Upgradation and expansion are must

Some of the chat shops at the corners of the streets make the tastiest of the foods that are sometimes unavailable in the big star hotels. Many enjoy having the junk food that these roadside standalone food-on-wheels shops provide. Obviously, I don't exclude myself from this list of foodies. Just few days back when I visited one such food cart, I saw that, right next to that a new food shop on the footpath was open which served variety of other food items with people swarming around it. It automatically caught my attention and I could hear the earlier shop owner grumbling at the business that the new competitor was taking away from him. All this jealousy filled grumbling was only because he was losing business and the hindsight reason for the same was lack of upgradation and expansion.

If Microsoft had stopped at just first version of Windows operating system, they would've been out of business long ago. If Apple had stuck to their first model of iPhone, Samsung would have eaten up all the clients of Apple within a matter of few months. Every big company that we see has evolved through the gradual process of upgradation. Only if the shopkeeper had worked on establishing shops of similar kind in different areas or hired more workforce to upgrade his menu and prepared and served new snacks that could provide various options to the customers the new shop owner wouldn't have seen any business opportunity next to him. Alas! the first shopkeeper was content enough with having one food cart with 5 items on the menu as it had been working for him from years together. Unfortunately, on one fine day a competitor landed up right next to him, who took away majority of the market share in the form of a black swan.

If you're not updated, then you're outdated. If you're not upgraded, then you're outsmarted. Just like how evolution is the natural upgradation phenomenon of nature, just like how the universe is expanding, we need to learn from them that even we need to upgrade our products, skills and services. We will have to expand our work geographically as well as dimensionally to make sure that we aren't shocked by the surprise arrival of one of the competitors in the market one fine day. Customers will always be in search of new things in the market. If you're not providing them ,then definitely someone else will capitalize on the same. It's up to us to upgrade and expand our business wings to serve the huge and diverse customer base. No wonder that upgradation and expansion are must for survival just like the Darwin's theory on survival of the fittest.

Get updated, else get outdated

Man has travelled a very huge time journey from being an ape to a homo-sapien. During this period of evolution he has treaded the path of Old Stone Age up to the modern e-age today. With every upcoming age, he had to update himself to the requirements of the new age. In fact, Charles Darwin himself says in one of his theories about evolution that 'it is not the strength of the species to survive that results in survival but it's the flexibility of the species to adapt to the new conditions'. Hence, I salute to the mankind for having survived so long. But, are we applying the same upgradation process in our lives?

 

Today, if we don't update our knowledge and wisdom and upgrade ourselves, we might still survive as human beings but we might be just considered as the outdated individuals among our tribe. A very simple example to state here is about our computers only. Earlier we used to use floppy discs to store data but today there are no floppy drives at all in any desktops or laptops. So we have to be updated to know the usage of CDs, pen drives, dropbox, googledrive, skydrive, cloud computing etc for transfer of digital information. I still regret that I had bought a box set of floppy drives when I bought my PC around 6.5 years back. Everytime I see those unused floppy discs in my drawer I just feel how ignorant was I about the developments in the field of computers during my engineering studies. We need to be aware about the changes that are happening around us. I definitely agree that it's totally difficult to keep a track of all the developments but it's surely not impossible to keep ourselves updated about the new stuff that's getting innovated and discovered in the field that we are involved in. Else, there is no hope of being in pace with the competition or even running in the race of life for a satisfying livelihood.

 

Life has been blessed upon humans with all the necessary accessories fit in the human body only to learn more and do more. Being the best gifted species on this planet we need to do our bit towards the creation we are a part of. We owe a lot to the world around us. The best way we can honour our civilizations and the work of all our ancestors is by making sure that we grow what they gave to us by an inch or as much as we can and hand it over to the future generation before we leave this earth. If this duty has to be fulfilled we need to make sure that we are aware of what's happening around us so that we can improvise on them else we shall remain as the outlaws not from the society we are a part of but from the community of hardworking individuals who are striving to make this world a better place to live in. All of your comments are most welcome!

The alternative plan

Every work has a plan. When the plan works out well the work gets completed without any hiccups. Not all times does the plan work out as per our expectations. Always there are some external factors that influence our work which might have a completely different plan than that charted out by us. So at such times when the plan A doesn't work out do you have an alternative plan? If yes, then cool else what can we do is the content of this blog.

Not many of us are aware about perfect planning. Not all of us are into a business that we have learned planning and management perfectly well. However a small concept about planning that I would like to share is that of plan B. Whenever you are executing some work already there exists a blueprint of how you would accomplish the same in your mind. This is your immediate plan A. Once you realise this then think differently and almost oppositely. If what you imagined just then wouldn't happen what else would you do at the same place and at the same time. This question shall automatically trigger your mind to plan another work which is nothing but the plan B if plan A doesn't work out.

 

Sometimes you would end up failing on both plan A and B and at such times you can execute some of your cardinal activities. Cardinal activities are those which you shall plan for yourself for your day to day upgradation. These cardinal work can occupy any time frame and can be done in any place. I will discuss more on cardinal works in another blog. Until then keep sharing your views on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
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