At a time when more people are moving away from conventional office situations and becoming more remote and nomadic in their working lifestyle, the development of productivity applications designed to keep teams together, even when they are not together, is on the rise. Not only can they organise your work team from any location, they can also help you stay on top of your finances, they can schedule your life and personal time and quite frankly, they can save you and your business a lot of money in the long run.

Firstly, there are organisational applications such as Slack and Trello (shown in image). Trello is fantastic for designating different tasks to your team and for keeping on top of the organisation of large and complex projects with multiple users. It does this using a large board system. Slack is excellent for messaging and contact amongst teams, and you can set up the application so that you can speak one to one with a particular team member, seek to the whole group, or to create smaller subgroups within the team which are specialised on particular tasks. You can also use Slack for sharing documentation and images with ease. You can also use applications such as HubStaff to help track your staff's productivity, and Rescue Time to understand what percentage of time your staff are actually being used on work instead of procrastination.

If you have to collaborate with colleagues and clients all over the world, there are plenty of applications to help you stay on top of the time differences, such as World Time Buddy which will give you a virtual overview of all of the time zones that you need for your business. There are also multiple exchange rate monitoring applications that will help you to understand the price differences in any currency that you are working in.

Trail Wallet and Expensify are two very efficient applications for monitoring your expenditure and helping you to stay on top of your finances, although, depending on the nature and size of your business, they might not be complex enough to deal with every expenditure going through your business. That said, for the every day user, they are very helpful, and will allow you to track where you have overspent, where you could have saved money, and will help you to refine your spending habits so that you are saving more money in the long term.

There are literally applications for everything you can possibly imagine that you will need to accompany your business, and what has been mentioned is really just the tip of the iceburg. The benefit of using them is that you no longer need a traditional office, and that your whole team can work from anywhere where they have access to a reliable WiFi system (there are even applications to help you locate these for when you are working from a new location or from abroad; check out Workhard Anywhere). With collaboration and conferencing applications, there is no need for each other's physical presence, which means, as a business owner, you no longer need to be paying rent on an office. This will also help to boost the moral of your staff as they can schedule a lot of their work around their personal lives and because they are able to work from any location they prefer, such as their own homes or a luxurious resort halfway around the globe. Happy staff produce better and higher volumes of work, so everybody benefits.

As the creators of the applications are always in competition with each other, the price of purchase is forever diminishing and the quality is always improving. New features are always coming into play, interfaces are becoming more user friendly and simple, and processes are becoming shorter and quicker to ensure maximum output from minimum effort. Most applications come with a support system for when there are technical issues so all you need to worry about is the reliability and speed of you and your staff's WiFi systems. Now that you can most likely conduct your business from anywhere in the world, why wouldn't you take advantage of the large variety of applications on offer and ditch your office for something more desirable, such as a shack by the beach or a hut in the mountains?

Outsourcing is a popular method to redistribute work when demands are too high in the office or when cheaper or more professional labour is available elsewhere. In a world full of digital nomads and remote workers, outsourcing is becoming more available and popular and workers are easier locate. Here are some of the pros and cons of outsourcing your work.

Pros

First and foremost from a business perspective, the US labour market is high in price in comparison to other countries with skilled professionals in every field. By outsourcing, you are able to cut some of the running costs of your company and to provide an income to people in potentially much poorer conditions, and means you will be getting the best quality work for the lowest price. Not only will you be able to save your business money on wages, but also by not having to provide your outsourcing staff with an office to work in, you will be saving on electricity bills, rent and all the costs that accumulate when running an office of workers. When your company is under pressure, you will not have to hire more staff to cover shortcomings, which saves you more money on benefits, training and wages.

Sometimes, staff elsewhere are more skilled than your own. By outsourcing, you are able to pool the skills and knowledge of multiple people from potentially multiple countries which can have a benefit to your productivity and outcome. It gives you access to thought processes and ideas that otherwise would be untouched by your business, and more options are seldom a bad thing.

By designating some of the smaller tasks elsewhere, you are able to free up more time within your own business to develop and to grow, or to focus on some of the more demanding tasks instead of wasting time on some of the more tedious ones. This can increase staff morale and happiness, and allow people to think more creatively when not cluttered with all of the small tasks that can be completed elsewhere, optimising your resource utilisation and the potential of your staff.

Cons

When you designate work outside of your company, you also lose an element of control and add more variables into the mix. While this can be controlled to a certain degree with the contract you provide with the work, you can't be sure that the company that will be completing the task will hold the same values, passion and levels of quality as you and your staff.

You also need to be aware of all of the costs from the start. As well as the contract you provide, there will be costs involving legal fees to look at the contracts and the time involved in actually designating the work elsewhere alongside other potential fees that could pop up after the contract has been signed.

There is also a threat to any confidential information as you will be exposing your documents and security to more people. If confidentially is a value that you hold high in your company values, maybe it is better to complete your work in house. There is also a larger threat of interception as you transfer documents electronically between different companies, so email security is something worth evaluating before you start outsourcing your work.

Outsourcing is also a debated topic, and some people focus on the negativity and potential morale implications. Outsourcing can provide jobs for people where they are needed, but the transfer of work from a local source can also bring up job losses in the local community. There is also the question of whether it is fair to pay somebody working abroad a lower wage for the same work as you would pay your own staff and other morale implications that can weigh heavily on your company's reputation.

In conclusion, outsourcing is a way to maximise your quality for value correlation and to free up a lot of time for you and your staff, but the threat of security breaches, lower standards and additional hidden costs as well as the potential moral implications can be problematic for you and you and your business. Depending on the values you prioritise, it be damaging or it can be very very effective, so weigh up your options carefully.

There is a huge emphasis on hiring staff from within our country to benefit our internal economy, however there are many benefits to hiring international staff that you often can't replicate with people from a more local background. Here are just a few reasons how having a culturally diverse team can benefit your business.

Language - While the vast majority of your business may well be conducted in the English language, there is a high chance that not all of your clients come from an English speaking background. Imagine being in a foreign language speaking country, and the amount of relief and joy it could possibly bring you to conduct a difficult transaction in your mother tongue. Now, turn that on it's head, and imagine your client being so happy just by being able to communicate with you in their own language, and the repeat business it can potentially bring you. Hiring international staff massively boosts your chance of having a multi-lingual team that can communicate with a higher number of people, therefore boosting your potential clientele and countries you are able to business with.

Cultural barriers - It is a well known fact that not all cultures operate in the same way, and some religions or nationalities might even be offended by a gesture of goodwill and may have expected you to understand this before you offered it to them. Again, by having a culturally diverse team you are more likely to cover more of the cultural differences and barriers that would otherwise be unknown. If your clients feel like their culture is understood by your business, again you are rolling out the red mat for repeat business and more trustworthy transactions.

Skill sets - Some skills have been lacking in the US market due to a lack of enthusiasm in the younger generations, however this may not be the case for other countries who could well have an abundance of a skill needed in your business, driving the skilled worker out of their country of birth due to a lack of jobs in search of something elsewhere. Most of these workers will immediately seek out how to acquire qualifications or how to transfer their current qualifications into the noticeable equivalent when they arrive to the US, and may well demand a cheaper rate due to the comparison of wages between their country of origin and the US.

Anti-discrimination - Laws are always coming into effect to diversify the work force and to prove that the nations employers are not racist by providing opportunities for those form different backgrounds. If you can prove that you are hiring a culturally diverse team, there is much less chance of anybody trying to take you to court over the matter. Do just bear in mind that you should be hiring somebody due to their skill set and not their race in any circumstance, and sometimes you might have to prove why your average American citizen was indeed the best person for the job over an international candidate.

Networking - As well as transcending some potential language barriers, skilled workers from foreign countries can open up a world of opportunities for you and your business. It is likely that somebody who is well trained in your business area has a web of contacts from their country of origin, allowing your business to reach out to them and to collaborate with people who would otherwise have remained unknown to you. This goes for anybody, from potential clients, potential job candidates, ex-employers who could become your business partners, companies providing materials for you or even people you will be able to sell your product to. This obvious relates more to people higher up the chain of command over those who are lower down, but can be beneficial on all levels of the business.

Raising cultural awareness within your team - One way to boost staff morale and to make them more culturally tolerant is to introduce somebody to challenge their thoughts and ideas. By having somebody they can relate to but at the same time allows them to think outside the box a little will make them more culturally aware of people from all corners of our little planet. It can even inspire positive development if people want to understand their new co-worker on a personal level and start learning additional languages.

According to some sources, veganism has grown in 500% since 2014 in the USA, and it continues to be on the rise. With so many people opting for a more ecologically and environmentally friendly diet with a higher focus on the ethical implications of raising animals for food, the vegan food business is a booming industry.

About 6% of Americans identify themselves as vegans. Meat consumption is blamed for many environmental issues as well as health issues, and people worldwide are switching to low-meat diets. Not only that, but many people (36% of America citizens according to one survey) who are not vegan are preferring to use milk alternatives or meat alternatives, which is another reason why the business is on such an upwards trend.

What this means is that across the market, share prices are rising in more ESG friendly companies. With a higher demand for milk and meat alternatives, producers are seeing a rise in stock value and having to hire more staff to produce more product to meet the demand of the consumers. If you are looking to start a business based upon the vegan diet, the sooner the better, as prices are only going to rise from here with only an increase predicted. Likewise, investing in a vegan diet related company is likely to yield good results, but buy them soon, as prices are increasing with the increasing demand. The alternative meat market is predicted to be worst $5.2 billion USD by 2020, and the plant based milk sector is predicted to be worth $16 billion by 2018.

Another industry that is likely to do well from this huge diet movement is the lab grown meat industry. While meat consumption is on the decline, most vegans or vegetarians opt for their diet over concerns of animal welfare, and if meat can be grown in a lab, it presents a cruelty free option. This is also more environmentally friendly and can be potentially closer monitored for infection and disease within the meat.

A lot of people switching to the vegan diet are concerned about their intake of protein and the long term effects it could have on their diet. There are many vegan athletes who are helping to promote the diet by proving that they are no weaker, or are indeed stronger because of their vegan diet. Plant proteins are considerably more healthy than animal proteins and are packed with antioxidants, phytonutrients and finer that are not found as abundantly in animal products. An affiliated organisation called the PBFA Research and Education Fund are conducting research and reaching out to retailers to help to increase the number of plant based products on supermarket shelves. This is another industry sector which is likely to continue to increase in size and demand over the next few years.

The rise in the vegan industry is so huge, that companies in the meat industry are starting to panic. They are trying to introduce laws that prohibit the exposure of the animal living conditions that are raised to produce meat. It is now a felony to take a picture of a pig suffering in a factory farm as it is a threat to their profits. Milk companies in the US are pleading with congress to make it illegal to label plant based milk alternatives as milk. Regardless, this information is likely to get out to the public, and either way we can continue to expect a decline in the meat and dairy industry as more communication pathways are opened up with the internet and more people decide to diminish their meat consumption as a result of it.

With the increase in interest in the vegan and vegetarian markets, there is also an increase in socially and ethically produced food and a higher focus on organic and natural eating. People are more willing to spend more money on products which conform to ESG factors than a few years ago, knowing it will support the worldwide market and most likely be more healthy to consume. Those who do eat meat want to know that their product comes from a happy animal. Those who drink coffee are more likely to seek out Fairtrade beans. The food industry is changing and market leaders should adapt to recognise the demand of the consumers.