In current tough economic times, I am suprised that many large organisations are still spending large amounts of its hard earn cash to buy corporate gifts for their clients and employees. Needless to say, the usual justification for these spendings is to maintain and further forge strong business relationships with clients and to provide morale and team building initiatives for its loyal staff.

More recently, one of Australia's big 4 banks made headline news for treating its employees to lavish corporate parties in expensive holiday destinations to the bewilderment of its already financially bruised shareholders.

Other corporate gifts which many large organisations are still dishing out include corporate golf days, expensive crystal and momentos, hampers, wine and other memorabilia. These so-called corporate gifts serve little purpose other than to remind senior executives of mutual business interests and commitments between business partners. As we all know, there exist economic cycles and over the past 20 years, we have seen the recession of the early 1990s in Australia, the Asian crisis in the late 1990s and now the global financial crisis. Each time a trough occurs, businesses suffer and some certainly do not survive. During these times, old corporate gifts and memorabilia become less relevant. In most cases, these items are redundant and useless reminders of past glories. When new relationships are formed, more money is thrown into buying new corporate gifts to demonstrate renewed vigour and enthusiasm until the next wave arrives.

Instead of wasting funds to "buy" relationships, some of the multinationals within the fast developing economies of east Asia in the early 2000s have come up with unique corporate gifts to each other in order to fuel their mutual growth and expansion. These "gifts" did not involve large sums of money. Instead, it involved what was known as 2 unique gifts towards mutual business prosperity:

1. A firm and unyielding commitment between business leaders towards cost efficiency by eliminating wasteful spending. This mutual commitment was, to many large conglomerates in developing Asia, the seed towards firm action.

2. The corporate gift itself ~ One For One, a simple philosophy where one good corporate deed by the giver corporation must be reciprocated by an equally good one by the recipient. The terms of the deed were indeed loosely defined to provide flexibility and promote sincerity ~ any business deed, irrespective of whether it yields a positive financial outcome but one which is mutually beneficial to each organisation, will suffice.

This program was implemented among many large organisations in the 1990s and early 2000s and collectively, the rewards and efficiencies gained were far-reaching. This was one of the tenets upon which many of these multinationals experienced quantum leap growth. Ironically, these corporate gifts were repeated many times over as a result of the momentum from its initial success. Suffice to say, not only were there little money involved but the mutual benefits generated from these simple "gifts" were indeed more expensive than money can buy.