Key Archives - GUJRAT INDIA

Proving Your Value in Recruitment – Key Recruitment and Staffing Metrics for Recruitment Strategies

Do your employers know how much value you provide to them? Do they know how much more value your staffing services offer over your competitors? How do they know for sure the strategic value that your company provides?

Measuring the impacts to your efforts to your employer’s bottom-line is one of the most credible ways for recruitment professionals to gain respect as true strategic business partners. Quantifying your value demonstrates your strategic value especially at the executive level where important decisions are made. Also accurate and consistent measurement allows you to set goals, chart your progress, and improve your processes to achieve better results. Despite all the strategic benefits of measuring your recruitment value, many recruitment professionals do not engage in these important activities. There are many key measurements related to recruitment. We will focus on a few major measurements that can help you demonstrate your value as a staffing agency to your employers.

The message that you want to communicate to your employers with these measurements is that you help them find quality candidates, quickly and in a cost-effective manner. The goal is to show the employer that you can provide a better staffing service than your competitors and maybe even better than the employer themselves. While this may appear daunting, here are a few simple measurements that can help support your case:

Quality of hire

In today’s war for talent, it is important for you to show the employer that you not only put bodies in seats but that you place quality candidates in their organization. The quality of hire is one of simplest measurements to demonstrate the quality of your candidates. This measurement can be obtained from surveys, screening ratios and acceptance rates..

Screening ratios can indicate the quality of the candidates you send to the hiring manager. This ratio can be determined by looking at the number interviews granted per application sent. The goal is to prove that you provide better candidates based on the num

The offer and acceptance rates can also be telling of quality. The purpose of this metric is to show the quality of your candidates based on the number of job offers or acceptances per number of applications or job interviews completed. For example, suppose the employer interviewed 10 of your candidates and from this, the employer made 6 job offers. In this case, your offer rate is 60%. Now suppose without your help, using the same definition above, the employer’s offer rate is 20%. You now have a compelling evidence to support the assertion that your employer receives better candidates with your help. Using offer and acceptance rates is a simple way to demonstrate the quality of your candidates to your client.

A typical quality of hire survey will ask the hiring manager key questions pertaining to their new hire. These questions can relate to your candidate’s work quality, processes, and so on. The most important question in this type of survey would be to assess the hiring manager’s overall satisfaction with this hiring decision. An example of a possible question would include “would you re-hire the candidate again?”. Today there are many online surveying tools that can make this very cost-effective to implement.

The purpose of the above quality of hire metrics is to provide your employer a tangible metric to prove that you provide quality candidates. In developing these metrics, it would be ideal if you could align your measurement to your client’s to facilitate an easy comparison and benchmark. The goal is to show the employer that you provide quality candidates, maybe even better than ones they can find. How powerful would it be for you if 90% of your client’s managers would hire your candidates again while only 70% would hire the ones sourced without you.

Time to fill In the business world, speed is essential to success. The purpose to measuring the time to fill a vacancy will is to demonstrate your responsiveness to an employer’s hiring needs. The time required for an individual recruiter to fill a vacant position says a great deal about his or her market and client knowledge, sourcing and screening abilities and processes. Filling a vacancy quickly can save your client more than just than just time. For employers, the time a vacancy remains open can mean lost revenue, opportunities, productivity and so on.

The time to fill a vacancy can be measured in the time between receiving your client’s request and the day your candidate accepted the offer. Be sure the start and end dates you chose in this measurement does not include factors beyond your control. Therefore the start and end dates you choose will depend on exactly what you want to measure. For example, some HR professionals use the employee’s first day of work as the end point of their metric. For recruitment companies, this end point may not work so well as it includes project start dates and on boarding processes that could be beyond your accountability.

Cost per hire

In today’s business climate, what company is not cost conscious? The cost per hire is simply the total cost of hiring a resource divided by the number of total hires. Here you simply want to show your employer the cost effectiveness of using your staffing services on it’s own merit or compared to your competitors.

Summary

While numbers can never articulate the value of a great recruiter and/or staffing company, it can help you demonstrate your value and competitive difference to the employers that use your service. These staffing metrics have a better chance of being seen at the executive level where they have little or no opportunity to see first hand the qualified candidates you provide that become the life blood of their organization. So by demonstrating that you provide quality candidates in a cost-effective way, you will be taking a step beyond lip service and a step ahead of your competitors.

Key to Starting Your Own Clothing Company

Starting your own private label clothing company is not as difficult as you may think. I assure you that the founding members of Volcom, Paul Frank, Hurley and Von Dutch, are not mad geniuses of fashion. You can duplicate their rise to brand stardom provided that you have the following:

1. A decent logo

2. Creative concepts and graphics – Design Talent

3. A unique, blank apparel supplier

4. A decent screen printer

5. A Line Sheet to show potential buyers

6. Sales and promotional talent.

Which do you think is most important? Its obviously design talent you say? Are you Joking? You must be joking. Have you stepped out of the house recently? Have you seen Von Dutch clothing? Crayon weilding Chimpanzes produce better designs. Furthermore, I imagine the monkeys are more sanitary, but I digress.

#6 is clearly the most important element. You can create an entire line of fashion forward, beautiful clothing but if you can’t pitch it – no one will ever see it (excluding your mom of course). So, unless you want a closet full of your fantastic designs, ask yourself the following two questions:

Can I sell?

In other words……can I hit the pavement with my line sheet and walk into every boutique clothing store I can find? Then will I harass the hell out of retail clothing store buyers so that they’ll try to squeeze 5 minutes of time in for me at Magic 06′ (Clothing Convention) ?

Will I be able to make a professional presentation to a Nordstroms buyer?

Can I promote?

Do I have and creative viral or gureilla marketing ideas to get this label kickstarted?

If the answer to both of these questions is No – you better get some help. Namely, find someone passionate for fashion who also happens to be ridiculously outgoing, great on the phone and aggressive as hell. Lastly, (and superficially) it would help if your sales rep is hot.

I know, how horrible…..so sorry, buy I didn’t say anything about this being an equal opportunity blog 🙂

That being said, let me welcome you the shallow end of the pool….. i.e. the fashion world.

Good luck with your label!

4 Key Considerations For Every Social Media Marketing Campaign

Throughout my career, I have developed and outlined numerous internal company process, policy and strategy documents. With experience and practice, it became evident that a process will not withstand time and change if it’s not scalable and replicable. The same principles hold true for a Social Media Marketing Strategy; it must be a process that can adapt to growth over time and change.

New social media channels are popping up left and right, especially for niche social networking communities and geo-targeted business networks. In order to reach new prospects, you’ll need to continuously expand your reach across the appropriate new networks. With each expansion, whether you are launching your initial social media marketing campaign or launching into a new social network or space, there are four key considerations. This article does not address the details for your social media game plan to include your business strategy, goals and actions required to make it happen, but rather offers a repeatable approach that can be applied throughout the life cycle of your campaign.

1. Start Small

If you are just venturing into the social media world for your business or deciding it’s time to get serious with your social media involvement to truly take advantage of this incredible marketing opportunity, take a step back, focus and start small. It is easy to get caught up in the possibilities of social media marketing and quickly jump into too many areas at once. This will not only be overwhelming, but will water down your campaign. Do a little research or hire a specialist who can advise you to pick two or three social networks that are most applicable to your business. Setup your profiles, identify your target audience, and start to build your presence in those select networks ensuring you stay aligned with your business strategy.

2. Get Comfortable

Developing comfort and familiarity with social media forums and technologies is very important, especially if you are new to the social media space. You need to be comfortable with not only how to use the technology, but in engaging with your target audience. Your interactions should be natural and personable. A key benefit of social networks is the ability to talk “with” your audience and not “at” your audience. You are sharing ideas and providing value to your prospects and to leaders in your industry. There are countless ways to connect with your audience based on your business and area of expertise. A little trial and error is fine. Test the water, try different approaches and be sure to track and measure the outcomes so you can determine what works best.

3. Establish A Routine

This can be a difficult area for many businesses. Yes, it takes some discipline but once you establish a routine that works for you, you will have consistency which is essential to social networking. If you only post an update on Twitter once a week, an article on your Facebook page now and then and respond to a discussion on your niche social network once a month, you’re not gaining visibility. The more you contribute, the more visible you are. Staying active and providing value will lead to return on influence or brand recognition which in turn will lead to return on investment. What routine works best will be different for each business and will depend on whether you are running the campaign alone or with help from colleagues or a social media specialist.

For some, it’s best to group social networking activities together at one time during the day in order to focus on other tasks through the remainder of the day. For others, building in small amounts of time throughout the day to focus on a specific social network is easier. There are some great tools to schedule your posts in advance across multiple networks such as Hootsuite (my personal favorite) and Tweetdeck. This can save you time and help you maintain that consistent level of interaction. Not all updates and post should be pre-scheduled but incorporating some that are scheduled is a good practice and also a great way to utilize the services of a specialist. By delegating some social media marketing activities you will have more time to personally interact with your target audience replying to comments and responding to discussions on a routine basis.

4. Expand

Once you have fine-tuned this process for two or three social networks, you can expand into new networks but first, do your research. You need to determine the best social networks or social media space where your business should have a presence. Maybe this time you want to reach out to niche communities. Perhaps it’s time to venture into video marketing, a truly exciting space in internet marketing with such possibility for going viral if you do it right. You may be ready to start your own social network. There are readily available tools to make this happen. Decide what social networks should be next on your list and begin the process to build upon your existing strategy starting back at number one.

Whatever direction you take your campaign, by remaining within the framework of these four considerations while you build out your strategy, you will maintain control and consistency which are key to the success of every social media marketing strategy.

Outsourcing Transcription to Offshore Providers – Key to Reducing Healthcare Costs?

Outsourcing medical transcription work to offshore service providers has proven extremely effective in reducing overall transcription costs of individual health practitioners, clinics and hospitals. Organizations who outsource their work to offshore transcription providers save anywhere from 40 to 70 percent of the cost compared to doing the transcription in-house, or utilizing U.S.-based medical transcriptionists.

The other important advantage is that aside from the cost savings, there is the important aspect of a significant increase in quality of transcribed work because of the multiple editing and quality assurance steps built into the processes of offshore transcription providers, unlike U.S.-based individual transcriptionists which are primarily one-person operations. With outsourced transcription, you have an entire transcription organization servicing your needs: transcriptionists, editors, quality assurance specialists, efficient organizational processes.

The cost savings are possible because of the availability of highly-skilled, low cost medical graduates in prominent outsourcing destinations such as India and the Philippines. Based on a salary survey report for medical transcriptionists conducted by Payscale, the median salary for hospital-based medical transcriptionists is around $31,287 per annum, or approximately $2,600 per month. In contrast, the average salary of a medical transcripionist in the Philippines, based on an online salary survey conducted by Jobstreet, the leading online job portal of the Philippines, is a maximum of $280 per month! This is 89 percent cheaper compared to the salaries of their U.S. counterparts. Even if you factor in the supporting quality check personnel, Philippine-based service providers still offer significant savings compared to U.S.-based transcriptionists. To illustrate:

A Philippine-based transcriptionist earns $280 per month
The support costs (salaries of editors, quality assurance specialists, admin, office costs, utilities) are more or less equivalent to effectively $300 per transcriptionist
Assume that the medical transcription service organization marks up by around 30%, therefore, you add another $174 per transcriptionist per month representing profits of the service organization.
Combine the three items and you get a figure of $754 per transcriptionist per month cost, significantly lower versus U.S.-based costs.
Compare this $754 per transcriptionist per month cost for outsourced transcription with the $2,600 per month salary of U.S.-based medical transcriptionists, and you get savings of $1,846 per transcriptionist per month, or 71 percent in potential savings!

The forecast U.S. medical transcription spending in 2010 is around $16.8 billion. Currently, only 40 percent of U.S. transcription work is outsourced to offshore providers. Outsourcing the remaining 60 percent transcription work to offshore providers represents a significant cost savings opportunity. Outsourcing this remaining 60 percent of the work to offshore providers, therefore, represent possible savings equivalent to $6.2 billion per year ($16.8 billion x balance 60% outsourced x 60% cost saving). Outsourcing transcription work, therefore, is a significant opportunity for reducing U.S. healthcare costs.

Online Database – Key Advantages And Disadvantages

Database in a business scenario is commonly associated with a list of leads or customer information, though in a more technical environment it can also be referred to as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle or Sybase. Traditionally available offline, databases have also spread across the online horizon delivered over the internet and available on a monthly subscription basis. Though Wikipedia gives you a wide list of online databases, here I’ll mention only about the advantage and disadvantage of getting your data online and forming an online database of your own.

Since the past ten years we have been collecting data using spreadsheets and enhancing our skills to convert it into a database which comes in handy later. Microsoft Access, SQL and Oracle has come along a long way supporting spreadsheets as the complexity of the database increased and it started falling apart. But these databases were available only on a single desktop or accessed over a LAN connection to an in-house server. Easily tackling the desktop spreadsheet applications in the mid-field, web-databases are closing in to score and has become the lifeline of people moving their data online. Most of these web-databases are hosted in a Cloud environment and protected by SSL encryption and a secure log-in with proper User Access Control.

Some advantages of using an Online Database

Online – As the name suggests, an online database can be accessed from a web browser from anywhere in the world. With Cloud Computing coming to the foreground, it is much easier to host an online database in an elastic public cloud making it more scalable and secure.

Elasticity – A web-based-database can hold infinite data and is totally elastic in nature. Whenever there is a surge in data flow, more storage space can be allocated and scaled up and down based on requirement.

Multi-tenancy – A public cloud database is generally multi-tenant in nature. This means the same database can be used by multiple customers on a shared model where you pay only for the space you use.

Pay-Per-Use – Monthly subscription based pay-per-use model makes online databases look quite lucrative where you do not need to invest a huge Cap-Ex on licensed software.

Limitations or disadvantages of an Online Database

Security – One of the gravest concerns of using a web-database is security. With not many security standards available in the Cloud Computing model, most of the users are worried about putting their financial data online.

Switching – Another concern when selecting an online database is switching. Different databases support different formats and switching from one to another becomes a pain thereby increasing switching cost.

Downtime – There are times when the server can be down because of multiple reasons which can lead to huge data loss and inaccessibility thereby causing great losses to customers.

Online database can improve your productivity in many ways and can serve multiple functions. You can customize an online database according to your business workflow or simply use it for data collection and information sharing. Web-based-databases work on different environments, so that is the biggest advantage you can get.

Business Plan – A Key That Decides The Future Of Your Business Startups

A business plan is a written document describing the nature of the business and the market strategies planned to achieve some goals. A strategic plan is like a road map towards the success where you have to drive safely as one wrong turn can ruin everything. To avoid the future bumps, you need a support of an investor who can be at your back for keeping you up-to-date with the distinctive strategies. Spend enough time on planning well the accurate investment proportions. Always remember that your plan contains all the general guidelines regarding the form and the content.

When a business planner decide to write-up, he comes along with many thoughts and imaginations to hold the project accountable for the projections and proposals it contains. It is not only about impressing an investor for the investment purposes, but it is about making a revolutionary change in the society to provide many with the reason to accept it. It should have a life of its own so to make you out from the common prudence. The right amount of capital and creativity decides the growth of your career with the plan. Have some patience, determination, and ability to go accordingly.

Crucial Things To Consider While Plotting A Business Plan:-

Determine Your Objectives – Imagining profit is not the only thing that bounds you to plot a good plan. It takes a lot of other goals and objectives to cast a shadow of better future. Sustainability of the plans is also important thing to consider, so let your mind explore different avenues than the profit only. Try writing some descriptive essays about your business goals to define them better to the world.
How To Go With The Implementations – After you plot the complete plan, the real struggle starts with the implementation that is tricky enough to shake up your roots. Have patience and plan the course of implementations well so you will get the sure shot success in all the financial, management, and marketing aspects. Be focused on the sustainability instead of only flow of money. Intend to use your plan for attracting the talented employees.
Backup Plans – Not everything goes exactly as planned. You need to be prepared for facing the consequences and time checks in between. Plan the backups for the pitfalls and be ready to face what you can do to take corrective measures as to figure out things well. Access your potentials and decide what strategies will work up for your business and future better. Planning is a coherent process, which doesn’t end until you get the desired results and maximum rate of return for what you have put in.

Economic Survival in the 21st Century – the Three Key Questions to Ask

In this “special report”, I want to pose a few important “philosophical questions” to my readers. Firstly — our Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, addressed the effects and implications of our aging population on things such as Social Security again in a speech [http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040828/ap_on_bi_ge/greenspan_32] that he made last Friday. Readers may remember that I also briefly mentioned this issue in my June 24th commentary. I urge you to keep this worldwide phenomenon of the aging population firmly on the back of your minds. If you are like most people, then you earn you living by producing a certain thing – such as a consumer good, or a service that the masses want. Let’s face it – how many people really “struck it rich” by being pure traders or investment managers? The stock market and other financial markets are definitely very important to us investors/traders but this “super secular trend” of the aging of the worldwide population will impact every aspect of our lives, whether it is losing our relative competitiveness on the world arena, increasing pension and healthcare costs, or even a potential fundamental change of our political system.

The second question that I want my readers to think about is the potential end to the era of cheap energy prices – an era which we have basically enjoyed for the last two decades without thinking of the long-term repercussions. The United States, with less than five percent of the world’s population, currently consume approximately 25% of the world’s energy each year. Supply is maturing while demand continues to surge – as exemplified by the surging in demand from China and India. In the meantime, spare energy-producing capacity and inventory levels have been at all-time lows – potential for a perfect storm?

Finally, I want to ask my readers the following question: What kind of investor are you? What investing style do you adopt and what investing style are you most comfortable with? Can you be a contrarian and buy when the crowd is selling or are you merely a follower who is only comfortable if you fit in? These are straightforward questions – but these are questions that you really need to ask yourselves in order to truly make money in investing over the long run. If my readers take the time out to thinking about these three questions or issues – and ultimately have a firm grasp of even just one of the issues – then you will be in a much better economic situation than most Americans five to ten years from now.

To begin, what are the potential implications of the “aging population” phenomenon? Readers my recall that in my June 24th commentary, I stated: “Assuming that the current level of benefits remain into the future and assuming the level of taxes is not raised, then public benefits to retirees would dramatically increase going forward. On the extreme end, Japan and Spain will see a more than 100% increase in their outlays to retirees. Clearly, this is not sustainable. Either things such as defense or education spending will need to be cut, or the above countries will need to raise their taxes. Neither of the two scenarios is optimal. Borrowing more of their funds is not a long-term solution. Cutting funding in defense and education will comprise a country’s future, and raising taxes will place a huge social and financial burden on the population of the developed world – where taxes are already at a historically high level. Think about this: If you were a bright, young, French industrialist and you were forced to pay 60% of your income as taxes to support the elderly, what would you do? Why, you would vote with your feet and relocate to another country that is more tax-friendly and business-friendly – and so will other great talent that may have been a great contribution to the French economy. The governments of the developed world recognize this – but there are no easy solutions.

“This picture gets grimmer when one takes note of a study that was done by the Bank Credit Analyst. In that study, the BCA predicts that by the year 2050, the percentage share of the developed countries of the global population will drop from over 30% in 1950 to less than 14% — or about equal to the population of the Islamic nations of the world. Similarly, Yemen will be more populous than Germany in 2050; while Iraq will be 30% more populous than Italy (Iraq is less than 40% the size of Italy today). Russia’s population is projected to continue to decrease – at a rate such that the population of Iran will be even higher to that of Russia’s in 2050. India will be the most populous nation in the world, and Pakistan will only lag the U.S. by approximately 50 million people. If the developed countries of today do not choose to work harder or become more efficient, then they will ultimately lose their comparative advantage, as the younger population of the world is inherently more hard-working, energetic, innovative, and creative. In today’s globalized world, this will be a killer for the average worker in the developed countries – the more so once the language barrier is eliminated (the successful commercialization of universal language translators is projected to happen in ten to fifteen years). I am generally more optimistic, as the elimination of the language barrier will greatly enhance business opportunities and efficiencies, but a person such as the average American worker will loss his or her comparative advantage in the global workforce. The availability of a huge supply of labor should also drive down wages in the global marketplace – and most probably increase the maldistribution of wealth in today’s developed countries.”

Like I have mentioned before, there are no easy solutions. If the average American sees an increase of 10 years in his or her life expectancy, can he or she reasonably or logically retire at the current normal retirement age of 65 (which was determined during the Roosevelt administration during the 1930s) without placing an undue burden on the system? The answer is most probably “no.” Applying the same working-years-to-retirement-years ratio to his or her new life expectancy, then the average American should probably work around five to six years more – thus giving a revised normal retirement age of 70 or so. Moreover, all this analysis is based on the outdated population distribution in the form of a pyramid – where the younger and more able workers represent a majority of the population (and where the elderly represents only a small minority of the general population). The pyramid distribution has historically facilitated government support of the elderly – as the monetary and social burdens have been shouldered by a relatively large younger population. The current experience of Europe and Japan suggests a more uniform distribution in the population of those countries going forward – as the birthrate in those countries are now dismally below the replacement rate of the population. The situation in the United States is not currently as drastic (given our relatively lax immigration policy) but we are heading towards the same direction. Thus to maintain the current standard of living at retirement, my guess is that the general population will not only have to work longer, but work longer hours in the present (and save more) as well.

The situation is more alarming when one considers that the combined population of China and India makes up over 1/3 of the world’s population. The number of unemployed workers in China is greater than the entire labor force of the United States. The competition for relatively unskilled jobs will continue, and it promises to accelerate going forward. The average American who does not stay ahead of the curve or does not keep pace of the trend will find his or her job being outsourced – not to mention the average wage being driven down by global competition. I, for one, believe that this continuing trend of globalization will make the world a better place, as hundreds of thousands of people will finally be empowered as they climb out of absolute poverty (again, over half of the world’s population currently live on less than two dollars a day) – and as the prices of consumer goods are driven down still further. The average American will probably disagree, but the trend of globalization and “offshoring” will not stop. The last time the United States adopted economic and military isolationism we had a Great Depression and subsequently, World War II. I sincerely do not think that this was a coincidence.

The trend of the general aging population and globalization will have a profound impact on all Americans. Ultimately, I think all Americans will benefit – although it may not be clear to people who are losing their jobs today. For the initiated and nimble, you will not only survive but thrive in these “interesting new times.” Imagine a market for your product that is over ten times the size of the population in the United States. China and India has historically disappointed – as the citizens of those countries have historically been too poor to consume much U.S. goods and services. Globalization and offshoring will change all these. A world more equalized economically will also mean a much more secure and less conflictive world.

Now, I want to address a similar concern of all Americans – as the era of cheap energy (basically the cheap energy prices as experienced by Americans for the last twenty years) comes to a close. While I think oil prices will decline in the short-term (i.e. for the next few months), I am longer-term bullish on both oil and natural gas prices (I will only discuss oil in this commentary). Consider the following:

The world supply of oil is flattening out. Readers may not know this, but the United States today still produce enough oil to satisfy approximately 40% of total domestic demand. The United States also had 22.7 billion barrels of proved oil reserves as of January 1, 2004, eleventh highest in the world. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the United States produced around 7.9 million barrels per day during 2003. This is down sharply from the 10.6 million barrels averaged in 1985. The peak of domestic oil supply occurred sometime during the 1970s. Today, total domestic production is at 50-year lows – and still falling.
While Saudi Arabia (the world’s top exporter and contains 25% of the world’s reported reserves) has claimed that there are and will be no supply problems for the next few decades, they have not been transparent with their reserves data. According to Simmons & Company International, five to seven key fields in Saudi Arabia produce 90% to 95% of its total oil output – all but two fields are extremely old – with the last major find reported in 1968. The last publicized reserves data was in 1975 – when Saudi Aramco was still managed by Exxon, Mobil, Chevron and Texaco. In that report, the world’s best experts determined that all the key fields at that time contained 108 billion barrels of oil in recoverable reserves. If this holds true, then the peak of supply in Saudi Arabia will come soon. Moreover, if the report is correct, then there is really no “plan B” (unlike during the 1970s when the center of power shifted from the Texas Railroad Commission to OPEC due to the peaking of supply in the United States) – crude oil prices will soar.
The “last frontier” for the production of oil (namely the North Sea, Siberia, and Alaska) is now aging. Most companies are now struggling in order to even maintain their current production levels.
World oil demand continues to grow. Oil demand in the early 1990s stayed relatively flat (at around 66 to 68 million barrels per day) but over the next ten years to today, world oil demand increased 14 million barrels per day. Today, total world oil demand is greater than 82 million barrels per day. The energy “experts” who in the early 1990s predicted a flattening of oil demand growth and who wrote off demand growth in developing countries were dead wrong.
No new refineries have been built in the United States for the past two decades, even as refineries have been closing every year during that same time period. Refining capacity from 1981 to the mid 1990s also dropped drastically (this author estimates a drop of approximately 6 million barrels per day in refining capacity during that time period). Since 1994, however, an expansion in refining capacity at existing refineries has contributed to an increase in refining capacity from 15.0 million barrels per day to 16.7 million barrels per day (as of today). Despite this expansion, however, domestic refining capacity is still stretched to the limit, as utilization at U.S. refineries is now averaging nearly 90% — leaving no cushion room if something unforeseen happens.

There are currently three factors at work which should contribute to a continued increase in the world oil price – the maturing of supply, growing demand, and the lack of a cushion in refining capacity and low inventories. The “culprit” has usually been labeled as China, but it is interesting to note that the United States has had virtually no domestic energy policy (in terms of conservation and encouraging the development of alternative fuels) for the last twenty-something years. China demand, however, has soared over the last few years. It is now the second biggest oil consumer, having just surpassed Japan for the title. Demand for oil in China has more than doubled over the last 10 years (to today’s 6 million barrels per day), and this amazing increase is projected to continue, especially given the fact that oil demand in China is still a lowly 2 barrels per person per year (compared to 25 barrels per person here in the United States). Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the number of cars in China only totaled 700,000 as late as 1993 and 1.8 million as late as 2001. Today, the number of cars in China totaled more than 7 million – and this number could potentially have been much higher if not for the Chinese government intervention in limiting the number of cars that could be sold and driven each year. Now the most scary part: Current oil demand in India is only 0.7 barrels per person per year – given this fact, oil demand in India could potentially explode over the next decade – barring a huge worldwide economic recession or depression.

I believe my readers should be made aware of the current energy supply/demand situation. Given the above, what is the best course of action for the average American? How about the best course of action if you were the head of a motor company like GM or an airline pilot employed by a legacy airline like Delta? How about the best course of action for a mutual fund manager or a commodity fund manager? Since there are no easy solutions, there should be no easy answers either. In the short-run (three to five years), Americans will have to pay up if we want to drive gas-guzzling SUVs, and legacy airlines like Delta will have to continue to cut costs by probably further slashing labor costs as their first priority. A further improvement in extraction technology should help, but the serious development of alternative fuels will have to start now. I also believe that the next serious decline will be induced by a combination of an “oil shock” and a rise in interest rates. Readers may recall the relative strength chart that I developed in my August 15th commentary showing the AMEX Oil Index vs. the S&P 500 and the huge potential inverse heads and shoulders pattern in that chart. For now, the relative strength line should bounce around the neckline (the line drawn on that chart) – possibly even for a few years – but once the relative strength line convincingly breaks above the neckline, crude oil prices could rise to $80 or even $100 a barrel. I sure hope that my readers would not be taken by surprise if gas prices at the pump soars to $4.00 a gallon five to six years from now.

Finally, I want to pose to my readers the following question: Have you taken the time out to learn more about your psychological makeup and how it has affected your investment or trading decisions? What type of person are you when it comes to the market? Are you a so-called buy-and-holder, a swing trader, or a day trader? An independent thinker, a contrarian, a momentum investor or merely a follower? I am asking you these questions because of my following considerations:

This author believes that we are currently in a secular bear market in domestic common stocks. While I believe that this current rally still have more room to go, I believe that a cyclical bear market will emerge in due time – this upcoming cyclical bear market may even take us back or below the lows that we hit during October 2002. If this is true, then a buy-and-hold portfolio would definitely not work – unless you were in natural resources or precious metals mining stocks.
When this cyclical bull market tops out, all your friends, relatives, and the popular media will be telling you to buy more or to hold your common stocks. The bears and all bearish thoughts will be ostracized and frowned upon. This has happened in every bull market in everything in all human history. If you are in cash now, would you be able to remain in cash when the top finally comes or will you be unable to resist and buy in because you are afraid of “the train leaving the station without you,” so to speak?
Most people are inherently not good day traders or even swing traders. To be good in even the latter, you need a huge amount of dedication and discipline.

Investing or trading has always been dominated by emotions and always will be. My thinking in starting www.marketthoughts.com has always been that that if I can get my readers to buy in now, it will be a much easier decision for them to sell and hold cash once the DJIA reaches 11,000 or 12,000 or so – as opposed to being in cash and staying out for the rest of this secular bear market. 99% of Americans are just not disciplined or dedicated enough to stay in cash during a secular bear market – not to mention staying in cash during the entirety of a secular bear market and buying and holding common stocks during the entirety of a subsequent secular bull market. The average human psyche is just not capable of doing this. Because of this, I sincerely believe that success in the stock market (for most people) during the next five to ten years would involve catching the swings at the right or near-right times. For readers who just cannot resist, I am also going to continue to recommend some common stocks at opportune times, but in no way should my readers take my recommendations as gospel and in no way should my readers put all their eggs in one basket. If you are a person who can stay in cash for the next ten years and wait until the Dow Industrials has a P/E below 10 and a dividend yield of over 5%, then more power to you – you are either already rich who have no need to make money in the market anyway or you are a very disciplined and independent-thinking person. Most Americans just cannot do that – but I am here to help.

Business Enterprise – The Key to Change in Nigeria

Nigeria currently stands 41st in international GDP rankings, according to the IMF World Economic Outlook Database – its largely oil-driven economy pegged at $165 billion. This marks a fourfold increase over ten years from just $36 billion in 19971. Progressive policies undertaken in the years following the installation of a democratically elected government in 1999 takes the credit for this remarkable increment. The Nigerian Economic Policy, 1999-2003, is specifically to praise for incorporating far-reaching measures that have helped enable Nigerians with access to technology and education.

A vigorous disinvestment programme involving public sector units in oil marketing, communications and port operations boosted private sector participation and led to the creation of jobs and ancillary businesses. The spirit of economic reforms was further evident when oil prices were deregulated in 2003 and four national refineries were privatised. However, these and other initiatives have not succeeded entirely, and Nigeria remains “information poor” in the context of utilising computing power in the industrial process. Further, and although digital networks have come up in recent times, the communications infrastructure continues to suffer massive deficits.

For average Nigerians, what has improved in recent times is access to technology, and a new breed of emerging entrepreneurs are harnessing the power of the Internet to start model ventures and strike global partnerships. While their contribution as foreign-exchange earners is minor in terms of the Nigerian economy, the significance of their innovation, in the context of Nigeria’s past economic stagnation, can hardly bee overlooked. What is optimistic for the government and Nigerians in general is that such stories of successful Nigerian enterprises are starting to gain in frequency. Even though the rate of progress has been slow, the country is decidedly on the right track as far as promoting business development goes.

Nigeria is currently the United States’ largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2008, the USA imported Nigerian goods (predominantly oil) worth $38 million. The figure is up from $32.7 million in 2007 and indicates a growing US dependence on Nigerian oil, which currently accounts for almost 11% of its import requirement.

The Paradox

The ‘Nigerian Paradox’ is a frequently cited economic phenomenon that describes the condition of sweeping poverty and abysmal human development indices in a country of abundant natural recourses that earns billions in annual petrodollar revenue. The economic decline of Africa’s most populous nation began right after the oil boom of the 1970s, when political corruption and non-inclusive policies plunged the vast majority of Nigerians into degrading poverty. Subsequent decades of civil and political unrest and the continuation of outdated policies made Nigeria a virtual untouchable for international investors. Over the years, the deteriorating security situation was paralleled by a simultaneous decline in infrastructure that killed existing businesses and made the emergence of new ones impossible. The corresponding human toll was even more disturbing as the country plunged into decrepit poverty and economic despair.

Because of the deep fissures in its history, Nigeria’s emergence from a disturbing past has not been smooth. The recent reversal of some of its fortunes has come at a steep price and the country continues to lag behind in vital indicators. A historic overdependence on oil skewered agriculture and local industries and created massive economic imbalances that are still far from being corrected. Rampant unemployment and inflation have created a climate of youth unrest that precipitated in violent militancy in the oil-rich but volatile Niger Delta region, together with rising levels of organised crime. Severe infrastructure deficiencies – especially in power, roads and communications – widened the rural-urban divide and provoked large scale migration into towns. Official indifference and inhibitive policies spawned a gigantic informal economy that continues to grow and operate outside the ambit of government regulation despite furious policy redirections in recent years.

Surprisingly, this unorganised sector currently contributes 65% of Nigeria’s GDP and accounts for 90% of all new jobs.

The Improvements

There have been a number of improvements fostering business growth. They include:

* Entrepreneurs have more control over their lives and have obtained social and financial security for their families.

* The Nigerian government has now made it possible for Nigerian products to be shipped to Europe and the United States.

* Entrepreneurs in Nigeria are being offered tax incentives in order to promote further enterprise development.

* Modern technology is making its way into Nigerian culture, taking the country closer to self-sufficiency in the technology sector. However, it is an ongoing process that that banks heavily on government aid.

Opportunities

Established in December 1999, The Small and Medium Enterprises Equity Investment Scheme (SMEEIS) instructed all Nigeria’s banks to put aside 10% of their pre-tax profit for investment in small and medium sized enterprises. This was to present an opportunity for those looking to break into a business of their own. Sadly, as of 2006, only 26% of this funding had been used.

The Nigerian Small and Medium Scale Industries Development Agency (SMEDAN) is another important player in the country’s efforts to boost entrepreneurial spirit. Although it’s still a rather young organization, it is making a positive difference.

Skills and Ideas Development Initiatives (SKIDI) is an NGO that is helping entrepreneurs realize their dreams in Nigeria so that they can obtain the freedom that they desire. There is a specific focus on rural and suburban Africa, especially since rural areas have seen more poverty. The poverty rate in Nigerian rural areas stood at 40% in 2001, compared to the 35% in urban areas where more businesses are prevalent.

Bridging that gap happens to be just one of the many challenges on Nigeria’s road to prosperity.

Key Factors to Consider When Buying a Travel and Tour Franchise

If you are considering investing in a travel and tour franchise, it is likely that you have many questions. For many people, the idea of setting their own business can be incredibly daunting experience, but also one of the most liberating experiences of their lives. In this article, we will look at some of key considerations which you should factor in when making this decision.

The travel and tourism industry is literally booming globally – now contributing over two trillion pounds to the economy. More and more people are thinking about how they can get involved in the travel and tourism industry, recognising the explosive and exponential growth. Starting your own travel business from scratch is one option that people often consider, however starting without a network of contacts or even a base starting point can be extremely tricky. A huge number of start ups will fail within 12 months, so always try to avoid this pitfall.

The more popular market to success within the travel industry is the travel, or tour franchise market. What this essentially means is instead of setting up a travel business from the beginning, you can buy a travel franchise which actually gives you a firm starting point to begin your business. There are quite a few travel franchise businesses online, however there are probably only a couple of established businesses. If you do choose to purchase a tour franchise, make sure to do your research and pick the franchise company which is the best fit for you.

So what can you expect in terms of support when you buy a travel franchise? When buying a franchise, there are always different levels of support. Think of this a three-tiered membership: platinum, silver and gold. The more initial investment that you are willing to put up, means the greater level of support and guidance that you are likely to receive. Nonetheless, there are some common levels of support which you should expect from all travel franchises.

The first thing you should expect is a fully comprehensive training or induction programme. Lots of franchise operators will actually offer a residential training course, so this is likely to be an intensive course over a number of days or weeks. This can be a great opportunity to spend significant time with the franchise tour operators and really pick their brains, whilst trying to soak up an incredible amount of information.

It is also likely that they will be inducting a number of other new franchisees at the same time. This is also a fantastic opportunity to meet some like minded people who are also at the beginning of the same journey that you are on. If you can take the opportunity to spend time with them and get to know their motivations behind setting up a new franchise, you can increase your knowledge but also begin to build up your travel network. In the travel industry in particular, your network and who you know can really be a determining factor in how well you do.

You can also expect some of the more practical tools for setting up a new franchise. This might include a laptop, hopefully pre-loaded with any specialist software and templates that you might need. This may not always be included as a standard support tool, so you should always try to make sure that you fully understand everything that is being provided. A functional website, which is branded towards your company name and logo, is also something which you expect.

Finally, you might also receive some branding materials, such as leaflets, tri-folds and business cards. Remember when you meet potential clients, handing them a business card can be a great way to exchange your details with them and keep in touch.

7 Key Factors That Constitute The Best Home Business

The Internet has brought various opportunities for making money online at home. It is now increasingly common for people to want to start a home based business and earn more money to supplement their main job’s income; or to have a better work-life balance by working from home and spending more time with family.

The internet is full of home based business ideas. Some of these ideas are proven, legitimate and profitable ways to make money. However, the Internet has also been inundated by many frauds and scams that promise people instance riches overnight. It is very important for anyone wanting to start a home based business to do their research on the opportunity before they join.

It is noteworthy that an online business is no different from any other business. You have to make the investment, in terms of time, money, effort and commitment. With any home based business idea, for it to succeed, you should be prepared to learn a lot, work hard and you must have lots of patience.

So with all these home based business ideas available online, how can you decide which one is good for you? What constitutes the best home business idea or opportunity?

1. The best home based business idea is one for which you feel the most comfortable with and are passionate about. The business idea must match your interests, so that you will enjoy working on it consistently. What are your interests? What products or services would you enjoy marketing, and be confident representing? By answering these questions, you will be able to identify what is the best home business idea for you. If you are passionate about your online business and the products or services you represent, then you will easily work hard at it, and you will easily succeed.

2. The best home based business idea must be a business that gives you a repeating income and does not rely solely on your own efforts. This is called residual income, and it means that for the effort you make today, you will continue getting paid for many years to come. Home based businesses with residual income give you any opportunity to earn money through sub-affiliates. Instead of making your online wealth from 100% of your own efforts, you can make it from 1% of 100 sub-affiliates. This means that as you continue growing your business, you will be building on the amount of money you will be earning in the future from your business.

3. The best home business idea is one which gives you multiple streams of income. Some business opportunities have multiple stream of income which allows you to earn money from various streams. An example of a good online business can be a combination of several affiliate programs which are in one ‘business opportunity package’, so that by simply promoting your business, you are growing various income streams.

4. The best home based business idea is one that gives you a secure and lasting way to earn a living online such as selling a product which you can develop or upgrade over time; or simply a business opportunity is established and stable. An online business is similar to any other business – long term security is important. It is therefore advisable that you focus on home based business ideas that have long term success potential.

5. The business must suit your skills and experience. If you start a business for which you do not have the necessary skills, then you must be prepared to work hard and learn a lot quickly; otherwise you will fail. As an example, for most people starting out to make money online, affiliate programs tend to be the easiest way to start with. They have minimal investment requirements and some very good ones come with a step-by-step guide to help you start making money with the affiliate programs. As your skills and experience develops, then you can start on other more advanced ways of making money online.

6. The best home business is one for which you can have a well executed marketing plan to grow that business opportunity. How you market any business can make or break that business, so the marketing plan you have for your business – whatever it is – and how effective that marketing plan is, will determine how good your online business will be for you. How you decide to promote what you choose to do online will make the difference. Key factors will be your marketing skills as well as your budget.

7. The best home business is one for which you will commit to work on consistently to grow it. The key to making an online business succeed is to work the opportunity every day without fail, and to stick to it. A lot of people come across good online business opportunities, but most of them quit before finding financial freedom, and they jump onto the next online business opportunity. This is mainly because the internet is full of ‘business opportunities’ some of which are scams, and also, some wealth seekers think that there are some easy and quick ways to make money online. Pick a proven online business that suits your interests and experience, focus on it long enough, do not get distracted, and you’ll make money.

While you do your search for the best home based idea, assess each opportunity using the 7 factors outline above, and you will be able to identify the best opportunity for you. A home based business idea that offer you many benefits and good potential for you to earn money is what you need to look for, and then invest your total commitment and effort to make it