Outsourcing has increased at a rapid pace due to the advancement in modern satellite and Internet technologies, better connectivity and a constant search for less expensive labor to cut costs and achieve competitive advantage. By outsourcing their back office business processes to less expensive nations like China, India, Philippines, Malaysia, companies can cut labor costs, concentrate on their core businesses and strengths, and ensure better customer satisfaction. According to a recent report, US firms have saved nearly US$8 billion through outsourcing to developing nations like the Philippines
There are many developing nations that act as offshore outsourcing destinations to developed nations. Some of the countries that can be considered as offshore outsourcing destinations are as follows:

Philippines

The Philippines’ key competitive advantage is its people. Philippines has a well-educated English speaking work force and stands out as the world’s third largest English speaking nation. The attitude, commitment, community, and education constitute the key competitive advantage especially in the front office operations such as customer service and sales.

The Philippines boasts of a huge pool of productive, trainable and multi-skilled labor force. Filipino Outsourcing companies such as AOV Outsourcing service only hire workers that are highly qualified for various outsourcing tasks.

Government support and the IT infrastructure is a given. Major companies that already operate in the Philippines include AIG, AOL, Barnes & Noble, Chevron, Citigroup, Dell, HP, HSBC, IBM, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, Motorola, Procter & Gamble, Siemens AG and Trend Micro.

China

In recent years, China is rapidly emerging as one of the world’s leading suppliers of offshore software outsourcing services due to its incredible development rate. Although India is at the moments the world leader in software outsourcing industry, China aims to outpace India and become the next dominant competitor in software outsourcing. It is predicted that China will emerge as one of the top three countries for overseas software outsourcing between 2007 and 2010. Companies are already beginning to plan their offshore outsourcing strategies to take advantage of China’s emerging strength as an outsourcing center. This includes looking for ways to take advantage of the country’s current software strengths. Some estimates state that China outsourcing could rival India as the leading offshore IT services market as early as 2007.

The recent flurry of activity that helped put China on the outsourcing map came about partly as a result of government support and promotion, partly because of Japan’s push to move much of its software development work to China, and partly because a number of large foreign companies — GE, Microsoft, Dell, SAP and HP, for example — started up R&D centers in China.

India

One of the major players in the offshore outsourcing industry, India has a well educated, talented, low cost and English speaking workforce, excellent IT and networking infrastructure, a fairly stable political scenario, friendly laws and well laid taxes and quality certified software firms. The offshore outsourcing market in India is ever growing and has produced many success stories making India a popular offshore outsourcing destination for IT related and other BPO services.

Offshore assignments have moved up the value chain - from data entry to large and complex turnkey projects of 200 to 300 person years. Almost any service can be outsourced to India, be it healthcare, engineering or KPO.

Malaysia

Malaysia’s well-developed infrastructure, attractive business environment and strong government support makes it a rising alternative to India and China. The government’s positioning of Malaysia as a hub for services and technology innovation has resulted in a number of multinationals locating some of its global or regional operations in Malaysia. Malaysia has a relatively more stable political climate backed by consistent economic growth which makes it attractive for sensitive, high end applications in banking and finance.

About the Author

The author gained an extensive experience in internet marketing when she joined AOV outsourcing service. She is an online marketing and sales fanatic, providing measurable marketing solutions that drive huge results her clients through aov philippines outsourcing.

1. Number of CPAs in the U.S is just not enough to cater to the volume of accounting jobs and therefore outsourcing are a practical decision

2. What motivate large businesses to outsource their tax preparation?
The answer is cost and productivity .The reasons remain the same for small businesses. After a reasonable amount of time the benefits of outsourcing tax return are clearly visible. Outsourcing alters fixed costs into variable ones and allows the small business to redirect funds for better productivity.

3. The service providers always meet the small business deadline because they understand the importance of meeting deadline .Through web management systems small businesses can track the status of their tax returns any time using their browser. Thus small business remain updated of their tax return

4. Turnaround time is another important benefit of tax outsourcing. Because of the time difference between the US, UK, offshore outsourcing countries like India, China, Philippians, a tax return sent overseas in the morning can be completed in time to be downloaded by the US, UK, firms in the morning. Thus this time gap helps a lot to file the tax return and meet the deadline easily.

5. Not only the cost of the outsourcing tax return is far less than the small business would pay for a CPA in their country but also during the tax season it may actually be difficult to find a good CPA to work on tax return preparation for the small businesses in their country.

6. Outsourcing tax return also reduces the paperwork involved, as all the financial papers are stored electronically and doing this paper work is a great tedious work.

7. The outsource vendor team requires the financial papers relevant to tax preparation. Using internet technologies it is possible to transfer it securely to the outsource provider. By e-mail and other means of communication it is possible for the small businesses to stay in touch with the tax outsource vendor’s team.

8. CPAs can also benefit from outsourcing their client’s tax return preparation and concentrate more value added work auditing and financial consulting.

By carefully choosing a qualified outsource vendor small businesses can benefit from outsourcing their tax return preparations. There is security issues involved in outsourcing, but small businesses can avoid them by carefully managing their tax return outsourcing projects.

About the Author

Mani Malarvannan is cofounder of Cybelink, a company specializes in small business financial and accounting outsourcing like Bookkeeping, Tax, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, etc. For more info visit www.cybelink.com

The truth, of course, is a bit more complicated than the simplistic picture painted by protectionists. The United States is still far and away the world’s leading exporter of services. Direct corporate investment in India — generally the target of protectionist rants on tech jobs — actually declined from 2001 - 2003. As for manufacturing jobs, sure, it’s likely that free trade agreements played a part in the loss of jobs in the last five years, but so too did a host of other factors, including exchange rates, changing consumer preferences, upgrades in technology and equipment, the recession, and new federal regulations. Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy, to cite just one example, estimated in 2002 that a federal appeals court ruling favoring procedural matters over hard science in federal environmental regulatory policy could cost the state as much as $2.6 billion, or about 10,000 jobs.

Which brings us to state policy. Time and again, when we look at the states attracting and retaining jobs, and we compare them to the states losing jobs, we find that the states doing well are those with tax and regulatory schemes most friendly to business. It’s only when the cost of staying local becomes too burdensome that companies pick up and relocate elsewhere. Perhaps that’s not surprising. But just how strongly the data shakes out might be.

For example, according to the Economic Policy Institute, the five states losing the most jobs between 1993 and 2000 were, in order, California, New York, Michigan, Texas and Ohio. According to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Massachusetts also rank near the bottom, particularly when you take jobs as a percentage of population. The left-leaning EPI blames these losses chiefly on NAFTA, and perhaps that’s partially the case. But aggressive tax and regulatory climates play a pretty big role, too.

Each year, CFO magazine asks financial executives to assess the business-friendliness of tax policy in their respective states, which the magazine then compiles and ranks. Ranking in the bottom 10? California, New York, Michigan, Texas, Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Massachusetts — the very states that seem to be bleeding jobs. The most recent unemployment figures from the Labor Department put California, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan all in the bottom 10 there, too, all with unemployment rates at 7.0 percent or higher.

The Small Business Survival Committee also puts out a report ranking the states on business-friendly public policy. In the SBSC report, Ohio ranks 39th, New York 45th and California 46th. Oregon, also with one of the country’s highest unemployment rates, ranks 41st.
A 2003 ranking by the Tax Foundation focusing mainly on tax policy and business tells the same story. It puts California 49th, Ohio 47th, and New York 44th. Only Texas and Michigan score relatively well on the Tax Foundation and SBSC reports, suggesting that at least in these two states, free trade may have played a more significant role in job loss than poor public policy (and when you think about what Michigan manufactures, and where Texas is located, that makes some sense).

The Cato Institute’s Alan Reynolds wrote recently about San Jose, California, a city that lost about 120,000 jobs over two years. Reynolds points out that despite the debacle in San Jose, the communities of San Diego, Riverside, and Orange County actually added almost as many jobs over the same span of time. San Jose was one of the first jurisdictions in the area to implement a so-called “living wage” ordinance, mandating that businesses contracting with the city pay their lowest-paid workers around $11 per hour, more than double the federal minimum wage. Of course, a living wage law in and of itself won’t wipe out 120,000 tech jobs, but it’s certainly indicative of the sort of “progressive” anti-corporate sentiment that might cause local businesses to pick up and spill out into friendlier communities.

Protectionists often bring up Ohio as the prototype of a hard-working, breadbasket state whose manufacturing sector has fallen victim to free trade. But Ohio is also a case study in how a state government hostile to business pushes jobs to more hospitable locales. You’ve read the numbers above. But additionally, in the last few years, Ohio legislators have begun to feel the hangover caused by big spending habits fomented back in the freewheeling 1990s. As of 2003, the state faced a $720 million deficit. Ohio governor Bob Taft has promised to shrink the deficit not with cuts in state spending, but with new taxes, tax hikes, and new fees, as well as rollbacks of promised tax breaks. Taft’s tax-happy policy earned the Republican condemnation from the Club for Growth’s Steve Moore, who called Taft one of the “worst governors in America.”

The Buckeye Institute, an Ohio free market think tank, reports that Ohio’s aggressive pro-labor policies cost the state jobs even during the relatively strong economic period of 1982-1998. Zeroing in on the effect of mandatory union memberships on state economies, the Institute emphasizes that during that 16-year period, states that mandated union membership in the manufacturing sector lost a net 996,000 jobs, while “right to work states” gained 493,000.
Let’s look at the flip side. How well are states with business-friendly public policy doing at attracting and retaining jobs? The anecdotal evidence suggests they’re doing pretty well.

According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, the only state that actually gained net manufacturing jobs from 2000 to 2003 was Nevada. It ranks 2nd on the SBSC’s business-friendly list. It ranks 3rd on the Tax Foundation list. It ranks in the top four of CFO’s list. Alaska lost only 900 manufacturing jobs over those same four years, which is likely due to its population. Still, Alaska too ranked in the top four on the CFO list. Virginia made a big push in the late 1990s to attract tech firms to its D.C. suburbs and the Dulles corridor. Despite the Information Technology bust, Virginia still has one of the lowest state unemployment rates in the country and, perhaps not coincidentally, ranks 14th on the SBSC list (and would likely rank higher were it not for Gov. Mark Warner’s recent promise to raise taxes). South Dakota, which ranks number one on the SBSC list, also has one of the four lowest unemployment rates in the country (as of December 2003).

About the Author

Chetan Sojitra (chetan.patel@tatvasoft.com)
TatvaSoft - Software Development Outsurcing
http://www.tatvasoft.com

Outsourcing has increased at a rapid pace due to the advancement in modern satellite and Internet technologies, better connectivity and a constant search for less expensive labor to cut costs and achieve competitive advantage. By outsourcing their back office business processes to less expensive nations like China, India, Philippines, Malaysia, companies can cut labor costs, concentrate on their core businesses and strengths, and ensure better customer satisfaction. According to a recent report, US firms have saved nearly US$8 billion through outsourcing to developing nations like the Philippines
There are many developing nations that act as offshore outsourcing destinations to developed nations. Some of the countries that can be considered as offshore outsourcing destinations are as follows:

Philippines

The Philippines’ key competitive advantage is its people. Philippines has a well-educated English speaking work force and stands out as the world’s third largest English speaking nation. The attitude, commitment, community, and education constitute the key competitive advantage especially in the front office operations such as customer service and sales.

The Philippines boasts of a huge pool of productive, trainable and multi-skilled labor force. Filipino Outsourcing companies such as AOV Outsourcing service only hire workers that are highly qualified for various outsourcing tasks.

Government support and the IT infrastructure is a given. Major companies that already operate in the Philippines include AIG, AOL, Barnes & Noble, Chevron, Citigroup, Dell, HP, HSBC, IBM, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, Motorola, Procter & Gamble, Siemens AG and Trend Micro.

China

In recent years, China is rapidly emerging as one of the world’s leading suppliers of offshore software outsourcing services due to its incredible development rate. Although India is at the moments the world leader in software outsourcing industry, China aims to outpace India and become the next dominant competitor in software outsourcing. It is predicted that China will emerge as one of the top three countries for overseas software outsourcing between 2007 and 2010. Companies are already beginning to plan their offshore outsourcing strategies to take advantage of China’s emerging strength as an outsourcing center. This includes looking for ways to take advantage of the country’s current software strengths. Some estimates state that China outsourcing could rival India as the leading offshore IT services market as early as 2007.

The recent flurry of activity that helped put China on the outsourcing map came about partly as a result of government support and promotion, partly because of Japan’s push to move much of its software development work to China, and partly because a number of large foreign companies — GE, Microsoft, Dell, SAP and HP, for example — started up R&D centers in China.

India

One of the major players in the offshore outsourcing industry, India has a well educated, talented, low cost and English speaking workforce, excellent IT and networking infrastructure, a fairly stable political scenario, friendly laws and well laid taxes and quality certified software firms. The offshore outsourcing market in India is ever growing and has produced many success stories making India a popular offshore outsourcing destination for IT related and other BPO services.

Offshore assignments have moved up the value chain - from data entry to large and complex turnkey projects of 200 to 300 person years. Almost any service can be outsourced to India, be it healthcare, engineering or KPO.

Malaysia

Malaysia’s well-developed infrastructure, attractive business environment and strong government support makes it a rising alternative to India and China. The government’s positioning of Malaysia as a hub for services and technology innovation has resulted in a number of multinationals locating some of its global or regional operations in Malaysia. Malaysia has a relatively more stable political climate backed by consistent economic growth which makes it attractive for sensitive, high end applications in banking and finance.

About the Author

The author gained an extensive experience in internet marketing when she joined AOV outsourcing service. She is an online marketing and sales fanatic, providing measurable marketing solutions that drive huge results her clients through aov philippines outsourcing.

Software outsourcing is on of the most popular ways to enlarge your company. If you need unusual solutions, new ways of doing business, outsourcing is the only way to get it. The main reason of co-operation between software development company and outsourcing company is that only outsourcing will help to improve the quality of your services, enlarge the competitiveness of your company, and, consequently, to make you a fortune.

What projects are preferred for outsourcing?

Theoretically, there exists the possibility to outsource any project you want (Web design, database development etc.). But in reality businessmen like to outsource such projects, that will give them the possibility to concentrate on the main business fields, and that is why they do not prefer to outsource, for example, database administration.

This situation is not connected with Web design or software development company. That is why the quantity of software outsourcing companies is quite large.

What results people usually expect from outsourcing?

I’ve heard that managers who are planning software outsourcing in their company usually expect that expenditures on labour costs or training of staff in the office will be cut down by 30% or even 50%. They even believe that if you count person hours for implementation of certain project, deployment and many other expenditures, it will be cut even more than 50% of expenditures. That is why outsourcing is quite preferable way of doing business in software companies.

What are the most specific features of outsourcing in software development?

One of the most specific features is choosing provider. After choosing, you should discuss coding standards and some requirements that are really important in outsourcing.

If its software outsourcing company, one of the most important features is building of mock-ups in the system and UI prototypes during the specification phase. Every vendor has its own procedure of making report. You should better rely on it, but you also should have the constant access to the report. If they don’t have usual procedure, you may outwork your own, and then you may provide an access to it for your vendor.

Is it so important to make project plan, specification and other documents?

Yes, it is really important. Sometimes, the way the documents are made may say to specialist not only about the project or the company, but also about professional skills of vendor. In the project plan must be the information about deadlines and milestones. If it is software outsourcing company there must be the information about delivery of code. This way of outsourcing is quite reliable and it will secure your business.

What is expected for outsourcing in the future?

It is noted in IDC report that more than a half of midsize companies outsource their human resources functions, including the fields connected with IT. It is predicted that in the next decade offshore outsourcing will catch up India, China and Russia. It will be 3.3. million service industry jobs in United States and more than $135 billion in wages that will move to these countries. So, you can see that the forecasts are quite hopeful.

Victoria Malinovskaya, I work for US-based offshore outsourcing software development company, TechnoPark Corp.

http://www.technoparkcorp.com

The outsourcing industry is considered one of the world’fastest growing industries and International investment consultancy firm McKinsey & Co. predicts the demand for outsourcing suppliers will reach $170 billion by 2010. Many companies outsourcing are more and more considering the effectiveness of skills and not just cost savings in their decision making which means with The Philippines offerings it is now emerging as a global leader in the BPO industry.

In particular, The Philippines has become a global hub for corporate backroom operations such as financial services including accounting and bookkeeping, accounts receivable collection, account maintenance,inventory control and purchasing, payroll processing, financial analysis, management consulting, expense reporting, financial reporting, tax reporting, credit card administration, factoring, stock brokering, financial leasing, cargo shipment management and logistics management.
into these

In order to gain this rapid growth The Philippine government has offered significant incentives in order to attract direct foreign investment into the country specifically in the BPO sector.

The vast majority of the BPO facilities are located in the central part of Metro Manila as well as Cebu City although other regional areas within the country are starting their own thriving centres.

Many international companies already have outsourcing operations in The Philippines including Accenture, Convergys, Siemens, NEC Telecom, Caltex, Fujitsu, Alitalia, Unisys, IBM, Intel, Procter & Gamble, AOL, Barnes & Noble, Chevron, Citigroup, Dell, HP, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and Motorola,

Usually the key players (vendors) are co-owned and managed by expats combined with local managers.

Over the 2006-2007 financial year the Philippines has earned over $2 billion from offshore outsourcing service provision which makes it the 3rd largest supplier behind India and China. And for good reason, The Philippines has a low cost of wages is one of the main reasons for this trend. The Philippines has the 2nd lowest hourly wage for outsourcing professionals and 95% of the citizens speak fluent English.

It is clear that the Philippines is positioned to become a key player in the South East Asian Business Process Outsourcing industry. This outsourcing sector will keep on track to become a primary part of the Philippine economy as more and more Filipinos youth move into the game. Currently the Philippine BPO industry is forecasted to earn US$10 billion and be employing appriximately 1,000,000 people by the year 2010

About the Author

For more informations visit Outsourcingto.us

The Computer Trend - A Brief History

The last two decades have marked an enormous increase in the number of home computers. With it, computer owners have invariably taken to entrepreneurship in many varied fields. Thanks to the growth of technology, computers and the Internet, new methods have been developed for processing everyday business activities easily. Without the advent of technology, routine tasks would otherwise have taken and enormous amount of time and specialization. Undoubtedly, the computer represents the top technology development in the last century as it relates to businesses today, both large and small. Advances in the field of technology have created a vast number of business opportunities.

Some Statistics

In 2003, the U.S. Small Business Administration produced a report/survey that established conclusively that more than 75% of small businesses owned computers and had heavily invested in new technology. Let us try to understand what the computers mean to businesses and how they contribute to increase their productivity.

USE OF COMPUTERS IN BUSINESSES

The fundamental reasons for the popularity of computers with small businesses are their efficiency, speed, low procurement cost and more than anything else, capability to handle multiple tasks with little chance for error.

Office Routines: Almost invariably, businesses loaded with the burden of increasing workloads and the pressures of being lean and mean, fall back upon technology for most of their administrative tasks. This work includes, among others, bookkeeping, inventory managing and email. The advent of the Internet has also substantially contributed in bringing down the costs of communication and marketing. In a nutshell, technology has reduced the overall cost of business operations.

New Business Opportunities: The explosion of Internet and e-commerce has opened up a plethora of opportunities for all types of businesses. New management methodologies, such as Six Sigma are easier to implement due to statistical software. Also, companies are able to train their own employees using in-house Six Sigma software programs, and as a result, save money on labor costs.

It is now possible to have many business functions operate on autopilot. This has opened up new opportunities for software development companies and business consultants. Another business trend that has opened up as a result of advancing technology is outsourcing. It is now possible for a company in America to have its data entry and customer service centers in overseas countries such as the UK. In this way, companies can service their customers 24/7.

Indispensable Components of Small Businesses

It is difficult to think of a situation where businesses can do without technology and computers today. It is extremely difficult to say whether businesses depend on computers or computers created business opportunities.

Software Specific To Small Businesses

Certain powerful, yet simple software has come to the rescue of small businesses in reducing their tasks and opening up new channels. Simple applications like spreadsheets and word processing helps them maintain accounts, finances and keep track of correspondence. These applications allow the users to customize reports and other functions to suit their particular business.

Drawbacks

Both men and women in business have adapted successfully to new technology. But the SBA report cites the general decline in skill levels of people, which may eventually result in an overall reduction of income levels. It seems that people get used to technology doing all the work and tend to neglect their skill development. It is up to individual companies to make sure that their employees are still able to do crucial tasks without the assistance of computers, if necessary.

About the Author

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution’s Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

1. Number of CPAs in the U.S is just not enough to cater to the volume of accounting jobs and therefore outsourcing are a practical decision

2. What motivate large businesses to outsource their tax preparation?
The answer is cost and productivity .The reasons remain the same for small businesses. After a reasonable amount of time the benefits of outsourcing tax return are clearly visible. Outsourcing alters fixed costs into variable ones and allows the small business to redirect funds for better productivity.

3. The service providers always meet the small business deadline because they understand the importance of meeting deadline .Through web management systems small businesses can track the status of their tax returns any time using their browser. Thus small business remain updated of their tax return

4. Turnaround time is another important benefit of tax outsourcing. Because of the time difference between the US, UK, offshore outsourcing countries like India, China, Philippians, a tax return sent overseas in the morning can be completed in time to be downloaded by the US, UK, firms in the morning. Thus this time gap helps a lot to file the tax return and meet the deadline easily.

5. Not only the cost of the outsourcing tax return is far less than the small business would pay for a CPA in their country but also during the tax season it may actually be difficult to find a good CPA to work on tax return preparation for the small businesses in their country.

6. Outsourcing tax return also reduces the paperwork involved, as all the financial papers are stored electronically and doing this paper work is a great tedious work.

7. The outsource vendor team requires the financial papers relevant to tax preparation. Using internet technologies it is possible to transfer it securely to the outsource provider. By e-mail and other means of communication it is possible for the small businesses to stay in touch with the tax outsource vendor’s team.

8. CPAs can also benefit from outsourcing their client’s tax return preparation and concentrate more value added work auditing and financial consulting.

By carefully choosing a qualified outsource vendor small businesses can benefit from outsourcing their tax return preparations. There is security issues involved in outsourcing, but small businesses can avoid them by carefully managing their tax return outsourcing projects.

About the Author

Mani Malarvannan is cofounder of Cybelink, a company specializes in small business financial and accounting outsourcing like Bookkeeping, Tax, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, etc. For more info visit www.cybelink.com

The truth, of course, is a bit more complicated than the simplistic picture painted by protectionists. The United States is still far and away the world’s leading exporter of services. Direct corporate investment in India — generally the target of protectionist rants on tech jobs — actually declined from 2001 - 2003. As for manufacturing jobs, sure, it’s likely that free trade agreements played a part in the loss of jobs in the last five years, but so too did a host of other factors, including exchange rates, changing consumer preferences, upgrades in technology and equipment, the recession, and new federal regulations. Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy, to cite just one example, estimated in 2002 that a federal appeals court ruling favoring procedural matters over hard science in federal environmental regulatory policy could cost the state as much as $2.6 billion, or about 10,000 jobs.

Which brings us to state policy. Time and again, when we look at the states attracting and retaining jobs, and we compare them to the states losing jobs, we find that the states doing well are those with tax and regulatory schemes most friendly to business. It’s only when the cost of staying local becomes too burdensome that companies pick up and relocate elsewhere. Perhaps that’s not surprising. But just how strongly the data shakes out might be.

For example, according to the Economic Policy Institute, the five states losing the most jobs between 1993 and 2000 were, in order, California, New York, Michigan, Texas and Ohio. According to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Massachusetts also rank near the bottom, particularly when you take jobs as a percentage of population. The left-leaning EPI blames these losses chiefly on NAFTA, and perhaps that’s partially the case. But aggressive tax and regulatory climates play a pretty big role, too.

Each year, CFO magazine asks financial executives to assess the business-friendliness of tax policy in their respective states, which the magazine then compiles and ranks. Ranking in the bottom 10? California, New York, Michigan, Texas, Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Massachusetts — the very states that seem to be bleeding jobs. The most recent unemployment figures from the Labor Department put California, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan all in the bottom 10 there, too, all with unemployment rates at 7.0 percent or higher.

The Small Business Survival Committee also puts out a report ranking the states on business-friendly public policy. In the SBSC report, Ohio ranks 39th, New York 45th and California 46th. Oregon, also with one of the country’s highest unemployment rates, ranks 41st.
A 2003 ranking by the Tax Foundation focusing mainly on tax policy and business tells the same story. It puts California 49th, Ohio 47th, and New York 44th. Only Texas and Michigan score relatively well on the Tax Foundation and SBSC reports, suggesting that at least in these two states, free trade may have played a more significant role in job loss than poor public policy (and when you think about what Michigan manufactures, and where Texas is located, that makes some sense).

The Cato Institute’s Alan Reynolds wrote recently about San Jose, California, a city that lost about 120,000 jobs over two years. Reynolds points out that despite the debacle in San Jose, the communities of San Diego, Riverside, and Orange County actually added almost as many jobs over the same span of time. San Jose was one of the first jurisdictions in the area to implement a so-called “living wage” ordinance, mandating that businesses contracting with the city pay their lowest-paid workers around $11 per hour, more than double the federal minimum wage. Of course, a living wage law in and of itself won’t wipe out 120,000 tech jobs, but it’s certainly indicative of the sort of “progressive” anti-corporate sentiment that might cause local businesses to pick up and spill out into friendlier communities.

Protectionists often bring up Ohio as the prototype of a hard-working, breadbasket state whose manufacturing sector has fallen victim to free trade. But Ohio is also a case study in how a state government hostile to business pushes jobs to more hospitable locales. You’ve read the numbers above. But additionally, in the last few years, Ohio legislators have begun to feel the hangover caused by big spending habits fomented back in the freewheeling 1990s. As of 2003, the state faced a $720 million deficit. Ohio governor Bob Taft has promised to shrink the deficit not with cuts in state spending, but with new taxes, tax hikes, and new fees, as well as rollbacks of promised tax breaks. Taft’s tax-happy policy earned the Republican condemnation from the Club for Growth’s Steve Moore, who called Taft one of the “worst governors in America.”

The Buckeye Institute, an Ohio free market think tank, reports that Ohio’s aggressive pro-labor policies cost the state jobs even during the relatively strong economic period of 1982-1998. Zeroing in on the effect of mandatory union memberships on state economies, the Institute emphasizes that during that 16-year period, states that mandated union membership in the manufacturing sector lost a net 996,000 jobs, while “right to work states” gained 493,000.
Let’s look at the flip side. How well are states with business-friendly public policy doing at attracting and retaining jobs? The anecdotal evidence suggests they’re doing pretty well.

According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, the only state that actually gained net manufacturing jobs from 2000 to 2003 was Nevada. It ranks 2nd on the SBSC’s business-friendly list. It ranks 3rd on the Tax Foundation list. It ranks in the top four of CFO’s list. Alaska lost only 900 manufacturing jobs over those same four years, which is likely due to its population. Still, Alaska too ranked in the top four on the CFO list. Virginia made a big push in the late 1990s to attract tech firms to its D.C. suburbs and the Dulles corridor. Despite the Information Technology bust, Virginia still has one of the lowest state unemployment rates in the country and, perhaps not coincidentally, ranks 14th on the SBSC list (and would likely rank higher were it not for Gov. Mark Warner’s recent promise to raise taxes). South Dakota, which ranks number one on the SBSC list, also has one of the four lowest unemployment rates in the country (as of December 2003).

About the Author

Chetan Sojitra (chetan.patel@tatvasoft.com)
TatvaSoft - Software Development Outsurcing
http://www.tatvasoft.com

This is why managing becomes vitally important. A little disorganization, or some poorly planned days, can cost a substantial amount of money.

Daily Planner

Plan a day or two ahead, a week if possible. Do not worry about listing each job with a time period. Just make a list. As each job is completed, strike it off the list.

After making the list, prioritize the list. First, put the jobs that will earn the most money. Second, list the jobs with deadlines.

Pay attention to the little things. There will be small tasks that do not get finished each week. These will accumulate, making it impossible to do the bigger things. Set aside some time to do these tasks, even if it only one hour, once a week.

Maximize Downtime

It is not necessary to purchase a blackberry, but a laptop can let you spend an afternoon outside, while still working. It also gives an alternative to doing nothing while the power is off, while the Internet is slow, or when your away from the office.

There are many times when you must wait an hour for an appointment, or something didn’t go as planned, use these times for business. A cell phone is a great tool.

Outsource

Most business owners have no problem outsourcing their advertising, management, marketing, and programming tasks.

However, suggest that they should outsource the laundry, house cleaning, and even taking out the trash, and most will laugh hysterically. But, that is exactly what many successful business people do.

How much money can you make in one hour? Divide up your monthly income by the ‘actual’ hours worked. This does not mean the hours spent in the office, or the hours sitting at the computer. It means the actual hours you are actively engaging in earning revenue.

Now, add up all the time wasted taking out the trash, doing the laundry, picking up the children from piano lessons, and walking the dog. These things can take 15 hours a week. A business person who earns $20 an hour is losing, $300 a week because they will not outsource the mundane tasks.

A house cleaner costs $70, a dog walker, $50, laundry $25, and a taxi will cost about $10.00, all totalled that is $155.00.
This means that the business owner is losing $145 a week, $7 500 a year, because they refuse to outsource the mundane tasks.

Separate Work at Home

To manage your time efficiently, delegate what hours are to be invested in work, and which belong to home life. Teach the family not to disturb you until you are finished working - but then when your day is done - stop working. You’ll never run a successful business, or build wealth, if you burn out, or face a family crisis.

All together, these tips form a plan of action that will help you succeed, and help you learn how to manage your home business successfully.

About the Author

Mark Walters is a third generation entrepreneur and author. He offers free training and investing videos designed to speed you towards financial independence at http://www.cashflowinstitute1.com/Articles.html