How big is china business travel

How Big is China Business Travel?

We have already seen that China business travel is having a bright scope in the sub-continent and due to the rising import/export and global sourcing trends in China, it is likely to grow even more in the future. But this is a mere quantitative statement not of much interest to a statistician or a researcher who deal and believe in numbers even if they are an estimate and not the exact value. So let us try to find out a few statistics about China business travel and how the expanding activities of import/export have affected them.

According to even the most conservative of estimates, the China business market is going to become the third largest in the world by the year 2010. This estimate is not based on any guesswork but has been found through laborious surveys conducted by the American Express business travel on the subject of corporate business travels. Of course the methods used to carry out the survey might be different but several such surveys point out to similar results. Even otherwise it is common sense to think that since China business, import/export and global sourcing is expanding at a phenomenal rate; associated activities of business travel are certainly going to increase. Agreed that in the current times technology has developed a lot and business managers can communicate with other people without ever physically leaving their location, yet at the same time it must be remembered that human interaction lies at the bottom of these activities and therefore travel related to China business will certainly be on the rise.

Another projection of future figure estimates has shown that by the end of the second decade of this century i.e. by the year 2020, business travel in China would involve at least five times more people travelling across the nation as they travel today. This certainly seems to be a very positive projection about the China business and certainly it indirectly indicates that the import/export and global sourcing activities are also going to be on the rise. Another figures show that nearly 20 billion US dollars are spent every year on the domestic travel related to business tours in China.

Leapfrog many years ahead of the competition by accomplishing 20 times more

Leapfrog Many Years Ahead of the Competition by Accomplishing 20 Times More!

Did you ever play leapfrog as a child? If you did, you probably landed just beyond the other child. But if you had used a springy trampoline to launch yourself, you could have gone a large distance beyond. Wouldn’t that be fun? What if you could use a rocket-assist pack on your back to fly like you were on the moon hundreds of yards past the other person? I think that would be even more fun, don’t you?

Let’s examine how you might get a similar advantage over your competitors by shooting way past their future performance long before they make those improvements.

The steps for creating a 2,000 percent solution (accomplishing 20 times more with the same time, effort, and resources) are listed here:

1. Understand the importance of measuring performance.

2. Decide what to measure.

3. Identify the future best practice and measure it.

4. Implement beyond the future best practice.

5. Identify the ideal best practice.

6. Pursue the ideal best practice.

7. Select the right people and provide the right motivation.

8. Repeat the first seven steps.

This essay looks at step four.

Jump Past Where Everyone Else Wants to Go

Successful leapfrogging the future best practice (the best anyone will do in five years) requires that your best change leaders unify efforts. These leaders must commit to this challenging objective and shift the organizational culture to support them. Those working on the implementation must become masters of understanding the subprocesses needed to make the successful change.

Triage for Maximum Effect

Narrow your focus to a few areas of highest promise so that you do not water down your potential for results. Begin by segmenting those aspects of exceeding future best practices into three categories that:

1. Can be implemented almost immediately with little effort.

2. Can be implemented within two years with effort and attention.

3. Can be implemented over more than two years.

In your triage agenda, you should be able to do most things that fall into the first category easily, quickly, and with little help except where the activity causes problems for a high-priority item from the second category. The challenge comes in selecting from the second and third categories. Here’s an important limitation to keep in mind: You probably cannot make more than three or four changes at the same time that involve the same people. You’ll make the most progress when you pick the best balance of near- and intermediate-term benefits while placing the least strain on your people and resources. To that mix, add anything else you can do through aggressive use of outside resources that doesn’t increase the internal burden. Within that agenda, give high priority to actions that will give you the most benefit over the next two years. Encourage everyone by organizing your work so that significant benefits will be realized at least every six months.

We’re Almost Done-In

Since the thinking involved in steps five and six (finding and approaching the ideal best practice, the best anyone will ever be able to do) will suggest other outstanding choices, beware of setting too many firm projects at this step. After all, you may be ready with better ideas from step six within just a few weeks. But if completing step six will take more than a few months, you should begin to implement some of what has been identified in step four.

In this case, my recommendation is that you reserve some change capacity (such as time of key people, analytical resources, and budget) beginning around the time that you will have some new projects to add. This approach may mean that you will choose to mine category 1 from the triage list more heavily for now than category 2.

Outsourcing for Outstanding Possibilities

To estimate how long it will take you to put a new practice in place, look at the experience of those who preceded you in implementing those practice elements. Then consider whether your organization will be a faster or slower learner and integrator than they were. As you consider your choices, consider speeding your progress by having the company you studied or some of its former employees be an outsourcing provider. Simply because you want to employ a certain subprocess doesn’t mean that you need to become the world’s expert in that area.

Go Where the Benefits Are the Greatest

Beware of taking quantifications of likely benefits too literally. One project may appear to offer ten times the potential of another project, but the former project may also be a thousand times more difficult. Instead, emphasize places where you can effectively concentrate your resources while facing little resistance from any stakeholder or competitor. Choose a project that seems to offer more benefits, however, when two competing projects present similar difficulty and degrees of opposition.

STALLBUSTERS

Understand Your Track Record for Implementing Beyond Future Best Practices

Organizations vary widely in their ability to exceed future best practices through assembling new combinations of subprocesses. Many overestimate how well they will do in bringing groundbreaking new directions to an industry. Ask yourself these questions:

Keeping your project on schedule

Keeping Your Project on Schedule

As both an active project manager and a project management trainer, people often ask me what are the fundamental aspects to successful project management. Whilst there have been many great books written on the subject, I always summarise what I believe to be the best practices at the heart of good project management.

Define the scope and objectives

For any project to be successful you need to understand what the project is supposed to achieve. Suppose your boss asks you to organise a campaign to get the employees to donate blood. Is the aim of this to get as much blood donated to the local blood bank? Or, is it to raise the profile of the company in the local community? Deciding what the real objective is will help you to determine how you go about planning and managing the project.

The project manager also needs to define the scope of the project. Is the organisation of transport to take staff to the blood bank within the scope of the project? Or, should staff make their own way there? Deciding which activities are within the scope or out of scope of the project has a big impact on the amount of work which needs to be performed during the project.

An understanding of who are the stakeholders is also crucial if you are going to enlist their support and understand what each person expects to be delivered from the project. Once you’ve defined the scope and objectives, you will need to get the stakeholders to review them and agree to them as well as agreeing who should be on the list of stakeholders.

Define the deliverables

To achieve the desired outcome from the project, you must define what things (or products) are to be delivered by the end of the project. If your project is an advertising
campaign for a new chocolate bar, then one of the deliverables might be the artwork for a newspaper advert. So, you need to decide what tangible things are to be delivered and document in enough detail what these things are. At the end of the day, someone will end up doing the work to produce the deliverable, so it needs to be clearly and unambiguously described.

Once you have defined the deliverables, you will need to have the key stakeholders review the work and get them to agree that this accurately and unambiguously reflects what they expect to be delivered from the project. Once they have agreed, you can begin to plan the project. Not defining the deliverables in enough detail or clarity is often a reason why projects go wrong.

Project planning

This is the time when you define how you will achieve the desired outcome of the project embodied within the objectives and definition of deliverables. Planning requires that the project manager decides which people, resources and budget are required to complete the project. You will need to decide if you will break up your project into manageable phases, decide which products will be delivered in each phase, and decide the composition of your project team. Since you have already defined the deliverables, you must decide what activities are required to produce each deliverable.

You can use techniques such as Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) to help you to achieve this. You will need to estimate the time and effort required to complete each activity, dependencies between related activities and decide on a realistic schedule to complete the activities. It’s always a good idea to involve the project team in estimating how long the activities will take since they will be the ones actually doing the work. Capture all of this into the project plan document. You also need to get the key stakeholders to review and agree to this plan.

When developing the project plan, a project manager is often under pressure to produce a plan which meets the (unrealistic) expectations of some of the stakeholders. It is important here that the project manager comes up with a realistic schedule — one which he/she thinks is realistic to achieve. You will be doing nobody a favour if you succumb to pressure and agree to deliver the project in a totally unrealistic schedule.

Communication

Even the best made project plans are useless unless they have been communicated effectively to the project team. Everyone on the team needs to know exactly what is expected of them, what their responsibilities are, and what they are accountable for. I once worked on a project where the project manager sat in his office surrounded by big colour print outs of his latest plans. The problem was, nobody on his team knew what the tasks and milestones were because he hadn’t shared the plan with them. Needless to say the project hit all kinds of problems with people going off and doing the activities which they deemed important rather than doing the activities assigned by the project manager.

Tracking and reporting project progress

Once your project is underway and you have an agreed plan, you will need to constantly monitor the actual progress of the project against the planned progress. To do this, you will need to get reports of progress from the project team members who are actually doing the work. You will need to record any variations between the actual and planned cost, schedule and scope. You will need to report any variations to your manager and key stakeholders and take corrective actions if the variations get too large.

There are lots of ways in which you can adjust the plan in order to get the project back on track (rearrange the order of tasks, assign tasks in parallel if the variation is small, or add more staff to the project or reduce the scope if the variation is very large).

All projects require the project manager to constantly juggle three things: cost, scope and schedule. If the project manager increases one of these, then one of the other elements will inevitably need to be changed as well. So, for a project which is running behind schedule to recover so it can be delivered to it’s original planned schedule, the budget might be increased by employing more staff (although this invariably never achieves the desired result of reducing the time left to complete the project), or the scope will need to be reduced. It is the juggling of these three elements — known as the project triangle — that typically causes a project manager to tear their hair out in frustration!

Change management

All projects change in some way. Often, a key stakeholder in the middle of a project will change their mind about what the project needs to deliver. On projects of longer duration, the business environment has often changed since the start of the project, so assumptions made at the beginning of the project may no longer be valid. This often results in the scope or deliverables of the project needing to be changed. If a project manager simply accepted all of these changes into the project, the project would inevitably be delivered late (and perhaps would never ever be completed) and would inevitably go over budget.

By managing changes, the project manager can make decisions about whether or not to incorporate the changes immediately or in the future, or to reject them. This increases the chances of project success because the project manager controls how the changes are incorporated, can allocate resources accordingly and can plan when and how the changes are made. Not managing changes effectively is often cited as a major reason why projects fail.

Risk management

Risks are any events which can adversely affect the successful outcome of the project. I’ve worked on projects where some of the risks have included: staff lacking the technical skills to perform the work properly, hardware not being delivered on time, the control room being at risk of flooding in a major thunderstorm and many others. Risks will vary from project to project but it is important to identify the main risks to a project as soon as possible and to plan the actions necessary to
avoid the risk, or, if the risk cannot be avoided, to at least mitigate the risk in order to lessen its impact if it does occur. This is what is known as risk management.

Do you manage all risks? No, because there could be too many to manage, and not all risks have the same impact. So a simple way is to identify as many risks as you can, work out how likely each risk is to occur on a scale of 1 to 3 (3 being the worst), estimate its impact on the project on a scale of 1 to 3 (3 being the worst), then multiply the two numbers together. The result is the risk weighting. A high risk weighting is the most severe risk. Just manage the top ten risks i.e. the ones with the highest risk weighting. Constantly review the risks and constantly be on the lookout for new risks since they have a habit of jumping up at unforeseen moments.

Not managing risks effectively is also often cited as a major reason why projects fail.

Summary

So, in a nutshell, these best practices are the main things that I would expect all project managers to do. They are applicable on all projects big or small. Project management is not rocket science. Applying best practices on your project cannot guarantee that your project comes in under budget, on time and exceeds all the expectations of the stakeholders, but applying them will certainly give you a much better chance of delivering your project successfully than if you don’t apply them on your project.

How to use diamond drilling equipment in an effective way

How to Use Diamond Drilling Equipment in an Effective Way

Diamond core drilling can be an easier operation. It is possible only when you start work with equipment that is suited for that special application. Different models of such equipments are available in the market. They are easy to operate & facilitate us to complete the job easily, efficiently, quickly & perfectly. Light weight, portable diamond core drilling machines & rigs are very much suitable for drilling holes in floors, walls, ceilings & in all concrete blocks as well. Electric, Hydraulic & Pneumatic machines, rotary core & wire line are used for this purpose. Various models in electrical diamond machine are:

•   Hand held electric
•   Hand held electric mini
•   Rig-mounted electric
•   Hand held & rig-mounted electric

Han held electric mini machines are ideal for drilling holes within seconds on tiles, concrete & natural stone. Their performance is grade one when drilling is made on granite, countertops, gravestones and also for plumbing and stonework applications. They can be used for functions like eradicating cracks & avoiding shock.

Han held electric machines are used fir to drill holes in concrete & natural stones. They are faster than rotary hammers. They are ideal for attach & rebar installations. For drilling operation to be smooth without any shock, dust & vibrations, these equipments are employed. They function on quick change system which allows quick elimination of the center core.

Hand held & rig-mounted electric machines are highly potential & are of negligible weight. They are utilized to drill up to 5 inch holes in brick, limestone, cinderblocks & also other rough surfaces. These drilling machines are employed for the purpose of drilling very quickly. Besides, their efficiency is time-tested.

There are many types of hydraulic machines:

• Hand held hydraulic machines
• Rig-mounted hydraulic machines

These hydraulic equipments operate mechanically & they function with electronic implications. They are suitable for drilling operations. They are easy to operate & hence very much in demand for drilling functions. They bring gainful income and are durable, highly protective and very reliable.

The different types of Pneumatic machines are classified into two groups:

• Hand held pneumatic machines
• Rig-mounted pneumatic machines.
These are highly useful for drilling holes in walls, unruly bricks, ceilings, floors & all solid blocks. Diamond core drilling operations create smooth & accurate holes even through reinforced concrete, brickwork & stones. These equipments are used for different installations viz. applications for electrical systems water system, gas supply system, heating system, railway bridge construction & tunnel installation & such works.

Diamond being the hardest material can cut through all substances. Diamond wire cutting refers to the method of using wire saturated with diamond dust of varied sizes to cut through materials. This process is extensively employed as it saves time & money for a long period, saws that use wire saturated with diamond particles are used for cutting purpose. They are able to substitute other cutting tools in laboratories & factories. They are utilized for research, quality control & manufacturing.

The diamond wire technology has been instrumental in cutting nearly any material viz. single crystals, glass, silicon, metals, composites & coated or layered materials. You can expect high accuracy. Diamond does not stop with cutting/drilling/removing strong concrete metal & steel. But, it helps in installing concrete joint scalers & fillers. Core drilling & wire cutting industries are developing to a great extent so much so that it goes without saying that diamond owes a lot for the success of the industry.

Internet provides you all the necessary information to locate the best core drilling & wire cutting services. There are many contractors & professionals who are endowed with skill & efficiency to complete the job in record time & well within the estimated budget.

How to raise your business capital

How to Raise Your Business Capital

Contrary to most people think, gathering your startup capital is not that hard. You just have to have the right ideas that you are sure can make you rich. Not just that, be sure you have established a good reputation and credibility — the most important things to get your investor’s trust.

So what’s the first step? Build a proper prospectus! Include curriculum vitae of your education, training, experience, and accomplishments. Also include personal qualities that might be counted as an asset to your potential success.

It might also help to include a list of all the various loans you have had and to where you used those loans. Do not forget your history in paying them off.

Explain in detail the purpose of that money. Since it is for a new business, you will have to show your proposed business plan, your marketing research, and projected costs. Also put the anticipated income, with a summary for each, for at least the next three years.

It will be best to base your cost estimates high and your income projections in minimal returns. Businesses, especially those only starting up, have their ups and downs. Doing your financial estimates this way will help you go through these ups and downs.

Describe your proposed business in detail. Explain its uniqueness and how it differs from other competition. Also putting the possibilities of an expansion will help catch an attention.

State precisely in your prospectus what your investor will get in return for using their money. Define the percentage of interest that you are willing to pay him, and the period when you will pay. A good example is what happened with my friend. He lent his money to a farmer for agricultural purposes. In order to pay, this farmer gives my friend a partial of his crops every harvest time.

Attract your investor. Interest and persuade him to lend you his money by spelling out in details the benefits he will get for investing in your business. If possible, give him proofs from your marketing research.

Now that you have a proper prospectus, you now know how much money you want and how to use it, and how you intend to pay it, here are the ways to look for investors.

ADVERTISE. Nothing beats proper advertisements. Include in your ad how much money you want. State the nature of your business and the kind of return that you are promising on the investment.

DIRECT SELLING. This is really not selling but I like to call it that way. You directly «sell» your business proposal to people. Host a party and invite your friends over. Explain the business plan, the possible profit, and the needed startup capital. Give each of them your created prospectus. You can promise to make them your partner in exchange for their thousand dollars investment to your business. But of course, you must first know the rules for this partnership.

NETWORKING. Sounds like selling products, too, but I also like to use this term. Try talking to your lawyer, accountant, or banker. Show them your prospectus and ask for their advices. In addition, you might as well ask them if they knew someone who can be a possible investor to your business.

INVESTMENT COMPANIES. Don’t forget that there are investment companies that were put up for this cause. Try looking for them in your local area and try approaching them. Show them your prospectus and explain to them the details of your business plan.

BROKERS. There are Money Brokers that will take your prospectus and do your job in finding investors. There are good brokers and not so good brokers. So since money brokers require payment, you might want to check them out first before releasing any money to them.

These are just some ways to raise money for your business capital. But this is just one part of it — getting money from investors. There are other ways to raise money, including garage sales, loans, and selling out your stocks. Either ways, it’s your choice. Choose something that you think will be best for you and your business.