by Tommy Koh

Created on: April 10, 2009   Last Updated: November 30, 2009

Businesses are very special entities of today's society. After many years of change in societal settings, businesses and their immediate communities have become so interlinked that with involvement in one, the other should not be lacking. Involving oneself in community works allows one to open his network to the many who serve the community, allows for business owners to know the "grounds", to experience certain services/goods and also to change and improve images.

Firstly, ones involvement in community works allow for one to know many with the same intentions and share the same joy in doing it. It brings people with common goals together. Such networking opportunity opens up a new realm of connection between business owners and also with potential customers who may not have first hand opportunity to get into contact with your product/service. Especially in the sector of professional services, business owners will tend to employ those that they trust and only through such community sessions that one could rate if the certain someone who may be a service provider himself is worth the trust and thus entrust your work to him. We should also at the same time consider that community work need not be limited to a local context, it could be done overseas, with cooperation with other country's organisations or even so, international based organisation, this form of exposure opens up markets after markets. We are talking about foreign markets that might have been closed if not for connection at first hand with them through the community work that is carried out by the business itself. Imagine the amount of increase in consumer base that would mean for the particular business.

Secondly, being business owners doing community somehow allows them to know the "grounds" better. As business owners tend to have their heads deep under their workload, they may soon miss out on the immediate needs of their customers and sooner or later lose out to other competitors who know their customer's needs better. As community volunteers, business owners get exposed to different people from different walks of life, thus identifying the needs on different levels, age groups and even gender. Such an opportunity is not available in say, sessions for entrepreneurs or even trade exhibitions, because most of their target customers are not those amongst this sectors.

Thirdly, being the service provider himself or producing such goods, they may not get to use or experience their services/products

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