Despite lavish-sounding marketing gush from franchises who want to attract new franchisees, there is no guarantee that you will turn a profit at all, let alone run your business from a laptop in the Bahamas as you soak up the sun. Some franchises are genuinely great propositions (if you run them well), and others look good on paper but are minefields in reality. An aspiring franchisee’s mind should be buzzing with questions.
It’s understandable for a Westerner to assume that Chinese is terrifyingly difficult to learn. With its impenetrable written characters and unfamiliar sounds, at first sight it can seem like a complex machine that only highly skilled experts are capable of understanding and using.
But when you take a little time to scratch the surface and pick up its principles one step at a time, not only is it quite similar to English but also refreshingly logical and simple. For example, here is an introduction to Chinese characters from the British Council:
Blockchain is one of the most disruptive technologies to impact business in recent years. Its significance is such that understanding its ramifications is an interdisciplinary subject spanning technology, business, law and education. Its applications extend far beyond the cryptocurrency applications – Bitcoin, Ethereum and others – for which it is best known. Blockchain’s ability to generate a distributed ledger of events and transactions that cannot be retrospectively altered makes it ideal for academic records, for example.
Dissatisfied with your job or can’t find one that fits you? Then create your own! Starting a business isn’t easy, but the self-empowerment of taking the initiative is incalculable. Creating your own company is one of the most concrete ways of turning dreams into reality. Not only will it generate cash for your own pocket, but if the business grows it will provide livelihoods to others who work for you – that is until they start their own companies, for which of course you will have been the inspiration (keep telling your ego that).
Football (soccer) is an industry like many others. But its pull is exceptionally strong for young people. Many years before they hear the call of operations management or get their heads round freight forwarding, they kick a ball around and fantasise about scoring at Wembley. This simple passion creates a funnel of eager souls wanting to get into the football industry.
Companies in the United States need to know business law in order to sustain and grow their operations without falling foul of the system. With areas from bankruptcy to information privacy, business law finds its way into almost everything firms and their employees do. It defines the responsibilities of directors and company officers, the rules of partnerships and limited liability companies, securities regulation, intellectual property, corporate finance and a great deal else.
What did the Romans ever do for us? Well, they gave us roads, sanitation, a legal system, and lots of cool gadgets. The Greeks weren’t half bad either. Some of the great engineering feats of history were accomplished two millennia or so before our own era, which we tend rather arrogantly to consider the pinnacle of technology.
The Open College in the UK is offering a course in Dog Psychology. Upon completion you will have earned the right to have after your name the designatory letters Dip.Dog.Psy and will be awarded with a Diploma Certificate bearing the title.
It’s a cruel fact that the world’s call centres and fast food restaurants are full of workers who have an arts degree but don’t know how to capitalise on it. World famous Central Saint Martins arts and design college aims to change this. It doesn’t just train people to be arty and then release them into the wild to fend for themselves – it also offers a trio of courses in business skills aimed at helping students live their dream and make a living from it.
Despite globalization, each country and region has its own business systems and culture. From one country to another there can be dramatic differences in how people view authority, how much personal responsibility they take for their companies’ fortunes, and how organisations are structured. Finance and accounting methods vary widely. HR practices are by no means homogeneous around the globe. So executives working in global business need to be made aware of these regional differences and develop the ability to function effectively within them and transition smoothly between them.
Bletchley Park, a suburb of Milton Keynes in England, was central to World War Two intelligence efforts. Scientists including Alan Turing designed the first ever electric programmable computer there (Colossus) and used it to crack the Nazi’s Enigma Code. Bletchley Park is synonymous with British codebreaking and also now houses the National Museum of Computing.
