This document outlines a proposed research project on issues related to developing home-based businesses. It identifies several issues such as the role of social media, employing women and utilizing unskilled talent as potential areas to explore. The document also discusses opportunities around internet entrepreneurship, freelance work and utilizing skills of people through remote working arrangements. It proposes a typical research methodology involving literature review, data collection, experimentation and reporting results. Finally, it provides a tentative 2-3 year timeline for the various phases of the research.

1. Issues in Developing Home Based Businesses
Muhammad Adil Raja
Research Proposal
December 22, 2014
Issues in Developing Home Based Businesses
by Muhammad Adil Raja
is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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2. Abstract
Over the past few years there has been a growing interest all over
the world in developing strategies for establishing effective home based
work opportunities. Various factors have stimulated such endeavors
among a large number of individuals and groups of people. The de-
clining world economy, surges of worldwide economic recession, a large
number of unprecedented layoffs and unexpected downsizing in large
multinational companies, a growing urge among educated and talented
people to be working from home and to save traveling costs and com-
muting hassles, are all the reasons that have motivated many people
to research and coin new strategies whereby home based work oppor-
tunities can become viable. This research proposal highlights a few
issues that may be cogent viz a viz developing home based businesses.
1 Introduction
A growing community of young people are now working as freelancers and
self employed entrepreneurs. There is a myriad of reasons for this. Some of
them have been discussed above in the abstract. Given the growing interest
and various benefits of being able to work as freelancers and self-employed
people, it is thought that it would be a nice idea to write a short research
proposal that highlights various issues, opportunities, pitfalls and charms
of being self employed. This proposal is also aimed at highlighting various
arenas worth exploring that may aid in creating opportunities for people to
be self-employed. In what follows there are various sections that highlight
the various issues in developing home based businesses.
2 The Role of Social Media
Social media has some very viable tools that are being utilized in profound
ways. Indeed, social fora such as Facebook and twitter are not only good tools
for better connectivity among people they are also being used as valuable
message boards for product advertisement and marketing.
Enhancing such forums can be very useful for better utilization of human
resources. Indeed, if these forums are equipped with better marketing wid-
gets and add-ons their usability can be enhanced manifold. This can range
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3. between marketing the bananas of a vegetable seller to a the work of a painter
and an entrepreneur.
3 Employing Women
Many women are either forced to remain underprivileged or become so due to
very specific constraints. Such constraints can be natural, such as maternity
or various obligations about raring children, which can prohibit them from
adopting professional careers. Sometimes such constraints are put in place
under the pressure of various norms of society due to which they cannot go
and work in mixed gender work cultures. No matter how women are being
constrained from adopting professional careers, the over all result of this is
that a significant proportion of potential talent is wasted.
Employing women through various work from home opportunities can
rehabilitate a lot of women in a professional sense. This would also mean
that a lot of women can have a lot of talent can be utilized that would
otherwise have been wasted.
4 Utilizing Uneducated Talent
Many people in the world are either uneducated or under-educated. As a
matter of fact the proportion of highly qualified versus moderately qualified
people around the world is quite low. This is quite true about the develop-
ing world. However, sometimes, uneducated or moderately educated people
have scarce valuable skills. Consider people who are proficient in the arts of
welding, plumbing, masonry farming and animal husbandry. Creating good
home based working opportunities for such people can be a nice way to em-
ploy some of them. This can be specially beneficial for those who suffer from
a dearth of proper working opportunities.
On similar lines one can help self-employ people who suffer from serious
handicaps. For instance, these include people with dysfunctional limbs or
with other such serious injuries.
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4. 5 Internet Entrepreneurship
As home based working is becoming common, ideas such as internet en-
trepreneurship and online marketing are becoming popular. Many profes-
sional people are reverting to establishing their online entrepreneurship en-
terprises. At the same time there are many online education programs that
teach newbies to start their own online marketing programs for free.
Such courses inculcate various aspects of online marketing. They cover
topics ranging from search engine optimization to attract as much traffic as
possible to one’s site to better content writing and website development tips.
People are already increasingly using blogging tools for self-expression
and for product advertisement and online marketing. At the same time
developing personal websites has become much easier than before. Indeed,
there are software, like Wordpress and Joomla, that allow a user to create a
good quality website in a very short time.
However, as the interest in online marketing has grown, and as it is ex-
pected to grow further, there is expected to come a saturation point of online
marketing too where the popularity of this subject is expected to decline
along with its utility.
To this end, new strategies have to be thought on as to how this valuable
domain can be saved from dysfunction.
6 Freelance Work Opportunities for Skilled
People
Nowadays many skilled people look forward to freelance opportunities in
which they can work from their home. Freelancing can be time and resource
saving. Moreover, if people have possibilities to connect with other people
who share similar work interest and specially with those with whom they can
have projects contracts while working from home can have a lot of benefits.
This is specially true about researchers and engineers. Such skilled people
sometimes have to travel long distances in order to connect with relevant
people who share the same interests and goals. Creating better work from
home opportunities and more useful social fora can be very useful for them.
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5. 7 Methodology
The specific methodology that would need to be adopted in this research
is not being chalked down as it would depend on the problem statement.
However, it may be anticipated that it would have the components of a
typical research project. Few thoughts are as follows:
Initially, depending on the problem statement, a literature review would
be required. This would primarily be of the problem domain (i.e. of one or a
set of problems), and also of the computer scientific methods that have been
or may be used to solve the problem. A critical analysis of the benefits of
one method over the other would be important. This may follow with a data
collection phase in which problem critical data may have to be created. This
would need to be addressed by the research supervisor. This would follow
with an experimentation phase that may require a design and execution of
simulations. Issues concerning design and deployment of any software that
may be developed on multiple machines may also be required.
The experimentation phase may end up with writing up of the results
and findings. The expectation here would be that the work would end up in
decent scholarly publications.
8 Timeline
Given that two to three years are normally allotted for a research project,
following set of activities can be foreseen:
1. Literature review – 6 months.
2. Design and evaluation of any software that may be required – 3 months.
3. Experimentation and writing (of any papers/journal articles/patents)
– 6 to 12 months.
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