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There are countless achievements Omega watches have experienced over its existence, but their association with NASA is perhaps the most significant. To have the honor of astronauts sporting your watch in space is something that Omega has taken pride in. This is the kind of exposure that can and did assist Omega in gaining success.

It all started in 1957 when NASA supplied each of the Apollo astronauts with a standard Omega Speedmaster Professional manual-wind wristwatch. Despite having almost all equipment manufactured for use specifically for NASA or in space, the Omega watch given to the astronauts was not. Because of this, NASA had to go through a number of tests to make sure the watches were sufficient enough.

Beginning in 1962, NASA began purchasing examples of a number of commercially available watches. In doing so, they could better test the various watches on the market to see what watch would have the best results. After testing a number of different watches, it was decided that Omega watches had the best success.

The timepieces that were given to the astronauts were intended on being worn for intra and extra vehicular activities, including the moonwalks on the various missions. Inside the pressurized environment the watch was simply worn conventionally. However, during the extra vehicular activities the astronauts wore the watches on the outside of their pressure suits. In order to adjust to the change, a long Velcro strap was designed to accommodate the extra width needed.

The first American to walk in space, Edward H. White, wore his speedmaster during his Gemini 4 spacewalk. Other astronauts that have sported an Omega watch while in space include Bill Anders and Jim Lovell from Apollo 8, Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins from Apollo 11 and Fred Haise from Apollo 13. There have been many more astronauts to wear Omega watches, but these are just a few.

A number of the watches worn by NASA astronauts are displayed in various places around the world. For instance, the watches worn by Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins are currently at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. Other places that various watches are located at include the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, The Omega Museum in Switzerland and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Although the locations of al the Omega watches worn by NASA astronauts is not exactly clear, the ones that are displayed play a big part of history for Omega and NASA. Many present astronauts still wear the Omega speedmaster on shuttle missions.



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Summary: Want to grow your business-to-business small business without chasing after new clients? Expand with new value-added services that complement your existing offering. Find out how.

If you have a business-to-business small business, some of your clients inevitably will go out of business, get bought out, undergo management shake-ups, or just get seduced by a new vendor. You have to grow your business just to stay in business. But how?

• Undertake costly and time-consuming marketing and networking projects to get new clients to make up for the inevitable attrition.

• Ask your existing clients to refer new clients. This is always a good idea, but it’s not the fastest or most reliable way to get new business. You could wait months to see results.

• Don’t get new clients at all. Instead, expand your offerings to your existing clients.

Choosing Your New B2B Small Business Offering: What to Look for

Expanding your B2B offering might sound like a bit of a headache and that is a possibility. You have to select your expanded offering carefully. Here’s what to look for:

Complements existing offering

In case you’re tempted to branch out too far, keep these factors in mind:

• Market. If your expanded offering complements your existing offering, your existing clients will provide a ready market.

• Credibility. “Jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none:” it’s a cliché, but people instinctively believe it. Which would you trust more: a shoemaker who also sells wristwatches or a shoemaker who also sells socks?

• Skills. You will inevitably need new skills for your new offering. This includes the softer skills of selling and servicing the offering. The fewer skills you have to acquire, the smoother your rollout will be.

Modest investment to start

The only guaranteed way of minimizing your risk is to minimize your investment. Remember: investment doesn’t just mean money, but also your time and energy. Choose an expanded offering that won’t be all-consuming.

Strong existing demand

Face it: your small business already has its hands full with its existing business. You can’t afford to break ground on something the world doesn’t know about yet. Look for an unfulfilled demand on the part of your existing client base.

Hypothetical Case Study: B2B Service Expansion

Lisa is a virtual assistant who has expanded from data entry to helping her clients organize their internal records. But offshore companies are taking away record-keeping clients just as they did with data entry. Getting new record-keeping clients would be an uphill battle against off shoring.

What does Lisa do?

1. Lisa gets into a few long telephone calls with her favorite clients. One client mentions his secretary is tired of handling payroll. Another says he is fed up with being put on hold with his current big-name payroll processing company.

2. Lisa researches payroll processing outsourcing. She finds it’s a business where offshore companies have not made great inroads. Domestic businesses have not glutted the market, either. Traditionally, the technology needed to run a payroll process business was so expensive that only a few large firms could compete. The new software that allows any small business to offer payroll processing services has only been on the market a short time. Meanwhile, the cost of startup is only the cost of the software, plus a portion of her sales. Best of all, the only training she needs is to read up on a few payroll manuals, and do a test run with one or two of her most supportive clients.

3. Lisa gets a few of her clients on the phone and asks them point-blank if they would be interested in outsourcing their payroll processing to her. They sound interested.

4. Lisa finds a reputable payroll processing Software Company founded by someone with extensive experience in the field. She calls the company up and confirms that they have not sold a franchise in her area yet.

5. Within six months, Lisa has taken over the payroll processing of about one-fifth of her existing clients. Though she has lost two large clients to offshore virtual assistant services, her business income has grown by fifteen percent, since she has gotten more work without having to invest in marketing.

Of course, Lisa’s success took hard work. But she was able to maximize her effort by choosing an offering she could expand her business into easily. Payroll processing is one example of a value-added service that many B2B small businesses can transition into smoothly. But whatever new offering you go with, just make sure to choose your new offering carefully.



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Mondaine is a Switzerland based watch company. It is in the business of watches from the year 1951. Mondaine is regarded as the producer of the official Swiss Railway watches. The brand is so popular that its design range needs no introduction. The key features of the brand are popular by means of ‘Railway Watch’ which is renowned worldwide. Hans Hilfiker, a well-known Swiss Engineer, Designer and an employee of the Swiss Federal Railways, shaped a patented archetypal Railway Clock during the 1940s.

The hard work put in by this gifted man paid him results in 1986 when his listed wristwatch version was given a shape by Mondaine. The design thus created, received several prizes. This technological design concept was honored with the German Design Plus award. Apart from it, it also captured the bronze award of the Art Directors Club of Switzerland. And interestingly, it also got the extreme respect of being assessed by Sir Terence Conran at the London Design Museum.

The model thus fashioned by Mondaine had to become a classic. If you ever get a chance to be in Switzerland, you might locate in excess of 3000 Mondaine clocks at every station. All along with railway watches, Mondaine moreover fabricates wall, table, and desk clocks and pocket watches in diverse design patterns. It also comes forward with an assured number of models motivated by the modern art. You could hope to get the most classic design from the Mondaine which belongs to the most punctual country in the world.

When it initially launched its products, Mondaine watches were based on the clock that harmonizes the whole Swiss rail system. These Swiss watches bore the distinctive glance that decorates the clock towers all the way through the Swiss Railway. Basically, it was made as the official Swiss Railway watch only after the impact of its design. Its watches carried almost a distinction as the red second hand gyrates around the watch in the collection. Its models offer varied features like dual time zones, chronograph, world time and big date system.

Mondaine’s most famous assortment, the Evo, an unswerving mock-up of the celebrated clocks, brought it close to the huge market coverage. On the other hand, the model 30332 went onto become almost the top brand for a sequence of watches made by Mondaine. Launched in the year 1986, this timepiece has prevailed over some dozens of design rewards for its playful and petite design. A reasonably priced ‘Retro timepiece’, a fabulous and fancy watch, was predominantly meant for the design-conscious. Such were some few initial designs which got it the requisite market capitalization as well distinction of sorts.

These exceptionally designed watches have already been featured in museum anthology across the globe together with the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A typically designed model pulled off the entire previous record in terms of sales which registered a massive demand pattern in virtually all major markets.

Mondaine’s illustrious red second hand watch, which halts momentarily earlier to the next minute before it jumps forward, has also been received some rave acclaim from the critics. The Mondaine watches are so specific that they truly receive global respect as a timepiece. It is the only watch in the world that received praise on its expertise from famous architects like Louis Henry Sullivan.



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Sometimes things start out in the most surprising ways. Take the watch company of Casio for example. If you were asked to guess what the first product that was made by Casio, you may think it was the calculator or some other type of electronic product. You would be wrong. The Casio Company was started 1946 by Tadao Kashio. Understand that this was in Japan following World War II. The financial situation was dire in Japan at the time to say the least. When Mr. Kashio began his company, he was a fabrication engineer hoping to catch a big break.

His big break showed up in a very unique way. Tadao Kashio developed a product called the yubiwa pipe. Its design allowed it to be worn on the finger. It was used to hold a cigarette, allowing the smoker to smoke the cigarette to the filter, all while still being able to use both hands. In the impoverished Japan of the times, cigarettes were a hot commodity and the product was an overwhelming success. The yubiwa pipe is a far cry from the calculators and watches that were to follow, but it did start the company down the road to success.

Since it is obvious that Mr. Kashio was an inventive sort of man, it only took a little while for him to decide to explore different products. At the business show in Ginza, Japan in 1949, he discovered electronic calculators. With the proceeds from the sale of the yubiwa pipes, Mr. Kashio and his brothers began to experiment with making their own calculators. At the time, most calculators were run by the use of gears. With diligence and hard work, the Casio Company came out with the first calculator to use solenoids. The new type of calculator went on sale in 1954. This calculator also was the first to have the 10 digit keypad and had only one display window as opposed to the competitors’ that had three.

As you well know, calculators weren’t the only product manufactured by Casio. After the release of the Model 14-A calculator, many more products were designed and released to the general public. The same year as the release of the 14-A, the company also became the Casio Computer Co., Inc. This is about the time when watches from Casio first made their mark on the watch industry. Casio has been well known for the huge variety and innovation of their watches almost since the beginning of production. They were one of the first watch companies to manufacture the now famous quartz crystal watches. The quartz watches produced by Casio were available in both digital and analog styles. It is possible that the most well remembered watch produced by this company was the calculator watch. For those of you who don’t remember, it featured all of the amazing time keeping capabilities of the regular Casio watches, with an added feature. It had a tiny calculator complete with miniature keypad built into the watch. During its hey day it was the bane of math teachers everywhere and the savior of every math deficient student.

Considering the calculator watch was so much fun, Casio continued to raise the bar. This company was also the first to design and produce a watch that could provide its owner with some interesting details. One such watch could display the time of many different time zones at the touch of a button. Others were equipped to give weather details like the temperature and barometric pressure. Mountain climbers of ages past particularly were fond of the version that came with a gauge to indicate the altitude. While other watch makers were stuck on the same old, same old, Casio consistently offered new and exciting variations on the classic wristwatch.

With the true gadget geeks of the world in mind, Casio came up with a watch just for them. It is the Wave Ceptors line of watches. They really outdid themselves with this one. These watches are equipped to receive radio signals that enable the watch to keep accurate time. They also are able to tell the time in different time zones, the user can set alarms and timers. This line of watches also came with an incredibly extensive user manual to provide all of the necessary instructions to the owner.

From the yubiwa pipe to the finest calculators and watches in the world, the Casio has come a long way from its humble beginnings. They continue to challenge themselves and their competitors to new higher peaks and offer the best products electronics can build.



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