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Having just returned from a 12-day cycle-touring holiday (you missed me, right?), it occurred to me how much the activity has changed over the years. The basics are still the same, of course: turning the pedals makes the scenery pass slowly by, and by the end of the day you’re 40 or 50 miles away from where you had breakfast. But what used to be a very low-tech activity, involving little more than a paper map and compass, has now turned into something of a technofest – at least for me and a fellow geek friend who joined me. And my MacBook Air, iPad and iPhone are all integral parts of the trip …

Planning

Last year’s tour was from Hook of Holland to Esbjerg in Denmark. That took in the west and north edges of the Netherlands, so this year the obvious thing to do was complete a lap of the country by cycling along the eastern and southern edges.

There’s an official Ronde van Nederland (’round the Netherlands’) route created by the Dutch tourist organisation, and they helpfully put the GPX files online. This is, however, too big a file to load in as a single route, so before the holiday I’d loaded it into Garmin’s Basecamp software and chopped it up into roughly 50-mile chunks to form the guideline route for each day.

Beyond that, the only additional planning was booking the ferry to Holland, train tickets to our starting-point in the north-east corner of the country and our first night’s accommodation.

Oh, and if you think my bike looks a little unusual when you see glimpses of it, that’s because it is: it’s an ICE recumbent trike – the most comfortable way to cycle!

Breakfast

The first task each morning was to see roughly where we wanted to end up at the end of the day, and to find accommodation somewhere in the vicinity. This was done over breakfast. Out came my 11″ MacBook Air in order to visit chúng tôi and chúng tôi We of course checked ‘free WiFi’ in the filter list to ensure we’d be able to do the same thing the next day. As I was using the MBA, I used the websites, but there is of course a chúng tôi iOS app that would have done otherwise,

It wasn’t always possible to find somewhere to stay exactly on the route, so we booked the closest place we could find, which gave us our actual destination for the day. Usually this was reasonably close, though we did need to borrow a bit of Germany for one night.

Accommodation booked, the next task was to plot a route to the guesthouse or hotel. Basecamp isn’t brilliant at plotting cycle routes, so for that we used a mix of chúng tôi and chúng tôi The routes they came up with weren’t necessarily exactly the same as the official route, but with the addition of an en-route waypoint or two, we could get close enough for government work.

I exported the GPX file from the website and then connected my Garmin Edge 810 GPS unit to the MacBook Air to copy the file across. As a belt-and-braces measure, I also put the address into Basecamp as a waypoint and used the software’s Transfer feature to copy that to the GPS also.

Cycling

Having delegated navigation to the Garmin GPS, we could then sit back and enjoy the view – taking plenty of photos along the way.

Despite my love of photography, a proper camera is too big and unwieldy for use when cycling. I used to carry a pocket camera, but the iPhone is just as good as a dedicated point-and-shoot these days, so that served as my only camera for stills.

Most of the photos are taken while cycling, so it’s handy to have some protection in case the camera ends up bouncing down the road. I used it in an Otterbox Defender Ion protective case that has the additional virtue of doubling the battery-life of the phone.

In practice, the supplementary power probably wasn’t necessary – with international data-roaming an expensive business, the phone wasn’t used for much else beyond a bit of text messaging – but it never hurts to have some peace of mind.

I also have a Garmin Virb Elite camcorder attached to my bike, and that was used to shoot a few video clips here and there, just to give a flavor of the ride.

The Garmin logs automatically collected fitness data which was synced to the Garmin Connect on my iPhone. A service called Tapiriik theoretically syncs that data to Strava, though in practice often doesn’t. I could have used the Strava app if I’d been bothered, but I didn’t expect to be setting any Strava records.

Dinner

Over dinner was when all the technology came out! I first connected the GPS to the MacBook Air to grab the GPX tracklog of the day’s ride. This was loaded into Basecamp and then the ‘View in Google Earth’ feature used to give a sense of the day. I created two images, one with just that day’s ride, the other the ride as a whole to date.

Next up, I used Image Capture on the MacBook Air to grab the photos from the iPhone and import them into Lightroom. Shooting while cycling means a crop is usually required to straighten the horizon. I view cycling photos more as memory than art, so after that I just have a standard preset that I apply to all the shots, enabling me to process them all in just a few minutes.

I then write a quick blog, incorporating the photos. This is mostly for friends back home to enjoy the journey vicariously, and to provide memories of the trip when I’m sitting in my rocking-chair aged 95.

Most of the videos, though, are simply stored on the MacBook Air ready to be edited together sometime after I get home.

Evening

My iPad Air provided evening entertainment. It long replaced my Kindle as my main ebook reader, and with perfect timing Netflix released season 2 of Orange is the New Black shortly before the holiday. I just made it through the season over the 12 days.

Finally, of course, all that technology needed to be charged! I carried just the MacBook Air power supply, a tiny four-port USB hub plugged into a USB plug adapter – and three USB cables. The USB hub couldn’t supply enough power for the iPad, so that was recharged from the MacBook. iPhone, Garmin GPS and Garmin camcorder were all charged from the USB hub.

The phenomenal battery-life of the Hasewell-powered MacBook Air was a huge help, enabling me to use it throughout the evening without power – as well as during some of the lunch-stops – only charging it overnight.

The small size of the 11″ MacBook Air was also key: I travel light, with a total of just 25 litres of luggage space, about half of which is taken up with cycling gear (waterproofs, extra layers, gloves, lock and so on). That leaves just one pannier for three days of clothing (we do laundry along the way), toiletries – and technology.

Purists may object that cycling holidays should be all about nature and the simple machinery of bicycles, but having toured both with and without technology, I’m not going anywhere without mine!

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What Is The Product Life Cycle? Stages And Effects Explained

Every product has a shelf-life. It doesn’t matter if it’s your car, your phone, or exercise equipment — eventually, its sales potential and use will end. Every product has a life cycle.

It is a life cycle that sees it go from being the next big thing to becoming something everyone knows about and then eventually forgotten all about.

This is a constant process that all businesses must be aware of and understand how it affects their products. Let’s look at how to leverage the product lifecycle to manage your business.

What is a product life cycle?

Product life cycles are the time between the introduction of a product to the market and its eventual decline or discontinuation. This cycle can be broken up into different stages, including–development, introduction, growth, maturity, saturation, and decline.

What are the stages of the product life cycle?

Each stage has its costs, opportunities, and risks, and individual products differ in how long they remain at any of the life cycle stages. There are many opinions on whether there should be four, five, or six stages in the product’s life cycle. However, all options include the following steps.

1. Development

The product development phase is the research phase before a product launch. Although technically this is not part of the product cycle, it is an important step to know. It’s used to confirm the product’s viability, determine when it should be launched, and plan your official launch.

Research and development are often funded by revenue from existing products. This stage is usually funded by the founder of the startup business from their personal resources. For those developing a new product, it may be wise to land on a minimum viable product (MVP) as early as possible.

You can make a simple sketch or a detailed prototype of your product. You just need enough to show how your product will work to potential investors and customers. You will be more likely to get investment and launch your product if you validate its market potential sooner.

2. Introduction

Your product’s introduction stage is the moment it is launched to the market. It’s where you step beyond the product itself to develop a market for the product and build product awareness.

Here, you’ll work to carve out a target market, conduct a market analysis to understand the competitive landscape, and ideally land your first few sales.

This stage is where intellectual property rights protection can be obtained. Product pricing can be high depending on the market situation. This is to cover development costs. You may also find that it is lower.

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3. Growth

The product is now accepted by customers and you are trying to increase your market share. This means that revenue and demand are increasing, but hopefully at a steady pace. The time it takes to achieve steady growth depends entirely on the product and market conditions.

If you’re entering an already crowded market with a product, you’ll likely see competitors react fairly quickly. You’ll probably see slower responses from current or new entrants if you have entered a market that has less competition or is the first to market in a breakthrough industry.

In both cases, you should respond during this phase by fine-tuning your messaging, strengthening your brand presence, and expanding into new distribution channels. You might also consider adding services to help differentiate your product.

You can also consider adding add-ons or support services to your product. These add-ons, or at the very least, in development, can help you respond to your competitors and increase the return on investment (ROI), from a customer.

4. Maturity and saturation

Sales will begin to slow down in the mature stage. You won’t experience the same rapid growth, but this doesn’t mean that you stop growing. This is typically when you’ll lower your prices, offer free add-ons, or make other adjustments to ensure that your products remain competitive.

You’re also more efficient. As production costs decrease, costly errors in manufacturing can be avoided. This stage is where marketing spends are likely to be more effective and refined. Despite not growing in volume, this stage is likely to be your most profitable.

It’s important to remember that your competition may have already established its offerings at this stage. This is a sign that your competitors have seized a larger market share, which can lead to slowed growth for your product. Most consumers are likely already using a version of your product and have begun developing brand preferences.

Any adjustments that you make to your product or services should be done at this point. Once you reach the point that no real adjustments are possible, your messaging, add-ons, and services should be fully focused.

Although you may not be able to make major changes, it is possible to still market the product as a refresh with new features and benefits.

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5. Decline

The decline stage of the product life cycle is associated with decreasing revenue due to market saturation, high competition, and changing customer needs. Companies at this stage have several options:

Discontinue the product

Sell the manufacturing rights to another business

Find new uses for the product

Tap into new markets

This is the stage where you will need to weigh both the benefits and costs of each option. Is it possible to revise the product? Are there any other features that you haven’t explored? Are there other markets that you haven’t explored that could be benefited from your product?

If you can, look to run different forecasting scenarios during this time to see what each decision could lead to depending on product performance.

You should have other products that can support your business in the event of a product failure. It’s ideal to have multiple products, or iterations, at different stages of the product lifecycle.

How do you know what stage your products are in?

It is impossible to predict how long a product will remain in one stage. It can be difficult to identify the stage in which you are and when you have entered the next.

You can identify your current situation by understanding the characteristics of each stage. It’s easier to look at the performance of your business to see where it is now and where it is going.

You can leverage this actual performance to then help paint the picture of what to expect in the future. This exercise can be tied into your financial forecasts and compared directly to your financial statements.

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How to use the product life cycle to manage your business

It is possible to develop a strategy for your product by knowing what stage you are at. As we have seen, your stage can influence both your sales and marketing decisions. This is how to use your knowledge of the product cycle to grow and manage your business.

Establish authority

You can position your product to be cheaper, better, or have other benefits than the competition during the introduction stage. This is where you establish your brand and business.

Are you looking to be the low-cost option? You are the local or eco-friendly solution. Or maybe you want to focus on your company mission and how your business operates.

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Set a pricing strategy

Pricing can be affected by each stage. The introduction stage is about positioning yourself against your competitors and trying to offset development expenses.

A new product version or price drop will almost guarantee the decline stage. This will start the pricing conversation all over again, with the performance of the original product directly influencing your initial price position.

You will be able to adjust your pricing if necessary if you have a better understanding of where your product is in the price cycle.

Create a marketing strategy

The growth stage is where you have refined your channel selection, created winning copy, and streamlined your spending.

You can also test new channels or adjust your strategy during the maturity and decline stages. Perhaps you start a blog and sell the product through a channel that you have not yet used.

In any case, each stage presents more opportunities to research and test new concepts that help solidify your marketing strategy.

Product use can be extended or varied

You can make adjustments by knowing the stage of your product and what lies ahead. If you are in the growth stage, and you begin to notice signs of maturity, or even decline, then you can start exploring ways to increase the product’s value.

As we’ve said before, this could involve doing a refresh, adding on additional services, or looking to tap into adjacent markets.

What factors affect the product life cycle?

You have complete control over the product’s positioning, marketing, and creation. It’s important to remember that external factors can have a direct impact on how your product performs at a given stage.

The market in which you are entering your product can have a direct impact on its success or failure. This can also impact the number of potential competitors who try to enter the market.

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Advancements in technology

However, some industries, products, and locations only see limited progress, so a single iteration might be more relevant.

Some models can achieve 8K resolution but most sales and support are focused at 4K resolution. It may be a good idea to be the market leader and then focus on high-end sales depending on your market position.

If you are a distributor of mid-range TVs and monitors, it may make more sense to limit your product output to 4K with some 8K options to test for relevance.

Rate of market acceptance

The acceptance rate of consumers is a key factor in determining the product’s life expectancy. Although 4K televisions are available for years, they are just now being accepted as the standard. This is not due to the lower price but also support from streaming services, traditional cable, and other hardware manufacturers.

This has resulted in a long product life cycle. It took several years for the product to be accepted by the market. The promised 8K replacement is still years away so the growth and maturity stages could take even longer.

To find out what the acceptance rate might be, it is often possible to look at historical life cycles. Keep in mind that the benefits of a shorter or longer life cycle depend entirely on the stage.

It may not be able to provide a return on investment if it remains in the introduction stage too long. It may be worthwhile if it is expected to enter a long growth stage.

Economic forces

The economic state can have a direct impact on the product’s life cycle. A sudden dip, brought on by a global pandemic, for example, may stretch out the introduction phase due to less or selective spending by consumers. Recovery from a financial crisis may also reduce the introductory or even growth phase.

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Keep your product life cycle in mind

It is essential to understand the product life cycle to manage and grow your business. This can help you to create a better business plan, make better strategic decisions, and help you prepare more accurate financial forecasts.

Make sure you are reviewing your business plan regularly to determine your market position. While you may be already researching every aspect of the product’s life cycle, it is worth taking the time and establishing the market position for your product regularly.

Extending Device Life Cycle With Samsung Galaxy Enterprise Edition

Samsung’s mobile device business moves at internet time, a breakneck pace of innovation, product development, release, and retirement that matches the expectations of our customers. Well, most of our customers. One important segment — enterprises — sometimes actually needs us to slow down a little. When enterprises build mobile devices into important projects and applications, it takes time. Enterprises need that time to test and qualify devices, procure them, and deploy them across their workforce. This can take weeks, months, and even years to fully roll out in large enterprises.

Samsung’s Galaxy Enterprise Edition program is designed to support the needs of our enterprise customers who need an extended device life cycle. Galaxy Enterprise Edition includes a guaranteed multi-year device life cycle of up to three years (depending on device type), five years of security updates and software patches, as well as a year of Samsung Knox Suite, Samsung’s security tools to help in securing, provisioning, updating, and managing devices.

With Galaxy Enterprise Edition, IT teams can be sure they won’t have to go back to the drawing board in the middle of a project where mobile devices play a central role. Let’s look at an example use case: rugged devices, like Samsung Galaxy Tab Active tablets.

Rugged devices with long lives

Enterprises rolling out rugged devices are solving specific problems, such as operating in an outdoor environment, roaming around on a retail or factory floor, or even handing devices to guests who may treat them roughly. Samsung Tab Active tablets are up to the challenge of projects and environments that need ruggedized devices.

For example, customers selecting Samsung’s Galaxy Tab Active can make use of its customizable Active Key to activate scanners or push-to-talk communications. The rugged tablet may be a key piece of hardware for a project, but it’s still just one part of a much bigger picture of applications, accessories, and management tools.

In projects like these, Galaxy Enterprise Edition devices, such as the Galaxy Tab Active4 Pro, have the long-term support needed. Enterprise Edition devices will be available for an extended and predictable lifetime, and vital security patches and software updates for years longer. When IT teams select Samsung Galaxy Enterprise Edition devices, they know they won’t have to go back to the drawing board and start over because their tested device is no longer available or supported.

Galaxy Enterprise Edition devices have a minimum lifetime of three years for tablets, two years for smartphones, and a guarantee of software updates and security patches for at least five years. Enterprise Edition devices vary by geographic region, so contact your local Samsung reseller to find out more about which devices are in the program.

Samsung supports your rollout

Galaxy Enterprise Edition also includes a one-year license to use Samsung Knox Suite, our comprehensive mobile management and security tool set that addresses the entire device life cycle, from manufacturing onward. Knox Suite is designed to solve enterprise mobility challenges with tools to secure, deploy, manage, and analyze Samsung smartphones and tablets. Enterprises selecting Knox Suite can streamline their device onboarding and deployment, delivering end users a straightforward and simplified experience from the moment they first turn on their smartphone or tablet.

Knox Suite includes Knox Mobile Enrollment (KME), which delivers quick, zero-touch deployment for thousands of mobile devices at once into your corporate mobile device management (MDM) or enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution.

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Also included is our own cloud-based EMM solution, Knox Manage, which simplifies device management and monitoring, and allows IT to offer remote support when employees run into technical issues or lose their devices.

The Knox Suite also bundles in Knox E-FOTA, which pairs with Knox Manage and helps your organization avoid OS compatibility issues by allowing IT to deploy firmware updates on your schedule, once necessary testing has been completed.

Knox Asset Intelligence, also part of the Knox Suite license, gives IT teams data-driven, actionable insights about their devices, on a cloud-based dashboard. Knox Asset Intelligence lets teams drill down into important information such as which applications are crashing or sending large amounts of data, how Wi-Fi networks are performing, and battery health and usage.

Enterprise Edition customers extending their Knox Suite license beyond the first year also get a 50% discount off the standard pricing at the time of renewal.

Samsung takes on mobility challenges

Samsung Galaxy Enterprise Edition solves enterprise mobility challenges. Extra-long product life cycles deliver business continuity and a consistent product life cycle. Extended security support includes at least five years of security updates and patches to protect businesses from mobile security threats. And the all-in-one Samsung Knox Suite makes comprehensive device life cycle management easy with cloud-based solutions designed to meet enterprise requirements.

The Right Kind Of Pessimism Can Have A Positive Effect On Your Life

But what about the people who tend to see the glass as half empty rather than half full? Is being pessimistic always such a bad thing? Actually, the latest research suggests that some forms of pessimism may have benefits. Pessimism isn’t just about negative thinking. Personality science has revealed it also includes a focus on outcomes—what you expect will happen in the future. While optimists expect positive outcomes will happen more often than not, pessimists expect negative outcomes are more likely. There is a particular type of pessimist, the “defensive pessimist”, who takes this negative thinking to a whole new level and actually harnesses it as a means for reaching their goals. Research has shown that this way of thinking can not only help them succeed, but also bring some rather unexpected rewards. However, the other main form of pessimism, which involves simply blaming oneself for negative outcomes, has less positive effects. Performance and confidence But how does defensive pessimism actually work and what benefits can you expect to get out of it? Researchers suggest that defensive pessimism is a strategy that people who are anxious use to help them manage their anxiety, which might otherwise make them want to run in the opposite direction of their goal rather than pursue it.

The crucial factor is setting low expectations for the outcome of a particular plan or situation—like expecting that you won’t get hired after a job interview—and then envisioning the details of everything that might possibly go wrong to make these worst-case scenarios a reality. This gives the defensive pessimist a plan of action to ensure that any imagined mishaps won’t actually happen, such as practicing for the interview and getting there early.

The benefits of defensive pessimism also extends to actual performance. One study shows that this has everything to do with negative mood. When prompted to be in a good mood, defensive pessimists performed poorly on a series of word puzzles. However, when they were put in bad mood by being instructed to imagine how a scenario might have negative outcomes, they performed significantly better. This suggests that they harness their negative mood to motivate themselves to perform better.

If you’re a defensive pessimist, make sure you’re in a bad mood before taking an exam. bibiphoto/Shutterstock

Pessimism can also be more beneficial than optimism in situations where you are waiting for news about an outcome and there is no opportunity to influence it (such as waiting for the results of a job interview). When the outcome is not as good as optimists had hoped for, they take a bigger hit to their wellbeing, and experience greater disappointment and negative mood than do your garden-variety pessimists.

Strangely, this type of pessimism can even help boost confidence. In one study that followed students throughout their university years, those who were defensive pessimists experienced significantly higher levels of self-esteem compared to other anxious students. In fact, their self-esteem rose to almost the levels of the optimists over the four years of the study. This may be due to increases in the defensive pessimists’ confidence to anticipate and successfully avoid the negative outcomes they imagined.

Health

The defensive pessimist’s strategy of being prepared to prevent negative outcomes can also have some very real health benefits. Although these individuals will worry more about getting ill during an outbreak of an infectious disease compared to optimists, they are also more likely to take preventive action. For example, they might frequently wash their hands and seek medical care promptly when they experience any unusual symptoms.

When pessimists become chronically ill, their negative view of the future may be more realistic and encourage the sort of behaviors that healthcare professionals recommend for managing their illness. I conducted a study with two groups of people—those with either inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or arthritis—and asked them to rate their future health on a simple scale ranging from poor to excellent. Because both arthritis and IBD are long-term health conditions that often worsen over time, you wouldn’t expect people to think their health would improve that much in the future.

However, those who were optimists still rated their health as improving in the future, whereas the pessimists saw their health as getting worse. Taking this view may lead pessimists to engage in the types of coping strategies necessary to manage symptoms such as pain. Having said that, this benefit may be best realized when there is at least some optimism that such strategies will actually work.

The key difference that separates defensive pessimists from other individuals who think negatively—such as those who are simply anxious or depressed—is the way they cope. Whereas people tend to use avoidance to cope with anticipated problems when they are feeling anxious or depressed, defensive pessimists use their negative expectations to motivate them to take active steps to feel prepared and be more in control over outcomes.

So being a pessimist isn’t necessarily bad—though you may irritate others. Ultimately, it’s what you do with that pessimism that matters.

Are you a defensive pessimist? Answer these questions to find out.

Fuschia Sirois is a Reader in Health Psychology at the University of Sheffield. This article was originally featured on The Conversation.

Tips And Tricks To Shortening A Long Sales Cycle

Most define sales cycles as being the time between making the first touch point with the prospective client and closing the deal — and the larger the sale, the longer the sales cycle. Many sales teams in technology industries, especially those in B2B sales, experience longer than normal selling time. While numerous reasons contribute to the increased time to close and there are different variables in each sale, several tips and tricks can help you shorten the cycle and make it slightly more predictable.

Generally, shortening the time it takes to close a deal without negatively impacting the relationship with a potential customer is critical. A shorter sales period will allow a team to make more meaningful connections, develop relationships with key decision makers, ultimately make the sale easier, and create the opportunity to make more deals.

Prismview understands the importance of this, and we are committed to helping channel partners shorten their sales time as well. Below are some tips and tricks to help you navigate the often long sales cycles when it comes to large-scale LED display projects and why Prismview is the ideal partner.

Ask investigative questions

The first step in a sales cycle is identifying a potential project, deal or customer. Do your homework and ask the right questions from the very beginning.

“Ask good and investigative questions and figure out what is driving the decision,” said Brett Unzicker, EVP of sales for Prismview. “For example, is it timeline-driven? Does your customer need a new LED board in time for the start of football season? Is it budget-driven? Is there an allocated budget that is ear-marked for upgrades to existing equipment? Or is it process-driven? Are there specific internal or external processes of an organization that are driving the decision?”

Asking investigative questions from the start will help you determine how to best approach a specific project and will help you better understand the buying and purchase decisions. “First thought I have is, let’s better understand how our customers buy and align our sales cycle with their buying cycle so that our sales teams see tangible returns in their efforts. When we aren’t aligned the sales cycle feels very long,” offers Mike Kitts of the Golden State Warriors.

Additionally, understand the needs and timeline of each prospect. Once you know a customer has an event, specific roll-out date in mind or a hard deadline, you can use this information to help shorten the cycle as well.

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Build relationships

With long sales cycles, the relationship with prospective customers will become one of the most important aspects of the sale and ultimately end decision. It cannot be overstated how vital an authentic connection can be when selling large projects and costly solutions. Build valuable relationships with your customers that extend beyond sales. Check in with the project manager or director of marketing for the project you are working on often, and be a resource for your client even after the sale is completed. Listen to what the customer is saying, learn their pain points and then offer a solution to the problem. Don’t sell them just a product; sell a solution. Whether that be your product or connections to another potential solution. Building and establishing a relationship with a prospect can take a bit of time upfront, but it will pay off in the end.

Create trust and credibility

Once you build a relationship and enough trust with current or prospective clients, they will be more likely to open up about the problem they are trying to solve. Individuals are more likely to be transparent if they know they can trust you. Establish yourself as an industry thought leader.

“Provide value to people before they need something from you,” said Unzicker. Develop a substantial LinkedIn presence and reach out to clients, manufacturers and prospective customers often. But don’t just sell. Engage with individuals and share meaningful content, even if it is an article or post not directly related to the product you are trying to sell. Become a trusted source on the digital signage industry and provide your clients helpful information. Educate them on different ways they can use their LED display and show them how they can use the sign for communication or building their brand. Building trust and credibility will help you stand out and create lasting impressions.

Bridging the gap

Partner with industry-leading companies to help develop a lasting partnership that will ultimately reduce the selling time in the B2B large-scale LED display market. Prismview goes beyond the board to provide a relationship and complete solution for your customers. By partnering with Prismview and Samsung, you’ll receive access to industry experts who understand how to shorten long sales cycles and help develop a plan that gets the right people involved to make the right decision.

Help your customers succeed with Samsung’s LED solutions.

Operating Cycle Vs Net Operating Cycle

What is Operating Cycle?

The term “operating cycle” refers to the duration between the time when a company purchases inventory and the time when the company realizes sales. In other words, it is the time a business takes to purchase inventory stock, convert it into finished goods, and then sell it in the market. The operating cycle is a very important factor in the assessment of the operational efficiency of any business.

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Explanation of Operating Cycle

The duration is known as the operating cycle because it covers the entire blockage of cash in the purchase of inventories and recovery of the cash after achieving customer sales. The next cycle is started once the cycle is over, wherein that cash is used to purchase a new set of raw materials to produce more inventories, and the cycle continues.

The formula for op. The cycle can be expressed as a summation of the inventory and accounts receivable periods. Mathematically, it is represented as,

Operating Cycle = Inventory Period + Accounts Receivable Period

Examples of Operating Cycle

Following are examples are given as follows:

Example #1

Let us take the example of the below company to compute its op. Cycle for the financial year 2023 on the basis of the following information:

Particulars Amount

Average inventory $400,000

Average accounts receivable $50,000

Sales $1,200,00

Cost of goods sold $900,000

The inventory period can calculate as,

The inventory Period calculates as

Inventory Period = Average Inventory / Cost of goods sold * 365

Inventory Period = $400,000 / $900,000 * 365

Inventory Period = 162 days

Accounts Receivable calculates as

Accounts Receivable Period = Average Accounts Receivable / Sales * 365

Accounts Receivable Period = $50,000 / $1,200,000 * 365

Accounts Receivable Period = 15 days

Op. The cycle calculates as

Operating Cycle = Inventory Period + Accounts Receivable Period

Op. Cycle = 162 days + 15 days

Op. Cycle = 177 days

Therefore, the company’s op. The cycle for the year 2023 is 177 days.

Example #2

Let us take the example of SDF Inc. to illustrate the computation of op. Cycle. The following information is available per its annual report for the December 31, 2023, financial year.

Particulars Amount

Opening inventory $300,000

Closing inventory $500,000

Opening accounts receivable $300,000

Closing accounts receivable $400,000

Sales $1,800,000

Cost of goods sold $1,500,000

Inventory Period = (Opening Inventory + Closing Inventory)/2 / Cost of Goods Sold * 365

Inventory Period = ($300,000 + $500,000)/2 / $1,500,000 * 365

Inventory Period = 97 days

The accounts Receivable Period calculates as

Accounts Receivable Period = (Opening Accounts Receivable + Closing Accounts Receivable)/2 / Sales * 365

Accounts Receivable Period = ($300,000 + $400,000)/2 / $1,800,000 * 365

Accounts Receivable Period = 71 days

Op. The cycle calculates as

Operating Cycle = Inventory Period + Accounts Receivable Period

Op. Cycle = 97 days + 71 days

Op. Cycle = 168 days

Therefore, SDF Inc.’s op. The cycle for the year 2023 is 168 days.

Components of the Operating Cycle

The op. cycle can be broken down into two major components –

Inventory Period

Accounts Receivable Period

The inventory period refers to the current inventory level and the assessment of how quickly it will be converted to a finished product and sold in the market. Mathematically, it is calculated as the average inventory divided by the cost of goods sold multiplied by 365, as shown below.

Inventory Period = Average Inventory / Cost of goods sold * 365

Accounts Receivable Period = Average Accounts Receivable / Sales * 365

Duration of Operating Cycle

The duration of an op. The cycle can influence by the following:

Higher-order fulfillment rates increase inventory levels, eventually leading to a longer op. Cycle. Similarly, a lower-order fulfillment rate means a shorter op. Cycle.

Loose policies pertaining to payment collection result in delayed customer payment, which prolongs the op. Cycle. Stronger policies can help in shortening the op. Cycle.

Importance and Uses of Operating Cycle

The concept of op. The cycle formula is very important as it is useful in assessing a company’s operational efficiency. A shorter op. Cycle means that the company can recover its investment in inventory faster during a longer op. Cycle means that the company takes longer to transform inventory into sales and cash. A shorter op. The cycle is always preferable as it indicates better control of working capital management.

Operating Cycle vs Net Operating Cycle

Although most analysts use op. Cycle and net op. Cycle interchangeably, they are not the same and have a subtle difference. Op. Cycle refers to the duration from the purchase of inventory to the collection of cash from sales. It is represented as a summation of inventory days and accounts receivable period.

Operating Cycle = Inventory Period + Accounts Receivable Period

On the other hand, the net operating cycle also refers to the duration between the purchase of inventory and the collection of cash from sales. Still, it is adjusted for the time offered by the suppliers, resulting in a lower value than op. Cycle. It is represented as inventory days plus accounts receivable period minus accounts payable days.

Net Operating Cycle = Inventory Period + Accounts Receivable Period – Accounts Payable Period

Advantages

Over a period of time, the trend in op. The cycle can indicate a change in the bargaining power of a company.

It can be linked to an incentive system encouraging employees to shorten the op. Cycle.

Few critics believe that op. The cycle is not the best measure of a company’s efficiency as it merely covers the liquidity profile in terms of working capital.

There are no defined standards for op. Cycle and is subject to variation based on market conditions.