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Investing in certain types of technology can work wonders for improving your efficiency and profitability. One often overlooked aspect of running an efficient retail operation is the Point of Sale (POS) Software you are using. Often times retailers start off their business with the least expensive POS software they can find and never end up going back to reconsider their options and find a more efficient POS software alternative.
It is often the best time to upgrade POS software during slow times, as it not only makes more sense than doing it during your busiest periods of time, but also a high quality POS software can work wonders for helping you to squeeze the most amount of profit out of your current operations by making you aware of exactly what is happening in your business.
A high quality POS software can allow you to run reports to see which items in your inventory are not selling or not generating a profit, so that you can make smarter and more informed business decisions day to day. Such a software can also help you to track individual clerk performance so that you can gauge which of your clerks are making you the most money. Another great benefit of quality POS software packages is that they can help you to minimize shrinkage (theft), both internally and externally, which can be a growing problem in tough economic times.
Upgrading your point of ale software is just one technology improvement you can do for your retail business. Another very inexpensive technology investment is upgrading to a bar code enabled inventory system which utilizes barcode labels and barcode scanners to help you more accurately track your inventory.
12th
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2012
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Health care investment in India
According to an ICRA industry report on Healthcare, India invested 5.1 % of its GDP on health in 2001. The health market is estimated at $30 billion and includes retail pharmaceutical, healthcare services, medical and diagnostic equipment and supplies. The private sector dominated in the health care market and this increased participation by the private sector in healthcare services is stimulating change in the Indian healthcare industry. Government of India has endorsed tariff and non-tariff measures that have further stimulated health care market development by allowing more hospitals to offer critical care services. These investments are expected to lowered health care cost for patients suffering from life threatening diseases.
Investment opportunities
The Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) Indian Healthcare Federation estimates that there is an investment opportunity of approximately US$25 billion over the next 8-10 years to establish health technologies and other facilities that will put the sector on the global healthcare map.
Telemedicine
Health information technology improves the delivery of healthcare services and efficiency levels. Telemedicine improves accessibility of to health care facilities for the patient living in remote areas. Telemedicine has a great investment potentially in that is changing the lives of over 600 million people in rural India.
Mobile technology
Many people in India have access to cell phones that opens for a potential healthcare in the form of mobile health solutions. Investments in VAS (Value Added Services) related to health will be a major investment & revenue generator. Telemonitoring reduces hospital and emergency room visits. Telephonic disease management increases enrollment rates. In metropolitan cities, most people have access to Internet. Telehealth has a great investment potential and is the key to success of chronic and rural healthcare.
Laboratory & diagnostic services: imaging and pathology labs
Outsourcing of laboratory testing and diagnostic services is set to become big business in India. According to a study on the Indian healthcare industry, the US$ 864 million diagnostics and pathology laboratory testing business is growing at a CAGR of 20 per cent. As part of its cost-cutting efforts, Britain may contemplate shipping blood and urine samples from National Health Service (NHS) patients to India for clinical tests and get the test results over the Internet.
Medical devices
The biomedical devices market in India is unofficially estimated at around US$ 1.5 billion and about 80 per cent of this is met through imports. Cardiology equipment constitutes about 20 per cent of the total market, followed by imaging systems -accounting for 15 per cent. Telemedicine services can create a demand for diagnostic medical equipment such as X Ray machines, CT scanners, Doppler’s ultrasound scanners and electrocardiographs.
12th
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2012
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Whether you are referring to green technology or the HITECH legislation intent on uploading medical records into computing “clouds” or nanotechnology, most experts agree that the future is quite bright in this area.
Contrast that with non technology investment in such areas as has heavy industry or even Detroit auto manufacture and I think you’ll find that maximum profit potential lies with technology.
But how does one go about finding specific stocks or funds to invest in to take advantage of these technological breakthroughs without losing significant portions of the capital on stocks that fail to deliver or simply fall behind in their particular industry?
The most money can be made in areas that are volatile; but that volatility works both ways and can easily produce negative returns on a large scale as well. It really takes an expert to be able to sort through all the information available on companies and the advanced sciences they employ.
This need for high expertise to sort out the winners from the losers is what drives most investors to seek out a technology mutual fund or a technology newsletter with experts who have the time and competency to do all the research necessary.
There are advantages and disadvantages to investing in a mutual fund and one of the disadvantages is a fund has to invest in more stocks than what they really would like to be involved with simply because of the large volume of money that is thrown their way and the small pool of companies with potential.
Quite often a technology investment is best placed in a very small capitalization company that is too small to be capable of producing a large return for a mutual fund. An individual investor on the other hand can take a sizable position in relative terms to profit handsomely if that company delivers on what the market expects of them and rewards them with a higher share price.
This tips the scale towards the technology newsletter as the go to source for the expertise to determine what companies should be the recipient of your capital and which ones should not. One would do well to look at the credentials of the individual researcher employed by the research firm in order to determine if they will be a good source of information.
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