You may or may not believe this but Adam Smith had a great deal to say that’s relevant to the modern business life. Sure, I hear you say, some guy writing in 1776 can really help me plan a 21 st century business, right?

Well, yes, because he talked and wrote about the division of labour and the specialisation this made possible. That’s pretty much what modern business is about, deciding what are the core competencies, the core functions of your company and then getting other people to do everything else for you. For example, it wasn’t all that long ago that every major company had their own internal travel department. This simply doesn’t happen any more, everyone realises that it’s much better to use an expert, a specialist in group incentive travel for example.

Similarly, why struggle to work out how to hold a meeting, or how to incentivise people when you can use an expert: Meeting and Incentive Planner.

For example, say you need to hold a incentive management meeting. Do you really want to have to try and work out where to hold it, which hotel to use, which airline, which caterer? No, of course you don’t, you would rather get on with doing what you know how to do, running your business, while someone else does all of that.

Exactly as Smith said it would work best: the division of labour and specialisation.Not bad advice for 200 years and more ago, eh?