Category Archives: Business Management

Business Management

Why do midsize enterprises choose co-working?

To begin with, in my opinion, this article would be pointless without defining the term “midsize enterprises”. Midsize enterprises are organizations having annual revenue ranging from $50 million to $1 billion, employing 100-1000 workers.

Co-working spaces, as we see today, are not products of the modern era. It’s a variant of the centuries-old Bottega system of the renaissance era of the 15th century. Nowadays, most midsize enterprises choose co-working over other alternatives like individual office spaces and more recent ‘work from home. Let’s see what makes such co-working spaces glamorous to the midsize enterprises.

1.An arena of chance and opportunity

Co-working spaces mark a unique blend of people from different workspace cultures converging in a common space. This includes all types of people, including the successful and influential.

What does it mean to you? Well, it means a lot of things. Co-working spaces could be interpreted as an arena offering important and far-reaching connections needed to propel your business forward. Sometimes, what a midsize enterprise probably lacks is proximity to other successful business people.

Therefore, co-working spaces offer enticing networking as well as quick collaboration opportunities.

Furthermore, co-working spaces are factories creating personalities. Along with dynamic collaborations and a vast network web, it offers a space to hone one’s skills and capabilities. It’s worth considering that Leonardo da Vinci acquired his skills as a young artist by working at the Bottega of Verrocchio in Italy.

2. Extracting productivity

Let’s start from the usual scene of our home: Kids crying, pending chores, a club of platters waiting in the sink to be washed and the pressure cooker endlessly whistling in the kitchen. This household cliché could be classified under a broader term- ‘distraction’.

So, what can co-working spaces offer you? Indeed, it offers you a peaceful workplace free from distractions. Such spaces aid us to turn ourselves into a “work-only mode”, offering an indescribable rise in our productivity levels.

A 24×7 accessible workspace along with unlimited coffee supply- highly provocative, isn’t it? Who’ll ever afford to witness such a preposterous offer slipping off from their hands?

3. Bursts of creativity

Co-working spaces are indeed a respite from work from home solitude. It offers not only a peaceful workspace but also mind-refreshing, alternate solutions to keep ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally fit.

For instance, The Playce, a co-working space located in Mulund West, Mumbai where India’s first-ever official Quora meeting was held in India, offers a ‘gaming zone’ to its members.

Such attractive facilities offer their members a break from their jam-packed schedules, creating spaces for self-rejuvenation and relaxation. Furthermore, it acts as therapeutic, moderating workspace stress and a virtually never-ending to-do list.

4. Economic efficiency

Shortage of funds is the most fundamental problem faced by midsize enterprises. Choosing co-working space over office spaces drastically reduces the operational cost of the enterprise. Subsequently, it provides diverse and state-of-the-art office infrastructure including printers, Wi-Fi, conference halls, and coffee corners.

Moreover, co-working spaces are equipped with timely refreshments and beverages at a fixed monthly rate. For instance, The Hive in Chuim village, Mumbai offers a plethora of mouthwatering dishes for its members. Mathias Schuermann in her work, “Co-working Spaces” argues that the cost versus value received is the best in co-working space as the costs are carried by the community as a whole.

What else should make co-working spaces appear more attractive to midsize enterprises?

5. Flexibility and ability to expand

Other than economic competitiveness and collaborating opportunities, what midsize enterprises aspire for is flexibility. Most of the co-working spaces could be rented at short notice.

Furthermore, membership could be withdrawn at any time by the enterprise, ensuring trial opportunity. Some co-working spaces are accessible 24×7 while others offer work during the day and party at night, like Colaba Social in Mumbai.

To sum up, co-working spaces can offer you more than what a monotonous life in an office space or work at home solitude could provide you. Alongside wide networking opportunities, increased productivity and rejuvenating solutions, it also offers cost-competitiveness and workplace flexibility.

The Playce, The Hive and Colaba social are living examples of such modern Bottegas. Spending a day working in these factories producing personalities will be worth it.

Business Management, Education, Job, Research Publication, Skill Development, Training

What is Financial Literacy? Why is it important?

Financial literacy is knowing how to handle your money and use it productively in more than one way. Often we spend our money carelessly and regret it later. Utilising your money in a way that proves useful in the present or sometime in future is why financial literacy is important. This is just a brief description of it. In a real sense, it is a very vast subject. 

Financial literacy involves things like budgeting, saving, investing and loans and interest. This skill is developed when one gets involved in financial transactions. 

What is financial literacy?

It is the ability to understand and effectively use financial skills. Financial skills include:

  • Budgeting 
  • Saving
  • Investing 
  • Credit management 
  • Financial management

You might deal with these in your day to life. But to acquire these skills one needs to understand the basic financial concepts. These financial concepts include the time value of money, compound interest, annualised returns and opportunity cost. 

Why is financial literacy important?

The answer is very simple. You are financially literate, you can manage your money more effectively. It increases your confidence to manage your money and allocates it towards your goals. 

  • Distributing your income in a way that your expenses get paid without disturbing your budget. Note how much income is coming in and distribute it accordingly. And make sure to keep a track of your expenses and make changes in your spending plan now and then. 
  • If you are financially literate, you know that while seeking a loan you look at for the one with the lowest rate of interest. Comparing different loan plans is very important. You also are well aware that paying credit card bills on time is for your good. Because after a certain time you get charged with interest. This will only increase your expenses. time
  • Emergency funds are very essential in today’s uncertain time. Start saving little by little separately for emergencies. If you are already a financial literate you know that saving money equivalent to your three or six-month income is a must. Use it when you are in dire need of money. 
  • Everyone has to stop working after a certain age. Maybe because of health issues or because of retirement. Thus, you need to have a retirement plan. You should be well aware of which accounts will help you secure a good life after retirement.

How to improve financial literacy skills?

  • Manage your bills properly. Use the auto-debit option for recurring bills. Don’t postpone paying bills for late as it may affect the entire budget.
  • Maintain a good credit score. If you have a good credit score you can secure low-interest rates on loans and credit cards. 
  • Manage your debts properly. Stop spending lavishly and start saving and increase repayments. This will reduce your liability and pay off loans with high interests first.
  • Start saving and investing more. Investments are a good way to increase your saving. Invest where the rate of return is high. Also, don’t spend needlessly and save that money for something better and use it effectively. 

Lack of financial literacy will lead to budget mismatch, higher expenses, accumulation of debt, poor credit score and financial frauds. 

Acquiring financial skills will help you make major financial decisions. It ensures that you have a stable present as well as a future. It is a necessity.

Business Management

Global stocks, dollar rise with U.S. economic data

Reuters: A jump in U.S. business activity and home sales helped push global equities and the dollar higher on Friday, counteracting earlier stock declines in Europe. Oil fell about 1%. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 hit record highs and the dollar broke an eight-week losing streak, gaining as weaker economic data in Europe weighed on the single currency. The fresh impetus came from a preliminary purchasing managers’ survey that showed U.S. business activity in August snapped back to the highest level since early 2019, data firm IHS Markit said.

Global stocks, dollar rise with U.S. economic data

Services and manufacturing indices also rose, even though new COVID-19 cases remain high across the United States. U.S. home sales data for July showed deals rising at a record pace for the second straight month, providing another glimmer of growth in the U.S. economy.

Friday’s data counterbalanced a steep rise in U.S. jobless claims on Thursday and Federal Reserve minutes on Wednesday that suggested the economy was beginning to stall, prompting investors to seek safe havens, said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors in Boston.”It’s not surprising to see a pick-up in manufacturing as the economy has started to reopen, even though pockets of the country have pulled back on their reopenings,” said Lindsey Bell, chief investment strategist at Ally Invest.

“It’s an encouraging sign and it supports the upside we have seen in the markets.”The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 190.6 points, or 0.69%, to 27,930.33. The S&P 500, which broke out of its bear market on Tuesday by recouping pandemic-related losses, powered up 11.65 points, or 0.34%, to 3,397.16. The tech heavy Nasdaq Composite added 46.85 points, or 0.42%, to 11,311.80. Among global shares, MSCI’s benchmark for global equity markets was off its lows for the day, rising 0.27% to 571.17.

Europe’s broad FTSEurofirst 300 index dropped 0.20% to 1,416.57. Meanwhile, the dollar index rose 0.63%.”Investors are exiting some of the more economically sensitive sectors of the market and going back to the old stalwarts of tech, where you get reliable growth,” Arone said of the rise in tech shares.

EUROPE DECOUPLED

Somber economic numbers earlier in the day in Europe, including eurozone data pointing to a faltering recovery, doused stock market gains in Asia overnight and also caused the euro to recoil further from recent peaks.The loss of momentum came after fresh numbers painted a muted economic outlook, with purchasing managers’ index releases from France and Germany as well as the wider euro zone falling short of expectations.

“The survey contains some strong evidence that the recovery has slowed in August, particularly in the services sector,” said Moritz Degler, senior economist at Oxford Economics. The euro fell 0.61% to $1.1787 and also ended down for the week, after seven weeks of gains against the dollar.U.S. Treasury yields declined for the week, showing the preference for safe-havens. The shift short-circuited last week’s rally and resumed the downtrend that has largely prevailed all year.

Analysts pointed to rising coronavirus infection numbers having tempered economic activity. On Thursday, France experienced a post-lockdown record in new infections, while countries across the region imposed fresh travel restrictions.Europe’s troubles weighed more heavily on oil, which lost about 1% on Friday on concerns about the global economic recovery, renewed coronavirus lockdowns and rising crude supplies.

Brent crude futures settled at $44.35 a barrel, down 55 cents, or 1.2%. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled at $42.34 a barrel, falling 86 cents, or 1.1%. Brent fell about 1% for the week, while WTI saw a weekly rise of nearly 1%.Spot gold dropped 0.3% to $1,937.69 an ounce. U.S. gold futures fell 0.12% to 1,934.60 an ounce.

Business Management

Now, foreign investors allowed to invest in ‘Alternative Investment Fund’ without PAN

In what has come as a relief to non-residents investing in category I and II alternate investment fund (AIF) located in International Financial Services Center (IFSC), the income tax department has amended rules to exempt such entities from obtaining permanent account number (PAN) on a mandatory basis.

The carve-out for such investors from section 139A of the Income Tax Act is contingent on non-residents not earning income other than from said funds. Additionally, these funds are also required to deduct TDS on such income.

Further, the exempted non-resident investors are also required to furnish declaration containing name, address, country of residence and tax identification number of the country or specified territory of their residence. Among other conditions, to avail the relaxation, the funds are required to furnish quarterly statement for non-resident investors in the newly notified format.

Sunil Gidwani, partner at Nangia Andersen LLP, said, “The demand for exemption has been based on the fact that the fund operating from IFSC would be withholding tax payable by the investors. This would go a long way in making it easy for the fund managers to attract foreign investors in a fund set up in IFSC and would give impetus to IFSC as a fund jurisdiction.”

Under section 139 of the Income Tax Act, any person who has earned taxable income in the previous financial year must apply for PAN.

Business Management

Want to invest in government securities? Here is how you can do it!

If you want to buy government securities or G-secs, what better way to do it than buy it on NSE app! The NSE goBID is a mobile app and web platform for investing in government securities in primary market. It provides a facility for eligible retail investors to participate in auction of government securities on noncompetitive basis. Through this platform investors can invest in Treasury Bills (T-Bills) and GoI Dated Bonds.

 How to register on NSE goBID platform? 

Eligible retail investors are required to complete one time registration on NSE goBID platform. Investors can select from any two options available for registration: 

1. All eligible retail investors (individuals, firms, corporate, trusts etc as specified by RBI) who are clients of NSE trading members (stock brokers) can sign up by selecting their respective trading member. Trading members of NSE are permitted to offer their clients use of goBID platform for placing order. If a trading member is registered on goBID platform his name will be available for selection. 

Investors will be required to provide basic details like PAN, demat account details, mobile number and email at time of registration. The account is activated in one business day after e-verification of demat details and client account details with selected trading member. 

Business Management, Career, College, Courses and Programs, Education, Research Publication

Motivation:The background force

Why have i written this blog?why are you reading this blog?Why do you eat?Why do you love?

The answer to all of these actions is MOTIVATION!Motivation is the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. It is what causes you to act, whether it is reading this article, getting a glass of water to reduce thirst or reading a book to gain knowledge.So this blog will critically analyse the concept of motivation and help all of you to understand the reasons behind your actions.So lets get started!

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Motivation describes the wants or needs that direct behavior toward a goal. It is an urge to behave or act in a way that will satisfy certain conditions, such as wishes, desires, or goals. Older theories of motivation stated that rational thought and reason were the guiding factors in human motivation; however, psychologists now believe that motivation may be rooted in basic impulses to optimize well-being, minimize physical pain, and maximize pleasure.

Motivation involves the biological, emotional, social, and cognitive forces that activate behavior. In everyday usage, the term “motivation” is frequently used to describe why a person does something. It is the driving force behind human actions.

So lets analyse the mechanism of motivation

Drives and motives

Motivations are commonly separated into drives and motives.

Drives are primarily biological, like thirst, hunger, sleepiness, and the need to reproduce—all of which lead us to seek out and take part in certain activities. Drives are believed to originate within a person and may not require external stimuli to encourage behavior.

Motives, on the other hand, are primarily driven by social and psychological mechanisms, such as work, family, and relationships. They include factors like praise and approval.

INtrinsic and extrinsic motivation

Motivation can be intrinsic (arising from internal factors) or extrinsic (arising from external factors).

Intrinsic:arise from within the individual, such as doing a complicated crossword puzzle purely for the personal gratification of solving a problem.

Extrinsic:arise from outside of the individual and often involve rewards such as trophies, money, social recognition, or praise.

In reality, our motivations are often a mix of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and the nature of the mix can change over time.Sometimes, intrinsic motivation can diminish when extrinsic motivation is given—a process known as the overjustification effect. This can lead to extinguishing the intrinsic motivation and creating a dependence on extrinsic rewards for continued performance.

Motivation v/s emotion

While motivation and emotion can be intricately linked, they are two fundamentally different things. Motivation describes the wants or needs that direct behavior toward a goal; in contrast, an emotion is a subjective state of being that we often describe as a feeling. Emotion and motivation are linked in several ways: both influence behavior and can lead us to take action, and emotion itself can act as a motivator.

The need to understand motivation

So at the end of this article,lets see what is the use of understanding the concept of motivation.Understanding motivation can:

  • Help improve the efficiency of people as they work toward goals
  • Help people take action
  • Encourage people to engage in health-oriented behaviors
  • Help people avoid unhealthy or maladaptive behaviors such as risk-taking and addiction
  • Help people feel more in control of their lives
  • Improve overall well-being and happiness

If you all liked this article,please do like it!

Thankyou!

Business Management, Career, Coaching Centre, College, Conference, Courses and Programs, Education, Job, School, Training, University

NEW AGE OF ONLINE LEARNING

Getting educated has never been this easy. Putting the relevance of colleges under the spotlight.

A few decades back, not everyone had the liberty and the opportunity to go to college. The huge numbers of people joining colleges rather than the workforce was not the thing back then. 

The expensive college system paved the way for such a trend, which was also aided by the lack of infrastructure and other opportunities in most sectors which are quite relevant now.

The brick and motor system of people finishing school and then going to college to get a job has been changing slowly but significantly for the past few years. Lesser and lesser people have been seen shutting the eye towards getting a college degree to have a guaranteed successful career across the industries.

The current pandemic status quo is sure to have put a dent to this trend on a larger scale. With the ever fluctuations in the job market and the downward scaling of businesses, employees in most industries are scrambling to make sure that they will have a living by the end of the pandemic. 

Making the fear of the pandemic second to the fear of having a job to hold on to sustain a living. The hardships of having a job did not seen this hard in a while.

The upscaling of technology has certainly impacted the education system the most. With the widespread of internet and other gadgets, it has allowed people to even resort to remote learning; from upskilling to even pursuing degrees these days.

Aiding schools and universities to function on with their course structures to an extend.

It has also paved the path for people building up and pursuing shorter courses, which helps in building up certain skills and foundations in almost all the sectors of business. Contributing to a more conscious and productive workforce yet to have hit the floors.

People now have the liberty to sit from the comfort of their homes and with a few clicks be able to start doing a course to up skill their own person. Making the opportunities to learn a plenty and the easiest it has ever been.

The pandemic and shifts in the education system has promised that the system is never going to be the same again.

With people resorting to digital measures to eliminate their shortcomings of knowledge regarding different spectrums, it has started giving major companies sound grounds to even consider candidates without a proper degree for various job opportunities.

With the ability to receive information and answers regarding almost everything with just a click of a few buttons, has shown that the people are going the extra mile to incorporate additional skills that might help them become more educated to handle the tasks at work and also developing as professionals. Paying homage to the age old saying, “with great powers, comes great responsibilities.”

These all have made the jobs of the recruiters much easier, by letting them have the freedom to have a chance to hire people with the right skillsets, which would let them employ the workers without further training or other actions. Making the pace of the workplace faster than ever.

Business Management, Courses and Programs, Education, Research Publication, Seminar

Sentimental Analysis

Sentiment analysis is the interpretation and classification of emotions within text data using text analysis techniques. It bifurcates the data into positive, negative and neutral. Sometimes, there are more emotions that also can be detected using sentimental analysis.
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This analysis tools allow businesses and other decision makers to identify customer  sentiment toward products, brands, campaigns or services in online feedback. It is highly used to check online users attitude using their tweet, texts, reviews and comments. According to Wikipedia, Sentiment analysis refers to the use of natural language processing, text analysis, computational linguistics, and bio-metrics to systematically identify, extract, quantify, and study effective states and subjective information. It is a Natural Language Processing and Information Extraction task that aims to obtain writer’s feelings expressed in positive or negative comments, questions and requests, by analyzing a large numbers of documents. 
Uses:
  • Finance field for stock trading companies as sentiment algorithms can detect particular companies who show a positive sentiment in news articles. This can mean a significant financial opportunity, as this may trigger people to buy more of the company’s stock. Having access to this type of data, may give traders the opportunity to make decisions before the market has time to react. (getthematic)
  • Social media posts to know how are customer reacting to a particular topic, concept, reviews and what are their sentiments for the same.
  • Increase customer retention.
  • New product perception.
  • Businesses gain valuable insights using sentimental analysis and can strategize their objectives according to the output of this technique.
  • Also provides company’s to gain competitive advantage.

Sentiment-Analysis

Approach:

  • Using NLP (Natural Language Processing) that allows computers to analyze and understand human language.
  • Using Machine learning concept that uses classifiers such as Naive Baiyes, SVM etc.

 

Working:

  • Collection/ Fetching of data: A large chunk of data is collected for further analysis.
  • Cleaning the data: Since the data collected is unstructured or semi-structured in nature, it has to be cleaned before going for analysis. It is done by removing stop-words, removing punctuation, whitespaces etc.
  • Data Analysis: The inbuilt algorithm process the data and perform sentence splitting.
  • Indexing: Algorithm tags sentences based on their polarity such as positive, negative or neutral.
  • Output: Finally, it provides an output that tells the actual results. It can be in the form of table, graphs, text, word-cloud or figures.

 

Limitations:

  • Latest emerging terms cannot be analysed properly.
  • Sarcasm detection.
  • Term frequency.
  • Sentence completeness.
  • Small sentences or phrases cannot give much insights.
Business Management, Career, Education, Job, Skill Development, Training

Financial Literacy for girls

We all are aware that education is a very important tool for all of us, to build our personality, to shape our future. It really does not matter whether we get this education from school, or from outside school, education has a key role to play behind the success of any person. But now, from school time, we are told about that education that will help us earn money by working for it. Hard-work, dedication, and skill in a particular field are told to be the requirements to be a good employee, focusing on which can help us earn money and grow. Schools and society hardly teach teenagers about the importance of financial literacy in one’s life. There is no school where students are made aware of financial literacy and its importance. But, indeed, it is a very important skill needed to get out of the ‘rat-race’.

financial-education

If we want to become financially literate, surely we won’t be spoonfed. We need to be alert, aware, curious, as well as creative enough to gather the knowledge. One needs to understand that hard work and dedication can’t get us to everything in life. Studying hard, getting a government job, with a secure future can sound peaceful, but once people get to it, people often complain about their work, problems like not getting promotions, lack of holidays, and a lot more. Employers are often blamed. But it is not employers’ fault, it is our fault that we lack financial education to get out of this “trap”. Yes, but, smart work and the desire to constantly learn and grow is what that can help us get out of the ‘rat-race’. The trick is to “stop working for money and make money work for us”.

A very major issue is financial literacy is lacking too much in girls. Yes, there are girls who are financially literate but the fraction is too low. The general mindset that society has is that there exist a father and husband in a girl’s life and they can very well take care of the finance part for them. It is common that things like fashion, cooking skills, etc are discussed with and among girls but it is quite uncommon to find them discuss stocks, investment, and finance. Apart from these, being financially literate comes with the power to overcome fear and take risks. But, it is quite difficult for a girl to take risks as a society often don’t recognize their potential. We need to overcome this mindset that keeps girls dependent on others. It is the need of the girl as well as the need of the society that they stand out strong and work for their own financial goals. Girls need to be aware and they need to become financially literate. It is also known that girls can better handle finance than boys. So, why one should not use this potential. Financial literacy for girls is also a very important and crucial step towards women empowerment. They also need to understand finance and work for their financial independence.

Happy Woman Holding Piggybank

Financial literacy is very important for the progress of any individual or society. It helps you get out of the trap where you start working for money and can never get out of the trap. It prevents us from becoming slaves to money and become master of it.

Business Management

OBJECTIVES OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Objectives of Marketing Management

Management is the process of getting things done through other people. Following are the five key objectives of marketing management:-

Generate customer base

The responsibility of the marketing manager is to attract new customers and retain old customers for the business enterprise. Thus, to create product awareness among people many promotional activities viz. advertisement, distribution of samples, display of goods, etc. are carried out, which in turn increase sell of goods and services and generate profit for the firm.

Customer Satisfaction

The basic priority of the modern marketing is the satisfaction of the customer (or consumer). Thus, the marketing manager scientifically studies the needs and demands of the customers before offering them any goods or services.  Here, satisfying customers does not simply mean matching products with customers’ needs. It also requires regular supply of goods and services of reasonable quality at fair prices.

Market Share

The purpose of business activity is to increase its market share i.e. the ratio of its sales to the total sales in the economy. For this, companies may adopt all means of sales promotion viz. discounts, sales promotion, gifts, gift coupons, etc. to create awareness of its product in the market.

Profit Maximization

Without earning profit, no firm can survive in the market. Thus, profits are also needed for the growth and diversification of the firm. Hence, for maximization of profit, the marketing manager tries to satisfy the needs and wants of customer and maintains the regular supply of goods and services at fair prices.

Earn goodwill for the business

To build up the public image of the firm, the marketing management provides good quality products to the customers at reasonable rates and thus creates its positive image among the customers. The role of marketing manager is to sustain and raise the goodwill of the business through sales promotion, publicity, advertisement, high quality and reasonable prices of products, convenient distribution outlets, etc. If a firm enjoys goodwill in the market, it would increase the morale of its’ sales-force, which in turn increases profit.

Increases living standard among people

The marketing management attempts to increase the quality of life of the people by providing them better goods and services at reasonable rates. It facilitates production and distribution of a wide variety of goods and services for use by the customer.