Beauty of Social Entrepreneurship

I reviewed lot of Indian startups which grew over past 3 years ,I observed that in spite of awareness of entrepreneurship in India,almost all well funded start ups focused on high tech ,Internet space or service domain.
When it come to social entrepreneurship there are very few to name.What I see is the lack of awareness about social entrepreneurship. Another challenge in this domain can be to convince the Angel investors or Venture Capitalists,who understand the financial projections,break even time and ROI thereafter. This post is an insight to the beauty of Social Entrepreneurship. According to Wiki, “a social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of the impact s/he has on society. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many work in the private and governmental sectors”. With this definition in mind, our professional and personal contribution to social entrepreneurial initiatives can be extremely fulfilling both professionally and personally. It’s an old saying -a focus on concerns bigger than yourself and your individual concerns will be taken care of in the background at levels much higher than if you focused primarily on your individual concerns. A biblical reference is “give and it will be given back to you pressed down and running over”.
Of course, in this case, giving come in form of professional contribution not monetary. The beauty of social entrepreneurship as opposed to what may be considered a traditional non-profit is the fact that social entrepreneurs deploy innovative entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. So, in addition to providing for the social good, the solutions are normally innovative and far-reaching thus providing social entrepreneurs with many follow-on private sector venture opportunities after the social entrepreneurial project is finished. This is why, as you contribute professionally to social entrepreneurial initiatives, you can tap into this innovation or innovative professional setting and address your personal and professional concerns many time over. Benefits come in several forms starting with how you can advance your socialization, professional and personal development skills. For example, social entrepreneurial initiatives often require you to interact and collaborate outside of a traditional corporate work environment or a traditional business development environment. This creates immediate opportunities for social, professional and personal growth. Think about it. Most people only interact professionally under the roof of a traditional company or employer and under the direction of a boss. What happens when you interact outside of these traditional confines? You learn, grow, expand your thinking, develop new socialization and professional skills sets and, most of all, help drive the development of new technology innovations and applications . Another benefit comes from the fact that you position yourself to benefit from the global economy. Although many organizations and businesses focus on being the lowest cost producer, innovation is really the key to prospering long term in a global economy and, as noted above, social entrepreneurial initiative drive the development of new innovations and applications. However, innovation is not necessarily linked to producing the next high tech gadget. “The killer apps of tomorrow will not be hardware or software, but social practices.” “To make a real difference, ultimately, technologies must transcend gadgetry and become part of social fabric” -a quote from Business Week. With this quote in mind, today’s social entrepreneurial initiatives underwrite the very essence of weaving the benefit of technology into the social fabric of society or targeted groups of society. The bottom line: you win by either originating social entrepreneurial initiatives or contributing professionally (part time, spare time, etc) to initiatives put forth by other entrepreneurs. Some initiatives are large scale or global in scope and some are local. It’s very easy to do a Google search under the search term social entrepreneurship or social innovation to research both global and local initiatives.Ofcouse one can identify a niche of ideas and give it a shape in this vertical -'Social Entrepreneurship'

All about Chargeback

With the growing number of credit card usage number of fraudlent transactions have increased considerably.Recenly one of my CC statement reflected 2 unbilled transaction of $200 (approx 10000 INR) from some XYZ merchant.I scrached my head to figure out the item which I might have purchased of this value ,but nothing came up in my mind.I knew it was a fradulent transaction.So I decided to go with chargeback.I believe 70% of people using credit card in India is not aware of the chargeback policy.This post is intented to educate those 70% of the credit card customers and merchants on chargeback concept.

A chargeback is the process followed by a credit card issuer that reverses a charge and credits the account holder that amount. This is ultimately a protection offered to credit card holders that is often seen as a benefit or perk to paying with a credit card versus cash.

Through the chargeback process, the merchant that originally sent the charge through refunds the money if a reason for the refund is substantiated. A few of the scenarios that might require the chargeback process to be put to work include disputes over the products received (or lack thereof), errors in the amount charged, and charges that are fraudulent or deceptive.

So how does the chargeback process work?

1. If a cardholder has reason to believe that a charge should be revered, they must call the credit card issuer and explain the situation or contact them online by logging into the account center and filling out the appropriate form.

2. Usually, the credit card issuer will advise you to call the merchant first to have them reverse the charges and try to resolve the issue through that means. Other times, they'll take immediate action on your behalf.

3. When the merchant refuses to take action or reverse the charges directly, the credit card company will begin their own investigation into the matter and try to determine whether the charges should be considered legit or not from the standpoint of the cardholder.

4. If the charges are deemed incorrect or fraudulent, the credit card company will post a temporary credit to your account and then request to have the merchant's card processing bank refund the charges as necessary.

5. At this point, the merchant's bank will usually review the matters themselves to make sure the reasons are legit.

6. If they determine that the merchant's charge is indeed incorrect or fraudulent, they'll go ahead and refund the charge and the matter will be considered complete and final.

There is quite a bit of back and forth throughout the procedures and the chargeback process can end up taking quite a bit of time. Practicing patience is really the only option. While it is only right that both parties to the transaction get a fair chance at trying to resolve the matter and having their say, it's also good to know that most credit card issuers will go to bat for their cardholders when such a situation does arise from time to time.

Impact of Global Economic Slowdown:An Overview

I am not an economist just a common man who is brainstorming every fortnight to identify possible root causes and figure out potential solutions for the economic slowdown.I decided to gather economic data, compile information and find intelligence with these.The financial crisis that is occurring across the globe has led to the global collapse of stock exchanges, property sales, financial markets and industrial development. Several organizations have lost their money and have closed their business organizations leading to massive job loss for individuals. Well-qualified and experienced people with excellent education and respectable backgrounds who had secure occupations have lost their jobs within a few months leading to turmoil on the country’s economy.

Apart from the global recession, negative factors like elections, declining demand for housing, higher interest rates for mortgages, worsening inflation, crackdown on industries and moderate generation of electricity have forced closure or cutting down on staff strength of several organizations especially in the automobile, Information Technology and housing sector. “Survival of the fittest” is the recent trend of existing manufacturers to beat global bankruptcy and economical crisis. Revising business strategies and improving one’s portfolio is the need of the hour. It was an extraordinary and shocking revelation to comprehend that Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG and Bear Stearns, some of the greatest finance companies, just collapsed due to the credit crunch.
The impact of the global economical crisis affecting numerous countries is still difficult to predict though the government has intervened to prevent businesses from financial breakdown and many are now focusing on debt management. Banks have reduced their interest rates on loans and provide liquidity by conferring loans on financially starved companies thereby containing bankruptcy there is also the option of consolidating your debts to make life easier.

Now the question is: US Recession Inevitable?

So, is recession inevitable? Well, if the definition of a recession includes "no longer being able to spend more money than one makes," or collectively changing expectations about wealth and the common good, then the answer is yes. If we continue on a path of breakneck consumerism, we will trade our economic security. No one is going to complain that Americans will always spend. After all, as a market of last resort, the US consumer has, time and time again, been able to keep the growing world economy robust and secure. But if these attitudes don't change, a recession will be the least of America's worries.

As the sub-prime mortgage scandal continues to play out badly for many US companies, more and more questions have been raised as to whether the impact of a slowdown in one area will translate into a nationwide, or even global, recession. Growth prospects within the US are limited for this year by the unprecedented scale of bad securities that have become investments for many companies around the world, exposing them to grave losses and destroying investor confidence.

According to polls, more and more Americans are becoming wise to the potential crises and have shored up spending, in turn triggering further softening of retail markets. One cause of this problem with American consumer spending, the practically guaranteed market for many goods even in tough financial times, is that the borrowing people must first default on their mortgages before the securities (that their loans have been repackages and distributed) can truly become worthless. The speculation (or realization) that they will be unable to pay off their loans has led to the economic slowdown of the past several months, even though mortgage defaults have barely hiccuped in the same period. Nevertheless, the certainty of two million or more foreclosures over the next year cannot translate into hefty consumer spending, because so many consumers will be unable to make ends meet and many more will be on the verge. While a plan has been introduced by the Bush administration to freeze mortgage loans for an unspecified number of borrowers, no reference to the specific criteria used to decide who is eligible has yet been made. Thus the underlying cause of this shifty-eyed economic malaise is in no way addressed. Now the President has stated that the economy at large runs a great risk of recession without his impending stimulus package.

Unfortunately, no one who can't pay for their house will be able to pay any taxes or credit card bills (which famously outpaced the median income this year), or for other things that cost money. A tax cut may be able to stem the defaults for a little while if implemented quickly, but if the Federal Reserve (the other institution that can help steer the economy) is any example, lip service and hawkish reticence is likely all the average American can expect. As job creation slowed to terrifyingly low numbers in November, (a paltry 18,000 new occupations) the US government finally issued a statement that growth cannot be expected to surpass 2% this year. Before it even started.

Why a management program is essential for Entrepreneurs:A breif SOP

Entrepreneurship is a new religion; some are blind followers, while some have the steam to write the rules of this faith. Entrepreneurship involves many things. Innovative ideas do not always suffice to build the base of a venture. The right idea may become the influence, the inspiration for setting up a business, but its implementation requires many different efforts. Resourcefulness in terms of man power, brain power, financial power, and a proper business plan which could actually work to yield profits are indispensable. For this, one requires to walk that extra mile. One has to know how to manage resources, both material and human. It starts with idea generation, plan of execution, integration of essential elements, and finally implementation. You have an idea, and you want to make it big. First, you need to convert your idea into a product, and then you need to know about all the fundamental methods of marketing my product, and finally about making my product reach global market. You would need to know how to work, and make others work, through team building, towards a common goal; to make your dream, their dream. For achieving this, you need to inculcate all the soft skills a management program has the potential to provide you with. You have the passion in you, which you wish to harness with the managerial skills and marketing concepts. You wish to learn the skills yourself, because it is only you who understands your product the best. So together with the skill set you will learn through a management program you could able to project your product better than anybody else. You should have a heart of an entrepreneur, and brains of an innovator. You would like to join a management program to give yourself the opportunity to know the pedagogic principles that hold the basis of entrepreneurship and their different forms of application in the real world, and to interact with like minded future entrepreneurs. A management program would provide you the opportunity to get the exposure to the business worlds and international markets.