Within five years, the Indian BPO industry is going to touch USD 30 billion and might even exceed it. BPO means Business Process Outsourcing. A wide variety of BPO works are done in India due to its low cost and highly qualified professionals. So, countries like the US, UK and host of others where the cost of labor is ever increasing are interested outsource those works from India as a strategy of cost-control. Computer based accounting; medical record maintenance, financial assistance, logistics and legal processing are some of the jobs involved in BPO. Not only the US and UK companies are outsourcing their works but also some domestic companies are also doing that. As for example, Apollo Hospital entered into small towns of the country to provide medical assistance to the non-urban people.

Some people think that BOT and BPO is the same thing. But they are totally different. BPO is a process to develop a center for the client by an outsourcing company and keep and maintain the data to later transfer it back to the client for further operation. A lot of young Indians are working in BPO firms. The job requires some IT skills, fluency in English and hard working attitude. Indian youngsters posses all these skills. But these young people working in the BPO sector often suffer from BOSS. It is not the HR manager of the company they work for but it is a Syndrome. BOSS stands for Burn-Out Stress Syndrome. Young men who have to work at odd hrs due to India’s geographic location suffer from chronic fatigue, and the young women suffer from sleeping disorder and gynecological problems. China, Philipines and Mexico are also growing fast and giving Indian BPO firms a healthy competition. But India still has the upper-hand due to its large number of English knowing populace and as the store house of knowledge based employees like Teachers, Lecturers, Professors; India is all set to take over the ESO field as well. ESO stands for Educational Services Outsourcing.

Recent study shows that, most developed countries like Japan, Germany, the USA etc. will be woefully short of workers in the next 30 years. China, the engine of the world economy today, will also face shortage of workers within next 20 years. On the other hand India will have above 65% of its total population who will be under 60 years of age. So Indian government is putting on special emphasis and taking huge initiatives like the Sarva Siksha Avijan ( Universal Education Initiative) to train its human resource and make them ready to take over the world in the next few decades. India is using and expanding major technologies like Broadband, DSL and EDU-SAT - a knowledge based work force for all over the world. So, 4Es are very important. They are Engagement, Education, Enactment and Enforcement. The knowledge based work force are also a valuable resources for KPO i.e. Knowledge Process Outsourcing. Only the Specialist in a particular domain is suitable for KPO jobs. So, Indian experts in various fields are working for almost every corner of the globe and are ready to take over the world knowledge industry.

Retail industry is one of the fastest growing industries in India and has the potential to absorb more than two million people in the next four or five years. Almost 48 % Indians are below 25 years of age and looking for places to shop. World wide, retailing is the biggest industry with sales touching $7.2 trillion. In fact, every tenth billionaire in the world is a retailer. Behind every retailer is the story of how he or she came to be and more importantly how she or she came to help a competitor be just that much better. In India, over one thousand shopping malls will be needed just to keep up with the expansion of the retail segment in the next five years. Only one third is under construction.

The retail business has become very attractive because of strong economic growth during the last few years and the Indian retail market has attracted both foreign as well as domestic players. Earlier, the foreign investor did not get the desired return from their investment and most of the time they were disappointed with their property investments in India. Now, the site has altered. The world’s leading retailing companies are designing, manufacturing and marketing goods for Indian market. With increase in life expectancy, it would make retail buying important for every Indian family from the same place. Large shopping malls, retail chain and departmental stores such as Shopper’s Stop, Big Bazaar and Cross rods are now familiar name. In view of that Indian customers appreciable a superior propensity to buy overseas while the same product is available in the country, these malls have identified higher retail experience as the differentiator that builds value around their product. The most attractive benefit for consumer is the facility to purchase small quantities of a variety of items of every day use at prices that are considered reasonably affordable.

Moat big retailers /suppliers, are limited to big cities. But in recent times, prominent retailers have established a significant presence in Tier I cities and are now expanding to Tier II cities to cash in on the emerging opportunity. They are introducing several new concepts and acquiring space to increase their visibility and brand loyalty. Low real estate price in Tier II cities is big advantage. Small cities such as Chandigarh, Pune, Ahmadabad, Noida, Baroda, Bhopal, Indore, Nagpur, Patna, Jamshedpur, Bhubaneswar, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Simla are going to see a phenomenal growth in the number of malls and supermarkets will largely depend upon their ability to fulfill the needs of the catchments’ zones and needs of planning, accurate identification of demands, quality products at reasonable price, right product mix and timing.

By Sandra Martini

I’d like you to take a step back, look at your business as an outsider would and ask the question “Is this a hobby or a business?”

Put aside the anger that immediately boils to the surface because, after all, you are working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week; eating and non-sleeping this entity known as your business with little financial return and look at it objectively.

There will come a time (if it hasn’t come already) when you get up one morning, exhausted and overwhelmed, and ask yourself “What happened to my vision of carefree self employment where I’m my own boss, there’s plenty of money and I’m a raging success? Did I take a wrong turn on the road to success?”

Be thankful for that day. That is the day you realize you have a great opportunity: to step up and act like a business (and recognize the limitless possibilities) or keep playing with your “hobby” (and be realistic about your income potential). Up until that point, chances are you’ve been more focused on your specialty (bookkeeping, massage therapy, virtual assistance, etc.) than on running your business (think “technician” rather than “manager”).

As a “business”, you must focus on the future and look at planning and revenue. As a “hobby”, you focus more on today.

If you wish to create a business, especially a successful one, you must have certain success indicators in place (just ask the IRS):

1. You have a business and marketing plan.

If you want your business to be successful for the longer term, you need to define what “successful” and “longer term” mean to you. Your business plan must be written and adaptable to the change that will happen.

I strongly recommend that you have a separate marketing plan which outlines the activities you will do to attract more clients. Your business and marketing plans should be living, breathing documents which you use to keep on track.

2. You act like a business.

Your business has its own identity or brand. You have a “look”, possibly a tagline and cohesive marketing materials.

Your email address has your domain name in it (e.g., Sandy@SandraMartini.com) rather than you using a generic account such as yournamehere@yahoo.com.

And, most importantly, you are not mixing money between business and personal. You track your business income and expenses in a software such as QuickBooks and not in a shoebox timidly carried to your accountant each year.

3. You’re making money.

Your business needs to be holding its own and then some. OR, at the very least, well on it’s way to profitability. You can’t be drawing out of your savings or racking up credit card debt with no idea of when you will actually start making money.

Hobbies can cost a lot with no hope of financial return aside from the sheer pleasure of engaging in them. Businesses can not.

4. You have a team.

As a solopreneur, there is only so much you can do. . .and do well. To build your business to the point where you are focusing only on your core strengths (which should be the same things that bring in the revenue), you need someone to delegate to.

5. You continue to learn and improve.

As a business owner, you must continuously review what’s working and what’s not in your business and make changes accordingly.

Personally, I do two things to insure that my business (and I) continue to improve: 1/ I invest in myself by hiring good coaches — I currently belong to a very small, high end Mastermind program run by Alexandria Brown in addition to working with another coach who consistently challenges me and 2/ I created a “Flash Report” for my business — one of my virtual assistants populates the report and sends it to me each Friday. It tells me what’s working and what needs tweaking within my business (more on this coming soon).

If you dream of a business where you fulfill your passions, work less, yet make more while making a difference in the lives of your clients, these are just a few of the indicators that you want to insure are in place. The proper systems will do more for you than a thousand networking meetings.

I challenge you to take a hard look at your business over the coming days and see where you can improve — make a list and choose one indicator to work on over the next 90 days.

By Jack Lowry

If you are struggling to make ends meet, or just want a make money at home idea to help bring in some extra spending cash (or maybe you want to build a full-time internet business), then let’s get one thing straight. You are going to have to take it seriously.

Too many people believe that making money at home ideas are some get rich quick schemes that will allow them to print money with impunity. Even worse, some people think make money at home ideas are all scams. Although there is some truth to these beliefs, the fact of the matter is that if you want a make money at home idea that won’t put you in jail and provide you with significant amounts of cash, you are going to have to work at it methodically and intelligently.

The best make money at home ideas require a persistent and dedicated person willing to implement and execute. If that’s you, or you are willing to become that person, then these make money at home ideas are for you!

The people making the most money by far are those selling products and services of their own creation. In order to do this you should spend some time researching a market niche you are interested in or have some knowledge about already. It is vital that you determine whether or not your make money at home idea will sell before investing a lot of time and money in your business venture. You must make sure that demand exists for your product, and this is just as important for the following two ideas.

Reselling a product allows you to purchase a product already being manufactured at a wholesale price so you can sell it for a profit. This make money at home idea is less risky than selling your own product, especially if you can work out an arrangement for dropshipping, where the manufacturer will ship the product directly to your customers for you. There are some online businesses dedicated solely to providing dropshipping services for people.

Another make money at home idea is affiliate marketing. With an affiliate program you are able to focus on promoting a product by driving traffic to the product owner’s website. You are then paid a commission fee based on the sale price. This is a make money at home idea that I recommend for most people just getting started with internet marketing and online businesses in general because of it’s low-risk and almost nonexistent startup costs.

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