There are businesses that are growing at a very fast rate all over the world. They have a strong presence across the globe. These multinational corporations will always have a headquarter somewhere – in a far away land. As you probably know by now, there are some great time differences in various parts of the world. For example, the time difference between Asia and North America falls somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 hours. Whenever you plan your business activities, you should be ready to take time into consideration. With an online time calculator, you should not have problems with things like time zones and other time-related matters.
What are time zones?
A time zone is basically a geographical region that uses the same local time. There are about 25 time zones depending on how you choose to define a time zone. In general, a time zone is defined based on how much it deviated from the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). This is the world’s standard of time and not a time zone on its own. Therefore, you will see things like UTC+3. This simply means that that particular location is three hours ahead of UTC. It if is UTC+3, then the time zone is behind UTC by the given value.
How does this affect your business?
If you are seeking to expand your business to various parts of the world, you will have to take into consideration the fact that people do not live on the same time zone. Do you want to talk to prospective partners in East Africa while you are in China? You have to understand that East Africa is at least five hours behind China in terms of time. You might be tempted to call someone in Kenya or Tanzania at 9am which is normal business time in China, but the guys there are sleeping. It is only 4am there. You do not want to offend people.
There are also issues of travel. Being late for a meeting with prospective clients and partners can be very bad for your business. You need to prepare your travel and this will involve converting your time to the new time zone. People land in different time zones and have a difficult time adjusting because their bodies and minds are still operating according to a different time zone.
Whilst traveling, you need to convert time so that you can give yourself an allowance of time for arrival, resting and getting ready for the meetings with whoever you wish to meet. It can be really difficult to land in a new time zone and then get into a boardroom for a meeting immediately. You will be too exhausted.
The blessings of internet technology
What is it that you cannot do with internet nowadays? You can talk to your business partners across the globe through video chat and other methods. You can also convert time in preparation for these online meetings. If you want to talk to someone in Nigeria while you are in Canada, you will need to convert your time so that you know when to get in touch with them. You will know when to prepare to wake up early in the morning so that you do not miss these online meetings.
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This guest post is courtesy of Jack Dawson.