loneavocado-blog - Tumblr blog

[loneavocado-blog]

21 st February, International Mother Language Day-Poem (youtube.com)

[loneavocado-blog]

I see everything.

[loneavocado-blog]

Subhuman

[loneavocado-blog]

Banished from heaven

[loneavocado-blog]

Is Outsourcing a smart way to do Business?

Nov 15, 2014

182Views

6Likes

0Comments

Share on LinkedIn

Share on Facebook

Share on Google Plus

Share on Twitter

Let me tell you a story. A guy opened up his start up business all by himself with almost no start up capital. He was receiving sales calls from other businesses to help him out with. As soon as he opened up a Google Analytics account, Google certified professionals were flooding him with sales calls for a fee that he could not afford. So he decided to help himself out. He Goggled, you tubed for the topics he had little or no familiarity with. Gradually he learned everything he needed to know to make an online presence. Over the years he started growing his business and his time grew more and more limited. Now he needed help to perform the daily tasks. Hiring full time professional meant costs that were going to hit him at the shaky bottom line. He heard about outsourcing and its low cost. So he opted for it, got the help he needed, and still managed to keep his shaky bottom line steady.

I think I made my point. During the time of industrial revolution, there was this fear that jobs will be lost to machines. What happened afterwards is today’s more productive world. The Division of Labor on the assembly line was another step forward for today’s world to be more productive. These are established facts. Jobs lost to outsourcing or off shoring were met with productivity and growth.

These days of technological innovation, there are soft wares, apps; all low cost and easy to use, readily available on the net to help out “Do it yourself” type of people. However, as your business grows to the extent where things are a bit complex, “Do it yourself” may not be the best solution for you.

[loneavocado-blog]

Banished from heaven

[loneavocado-blog]

Subhuman

[loneavocado-blog]

I see everything.

[loneavocado-blog]

Is Outsourcing a smart way to do Business?

Nov 15, 2014

182Views

6Likes

0Comments

Share on LinkedIn

Share on Facebook

Share on Google Plus

Share on Twitter

Let me tell you a story. A guy opened up his start up business all by himself with almost no start up capital. He was receiving sales calls from other businesses to help him out with. As soon as he opened up a Google Analytics account, Google certified professionals were flooding him with sales calls for a fee that he could not afford. So he decided to help himself out. He Goggled, you tubed for the topics he had little or no familiarity with. Gradually he learned everything he needed to know to make an online presence. Over the years he started growing his business and his time grew more and more limited. Now he needed help to perform the daily tasks. Hiring full time professional meant costs that were going to hit him at the shaky bottom line. He heard about outsourcing and its low cost. So he opted for it, got the help he needed, and still managed to keep his shaky bottom line steady.

I think I made my point. During the time of industrial revolution, there was this fear that jobs will be lost to machines. What happened afterwards is today’s more productive world. The Division of Labor on the assembly line was another step forward for today’s world to be more productive. These are established facts. Jobs lost to outsourcing or off shoring were met with productivity and growth.

These days of technological innovation, there are soft wares, apps; all low cost and easy to use, readily available on the net to help out “Do it yourself” type of people. However, as your business grows to the extent where things are a bit complex, “Do it yourself” may not be the best solution for you.

[loneavocado-blog]

China Triumphs as Silicon Valley Primps

Nov 12 2014

The Mainland’s Shopping Spree Heads Worldwide

Beijing, Nov 11 2014: It is ironic that on November 11, the day the West looked backwards and remembered World War I, China looked forward and was open for business. Wide open. November 11, a day carved from the calendar by Alibaba to kickoff the largest shopping season of the year, has not just become the world’s biggest online commerce event of the year but now tops the business done on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the United States.

The November 11 shopping frenzy is a reminder of the astonishing progress of huge chunks of China’s technology industry. In one generation many segments of China’s technology industry have achieved what took a century in Silicon Valley.

Western xenophobes will protest that this is due to the Chinese theft of intellectual property and protective regulation – an attitude sadly captured by Vice President Biden in a recent speech when he said to his audience, “I challenge you, name me one innovative project, one innovative change, one innovative product that has come out of China.” If the Vice President had spent more time in China he would realize the country teems with creative entrepreneurs and can also justly lay claim to housing not one, but four, Silicon Valleys.

The best Chinese entrepreneurs – Jack Ma, Pony Ma, Hongyi Zhou, Robin Li, Richard Liu, Lei Jun, Eric Shen and Charles Cao (to name but a handful) - demonstrate the same flair for combining innovation, opportunism and intuition as the bold names of the Western technology universe. However, they, and their companies, are much better positioned for the next twenty-five years than their Western counterparts even though many in China still harbor an absurd inferiority complex for developments in the United States.

Western technology leaders who take the time to travel to China to learn will be richly rewarded and will return with a basketful of ideas for new products, business models and management techniques. Many in Silicon Valley – despite the conclusive evidence and deafening hoopla of Alibaba’s IPO - still have a hopelessly outdated view of China. They are in for a shock.

Chinese companies will do far better outside their borders than the U.S. counterparts will do in China. This has much less to do with regulations than it does with culture and attitude. Most of today’s Chinese entrepreneurs – particularly those raised in the large cities - had ten years of English instruction at school and eagerly devoured Hollywood movies. Not too many American entrepreneurs can pretend to possess the same familiarity with China and what should be an opportunity appears hopelessly intimidating and mysterious. It is just very hard for foreign entrepreneurs, no matter how talented, to design software and systems that demand intimate knowledge of local customs and habits.

Today’s Chinese have other huge strengths. Any entrepreneur who can survive, let alone prosper, in the most competitive business environment in the world, is in great shape to take on even the best-trained, foreign contender. Add to this the memories of privation and dark times that still loom large in the psyche of the current generation of Chinese entrepreneurs and there is an inexhaustible quest for work. Name one sizeable Silicon Valley company that operates 12/7 – the Chinese shorthand for twelve hours a day, seven days a week.

This year, Beijing’s celebration of November 11 was particularly striking. Not only were retail sales larger than ever, but the gathering of world leaders for the APEC meeting prompted a characteristic Chinese orchestration of events. Factories have been closed, many government workers have been given a six-day holiday and stiff driving limits are being enforced. The result: temporarily clear skies that allow, anyone who cares to look, a sharper view of many of the world’s best technology companies.

[loneavocado-blog]

What do Uber, AirBnB, Tesla, Google and Apple have in common? Other than the fact that they are exponential organizations (hat tip to my ex-Yahoo! colleague Salim Ismail), they all have haters.

Uber is hated on by the taxi industry and cities, who've had a stranglehold on in-city transportation forever

AirBnB is hated on by hotel chains who are draining their business

Tesla is hated on by other high end auto manufacturers who have so much legacy that they can't move as fast or innovate as much as they can (although they are gaining)

Google is hated on by tons of people who think its got too much power, private data etc

Apple is hated on by people who think that the closed, curated experience is stifling

They all have someone or some group or crowds of people out there who either hate them, as well as others trying to beat them at their own game.

Maybe this is a telling sign? Maybe, if someone hates you, you must be doing something right?

Think about your business, your startup. Is anyone out to get you yet? Are there groups, people or organizations out there who want to take you down because you are making life uncomfortable for them? If not, maybe you are doing something wrong.

Maybe you aren't challenging enough.

Maybe you aren't pushing the envelope far enough.

Maybe this is a sign that you need to push harder and farther.

Who are you making uncomfortable? If its no one, should you be rethinking your strategy?

---

Photo Credit - Dennis Skley / flickr