Education is a human right.  All of us have the right to be educated at least the primary education.  However nowadays education has become sort of a business instead of serving the people as it used to be.  There are countries where the education system is totally free and there are some other countries where you need to have money to learn.  This articles discusses how education can serve to accomplish education in a reasonable manner. 
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There are number of arguments about the best organizational models. There is no perfect business model in the world. All the models have advantages as well as disadvantages. The right business model depends on the form of your businesses. The purpose of this article is to discuss the most suitable business model with more realistic examples

None of the Asian county is neither in the happiest nor the richest list.  This opens another discussion to find out the reasons for why it has happened like that.  However this article shows the comparison of the  most Richest Vs Happiest.  Enjoy!!

Many of you know that all of these economic problems started in US economy. Therefore it is worth to find out how it has happened. This article discusses the reasons for this global financial crisis.
Today almost everybody experiences the warm of this financial crisis. It is really important to

Tourism of Sri Lanka was severely affected for last few decades due to the 30 years long terrorist problem. However with the termination of the rebels now the people have the freedom to choose their livelihood.

East costal area is one of the most beautiful beach sides and now the locals as well as foreigners have started to visit east recently.
The good news is now all most all the guest houses and hotels are full of tourists and indicates another developing era of the country and the people who suffered by the war.

Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg recently participated a conference held in UK.

“growth is primary, revenue is secondary”

The objective of the Facebook has been to attract more and more people and expand the size of its community


He further said ‘What every great internet company has done is figure out a way to make money that matches what they are doing on the site.


I don't think that social networks can be monetized in the same way that search did," But on both sites people find information valuable. I'm pretty sure that we will find an analogous business model. But we are already experimenting.


One group is very focused on targeting; another part is focused on social recommendation from your friends. In three years from now we have to figure out what the optimum model is. But that is not our primary focus today”


Facebook earns money by publishing Advertisements in its content. According to him Web searching will not be the everlasting solution to access information. He is trying to make social networking as the media to access information. Simply if his dreams come try you will browse internet not though Google but through Facebook. Good Luck

There are thousands of articles which are discussing the same topic. Here what I am trying to emphasize is just the high level picture of the whole scenario.



For a moment just forget everything and just think about America. What do you recall? Excellent foods, car racing, shopping molls, huge vehicles, clubbing, full of fun activities, families going on journeys etc.


If you look at it closely it is really a collection of costs. How do they spend such an amount of money on these things?


As you know US has a very strong economy and it has gained that stability over number of decades. Lots of manufacturing happened and as a result it has become the giant of the world economy. As a results of the stability of the financial institutions US has very low interest rates. For an example, a person would lease a house rather than spending money on it because the interest rate is very much low.


Furthermore, if you have your own house then the best option would be mortgage the property and invest the money in somewhere else. This is because the interest rate is very low and it is quite manageable if you have a reasonable job.


What people do is, they take the maximum advantage out of the law interest rates and spend money on non profit activities. It would never be a problem if you mortgage your house and put the money on the share market. What happens is, people spend money on other activities like those given above. Most of these are non profit activities and totally a waste in terms of economic perspective.

It was like a bubbling balloon and when it exposes then it is really hard to get it back. This is exactly what happened. Interest rates were low just because of the economy is stable. Ideally what should happen was people should enjoy the low interest rates and should invest the excess money either in a self business or in the shares market. What they have done was just spending money on wastes.



This is really impacted the American financial companies which re giants in the global. Once the giant collapsed no need to discuss about the rest. We all are experiencing that problem.


This is just the overview of what happened and please note that this is not the only reason for the problem. The investment approach of the people also has led to make this problem worst. We can discuss that later.

The latest news in the Sri Lankan apparel market is that it is going to lose the GSP+ tax concession for 2010. What it really does is, it increases the competitiveness of our apparel products.

As you know the cost of production is very much low in countries like China. If the whole market only concerns about the final price, yes China should rule the 90% of the total apparel market. Since this GSP concession is acting as a shield to countries like us, our competitiveness has increased.

For an example if you consider a garment company below is a summarized list of obligations it has.
1. Salaries and wages – we should not forget that labors are entitled for Over Time by law
2. Transportation of employees
3. Health insurance package
4. Should accommodate public and weekend holidays
5. Meals and other benefits
6. Security and safety

The above benefits are enforced by the law in order to make sure the security and the safety of the employees.

If you take a Chinese garment what are the costs they have other than the production cost. Its just the salary of the employees. The availability of the labor is just like nothing in China and more importantly we should not forget that they never satisfy the above measures. Human labor is extensively used at a very less price in China and therefore it has created unbeatable market price for their garments. However in the employee’s perspective it is like burning the life to survive. In order to prevent these kinds of actions EU and other developed countries who are mainly the buyers have introduced a tax concession to protect countries who are making sure the safety and the extra benefits.

It is a clear fact that these tax concessions help to develop the industry. But in the meantime the dependency also gets increased. For an example a country like Sri Lanka is highly depend on the apparel industry which is fully depend on the tax concessions. Basically what has happened is the whole economy is ruled by the tax concessions. This is not good in the long run. Yes this helps to keep the business going but the people who are in the industry should be looking forward to reduce the dependency.

What we can do to reduce the dependency with tax concessions?

Most of the apparel makers are sub contractors for popular brands like NIKE,ADDIDAS etc. Local companies also should try to establish a brand. This is not an easy task and it may require bulk of strategies. But it is worth to trying this while enjoying the tax concessions. Targeting the niche market would be really challenging but can result in enormous return.
Reducing additional costs may not be that practical as certain benefits are enforced by the law. This is a good side of the industry because in any circumstances it ensures the safety and benefits of the labor.

LSE poised to acquire Sri Lankan Technology Company

By Jeremy Grant in London

Published: September 14 2009 22:40 | Last updated: September 14 2009 22:54

The London Stock Exchange is expected to announce, possibly as early as Tuesday, the acquisition of Millennium IT, a Sri Lankan trading technology company, as the group embarks on a massive upgrade of its trading platform.

The move marks the biggest step yet taken by Xavier Rolet, chief executive, to dismantle the legacy of his predecessor Clara Furse. The exchange’s existing TradElect trading system was upgraded two years ago at a cost of £40m ($66m)

I recieved the following news and thought of sharing this with those who interested.

LavaSoft, one of the world’s leading anti-spyware organisations, has selected Sri Lanka as the destination to outsource its software development. LavaSoft was looking out for the ideal location in a South Asian region country with high skills and an ethical workforce that was able to deliver high quality software services.

Based in Gothenberg , Sweden , LavaSoft is the world’s first Anti Spyware organisation, which commenced operations in Germany in 1999 before moving to Sweden in 2002. In keeping with their corporate mission statement to “deliver high quality security software solutions that protect individual computer users”, LavaSoft, from their very first commercial application onwards has evolved to represent a vast range of internationally reputed, quality Anti-Spyware products, and has grown to become the global pioneer in this arena. Having won countless awards and high recognition, LavaSoft currently has over 4,000 partners in 120 countries. With over 350 million Ad-Aware downloads which have made it the largest marketing base in the global software security industry, LavaSoft continues to be the world-leader in the field of Anti-Spyware today.

LavaSoft executives were directed to this region by the Swedish Trade Council. After a study tour to Sri Lanka and filtering through eight local software outsourcing companies operating in Colombo, Lavasoft made its decision after analysing the competence, quality and delivery track record by the prospective outsourcing partners. Having selected Eurocenter DDC as their partnering company in Sri Lanka , LavaSoft commenced this exclusive partnership for outsourced execution with the local software engineering company.

“We were very impressed by the efficiency, competence and world class professionalism with which Eurocenter handled our initial pilot project” said Cliff Everingham, CTO of LavaSoft. He added “It was nice to meet a company in Sri Lanka which had the skill-set, hands-on experience and the capacity to deliver beyond our expectations, which is exactly what we were seeking. With a fast project turnaround timeframe and high level of competency we are now more than assured that we found the ideal company to work with in Eurocenter DDC”.

How to you define a size of a business?

  By the revenue, capital  and the workforce

  Technology reinvestment and expansion also reflect the size of the firm

Categories of Economic and business activities

Above mentioned are the basic economic activities in the economy.  Mainly the primary activities are more common in the developing countries.  This does not mean that developed countries do not have these activities but the dependency is very much lower.  If you consider a developing country, most of the times it should be more relying\depending on the Primary activities.   This is not the case when it comes to developed countries where they mainly depend on the secondary and tertiary activities, which generate more revenue and income to the country. 

Recession Vs Developed countries

As mentioned above most of the developed countries depend on secondary and tertiary activities which are mainly focusing on adding values to the customers.  If a financial company was bankrupted that will create a huge impact on the total economy as the dependency is high.  This is exactly what happened to America where all these problems started.  There were severe issues related to banks and that led to collapse some financial companies.  It created a huge impact not only on the US economy but also in the world economy.  

Recession Vs Developing Countries 

I would say the immediate impact of the recession is lower in developing countries.  Developing world mainly depends on primary economic activities and therefore it mainly deals with the producer and the nature.  If you take a traditional farmer, this recession did not make any problem for him.  The fact is that people do these primary economic activities not just to sell but to consume as well.  Therefore the impact is very much less compared to the developed country.  In addition their life styles are not directly aligned with financial aspects as banking, insurance.  Basically what they do it produce, consume and just selling the excess.  

How does recession impact on developing counties then?

As I mentioned above the immediate affect is very much less.  Lets say a bank is collapsed, most of the producers will not experience the immediate effect as the dependency is less.

However there is another fact in the developing world countries.  All most all the essential goods and services are subsidized by the government.  It is a fact that the traditional farmer does not experience the immediate effect of this global economic crisis because there is no direct dependency.  Its just a relationship between the effort put in the land.  However we should not forget that the fertilizers that are bought by the famer, the fuel that is pumped to transport their excess, are highly subsidized by the government.  Usually fertilizer, fuel and other essential food items are imported and coming from the global market where we have this entire economic crisis.  Therefore price fluctuations and all other problems are associated.   The reason why the farmer does not experience that is because the government absorbs that and maintains the stability of the price.  This strategy burns the economy of the country and therefore the government might have to go for additional funding which are mainly the loans or simply printing money.  This works only in the short run and as you can notice developing countries are experiencing just the gloom of the storm.

What should developing countries do?

Its time for you to comment on this.  What do you really think about this?

Below is a section of my Final Year Dissertion.  I copied this from a draft report and looking forward to discuss this topic futher.   
Study was conducted based on two key aspects and the following section would explain how the study addressed those two aspects that are the lack of information availability and the lack of financial proficiency.
2.1.1 Lack of availability of effective information
As mention in the introduction there few parties involving in the whole industry namely,

Since there are approximate five parties operating in the environment the study was design to obtain information on their services and activities towards to the MSME industry. Therefore in order to develop integration system for MSMEs and other bodies there should be a thorough awareness on what are available and what are needed for the end users that are the MSME businesses. Thus few site visits were organized in order to obtain first hand information of the industry.



Here are the companies and institutions visited in order to obtain such information.

Following are the visited organisations.

In the study some basic questioned were raised that were what do you have for SMEs and from the MSMEs what do you want from such supporting organizations.

In the Study some key aspects ware traced out that might lead to amplify the breach of these two sectors namely MSMEs and all other supporting bodies.



Those aspects from supporting body’s perspectives:
• Those governmental organizations have produced valuable information and other facilities for the industry and however most of the entrepreneurs are not aware of that due to the ineffective communication.




o Eg. Sri Lanka has the South Asia’s best ornamental fish manufacturing training centre and very few have obtained its services.



o Eg. Mushroom Training Centre offers comprehensive assistance for small scale businesses and however very few have made it fruitful.



• Supporting Agencies like Vidatha Centre have skilled and resource persons. However the information sources available for them would not lead to provide an effective service. There should be a better mechanism to make them thorough on the industry requirements.



• Financial Institutions have offered so many attractive business loan packages and still most of the MSMEs were not able to obtain such financial assistance. According t the bank due to the lack of planning and costing proficiency most of the business plan are usually rejected.



o When providing a bank loan the applicant must plan the payback procedure in order to make the bank convinced



o Since most of the applicants fail in satisfying such requirements and that would limit their scale in the long run.



• There are number of Non Governmental Organizations are operating in the industry in order to assist small scale businesses and they are pumping millions of money for such operations. However still most of the projects have not been as the industry is redundant.



o Trade fairs are one of the prime opportunities to hunt a potential business partner and however most of the local enterprises do not prefer to participate for such endeavors.



o In addition due to the lack of the proficiency in the internet technology most of the business opportunities are redundant as nobody is striving for it. Today internet has become the source of the business opportunities and unfortunately the use of such technology is still not as required in the local industry. Therefore Sri Lankan MSMEs always rest far behind the other MSMEs in the region.



• There are number of chamber operating in Sri Lanka and they organize training programs, workshops, exhibitions and trade fares. However according to their statistics very few have drew growing opportunities by participating for such programs.



o Chambers are known as umbrellas of the private sector and they usually organize lots of training and workshops. The participation of the local MSMEs are not sufficient to make a considerable difference in the industry.



• Local MSME often fail to derive their specific needs and therefore most of the times they would not be able to acquire the information they need.



Those aspects from MSME’s perspectives:




• The study was designed to participate to a training session organized for MSMEs in the Mushroom Development Centre in Ratmalana. During that session the study concentrated on the effective out come of the session. Even though session covered the technical knowledge it did not provide the business knowledge to carry on the business.



• Even though there are number of services available for the industry most of them are located in a centralized manner.



o Eg. There is no Ornamental Fish Training or any other related institute in Hambantota though that area contributes to the national ornamental fish production in a great manner.



• According to their examinations, they have found difficulty to obtain specific information regarding the business. Most of the governmental institutions have provided general information and that would have not led to make en effective impact in the industry. If a person needs to know about the particular subject he/she might find very difficult to obtain useful information that are directly addressing the subject.



• Most of the businessmen need to know about the potential market opportunities and most of the time governmental institutions do not provide that kind of information or service.



o Information available in the Vidatha Centre is not sufficient to make an effective impact on the industry as most of them are either out dated or less effective information.



o The efficiency of the governmental organizations have become a bottleneck for the industry



 Eg to register a proprietorship or a partnership a MSME will have wait at least half a month as it requires lots of documentations.



 Eg to register a limited liability company the average duration is at least one month in Sri Lanka where it is just one day in Singapore.



• In addition since there are number of governmental bodies for the same industry category people have found some difficulty to find out the exact location to browse the information.



• Even though the supporting entities have websites, more often there is no useful information.



• Even though banks are offering attractive business loans MSMEs have found very difficult to trace out their costing needs and other financial applications as expected by the banks. Therefore obviously most of them failed in applying financial loans.



As expressed above the fundamental problem is not the sources of information but the availability of information. Therefore that matter should addressed in the system in order to increase the availability of information even for those who are doing businesses out site the developed areas.



As addressed above the availability of the data is a key problem in the industry and more importantly that information should be in a categorized manner. Therefore the study further approached to develop a hierarchy for the MSME sector and that hierarchy is given below.



Finally it can be finalized that the main deficient section in the whole industry is the hub that enables to integrate the information sources and people those who require such information.


2.1.2 Lack of Proficiency in financial applications.




Basically better financial practices support MSME to experience high profit in the long run due to the better forecasting techniques and cost reductions. One of the main weakness of the local MSME is that they have ignored this long term benefits and that will result in diluting the company performances in the long run. This is one of the main reasons for the short life time of the MSME businesses. Every day number of new ventures started where many of them withdraw from the market within short time.



When it comes to the financial needs it is not only the money but the management of the costs and incomes. Therefore basically there are key areas that should be undertaken by a prospective venture in order to experience long term benefits.



Key financial areas to consider:



• Deriving a business idea into practice



• Developing a Business Plan for a new business or for an expansion of the business



• Maintain standard financial modules like Profit and loss account and the balance sheet



• Maintain days to day costs and records of other expenses (book-keeping).






To be Continued

How many options do you need to success in a web application? I would say even with single text box you can be a billionaire.  The classic example is GOOGLE.  One of the most profit earning companies in the world and started with a Text Box and two buttons.  Its amazing to know the way Google earns money.  In fact most of you should have the same question.  

If you go back to 2005 Google just able to made $6 billion with the net income of $1.5.  They were never in the list of most profit earning companies in the world.  

Do you know the current wealth of Google? its $110 billion....how did Google earned that much of money from such a short time?  The simple answer would be effective advertising.

Well, Google makes most of its money through the sale of ads. In fact, of the company's $6.2

Billion in revenue in 2005, over $6 billion is from the ads.

 However there is another fact that we need to consider that is the share price of the Google.  Google went public and by that time their share price was $80-100.  Now it has increased to $350.  Just imagine how much they have earned by just selling its shares. 

Of course share price increased not just because its Google.  Their advertising strategy also accelerates their performance in the market.  Now lets do dome mathematics and see how much of money does Google earn? 

Cost Per Click = 25cents

Google gets 24 billion ad clicks and that means 60million per day just from paid advertisements.   Just imagine how much of money do they earn per day?

Below are some of the ways how Google earns money

1. Charge advertisers for presenting online "banner" ads to users

2. Collect marketing data on consumer habits, then selling the data or using it for targeted advertising.

3. Charging websites to become listed

4. Charging websites for better placement in lists

5. Charging websites to purchase keywords for themselves

6. Charging users for searches

7. Charging other search engines to use their catalog

Up to now we have discussed how Google earns money from its own web surfing.  There is another major cash cow which is the Google AdSense program.

 “AdSense” allows individual webmasters and site owners to place Google ads on their sites and earn a percentage on every click. From these types of ads there are reports that site owners have earned more than $1 million per year on Google ad clicks.

In addition to this Google also has partnerships with other large sites such as AOL which also display Google ads and take a percentage of every click.

But in every case where Google ads appear on other sites, you can pretty much be guaranteed that Google feeds its accounts.  The good side of it is Google always optimizes its services and does invest money on research and development.   

Hundred years ago little Smith goes to the School for his studies. Teacher comes to the classroom and writes something in the backboard and finishes the class.

If little Smith had to come to modern class will he notice a difference? The answer is NOOO.

Smith will notice the development of the infrastructure, technology and etc but still he will feel almost the same inside the classroom.

The above example shows how strong the education structure is. Human being is so much used to ordinary classroom structure and however nowadays people have started to obtain the assistance from the technology in order to make education easy. However I would say still the education is more powerful inside the classroom as still technology is unable to simulate the face to face human interaction which is more important in the education.

The pupose of this article is to go through an overview of the Sri Lanka economy with the current recession factor. I have refered the www.wsws.org to get more infomration and following article was extracted.

Latest reports on the Sri Lankan economy for 1998 and forecasts for 1999 indicate the impact of world recessionary tendencies on the country's economy. Economic analysts and some businessmen predict low economic growth, a further decline in exports and shutdown of some manufacturing sectors.



In a review of the economy published in early March by a leading brokerage firm in Sri Lanka, John Keels, it is reported that though there was 13 percent export growth in 1997, this dropped to 2.1 percent in 1998. The same review predicts: "The global slowdown, following the Asian and Russian crises, will continue to affect Sri Lanka's exports in 1999." The firm's estimate is that the growth of exports in 1999 will amount to an insignificant 0.5 percent.

Tea--which is Sri Lanka's main agricultural export, accounting for 70 percent--has taken a severe beating as a result of the Russian economic collapse and the continued crisis in the Persian Gulf. US-imposed sanctions against Iraq have resulted in a total loss of that market for tea since 1991. The People's Alliance government's attempt to work out a deal on the issue under the United Nation's "oil for food" program also failed due to continuing tensions in the region. Iraq had been one of the largest importers of tea from Sri Lanka.


Previously, more than 20 percent of Sri Lanka's tea exports went to Russia. The share of tea exports to Russia fell from 23 percent in 1997 to 18.6 percent in 1998, due to the collapse of the rouble. Tea prices on the world market dropped by 30 percent in 1998, and total tea export revenue growth declined to 7.8 percent from the 1997 level of 16.73 percent. The John Keels review predicts that these revenues will decline an additional 5 percent in 1999. Last month, the private tea factory owners association announced that they will be compelled to close down factories because of the loss of revenue due to low prices.


Sri Lanka faces sharp competition from Malaysian and Indonesian rubber and rubber products as their prices have dropped sharply due to currency devaluation since mid-1997. According to the Export Development Board, Sri Lankan revenue from rubber declined by 24.08 percent in 1997 and 45.33 percent in 1998, creating a grave crisis in the rubber plantation industry. Coconut export revenue also dropped by 20.98 percent in 1998.


A major crisis has developed in the textile industry as well. "Cheap fabrics from South East Asian countries have flooded the local market, aggravating the debt crisis in the textile industry, and have started to wipe out the industry," lamented Y.A. Gnanam, chairman of the Textile Manufacturers Association. Total duty waivers for the import of fabrics, adopted in the 1999 budget, have added to this crisis. The government had taken this step in the name of market "liberalisation". Now the Textile Manufacturers Association has demanded that the government take over the industry's debts and pay three months salary compensation to the retrenched workers. "If not," the association says, "the government must give full protection and concessions to the industry." The government--pressured by the IMF's liberalisation policies--is not prepared to protect the ailing industry. The jobs of 30,000 textile workers are endangered by this crisis. Last year 5,000 jobs were wiped out in two mills privatised by the former UNP regime.


The garment industry has expanded since the opening of the economy to foreign capital in 1977. This was touted as a success story by the UNP and PA regimes over the past two decades. The industry became the main source of foreign exchange, accounting for nearly 50 percent of industrial exports. In 1997 garment exports declined to 21 percent, in dollar terms. By 1998 they fell to 7 percent, resulting in the closure of several factories. Sri Lanka's main market for garment exports is the United States. However, according to the Minister of Industries of the PA government, Mexico and Caribbean countries are now making inroads into the US market.


The fall-off of external trade has begun to affect the banking system as well. Last year Sri Lanka's export and import trade growths were a meagre 2.1 percent and 2 percent respectively. Banking interests have expressed concern over the effect of the Russian crisis on tea plantations. Russian tea importers are taking discounts according to rouble devaluation, and "payment of bills already held is likely to prove difficult," according to the research unit of the Sri Lanka branch of the Indo-Suez Bank. The Central Bank estimates that US$19 million is tied up in the local banking system as a result of Russian crisis. Meanwhile, the World Bank is pressing for privatisation of the state-owned banks and insurance corporations.


The Sri Lankan ruling class is making a desperate attempt to develop the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) as a platform to attract foreign investment. But the Southeast Asian crisis, sanctions imposed on India and Pakistan following the nuclear tests and other convulsions in financial markets throughout the world have badly affected the CSE. The all-share price index of the CSE was 702.2 at the end of 1997, and it had slipped to 575.64 by the end of 1998. According to estimates, the foreign component of CSE transactions fell from 60 percent to 40 percent in 1998.


In the wake of this developing crisis, economic growth slowed to 4.7 percent in 1998 and is expected to decline to 4 percent this year. These recessionary tendencies are now being translated into attacks on jobs, working conditions and living standards.

In response to the developing economic crisis in Southeast Asia, developing since mid-1997, Chandrika Kumaratunga's People's Alliance government said that her regime could avert its impact by following "prudent economic policies". But developments have shown that it is impossible for any country to insulate itself from the effects of economic globalisation. The competition amongst transnational corporations for markets and profits has produced an over-capacity of production and deflationary tendencies. The rapid movement of productive capital and speculative capital seeking profitable markets is creating an even more volatile economic situation.

NOTE: the article was sourced from here. Many Thanks for the information.