Being part of a positive and team-oriented culture will bring success to your team.  There are five habits that any leader should utilize to achieve success in your team.

First, always ask “What will I do today to add value to the team?”  Whether it is a conceptual concept like building trust within the team or the physical reduction of costs to relieve team stress, adding value to your team ensures that you are constantly improving as a unit.

Next, reflect on your actions.  Take the time to remember what needs to be accomplished and to ensure that every step is being taken to complete the task.  If your team does not have the resources in order to complete the task, you need to find the third party resources that can accomplish your end goal.

Third, be organized.  Often, offices don’t understand where their inefficiencies are coming from because they are not organized. Make sure you are checking in on your records to understand how you keep track of your expenses and costs.

Practice personal and professional development.  This will keep you and your team moving forward.  Always assume you do not know enough and there is always an expert, internal or external, that can improve your team.

Finally, work outside of your comfort zone.  As you continue to work outside of your comfort zone, your boundaries will continue to broaden.  This will keep you and your team striving forward.  Explore new ways to save, work, and communicate in order to drive your business forward. These habits will encourage your team to positively impact every area of your business.

No matter how your look at it…it’s about money.

At the end of the day, without money, it is hard to reach whatever Goal or Mission you set out to accomplish…no matter how strong the desire or passion.

Most owners and C-levels try to find this money or “gold” outside their company through investors, but there is also “gold in your own backyard” that may be going unnoticed or unfound. Uncovering and finding that “gold” is not always the easiest of tasks. However, the cash is there, just knowing how to find it is all you really need.

Take for instance your “unnecessary features” or “hidden charges” built into your rate code (price) that, without being able to tear down the actual price build, would be extremely difficult to find. Yet Billions of dollars are wasted or “over-paid” every day by 100’s of thousands of Companies. However, the expertise it takes to find these charges is relatively rare, and does not exist within most Companies, and can only be found outside the Companies employee base.

But those charges are still there; in fact, one well known consulting group made this statement, “U.S. businesses waste over $38 billion a year…due to telephone company errors?” (Aberdeen) and as if that is not enough another well-known firm states “Global companies’ IT departments will waste an estimated $100 billion over the next five years by overspending on network products and services.” (Gartner)So if Cash is King, this may be just another Royal Pain.

Sad part…is this is just ONE industry. Imagine if you were to look at just this area what may be able to be found?

Stop…and consider how much “gold” is in your potential overpayments and that “Cash” may already be in your hands, or should I say in someone else’s.

This is how people often miss out on opportunities. They are too afraid that a potential opportunity will waist time, so the opportunity is abandoned. That is how people miss out on huge benefits to their business.

For instance, say my colleague’s name is Jeff and he owns a medium sized medical facility that has a huge Telecom spend (In other words, large phone and internet bills). If Jeff just runs to “Fast Food Place A”, then he could miss out on what Limitless Technology can offer him.

If he goes to lunch with me, then I would most likely talk about how Limitless Technology audits Phone bills for NO COST (like I usually do), and only takes a percentage of the savings we find him for the first year. Well, because of this lunch, Jeff now knows that he can easily be saving a great deal of money at no cost to him (since he is already spending that money each year).

See how an extra 20 minutes at lunch can go a long way?

Hospital CIOs increasingly are using consultants to help deal with projects–such as electronic health record implementation to meet Meaningful Use requirements–according to a new survey conducted by healthsystemCIO.com.

Nearly 62 percent of respondents in the survey cited a lack of resources and/or experience as the main reason for looking outside their organizations for help.

“The number of projects is starting to take its toll on the internal staff,” one CIO respondent said.

A second CIO said that there was no wiggle room for error: “In some cases, we need someone to guide us that has the knowledge to keep us from making mistakes.”

Despite the increase in outside hiring, most respondents indicated that their organizations anticipated the need for such additional hires. Sixty-nine percent said they did not expect they would have to forgo “needed consulting” due to lack of funding. Additionally, 69 percent said they did not think it would be harder to get money for hiring consultants than for software investment.

According to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, an annual survey of hospital IT executives found lack of staffing resources, as opposed to lack of financial support, is the biggest barrier to health IT implementation.

Meanwhile, consulting firm Deloitte listed Meaningful Use as one of five “top-of-mind” issue for CIOs in 2012. Deloitte’s list of top CIO issues for 2012 also included the implementation of accountable care organizations and–despite a delay in the implementation deadline–ICD-10. Analytics and security and privacy rounded out the list.

FierceHealthIT

Nassau County ComptrollerGeorge Maragosreleased his Information Technology Telecommunications audit which found thousands of more telephone lines than employees, some of which are no longer working for the County. In response to the Comptroller’s audit, IT stated they identified “4,600 suspect or unverified lines” during a survey conducted last year. The audit found the excess lines cost the County up to$1.2 millionduring a twenty month period fromJanuary 2010toAugust 2011.

“There must be greater oversight and control of theVerizontelephone billing,” Comptroller Maragos said. “The IT Departmentwill need to double its efforts to review theVerizonbills to bring telephone service charges under control and save millions for the taxpayers.”

The excess and unauthorized phone lines are the result of inadequate review of the monthlyVerizonbills and an oversight to request for unused telephone lines to be disconnected.

Below are illustrations of some departments with a significantly greater number of phone lines when compared to number of employees:

The Planning Departmentwith 136 lines for 37 employees;

The Department of Social Serviceswith 1,558 lines for 968 employees;

The Treasurer’s Office with 75 lines for 38 employees.

The IT reclamation initiative intended to eliminate unneeded lines was a good first step, but more needs to be done to find and eliminated unnecessary telephone lines. The monthly service charges actually increased fromDecember 2009throughNovember 2011and more lines were added than deleted.

The County IT Departmentagrees that the excessiveVerizonlines need to be eliminated and they must develop a more comprehensive telecommunication policy to control telephone services provided to employees. IT indicated that they may be hampered in implementing the audit findings recommendations due to lack of staff.

“There should be no reason that unnecessary lines are not being disconnected immediately. The necessary resources should be dedicated to verify the accuracy ofVerizonbilling,” Comptroller Maragos concluded.

Limited Review of the Nassau County Department of Information Technology Telecommunications Management(http://www.nassaucountyny.gov/agencies/Comptroller/documents/IT_Telecommunication_FINALReport