In above example, company worked hard in defining, tracking and increasing all corporate assets - not just those inside company, but outside too, along entire value chain. Beginning initiatives moved inventory turns from a meager 3 to almost 15 in less than one year. This freed-up working capital and reduced short-term debt. By working with firm's vendors, (real-time stock programs and moving to partner relationships) they were able to get more of ‘right' inventory at right time. This increased firm's flexibility to deliver product to customers. Scrap levels were also lowered. Strengthening product life-cycle management (see Marketing Tip #106 Product Life Cycle Management - It Pays!) had tremendous impact on asset productivity. Raw material obsolesces went down by a factor of 10. Manufacturing was able to move to a build-to-order mode. This reduced finished goods inventory by 90%. At same time, customer delivery went from less than on week to shipments of 85% of firm's product offering in same day with no margin penalty.

The company also put-into-play longer-term asset improvements as part of their business practices and new product design philosophies. Strategic decisions regarding engineering designs and manufacturing strategies (relating to build and quality levels) are now more coordinated and expected to yield on-going benefits.

Clearly, a paradigm shift occurred in senior management's thinking. The company now routinely tracks their asset productivity gains. Asset management and improvement objectives are an integral part of their annual operational plans and a key aspect to their business strategy.

So far, this organization realized an increase in asset productivity of almost 19% - equivalent of over $1M dollars of improvement in first year. This financial flexibility allowed senior management to return more stakeholder value while more aggressively investing in additional, growth-oriented marketing, sales and engineering programs for future.

Parting thoughts

Freeing up working capital is a significant by-product of strong asset management. Senior executives at well-run companies understand value of working capital. The more you have more flexibility for company. Smart managers turn this flexibility into good choices that increase shareholder value and build future growth for organization.

Be one of these smart managers and work on increasing your asset productivity today!

Frank Williams is a marketer.

With many post graduate courses in management, leadership, marketing and technology to his credit, Williams is a widely respected speaker, author and technologist. He has significant knowledge in marketing strategies and is the founder and CEO of Global Marketing, Inc. - a leader in business, marketing and sales consulting

Registration Incentives. A registration incentive is something that makes person using shareware version of software want to buy. There are a number of incentives developers use to encourage users to buy. One popular registration incentive is to limit time of trial version. This is clever because then user can't use shareware version forever. It encourages them to buy software so they can continue to use it when trial period is over.

Often shareware versions will have "grayed out" features on menu that consumer can see, but not use. Typically there is a pop-up windows in software encouraging users to register in order to take advantage of additional features. This is a popular registration method because if person wants to do more things with program, then they are forced to buy registered version of software.

Another innovative registration incentive shareware developers use allows customers to receive discounts on other software once they have purchased registered version.

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Shareware now and how term changed. Though meaning of term shareware has not changed perception of shareware has evolved since it began. At first when you had a shareware program there was a note that asked for a donation. Now you are required to pay for registered version of shareware program. The shareware industry has also evolved and grown into a billion dollar industry.