PR 24x7 completes 11 Years of Operation

Recently PR24x7, Central India's largest PR company based in Indore, completed 11 years of its operations. To celebrate this achievement the company organized different activities under its corporate social responsibility giving its bit to society.

The company, with all its employees planned many activities and implemented them from 3 February 2015 to 7 February 2015. All the employees participated in these activities with great enthusiasm.

On 3 February 2015, Atul Malikram and the employees of company, participated in Swachh Bharat campaign and cleaned Chandra Nagar Garden, MR 9, Main road, Indore with broom in their hands. On 4 February, they visited different Day-care centres near 3/1, Choti Bhamori, near Astha Talkies and Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies, Mahalaxmi Nagar, Indore and talked to elders. On 5 February, quiz programs were organized and then 6 February was given to PR workshop, where different connected agencies were educated on latest developments and advancements in PR sector. On 7 February there was a get-together, which was attended by the employees, connected agencies and media professionals.

The company has shown a vertical growth in past 11 years. It has also made commendable efforts for the betterment of society. Today, it's the largest PR agency of central India that has its offices in different cities. The company is going forward soon to achieve the turnover of 50 million rupees and open its office in Singapore.

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Business Etiquette at Corporate Events

Appropriate behavior and Business etiquette is expected from everyone in corporate events. But there will be only few persons who are trained as to how to conduct themselves in such occasions. We have a chance and necessity to learn these things only when we are in the job.

But not everyone is sure until unless they are formally trained for such occasions as to how they are conducting themselves in such occasions. And until and unless they are sure about this they cannot be at ease at such an occasions. To state the fact, the very purpose of business etiquette is to create such an atmosphere where in people are at ease and comfort with each other.

Here are some of the Business Etiquette tips that will clear most of our doubts, let’s have a look at them.

1) When you get invited for a corporate event, make sure that you reply within a week from the day you receive the invitation, whether you will be able to attend the event or not.

2) All is good if you are able to attend at the event as planned, but if in case any emergencies land up in the last minute make sure that you immediately notify the host about your inconvenience, backed by sincere regrets.

3) Make sure that you are dressed well and everything is pressed. Most of such events specify the attire that you should be wearing.

          a) If business attire you should be wearing suite with black tie.
          b) If business casuals you should be wearing trousers / khakis with long sleeve shirts.
          c) You should wear Jackets and ties as instructed or specified.

4) Most of such events specify the time of arrival, but it is always best to be there at least twenty minutes early.

5) Extend and give hand shake as soon as you arrive at the place, and before you leave the place, make sure that you give firm hand shake with sincere smile making eye contact.

6) When in group always extend your hand shake to the host first.

7) When introducing people, always introduce lower ranking people to the higher ranking people, including titles and name prefixes.

8) When in group always sand up or sit up straight and maintain good eye contact. Find topics of mutual interest and include everyone in the discussion. Always encourage others to talk about themselves. And most important avoid using foul language or slang in conversations.
Never drink more than two alcoholic drinks. when briefly stepping away place napkins on the chair seat or arm and when you finish eating, place the fork and knife in the 4:00 position
Thank the host in person prior to leaving and send a “thank you” note to the host within a week.

Check out on these points and you are sure to conduct yourself as a person with good business etiquette, at all corporate events.

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Top Five Ways to Build Good Relations

You may be in any profession or business, but maintaining good relations with your team mates or peers or with any other person, is very important for your success. Almost every one of us wants to be good at maintaining relations, but we find very few people around us, who have mastered this art.

Let us see what are the things that we need to keep in mind to maintain good relations.

1) Giving Respect: If you observe those who are successful and great, all these people have one thing in common that is showing respect. They respect people, not looking at the status of the other person, but because it is their nature to do so. If you are the one who is aiming at maintaining good relations, Start giving respect to the other person, let it be the peon in the office or C. E. O. Put this into practice and see the results.

2) Know Each Other: Showing respect for the other person is the foundation for establishing a relation. But for the relation to grow and nurture, you need to know about the other person. So, share some light moments with the other person, share your thoughts and know their thoughts. Doing this brings people together and establishes a relationship.

3) Gain Trust: When you have spent time with the other person, and know his thoughts, you will be in a position to develop trust. Gaining the trust of the other person is very important to maintain a good relation, because without trust it is not possible to establish good relation.

4) Give and Take: If you want to be good at relations, play both roles, that of a giver and receiver and never ever, don’t stick yourself to only one role. Because one-sided relations don’t last long, so play both roles, and let both benefit.

5) Accept the Other Person as He/ She Is: Just like every coin has two sides, every person has both positive and negative shades. Learn the good things from the other person, and leave the rest.

It takes no effort to break a relationship but for a relation to be good and lasting it takes great efforts, so, follow these simple things and build good relations.

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Management Skills that are Effective

There are some managers, who make your work place, positive and vibrant, and on the contrary, there are also those kinds of managers, that make you feel sick, and make your life miserable.

In most of the cases, when an employee chooses to leave a position, it is because of his relationship, with the manager, or with other people in the work place.

For any company, to prosper, and to see growth, good and effective managers, are very necessary. The role of an effective manager is to see that, each individual in the team, gives his best, performs well, and then the team as a whole achieves its results.

It requires both talent and skill, to be a successful manager. These skills need not necessarily be born; they can be developed through, experience, or by acquiring training.

Persons who are good at communication, leadership, development of self and others, who are adaptable, and are good at maintaining relations, prove their worth, as effective managers.

A manager with good communication skills will be able to instruct effectively, and listen effectively. Best managers are those, who exhibit, best leadership qualities, and as a true leader they should be able to gain trust, guide or give direction and promote a sense of responsibility in others.

Adaptability is the most important quality that a manager should have. Only when he is adaptable to the various and unexpected situations, will he be able to guide others, on the path of success.

When emergency or serious situations emerge, he should be able to think creatively and positively, and should come out with a solution.

Effective managers, have good relationships with their team, they earn their trust and respect, and help them to give their best, and they also motivate them, to do more productive work. Last but not the least, effective manager gives importance to, self development or growth.

He is always willing to learn, acquire knowledge, and upgrade himself, with the best qualities, and skills, both personal and professional.

These are the components that make a good and effective manager. And these are the qualities that you should look for, in a manager. A manager with these skills and capabilities is sure to take the organization, on the path of success, and progress.

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Functional overview of Customer Relationship Management

Image Credit: Information Horizons Inc

It is the importance that an organization gives to its customers and to their relation with them that determines the growth and development of the organization. Customer relationship management is an information industry term, for methodologies, software, and usually Internet capabilities that help an enterprise manage customer relationships, in an organized way.

The various functions of the customer relationship management can be described as follows:

• Customer relationship management, usually enables its marketing departments to identify their potential clients and their best customers, manage marketing campaigns and generate quality leads for the sales team. 
• Customer relationship management helps the organization to improve sales. Because only when there is a relation established between the client and the organization, will the client come back to the organization for the kind of services they provide. Otherwise there is no point why a client should come back to you for repeat business, he can go to any one else in the market, the reason may be any better price better quality or better customer relationship.
• Customer relationship management, allows establishing individualized relationships with the clients, this helps in improving customer satisfaction, and increases profits; 
• Customer relationship management allows identifying the most loyal clients, clients who have been sticking with the company for a long time and therefore enables the company to reward them or to provide them with some benefits, for their loyalty to the company. This increases the chances of establishing good relation with clients, and enables company to provide better and prompt services to these kinds of clients.
• Customer relationship management provides employees with the necessary information that they require, which helps them to know their customers, understand and identify customer needs and effectively build relationships between the company, its customer base, and distribution partners.

So, in essence, Customer relationship management allows the organization to manage their customer relationships, and thereby increase their profits.

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Critical Thinking - Required Skills and their Importance

Critical thinking is an important element of all professional fields and academic disciplines. The process of critical thinking involves the careful acquisition and interpretation of information and use of it to reach a well-justified conclusion. The concepts and principles of critical thinking can be applied to any context or case but only by reflecting upon the nature of that application.

Critical thinking forms, therefore, a system of related, and overlapping, modes of thought such as anthropological thinking, sociological thinking, historical thinking, political thinking, psychological thinking, philosophical thinking, mathematical thinking, chemical thinking, biological thinking, ecological thinking, legal thinking, ethical thinking, musical thinking, thinking like a painter, sculptor, engineer, business person, etc. In other words, though critical thinking principles are universal, their application to disciplines requires a process of reflective contextualization.

Critical thinking is considered important in the academic fields because it enables one to analyze, evaluate, explain, and restructure their thinking, thereby decreasing the risk of adopting, acting on, or thinking with, a false belief. Critical thinking includes identification of prejudice, bias, propaganda, self-deception, distortion, misinformation, etc.

Check List of Skills for Critical Thinking Competency:

1. Accessing and Collecting Information: One needs to locate and collect relevant data, facts and figures also information and knowledge.

2. Observing: One needs to gain information by training and using various senses.

3. Taking Effective Notes: One needs to record significant information in written form.

4. Managing Attention: One needs to focus on multiple observations. And needs to retain and recall.

5. Attributing: One needs to recognize characteristics or properties of any idea, object or situation.

6. Evaluating Evidence: One needs to check, if the data/information is valid or correct.

7. Organizing in Advance: One needs to create a framework in which information can be arranged, learnt, remembered and used.

8. Classifying: One needs to group the entities based on common characteristics or properties.

9. Comparing/Contrasting: One needs to examine two or more ideas, objects or situations to uncover or discover similarities or differences between them.

10. Determining Cause(s) and Effect Connection: One needs to recognizing and determining relationships between two or more events.

11. Recognizing Patterns: One needs to Recognize and understand the patterns of events from data, information and knowledge.

12. Sequencing: One needs to arrange events, items, relationships or objects in a predetermined order.

13. Remembering: One needs to retain and recall information and knowledge when needed.

14. Prioritizing: One needs to establish an effective order of preference.

15. Developing Ideas/Concepts: One needs to work out idea(s) or concept(s) by using investigation/study and analysis.

16. Elaborating: One needs to enrich an idea/concept or process to make it better, meaningful and useful.

17. Check List of Skills for Critical Thinking Competency: One needs to formulate a proposition, test its effectiveness and analyze results.

18. Paraphrasing: One needs to reword accurately the written or spoken information.

19. Critically or Strategically Questioning: one need to intensify quantity and quality of collected information through enquiry and open dialogue.

20. Inferring: One needs to deduce conclusions from the collection and analysis of information.

21. Thinking Flexibly: One needs to generate variety of thinking categories, shift categories and detour in the direction of thought.

22. Thinking Fluently: One needs to generate free flow of ideas quickly resulting in multiple ideas.

23. Thinking Originally: One needs to think originally or uniquely to produce non-obvious and unusual thoughts/ideas.

24. Thinking Systematically: One needs to accommodate all the factors that influence an event or a situation and all its effects, impacts or results in an orderly manner.

25. Decision Making: One needs to work out the alternatives and decide which one to choose among them.

26. Predicting: One needs to think what will happen in the future.

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This Week in Business Skills – Selling, A Job of Dignity

“Anyone who sells a product, service or an idea is a sales person”- Robert Stevenson

All of us are involved in selling something or even ourselves through direct or indirect selling. But people hardly respect sales as a profession or sales people. Most people think that only those who are involved in selling goods and products are sales people and those in other professions are real professionals. The fact is that we are all involved in selling. Some sell their skills as a professional, let it be a doctor or an engineer or a writer and we are getting paid for selling our skill. Other people are getting paid for selling their services. But the basic fact is that we are all involved in selling though we may recognize it or not. One of the easiest examples is we. We dress well to attract attentions of others and that’s where we sell ourselves indirectly as we want people to see us.

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Business: Using World Class Language

The words that we use, in our daily life, determine our relationship with others. If it is so in the normal world, think of the business world and the relationships you have in the business world, you interact, with clients, peers, people working for you, day in and out we have to keep conversing and maintain relationship, a positive relationship with every one, to get the results we want.

So, it is very important, that we pay attention to the language we use, and the words we use, in our conversations, in the business world. Each and every word we use, when talking to a client, or a subordinate, does matter and has its effect on the business. So, we should be always watchful as to what sort of words we are phrasing, and using in our interactions with people. It is always recommended and advisable that we use world class language in the business field.

What does world class language mean? If you call a stumbling block a “problem” or “a big mess” you will create a different emotional state, and if you call the issue, as “an opportunity” or “a challenge” that will only make the situation feel better and you as well as others will be at ease, and fell that they should face the challenge and overcome it, it has a entirely positive effect. A small change in the word conveying the same thing, but has entirely a positive effect on the people.

One of the main traits of greatness, in the vast majority of business people, who are number ones in the field and are exemplary, are that, they understand the power of the word. They use world-class language, not only do they refrain from using profanities, but they use the language of passion, leadership, possibility and the language of love.

So, if you are aiming at making it to the top. Just check out your language, and practice using world class language.

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