From technical perspective, industrial revolution's most obvious form of manifestation is the vast advent of new technologies, such as steam engine which was widely used in transportation. The improvement of technology was the basis of development of social productivity, and then boost financial development.

 

Financially, the convenience brought by new means of transportation like steamboat create the condition for trade, while the improvement in social productivity satisfied the material requirement of trade. Therefore, trade, especially those ringing the Atlantic got flourished, bringing large amount of capital through flow of goods and money which boosted the development of capitalism.

 

Environmentally, during the process of industrial revolution, the protection of environment was not paid due attention to. Consequently, wasted water was put into the water system, and industrial gas was emitted into the air, which caused irreducible pollution. Meanwhile, the over exploitation of natural resources threated the ecological system. For example, the loss of forest may cause the extinction of some spices. 

 

It is about the broad and basic knowledge of business. Firstly, I learned about the structure about organization. According to what I've learned, organization can be classified into different types. For example, there are profit-orientated organization and non-profit orientated business, and business belongs to the non-profit orientated category. Now I am learning about business environmental analysis under micro-economic and macro-economic, such as the relationship between supply and demand. Since I already learned about basic knowledge in economic, this part is relatively easy to learn. I hope I can learn more new and useful knowledge in the future, and the process of learning ACCA is a prolonged propcess which requires diligence and persistence.

 ------Reading Reflection of ‘ When the Stars Are Shining’

Heroes, like stars, shine in the long river of human civilization. They are representatives of the masses and treasures bred by nature. 
Zweig's "When the Stars Shine" records the hero's flash across the night sky of history.Whether they succeed or not, the 12 characters in the book are all heroes.
Heroes can move history, but heroes are born of history.Goethe compared history to "God's magic workshop". If the masses are the numerous works supporting this workshop, the hero is the most representative work in these works of different periods.The museum has its treasures, heroes are also the concentration, refraction and symbol of history.Their ideological ability and spiritual quality, on the one hand, come from their private living environment, but to a large extent, they are determined by the era in which they live, and are constantly changed by the atmosphere of the era. 
Heroes are the title of the later generations, before this, they are also the masses, and their inner light is inspired, perhaps is a special period of short and concentrated moment.Like an overcast summer day, when the air is stifling and sultry, lightning fills a corner of the sky, unleashing its pent-up energy.

The process of entrepreneurship is fast and unpredictable, and a large proportion of small businesses fail in the first 5 years. Their failure can be attributed to three main points: lack of a right team, poor market need, and cash flow problems. The reason why Village Banking can bring success to village entrepreneurs is that it accurately grasps the right management focus.

Village banking have the right team of entrepreneurs with high teamwork. Their members get together every week, working together and trading ideas on how to run business well. Compare with developed countries like US, where loans are secured by collateral, members of the village bank are co-guaranteed, since they are connected by community. This brings more chances for their business to grow and expand.

Another point that village bank does well is the constant respond to customers' feedback. Some small businesses are just collecting information and doing research, without collecting and acting on customers' feedback. The need of customers are constantly changing, getting their feedback can help business determine what products they should produce.

The last and most important factor of maintaining a business is the management of cash flow. In village bank, the cash are deposited soon as they are generated, and people pay high attention to how much it retains, which contributes to their achievement of 98% loan repayment.

 

From my point of view, cash is like the blood of a business, maintaining its present operation and supporting its future expansion. Even large profitable company can fail if the cash flow breaks. Therefore, it is of great importance for business to supervise and manage cash flow.