you have enough capital and employees qualified to take on international markets.
It's essential to determine how you're going to reach these new customers. You can do that by creating a marketing plan for both your home country and the international markets you want to expand into, including a new search-engine-optimized website.
You should also develop a plan for how you're going to handle any legal issues that may arise, such as taxes or regulations. Make sure you hire an accountant with experience pertaining to the local laws in each market.
Wrap up
Now that you have seen a comparison of remaining local vs. expanding internationally, it’s decision time. Take your time and make sure your final decision makes the most sense based on where your business sits currently.
Read Also:
Run Your Business with Ease Using an Integrated Management System
How You Can Grow Your Small Business By Taking Help From Crypto
VAVE Cost Reduction in Business – Its Importance & Benefits
Reputation management refers to the controlling and influencing or "managing" of a person's or group's online reputation. There are several different types of reputation management but one in particular that you need to be aware of is called "Bait and Switch."
Online reputation management is basically a system that can help control the amount of information that can be found out about an individual or company. A good example of this would be if you were shopping on a website for some new shoes, and you were told that the shoes that you have chosen do not fit you. By the time you return to that site, you might have already had to deal with some of the negative reviews that they were trying to hide by hiding those bad reviews on other sites where more people are looking for them.
In reputation management, you would find that these negative reviews were posted on many websites that have some sort of reputation management system on them. The reason that you would find negative reviews on a website is that the site that you are on is trying to manipulate you into buying their product. The problem is, the more often that you are manipulated into buying from that site, the more you are being controlled by them.
What do we mean by Reputation Management?
According to RepGuardian, a leading reputation management software, online reputation is one of the foundations for a successful digital presence. It involves a brand’s mentions, comments, and presence in different parts of the web, from social media to common blogs.
First of all, reputation management is a very simple concept that you will need to be able to understand. When you go on a website and try to buy something from them, the first thing that you are going to be asked to do is to fill out a survey about yourself. After that, you will be asked to fill out another survey that tells them what type of website you want to advertise your business on, as well as the products that you are selling.
Then they will place your information on their own website where anyone can see it. After that, they are going to tell you that you have page rank and you should place an ad on one of their other sites that says that contains another link to their site. They will then ask you to place an ad on their site as well, and if you get a great response, then you will get paid a commission for your advertising work.
Why Reputation Management is Important for your Brand?
Reputation Management is very important for any company to keep its brand image afloat online. The reputation of a company is very important not just for its immediate profit but also for long-term survival. It helps in establishing credibility by ensuring that prospective customers find your products and services even when they are looking for them online and on the web.
One of the main reasons why companies have an online presence is because it allows them to reach out to potential customers who might not necessarily know about their products and services but can help in spreading awareness and trust among them. A company's reputation depends on how people perceive it and this goes a long way in driving sales.
The main benefit of online reputation management is its ability to reduce costs and generate more traffic on the site. This is due to the fact that there is no need to spend money on advertising as people searching for the product will be able to find it.
What are the Three Key Benefits to Reputation Management?
First is the cost advantage since there is no need for print media and there are no ads to pay for. In addition, the use of social media and internet marketing allows one to make a bigger impact online as opposed to other traditional methods.
Second, the benefits of online reputation management include the fact that it allows you to create a positive image for your products and services that could help you in generating sales and revenue.
Finally, the benefits of reputation management include the fact that it allows you to improve your own brand and it is one of the best ways to gain more exposure on the internet. By being well known to your potential clients and visitors online, you are making yourself more accessible and thereby increasing your credibility. The best part is that it is easy and affordable.
How to Deal with Dark Competitor Sabotage
In the realm of online feedback in your reputation management, not all reviews are honest reviews.
Yes unfortunately!
Some competitors are known to throw mud at you through fake bad reviews or fake news to damage your brand’s credibility.
But fear not; there is a way to overcome these obstacles.
Here’s how you can identify and deal with competitor sabotage through your online reputation management strategy.
How to Tell if a competitor is Sabotaging Your Business?
The first step is to know you have a fake review. A review that is too negative, sounds like others or repetitive are the most common form of fake reviews.
If multiple reviews point out the same issue almost word for word, it’s likely a campaign against you or your product. You should also watch for spikes in feedback as well.
If all your reviews are positive until recently and then suddenly turn dramatically bad, it could also be a competitor. A sign of a bitter competitor who is trying to push you away!
To determine if a review is fake, do the following
Monitor Review Patterns: If you notice an unusual pattern, such as multiple negative reviews around the same time, there may be a fake reviewer in your mix.
Check Reviewer Profiles: Fake reviewers will either have no history of reviewing or will only review other competitors in your industry.
Use Reputation Management Tools: There are tools out there, such as Google Alerts or RepGuardian. This can help you spot harmful reviews when they’re published so that you can respond to them in a timely manner.
How to Respond to Fake Reviews
If you spot a potential attack, stay calm and respond professionally. Don’t fly off the handle, even if it’s a ridiculous review.
Trust me, someone with a brain will know it is a fake review! In fact, your professional response will only strengthen your stance.
Reply to the review with a factual and polite response. Explain that this isn't representative of your company and ask the reviewer to get in touch with you so that you can discuss it further.
However, sometimes, you cannot be all peace-loving through your approach!
Flag the Review: On platforms like Google and Yelp, you can flag reviews for reputation violations. Although there's no guarantee of getting it removed, it definitely helps in my experience.
Contact the Review Platform: If a review is clearly fake or malicious, you can contact the support team of whatever platform the review is on. Ensure to send them evidence and ask for removal.
Finally - Recovering from a Sabotage Attack
When you face fake reviews, it’s important to get things back on track. Ask happy customers if they will leave some positive feedback.
This will lessen the impact of any negative reviews and help demonstrate to potential customers that you are a legitimate business.
Ask for Reviews: If you want to combat that, ask for reviews that are from loyal customers. Don’t be afraid to ask your satisfied customers to share their experiences online.
Boost Your Content: Another way to combat this is to create useful and engaging content that will help push negative reviews down in search results.
By being aware and strategic in your response, you can safeguard your brand against any harmful attempts by competitors. Always remember that people can try all their malicious methods; your reputation is totally within your control.
Read Also:
7 Growth Hacking Ideas that will Boost your Startup
A Brief Introduction to Data Quality Management Systems
What is The Procurement Management Process?
5 Most Common Digital PR Mistakes And How To Avoid Them
As an entrepreneur, your customers are the biggest pillar of your business. No matter your industry of domain, area of specialization, or even your business focus, they are the single most valuable asset to your organization and you should treat them as so.
Through their valuable feedback, your business can gain a new sense of direction, develop new concepts, as well as bring in more revenue. With that said, as a business owner, simply appreciating your customers isn’t enough. You need to truly understand them to tailor your products and services to meet them at their point of need. And that’s where Salesforce application development comes in.
It entails creating integrated customer relationship management solutions that interface businesses with their customers. These CRM platforms also give all the departments in a particular organization a unified view of all the customers and how they interact with various aspects of the business.
In this article, we are going to look at what Salesforce is and its uses. While at it, we are also going to delve deeper to see the entire Salesforce application development lifecycle.
What Is Salesforce?
Simply put, it’s a cloud computing SaaS company that provides customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. Thanks to the company’s cloud technology, businesses are able to better connect with their existing clientele, partners, and potential customers.
Over the years, Salesforce software has grown to become the leading marketing and customer behavior tracking solution for both small startups and Fortune 500 companies. As it turns out, customer relationship management is one of the key driving factors for the increasing demand for application development in Salesforce.
Recent research from Vonage offered a compelling view of the effects and consequences of poor customer service. In the US alone, the research revealed that an estimated $62 billion is lost annually as a result of bad customer experience.
To underwrite this figure, a different report from Huffpost has indicated that 91% of customers won’t hesitate to switch brands once they experience bad customer service. These are mind-blowing figures, especially if a business has no solution to counter the consequences of poor customer experience.
However, with Salesforce in place, businesses are able to overcome the problems caused by poor customer service and other business process variables. According to statistics published on Salesforce’s website, companies that are currently using their software have continued to see average increases in multiple areas. For instance, 34% of users have seen an increase in customer satisfaction, with 27% and 32% users seeing an increase in sales revenues and lead conversion respectively.
In 2018, Salesforce emerged as the biggest CRM software commanding a total of 19.8% market share of the CRM software market. During the same period, the company was voted as the #1 CRM provider by the International Data Corporation. It shouldn't come as a surprise that companies are willing to pay the highest Salesforce consultant salary just to get wind of this technology.
The Benefits of Using Salesforce
Given the commendable portfolio of Salesforce, here are areas it can help your business find success. Below I am going to discuss the benefits of using Salesforce.
Helps Collect Customer Intel
In the prevailing competitive business environment, overlooking data collection can be a fatal and unforgiving mistake. As a business, collecting and collating customer intelligence should be an obsession or the very least treated as a full-time affair, because it can lead to loss of revenue. As such, if you are to improve customer satisfaction and continue remaining competitive, hiring qualified Salesforce developers to build a high-quality CRM tool is inevitable.
And with Salesforce, you get an upper hand over your competitors by enjoying tools that help you identify, understand, and solve customer problems.
Flexible And Scalable
As companies and business needs continue to evolve, the tools of trade must also adapt. For instance, if the structures of your business start to grow, the management software should be able to seamlessly accommodate the changes. Cognizant of this fact, Salesforce CRM comes with multiple functions that allow for scalability right from the initial stages to any future interactions.
Helps in Account Planning
Having a unified view of customer information allows your teams to independently make plans for various accounts. It also facilitates a more hands-on customer connection approach as well as allows various reps and departments in your organization to modify their plans for optimized results. Salesforce also comes with a to-do items feature, which helps your entire workforce stay organized throughout the day.
Along with that, Salesforce also works as an organizational tool. Your team can create calendar reminders specifying the future customer follow-ups or important duties reminders to the upper management, which helps prevent anything from falling through the cracks.
If you are in the service-based businesses, Salesforce also gives you insights into the amount of time a particular customer/s has stayed in a particular subscription package. Once this info is established, your team is able to customize marketing materials to match a particular customer niche.
Cloud Connectivity
Many companies are now gravitating towards software as a service (SaaS), which means software that is available online. Luckily, Salesforce doesn’t need to be installed on a computer as it is cloud-based. This means that you can easily access it everywhere, interface it with other digitized services, and enjoy unlimited storage capacity. And since no maintenance is required, you get to save on a Salesforce developer salary that would have otherwise been paid for this purpose.
Facilitates Team Collaboration
Poor team communication and collaboration can lead to reduced productivity. On top of a unified view of customer data, Salesforce’s “Chatter” feature allows your team members to easily and regularly communicate work-related information. Additionally, the feature also lets you highlight and prioritize urgent issues that require special attention by inviting different team members to look at them.
Salesforce Application Development Lifecycle
Software developers spend a lot of time designing, developing, securing, and delivering products that perform better than initially envisioned. As a result, different software development approaches like agile development, waterfall model, and many others have merged.
When it comes to cloud-based solutions, the incorporation and implementation of various software development methodologies make it even more complex. Moreover, the Salesforce Development Lifecycle also means that the software is developed, tested, and deployed in a cloud environment.
Below, we have laid down 6 steps that clearly illustrate the entire Salesforce Development Lifecycle:
Business Requirements Analysis
The first step towards a successful custom Salesforce application is to conduct an internal business needs analysis. It entails the development team eliciting the potential customer needs, elaborating them, validating all the assumptions, and devising efficient methodologies to meet these requirements.
Business requirements analysis is important as it helps avert potential mistakes as well as make the final product both efficient and compatible with the existing system and security standards.
UI/UX Design
Another important aspect of Salesforce application development is optimizing the app for user experience. A report by iMPACT indicates that 52% of customers are less likely to conduct business with a brand offering a poor mobile experience. On the other hand, Forbes conservative estimates indicate that intentional and strategic user experience can yield a conversion rate as high as 400%.
If these numbers are anything to go by, designing a user-friendly and highly responsive Salesforce application development is absolutely paramount. In order to optimize an app for effective and enjoyable use, developers need to map out the user journey and creatively choreograph user/platform interactions to benefit the end-user.
Development Phase
The next step in Salesforce application development entails creating developers creating isolated sandboxes. Generally, these distinct sandboxes hold the main production app copy and other supplementary Salesforce configuration information. They are also independent, implying that changes in a single sandbox don’t affect the main Salesforce production enterprise. Individual developers have to clone their branches.
To retrieve the metadata from the sandboxes to the IDE, the developers need to use Force.com IDE. Once they have the metadata, they continue coding their assigned app features, performing initial unit testing, and then submit the finished code to the Git repository.
If a subsequent developer wants to build on top of this freshly updated branch, they need to clone it to their sandbox and continue developing new features. Once done, they also have to submit their latest development to the repository.
With that said, the possibility of multiple developers working on the same branch cant be overlooked. To avoid conflicts, it is important for everyone in the development team to check for possible branch updates before committing.
Testing
The next step after building a Salesforce application is to ensure that it has an excellent and stable performance. This mainly entails developers carrying out QA activities including unit tests and code reviews. It is also at this stage that functional, performance, and integration testing is conducted within the development process.
Lastly, automation tests and debugging are conducted to augment the app’s speedy delivery.
Integration
During the integration phase, the custom CRM application is interfaced with third-party software like CMS. To facilitate a smooth transition, the development team also conduct hands-on training sessions as well as provides training materials to the client.
Launch
Once the app is launched for internal use, it is transferred to the client and subjected to their User Acceptance Testing environment (UAT). Once satisfied, the finished product is moved to the production environment and deployed to the end-users.
Salesforce Application Development Team Actors
During the app development process, different players are involved and handle different aspects of the app. In the Salesforce app development life cycle, the most common actors include:
Product Manager: Help finalize business requirements.
Release Manager: Help coordinate the app’s release schedule.
Software Developer: Handles the main coding and produces the requisite deliverables.
Quality Analyst: Tests and confirms the functionality of various app features.
Potential money from the Salesforce AppExchange development:
After researching the fact this has been seen that Potential money from the salesforce AppExchange development can depend on several other factors.
How To Build an App for Salesforce AppExchange?
To build your AppExchange app, you must go through the multi-step procedure, which includes compliance, release, ongoing support, and demand app development. Below, I will discuss how to create an App for Salesforce AppExchange.
1st Step: Become the Part of Salesforce Business Partner Community
The first and foremost step in becoming a Salesforce AppExchange trade Partner is to join the Salesforce Partner Community. In this case, you must submit the form using AppExchange. After all, the Salesforce Partner Community is the hub of existing AppExchange Partners.
2nd Step: Examine AppExchange Market
The next step in building the app is to examine the AppExchange market. AppExchange offers many products and solutions for several products and cloud services in Salesforce. In this case, for optimal outcomes, you must use the curated collections of AppExchange.
3rd Step: Make the First Sketches of Your Product
Once you are done researching the existing solutions on AppExchange, you must start defining the unique value proposition of your product. For the outline, you must follow the below-mentioned procedure such as:
Firstly, you must understand your target audience.
Secondly, ensure you have an idea of business targets.
Thirdly, you must follow the types of Salesforce editions you will support.
After that, ensure you have an idea of the package type.
Next, ensure you have the Salesforce Licenses that you want to use.
Lastly, it would help if you ensured the requirements for your AppExchange App security.
4th Step: Define the Type of ISV Partnership and the Type Of Your AppExchange Solution
Once you have joined the Salesforce Partner Community, then, you must analyze the existing products, and you can create a rough roadmap. In this case, ensure you have defined the type of ISV partnership, and consequently, you also have built the AppExchange solution.
There are seven types of ISV partners in AppExchange. It includes OEM, CDP Cloud Partner, Commerce Cloud Partner, All Other Clouds (paid), All Other Clouds (free), and Technology Partner/Tableau.
5th Step: Choose the Programming Type and Tools to Build Your Salesforce App
Recently, Salesforce provided two types of programming languages and two types of tools that you can use. Let’s know what programming tools are used in Salesforce App development. This includes Apex Cloud-based programming language. Next are Lightning components and Visualforce.
6th Step: Build Your Salesforce App
Once you can identify the exact type of solution, it must have the programming language, licensing, and packaging, and of course, you must continue with the building procedure.
Two ways to do this are using internal sources or outsourcing the dedicated team. If you want to build the SalesForce App using an in-house team, it could be one the most viable and remarkable options. If you don’t have enough resources, ensure you can control the entire product cycle of AppExchange.
7th Step: Test Your Salesforce App
If you want to ensure optimal performance, then it must conduct comprehensive end-to-end testing in technological domains. In this case, you must adhere to the development of best business practices, especially for testing.
8th Step: Prepare Your App for the Launch on AppExchange
Once you are done testing and finalizing the app, the next step is to prepare by submitting it to the SalesForce AppExchange. In this procedure, it includes creating the managed packages and providing screenshots.
9th Step: Submit Your App for Security Review and Market This
Ensure you have submitted your final app by undergoing the security review and then have met the necessary security requirements.
Final Thoughts
Salesforce CRM is a critical business tool. It helps streamline data analysis and reporting, provides invaluable customer feedback, and aid in formulating better customer service strategies. As a result, businesses are able to align their resources towards creating timely, customer-oriented solutions.
With that said, Salesforce application development isn’t a linear process. It entails working with different tools and multiple software development methodologies. And with cloud solutions continuing to capture the imaginations of business owners, the world is yet to see the full potential of CRM Salesforce and the cloud ecosystem as a whole.
Read also:
Top User Tips For Getting Started With Salesforce
CRM And ERP Combination For Business Solutions
5 Things To Take Into Account To Hire Custom Software Development Services
