Reducing Risk by Outsourcing

 

 

It is a situation many companies will have experienced: Profits are rolling in; shareholders are smiling and growth and expansion are on everyone’s mind. In such times, the general feeling is that the company cannot add personnel and office space quickly enough.

But such times may not last long, and when the market softens, the realization sets in that maybe the company overestimated their real estate needs. They find themselves locked into costly, lengthy and restrictive property agreements, and with lots of idle space.

The capricious nature of today’s business climate is forcing many companies to look for ways to do more work with fewer resources in order to compete effectively.

Under the pressure of competition, companies are now looking with a tooth comb at all business functions and those which do not contribute to profitability are either outsourced or discarded.

Office outsourcing is now seen as one of the solutions to avoid long-term lease commitments that weigh heavily on the balance sheets of a number of corporations.

Global office outsourcing is emerging as a viable alternative to conventional property agreements and is gaining recognition among top executives as a way of creating a balanced portfolio of long- and short-term property commitments. Using a third-party provider enables businesses to match their real estate needs to their business needs.

The need for agility in the marketplace and the demands of constantly changing business plans have resulted in the emergence of new real estate strategies, such as flexible office space, that alleviate the problem of having large amounts of capital tied up in property portfolios.

Likewise, outsourcing office space gives organizations the necessary flexibility to relocate, expand or downsize without having to meet the stringent requirements of a long-term lease, while saving money.

After monitoring Åland market S-GROUP of supermarket chain is planning on an entry strategies to counter the dominance of K-MARKET in the Island. This will be great for the consumers as they will have a wide variety of choices to make while shopping.

Åland residents are also waiting for another outlet in the state monopolize alcohol distribution in the Island.

Onyango Okeyo

Very Interesting and Thought Provoking…………

One day all the employees reached the office and they saw a big notice on the door which read:

“Yesterday the person who has been hindering your growth in this company passed away. We invite you to join the funeral in the gym”.

In the beginning, they all were sad for the death of one of their colleagues, but after a while they started getting curious to know who was that man who hindered the growth of his colleagues and the company itself.

The excitement in the gym was such that security was ordered to control the crowd within the room.

The more people reached the coffin, the more the excitement heated up. Everyone thought

“Who is this guy who was hindering my progress? Well, at least he died!”.

One by one the thrilled employees got closer to the coffin, and when they looked inside it they suddenly become speechless.

They stood nearby the coffin, shocked and in silence, as if someone had touched the deepest part of their soul.

There was a mirror inside the coffin: everyone who inside it could see himself. There was also a sign next to the mirror that said:

“There is only one person who is capable to set limits to your growth: it is YOU.”

The Lesson…….

You are the only person who can revolutionize your life.

You are the only person who can influence your happiness, your realization and your success.

You are the only person who can help yourself.

Your life does not change when your boss changes, when your friends change, when your parents change, when your partner changes, when your company changes.

Your life changes when YOU change, when you go beyond your limiting beliefs, when you realize that you are the only one responsible for your life.

“The most important relationship you can have, is the one you have with yourself”

Examine yourself, watch yourself. Don’t be afraid of difficulties, impossibilities and losses: be a winner, build yourself and your reality.

The world is like a mirror: it gives back to anyone the reflection of the thoughts in which one has strongly believed.

The world and your reality are like mirrors laying in a coffin, which show to any individual the death of his divine capability to imagine and create his happiness and his success.

It’s the way you face life that make the difference…………..Have a nice day.

Best regards,

Onyango Okeyo

The Material Mimics,the Elastics and Russian Vodka’s Grim Toll

THE MATERIAL MIMICS THE ELASTIC qualities of rubber but with the advantage of being “sticky” when a break occurs. The substance has small molecules arranged in a network that stretch but will return to its original shape.

In hospitals, it could add durability to artificial bones. At home, it might offer us the possibility of putting our broken expensive glasses and flower vases together, and in 15 minutes, they will be as good as new.

The material’s “most tantalizing” promises, however, is it will end one of the greatest embarrassments women have endured for generations- the torn and frayed stockings.

In the very near future, women will no longer be afraid that a date will end in disgrace. Even if a sharp edge of a chair at a restaurant or the car door rips her stockings on an important night, by the time the drinks arrive, the tear would have self-repaired and disappeared.

Russia, meanwhile, according to The Guardian, has far more basic but bigger problems. The country has 13,000 villages that are not inhabited at all, and about 34,000 “ghost villages” which contain fewer than 10 people each. Here is the really bad news; almost all these people are elderly women. There are no men.

It is part of Russia’s post-communism crisis, which has seen the economic collapse of many rural areas, but one of the reasons there are no men in these villages is that they die much younger than women.

The cause of their death is cheap vodka. Rural Russian men, you might say, are effectively drinking themselves into extinction.

This is not to say that alcoholism isn’t a big problem in the cities. It is, but it presents a different set of social problems.

In Moscow, inebriated drivers, both male and female, have become such a menace to traffic officers (they are frequently assaulted), The Independent reports that Moscow’s top policeman Vladimir Pronin has come out with a radical plan to deal with the problem.

He has contacted newspapers to set up a section called “same” in which photographs and full addresses of rowdy drunkards will be published. He hopes this public humiliation will discourage many intending offenders.

Mr. Pronin might get away with that in Russian. In the USA, he drunks would sue the daylights out of him,articularly if you consider that a Florida lawyer was recently charged with assault for shaking the hand of a colleague too hard!

Onyango Okeyo

Senegelese Musician , Winter Jazz 2008

Obama Confronts Racial Division

PHILADELPHIA – Barack Obama confronted the nation’s racial divide head-on Tuesday, tackling both black grievance and white resentment in a bold effort to quiet a campaign uproar over race and his former pastor’s incendiary statements.

<SCRIPT language=’JavaScript1.1′ src=”http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N4377.yah/B2577135.16;abr=!ie;sz=300×250;dcopt=rcl;click=http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=14tv0r4k7/M=636405.12369410.12752499.1442997/D=news/S=8903521:LREC/_ylt=AkF7jvn0qEBMEx2dw_zjCx9h24cA/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1205905302/L=b7.BQUWTcurcDENhQoHBdwm_WMMmfEfgi3YADYB3/B=oiNLWkLEYuM-/J=1205898102905638/A=5159098/R=1/*;ord=1205898102905638″> </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT> <A href=”http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=14tv0r4k7/M=636405.12369410.12752499.1442997/D=news/S=8903521:LREC/_ylt=AkF7jvn0qEBMEx2dw_zjCx9h24cA/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1205905302/L=b7.BQUWTcurcDENhQoHBdwm_WMMmfEfgi3YADYB3/B=oiNLWkLEYuM-/J=1205898102905638/A=5159098/R=2/SIG=139ni27h3/*http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/N4377.yah/B2577135.16;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=300×250;ord=1205898102905638?”> <IMG src=”http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/N4377.yah/B2577135.16;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=300×250;ord=1205898102905638?” BORDER=0 WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 ALT=”Click Here”></A> </NOSCRIPT>

if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object(); window.yzq_d['oiNLWkLEYuM-']=’&U=13b99gscn%2fN%3doiNLWkLEYuM-%2fC%3d636405.12369410.12752499.1442997%2fD%3dLREC%2fB%3d515Standing before a row of eight American flags near the building where the Declaration of Independence was adopted, Obama urged the nation to break “a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years.’”

“The anger is real,” he said. “It is powerful, and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”

The speech, at the National Constitution Center, was by far the most prominent airing of racial issues in Obama’s 13-month campaign to become the first black president. It was prompted by the wider notice his former pastor’s racial statements have been receiving in the past week or so.

He said he recognized his race has been a major issue in a campaign that has taken a “particularly divisive turn.” Many people have been turning to the Internet to view statements by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who suggested in one sermon that the United States brought the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on itself and in another said blacks should damn America for continuing to mistreat them.

Obama rejected Wright’s divisive statements but still embraced the man who brought him to Christianity, officiated at his wedding, baptized his two daughters and inspired the title of his book “The Audacity of Hope.”

“I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community,” Obama said. “I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother — a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”

Obama’s father is a black Kenyan who left the family when he was 2. He was raised by his white mother and her parents in Hawaii.

Wright’s controversial statements have gotten new life as his church’s most prominent member became the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. A CBS News poll taken Sunday and Monday indicated most voters had heard at least something about Wright’s comments, and about a third said they made them feel more negative.

Obama at first tried to avoid the controversy. Then he responded Friday in a blog entry on the Huffington Post in which he said he was not in church to hear those comments and condemned them. That only increased news coverage, and Obama’s advisers said he came to them Saturday saying he wanted to deliver a major speech to address the controversy and broader problems of race in the country.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama’s chief Democratic rival, said she was glad Obama had given the speech.

“Issues of race and gender in America have been complicated throughout our history, and they are complicated in this primary campaign,” said Clinton, also campaigning in Philadelphia. “There have been detours and pitfalls along the way, but we should remember that this is a historic moment for the Democratic Party and for our country. We will be nominating the first African-American or woman for the presidency of the United States, and that is something that all Americans can and should celebrate.”

Obama’s speech also drew praise from one of his former Democratic presidential rivals who has not endorsed him or Clinton. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden called it powerful, truthful and “one of most important speeches we’ve heard in a long time”

“He told the story of America — both the good and the bad — and I believe his speech will come to represent an important step forward in race relations in our country,” Biden said.

Obama advisers said he wrote the deeply personal speech himself. They said it was delivered in Philadelphia because of the city’s historical significance, not because it is the most populous black city in Pennsylvania, site of the next primary vote on April 22.

Obama said he came to Wright’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, nearly 20 years ago because he was inspired by the pastor’s message of hope and his inspiration to rebuild the black community. He also said black anger persists over injustice in America, and whites shouldn’t be surprised that it bursts out in sermons.

“The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning,” he said.

“In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination — and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past — are real and must be addressed,” Obama said.

Obama said it’s not just blacks who are angry — some whites are, too, because they feel blacks are often given an unfair advantage through affirmative action.

“When they are told to bus their children to a school across town, when they hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed, when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time,” he said.

“If we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care or education or the need to find good jobs for every American,” Obama said, drawing a rare burst of applause in a somber address.

During an interview with ABC’s “Nightline” for broadcast Tuesday night, Obama said he always expected he’d have to give the race speech, but that he didn’t anticipate the subject would come up in the way that it did.

“This is a big leap for the country,” he said. “Even me being the nominee is a big leap and then, obviously, actually being the president is a big leap. … What I want to do is to make sure that we understand that my campaign is not premised on that, it’s not premised on making history, but that, whoever is president, this is always going to be an ongoing issue that we have to struggle with and that, perhaps, I can lend some special insight into.”

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who until Obama had been the black candidate closest to winning a major party’s presidential nomination, said video of Wright’s sermons had threatened to derail the campaign with racial fear — along with comments by Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro that Obama wouldn’t have gotten so far in the campaign if he were white.

“He made the case we’ve been here before, but not this time will we linger. This time we’re going to higher ground,” Jackson said.

___

Habari Newsletter:Thoughts to keep in Mind.

Pay no attention to what the critics say, there has never been a statue erected in honour of a critic-Jean Sebelius,Composer

Onyango Okeyo

Dreams

Dreams are a big part of our Lives
and You must do whatever it takes
to make them a Reality;
by the plans you make,
the course you take,
and the things you do.

Don’t dwell on past mistakes.
Leave yesterday behind,
along with all it’s problems,
worries and doubts.

Realize you can’t change the past,
but you can start a new tomorrow.
Don’t try to do everything at once;
take one step at a time,

Don’t ever be afraid to try the Impossible
no matter what others may think.
Remember you are Unique
in your own special way.

Don’t ever stop Dreaming!
Don’t ever stop wanting what’s right for you!

To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed.”

 Onyango Okeyo

Easter Greetings

Habari Newsletter wish our readers and bloggers  a blessed Easter Holidays.

Onyango Okeyo

Grappling with Global Terror Conundrum

The conference honoured those killed in the Madrid train bombing

The world’s anti-terrorism experts met for a conference in Stockholm this week and, as Roger Hardy, the BBC’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, found, optimism was in short supply. As the event began – at a conference centre overlooking the famous Stockholm waterfront – we stood in silent commemoration of the victims of the Madrid train bombings of 2004.

It was a sign, had we needed one, that we were gathered in the Swedish capital to discuss one of the most important and difficult issues of our time.

The participants came at the topic from every angle.

There were senior soldiers and policemen, intelligence professionals, diplomats, think-tank experts, a handful of journalists – and, on the fringes, salesmen eager to explain the latest gadgets, designed to make us feel safer in a dangerous world.

Counter insurgency

Our common concern was how do you defeat an insurgency – and the phrase invoked more than once was T E Lawrence’s dictum that it is like eating soup with a knife.

He, after all, was in a position to know, having led a much-romanticised Arab insurgency against the Turks in the First World War.

Many experts see the “ideas war” to be as important as the battlefield

Insurgencies of course are not new.

At one point, delegates trooped off to see that classic Sixties film The Battle of Algiers – the moral of which is that a Western country, however powerful (and even one that is ready to resort to torture) will fail to crush an insurgency if it faces determined popular resistance.

Now the West and its allies are trying to adapt the lessons drawn from past insurgencies to help them fight a new kind of war.

Even defining the conflict is problematic. US President George W Bush dubbed it the “war on terror”.

Others now prefer to call it a “global insurgency”. Still others think that term is not quite right either.

Ideological struggle

But whatever it is, it is posing a whole host of dilemmas for those who are fighting it.

Above all, this new war is being fought, not just on the battlefield, but in the mind.

Cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad inflamed opinions

The West and its Islamist adversaries are competing for Muslim opinion – and that means Muslim opinion in Birmingham and Jakarta, as well as Baghdad and Kabul.

So in this battle for hearts and minds, how do you protect law-abiding Muslims, while continuing to capture or kill the violent ones?

And can you be sure you can tell the difference?

One British defence expert remarked: “We’re not looking for a needle in a haystack – we’re looking for a piece of straw in a haystack.”

Everyone is having to reinvent their traditional role.

Soldiers are no longer just fighters but nation-builders.

Policemen must visit mosques and explain what they do to sceptical Muslim congregations.

Intelligence people are trying to get into the minds of an enemy they only dimly understand.

Government departments can no longer operate as “stovepipes” – the favourite jargon nowadays for agencies which do not co-operate with one another and sometimes do not even speak to one another.

It is clear there are still significant differences of approach – not least between the Americans, who tend to see terrorism as a form of war, and the Europeans, who tend to see it as a form of crime.

And, as the conference made plain, Europeans are far from being united in their perception of Muslim radicalism in Europe – and how their governments and societies should respond to it.

Pessimistic predictions

There is an abiding fear of social division.

The Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad polarised Muslim and non-Muslim opinion in Europe – and now there are fears that a film about the Koran, made by a right-wing Dutch politician, could do the same.

As for those salesmen for whom the conference was essentially a marketing opportunity, I had to confess to being technically challenged.

I never did master “predictive analytics” – and my favourite bit of gobbledy-gook was “open computer forensics architecture” – or OCFA for short.

And if, like me, you do an internet search for it, you may not end up much the wiser.

It is now widely recognised that Muslim hearts and minds matter

What struck me most, in three days of debate, was the degree of pessimism about the task at hand.

Yes, there has been a learning curve.

It is now widely recognised that Muslim hearts and minds matter and that military successes mean little if the battle of ideas is being lost.

But there is still a long way to go.

This came home to me when I spoke to an American military man who had helped produce the US Counter-Insurgency Manual.

How long did he think the “long war” – as many now call it – would last?

It is the kind of question journalists ask, and I did not expect that he would put a number on it.

But he did. “Thirty years if we get it right,” he said. “A hundred years if we get it wrong.”

Lifted from BBC

Impact of Kenya’s flawed elections on Africa

Published on March 16, 2008, 12:00 am

By Agencies

The flawed Kenyan presidential election that resulted in widespread chaos and killings has prompted the African Union to call for a review of electoral procedures in the whole continent.

At the same time, the chief negotiator of the Kenya mediation process, Prof Oluyemi Adeniji, who took over from Dr Kofi Annan, said the stretch ahead of probing what went wrong with the election would be a difficult one.

In light of post-election turmoil, the Peace and Security Council’s statement called for a thorough review of electoral practices across the continent, not just in Kenya, but in several African countries, reported Voice of America from Addis Ababa.

The council called for a continent-wide examination of electoral procedures in light of the deadly election dispute that rocked Kenya and similar poll-related violence in other countries.

Adeniji, who had travelled to Addis to update the African Union on the process of the mediation, predicted difficult times ahead as a Commission of Inquiry appointed by President Kibaki begins its investigation into the disputed December election.

After a briefing from Adeniji, the council issued a statement urging the Eminent Persons’ panel to keep up its work.

Adeniji later told reporters in Addis the council members were concerned that many heavy issues lay ahead waiting to be resolved.

“By and large, the panel continues to be mandated by the AU to follow up the process, because they do not believe signature on the agreements meant the end of the mediatory process there,” Adeniji said.

He added: “I don’t know which would be the most difficult, but definitely the issue of looking into processes that led to the election, the process that led to the announcement of the results of the election, and the culpability of some of the participants in the electoral process. It is going to be quite a demanding task.”

Adeniji said tough standards are needed to ensure the independence, and thereby the credibility of national electoral commissions in Africa.

President Kibaki appointed highly-respected Judge Johann Kriegler to head the commission. Kriegler headed South Africa’s electoral commission during its first post-apartheid elections in 1994.

Daunting task

Adeniji said it would be “daunting” to find out who was responsible for the election crisis.

“Determining the culpability of some of the participants is going to be a daunting task,” Adeniji said.

He said the AU has pledged more than US$150,000 (Sh9 million) to the mediation. He declined to say how much had been spent so far.

He said mediators would now focus on getting the parties to agree on how to address economic issues and settle land disputes.

On Tuesday, top US diplomat on Africa, Ms Jendayi Frazer, told the US Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa that her country is committing US$25 million to help peace and reconciliation in Kenya, and to help people displaced and affected by the violence to restart their lives.

On African elections, it emerged that the AU is considering a review of its Declaration of Principles Governing Democratic Elections on the continent, said an official brief issued in Addis Ababa on Friday.

Apparently, the need for the review arose from the experience gained over the past five years, indicating that election observer missions did not have ample time to make adequate assessment of the polls.

A brief presented to the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the AU on Kenya, proposed that invitations for missions of the AU to observe and monitor elections should be made at least two months ahead of the election date.

“The observer and monitoring teams usually don’t stay long enough in a country to determine how free and fair the election can be,” said Adeniji.

Meanwhile, the AU urged the Kenyan parties to remain committed to the implementation of the comprehensive reform agenda that includes land reform, constitutional, legal and institutional reform and policies to address regional inequalities and lack of opportunities. It also includes addressing negative ethnicity.

Edited by Onyango Okeyo