There are times when an organization cannot handle its increasing work load. There are a number of ways to handle this situation. You can increase your work force, merge with a larger organization or you can share the workload. Increasing the work force can be a very tedious job. It would involve increasing office space and day to day resources as well. Every merger comes with strings and not everyone likes to be tied down. They say, ‘sharing is caring.’ So let’s look at two ways that enable organizations to share the workload. ‘Outsourcing’ and ‘off shoring’, though the concepts have been around since the 1980’s, it was only after the 2004 U.S Elections that ‘Outsourcing’ and ‘Off shoring’ became terms of everyday usage.

Technically the terms have very different meanings but they are used interchangeably. Outsourcing is subcontracting a process to a third-party company, whereas Off Shoring is subcontracting a process to a third-party company, outside the country. The advantage of doing this is that companies can save on costs. The main contribution to cost effectiveness is the gap in the wages of developed and developing countries. The world today has become a global economy. We are all so interconnected, that the growth in any one economy will have a positive effect on every other economy in the world. On the other hand, the fall of an economy can have disastrous global consequences. Case and point: the current recession.

Call it ‘outsourcing’, ‘off shoring’, ‘near shoring’ or anything else; the fact remains that sharing resources, responsibilities and liabilities, is in everyone’s best interest. The sheer volume of work load being outsourced, is an indicator of the effectiveness of ‘outsourcing’. Be it in business, or in personal relationships, we all function on one basic agreement. ‘You do your part and ill do mine.’

Most of us have never heard of Joseph Priestley, but we have all drank his invention. He was the man who invented Carbonated Water. Now, that I’m sure you’ve heard of. The words ‘soft drinks’ would make almost the entire world think of Coca Cola or Pepsi; two corporate giants whose products every man on earth has heard of, if not used. What is it about these two companies that make them so well recognized? It’s not the taste of the liquids they bottle, or their standard packaging. It’s the fact that they go out of their way to ensure that they are noticed and when a consumer wants a beverage they think of them, first. The secret behind the phenomenal success of Pepsi and Coca-Cola is their super fantastic marketing strategy. Now when I say marketing strategy, I don’t mean the fact that they feature living legends like Madonna in two minute commercials that don’t even get aired. I’m talking about so much more than just advertising. I’m talking about knowing what your customers want. It’s about making sure your product is something they need, or about making them think, they need.

The word marketing developed from the original meaning, which referred literally to going to the market. Today, marketing is a lot more than a visit to the local shop. Marketing is now considered by many as a science. It is absolutely vital that every business conducts marketing activities. Businesses cannot hope to be successful if they do not know exactly what their consumers need. That’s one of the questions marketing can answer. Once you have a product people would want, Marketing helps you decide how to make sure that people know about your product and buy it. So when was the last time you went to market, to market?

There has been a lot of discussion and in recent times about ‘The Law of Attraction’, and similar new age thought. But there are so many terms bandied about that there seems to be a lack of actual understanding of the law itself. There is not much awareness regarding how one can actually implement this law in day to day life. The very nature of new age thought means that it cannot be formatted into a step by step procedure. It is personal in nature and requires individual interpretation. Nonetheless some aspects remain common for all. With the help of these we can formulate a few rough guidelines that can be followed to get started with this fantastic law. The rest you have to learn from trial and error. You can give a fisherman all the tools he may need but it is up to him to bait the line and bring in the fish. With each trip he makes out to sea, he will get more skilful and wise in his craft.

In the same way, you have already been given the tools you need to get started with using the ‘Law of Attraction’. All you really need is the power of your mind. The ‘Law of Attraction’ states that like attracts like. By thinking of what you want you can attract it into your life. There are many methods one can follow to accomplish this. Which method suits you best, is a question only you can answer. But here are some basic guidelines that you may find helpful. First decide what you want. Then give it all of your attention, energy and focus. Make sure you stay away from negative thoughts, by avoiding words like ‘No’, ‘Not’ and ‘Dont’, when you find yourself thinking ‘I don’t want this’ immediately ask yourself ‘so, what do I want?’. Stick to these simple steps and before you know it every day will feel like Christmas.

David Beckham is famous for bending the soccer ball so that it curves into the goal. Though, not all of us are capable of such spectacular feats on the soccer field. We are capable of something a lot more significant. We can bend the entire world to our will. We can affect our surroundings simply with our thoughts. The ‘law of attraction’ states that like attracts like. By thinking positively and of the things that you want you can bend the entire universe to your will. You can get everything you want by thinking that you already have it. All it takes is the power of your mind. Though this may seem out of the realm of possibility, there have been plenty of instances where the power of positive thinking has prevailed over seemingly insurmountable obstacles. We are all made up of energy and it is our energy that connects all of us to one another.

Though we are connected, we function on individual plains. We are part of a greater force that runs through everything and it is possible to tap into this force and make great things happen. We can use this energy to influence the world around us. By sending out vibrations that reflect our heart’s desires and what we want we can attract these things into our lives. But this is a double edged sword. Our thoughts tend to turn to the negative. We have a propensity to think of what is lacking in our lives. All this does is attract more of that lack. By thinking of the negative we attract negatives. Hence, it is important that we train our minds to think positively and to not let our thoughts stray into negative areas. One way of protecting yourself against this is ‘visualization’. Decide what you want. And visualize yourself already possessing those things. This will ensure that the universe only receives vibrations that will bring you the things you want.

Say there were two men, well educated, hard working and ambitious. They both aim to become millionaires and hence throw themselves into their work. Then one day one man wins a 10 million dollar lottery, and another earns 5 million in a corporate deal. Technically they both achieved their ambition, but only one of them is considered successful. You don’t need three chances to figure out who that is. The man who earned his money is considered to be successful and the man who won the lottery is considered to be lucky. An argument can be made that the first man made a conscious decision to enter the lottery being fully aware of the odds. He took a gamble and it paid off. Then why is he considered lucky and not successful in achieving his ambition? This is because he lacked one key factor that determines success; ‘Intent’.

If you never intended to pick the apple, should you be credited with the success of picking it, just because it fell at your feet? This is what happens with most business organizations. Businessmen put in a lot of effort and energy into the business during establishment. This creates momentum and leads to the business garnering immediate success. The natural inertia of an organization in its market leads to continued success. Businessmen often get confused and end up thinking that these successes are due to their efforts. They end up running the business instead of growing the business.

We must always keep in mind that we can only be considered successful if we intended to be so. Always take time to evaluate your intentions. This will give you a better chance of figuring out the best way of fulfilling those intents. Without intent you would be like a ship sailing without a destination, sailing only by the whims of the wind.

Just a few hundred years ago the fate of the world was decided by the death and destruction taking place on a battlefield. World Commerce was answerable to the rise and fall of political tides. Nowadays the fate of the world depends, not on the armed soldier but on the smart businessman. The war has moved from the battleground to the board room. Today it would seem world commerce is answerable to no one. It has grown into an institution of such mammoth proportions that it does not bend to the whims of any man. But is this a good thing? Is it in our best interest, that the fate of the world rests in the hands of businessmen whose primary and sole motive is earning profit? Much wrong has already been done with the purpose of making money. With the kind of power that corporations command and their impact on the world around us, it is not only unethical but also dangerous for businessmen to be accountable to no one.

So what is the solution, or rather who, is the solution to this problem? The answer is you. You are the answer to this moral dilemma that the corporate world finds itself in today. You are the answer because you are the businessman as well as the client. Without you there is no commerce. If each and every one of us makes it our priority to practice conscious business and to do no harm, we can ensure that the world is a better place for everyone to live. World commerce may have grown too big for any political organization to dictate but it has not grown so big that it can be accountable to no one. It will be answerable to the planet and its people, not because of its inherent nature but because we, the people, make it so.

The Coliseum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain, Rome was not built in one day and Rome was not built by one man. Landmarks like the Coliseum are a testament to what humans can accomplish when they work together towards a goal. We have come far since the days of the gladiator games. We no longer feed slaves to hungry lions for entertainment. Our modern structures are appropriately awe inspiring. Yet in the course of our progress we seem to have lost the ability to co-operate and collaborate.

What happened to working together? What happened to lending a helping hand just because you could? Today when we look at another organization we immediately think of them as the competition, the opposition. We seem to have forgotten the concept of ‘allies’. Just because someone is engaged in the same or a similar activity as you does not mean that he is your competitor. A smart successful businessman of today would find a way to turn his opposition into an ally. Today, business practices require us to think beyond accounting statements. We are accountable for a lot more than just turning a profit. We must find ways to work with one another so that we all succeed.

Monetary gains are no longer the measure of a man’s success. It is only one of the many factors to be considered.Today the world is more concerned with the legacy of a business. What is the world saying about you? Individually all of us are doomed to be insignificant in the grad tapestry of time. Our legacy is one that will be forgotten, but by working together we can accomplish more than any of us individually could ever even dream of. We can build higher, longer, bigger and stronger. Let’s build our own coliseum, one brick at a time.

Two brothers were put in charge of separate villages located close to one another. Both brothers were highly ambitious and hardworking, unfortunately the elder lacked foresight and patience. Both brothers wanted to see their village flourish. The elder brother, in his quest to acquire energy, had the villagers cut down half the forest. Soon they had enough wood and energy to partake in numerous business activities. Money flowed in and the people prospered.

The younger brother ordered his people to recycle waste, to make compost and bio gas. They were told to work hard in the fields and plant more crops. The people were content.  They did not have in abundance but they had enough.

Over time more and more people came to the elder brother’s village to be a part of his success. Unfortunately the village had run out of trees to cut. The air was polluted and the land barren. The money dried up and the people became depressed and angry. The younger brother’s village, on the other hand, continued its sure and steady progress. The people went from being content, to being happy and never had any cause to complain. One day the elder brother asked his younger sibling the secret of his success. He replied “I never earn only for profit. I earn for the planet and its people as well.”

Today success cannot be measured solely in monetary terms. Conscious Business principles teach us, the importance of having a clean environment and a populous of satisfied, happy people. These people will work harder and live longer to partake in business activities, thus ensuring that everyone gets  what they want, If not in abundance in sufficiency at least. The success of a business today is measured by its business values and impact on the environment along with profit.