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Introduction
As the economy grows slowly at home, your business
may have to look at selling internationally to remain
profitable. Before examining foreign markets, you have to
be aware of the major trends in international business so
you can take advantage of those that might favor your
company. International markets are evolving rapidly, and
you can take advantage of the changing environment to
create a niche for your company.
From a technical perspective, trends involve looking at
the statistical analysis of historical data over a selected
time frame and charting the progression. If the data
suggests consistent increases, decreases or even
constancy or flatness, there exists a trend. Businesses of
all sizes use this kind of data to help predict the future or
help shape strategic decisions.
The trends businesses are usually most concerned with
are those related to their finances. Measuring increases
and decreases in revenues, expenses, margins and profits
are the lifeblood of businesses. Examining a company's
financial trend can help owners, managers and investors
become aware of the company's situation and needs as it
plans for the future.
These trends may also relate to the performance of
market indicators. If other companies in a particular
market sector are performing better or worse, it may be
an indicator of how a private business in the same field
may fare.

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From a less scientific perspective, trends can represent

the direction an industry or line of business is taking. In
this sense, a trend might be accountants saving money
by moving to paperless billing, dentists using electronic
diagnostic instruments, or an increase in the number of
frozen yogurt shops opening in a particular city. These
trends have factual basis but are macro level and related
to the business environment as a whole.

Shareholder Value As A Strategy?

Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy
Jack Welch, who is widely regarded as the father of the
shareholders value movement, has said that,

The idea that shareholder value is a strategy is

insane. It is the product of your combined efforts
from the management to the employees.
Maximizing shareholder wealth has always been way down the
list. Yes, profit is a cornerstone of what we do. It is a measure of
our contribution and a mean of self-financed growth but it has
never been the point in and of itself. The point, in fact, is to win,
and winning is judged in the eyes of the customer and by doing
something you can be proud of. If we provide real satisfaction to
real customers we will be profitable.
According to Robert W. Johnson, Jr.

Service to customers comes first, service to

employees comes second, service to management

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comes third, service to the communities comes

fourth and service to stockholders comes last.
He added that,

When these things have been done, the

stockholders should receive a fair return.

IT AS A UTILITY
The cloud

Transformation of IT into utility services will be largely guided by

enterprises wanting to variabilize their infrastructure costs, and
extending the power of IT into the hands of its users.
Variabilization will help enterprises ride out a business downturn
without being weighed down by too many fixed costs, whereas in
a buoyant market, they will obtain much higher profit margins
compared to firms that have high fixed costs. By metamorphosing
the fixed costs into operating expenses, variabilization increases a
firm's competitiveness, cost efficiency and business agility.
Big data will continue to impact both the IT provider and the small
business, if not managed and understood appropriately. In 2015,
virtualization storage will be key in evaluating and sorting big

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data, allowing businesses to save time and money in the long

haul.
Cloud software has already enabled teams to collaborate together
even if theyre working on two different continents. This is
especially true for marketing and creative teams, who need
access to different assets and workflows to complete projects.

THE CUSTOMER CHORUS

Brought to you by social networking

Through a range of technical and social developments,

customers voices grew louder (whether collectively in ratings
systems like Amazons, or individually through viral kvetches like
Dave Carrolls United Breaks Guitars) and companies found
ways to listen. Its a true megatrend: the steps along the way
have felt gradual and natural, but collectively they change
everything.
The growth of social media as a platform for connection is causing
more and more people to get their recommendations from others

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online. Businesses that have a significant online presence will be

in the forefront of the new referral and relationship marketing
systems.
Executives are getting more sophisticated and realize that unless
their corporate social media plan is formulaic with clear, set goals,
metrics and tools to provide those metrics, they're paying top
dollar for employees to spend time on online efforts that have
questionable value.

Enterprise risk management

None too soon

Enterprise risk management (ERM) is the process of

planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the
activities of an organization in order to minimize the
effects of risk on an organization's capital and earnings.
Enterprise risk management expands the process to
include not just risks associated with accidental losses,
but also financial, strategic, operational, and other risks.
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In recent years, external factors have fueled a heightened

interest by organizations in ERM. Industry and
government regulatory bodies, as well as investors, have
begun to scrutinize companies' risk-management policies
and procedures. In an increasing number of industries,
boards of directors are required to review and report on
the adequacy of risk-management processes in the
organizations they administer.
The Top 5 Risks for 2015
Regulatory changes and heightened regulatory scrutiny
may affect the manner in which our products or services will
be produced or delivered.
Economic conditions in markets we currently serve may
significantly restrict growth opportunities for our
organization.
Our organization may not be sufficiently prepared to manage
cyber threats that have the potential to significantly
disrupt our core operations and/or damage our brand.
Our organizations succession challenges and ability to
attract and retain top talent may limit our ability to
achieve operational targets.
Our organizations culture may not sufficiently encourage
the timely identification and escalation of risk issues that
have the potential to significantly affect our core operations
and achievement of strategic objectives.

The creative organization

Innovation matters

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The heart and soul of the company is creativity

and innovation.
(Bob Iger)
Innovation generally refers to changing or creating more
effective processes, products and ideas, and can increase the
likelihood of a business succeeding. Businesses that innovate
create more efficient work processes and have better
productivity and performance.
For businesses, this could mean implementing new ideas,
creating dynamic products or improving your existing
services. Innovation can be a catalyst for the growth and
success of your business, and help you adapt and grow in the
marketplace.
Being innovative does not mean inventing; innovation can
mean changing your business model and adapting to
changes in your environment to deliver better products or
services. Successful innovation should be an in-built part of
your business strategy, where you create a culture of
innovation and lead the way in innovative thinking and
creative problem solving. Businesses that innovate create
more efficient work processes and have better productivity
and performance.
The World's Most Innovative Companies 2014
1. Google
2. Bloomberg Philanthropies
3. Xiaomi
4. Dropbox
5. Netflix
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Open source
Community resources beyond software

Open source is mainstream in so many business

processes now. Open source delivers software freedom.
Freedom to innovate, integrate and extend. Freedom to
choose your provider. Open source offers adaptability
even the highly configurable SaaS offerings are
intrinsically unable to match. These freedoms are really
powerful, and once a customer enjoys those freedoms
they wonder why the rest of the world isnt this way.
The core proposition of open source is that it enables
mass specialization, the small innovations and
differentiating features made possible by being open,
both in license and technical architecture. The freedom
to innovate can disproportionately add value by
strongly aligning to the businesss specific needs.
Business models like Totaras have this at their core.
Organizations need to adapt to stay ahead. Therefore,
having the freedom to adapt is critical.
Five open source tools to help you manage your
customers
1. X2 CRM

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2. Sugar CRM
3. Dolibarr
4. Vtiger
5. OpenCRX

Going private
SOX workaround

A public company may choose to go private for a number

of reasons. An acquisition can create significant financial
gain for shareholders and CEOs, while the reduced
regulatory and reporting requirements private companies
face can free up time and money to focus on long-term
goals.
Advantages of Being Public
Buying and selling shares of public companies is relatively
easy to do.
There are also tremendous regulatory, administrative,
financial reporting and corporate governance bylaws to
comply with.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) imposes many

compliance and administrative rules on public companies
and because of this public companies go private.
Advantages of Privatization
Investors in private companies may or may not hold a liquid
investment.
Private investors may easily find a buyer for their portion of
the equity stake in the company.

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Being private frees up management's time and effort to

concentrate on running and growing a business.
There are no SOX regulations to comply with.

A take-private transaction is an attractive and viable

alternative for many public companies. As long as debt
levels are reasonable and the company continues to
maintain or grow its free cash flow, operating and running
a private company frees up management's time and
energy from compliance requirements and short-term
earnings management and may provide long-term
benefits to the company and its shareholders.

Behavioral Economics
Freakonomics, anyone?

The study of psychology as it relates to the

economic decision making processes of individuals
and institutions.
Behavioral economics arose from the writings of several
notable economists, one of the theorys leading principles
came from economist Herbert Simon in the 1950s. Simon
postulated that man could not always act logically
because he possessed a bounded rationality. In other
words, human minds are finite; they do not have
unlimited information to solve problems, nor do they have
all the time in the world to think about them. Humans
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also struggle to analyze problems objectively when the

outcomes directly affect themselves, especially when
viewing problems through a frame of personal
experience warped by social or cultural bias.
Fortunately, behavioral economics provides the
beginnings of an alternative vision of how individuals
operate in a market environment, while multi-agent
modelling and network theory give us foundations for
understanding group dynamics in a complex society.
These approaches explicitly emphasize what neoclassical
economics has evaded: that aggregation of
heterogeneous individuals results in emergent properties
of the group, which cannot be reduced to the behavior of
any "representative individual." These approaches should
replace neoclassical microeconomics completely.

High Potentials
Nurture, nurture, nurture

Succession planning is also about identifying and

nurturing your high performing, high potential employees
so you can retain them and support their career
progression.
Of course all employees are valuable and should be
treated accordingly, but in most workplaces there are
certain staffers that are disproportionately valuable in
comparison to their compensation. Its wonderful to have
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one or two of these rare albatrosses on staff, but you can

move your company ahead by leaps and bounds if you
can build teams of high potential employees.
High potential talent is, as defined by a recent study on
Strategic Human Resources Management,
Employees whose particular skills and knowledge
value make them vital to organizational success.
The study added, High potential employees are
highly talented and create a disproportional
amount of value from the resources made
available to them by the organization.

Competing on Analytics
Well beyond the gut level

Analytics is the extensive use of data, statistical and

quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive models,
and fact-based management to drive decisions and
actions.

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Analytics is becoming a requirement in every industry as

customers have choice and companies face increased
competition.
(Mark P. McDonald)

Nowadays different organizations are competing on

analytics not just because they can business today is
awash in data and data crunchers but also because they
should. At a time when firms in many industries offer
similar products and use comparable technologies,
business processes are among the last remaining points
of differentiation. And analytics competitors wring every
last drop of value from those processes. So, like other
companies, they know what products their customers
want, but they also know what prices those customers
will pay, how many items each will buy in a lifetime, and
what triggers will make people buy more.

Reverse Innovation
R&D closer to global markets

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Historically, multinationals innovated in rich countries and

sold those products in poor countries. Reverse innovation is
doing just the opposite. It is about innovating in poor
countries and bringing those products to rich countries.
Thanks to the rapid development of populous countries like
China and India and the slowing growth of wealthy nations,
reverse innovation has become a strategic priority.
Multinationals would instinctively raise their investments to
build advanced R&D (Research and Development) facilities
that would inspire cutting edge innovation and engineering. It
also means the engineers would experience higher
employment opportunities, and the consumer market would
profit from better products developed to cater to their needs
at reasonable prices.
Reverse innovation is bringing the countries and global
markets further closer by fading the global borders to make
one world, one market phenomenon a more reality. Reverse
innovation would provide further impetus to the globalization
while increasing the influence of cross economic dependency
and making cross border production and marketing viability
plausible and effective.
Key benefits:
Better products for consumers and a variety of options
to choose from at reasonable prices.
Companies investing higher amounts in building the
sustainable technological infrastructure that would facilitate
advanced engineering. It would thus further stimulate
industrialization.
Rise in the demand for engineers.

Reverse Innovation would definitely reform, and revolutionize

industry standards, market imperatives, and global expansion

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and success strategy perspectives for the Multinationals who

constantly require to keep exploring various distinctive ways
and means to become resilient in the perilous market
conditions.

Sustainability
Green is good

Business sustainability is often defined as managing the triple

bottom line - a process by which companies manage their
financial, social and environmental risks, obligations and
opportunities. These three impacts are sometimes referred to
as profits, people and planet.
Business sustainability requires firms to adhere to the
principles of sustainable development. According to the World
Council for Economic Development (WCED), sustainable
development is development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs. So, for industrial
development to be sustainable, it must address important
issues at the macro level, such as: economic efficiency
(innovation, prosperity and productivity), social equity
(poverty, community, health and wellness, human rights) and
environmental accountability (climate change, land use,
biodiversity).
There are a number of best practices that foster business
sustainability, and help organizations move along the path
from laggards to leaders. These practices include:

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Stakeholder engagement
Environmental management systems
Reporting and disclosure
Life cycle analysis

Firms that are sustainable have been shown to attract and

retain employees more easily and experience less financial
and reputation risk. These firms are also more innovative and
adaptive to their environments.

Conclusion
From the above discussion we can conclude that we have
to identify a trend that impacts our markets or our
operations, we can plan actions that counter the trend if
it is harmful or support it if it is beneficial. We have to
evaluate the size, direction and trajectory of a trend
before we can react to it.
We have to use latest technologies like cloud computing
and to give more importance to customers than anyone.
A satisfied customer is the best business strategy
of all.
(Michael LeBoeuf)
An organization should be innovative and thats the main
reason why Facebook is most popular social networking
website today with with 1.4 billion active users.
An organization must be competitive. As jack welch says,

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An organization's ability to learn, and translate

that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate
competitive advantage.
Many companies such as Dell installed its manufacturing
plants in China due to favorable production environment
in China at lower cost.
An organization should ensure sustainability is business.
According to the World Council for Economic
Development, sustainable development is development
that,
Meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs.
If any company want to be successful then he should
follow these 12 business trends otherwise it becomes
very difficult for any firm to do any kind of business.

References
http://www.ft.com
http://www.zdnet.com
http://mydl.itweb.co.za
http://www.bloomberg.com
http://www.strategy-business.com
https://hbr.org
http://www.informationweek.com

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http://www.information-age.com
Harvard Business Review 2010: A Year of Management Ideas
(Magazine). The link is given below:
https://hbr.org/product/harvard-business-review-2010-a-yearof-management-ideas/10456-MMC-ENG
http://www.businessweek.com
http://www.forbes.com
http://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessnewsdaily.com
http://www.theguardian.com
http://www.businessknowhow.com
http://www.fastcompany.com
http://www.whatiseconomics.org
http://www.totaralms.com
http://lexicon.ft.com

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