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Happiness is largely a choice. I can hear many of you arguing with me, but it's true. You can choose to be happy at work. Sound simple? Yes. But, simplicity is often profoundly difficult to put into action. I wish all of you had the best employer in the world, but, face it, you may not. So, think positively about your work. Dwell on the aspects of your work you like. Avoid negative people and gossip. Find coworkers you like and enjoy and spend your time with them. Your choices at work largely define your experience. You can choose to be happy at work.
Image: Copyright Rasmus Rasmussen
Image: Copyright Rasmus Rasmussen
When the credit committee are called together to review an application, everything is ready prepared for them, so they can cut to the chase . The lower levels of the credit approval process will have prepared a summary of all the application documentation, included in the meeting bundle, with the strengths, weaknesses, and other important credit risk points. This application will usually contain a set of audited accounts going back a minimum of 3 years and most likely 5 years. There will be a full credit breakdown of the investment profile of the business, Madoff’s hedge fund, looking at how the fund obtains its returns; investment assets and investment methodology. After the committee is satisfied that all the issues and concerns have been addressed they will vote on the approval or otherwise.
You may or may not love your current job and you may or may not believe that you can find something in your current job to love, but you can. Trust me. Take a look at yourself, your skills and interests, and find something that you can enjoy doing every day. If you do something you love every single day, your current job won't seem so bad. Of course, you can always make your current job work or decide that it is time to quit your job.
A young employee complained to me recently that she wanted to change jobs because her boss was not doing enough to help her develop professionally. I asked her whom she thought was the person most interested in her development. The answer, of course, was her. You are the person with the most to gain from continuing to develop professionally. Take charge of your own growth; ask for specific and meaningful help from your boss, but march to the music of your personally developed plan and goals. You have the most to gain from growing - and the most to lose, if you stand still.
People complain to me daily that they don't receive enough communication and information about what is happening with their company, their department's projects, or their coworkers. Passive vessels, they wait for the boss to fill them up with knowledge. And, the knowledge rarely comes. Why? Because the boss is busy doing her job and she doesn't know what you don't know. Seek out the information you need to work effectively. Develop an information network and use it. Assertively request a weekly meeting with your boss and ask questions to learn. You are in charge of the information you receive.
Have you made statements such as, "My boss never gives me any feedback, so I never know how I'm doing." Face it, you really know exactly how you're doing. Especially if you feel positively about your performance, you just want to hear him acknowledge you. If you're not positive about your work, think about improving and making a sincere contribution. Then, ask your boss for feedback. Tell him you'd really like to hear his assessment of your work. Talk to your customers, too; if you're serving them well, their feedback is affirming. You are responsible for your own development. Everything else you get is gravy.
One of the most serious causes of work stress and unhappiness is failing to keep commitments. Many employees spend more time making excuses for failing to keep a commitment, and worrying about the consequences of not keeping a commitment, than they do performing the tasks promised. Create a system of organization and planning that enables you to assess your ability to complete a requested commitment. Don't volunteer if you don't have time. If your workload is exceeding your available time and energy, make a comprehensive plan to ask the boss for help and resources. Don't wallow in the swamp o[censored]nkept promises.
Choosing to be happy at work means avoiding negative conversations, gossip, and unhappy people as much as possible. No matter how positively you feel, negative people have a profound impact on your psyche. Don't let the negative Neds and Nellies bring you down.
If you are like most people, you don't like conflict. And the reason why is simple. You've never been trained to participate in meaningful conflict, so you likely think of conflict as scary, harmful, and hurtful. Conflict can be all three; done well, conflict can also help you accomplish your work mission and your personal vision. Conflict can help you serve customers and create successful products. Happy people accomplish their purpose for working. Why let a little professional courage keep you from achieving your goals and dreams? Make conflict your friend.
In their landmark book, First, Break All The Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently (Compare Prices), Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman list twelve important questions. When employees answered these questions positively, their responses were true indicators of whether people were happy and motivated at work. One of these key questions was, "Do you have a best friend at work?" Liking and enjoying your coworkers are hallmarks of a positive, happy work experience. Take time to get to know them. You might actually like and enjoy them. Your network provides support, resources, sharing, and caring.
If all of these ideas aren't making you happy at work, it's time to reevaluate your employer, your job, or your entire career. You don't want to spend your life doing work you hate in an unfriendly work environment. Most work environments don't change all that much. But unhappy employees tend to grow even more disgruntled. You can secretly smile while you spend all of your non-work time job searching. It will only be a matter of time until you can quit your job - with a big smile.
Use these work relationship tips, leadership tips, and management tips to become an effective, successful employee, business leader, and/or management professional. These work success and happiness tips, leadership tips, and management tips convey best workplace and business leadership and management practices.
These work success and happiness tips, leadership tips, and management tips are classified by topic for your convenience in accessing information. Use these tips as your personal workplace, leadership, and management coaching resource
These work success and happiness tips, leadership tips, and management tips are classified by topic for your convenience in accessing information. Use these tips as your personal workplace, leadership, and management coaching resource
The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it
A large labour pool with multi-lingual skills, proximity to the Middle East and Europe, and a deep cost advantage vis-a-vis the US and Europe are factors making countries such as South Africa attractive offshore destinations for Indian back office and tech service providers.
Companies that are eyeing or have presence in both countries include all the major players including HCL Technologies Ltd, Wipro Ltd, Infosys Technologies Ltd and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
HCL, which had put together a team three months ago to assess the business process outsourcing climate in Africa, has already picked Cape Town and Johannesburg to set up back-office units, details of which will be finalized soon.
“We have zeroed in on these two locations, but the business plan, the scale and size and all other details will be finalized by (an)#8195;internal committee, ” said a company executive, who did not wish to be identified.
Wipro and Infosys declined to comment on their Africa plans, but an industry representative said both firms are exploring the possibility of setting up operations there.
“Representatives of Infosys and Wipro have visited South Africa to invest there, but the process is still at a very nascent stage. Wipro is looking at setting up a manufacturing facility there, ” said Shipra Tripathi, director, Africa desk, at business lobby Confederation of Indian Industry.
Satyam Computer Services Ltd, which serves six of the largest firms in Africa, already counts more than 120 workers at customer locations in offices at Johannesburg and Cape Town.
The Hyderabad-based firm said in July that it plans to strengthen its presence in South Africa over the next two to three years to leverage untapped business opportunities and local employees.
TCS already has operations in both Johannesburg and Cape Town with 100 employees, and is in the process of setting up a global delivery centre in Morocco.
Other Indian tech and back-office companies are also speaking to government officials in African countries to understand the market there.
“Indian tech companies, such as Satyam and TCS, have approached us about possible investments... Other big outsourcing companies, such as Genpact and Convergys, have also been provided with information, ” said Ray Ngcobo, chief director of the industry development division at South Africa’s department of trade and industry, in an email.
The main interest in Africa is likely to come from business process outsourcing firms—rather than tech services—thanks to language skill access and time zone advantages, especially to serve European customers. “We are in the same time zone as Europe and one hour ahead of the UK, ” wrote Ngcobo.
Besides South Africa, Mauritius, Egypt, Ghana and Morocco are relatively mature destinations from a BPO perspective while Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia and Uganda are the upcoming destinations.
Offshore BPO services in Egypt, that provide large skilled multi-lingual workforce—English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew and Russian—contributed around $150 million (Rs615 crore) in 2005 and have been gaining momentum since then, according to a joint report by researcher Everest Research Institute and consultant AT#8195;Kearney.
The number of offshore agents has doubled since 2005 and is currently at more than 5, 000, the majority of them working from Cairo and Alexandria.
South Africa has four key BPO locations—Johannesburg, which has more than 360 contact centres, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth. Many of the big global tech and BPO firms such as IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., Accenture Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc., Electronic Data Systems Inc., Unysis Corp. and Siemens AG operate from South Africa.
Africa is also emerging an attractive destination to play host to tech service delivery centres. According to the government-sponsored Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council, export of computer software and services, together with BPO services to Africa, increased from $96 million in 2005-06 to $164 million in 2006-07. “The South African market provides substantial opportunity in software products for banking, insurance, e-governance, telecom, power, healthcare, ” says D.K. Sareen, executive director at the council.
i-Flex Solutions Ltd, a provider of banking and financial software solutions, has cut its teeth in the African market two decades ago and counts at least 100 banks there among its clients. “Africa is mineral rich and certain parts are oil rich, which means there is huge potential for trading, which (in turn) requires a strong financial system and product, ” said a company spokesperson.
The untapped tech labour pool in Egypt and South Africa will likely drive more investment towards these regions than elsewhere in Africa, predicted Nikhil Rajpal, vice-president, global sourcing practice at Everest Research Institute.
“In the first quarter of 2008, we will be expanding to Cape Town with another 15 people offering similar services and will also be setting up a 300-seater disabled call centre in Johannesburg in the same period, ” says Sandeep Sekhar, chief executive and chairman. “Last year, our revenues from Africa were less than 10%. This year, over 20% of will come from South Africa.”
Companies that are eyeing or have presence in both countries include all the major players including HCL Technologies Ltd, Wipro Ltd, Infosys Technologies Ltd and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
HCL, which had put together a team three months ago to assess the business process outsourcing climate in Africa, has already picked Cape Town and Johannesburg to set up back-office units, details of which will be finalized soon.
“We have zeroed in on these two locations, but the business plan, the scale and size and all other details will be finalized by (an)#8195;internal committee, ” said a company executive, who did not wish to be identified.
Wipro and Infosys declined to comment on their Africa plans, but an industry representative said both firms are exploring the possibility of setting up operations there.
“Representatives of Infosys and Wipro have visited South Africa to invest there, but the process is still at a very nascent stage. Wipro is looking at setting up a manufacturing facility there, ” said Shipra Tripathi, director, Africa desk, at business lobby Confederation of Indian Industry.
Satyam Computer Services Ltd, which serves six of the largest firms in Africa, already counts more than 120 workers at customer locations in offices at Johannesburg and Cape Town.
The Hyderabad-based firm said in July that it plans to strengthen its presence in South Africa over the next two to three years to leverage untapped business opportunities and local employees.
TCS already has operations in both Johannesburg and Cape Town with 100 employees, and is in the process of setting up a global delivery centre in Morocco.
Other Indian tech and back-office companies are also speaking to government officials in African countries to understand the market there.
“Indian tech companies, such as Satyam and TCS, have approached us about possible investments... Other big outsourcing companies, such as Genpact and Convergys, have also been provided with information, ” said Ray Ngcobo, chief director of the industry development division at South Africa’s department of trade and industry, in an email.
The main interest in Africa is likely to come from business process outsourcing firms—rather than tech services—thanks to language skill access and time zone advantages, especially to serve European customers. “We are in the same time zone as Europe and one hour ahead of the UK, ” wrote Ngcobo.
Besides South Africa, Mauritius, Egypt, Ghana and Morocco are relatively mature destinations from a BPO perspective while Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia and Uganda are the upcoming destinations.
Offshore BPO services in Egypt, that provide large skilled multi-lingual workforce—English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew and Russian—contributed around $150 million (Rs615 crore) in 2005 and have been gaining momentum since then, according to a joint report by researcher Everest Research Institute and consultant AT#8195;Kearney.
The number of offshore agents has doubled since 2005 and is currently at more than 5, 000, the majority of them working from Cairo and Alexandria.
South Africa has four key BPO locations—Johannesburg, which has more than 360 contact centres, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth. Many of the big global tech and BPO firms such as IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., Accenture Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc., Electronic Data Systems Inc., Unysis Corp. and Siemens AG operate from South Africa.
Africa is also emerging an attractive destination to play host to tech service delivery centres. According to the government-sponsored Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council, export of computer software and services, together with BPO services to Africa, increased from $96 million in 2005-06 to $164 million in 2006-07. “The South African market provides substantial opportunity in software products for banking, insurance, e-governance, telecom, power, healthcare, ” says D.K. Sareen, executive director at the council.
i-Flex Solutions Ltd, a provider of banking and financial software solutions, has cut its teeth in the African market two decades ago and counts at least 100 banks there among its clients. “Africa is mineral rich and certain parts are oil rich, which means there is huge potential for trading, which (in turn) requires a strong financial system and product, ” said a company spokesperson.
The untapped tech labour pool in Egypt and South Africa will likely drive more investment towards these regions than elsewhere in Africa, predicted Nikhil Rajpal, vice-president, global sourcing practice at Everest Research Institute.
“In the first quarter of 2008, we will be expanding to Cape Town with another 15 people offering similar services and will also be setting up a 300-seater disabled call centre in Johannesburg in the same period, ” says Sandeep Sekhar, chief executive and chairman. “Last year, our revenues from Africa were less than 10%. This year, over 20% of will come from South Africa.”
Q3 has a long history of designing and implementing manufacturing and supply chain solutions for our global clients. Q3’s experience in manufacturing extends beyond software to include deep expertise in process analysis, planning, scheduling and optimization. Q3 currently serves as a strategic partner to recognized global leaders in consumer and industrial manufacturing, working to shorten time to market for some of the most complex new products in the world. In addition to designing systems that provide visibility and drive critical business decisions, Q3 provides all the technology and expertise required develop and implement these solutions quickly and effectively.
Q3’s experience in manufacturing includes both planning and optimization solutions as well as shop floor systems used for manufacturing execution. Our team has developed entire tailored MRP solutions, supply chain and scheduling systems for production planning, process data analysis systems for engineering and non-conformance and quality management systems for operations. Q3 solutions often integrate with multiple third party packaged applications, including popular accounting and ERP systems.
Q3’s experience in manufacturing includes both planning and optimization solutions as well as shop floor systems used for manufacturing execution. Our team has developed entire tailored MRP solutions, supply chain and scheduling systems for production planning, process data analysis systems for engineering and non-conformance and quality management systems for operations. Q3 solutions often integrate with multiple third party packaged applications, including popular accounting and ERP systems.
Outsourcing is the new buzzword rocking the global economic environment. Offshore outsourcing has changed the way business is conducted today! Every businessman today, welcomes any information on outsourcing. More and more organizations are utilizing various resources of outsourcing to gain business advantage.
Outsourcing is a business activity through which business firms attempt to reduce or eliminate its non-core areas of functioning. In simple words, outsourcing is based on the principal that no organization can perform all of its activities optimally and with same efficiency as others.
Every business firm irrespective of its size has to undertake various business activities or processes in order to achieve its targeted objectives. Each business activity consumes certain resources of business. A business process that consumes more resources will reduce the overall profitability. A firm will detect such high consumption activities by comparing their output with its resources consumed. In order to reduce the resource consumption, business organization stops performing the activity that does not produce satisfactory output when compared to its resource consumption. The organization instead contracts with another entity that is better at performing that particular activity and would carry forward the same on behalf of the business organization
This arrangement would lead to lesser resource consumption and increase the competitiveness of the business organization. This arrangement is nothing but ‘Outsourcing’. Popularly, organizations that outsource their processes are termed as, client or buyer or outsourcer. And those firms that provide outsourced activities are know as service providers or vendors or supplier.
Outsourcing is a business activity through which business firms attempt to reduce or eliminate its non-core areas of functioning. In simple words, outsourcing is based on the principal that no organization can perform all of its activities optimally and with same efficiency as others.
Every business firm irrespective of its size has to undertake various business activities or processes in order to achieve its targeted objectives. Each business activity consumes certain resources of business. A business process that consumes more resources will reduce the overall profitability. A firm will detect such high consumption activities by comparing their output with its resources consumed. In order to reduce the resource consumption, business organization stops performing the activity that does not produce satisfactory output when compared to its resource consumption. The organization instead contracts with another entity that is better at performing that particular activity and would carry forward the same on behalf of the business organization
This arrangement would lead to lesser resource consumption and increase the competitiveness of the business organization. This arrangement is nothing but ‘Outsourcing’. Popularly, organizations that outsource their processes are termed as, client or buyer or outsourcer. And those firms that provide outsourced activities are know as service providers or vendors or supplier.
Offshore outsourcing literally means outsourcing your activity to one who is not on your shore or who is beyond your shore. Offshore outsourcing is a concept in which the buyer of the service is located in some other country then the provider of the service.
Organizations are tempted to invest in offshore outsourcing resources because when compared to their own countries, certain nations have vast & easily accessible resources that can be exploited to gain competitive advantage.
Many developing countries are attracting business organization from developed countries because developing countries are providing quality services at economically cheap price in comparison to developed countries.Various issues affect the decision of a client regarding offshore outsourcing. Factors like manpower cost, manpower quality, and infrastructure facilities in a nation decide the attractiveness of that country as a offshore outsourcing resource location. Legal and business environment in the service provider’s country plays a major role in the development of offshore outsourcing.
Offshore outsourcing has revolutionized industry segments. Information technology being in the lead, offshore outsourcing is also helping many industries in manufacturing segments to gain competitiveness. Outsourcing offshore software development to countries like India, China, and Philippines are proving beneficial to the industries world over.
Organizations are tempted to invest in offshore outsourcing resources because when compared to their own countries, certain nations have vast & easily accessible resources that can be exploited to gain competitive advantage.
Many developing countries are attracting business organization from developed countries because developing countries are providing quality services at economically cheap price in comparison to developed countries.Various issues affect the decision of a client regarding offshore outsourcing. Factors like manpower cost, manpower quality, and infrastructure facilities in a nation decide the attractiveness of that country as a offshore outsourcing resource location. Legal and business environment in the service provider’s country plays a major role in the development of offshore outsourcing.
Offshore outsourcing has revolutionized industry segments. Information technology being in the lead, offshore outsourcing is also helping many industries in manufacturing segments to gain competitiveness. Outsourcing offshore software development to countries like India, China, and Philippines are proving beneficial to the industries world over.
In the coming sections, we have looked in introducing: -
Process of offshore outsourcing – This shall help you to answer How to outsource?
Legal blockages faced by the business organizations in offshore outsourcing.
Business issues which a client should consider before deciding upon the service provider
In the light of India’s dominance over offshore IT outsourcing market, we have tried to highlight Indian IT revolution with specific attention to India’s capability in offshore outsourcing.
It should be noted, although we have made an attempt to encompass all possible points in the areas that we have covered, vast possibilities still remains to be explored
Process of offshore outsourcing – This shall help you to answer How to outsource?
Legal blockages faced by the business organizations in offshore outsourcing.
Business issues which a client should consider before deciding upon the service provider
In the light of India’s dominance over offshore IT outsourcing market, we have tried to highlight Indian IT revolution with specific attention to India’s capability in offshore outsourcing.
It should be noted, although we have made an attempt to encompass all possible points in the areas that we have covered, vast possibilities still remains to be explored
Offshore outsourcing demands extreme caution. In offshore outsourcing clients are depending on another entity to carry forward their business methods or business process. Clients do this exercise- because in a particular business activity they are at a lesser advantageous position then their partners, to whom they outsource their business process.
We have attempted to give you an insight into the process of offshore outsourcing and tried to answer the question: How to outsource?
The process of offshore outsourcing starts from client’s need recognition and ends with the end of contract.
We have attempted to give you an insight into the process of offshore outsourcing and tried to answer the question: How to outsource?
The process of offshore outsourcing starts from client’s need recognition and ends with the end of contract.
At the same time, perks that enable employees to spend all of their time at work exploit people and destroy work - life balance. So, even the best employer may not be best for everyone. These are the factors that will help you find happiness at work.