Got bad credit, See how your got there and learn from your mistakes

Make the most of this experience and learn from your mistakes so you don't get in the same position again. Statistics show that people who have poor credit scores have the same problems recurring throughout their life. There is usually some factor that is causing them to get in the same position time and time again. Is there something that you do that is creating your financial woes? It might be something small that you do consistently such as having to have the latest appliances even if that means taking out hire purchase at high interest rates. It might be that you set goals that aren't achievable in business and you borrow too much money to reach those goals. There can be any number of factors but unless you find what they are and learn from your mistakes you will be faced with a similar situation again and again. You will constantly be trying to boost your credit score and because you will be operating much of the time with a low score you will be paying more on interest than you should be. You will not be able to afford all you would like simply because what you have bought is costing you too much. A change of thinking might be all that is needed to allow you to get so much more out of life. Most people will make mistakes with their finances at some stage and that is to be expected but to make the same mistakes more than once is a sign that lessons haven't been learned. Get help when you need it to work through any problems you know you have and if you can't see where you are going wrong then you should certainly seek help as soon as possible. Your future success depends on it.

For more information on credit repair and personal finance please visit my site at http://www.creditrepairmaster.info.

Your Credit repair coach Mark Clayborne CEO & Founder http://www.creditrepairmaster.info. by Mark Clayborne

ACCELERATING GROWTH THROUGH INORGANIC MEANS: LESSONS FROM THE ASIAN REGION

The majority of Asian economies have continued to benefit from strong economic growth which has filtered into the M&A markets, with little sign of this momentum ceasing in the near future. This paper discusses the rationale behind the M&A activity in the Asian region and the benefits for adopting this route. It concludes with some comments on the ways & means to achieve success in the M&A activity.

Why is the M & A activity growing in the Asian Region ?

Easing of regulations: Historically, regulations governing mergers in Asia were restrictive but with the economic liberalization in the area, deregulation has speeden-up. In India - a country largely untouched by financial problems that have hit other economies - foreign companies are now allowed to acquire controlling stakes in publicly listed Indian companies. In Thailand, it is now easy for foreigners to buy majority stakes in any of the country's commercial banks and finance companies. This superseded an earlier ruling that foreigners could take majority shareholdings only in troubled institutions and that their bids would be considered case by case. Similarly, South Korea has raised the limit on foreign ownership in local companies to 55% as part of an attempt to attract foreign capital to help it overcome its debt crisis.

Restructuring of family-owned businesses: Family-owned businesses have long played an important role in many Asian economies. In South Korea, the top ten chaebol contribute almost two-thirds of GDP. In India, seven of the top ten private companies are family-owned, and the top 50 family-owned business groups account for 30% of total industry turnover. These businesses once thrived in a protected environment where political connections mattered more than business acumen. But, this resulted in markets dominated by networks of privileged companies, many of which were not able to face competition from overseas. The outcome of this impacted the entire region which started witnessing an increasing trend of local governments introducing incentives to stimulate M&A activity in their countries. Sale of state-owned companies: State-owned companies account for a large proportion of most Asian economies. Generally, their performance has lagged behind that of private sector counterparts and they have rarely returned their cost of capital. In China, over 40% are said to be losing money where as in India, the estimate is half.

Privatisation is being seen as a way of raising performance as well as government funds. Aggressive privatization programmes are under way in several Asian countries. For example, Pakistan announced plans to offer stakes to foreign companies in the Water & Power Development Authority, Pakistan State Oil, Habib Bank and Pakistan telecommunications. Even in India, where privatization activity had been relatively limited, the government has sold stakes in more than 40 companies. In South Korea, stakes in state-run companies including Pohang Iron & Steel Company, Korea Telecom, Korea Gas Corporation and Korea Heavy Industries & Construction Company are up for sale.

Although most governments prefer to find local buyers for national assets, some have little choice but to accept foreign investors.

Overcapacity: Booming demand from an increasingly affluent Asian middle class has attracted foreign investment of more than $500 billion into the region. The 20% annual growth rate of this incoming capital outstripped GDP growth, had led to severe over-capacity in many industries. This excess capacity has prompted struggling companies to consider sell-outs and offer acquisitive companies a relatively cheap way to buy in. For example, Honda acquired Peugeot's 22% equity stake in a loss making manufacturing plant in Guangzhou province, Southern China, for less than half of the investment required to build an identical 50,000 car capacity plant from scratch. Honda believes it will fare better than Peugeot because it has a network of local suppliers, and has gained production and sales experience in China through previous joint ventures such as that with Wuyang-Honda, a manufacturer of engines for motorcycles.

De-regulation of fragmented industries: Many industries across Asia are highly fragmented and uneconomic in scale. For instance, the average Chinese paper company is a mere one-fifteenth of the size of its US counterpart. China's consumer goods and pharmaceutical industries are similarly fragmented.

These small companies have survived in markets shielded from open competition, but as Asia's economies integrate with the global economy and multi-nationals enter local markets, their future is threatened. To give them a fighting chance, Asian governments have been encouraging and sometimes forcing smaller companies to merge.

Sometime back, Malaysia introduced a scheme to encourage mergers among banks, in the run-up to the situation when the banking industry would be opened to foreign institutions in line with WTO directives. The message was clear: merge or die.

What value-creation does the M&A route provide to the companies in the Asian Region ?

Improved operating performance: Research shows that operating performance in several Asian countries is far weaker than it is in the West. Even in countries like India and China, it is estimated to be as low as 5 percent of US levels. This poor operating performance means that there are opportunities for companies with strong core operating capabilities to buy poor performers, cut costs, improve processes, and raise product and service quality.

GE Capital, the financial services arm of the General Electric Company, has used this approach to expand its business rapidly over the past ten years. In Asia, its targets have included United Merchants Finance of Hong Kong, SRF Finance of India, PT Astra Finance of Indonesia and GS Capital Corporation of Thailand. By improving systems and processes, lowering the cost of funds by virtue of its superior credit rating, and introducing a strong performance ethnic, GE Capital swiftly improved results. Most of these acquisitions were privately owned, making performance figures hard to come by. However, it is recognized that GE Capital has turned around the performance of many of its Asian targets, and that several have already won leadership positions in their markets.

Haier, China's largest white goods company, has completed more than 13 acquisitions since 1991 using the same strategy, and today boasts sales of about two and a half times greater than those of its nearest rival. Haier typically buys loss-making companies with fundamentally sound products, then applies its operating and brand management skills to enable it to charge premium prices. A strong distribution network in all China's leading cities and some 7000 sales points abroad, increases its product reach.

Economies of Scale: As industries such as pharmaceuticals and banking that could exploit scale economies have long failed to do so in several Asian markets, there is tremendous potential for buyers to create value by acquiring small companies and consolidating manufacturing, distribution and selling.

Rashid Hussain Bank of Malaysia has created value in this way. In 1990, when it was still a broking house, it acquired a controlling 20 percent stake in DCB Bank. In 1996, it pulled off the country's biggest ever banking merger by combining DCB Bank with Kwong Yik Bank to create Rashid Hussain Bank. The resulting scale won the new entity "tier 1" status under Malaysia's new banking scheme, and synergies across its businesses.

Restructured industry: Lack of competition has enabled local companies to thrive despite poor products and services. Therefore, there are opportunities for buyers to acquire these companies with the principal aim of not only improving existing businesses or capturing synergies, but of building entirely new business models.

Hindustan Lever Ltd. is changing the face of India's ice-cream in this way. A few years ago, the market was the preserve of small regional ice-cream makers. After acquiring them, Hindustan Lever now boasts a market share of about 70 per cent and is expanding its product range, investing heavily in advertisement and promotion to build stronger brands, and improving refrigerated transportation and retail cold storage facilities to increase product shelf-life and market penetration. What used to be a slow-growing, fragmented market, is now expanding by more than 20 percent a year.

Although Hindustan Lever is creating some value by improving the acquired businesses and capturing scale economies, most of which will be derived from [a] the way the company transforms the industry [b] creating a market for a higher-quality product & a broader product range [c] boosting demand to new levels.

Which resources are required by companies in the Asian Region to achieve success in their M & A efforts ?

Funds are an obvious requirement for would be buyers. Raising them may not be a problem for multi-nationals able to tap resources at home, but for local companies, finance is likely to be the single biggest obstacle to an acquisition. Financial institutions in some Asian markets are banned from lending for takeovers, and debt markets are small and illiquid, deterring investors who fear they might not be able to sell their holdings at a later date. The credit squeeze and the depressed state of many Asian markets has only made an already difficult situation worse.

However, apart from funds, a successful M&A growth strategy must be supported by three capabilities :- (a) deep local networks (b) ability to manage uncertainty (c) skill to distinguish worthwhile targets

(a) Local networks - As doing business in Asia is still driven by relationships, only companies with local market networks, will hear about the best deals and those that have a personal relationship with the seller, will be invited to bid for merger. Relationships that deliver these kinds of privileges are often the product of networks developed over decades and give companies that enjoy them an undeniable lead over foreigners in these markets. But less fortunate companies cannot afford to throw up their hands in despair and try to manage without it.

One way to go about the task is to hire and develop a high-performing team of local managers who have ready-made insider networks. Another option is for companies to choose private equity partners who have the required insider capabilities. In return for their investment, knowledge and experience of the local business environment, private equity partners are likely to seek a high investment return.

(b) Management of uncertainty - To manage the high degree of uncertainty that currently exists in some Asian countries, buyers must define and monitor specific indicators to get an early warning of the scenarios that might unfold, then develop contingency plans that allow them to protect themselves in worst case scenarios, but to maximize any possible gains.

(c) Assessment of quality of potential targets - It is necessary that a company should be worth the price which a buyer is ready to pay for it. But assessing companies in Asia can be fraught with problems and unfortunately, several deals have gone bad as buyers failed to dig deeply enough. Concealed high debt levels and deferred contingent liabilities have resulted in large deals destroying value. In those cases where buyers have undertaken detailed due diligence, they have been able to negotiate prices as low as half the initial figure.

Due diligence is often difficult because disclosure practices are poor and companies often lack the information which buyers need. Most Asian conglomerates still do not present consolidated financial statements, leaving the possibility that sales and profit figures might be bloated by transactions between affiliated companies. The financial records that are available are often unreliable, with different projections made by different departments within the same company and different projections made for different audiences.

The economic climate has made things even worse as some companies desperately conceal liabilities or grossly overstate assets in a way that is hard for outsiders to detect. Moreover, seeking recourse under the local judicial system is likely to be slow and frustrating. Therefore, the best solution is prevention i.e. taking more time over due diligence than it is likely to be normal elsewhere. For example, GE Capital had to spend more than three months on due diligence for an acquisition in Asia whereas in the West, this process would have taken no more than a few weeks. Further, buyers should complement their own efforts with those of local experts especially in the areas of tax, accounting and compliance. Accounting items particularly debt, inter-company advances, payments due to creditors and contingent liabilities, need to be probed in greater detail. For this purpose, detailed interviews with customers, suppliers and financiers can be valuable sources of information to validate data from the target company. In short, it is better to spend time and resources on checks at the outset than face surprises and huge losses later on.

Concluding Remarks The Asian region is characterized by a diversity of cultures, business practices and regulatory environments. Executing successful M&A transactions in this market requires a combination of in-depth knowledge of the region's long term potential, the courage to move quickly in the unknown & turbulent waters and finally, have the staying power. by Prof. Surinder Pal Singh

10 Investing Habits of Rich People

Embody the habits of the rich to enrich your own wallet!

1. Tax-free: Contributing and trading within a tax-qualified brokerage account means that you could be earning up to 30% additional in returns (which you don't give to the IRS for capital gains taxes). Compound that year in and year out and it could be worth millions.

2. Play it Safe: Always keep a percent equal to your age safe, i.e. out of the stock market. Certificates of Deposits, savings accounts, money markets, and bonds are less risky than stocks. (Bond funds should be counted as stocks, not bonds.)

3. Stocks on Steroids: Take a small percentage of your stock portfolio for trading. (Don't trade the whole nest egg.) Subscribe to a great stock newsletter, which is tracked by an independent agency, to achieve superior returns.

4. Great Partners: Interview your financial partner (broker) as if your life depends upon it. Your lifestyle does!

5. Tithe: The first check you write each month should be to your financial freedom fund. 10% for investing, so that your money can make gains while you sleep! With this habit alone, you could be a millionaire in 31 years, even if you only made $14/hour.

6. Don't be the Bank of Mom and Dad: You're not qualified to, nor would you want to, establish the underwriting guidelines for loaning out money to relatives. If someone needs money, consider any gift you give to be a gift or charity. If someone wants you to go into business with him or her, consider whether or not you want to provide that widget or service to the world. In most cases, you'll be better off considering your help to be charity or an investment, and not a loan.

7. Avoid Fair-Weather Friends: Whether it is a new broker, a new person you met by email or just new interest from someone who never cared much about you, if the new relationship is all about the money, make sure you are doing business with a monk! Do your due diligence and don't be seduced by promises of guaranteed riches, guaranteed love or a fabulous lifestyle.

8. Switch-Hit: Do as much of your day trading as possible in a tax-qualified retirement plan, such as an IRA or even possibly a college fund or health savings account. That could help you are reduce the taxes you pay on capital gains.

9. Getty/Guggenheim Your Fab Self: Find out every tax-qualified account that exists and stock up your holdings in as many protected accounts as possible, including IRAs, 401 (k)s, health savings accounts, college funds and foundations!

10. Live the Rich Life: Wealth is not just money. Wealth is enjoying a happy, fulfilling rich life with people you care about, and investing in products and services that make the world a better place. Health is wealth, so get happy & exercise! Breathing is health, so invest in green!

©2008 Natalie Pace

Author Bio Natalie Pace, is adding a splash of green to Wall Street and transforming lives on Main Street. She is the founder and CEO of one of the most respected independently owned financial news organizations in the world. She has been ranked as a #1 stock picker from TipsTraders.com and has partnered with Forbes.com. She has repeat guest appearances on Fox News, Good Morning America, Time Magazine, More Magazine, USA Today, NPR and Kiplinger's Personal Finance. She currently lives in Southern California. by Natalie Pace

Hot Stocks: Citgroup to Buy Back Billions in SIV Assets, May Face Another Write-Down

Embattled U.S. banking giant Citigroup Inc. (C) has agreed to buy back $17.4 billion of assets remaining in a series of funds known as structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, after it previously agreed to guarantee the liabilities in those funds.

In a separate story today (Wednesday), Wall Street banking analyst David Trone said that he expects higher credit costs and additional losses to force Citi to take $3 billion in write-downs in the year's final quarter, a realization that prompted him to boost his quarterly loss estimate for the company and cut his target price for the stock.

"The key question is whether management will be able to continue to find buyers for business units, which is necessary to fortify the capital base against further credit losses and write-downs," Trone, an analyst with Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochrane Caronia Waller, wrote in a research note to clients.

Fox-Pitt boosted its quarterly loss estimate for Citigroup from its prior projection of only 8 cents a share all the way to 79 cents a share. The brokerage then cut its profit estimate for 2009 from its earlier estimate of 69 cents per share all the way down to 28 cents, Reuters reported.

Trone, who rates Citi shares as performing "In Line" with the general market, cut his target price on the shares from $20 to $16. From Tuesday's closing price of $8.36 a share, even that lower target price would represent a return of 91%.

Worries about Citigroup's problem assets will continue to weigh down investor confidence, Trone wrote. Thus, while Citi is definitely a "cheap" stock by one key measure, it isn't necessarily a bargain.

"Citi trades below tangible book, although we believe this is at risk given still-large problem asset exposures," Trone wrote.

Citigroup's shares have traded as high as $35.29 in the past 52 weeks. Its market capitalization (market cap) - the actual value of a publicly traded company - has plunged from $195 billion at the stock's 52-week high to just under $41 billion today.

A new report states that Citigroup has slipped to the fifth-largest U.S. bank by market value, falling behind U.S. Bancorp (USB). The top five are JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), Bank of America Corp. (BAC), U.S. Bancorp and Citigroup. Less than two years ago, Citigroup was on top of that list.

As for the asset buyback, Citi said it's moving the structured investment vehicle assets into a portfolio of assets held for sale. The transfer allows the SIV funds to fully repay maturing debt obligations. It will be accounted for as a "cashless" transaction, since the funds were essentially already on Citi's balance sheet. In fact, the assets will be labeled as being "available for sale" basis, meaning changes in their value will affect the company's balance sheet equity - but not its earnings, Reuters reported.

Back in December, Citigroup agreed to support the SIVs, which at the time held roughly $49 billion of assets. At one point, the bank's SIVs were actually "off-balance-sheet" entities, holding roughly $100 billion in assets.

A SIV is a fund that borrows money by issuing short-term securities at a low interest rate and then lends that money by purchasing long-term securities at higher rates of interest. If managed correctly, fund investors can make a profit from the difference.

SIVs proliferated, and were in widespread use by investment banks and other financial institutions. But they ran aground when the credit crisis caused the demand for short-term bonds and commercial paper to evaporate. SIVs saw the value of their holding plummet, forcing institutions such as Citi - which had been operating the funds as off-balance-sheet funds - to prop them up with financial support.

This is the latest move Citigroup - one of the hardest-hit by the worldwide financial crisis - has been forced to make as it struggles to get back into the black. Citi has notched losses in each of the past four quarters, including a $2.8 billion loss in the third quarter, and has taken in excess of $40 billion in write-downs.

On Monday, Citi unveiled plans to cut more than 50,000 jobs in the "near term" and slash expenses by 20% to preserve capital as it faces a global slowdown that's expected to push well into 2009. The cuts are on top of the 23,000 jobs eliminated so far this year and are part of Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit's plans to whittle the bank's work force down to 300,000. By the time Pandit puts down the corporate-cost-cutting machete, he'll have lopped off about 20% of the company's work force.

At its peak at the end of 2007, Citigroup had a work force of 375,000.

Just last week, as Money Morning reported, Citigroup announced the release of 10,000 employees, and said it was boosting interest rates an average of 3% for about one-in-five of its credit card holders. by William (Bill) Patalon III

Sourcing Superstars: Neeraj Bhargava, WNS Global Services

WNS Global Services began life as a British Airways captive center in 1996; since then it's blossomed to become one of India's most successful BPO providers, and the country's first to list on the NYSE. Co-founder of WNS (Holdings) Ltd Neeraj Bhargava has been the firm's CEO since 2004, during which time he's seen his company expand to over 18,000 employees worldwide, generating annual revenues of over $450 billion. To launch our series of interviews with the heads of the world's key sourcing players, SSON got some words of wisdom from the man himself...

SSON: What have been the biggest changes to the outsourcing space while you've been involved?

Neeraj Bhargava: I've been involved in many ways with outsourcing for nearly two decades: the last eight years with WNS, and prior to that the bulk of my career was spent with McKinsey & Co where I worked with numerous IT services companies and other areas of outsourcing. If I were to look back at, especially, the last five years or so, there have been three big changes that have happened in the outsourcing space.

First of all it's no secret that it's truly turned global. We've seen the advances that have happened in communications technology and in general the rise of global trade and integration. People have got very comfortable running parts of their operations in other locations, which therefore resulted in the rise of India now, the rise of Ireland a bit earlier, as a key shared services or outsourcing location, and the increasing usage of locations like the Philippines: these are all things that have really accelerated significantly in the last five years. So outsourcing as a global phenomenon is a very big change.

The second big change is that it's become more widespread, with companies across different industries embracing the trend. About five years ago, it largely involved the financial services players and the telecoms players, and to an extent technology companies and the IT area who were the major early movers in outsourcing. Now multiple industries, multiple categories of trade - not just large companies - and quite often private equity companies - are playing a very big role in pushing their investee companies into outsourcing. So the trend is now widespread, and in some ways, the development of WNS as a company as we expand the industries that we address reflects the evolving trend in the market.

The last point is that outsourcing has become a very specialised industry, and therefore people who are successful in this area are very focused around doing this well. Our WNS clients are increasingly demanding more industry expertise coupled with operational expertise and therefore, like any other industry, as it starts to mature, people who are very specialised and can develop unique solutions for their clients are the ones who become very successful.

SSON: What do you see as your biggest challenges day to day?

NB: WNS has been fortunate to take advantage of opportunities that have allowed us to grow at around 40 per cent year on year, and even in a difficult economic market we foresee ourselves growing quite steadily over the next couple of years. If you just look at some pure numbers here we were just about a $15-million company in 2002; we finished last year with revenues in excess of $450 million. So it's just the level of growth that we've experienced and what we see going forward, our biggest challenge is in managing growth, preparing the company in the sense of having the right organisation, and the right capabilities to take advantage of the opportunities that are coming to us. And overall I think that we are at the early stages of outsourcing; there is much scope for creative outsourcing solutions and sourcing functions or processes that we have not tapped yet.

Recent studies by McKinsey & Co and some of our industry associations suggest that the relevant market is about $250 billion. Right now the market that we are tapping is barely $10-$15 billion, so we still have a long way to go. And the biggest challenge continues to be managing growth and preparing for what is coming.

SSON: Are you worried about the credit crunch?

NB: I think the credit crunch and what is possibly recession, high inflation, does create a difficult environment for our clients or our prospective clients. They're seeing a lot of dramatic changes in their business. That creates two issues simultaneously: first, the need to cut costs and focus on core business; and second, they perceive that need to be more acute. That is, in fact, very positive for our business. The flip-side to that is that there is also a lot more pressure on dealing with day-to-day issues, there will be more M&A activity, people have less money to spend on change: these are distractions that sometimes constrain them from taking outsourcing decisions. So it's a bit of a mixed bag.

But overall I think if you looked at what happened after the last recession, in the early part of this decade, that was very positive for us... So our view is that in general people have been a bit shell-shocked by the rapid changes in the economy, but at least in the US people have begun to understand that they need to make the rapid, sustainable change represented by outsourcing, so organizations are compelled to pursue a broader range of outsourcing options. We think that Europe is following the same pattern.

SSON: You have an increasingly diverse operation now and are growing rapidly year on year. Where do you see your next expansion taking place?

NB: Overall we've been very public about this: WNS will have a global footprint. In that context, what we've done so far is keep India as a very strong base for us but on top of that we've added more onshore operations in the UK, we've added Romanian capabilities, we've got capability in Sri Lanka, we recently completed a joint venture in the Philippines as well. This is a fairly diverse footprint already but there are three other missing pieces: we need a presence in Latin America, to deal with opportunities there as well as Spanish-language requirements in the US; we would be silly not to consider China as an important location to enter given all the opportunities that are there in that market; and last but not least is - as we've done in the UK for some specific operations - having some onshore operations in North America as well.

So we have three areas where we will fill in some gaps, but at this point in time, we're very focused that in the next twelve months our biggest priority is to ensure that our recent expansions in the Philippines and Romania gain scale rapidly, and we're focused on ensuring that these locations grow at the same rate as what we already have established in India, Sri Lanka, and the UK. Our sense is that the expansion into the other three geographies - which are imminent - will occur in the next fiscal year.

SSON: You mentioned Romania: why did you decide to go there?

NB: Romania presents a very rich opportunity for WNS to tap into a workforce who can work in all the four major European languages: Italian, French, German and Spanish. We find a very good population of professionals who can work in all those languages. So that was one point. The second is that the employee culture of those working in business services, coupled with the fact that there were some early movers who had set up shop there and whose experiences had been very positive, was positive, and to top it off, there are many parallels we found between the business culture in Romania and what has emerged in parts of India. We have been very impressed by what we see; it's a pretty important expansion for us, and it's the springboard for what we can do more broadly in continental Europe.

We don't rule out going into other countries because in general the pattern we've seen other outsourcers follow in Europe - which is something we feel is right - is that you don't need to build gigantic sites in one location, you probably need to establish a cluster of smaller sites. So Romania is not the only place we'll establish a location in Europe looking forward. But given important attributes, whether it's the availability of skills, the optimum ecosystem to develop operationally focused companies, in every dimension we felt that the best mix is present at this time in Romania and that's why we decided to go ahead with this location.

SSON: How do you differentiate yourselves from other BPO providers?

NB: I think one very important differentiation is that we're totally focused on running business operations. We compete with a number of global BPO providers who have a mix of BPO, IT and consulting; we do feel IT and consulting are important but for us they are not something we're pursuing as independent or large businesses, but they are capabilities we have to better deliver our BPO operations, so we have IT platforms that we've invested in, and in fact even acquired companies in the IT space; our sales process is very consultative in nature; but we're very sharply focused on being a BPO company, running business operations.

Our clients in general like our very sharp focus on their operations, not selling them systems implementations or consultancy that could stretch out their path to value from outsourcing. In fact, in one case one leading global outsourcing company that was very focused on ITO was an incumbent in a potential client and bidding for their BPO processes, but we actually managed to win because of our very much sharper focus on BPO delivery. So that's one big differentiation.

The second thing is the fact that we've leveraged offshore locations very, very aggressively for the last twelve years of the existence of the company. Our ability to run very high-quality operations offshore is often superior to what you see companies even much larger than us are able to do, because we're insiders, we've done this for a long time, we've got a good brand-name in places like India and Sri Lanka, and are able to hire the right talent and make them extremely productive. The ecosystem that we've built around our company is extremely strong, and our offshore capabilities help us stand out very clearly.

The last and very important point is that I think that when you run operations the culture you create is also extremely important. We're a very entrepreneurial company, very customer-friendly in terms of how we operate; we do believe that culture is an important competitive weapon for us in terms of adapting our ways of working to those of our clients, truly "extending their enterprise" as our tagline says. We are focused on ensuring that their operations - often hundreds or thousands of miles away from where they're based - are run in a manner in which delivery is very predictable; and we're really a very friendly company to work with. This may seem like fluff: but let me tell you the feedback we get all the time is that this company is a real pleasure to work with and in many ways that image helps us stand out.

SSON: What do you see as the boundary between BPO and KPO, and are you planning on moving into KPO in any big way?

NB: Well, actually we are among the largest KPO players worldwide, period. We invested in that business four or five years ago. Fifteen per cent of revenue comes from what is popularly known as KPO. We've made acquisitions in this area and have a very diverse business which encompasses every aspect of analytics from financial analytics through sales and marketing analytics to spend and purchasing-related analytics to more advanced FD&A work that we do for our finance and accounting clients. Our KPO practice now is over 1,500 people who are very deeply linked into our various industry practices. So if you were to look at what we've done there, WNS' KPO offering is clearly ahead of the market in terms of size, diversity of offering and industry. That's very big for us.

The reason we've been very successful there is that right from Day 1 when we physically land a client for BPO services we bring numerous analytic tools and other methodologies that we have developed over the years as the first tranche of the WNS value-add, with our KPO teams working very closely together with our BPO teams to add value. More recently, what we are experiencing is, as we add clients, instead of leading with BPO, we're leading with KPO and then cross-sell BPO services. We've been very successful with this approach.

SSON: Let's talk about India. India's dominance of the BPO space is looking pretty robust. Do you feel it to be unassailable?

NB: I think for the next five years India will remain a dominant offshoring location. If you look at pure demographics today, the sheer number of English-speaking graduates coming out of the ecosystem that was set up to develop BPO companies, gives companies a premier opportunity to scale up operations. And, interestingly, as the Indian economy is softening, the rupee is depreciating so some of the alarming situations we had around foreign exchange over the last twelve months have experienced relief.

Another point is that if you look at resourcing on a comparative basis, there's a lot of talk about resource crunch in India but I can't see any other country as being different in any way. We've got resource crunches in the Philippines, we've got resource crunches in Eastern Europe as well, wage inflation is universal, currency "tremors" exist everywhere: so what is different? So if you look at pure demographics, India stands to remain the dominant player in the next five years. China is very interesting because demographically they have many similar characteristics; however the lack of professional English-language capability is what has constrained the market. My sense is that China, with the growth of English-speaking schools there, over the next five to ten years could become very compelling: but I don't think it will happen within the next five years.

More Articles: Want to receive more articles like this? Have a tip, learning or case study you want to share? Join our growing community of shared services and outsourcing professionals.

Sign up to our eNewsletters and ensure you receive the latest news, articles and features from our growing global community...find out more at www.ssonetwork.com or email enquire@ssonetwork.com by Jamie Liddell.

Manage Spare Time To Achieve Ultimate Success

Power of Audios

Productivity and time Dan Kennedy Using your call as a classroom

I'm reading a book by Dan Kennedy right now called "No B.S. Time Management For Entrepreneurs The Ultimate No Holds Barred, Kick Butt, Take No Prisoners Guide To Time Productivity & Sanity"

The title is really long, but the book is quite good. It takes you into the world of Dan Kennedy, master marketer and teachers of Millionaires.

One of the things Dan Kennedy talks about was using 'non-productive' time, productively. He suggests you use time search as waiting in traffic, going on car rides, stuck in line etc. as learning time.

This of course means listening to Audio CD's or Mp3's with an Ipod or MP3 Player.

He goes on to say that the top masters and successful people he encountered all have been a student of Audio learning programs.

I myself highly recommend Audio learning programs. I remember back in the day when I was still commuting to work, I would have Anthony Robbins with me on those car rides.

I must of listened to Anthony Robbins audio programs, including, "Lessons in Mastery", "Live With Passion", "Get The Edge" and "Personal Power II" over and over again.

When I worked the night shift at a plastics factory, for 8 hour shifts, I had Anthony Robbins in my ear the whole time.

I could go through one of those audio series in one night.

If you commute to work, you'd be surprised how quickly you can get through these 6-7 CD sets. In one week, or two, you could finish an Audio Program.

Imagine reading 1 book a week, or in 2 weeks about a subject you want to learn more about. Without taking up any extra time or with barely any effort.

If you simply use your commute time for learning, you will be in great shape. What is a skill you want to learn?

You want to learn a new language? Want to fix your personal finance? Want to improve your business?

Repetition is the master of skill. You can listen to the same CD's over and over again until the lessons are ingrained in you.

Simply switching what you are listening to while you are commuting, in your car or in your spare time and you could change your life. by Quang

Business Loans: Time For You To Be Successful

If you dream to be a successful business but do not even have the required money to start your own new business then you should get the business loans. These will offer you each and everything that is required while setting the foundation of a business.

These loans will support and sponsor you in several things like:

 Buying land for the business  Building the office  Decorating your office with all the required things and furniture  Hiring man power  Buying raw materials and  In buying the required machines

Such things are very essential whether you are going to start a small or a big business. These are the basics of every business and you will not at all have to worry for affording these. Even these loans will help you in paying off your previous debts too. These are also very ideal for renewing the old and outdated businesses.

Based on your business plans and the required finance you can choose from the secured or unsecured loans. These loans are being made to cater to different types of borrowers. The secured loans are for the homeowners and these will be achievable only after you provide your valuable asset as collateral. Such security can be anything like your car, home or stocks and bonds. The rate of interest of these loans is very low and therefore, people find it quite burden-free.

The unsecured business loans are for those who cannot offer anything as collateral. The non-homeowners find it quite good to be adopted and then have their own small business. These are good for small businesses because the offered amount is small. However, the rate of interest of these loans is high and this is because no collateral is being placed. In such circumstance, if you want to avoid it then other loans can also be adopted. by Johns Tiel

P2P Funding. Alternative to banks

According to TechCrunch, peer to peer or p2p funding is gaining momenton despite the uncertainty in the current market trend. Instead of relying on comercial financial institution, banks or venture capitalist, users and would-be entreperneurs can register with these websites and tell everyone about their potential business. Interested parties can contact these users and start funding their businesses. Sound simple isn't it?(This article was originally posted on December 27, 2007.)

The beauty of p2p funding is that you can be a apart of something for a very small fees. With the help of internet, you can even invest and help people in places such as Boswana, Senegal or Iceland. According to an article from Stanford magazine, p2p funding is will be successful because with a small amount of cash you can help make a big different in someone else life

Guy Kawasaki, in his blogi have highlighted 6 points that we can learn from Kiva, one of the most successful, non-profit p2p funding organization. Here're his points;

1. Create meaningful partnerships. Most entrepreneurs create partnerships to impress investors, journalists, customers, and parents. Hence, most partnership as bull shiitake. The best test of a partnership is whether its existence requires that you change numbers in a spreadsheet. No changes = b.s. partnership. In the case of Kiva, it has sixty seven partnerships with micro-finance organizations. It is these organizations that provide the "leads" for lenders to fund.

Also, Kiva has partnerships with PayPal (free transactions), Google (free traffic) as well as with Yahoo!, Micorosft, MySpace, and YouTube. As you can imagine, these kinds of partnerships do make you reboot Excel.

2. Catalyze and support evangelism. Like Apple, Harley-Davidson, and Tivo, evangelism starts with a great product, and Kiva has one. When you have a great product, then evangelists will appear, and Kiva has 250 active volunteers—what I would label "evangelists." Kiva has really institutionalized evangelism if you ask me.

3. Find a business model. You'd be surprised how many people wave their hands or avoid the topic of business model completely. Kiva's model is a minimum $2.50 voluntary fee that lenders pay when checking out their "shopping cart." If I understand this right: lenders receive no interest and pay a voluntary fee to Kiva in order to loan money. And you thought Google had a great business model—wow, as Wayne and Garth said, "We're not worthy."

4. "Bank" on unproven people. What would the ideal background be of the founder of Kiva? Investment banker from Goldman, Sachs? Vice president of the World Bank? Vice president of the Peace Corp? Vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation? Partner at McKinsey? How about temporary administrative assistant at the Stanford Business School? Because that's how Jessica started her quest. The spark that lit the fire was a speech by Muhammed Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

5. Focus on free marketing. Kiva launched in 2005 with seven businesses in Uganda. The first "marketing" was sending out an email to the wedding invitation list of Jessica and Matt. All seven businesses were funded in a weekend. Then the Daily Kos picked up their story from a hacked together press release. Then PBS's Frontline covered the organization and loan volume went from $3,000 to $30,000 over night. No road show. No Demo. No TechCrunch 40.

6. Ignore the naysayers. The Flannerys got a lot of advice that you can't send money around the Internet without government approval; that Kiva couldn't scale beyond a few African villages; that a non-profit couldn't offer an investment product; and that it would violate SEC regulations as well as the Patriot Act. Besides this, Kiva was a no-brainer.

Here are some p2p funding companies making wave around the globe.

Kiva. Kiva is a nonprofit, p2p-lending site that facilitates loans between lenders and extremely low-income entrepreneurs in developing countries. Lenders can find the business and entrepreneur they want to lend to based on region, business type, risk level, etc. So far, there are plenty potential entreperneurs registered with Kiva. Click here for an interesting article by Guy Kawasaki about Kiva

Lending Club. One of the biggest p2p funding company, in term of the amount of money it have loan out so far is the Lending Club. The site uses the Facebook application platform soley to connect lenders with borrowers, due in part to Facebook's viral nature and the fact that friends trust lending to other friends.

Prosper. Just like the other p2p funding company, prosper seem to be based on the similar concept as the others. Prospective lenders set their minimum interest rate and bid in increments of $50 to $25,000 on loan listings they select.

Zopa. Zopa is the only company in this group that is not based in the US. Instead, it is based in London. Zopa is a P2P social money lending service that allows lenders and borrowers to deal directly with one another, cutting out the banks who act as middlemen. So far, the company has received public acclaim as well, having been awarded CNET Technology Awards' 2006 Internet Innovation of the Year, the 2007 Webby Award for Best Banking/Bill-Paying Website, and the Banker 2007 Award for Best Internet Project. by syed

How to Become a Business Coach - Team Building From Within

There is a famous saying that, "Players win games, but teams win championships." This is true not only for sports teams but also for business teams. Successful business people must learn how to become a business coach, and to do so you must build your team from within. You must be the leader and coach or your own team. Even if you are a one person team, it is important to be the leader of yourself and you will learn how to become a business coach. To have a successful team, it is important to become a good coach and understand that every team member will require something from you as a coach. Some team members will require praise, encouragement, training, and some discipline.

Top Ten Characteristics of how to become a business coach.

Good Self-Image - As a kid we all wanted to excel and good huge extravagant dreams like being an astronaut or participating in the Olympics. As an adult, many people develop self-imposed and self-limiting desires, goals, and dreams. Many people believe that their dreams are too big and unrealistic. An elite business coach does not have this limiting characteristic. In fact, they dream just like kids do.

See Themselves as Winners - If you can visualize wining, then you are on the right step to success. Elite coaches always have a vision of winning.

Set Goals - An elite business coach create big goals and puts in place processes to make sure that the team is achieving its goals.

Listen - Elite coaches need to listen carefully and understand that people do not always say what they mean. As a business coach, it is important to listen in order to be able to satisfy the emotional needs of your team members.

Communicate - In spites of obstacles that your team will face the team, a good coach will always come through with good communication. The elite coach not only anticipates obstacles but also understands them and leads his team to work through them.

Enthusiastic - Whatever you are doing, love what you are doing and be enthusiastic about it. Enthusiasm is contagious. If you are enthusiastic then your team members will be as well.

Understands people - Team members do not try to understand the coach because the coach understands the team members. Team members do not care how much you know, but how much you care.

Perform - Elite coaches walk the walk and talk the talk and know how to deliver. An elite coach does not tell his team members to do something that he does not do also.

Takes Risk - Elite coaches are not afraid to take risks. Instead they always try to do something that they are afraid of doing. This is how the team grows.

Work hard - Success does not come easy and elite coaches do not stop working once they have achieved success.

Taking into account these characteristics will help understand how to become a business coach. Even if you do not have team members, you are always the coach of at least a one man team - that team is yourself. If you can lead and coach yourself, then you can lead and coach a team and your business will grow. by Hunter Ogletree

Work From Home

Every day more and more people want to work at home as an alternative to the way to work. Employment at home offers many advantages - it reduces the cost of your trip and you will receive tax relief and allows you to be your own boss and your own hours. The questions many people ask themselves whether this is what the best work at home business? There are so many attempts, online fraud there that many people find it difficult to find an opportunity that really works and really countries. If you are one of those people in search of the best work at home businesses then we have the best chances - free workplaces.

Freelance work in the House of job offers all the advantages of the house to other companies, people are looking, without the risk of fraud. We believe that is a separate activity is the best way to earn a living working at home.

Where can you work in the home Freelance employment? There are many jobs regardless of the recommendations on the Internet today. Most popular is the Freelance Work Exchange. This offers the best opportunities to edge home by administrative tasks through web design, graphics and written independently.

Many work at home opportunities need your friends and family or spending months learning about Internet marketing. I found much success with this kind of bizopps, but they are not for everyone. If you are a self-employed at home, you must not use this type of marketing, unless you like. If you do not have Internet Marketing and freelancers is the best option for you, that everything you need to do is visit freelance jobs board, apply for jobs and projects that you feel you can do.

Legitimate freelance jobs usually have a minimum administration fee, but are nothing in comparison to the expense of network marketing that you earn much less, if whatever, unless you learn the tricks of the profession.

If you are looking simply at home work opportunity, you should consider free jobs at home. Freelance bizopps offer you all the benefits of corporate profitability at home - lower travel costs, greater tax relief and benefit your own boss to be. If you have no experience with Internet marketing, you will probably spend more money with the self-employed than other online opportunities.

How does one work from home through an online writing portal? It depends on the respective companies. Some companies, such as Associated Content, offers a upfront payment in return for all items that are received. This upfront payment ranges from $3 to $50, though the average payment is typically around $5. So, there is still much to write, to check their work at home opportunity. For example, in order of $ 1000, you need to write Article 334, if only because of 3 dollars per item. However, you can take 16 articles per day, you can use this amount. And that is under the condition that you are using the minimum amount. As already mentioned Associated Content typically pays more than $ 3. In fact, if you can write quickly and efficiently, it is an excellent work of the House of opportunity. by Yose Perez

Thinking Of A Freelance Writing Career?

The Internet has provided so many of us with amazing job and business opportunities. Hardly a day goes by when I'm contacted from aspiring freelance writers looking to start their own writing business online. But what many don't realize is that everyone could do this and in my eyes it is one of the fastest ways to make money online.

However, things are not that easy either. To start your own freelance writing freelance writing business requires dedication first off. Without a concise effort on your part, it is highly possible that you will make a career out of this. Just to give you an idea, it took me seven months in all to go from start to being a full time income earner freelance writer. This included pitching my work to prospective clients online, building my brand and writing my blog.

Gradually I was able to build my writing business step by step, client by client. You can too if you are passionate enough about writing in general. A freelancing career only really suits those who like to put words to digital print. Alternatively you can also mix your online exposure with offline clients.

Either way is fine, the biggest issue most budding writers have is how to get started. My advice is to read as many writing publications you can. This includes blogs, magazines, ezines, websites and even books. Amazon has a wide range of related books on topic if you are stuck.

The next step is to break down your target market into possible clients. Where to go to find them for example. Many job sites offer writing jobs these days and they are often one of the easiest ways to get started. Another option is to blog for clients and they pay you in return.

Article writing is a common ground with which new freelance writers earn money online. These often pay less than average but bear in mind that once you build an online presence, people start knocking on your door. Once this happens, you can pretty much name your price. by Monika Mundell

Small Business Acceleration - Be the Leader!

"I'm too small to be a Leader. We don't need to spend any time on that!"

Those were the words from my small business client, Paul. He didn't mean that he was too short. He meant that in his mind, his $4 million business was too small to need a 'leader.'

After all, he wasn't running a computer software company or a car manufacturer, 'just a local services business.'

He brought me in to work with his management team on improving their overall performance. The company had been started by his father, a selling dynamo and charmer who had everyone who worked for him happy when he walked through the offices. "Dad" turned the business over to Paul when he decided to retire up the coast with Mom.

The company's facilities services business had a good reputation and customers who were generally satisfied with the services. But those same customers' internal business goals of cost containment meant they were always willing to entertain lower priced proposals from the competition.

Paul was suddenly wearing both the Sales Manager hat, and also the President hat. He'd been wearing that sales hat for 18 years, and he didn't know what a President's hat was supposed to look like.

Since Dad's retirement, the company had undergone steady erosion from competition and constant turnover of the junior staff. And Paul was tired of feeling like the company was stalled.

Paul asked me to work with him and his managers to get them refocused and into action growing their business. I found they were stuck with all the common challenges of small businesses:

* Key decision makers were feeling overwhelmed by the challenges of the business

* Work groups were silo'ed as each 'manager' tried to carve out their turf and have a sense of control

* Meetings were more about disagreements than using information to make decisions

* Sales plans had bigger goals without describing the targets for the sales team

* Staff felt like "It's just a job" and were on the look out for more pay

And so on.

Paul's initial reaction to the idea of Leadership was typical. Many small business owners, entrepreneurs, and even professionals view their sphere of influence with a 'small' lens. They believe their company or their department needs to hit some mythical size, often ten times it's current sales, before having a 'Leader' is important.

What they don't understand is that even a two-person partnership needs 'leadership time' to grow and thrive.

* Each business needs a Vision that inspires everyone who shows up to work to bring their best experience, intelligence and efforts with them each day.

* Each person in every company needs a sense of being acknowledged, assisted and appreciated or their attention drifts off to other areas than the purpose of their work.

* Each manager needs a model for how to build a business case for the items that needed decisions across functional areas.

And each business owner, key decision maker, manager needs to use the simple leadership techniques that hold the entire work effort together, and keep it focused forward.

Leadership is the series of activities that take place when the rat race of running a business is paused for a moment and one person communicates directly with the heart of the others in their business.

Paul's notion was that Leadership would divert his attention from managing the business's sales. He couldn't have been more wrong. It's as relevant for the owner of a small business as it is for the Leader of a mega corporation.

Whether I'm consulting to an individual company, or coaching MasterMind groups of professionals who want to grow their business, the key I'm teaching each person is that small efforts have enormous payoffs.

For Paul that meant we started him with three easy High Payoff Leadership steps:

* Inspiring his sales force with measurable sales targets: tripling the number of boutique hotels the company served in a 20-mile radius in the next 18 months.

* Empowering each of the functional areas of the company to design and deliver services packages for that target market that kept those customers delighted and staying with the company.

* Encouraging his staff by running meetings where he kept sharing how proud he was that the team was going after and winning the business that fit their targets.

In total, those activities required that Paul learn 5 new ways of talking about business, and took only 35 minutes per week of his time.

In one month his team's time spent in meetings shortened by 30%. In four months the company had no turnover. In six months they had doubled their business in their target market.

Isn't it time you put High Payoff Leadership on your calendar? by Linda Feinholz

Protecting Your Family And Business Through Criminal Records Search

Parents usually want to work hard in order to provide all the basic needs of their children. Every time you work, you need to seek the help of a nanny to watch over your kids while you are away to work. Of course, you want your nanny to take care of your children the way that you do. And because of this, you are going to look for a nanny to assist your children while you are away from home. You will ask some agencies if they have available workers such as nanny. In hiring a nanny if it given by the agencies it does not mean that, you will trust her right away. It will be safe on your part if you will run a background check on that nanny. First records that you should consider is the criminal records to be sure that you are a hiring a person that is free from any criminal offenses. You will have peace of mind if you will hire a person that is free from any crime.

Criminal records are the most useful public records for it will show you the list of those people who are sex offender, violators, murderer, and other criminal offenses. In this way, you will start avoiding those people and turn down their application. It is one way of protecting your family as well as your business from that harmful person who do nothing but to deceive others.

Usually if you are in the hiring process, you usually conduct a background check. Usually you browse on the criminal records because these records can provide you the list of information that can help you in deciding whether to hire or turn down the application of a certain person. You should not base your decision on the information that is presented only to the application form or to the resume because many people do not present those crimes that they have committed. Most of the time, they use false identification just to get the job.

You can go on searching for criminal records online. There are paid services that can help you with your search, promising to provide you all that important information in ex change for a small amount. by Robert Boughner

Keep Earning From Your Home

There are different individuals having various opinions, regarding the pattern of working nowadays. Most of the people today believe that any work that allows attaining financial aid and keeps your position stable is an acceptable job. They are not concerned about working in a multinational company, instead they are ready to work for a small firm and continue a side business, which would pay them good money. Under the circumstances today, several industries have come up, providing you work readily for an agreeable sum of money, which could be an additional benefit along with the daily work.

With the help of internet and computers, men have reached a stage where they can look forward to apply for jobs online. There are several facilities to be working over the internet, as it does not keep you tied down at the same place over a period of time. There are also options for you to go out on vacations and still keep in touch with your work, from different places. It is an option that most of you, who are seeking to earn some easy money, can look out for in the open market. The job providers are very convenient, unlike your regular boss at the office, breathing down your neck.

Once you have decided on what to do, you can look out for the online jobs available and apply in any one of them that you feel would be suitable for you. On several occasions, you may come under the condition, where you are unable to keep up with the work that you are doing. In such cases, nobody will hold you back from stopping it or switching jobs; moreover it is pretty easy to get a fresh online job after quitting one. Most of the time the idea of earning from home, without much headache is a good option to take up, for every individual, who wish to have time to themselves also.

The greatest benefit to continue the work at home is that, you can spend some quality time with your family members and keep working at the same time. Any time you are required for some emergency family chores, you can be there to assist the people. Keeping all this going, you can still earn good deal of money from your job that you keep up over the internet. However, if you consider working at home, you must take note that you will not have the regular working hours to follow; instead the time shifts may be random, a small compromise for the luxury at home.

Thus, if you are searching for work at home jobs, simply open a standard internet browser and search jobs on the internet. You will find several avenues to choose from, and it remains your sole discretion as to which one you would tae up, considering the amount of money you would be provided. Furthermore, the concept of earning, while working at home may come in really handy at times, when you are out of job and are looking forward to earn something for the crisis. by Herman White

Custom Software Development for Your Business

Technology is at the roots of each and every business sector. As every day a new technology is launched, the in house companies are at great advantage. In the present times, they feel it is better to outsource their work so that it can be handled in a better manner and great profits can be availed. In the race of outsourcing, it is the custom software development that tops the list. There are a whole lot of companies that prefer outsourcing custom software developments to experts. It is so because it ensures them accuracy along with saving their time and money.

Development of software is a great art that can be executed finely only by an expert. This is the major reason why companies prefer outsourcing it rather than conducting it in house. There are some amazing software development companies online that can prove to be of great help to the online businesses that seek professional custom software development services. These online services provide expert and professional services to the clients.

A software development company makes sure that the custom software delivered to the client is of top notch quality and is in great functionality. Dealing with custom development software basically involves incredible research, a skilled software designer and immense analytical knowledge. So, a software development company ensures that the software is valid and functions immaculately. The company conducts several checks and tests on the software before dispatching it to the client so that there is no aberration or technical problem faced by the client regarding the software. Also the software over different platforms in various environments including the Windows 2000 with ES5.5 and Windows 2000 with IE6.0, Office 2000 and Office XP.

With their skilled software experts, they work in a way so that the software runs smoothly and add convenience to the client in his/ her business. All their software experts are duly licensed and thus the quality of the software is something that is never compromised with. The services of a software development company are quite affordable and competitive. by Anirban Bhattacharya

Make Money While Your Sleep A Reality for Work from Home Business Owners

Despite the fact that there are so many exciting benefits associated with owning a home-based business, many people choose not to take this path to earn a living. One reason that people choose to work for someone else rather than work for themselves is the knowledge that they can expect a paycheck with a specific amount, at a specific time. When people make this decision they are really limiting themselves. Working from home offers many key financial benefits, one of these being the opportunity to make money when you are not at work. The general workforce may be duped into believing otherwise, but the key to maximizing your earning potential is finding a way to make more money by doing less. If you work for someone else you are probably working harder and more often in attempt to get ahead and make bigger bucks. A home-based business is an operation with a great deal of flexibility and financial reward. The amount of effort you put forth and the amount of money you earn are not always one-to-one. As the owner of a home-based business you have the unique opportunity of increasing your earning potential while working less. The Internet has made it possible for people who work from home to make money even while they are asleep. The Internet makes it possible for business owners to connect to billions of people all over the world. An added benefit of this business potential is the fact that you don't have to be awake while your business is making money. In its early days, the Internet was filled with security holes and people were apprehensive about providing credit card account numbers or other personal information. Now that security vulnerabilities are less, selling products over the Internet has never been easier. It takes only a short time to set up an Internet operation and to offer your products to the world. Since the Internet never shuts down, your online business is always open. This means that while you are fast asleep in Houston, Texas, it is possible for someone in Athens, Greece to access your online business to view the products you offer and make a purchase. Having a 24/7 business operation simply means that you have the possibility of increasing your earning potential without any extra effort. In contrast, working for someone involves working specific hours and coming home with specific pay. Unless you are an hourly worker, it is very likely that you work more than 40 hours each week and yet bring home the same amount of pay. The amount of money you are able to make is already determined when you choose to work for someone else. It is possible for online business operations to have technical difficulties. However, most online business operations exist on a Web server that is managed by a third-party company, such as Yahoo! If technical difficulties do arise, the third-party is available to fix the problem. The only time an online business owner would have to worry about such issues is when they manage their own Web server. Few home-based business owners choose this option because it is expensive and does require around the clock maintenance. When you look at the two choices, it's difficult to imagine that people would choose to work for someone else over working for themselves. This is especially true since the reason that people work in the first place is tied to financial responsibilities. by apple_tinao

Creating Your Own Destiny The HomeBased Business Organizational Chart

Work on any business project and one of the first elements with which you will become familiar is the organization chart. This is to help you understand your position in the organization. If you work in a support role, you may view this chart and feel that your position is insignificant. The home-based business organizational chart is one that should excite anyone who has ever felt that the services they provide are minimal. As the owner of a home-based business, you have the unique opportunity to wear many different hats. Many people consider this to mean that an individual has more work and possibly more stress to contend with and thus working for someone else is a better choice because work is delegated to different people. The fact is, taking on the many different aspects of owning your own home-based business can give you more understanding of the needs of your business. By understanding how all the parts of a business are related to the success of the company, as the owner you can make better choices that affect your bottom line. Non-home businesses spend a great amount of time and money trying to get departments to understand the significance of each so that the business flows more smoothly. Marketing How a business markets itself is crucial to its success. If people don't know you exist, how do you expect them to buy your products? People in organizations that are not home-based operations usually pay marketing experts in the business a lot of money to position the organization in the best possible light. When you work for yourself, you are in charge of this effort. By performing the research of your prospective market yourself, you are more apt to understand the needs of your potential customer and make changes in your business according to those needs. If your home-based business exists online, there are many options available to market your business on an autopilot basis. For example, there are services available that enable you to spin search-optimized articles that can draw more people to your website. Administration Staying organized is essential for all business owners. Keeping track of your projects and client files and managing your schedule are important tasks that you will need to perform when you work from home. How does one individual perform this task when they are typically delegated to several individuals in a company? Software has made the life of home-based business owners more streamlined. Managing the administration of your home business gives you insight into various areas. Since you are aware of all the projects coming down the pipe, you can easily develop a work schedule that is more balanced and less hectic. Accounting If there is one person in every company who people know by their first name it's the person who handles the money. Regardless if a human or a computer generates your paycheck, there is the potential for errors. When you own a home-based business you may hire a CPA or other financial expert to help you manage your earnings and to file the proper paperwork, but you see every penny that your business earns. Being aware of your financial position can help you make better marketing and project decisions. For example, if you notice that the months of November and December are times when you make the most money, you may want to spend less money marketing during these times and focus your efforts on the other ten months of the year. In essence, operating a home-based business involves learning about all aspects of your business and making sound decisions based on that knowledge. By doing this on a regular basis you are in more control of the destiny of your business. by apple tinao

How to write a business plan for Flower Shop

opening your own flower shop is a great company. One of the first things you should do to ensure your success is to write a business plan. This will help your business prosper from the start. Follow these steps to learn how to write a business plan for your flower shop .

Start your flower shop business plan describing your company. Include a mission statement, motto, the legal structure, business history and other relevant information .

Discuss products and services your store offers flowers. Talking about how you provide these services and what will set your company apart from competitors .

Detailed inventory and equipment needed to open your flower shop. Include producers you can buy flowers, delivery of the vehicle, and information on the operations usual and necessary for the maintenance of the equipment .

Describe the location of your store and flowers if you decided to rent or buy the building. Incorporate a market survey, the list of probable needs and demographics, and advertising places .

Prepare your flower shop financially. Include a profit and loss breakdown, the break-even expected analyze and cash flows. Decide whether the capital will be provided by private funds, loans or credit cards .

Provide details of your business. Be detailed and clarify the responsibilities of management and employees. Note important dates and provide a solid budget. by JoeKeny