Business Education Lesson Plans: March 2012

How to Build a Successful Business from the Web

Thanks to the ever growing trends of Information and Communication Technology today, business is now done almost at the speed of light because necessary tools and information to move one forward can easily be sourced at finger tips by any knowledge-driven business promoter once the an Internet facility is at his or her easy reach.

There is no gainsaying the fact that the manner business is run today cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be compared to what it was a couple of years ago particularly at the commencement of this present millennium. From the look of things, the fast rate of phenomenal growth in technology particularly the World Wide Web environment has immensely facilitated the way we learn, work and relax with a great impact on global business transactions. The web equally makes it possible for everyone to transcend physical limitation and transformation with the emergence of new online opportunities that emerge every passing day.

It is quite clear that the world shrinks every degree of the day from the village to a tiny living room while physical assets and geographical boundaries can be likened to a mere verbal expression in as much as the traditional status quo limitations like age, sex and position seem to be less important in transactions unlike a few years ago.

For one to be a success in online business, a combination of knowledge, purposeful exploitation and know-how in the web trends must be wholly embraced while various ways the Internet is used as a business solution as well as the pattern of mutual transaction on the net at any point should be closely followed. It is equally to be noted that the secret of creating wealth online is to first of all find out the reasons why people use the net and thereafter create some cogent wants as well as the inevitable solutions

It is quite possible to create a new business opportunity or adopt the existing ones to suite the current trends. From all indications, an investment in web trends cannot be said to be adequate while the initial step to success in this direction is the appropriate use of the existing technology. At the same time, provision of infrastructure should be geared to boost efficiency, responsiveness and business adaptability.

While, at the present moment, the Internet is often accessed in some places particularly in the developing countries through the computer, the equipment has metamorphosed from being just an information tool to an inevitable business companion. Right now, Web 2.0 is a business revolution in the digital world and its ardent mastery can induce a huge success in business development.

A very good way of creating and sustaining a viable business on the Internet is by initiating an idea into an information product and turn it into an e-book, newsletter, reports as well as “how to” do articles like this one you are reading. Since it is generally agreed that information rules the world, everything, however, depends on one’s ability to learn the way and manner of selling one’s products on the Internet and by that very fact, a huge amount of money can be made on any information product.

There are many other possibilities like getting to know the general intricacies and opportunities from search engines like Yahoo and Google as well as their income earning programs like Ad Words and Ad Sense. There is no doubt that by devising new business opportunities, an exploitation of the World Wide Web is a very sure panacea to poverty eradication and promotion of social well-being if properly harnessed.

Earn Extra Income and Live Well

How to earn extra income in order to live well is, no doubt, an inevitable challenge that cannot be easily wished away by people from all walks of life because of the inclement weather of financial hiccups imposed by the current ubiquitous global economic melt down and for which there is no end in sight at least for now. This is because, no mater how fat one’s pay packet may be, particularly for those in the white collar job sector of the economy, it can never be adequate to take care of the ever growing domestic and social necessities.

Going by its simple definition, extra income is the fruit of your labor from the regular efforts coming out of your normal paid employment or business by means of which you offset your recurrent bills like house rent, electricity, children’s school fees, family medication, social responsibilities and finally set aside a good portion of the regular income for taking care of the rainy day wherever that is possible. During the booming era of the global economy some years ago people not only espoused the moral habit of satisfying not only their individual needs but also their wants. Today, however, the story is quite different because to make ends meet is a big Herculean task for a typical family... There are even some households particularly in the developing world today that find it difficult to secure the normal daily three square meals.

The reason cannot be farfetched why some blue chip companies and big enterprises diligently veer into several extra income earning opportunities – a phenomenon they whimsically term diversification whereby they venture into different areas of business endeavor which some time ago was alien to them or below their corporate dignity. It is not quite surprising that major active players in the national economy like the UAC (United Africa Company), Coca-Cola, G.B. Ollivant, A. G. Leventis and many others in Nigeria that are once noted for multiple chain stores and fast moving general commodities with network of hundreds of branches and franchisees all over the country have now intensified their wholesome presence in the once neglected industrial agriculture sector, mining and lumbering trade. Many of them are running several rubber and cocoa plantations where they engage thousands of farm laborers and experts that handle that aspect of business development for them.

There is no gainsaying the fact that no right thinking person would ever wish, pray or hope for a life of abject poverty and squalor the reason for working or going into business in the first place so earning extra income is a further financial boost but getting the wherewithal is always a mirage and this is where the information and communication technology plays an inevitable role.

Right now the internet facilities that abound nearly everywhere in the world offer a lot of inevitable and cogent ideas for generating extra income for a better life. The seemingly easy entry point for anyone to embrace without much ado is affiliate marketing.

The cyber space also offers a host of other extra income making opportunities like writing, blogging and simple technical non-technical services that can highly augment regular income. It is certainly a great disservice for one to moan always on one’s state of financial backwardness while opportunities abound out there to earn extra income and live well.

Ade Adenekan is the Executive Director of Pan-African Reconciliation Centre in Nigeria and a leader in the third sector of the global economy. If you want an extra income and live well, feel free to get more tips here and for a good residual income, just go to this review site.

Booming Business on Meltdown

It is quite obvious that the ever biting global meltdown has been a source of inevitable challenges not only for individuals but also for businesses and even the once very affluent industrialized nations. This is the reason why many business establishments resorted to pruning down their normal operations while throwing their workers to the job market because of lack of wherewithal to keep them. Furthermore, once buoyant professionals and consultants have to cope with ever shrinking clientele.

This unfortunate period continues to inflict untold hardship on those that are already out of work. At the start of the meltdown, the erstwhile governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank made the nation to realize that the global economic impasse would have little or no effect on the nation but the situation now on the ground proves him very wrong as workers are sacked from various employments by the day while the rate at which industries fold up nearly in every nook and cranny of the country is quite alarming.

Eminent economic experts are, however, of the opinion that the period, on the other could be a blessing in disguise for those are ready to seize the bull by the head. They feel that the current economic challenges are a good opportunity for both individuals and businesses to make adequate preparations and plan for a better tomorrow. As far as they are concerned, this is an opportunity for them to review their operations and know where to cut costs and determine the right number and caliber of staff that would enable them move ahead.

People and organizations should seriously look into what they should do to improve on their present income while businesses must be seen as a way of having the right persons as well as the attendant risks. Establishments should just not recruit but also invest in both training and capacity building for the staff. Those out of work should reassess themselves and identify their existing values and look for a better way of planning their finances and also improve on their connection network and device a means of self-reliance.

Since this is not the first time the world would witness such an economic downturn one recalls vividly the Great Depression that commenced in 1929 and brought nearly every living at that time to their knees and according to the common saying, this time shall also pass away while the in-thing is that when going gets tough, the tough must get going.

WORK AT HOME BUSINESS – REALITY OR FALSEHOOD

- Just like hewing water out of a rock

It is only someone who is not an inhabitant of this great terrestrial divide would say that, over the past two decades, the Internet has not brought a total change in the way businesses both private and official are conducted. This goes to buttress the fact in the Holy Book which says that as the world inches towards its eclipse, knowledge will increase by leaps and bounds.

One recalls vividly that the only means of internal and external communication of both pre and post independence days of the 1960s days were just by postal mail, cable and telegram which could only be accessed by the those in the middle class of the social strata. It was later on that telex and facsimile transmission became scantily known only to very few people that were in the business world.

The early 1990s witnessed the emergence of the Internet and today, communication can now be at your finger tips – all you need is just a computer either desktop or laptop with Internet connection for you to be part of the every growing Internet world. Yes, the Internet has brought the entire world to one’s finger tips. It is therefore not quite surprising that wherever you have an original product, be sure to have hundreds of counterfeits or imitation and so it is with what you have in the ubiquitous work-at-home business proponents.

There is hardly a day you open your email inbox and do not have hundreds of unsolicited mails or junks asking you to take part in incredible home business offers which the proponents themselves know within themselves that it is impossible. They further advance this by showing in their sites some bogus figures in thousands of dollars which would even make a Daniel have a rethink. Some would tell you that just by filling data forms, stuffing envelopes or taking surveys, you will be on your way to making thousands of Dollars everyday but this is quite far from the truth.

Although what they normally ask you to pay in order to have access to their fraudulent service ranges between $27 and $100 Dollars and if you misguidedly fall for that, you will have to bite your fingers at the end. This is because majority of the scammers in this category does not have a contact address or telephone number which you can call in case you run into a dead end and want your money refunded.

This is not saying that there are no very serious few ones amongst them, but how to get these ones is just like hewing water out of a rock. Watch out for more about this soon on this page.

BUSINESS TOURISM – A NEW ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT VISTA FOR LAGOS

Marketing itself as a major destination for business and pleasure.

While it is true that it served as the seat of government even before the amalgamation of both the northern and southern protectorate that became the geographical contraption of Nigeria by the British colonial maters in 1914, Lagos has been the most viable business hub in the now and then entire West African sub-region. What makes it more advantageous as a very busy trade post even during the ignoble era of slave trade when human beings were being sold in the common market places like essential commodities was its closeness to the sea and the reason for which it is called a place of aquatic splendor.

Taking into account its unparalleled economic oriented advantages that beckon on people not only in Nigdria but the entire West African sub-region, it can never be an overstatement that every over one thousand ethnic tribes of the Nigerian nation is willy-nilly represented in the city which harbors over 10 million out of the Lagos State 14 million people as erroneously reported in the Nigeria’s official population census of 2006. The population density is far below average of what one can get elsewhere in the continent Africa west, east north or south. Put aside the adverse report on security, the city is very accommodating to all and sundry no matter who you are and wherever you may come from.

With the emergence of Abuja as the new seat of government in 1976 during the brief reign of the country by late General Murtala Muhammed, Lagos still remained the country’s inter pares in the country’s economic and socio-political mainstay until another military administration headed by the self-styled General Ibrahim Babangida decided to move further hinterland and relocated finally to Abuja in 1991. Despite that hurried decision following the bloody coup of the majors that almost unseated him in 1990, Lagos still holds on to its position of pre-eminence in the Nigerian socio-economic psyche up till today.

Lucky enough Lagos has been chosen for this year’s edition of FIFA’s under-17 World Cup and the present state leadership in the state is leaving no stone unturned to position it to the outside world a not only as very inevitable game center but also a premium destination for business, entertainment and leisure. Apart from releasing a theme song “Welcome to Lagos” now aired by nearly all the radio and television stations in the state, the government has gone to the extent of engaging communications outfit to handle the marketing communications services for the FIFA under-17 world cup.

The company hired for the purpose is a branch of Wisdom Keys – based in South Africa and it is to ensure that Lagos is projected as a premium destination for business in Africa as well as to distinguish it as a beautiful host city for the all-important global round leather game.

In order to give the opportunity to football fans in the city to enjoy the games, the Local Organizing Committee has diligently prepared two parks for them to watch the games live. At the parks located in Ikeja in the city outskirt and Marina in the centre of the city, tent structures have been erected to enable residents in the neighborhoods to watch all matches free of charge. The Ikeja centre is situated at the Tarmac in Ogba for the mainland while that of the island is sited at the Marina Fan Park near the newly created Marina Park. Both of them are known for attracting huge gatherings of people – fun seekers and sellers of local Nigerian delicacies.

From all indications, Lagos stands a very good chance of reaping a great deal from this inevitable social propensity. From the ancient slave port in Badagry to its numerous beaches, Lagos, certainly, is one of the cities in the world with rich natural assets and history that can become money spinners if they are well harnessed. The slave port in Badagry was the busiest in the whole of West Africa and the entire continent of Africa in the ignoble past. The city’s natural asset, a beautiful coastline surrounded by waters is also a plus that other countries explore for the economic benefit of their people. So if you happen to be in this part of the world during the under-17 FIFA game, Lagos is a must visit for you.