After many news and talk shows rambling about the recent global economic crisis, it has finally caught on into layperson's everyday topic. Since there is an indication that our lives are worse off than in the past few years, whether in the form of decreased revenue or sentimental awareness of peers and colleagues talking about their consumption drip. But how a vast and intricately complex topic as global economy becomes understandable to everyone's sense?
To talk about the crisis, one can speculate that any business owners should better explain it with their experiences than a scholarly expert in the field of data mining and analysis. Is it? The question posted is intended to be sarcastic, of course.
The crisis in a nutshell explained.
Take a medium-sized florist as an example. One day in a business life of a florist "Les Fleurs" usually goes on like this: the shop opens, every well-trained staff greets the customers, some higher-level executives take and ship the international (mostly online) orders and execute them to delegated personnel, delivery takes place during the day, the accountants cash in and register the daily account, the shop closes in the evening just in time for everyone to go home and enjoy their dinner.
Two years after the opening, this shop happened to be catching the big wave of globalisation and the chic of the moment. The shop owner considered investing into a second branch, third, fourth, ... until the business goes global with shops in major metropolitan cities worldwide. Any online orders from Seattle that once has to be in bulk can now be made by any love doves. The empire starts to be stable, with everyone thinking of this Les Fleurs as a generic name for florist shop, the likes of Starbucks for coffee.
Then, the multimillion-dollar business is more complex: more staffs, organisational hierachy, sales goal that is projected to grow every year, while the demand for flowers is steady or starting to decline. The company has to cut costs by lowering the unnecessary luxuries: the business-class travel expense, mid-year seminars, client entertainment, and such are cut partially or completely. The situation is not improving, which leads to more cut and somehow positions that once were considered crucial are now nothing to the company. Technological improvement has led to staff lay-off. Fees are incurred to the customers. All of the "necessary" measures to keep the company giant afloat has a negative consequence. Customers are retracting their orders, diverting to cheaper local alternatives. Revenue pool has drained off and in a matter of years dried up. The merger & acquisition, which was the last card a year ago, has become impossible as potential investors do not see any potentials any more.
Suddenly, the glory and legends of Les Fleurs come to an end. Any businesses depending on this shop also suffer a great deal as a change towards opening a new account at new florist shops does not mean a big discount they once enjoyed. Botanical gardens supplying beautiful flowers to the shop have an excess which leads to a lower price and lesser revenue. Some have to close altogether as it is difficult or impossible to find another big name to supply flowers to. The chain of reaction continues as ex-employees have to find new jobs which might take a couple of months. The consumption by these employees and its suppliers drops and hurts the economy as a whole. Internationally, the consequence has a wider impact as the synergistic effect might as well equal a national income of some isolated small island in the Pacific Ocean.
If there are more businesses or these vicious cycle happens to big wigs, it is not difficult at all to start the panic in the minds of everyone, like spreading the wildfire in late autumn.
Now, the next step to recovery does not come from watching the programme of the same name on CNN but the government has to intervene and smoothen the path for mid-income consumers to continue spending rather than saving and hurting the whole economy.
вторник, Август 11, 2009
среда, Декабрь 10, 2008
It is becoming a general topic engaging everyone to discuss politics these days. Despite the fact that we have democracy as our main system for decades but there are still serious incidents killing innocent people happening all the time. The Mumbai attack, Bangkok airports siege and demonstrations, Greek violent act, and many more have something in common: innocent citizens were sacrificed and the background can be linked back to politics.
For more than 300,000 years that the Homo genus have wandered the earth, the word "humankind," which should be composed of "human" and "kind" cannot be assured completely. The teachings of Buddha about lives are timeless but still our own blindness prevents us to normally live our lives and reach the ultimate nirvana. Concepts regarding utopia and organisation of civilisation are still the fantasy or theoretical illusion politicians are selling but, in reality, chaos is abound since lives are so complex and unpredictable.
Stop believing the propaganda, I say, the fabricated ideas without thinking with our logic and reasons first. If we believe truly, then act accordingly. Causing someone else's discomfort, or even hurt must be forbidden. Because, in the end, all that is worth doing is living the peaceful lives.
вторник, Июль 22, 2008
After years of studying and working, it is often believed that our brains are mature enough to think of itself as an organizing tool doing lots of lots of tasks in a specific pattern or order. Sequential and parallel task management is key to this GTD method widely appraised by workers worldwide as it sums up one of the most efficient ways to organize our personal and professional lives.
There are various ways to capture our thoughts and ideas. Sometimes it is best for someone to write out loud because he or she might be in a mood to describe the events or wonderful experiences. Sometimes a photo can portray one's memory without the need to give caption. Or sometimes a mix of both is ideal because an image itself cannot convey the true meaning of the author or photographer.
воскресенье, Июнь 01, 2008
It is often sarcastically portrayed in JoT comics that social networking sites might somehow promote health deficiency (instead of the opposite). Somehow these sites are attempting to creep into one's life, virtual or cyber life to be exact. Various sites are designed so well and so minimal that almost everybody can easily subscribe in no time.
- multiple mannerisms, attitudes and beliefs which are dissimilar to each other
- headaches and other body pains
- distortion or loss of subjective time
- depersonalization
- amnesia
- depression (source : Wikipedia)
- Hi5 : personal journal with interaction between friends
- MSN Spaces : older posts
- Blogspot : personal perspective and mumble-jumble
- Tumblr : post of things stumbled upon on the net (newly added)
понедельник, Май 26, 2008
My experiences which involve me into a conversation of any kind of topics with foreigners so far have been exciting in a way that I never imagine myself being voluble, though verbose sometimes, because the barrier in between was so hugh and not easily breakable but more and more immersing and practising through various means and methods after so many years have proved useful and fruitful – not only allow me to communicate back and forth with other people but also open a world of information, both helpful and helplessly unnecessary, for my once-narrow block of space encompassing me and my imagination into one of limited and such.
понедельник, Ноябрь 12, 2007
It is often debated recently whether we are or we are not affixed to the techno gadgets more and more. Can we survive without such things as Palm or Ultramobile Notebook or even Slim and Smart Mobile Phone?