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IntroductionAs the economy grows slowly at home, your business may have to look at selling internationally to remain profitable. Before examining foreign markets, you have to be aware of the major trends in international business so you can take advantage of those that might favor your company. International markets are evolving rapidly, and you can take advantage of the changing environment to create a niche for your company.From a technical perspective, trends involve looking at the statistical analysis of historical data over a selected time frame and charting the progression. If the data suggests consistent increases, decreases or even constancy or flatness, there exists a trend. Businesses of all sizes use this kind of data to help predict the future or help shape strategic decisions.The trends businesses are usually most concerned with are those related to their finances. Measuring increases and decreases in revenues, expenses, margins and profits are the lifeblood of businesses. Examining a company's financial trend can help owners, managers and investors become aware of the company's situation and needs as it plans for the future.These trends may also relate to the performance of market indicators. If other companies in a particular market sector are performing better or worse, it may be an indicator of how a private business in the same field may fare.From a less scientific perspective, trends can represent the direction an industry or line of business is taking. In this sense, a trend might be accountants saving money by moving to paperless billing, dentists using electronic diagnostic instruments, or an increase in the number of frozen yogurt shops opening in a particular city. These trends have factual basis but are macro level and related to the business environment as a whole.Shareholder Value As A Strategy?Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy

Jack Welch, who is widely regarded as the father of the shareholders value movement, has said that,

The idea that shareholder value is a strategy is insane. It is the product of your combined efforts from the management to the employees.

Maximizing shareholder wealth has always been way down the list. Yes, profit is a cornerstone of what we do. It is a measure of our contribution and a mean of self-financed growth but it has never been the point in and of itself. The point, in fact, is to win, and winning is judged in the eyes of the customer and by doing something you can be proud of. If we provide real satisfaction to real customers we will be profitable.According to Robert W. Johnson, Jr.Service to customers comes first, service to employees comes second, service to management comes third, service to the communities comes fourth and service to stockholders comes last.He added that,

When these things have been done, the stockholders should receive a fair return.

IT AS A UTILITY The cloud

Transformation of IT into utility services will be largely guided by enterprises wanting to variabilize their infrastructure costs, and extending the power of IT into the hands of its users. Variabilization will help enterprises ride out a business downturn without being weighed down by too many fixed costs, whereas in a buoyant market, they will obtain much higher profit margins compared to firms that have high fixed costs. By metamorphosing the fixed costs into operating expenses, variabilization increases a firm's competitiveness, cost efficiency and business agility.

Big data will continue to impact both the IT provider and the small business, if not managed and understood appropriately. In 2015, virtualization storage will be key in evaluating and sorting big data, allowing businesses to save time and money in the long haul.

Cloud software has already enabled teams to collaborate together even if theyre working on two different continents. This is especially true for marketing and creative teams, who need access to different assets and workflows to complete projects.

THE CUSTOMER CHORUSBrought to you by social networking

Through a range of technical and social developments, customers voices grew louder (whether collectively in ratings systems like Amazons, or individually through viral kvetches like Dave Carrolls United Breaks Guitars) and companies found ways to listen. Its a true megatrend: the steps along the way have felt gradual and natural, but collectively they change everything.

The growth of social media as a platform for connection is causing more and more people to get their recommendations from others online. Businesses that have a significant online presence will be in the forefront of the new referral and relationship marketing systems.

Executives are getting more sophisticated and realize that unless their corporate social media plan is formulaic with clear, set goals, metrics and tools to provide those metrics, they're paying top dollar for employees to spend time on online efforts that have questionable value.

Enterprise risk managementNone too soon

Enterprise risk management (ERM) is the process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the activities of an organization in order to minimize the effects of risk on an organization's capital and earnings. Enterprise risk management expands the process to include not just risks associated with accidental losses, but also financial, strategic, operational, and other risks.

In recent years, external factors have fueled a heightened interest by organizations in ERM. Industry and government regulatory bodies, as well as investors, have begun to scrutinize companies' risk-management policies and procedures. In an increasing number of industries, boards of directors are required to review and report on the adequacy of risk-management processes in the organizations they administer.The Top 5 Risks for 2015 Regulatory changes and heightened regulatory scrutiny may affect the manner in which our products or services will be produced or delivered. Economic conditions in markets we currently serve may significantly restrict growth opportunities for our organization. Our organization may not be sufficiently prepared to manage cyber threats that have the potential to significantly disrupt our core operations and/or damage our brand. Our organizations succession challenges and ability to attract and retain top talent may limit our ability to achieve operational targets. Our organizations culture may not sufficiently encourage the timely identification and escalation of risk issues that have the potential to significantly affect our core operations and achievement of strategic objectives.

The creative organizationInnovation matters

The heart and soul of the company is creativity and innovation.(Bob Iger)Innovation generally refers to changing or creating more effective processes, products and ideas, and can increase the likelihood of a business succeeding. Businesses that innovate create more efficient work processes and have better productivity and performance.

For businesses, this could mean implementing new ideas, creating dynamic products or improving your existing services. Innovation can be a catalyst for the growth and success of your business, and help you adapt and grow in the marketplace.

Being innovative does not mean inventing; innovation can mean changing your business model and adapting to changes in your environment to deliver better products or services. Successful innovation should be an in-built part of your business strategy, where you create a culture of innovation and lead the way in innovative thinking and creative problem solving. Businesses that innovate create more efficient work processes and have better productivity and performance.The World's Most Innovative Companies 20141. Google2. Bloomberg Philanthropies3. Xiaomi4. Dropbox5. Netflix

Open sourceCommunity resources beyond software

Open source is mainstream in so many business processes now. Open source delivers software freedom. Freedom to innovate, integrate and extend. Freedom to choose your provider. Open source offers adaptability even the highly configurable SaaS offerings are intrinsically unable to match. These freedoms are really powerful, and once a customer enjoys those freedoms they wonder why the rest of the world isnt this way.

The core proposition of open source is that it enables mass specialization, the small innovations and differentiating features made possible by being open, both in license and technical architecture. The freedom to innovate can disproportionately add value by strongly aligning to the businesss specific needs. Business models like Totaras have this at their core. Organizations need to adapt to stay ahead. Therefore, having the freedom to adapt is critical.

Five open source tools to help you manage your customers1. X2 CRM2. Sugar CRM3. Dolibarr4. Vtiger5. OpenCRX

Going privateSOX workaround

A public company may choose to go private for a number of reasons. An acquisition can create significant financial gain for shareholders and CEOs, while the reduced regulatory and reporting requirements private companies face can free up time and money to focus on long-term goals.Advantages of Being Public Buying and selling shares of public companies is relatively easy to do. There are also tremendous regulatory, administrative, financial reporting and corporate governance bylaws to comply with.The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) imposes many compliance and administrative rules on public companies and because of this public companies go private.Advantages of Privatization Investors in private companies may or may not hold a liquid investment. Private investors may easily find a buyer for their portion of the equity stake in the company. Being private frees up management's time and effort to concentrate on running and growing a business. There are no SOX regulations to comply with.

A take-private transaction is an attractive and viable alternative for many public companies. As long as debt levels are reasonable and the company continues to maintain or grow its free cash flow, operating and running a private company frees up management's time and energy from compliance requirements and short-term earnings management and may provide long-term benefits to the company and its shareholders.Behavioral EconomicsFreakonomics, anyone?

The study of psychology as it relates to the economic decision making processes of individuals and institutions.

Behavioral economics arose from the writings of several notable economists, one of the theorys leading principles came from economist Herbert Simon in the 1950s. Simon postulated that man could not always act logically because he possessed a bounded rationality. In other words, human minds are finite; they do not have unlimited information to solve problems, nor do they have all the time in the world to think about them. Humans also struggle to analyze problems objectively when the outcomes directly affect themselves, especially when viewing problems through a frame of personal experience warped by social or cultural bias.

Fortunately, behavioral economics provides the beginnings of an alternative vision of how individuals operate in a market environment, while multi-agent modelling and network theory give us foundations for understanding group dynamics in a complex society. These approaches explicitly emphasize what neoclassical economics has evaded: that aggregation of heterogeneous individuals results in emergent properties of the group, which cannot be reduced to the behavior of any "representative individual." These approaches should replace neoclassical microeconomics completely.

High PotentialsNurture, nurture, nurture

Succession planning is also about identifying and nurturing your high performing, high potential employees so you can retain them and support their career progression.Of course all employees are valuable and should be treated accordingly, but in most workplaces there are certain staffers that are disproportionately valuable in comparison to their compensation. Its wonderful to have one or two of these rare albatrosses on staff, but you can move your company ahead by leaps and bounds if you can build teams of high potential employees.High potential talent is, as defined by a recent study on Strategic Human Resources Management, Employees whose particular skills and knowledge value make them vital to organizational success. The study added, High potential employees are highly talented and create a disproportional amount of value from the resources made available to them by the organization.

Competing on AnalyticsWell beyond the gut level Analytics is the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive models, and fact-based management to drive decisions and actions.Analytics is becoming a requirement in every industry as customers have choice and companies face increased competition. (Mark P. McDonald)Nowadays different organizations are competing on analytics not just because they can business today is awash in data and data crunchers but also because they should. At a time when firms in many industries offer similar products and use comparable technologies, business processes are among the last remaining points of differentiation. And analytics competitors wring every last drop of value from those processes. So, like other companies, they know what products their customers want, but they also know what prices those customers will pay, how many items each will buy in a lifetime, and what triggers will make people buy more.Reverse InnovationR&D closer to global marketsHistorically, multinationals innovated in rich countries and sold those products in poor countries. Reverse innovation is doing just the opposite. It is about innovating in poor countries and bringing those products to rich countries. Thanks to the rapid development of populous countries like China and India and the slowing growth of wealthy nations, reverse innovation has become a strategic priority.Multinationals would instinctively raise their investments to build advanced R&D (Research and Development) facilities that would inspire cutting edge innovation and engineering. It also means the engineers would experience higher employment opportunities, and the consumer market would profit from better products developed to cater to their needs at reasonable prices.Reverse innovation is bringing the countries and global markets further closer by fading the global borders to make one world, one market phenomenon a more reality. Reverse innovation would provide further impetus to the globalization while increasing the influence of cross economic dependency and making cross border production and marketing viability plausible and effective.Key benefits: Better products for consumers and a variety of options to choose from at reasonable prices. Companies investing higher amounts in building the sustainable technological infrastructure that would facilitate advanced engineering. It would thus further stimulate industrialization. Rise in the demand for engineers.Reverse Innovation would definitely reform, and revolutionize industry standards, market imperatives, and global expansion and success strategy perspectives for the Multinationals who constantly require to keep exploring various distinctive ways and means to become resilient in the perilous market conditions.SustainabilityGreen is good

Business sustainability is often defined as managing the triple bottom line - a process by which companies manage their financial, social and environmental risks, obligations and opportunities. These three impacts are sometimes referred to as profits, people and planet.

Business sustainability requires firms to adhere to the principles of sustainable development. According to the World Council for Economic Development (WCED), sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. So, for industrial development to be sustainable, it must address important issues at the macro level, such as: economic efficiency (innovation, prosperity and productivity), social equity (poverty, community, health and wellness, human rights) and environmental accountability (climate change, land use, biodiversity).

There are a number of best practices that foster business sustainability, and help organizations move along the path from laggards to leaders. These practices include: Stakeholder engagement Environmental management systems Reporting and disclosure Life cycle analysis

Firms that are sustainable have been shown to attract and retain employees more easily and experience less financial and reputation risk. These firms are also more innovative and adaptive to their environments.Conclusion From the above discussion we can conclude that we have to identify a trend that impacts our markets or our operations, we can plan actions that counter the trend if it is harmful or support it if it is beneficial. We have to evaluate the size, direction and trajectory of a trend before we can react to it.We have to use latest technologies like cloud computing and to give more importance to customers than anyone.A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.(Michael LeBoeuf)An organization should be innovative and thats the main reason why Facebook is most popular social networking website today with with 1.4 billion active users.An organization must be competitive. As jack welch says, An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.Many companies such as Dell installed its manufacturing plants in China due to favorable production environment in China at lower cost.An organization should ensure sustainability is business. According to the World Council for Economic Development, sustainable development is development that, Meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.If any company want to be successful then he should follow these 12 business trends otherwise it becomes very difficult for any firm to do any kind of business.References

http://www.ft.comhttp://www.zdnet.comhttp://mydl.itweb.co.zahttp://www.bloomberg.comhttp://www.strategy-business.comhttps://hbr.orghttp://www.informationweek.comhttp://www.information-age.comHarvard Business Review 2010: A Year of Management Ideas (Magazine). The link is given below:https://hbr.org/product/harvard-business-review-2010-a-year-of-management-ideas/10456-MMC-ENGhttp://www.businessweek.comhttp://www.forbes.comhttp://www.businessinsider.comhttp://www.businessnewsdaily.comhttp://www.theguardian.comhttp://www.businessknowhow.comhttp://www.fastcompany.comhttp://www.whatiseconomics.orghttp://www.totaralms.comhttp://lexicon.ft.com Dawood University Of Engineering and Technology