Business Conflict – A Myth or Reality?

Often business organizations are run by mere humans actually working robotically and not withstanding the requirement of real humans made up of flesh, blood, and thinking ability. That lack of contribution to the optimism and prosperity can be attributable to many things. One of the major factors responsible for this unattractive interaction is the conflict prevailing in business organizations. There are many who think of conflict as a source of negativity, and they don’t question the ways to do work? They keep on doing what they are suppose to do, without thinking that is it the way they want to do it? Well that might be taken easily by some, but mind you, serious entrepreneurs and senior management who think of their organizations as manifestations of creativity, do take it seriously. If you want to know why then read on, because it is important to know what fuels the passion and desire to work for an organization and the hardest challenge for the employers.

First and foremost thing is the fear of rejection and putting one’s job on line for being so open about how a work is performed. Open communication is a cultural thing, and starts from the top. If open communication is not encouraged in an organization, then people would never have their say through because of the fears being settled in. Now someone might ask, what difference will it make to communicate or not what one feels while working in an organization. That makes all the difference in the world, for a second, just think of working in a jail. Where you know that you are there for a time being, you don’t have any say, and your participation is highly discouraged. You will eventually start shutting your mind at work on regular basis and will eventually feel that you have to do with the things the way they are. That would result in negativity towards the organization, its culture and its working environment. Conflict then doesn’t only mean the major things, but it starts from minor issues.

Open communication discourages conflicts, though one has to have the heart to encourage as well as reward the ones who are right. This culture will eventually make people share their ideas, make organizations a better place to work in and also a better organization to share views with. Just think about an organization where the employee comes in the morning with a lot of ideas to share with and get praise on, with another organization where an employee comes with low self esteem, cluttered mind and unsatisfied job with no creativity at hand. Though this might look to some as encouraging conflicts unnecessarily, ideas should be discussed in open and voted for to get the real thought on top. As businesses are made by people, so they should be flexible enough to include what the people think of their work and how can they be facilitated to further improve the business working environment.

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Improving productivity by removing bad working habits

Have you ever wondered how big an impact our habits can have on our destiny? Do you have any idea as to how much of what we do or what we think is actually habitual? You don’t need any stats or figures to understand the gist, as a little bit of pondering will reveal that most of the time what you do is nothing more than you following a pattern, set by No one else but yourself. You are not to be blamed though, because most of the times you were not even aware of the negative bearing some particular habit might have on your career. One wicked thing about bad habits is that they are hard to break, however the good thing about these habits is that we can replace them with new, more productive ones

Punctuality:
Often, we found ourselves reaching late at offices, day after day, despite the fact that we would like to get there in time. It almost works like a curse. Every time you find yourself behind schedule, you make up your mind to be on time from now onwards, only to find yourself behindhand once again, that too for no obvious reasons. There’s no need to describe how unpunctuality can hurt your professional life as everybody is well aware of the importance of punctuality. If your lateness is limited to reaching late at your workplace then maybe all you need to do is to sleep early and use alarm clocks, however if you are behind schedule in most of your business projects or meetings, then you may need some serious planning.

Unprofessional Conduct:
Maintaining a professional behavior is very important. There are many kinds of inappropriate behaviors, for example arrogance, humor, bullying your coworkers or dressing unprofessionally. There should be a friendly environment at the workplace, but some people go overboard and start cracking jokes and calling names in a manner that spoils the working environment. These funny fellows then proceed to ridicule some relatively shy ones, resulting in hostile feelings among the coworkers. Therefore, you must keep your anger, attitude or sense of humor in check while at office. The focus must be on official assignments, all other things (socializing, having fun, gossip) should be secondary.

Wasting time on irrelevant stuff:
One of the very few evils of internet is that it allows us to burn hour after hour of our precious working time, without us even noticing it. There are protocols in place at most offices now; however the time-wasting habit keeps hampering those who work from home.

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How important is work life balance

Balance is a must in all aspects of life … for example balance between curricular and extra curricular activities in your student life, balance between earning and spending in your professional life, materialism and spirituality in your routine life, and so on. As soon as you get one sided, your life starts getting affected in a negative way. You have to balance yourself on a very thin line throughout your life to keep yourself on track. It’s like you are walking on a very narrow track, as long as you keep yourself balanced, you will keep heading towards your destination, the moment you go a little astray (on either side of the path), the destination is lost and you start falling down.

Work Life Balance:
Many people in today’s world are not able to balance their work with their routine lives, which results in serious stress problems. Work (our job, business or any other profession), of course is the most important thing for most of us, one can’t really do without working (except for some very rare born-with-a-silver-spoon cases). At times, you are so overwhelmed by the thought of accomplishing more and more in your life that you fail to pay attention on what you already have, it can be your family, friends or your health. Raising the bar constantly, you go from work to working hard, working overtime and ends up becoming workaholics.

Here’s when the ill affects starts approaching, you distant yourself from your family, your health deteriorate, and you miss out on so many special occasions and joys of life in your pursuit of your dream position or business. Your productivity level also suffers in these situations, working more do not always result in more accomplishment, rather such extensive efforts may fail you in the long run. Remember, you cannot sprint in the marathon or you may not even reach the finishing line, let alone finishing first.

How to balance:
Of course the best way to maintain work life balance is time management. You need to realize that your body and mind needs sometime off to keep performing on their optimum level. You deprive your body and mind of rest, and they will get even by stop responding to your commands, gulping down energy drinks is not going to help either. Best approach to deal with work-life imbalance is to make a time table and then do your best to complete your tasks within the given time frame and do not over burden yourself.

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Different approaches for investment in Private Equity

Private equity is the capital of a company that is not for sale for general public at stock exchange. Equity securities are privately owned by the owner(S) of the company and they are not publicly traded. Investment in Private equity often involves huge amounts, which is why normally investment organizations like investment banks or mutual funds carry out these investments as an entity. Private equity investors often acquire a company, even if they don’t get the complete ownership of the company, they still hold enough shares to be actively involved in the management and company decisions. That’s the key thing about holding private equity, that you can be instrumental in the company decisions.

Leveraged Buyouts:
The most common investment made in private equity is a leveraged buyout, in which the investor acquires considerably large number of shares in some company, with an amount that is mostly borrowed from small investors. The investor in this case can be some private equity firm or even the manager of the company (who will purchase private equity to have power over the business that he/she has been managing so Far. It is also known as management buyouts. A rarity in the past, leveraged buyouts occurs quite often now days, as more and more institutional investors raise funds to purchase the majority of shares in some operating business. These investing companies then take drastic steps to improve the performance of the business after acquiring control over the business, however leveraged buyouts are not always successful and collapse as often as other businesses.

Distressed Securities:
Any kind of investment in a bankrupt company (or a company that is about to go bankrupt) is called distressed investment (so it’s not the investor who is making some distressed investment decision). These securities are often valued at a lower price than the original value. By nature, it is a risky investment; therefore it has to be handled by experienced investors and not the starters.

Investing as Venture Capital:
Venture Capitals are raised to support big business start ups, Venture Capital is a pool of cash that goes around looking for entrepreneurs with sound business ideas. Entrepreneurs have to rely on Venture Capital when the required amount for start up is too large to be raised by any other mean. Though it means less control for entrepreneurs, still it helps them getting started and executing the idea that has been haunting them for some time.

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Wholesalers

Total quality management and its building blocks

"Total Quality Management", the title is almost self-explanatory; still a brief definition of TQM by "International Organization for Standardization (ISO)" will help you in coming to terms with this system. It states, "TQM is a management approach for an organization, centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long-term success through customer satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organization and to society". Although, such exemplary business models that act in accordance with all these requirements (especially the last one about society) are hard to find, but this all-inclusive business standard (known to be a product of Japanese industry) is worth putting into practice. First because it calls for an equal level of dedication and contribution from all levels and departments of organization, second because it focuses on quality and third and the most critical, it lays emphasis on customer.

It starts with customer & end on consumer:
Total Quality Management approach has the customer on the top priority for all business decisions. It presents "customer satisfaction" as the key to the "long term success". Many times businesses are carried away by some glamorous product coming from their competitors, or a low-cost alternative, while compromising on customer requirements. "Total Quality Management" theory lays emphasis on making products or services with customer satisfaction in mind, not your personal preferences, not the competitors, not anything else, nothing, nada, zip.

Quality:
Literally, the word means a set of standards while in business language a product is a quality product if it provides your customer more than what he/she was actually anticipating (usability and durability vise), for the given price. Nowadays, there's so much competition that you should not be offering anything at all if the product you are offering is not a quality product. Apart from the product, your customer support should be of excellent quality as well.

"Total" is for "team effort":
In the set of guidelines known as "Total quality management", the word "total" symbolizes team work. As a business, you'd not be able to come up with a quality product unless all departments of your company are not into it. Total quality management is not only for manufacturing department or for marketing section or purely for upper level management; you need to get each and everyone on board. Define the tasks for everyone; make them realize their significance and the contribution they can make towards company's success. Leader's function become much more significant, supervisors and managers should be leading from the front.

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Part time business - Do they really exist

You must have heard about how part time businesses turned into large corporations, and how some business started as a hobby converted into a ground breaking company. These success stories are often considered flukes, and people brush aside ideas of having a part time business, knowing that no business can thrive unless you give it your 100 percent. They are not totally wrong but not entirely correct as well. Part time businesses exist and many of them grow into full time money spinning ventures, not merely by a twist of fate.

Businesses are like plants, they need your time, care, and patience before they develop into something fruitful. Some may need less time than others, but you can't just start a business and leave it to grow on its own. Ok, you are supposed to invest relatively less time into these part-time ventures but you can not completely ignore them.

Advantages:
When you have got an idea, but you are unsure about the outcome, you can always give it a try by starting on part time basis. Just to get a grip of the possible results. You can try something totally new, some interesting innovation; target some untouched niche or anything else like that. You can use your time in something productive instead of wasting all the time in watching useless soaps or motion pictures. Even if the business fails, you'll still end up having a lot of experience on your hands.

Disadvantages:
Part time businesses are not for everyone, only well organized and disciplined people can carry a successful side business. Otherwise they will just add into the list of your incomplete tasks. Another disadvantage is that your social life will be disturbed; your family members may also find it hard to adjust with your extra working hours. Your employer can also have some problem if your nature of business clash with their interests.



Do's and Don'ts:

Part time businesses should be related to some task that you enjoy doing. So much that you don't care about a lot for monetary gains. Make sure you are not putting too much time and investments into your part time business in its early stages, at the same time don't completely ignore it. Do not get over excited at earliest signs of success and dump your primary job or business for that, give it some time before you conclude on its fate and make decisions about your future.

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UK Wholesalers

Making use of your expertise to start a business consulting service

If you are an expert in some particular field, you like working with new people, love challenges, and you are keen on starting and running your own business (in other (and more appealing) words “be your own boss”), then working as an independent consultant is the perfect business for you, which accommodates all of the above mentioned features. Do you think your expertise is sellable in today’s business world? Well, what are you waiting for? Get your skates on and go, sell it.

These days, consultancy businesses are growing like mushrooms. Businesses may use their advice or services in many scenarios, for example to spot the fault, training the staff or helping the business coming to grips with a new market or technology.

Different types of business consultants include:

Management Consultant: Helps with issues related to management such as business planning, implementing new strategies, brainstorming, etc.

Marketing Consultant: Helps you in getting started with marketing campaigns, identifying the niche, making market penetration plans, writing marketing copies or creating the buzz for your business.

Human Resource Consultant: Deals in recruiting and training the staff, also helps when the business has to go through some downsizing.

Financial consultant: Financial consultant can help you in financial planning, budgeting or making some crucial decisions of financial nature.

IT consultant: Many types of consultancy services may fall under this category like networking consultant, Microsoft consultant or SEO consultant.

Legal Consultant: You may seek their advice on all of the laws and policies related to your business.

These are just few of the promising consultancy services, but of course, these are not the only options, the fact is that you can offer just about any kind of consultancy service that maybe helpful to some businesses. You may or may not need to obtain relevant degree or certification, depending upon the competition, but for the sake of outshining your competitors, it is always recommended to have sufficient educational background along with your experience.

Starting and advertising a consultation business:

If you have got the knowledge and expertise, starting a consultancy business is not much of a fuss. You can start from your home, and you don’t really need any staff in the beginning (though having an assistant or secretary can be helpful). Real challenge is to reach your potential clients and establish yourself as an expert, in your respective field. There are various methods of advertising, such as brochures, newspaper’s classified section or public speaking, etc. Then we have a relatively new but mighty effective method known as "Blogging", use the ever growing internet to start a Blog and write regularly on your specific topic.

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UK Wholesalers

How to deal with employee's high turnover rate

Turnover rate is the ratio of employees leaving the company (or some specific industry) in a given period. A company or industry has high turnover rate when the workers of that company tend to ditch their jobs more often than the employees of other companies (in the same industry). Some industries and jobs have high turnover rates because of the nature of work, however if your company has a high turnover rate than your competitor and you are not able to sustain your employees with you, there maybe something wrong with your policies. In case you don’t pay attention, not only you will be loosing your good employees to your competitors, your business will also suffer from high costs of attracting, recruiting and training the new staff.

Atmosphere and working conditions:

At certain workplaces, you will feel the tense atmosphere as soon as you put your feet in, reason can be strict management or unrealistic targets. Being a manager, it is necessary to maintain some discipline but some managers overdo it by importing rules straight from the books of military. For many individuals (especially fresh graduates) it becomes really hard to adjust in this kind of atmosphere.

Working conditions are linked with health related issues. Light, ventilation, air conditioning, heating systems and safety measures are some of the basic requisites. Sometimes, improving your high turnover can be as simple as loosening up some rules or dealing with some unhealthy environment issues.

Salary & Growth Opportunities:

Excessive work, no incentives and low salaries, these are all grounds for a high turnover rate. Employees are here to earn, and their morale is directly related to their income. If you are expecting them to give their 100 %, you should be giving back in form of good enough salaries. Your salary packages should be competitive if not the best in market. A good salary package will make up for many other factors, but if the salaries are low from the market standards, nothing can hold the employees for long. Similarly, motivating employees by providing growth opportunities is also necessary.

Choosing the right candidate and the nature of the work:

If your recruitment and hiring process is flawed, you are destined to have a high turnover. Many small businesses, in a hurry to fill out vacant positions, hire some unskilled individuals, thinking that he/she will learn the traits with the passage of time. Such hiring is nothing but wastage of time, both for employee and employer. The interviewee should have complete knowledge of the skills required for some particular job, and the successful candidate must be having most of them, if not all.

Sometimes the reason for high turnover is the nature of work, for example the jobs that require night shifts or excessive late sittings. These types of jobs are not suitable for everyone; hence turnover rates are often high in such jobs. These are just some of reasons, apart from looking into these areas; you can communicate with your employees to get the idea if they are having any reservations.
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Coping with the workforce diversity for manager

Workforce diversity is often considered a characteristic of large corporations, with considerably large pool of employees; however workforce diversity is not limited to just large companies. If we go by the definition, any business having two or more than two employees coming from different age groups, ethnic backgrounds, religious sectors, race or gender, etc is basically having a diverse workforce. Sometimes the differences are trivial and hard to notice, sometimes quite flagrant.

Workforce diversity is not something to be wary of, even if it requires a little bit more planning and thinking at manager's end, because it brings so many different perspectives and thought patterns to the organization, hence a diverse workforce is more of a plus than minus for businesses. A diverse workforce results in a more flexible and innovative business. That is why, there's no need to panic, if you find yourself managing a multitalented workforce. Wasting your time in planning to avoid people coming from difference age groups, gender or religious backgrounds is not only a discriminatory practice, but also a bad management decision. By doing this, you are closing your doors to a more versatile workforce, which is more capable of dealing with challenges.

Do's:

First of all, you need to accept diversity and allow your employees to carry and develop their own unique personalities (as long as it doesn't clash with office discipline and business objectives). It comes handy during the process of decision making and business meetings, where some sort of brain storming is needed. A group that consists of managers or attendees with similar ages, genders or experiences is more likely to miss out some noteworthy aspects, which a more diverse group can easily point out. As a manager, you must make use of the diversity when making some important decisions like finalizing a project, making appraisal plans or launching a new business.

Dont's:

Never go over the top with your efforts to eradicate individuality from the work place, with the intention of developing a more standardized workforce. By doing this, you may end up killing the creativity of your staff, a business having no originality or inventiveness can never reach its true potential. Take the example of this world, despite of so many disasters and challenges; this world continues to exist so far because of its diversity. To manage a diverse workforce efficiently, a manager should be having excellent communication skills and an understanding of human behaviors.

An insight into the Path Goal Theory for leading your workforce

In the past ten years or so, we have seen an abundance of new management theories/models being introduced. However, there’s no management theory that’s worth calling a perfect one, also it is practically impossible for all managers to try and apply each of them. Does that mean, a manager should pay no attention to these theories? Well, the answer is in negative, for most of these models are laid down by successful managers or erudite scholars. Therefore, you must go through all of them once in a while, for the sake of learning one thing or two, even if you are not looking to adapt.

One of these management theories is referred to as the “Path-Goal theory of leadership” that has been jotted down by Robert House. In simple words, the theory describes the role of managers in setting goals and then laying down a roadmap to reach there, more importantly it discusses four different types of approaches that a manager could use according to different circumstances. The theory is a good reminder of the fact that management is much more than hiring and firing employees, or maintaining discipline in the office. The job doesn’t end on stating the desired results and pointing towards the resources; it actually starts from that point and remains a manager's duty to support, motivate and guide his/her workers all the way through. 

Following are the four different styles of management (or leadership, for that matter) described in the theory. Remember, you don’t need to choose and then stick with only one of them; an efficient manager should be able to adapt any of the following styles, according to specific situations or workforce.

Supportive approach:

A manager is ought to be supportive to his/her subordinates, right? Still, managers like to carry that “bossy aura” around them, most of the times. As a result, subordinates feel reluctant to speak to their managers. Now, managers are supposed to be the most experienced and well-versed person in the workforce, how efficient do you think will be the workforce, where the most qualified person is reduced to sit in his/her office and look into various reports once in a while?

Directive Approach:

This is the standard approach now days; managers set the targets, assign tasks and resources and provide the subordinates with guidelines. This approach is not bad, given that the workers are qualified and experienced enough.

Achievement Oriented Approach:

This approach is recommended in challenging projects (for example when you need to motivate your sales staff to introduce a new product in the market). At such instances, you need to raise the bar, and then push them to rise above by offering sufficient rewards and appraisals.

Participative Approach:

In this style of management, the manager encourages the participation of each and every member in the team, especially when implementing a change or making some important decision regarding business.