Category: Process & Business Expansion

Categories
Process & Business Expansion

Business Continuity Plan during Corona virus lock down

Business Continuity Plan during Corona virus lock down
Business Continuity Plan during Corona virus lock down

“is your business falling due to Coronavirus Outbreak?”

Coronavirus Lockdown in India has changed the way businesses think and operate. Planning for operational flexibility is of extreme importance during such a global crisis. Here are 5 key steps that can help you create a Business Continuity Plan during Coronavirus and create strategies and a framework to face such disasters.

1. Know your key Business products or Services

As an Entrepreneur/Business Owner you should rank your business priorities in order of importance. For e.g.

  • Which area of business contributes most to the revenue?
  • Devise a plan of these critical activities and distribute responsibilities to employees on how will these critical functions be managed during Corona Virus Lockdown
  • Analyze how long can you continue with the existing resources. Look into cash flow management and financial implications.

2. How to reduce the negative impact of COVID-19

  • Your Business Continuity Plan during Coronavirus outbreak has to revolve around the people and your stakeholders
  • Protect the health of staff
  • Develop a communication strategy for employees, customers, and suppliers
  • Create a Standard Operating Procedure Guideline so that efficiency is maintained and core functions are carried out smoothly
  • Create a CoronaVirus Outbreak Team that will look into critical functions and will ensure the protection of employees with their preparedness
  • Consider flexible working options- remote working, work from home, alternate working days

 

BUSINESS CONTINUITY DURING Coronavirus OUTBREAK

Teamwork is essential. It will improve coordination and increase productivity. Show you care for the employee and everyone will work towards achieving the goal

3. Supply Chain Management during Coronavirus Outbreak
  • Identify operational and revenue impact
  • Check on feasibility of sourcing goods from other suppliers or perhaps multiple suppliers
  • Make sure that your supplier also has a Business Continuity Plan during Coronavirus in place.
4. Alter your product/value offerings
  • Since direct customer contact will not be possible during Coronavirus lockdown, it is wise to modify you product offerings to match what the consumer wants during this time.
  • For E.g. some businesses can look at digital offerings during COVID-19 lockdown or you can also divert existing employees from a dormant function to the customer service vertical to keep the customer satisfied by offering them better service during Coronavirus Lockdown in India.
  • In this way you might be able to retain existing customers and can utilize the workforce effectively.
5. Communicate and Prepare for the future
  • Devise clear communication strategies for internal employees and for external stakeholders
  • With a slowdown due to Coronavirus outbreak in India and across the globe, utilize the time to think about the future and how to make up for this slump
  • Periodically review your plan and amend if need be according to the external situation
  • Self-learning is a continuous process, hence learn from the challenges thrown at you
  • The Coronavirus outbreak will prepare us for the next global epidemic or slowdown, if it happens.

These 5 steps will help you prepare a Business Continuity Plan for your organization and help fight through the Coronavirus Lockdown. Insights, tools and structured business processes will help entrepreneurs and their businesses geared for pandemic planning.

Categories
Process & Business Expansion

How to win a tender

Introduction

  • Do you lose tenders most of the time?
  • Do you want to know how to win a tender?

Tendering is a process to make your business big, wherein you respond to a company’s tender, expressing your expertise and willingness to work for them.

In this process, a company, government or private, invite contractors through an official channel mentioning their requirement pertaining to a project.

It is followed by an application filed by many contractors for a project.  After analyzing the expertise and cost of contractors, the company chooses the most cost-effective and qualified vendor.

To know how to win a tender, you need to first understand the different types of tendering.

Types of Tendering

Open Tendering
 

In this, a tender is published in public domain like newspaper, tendering portal, in which anybody can come and participate.

The biggest benefit of Open Tendering can be summarized as;

’????? ?????? Choice, ?? ???? Negotiate ?? ???? ???’

Advantages of open tendering:

?  Wide variety of applications

?  More choice and more chances of negotiating

?  No favoritism

?  Newcomers can also participate

Disadvantages of open tendering:

?  Long Complicated Process

?  Time-consuming

?  Money consuming

Negotiated/Selective Tendering

In this, only a few selective vendors are invited for negotiation who are experienced and industry experts.

Advantages of negotiated/selective tendering:

?  Less time consuming

?  Less money and energy spent

?  Industry experts

Disadvantages of negotiated/selective tendering:

? No opportunity for new entrants

? High Favoritism

? Less negotiation power

10 Tips to Win a Tender

Tip #1: NICE Analysis

It is one of the tips to win a tender.

Before filling a tender, you need to analyze your strength and expertise that whether you are able to satisfy the Need, Interest, Concern, and Expectation (NICE) of a contractor.

If you are unable to satisfy the need of contractor then it’s better to don’t fill the tender.

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Tip #2: Verify the Information

To know how to win a tender, after filling the tender form, cross-check it several times with others to ensure that there is no wrong information, which may lead to your disqualification.

Make sure that it is written in clear language and writing, along with required documents. Send the tender through the proper channel in which it was invited.

That is, you must adopt the below-given process;

’Check ’ Re-check ’ Double Check ’ Cross Check’

Tip #3: Client-Focused Compelling Story

While preparing your proposal, you must know how to win a tender that doesn’t miss leave even a single chance for your competitors. 

You have to try to include compelling exciting stories of your clients. Portray how you changed the business of your clients through your efforts to get a humanistic advantage over others.

Don’t just tell how good you are. Tell them nerve touching stories of your clients to strike the right chord of people.

Tip #4: Relationship Can Amplify Your Possibility of Success

No matter what business you are doing, a good relationship always helps in knowing more about your client.

This creates a better understanding and helps in getting tender.

A good relationship creates trust and makes decision making fast.

It is also one of the tips to win a tender.

Tip #5: Secure Your Gross Margin

Sometimes in the quest of getting a tender, you adopt under-cutting and end up making a very low priced bid.

This creates problems in delivery and you adopt unethical practices that hurt your margin adversely. 

It is also one of the tips to win a tender.

Tip #6: Don’t Be Afraid to Ask

To know how to win a tender, you need to understand the tender process effectively.

If you are unable to understand the tender process properly don’t hesitate to ask questions from company representatives.

Make calls or send emails given on tender information to make everything clear before filling a tender that will help you get better results.

Tip #7: Collaborating for a Stronger Big

When you realize that you do not have the required expertise for a particular tender, then instead of losing the tender, you can hire a super-specialist as a sub-contractor.

Though it will reduce your profit share, but something is always better than nothing.

Tip #8: Excellent Presentation

Complicated information always reduces your chances of getting a tender. Therefore,

  • Make your presentation as simple and attractive as you can.
  • Use excellent graphical representation
  • Use sequencing and coherent theme
  • Use the simple and clear congruent message
  • Use to convey a single signal, not mixed-signal

The simpler your presentation will be, the more chances of getting a tender will be.

It is one of the tips to win a tender.

Tip #9: Innovate and Add Value by Focusing on Customer’s Money Making Model

While making your tender proposal, try to understand the money-making model of your customer, that how can you add a distinct value proposition in his business.

Mention how you are going to multiply their business as it helps you grab your customer’s attention.

What will make you ’Standout’, Will also make you ’Outstanding’.

Tip #10: Don’t’ Lose Faith

At last, even if you don’t get a tender after putting a lot of effort, don’t sit back, only step back, to bounce back.

  • Even if you fail, don’t worry and start preparing for the next bid with your team.
  • Try to get feedback from a lost tender and make it feedforward.

Implement these 10 tips to win a tender today itself to convert your Tender Business into a Recurring Revenue Model.

Categories
Process & Business Expansion

How to Grow your Business from 1 Store to 100 Stores

How to Grow your Business from 1 Store to 100 Stores
How to Grow your Business from 1 Store to 100 Stores

Introduction

  • Are you a small shopkeeper, who wants to expand his business?
  • Do you want to increase the number of your stores or branches?
  • Do you know how to grow your business?

The expansion of business has been challenging for Indian entrepreneurs to lack of technical expertise for effective execution of strategies.

In this article, we are going to discuss 5 tips that will help you in expanding your business and increasing your number of stores with the help of a case study of Poojara Telecom Pvt. Ltd.

The founder and MD of Poojara Telecom Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Yogesh Poojara, was a transmission assistant of BSNL in 1983. He started his first shop in 1994 and second shop in 2011.

Today, he has around 50 outlets. How did he do this? By adopting the following five tips of how to grow a small business into a large business.

1. Arey Waah – Low-Cost Marketing Ideas

To know how to grow your business, let us see the low-cost marketing ideas used by Poojara Telecom.

Poojara Telecom comes up with such ideas that a non-consumer becomes their consumers. For this, they do the following things:

  • They attracted ladies (non-consumers) to the mobile stores by setting up a Free Mehandi Camp outside their stores before every festival. As a result, a long queue of ladies converge in front of their outlets and start noticing the stores and purchasing products.
  • They also attracted ladies to their stores by selling selfie sticks of worth Rs 499 at Rs 19. This offer was only for ladies.
  • They provided a special discount as per the weight of their customers. The customers are asked to measure their weight on a weighing machine kept in the store and they will get the discount equal to their weight.
  • They also provided a coupon of 2 Liters free petrol on the purchase of a mobile.
  • They provided free chocolates to kids and free mobiles to students, who get good grades in their board exams.
  • They call customers, send messages and Whatsapp them for CRM purposes.
  • They provide discount vouchers, buyback offers, and privileged customer perks to their customers.
  • They provide a loyalty card named, Humsafar, to their customers on their first purchase and add some bonus points in this card. When the customer visits the next time, he gets a discount on the product on this card.
  • 90 days Box-to-Box replacement guarantee scheme. They say that if there is any problem with the mobile, we will replace it with a new mobile even if the mobile manufacturing companies like Samsung, Lava, Apple, etc. are not giving this facility.

It is one of the tips on how to grow a small business into a large business

2. GHTC – The core values of Poojara Telecom

If you are longing to know how to grow your business manifold then the following core values developed by Poojara Telecom Pvt. Ltd. Will help you out:

G – Genuine, H- Honest, T – Transparent and C – Commitment
It is also one of the tips on how to grow a small business into a large business.

Poojara Telecom believes in selling genuine products. Some of the mobile retailers, who open up the box of the mobile, change the charger, earphones, battery and repack the box. However, Poojara Telecom Pvt. Ltd. avoids such practices in all of its stores.

3. Technology is their Entry Barrier
Poojara Telecom has developed in-house software development team and mobile application

team. They have created their own ERP, CRM, and live customer tracking mechanism.

It is also one of the ways to how to grow a small business into a large business.

  • Poojara Telecom has developed software named, Mobile Promoter Ultra Software that provides you a detailed description of every product available at their store.
  • This helps a sales executive to sell the product easily.
  • This software also helps in comparing two products, which makes it easy for the customer to select and buy a product.

The company has also made software to exchange mobile phones. The sales executive fills the details of the mobile phone (needs to be exchanged) in the software and it will provide an exact amount that the customer will get on its exchange.

4. Right Manpower Will Make You Superpower

The selection of right manpower is one of the ways to how to grow a small business into a large business.

Poojara Telecom has developed an in-house training department. They provide 14 days training to their new employees that include different types of training like product training, mobile technology training, rack training, soft skills training, and selling skills training, Interaction with department and manager, and informed about company and HR policies.

Once the training is completed the employee is assigned the work.

Some of the employee benefits practiced at Poojara Telecom are:

  • A girl working in the organization from last one year and is getting married, then the expenses of her marriage are taken care by the company.
  • The company provides medical facilities to his employees.
  • The company provides monthly “ration” to his lower-level employees.

In all the tough times, Mr. Yogesh Poojara stands with his employees. So, employees never leave the organization.

5. Mobile Service Exchange Accessory (SEA) of One-Stop Solutions
Poojara Telecom store has an in-house mobile service centre. If you buy a mobile from their store and there are some issues with it, then they will repair your mobile at their in-house mobile service centre instead of sending you to the service center of the mobile manufacturing company.

You can’t make a customer loyal by merely providing discounts; you can only make him loyal by creating an outstanding experience.

Poojara Telecom has created its helpline numbers and created customer experience. This helps them to cross-sell and up-sell. This increases the turnover of the company and the customer is getting all the products under one roof.

Categories
Process & Business Expansion

How to Expand Your Business

?Introduction

  • Do you want to expand your business?
  • Do you know how to expand your business at a low investment?

In the last century, the business was done in the traditional way wherein a businessman needed to develop the whole business. However, with the advancement in technology, the way to do business has changed.

Now, you need not develop the whole business. You can convert a small idea into a big conglomerate.

In this article, 6 case studies of renowned companies will articulate you how to expand your business. They didn’t do everything by themselves. Instead, they made one thing their competitive strength and spread their business all over the world.

Case Study -1: Apple iPhone

No one knows better than Apple, the world’s most premium mobile manufacturing company, how to expand business across the world without increasing expenditure. 

Apple manufactures zero mobile of their own. Each and every part of Apple’s mobile is manufactured by a different company. For instance,

  • Batteries of Apple phones are manufactured by Samsung in South Korea
  • The display is outsourced to Japan Display & Sharp Electricals in Japan and LG Display in South Korea
  • Flash memory is made by Toshiba in Japan and Samsung in South Korea, etc.

The main reason behind the success of Apple is that they focused on the asset-light model by outsourcing the manufacturing part to different companies all over the world.

Had it been manufacturing all parts on its own, it needed to spend a lot of capital, manpower to establish and manage its manufacturing plants, which would have made it difficult for the company to spread all over the world.

Therefore, instead of manufacturing different parts, they have focused on innovation and building their strength to get a competitive advantage.

Case Study -2: WhatsApp

WhatsApp, the world’s largest internet-based messaging services provider, has no server of its own. It uses the fly light model, which is one of the ways to how to expand your business. 

Before creating WhatsApp in 2010, Brian Acton and Jan Koum went to get a job in Facebook but they were rejected.

As Facebook felt the warmth of mind-blowing success of WhatsApp, it acquired WhatsApp for $19

billion in 2014.

Case Study -3: AIRBNB

It is another case study which shows how to expand your business.

AIRBNB, the world’s largest accommodation provider, possess zero property in their own name.

They are the first one to directly connect consumers with consumers (C2C).

They earn 10% commission from property owners (i.e. hotels) and 3% on each successful transaction from customers.

Flying on the asset-light model, now, more than 2 lakh people are daily booking hotel rooms through AIRBNB globally, making it 30 billion-dollar company.

Case Study -4: Facebook

Despite having zero content of their own Facebook has emerged as the world’s largest content management company.

Today, Facebook has more than 2.27 billion active users around the globe.

However, Facebook didn’t become what it is today in one day.

Initially, it was created by Mark Zuckerberg as a site, ’Hot or Not’, during his college days, which was a failure.  

From past debacles, Zukerberg learned better how to expand business as he dropped out of college to start Facebook in 2004. 

Learning from his previous failures and understanding the market need, Zuckerberg brought many massive changes in it.

Case Study -5: Uber

It is a case study of how to expand your business.

With no taxi of their own, Uber, has become the largest taxi service provider in the world.

By connecting the taxi owners with travelers, not only they made traveling hassle-free, but they generated hundreds of thousands of jobs around the world. Currently, it has 2 million drivers globally with 50,000 drivers joining it per month.

Case Study -6: Alibaba

Alibaba is the largest network of sellers and buyers. It is the world’s most valuable retailer with zero inventory in its own name.

To scale up the business, Alibaba created its own payment portal. Now, they don’t need a third party for payment gateway.

  • It focused on its strength and innovation.
  • Currently, it has 600 million consumers across the world.

In the above case studies, you have observed that the success of a company depends on how easily it can expand in the different parts of the world. To do so, your business should be based on the asset-light model.

 

If you want to expand your business all across the world, then make it scalable, make it light enough to fly high in the sky.

If you are an entrepreneur or planning to start a business these case studies will undoubtedly help you know how to expand your business with the help of asset-light model. 

Categories
Process & Business Expansion

Grow Your Business by Using Fly Light Model

??Introduction

  • Do your business work on the Fly Light Model?
  • Are you planning to scale up your business across the globe? 

Gone are the days when a business needed very huge capital investment to become a conglomerate. The technology has defied all myths and misconception regarding business. 

Today, all global tech or non-tech giants are running their business on the fly light model without investing too much on capital. 

What is Fly Light Model?

If you put 2 kg weight on a kite, it will not fly high, instead, the more you make it light the higher it will fly. 

A business has to be built on a fly light model to make it fly high.

Some companies who have adopted the Fly Light Model are as follows:

WhatsApp:

It is a fly light business model that WhatsApp has become the world’s largest internet-based messaging service, without having a single server of its own. It uses people’s mobile as their server. With only 200 employees, they expanded their business all over the world and increased profit drastically, without investing too much.

Uber:

Uber became the world’s largest taxi service, without having a single taxi on their own name. This is also an example of a fly light business model.

Uber did not spend a huge amount of capital on purchase on assets. What they did do, was connecting customers with the customer (C2C) through an online platform. 

Alibaba:
 

By adopting the fly light business model, Alibaba does become the world’s most valuable retailer, without having even a single inventory on its own name. 

In this kind of business model, owners don’t have to make a heavy investment in the capital; instead, they have to invest in operational expenditure on frequent intervals, which automatically increases profitability.

 

It automatically increases the return on investment of promoter and investor, since capital expend is extremely low. 

Benefits of Fly Light Model

1. High return on Asset

The fly light model gives you a high return on assets as you don’t need to spend huge capital for expanding your business. 

At the same cost of capital, you can scale up your business across every corner of the world, which automatically increases your return.

2. Controlled Profit Fluctuation

In the world of ever-evolving technology, keeping profitability constantly increasing is as difficult as never before. In just the last few decades, technology left much business out of business.  

For Example:

Postman was replaced by telegram, telegram by courier, a courier by Email, Email by social media and now Social media is being replaced by WhatsApp.

Fly high business model is the kind of business in which, you don’t need to invest high capital, and hence you don’t suffer heavy losses abruptly. 

3. Scalability Driven Cost

In the traditional business model, every business needs a heavy cost for its expansion. But in this business model, your cost doesn’t increase, no matter how much you scale it up.  But despite the low cost, your profitability will go on increasing. 

Examples of Fly Light Model
 

1. Franchise

The franchise is the fastest and easiest model to do business for Franchisor and Franchisee. It works on the fly light business model as it reduces their burden on capital expenditure by distributing it between Franchisor and Franchisee. 

  • Here, a big Franchisor doesn’t need to invest more capital to set up a new unit, whereas a small Franchisee doesn’t need to invest heavily on sales, marketing, proprietary tools, training/learning, and development operational expertise of intelligence. 
  • A Franchisee gets trademark, system, signage, software for the fee to get started.
  • A Franchisor gives training to manpower, corporate strategies, sales, marketing, branding support to Franchisee and in return, they get a licensing fee, monthly royalty as a profit. Few models of Franchising are:

Pizza Hut | Domino’s| Subway | McDonald’s

For Example:

Notably, India’s biggest iron rod producer Kamdhenu Group has come on this model. With a chain of 10,000 dealers and distributors, it has given 70 franchisees across the country for producing iron rod. In return, they give them technology, marketing support, distribution, and dealer support.

2. Outsourcing

It is based on fly light model where you reduce your cost of capital and build operational efficiency by shifting your task to an external party. 

For Example:

Apple is the world’s most premium mobile brand though it doesn’t make mobile on their own. 

Apple has outsourced its manufacturing part to Foxconn in China and focused its all resources on designing, R&D, marketing and sales. Hence it has reduced their high cost on manufacturing and increased scalability.

 

3. Asset Sharing Model

Asset sharing model is also one of the types of fly light model.

In the asset sharing model, two or more companies come together to share the cost of a high valued asset to reduce their expenses.  Many big infrastructures like oil and gas companies work on this model where the purchase of an expensive asset is needed. 

It is called the optimization of capital cost, risk diversity, and division of Capital cost. 

For Example:
 

OYO began their business on asset sharing model by sharing the property with property owners without investing heavily on buying a property. It reduced their cost and increased profitability significantly.

 

4. Pay-Per-Use: Co-sharing/Co-working Space

In the traditional business model, if your company wants to open small offices in 5 different cities of the country, then you will have to invest heavily in establishing each office.  

But Pay-Per-Use, a booming form of fly light business model, has made it very easy to set up your office without spending too much. This is the concept of co-sharing/co-working office spaces on pay-per-use, where you pay rent as per usage. 

In this model, you have to share common pantry, internet, printer, meeting room, washroom, and stationery. 

5. Licensing-In & Licensing-Out

It is also one of the forms of fly light model.

Many pharmaceutical companies, in order to save their cost of R&D and brand development, license-in and license-out their products to other manufacturers. 

License-in:
In this, a big company gets a license to sell products of another company. Here a company focuses on manufacturing, sales & marketing. 

Licensing-out:
In this, a company gives license to other companies to manufacture its products. Here a company focuses on R&D and brand development.

Categories
Process & Business Expansion

How to find distributors in India?

??Introduction

  • Are you a new businessman?
  • Do you want to take your product to every corner of the country?
  • Do you know how to find distributors in India?

No matter how big your business is, it is an uphill task to open your stores in every corner of the country.

A good distribution network can help your business grow rapidly and extend reach across the length and breadth of the country.

Before understanding how to find distributors in India to scale up your business, let’s first understand what are the advantages and disadvantages of the distribution network. 

Advantages of Distribution Network

Low Sales and Marketing Cost 

If you deploy your salesman and open stores all over the country, it will cost you very high, but selling through distributors will reduce your cost, and increase profitability.

Market Penetration

Strong distribution network helps you increase your reach in remotest parts of the country, where you cannot reach yourself. It increases your market reach and sales.

Trustworthy Partners

If you get trustworthy partners in the market, it helps you sell your products with more speed. You need to build a chain of distributions that is loyal to you.

Rapid Testing

Through a strong distribution network, you can test your product rapidly and bring the required changes in your product as per market demand.

Efficiency

A large network of distributors increases your speed of delivery of product in the market against your competitors.  All FMCG companies like Hindustan Unilever Limited, Coca Cola, P&G, Dabur, and Patanjali have spread all over the country so rapidly through a powerful distribution network.

Disadvantages of Distribution Network

Risk of Distributor Brand

The image of a distributor in a particular area has a high potential to affect your brands’ sale in that area.  If a distributor has a bad image then it will affect your brand adversely.

Delay in Payment

If you give a long credit period to distributors, who delay in payment on the purchase of products, then it is going to hurt your business and increase the cost of capital.

Lesser Control

Selling through distributors asserts little control over the complete sales process, as you don’t sell a product directly to a consumer, hence you have limited control over the way distributors present your products to customers.

Reduced Feedback Cycle

Since a distributor is not your employee, it is difficult to get actual customer’s feedback to understand their need and bring the required changes.  You cannot compel them to get customer’s feedback.

Increased Cost

Since you have to take care of margin of a retailer, distributor, wholesaler, and purchasing cost of the customer, many times, you are compelled to reduce your own margin, while increasing the capital cost.

How to Find Distributors?

Now with the help of following 11 tips, let’s understand how to find distributors in India:

Tip #1: Sales Representative

It is the first tip on how to find distributors.

Sales representatives work at ground level to sell your product in the market, by ’visiting door to door’.

Tip #2: Channel Sales Executive

They are responsible for ’building channel partner’ in the market for selling your product. You need to have channel sales executives in every city across the country to promote your sales among distributors. This will also help you in selling through distributors.

Tip #3: Join the Industry Association

To know how to find distributors in India, you need to understand the industry association.

In every industry, there is an association, where many big and small business persons converge at one place to work towards a common agenda.

You can also ’build a chain of distributors” through an industry association.

Tip #4: Trade Shows

It is one of the tips on how to find distributors in India.

In trade shows, vendors, distributors, wholesalers, manufacturers, consumers, exporters, importers, buyers, and suppliers of a particular industry come under one roof, where you can get ’bulk order and big manufacturing contracts.’

Tip #5: Meet the Existing Distributors

It is the fifth tip on how to find distributors in India.

Another way to extend your distribution network is to ’get the reference from existing distributors’,
who are aware of their location. It can help you to ’get a hold on the market’
without much effort.

Tip #6: Wholesalers and Distributors Website

The technology has made spotting the wholesalers and distributors easy through an online platform.

You can visit their website to build your distributor chain without extensive expenses. It will help you in selling through distributors.

Tip #7: Subject Matter Expert

Make field visits to understand which product has a high demand among distributors and retailers. You can ask the existing distributors about which product has the highest penetration in the market and make your distribution policy accordingly.

It is another tip on It is the first tip on how to find distributors in India.

Tip #8: Keep an Eye on Your Competitors

Along with building a strong distribution network, you need to understand what your competitors are doing to get an idea about their marketing strategy.

Tip #9: Use of your Website and Social Media to Generate Leads

Try to create your website and social media platform, mention the process of becoming a distributor and advantages to them, to build your strong network.

Tip #10: Meet Alliance Expert

There are many alliances /agents available in the market that can help you in building a partnership to expand your distribution network.

Tip #11: Outdoor Advertisement

Outdoor advertisement tools like posters, pamphlets, and billboards are also necessary to build your distribution network in the market. 

If you follow the given tips on how to find distributors in India, it will certainly help you grow your business as much as you want not only in India but all over the world. 

Categories
Process & Business Expansion

Why Family Business Success Planning is Important?

Introduction

  • Does your family-owned business falling?
  • How to make a Family Run Business successful?

??Hundreds of big family-run businesses collapsed over the last few decades in India due to a lack of efficient family business succession planning.

Most often, conflict among family members owing to leadership and wealth management and lack of long term planning lead to debacle of family-run businesses in India

 

In the view of problems faced by family-run business owners, the following 5 steps will help you to make proper family business succession planning process in the long term. 

Step #1: Long Term Leadership and Strategy

It is the first step of family business succession planning. 

The family-owned business that lacks long term leadership and strategy doesn’t go a long way. Success and longevity of a business depend on the long term vision and mission for executing strategies. 

A family run business often has old-fashioned leadership, which is incapable of formulating innovative execution strategies, involving new capital and people for a longer period.

With paternalistic control over its day-to-day affairs, such businesses are incapable of recruiting external people. 

Such a conservative style of doing business may work for a short period but fails in the long run. 

A leader in the family-run business must be capable of making an action plan for a longer period to maintain its credibility in the market. 

Step #2: Succession Planning

Pathetic family business succession planning has long been the prime reason behind their failure since centuries in India. 

The absence of systematic succession planning of business often triggers conflict among family members on the exit of an incumbent. 

According to the PwC report, ’Only 15% of family-owned businesses have a robust succession plan.’

During a sudden crisis of leadership, if there is no systematic pipeline of leadership, family members start confronting each other for the succession of business and end up hurting business.

Family elders who are heading the business need to best

Categories
Process & Business Expansion

How to get J-Curve in Business?

?Introduction

  • Are you worried about continuous loss-making in your business?
  • Do you want your business to get J-curve growth?
  • What is J-curve in business?

No business has ever become successful without having committed any mistake. 

They became successful through bringing in continuous improvements in their businesses.

In essence, they adopted J-curve growth strategy to turn around their business.

J-Curve in Business

After continuous failures, when a business makes a remarkable re-entry into the market in a new avatar, it is denoted as J-curve growth in business.  

J-Curve in business is a situation when a business makes a steep upward movement after the persistent downfall.

Let us understand J-curve growth in the business world with the help of some examples.

Instagram
   

It started as a mobile gaming application named Burbn but failed as it was a heavy application to run on mobile phones.

However, people liked the function of uploading photographs by taking selfies.      

It was re-launched again with the name ’Instagram’ with full features of photo uploading and sharing and it gets J curve in business.

YouTube
     

It started as an online dating site. It failed. It was bought by Google in 2006 and it converted it into a video search engine.

Today, it has become the world’s largest video sharing platform. It gets J curve growth in business.

Flipkart and Amazon
      

They started as small online book stores. After learning from mistakes, they brought extensive changes in their business model and finally, they get J curve in business.

Paytm
        

J-curve effect could well be understood by how Paytm became India’s number 1 payment transfer platform over the night. 

It started as a small online mobile recharge website, which was a failure.    

With astounding J-curve growth, it bounced back and became India’s largest online payment platform.

Facebook
    

It started as an online dating site, named, Hot or Not
. It failed because people did not want to be disliked by others in public.

Learning from previous experiences, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook that became the world’s biggest social media platform. 

Shopify

It was started as a snowboard equipment venture. It proved to be a failure.    

It was launched as an online platform for budding entrepreneurs to use this to customize their online store, build a new sales channel, manage unlimited inventory and track your sales and growth trend. From this online platform, it gets J curve in business.

Groupon

It was initially launched as an online socially responsible platform to mobilize people towards any social cause.

It was converted into a category crusher, where a group of people come for heavy negotiation and discounting and it got J curve in business.

Twitter

ODEO was a mobile application used to search and subscribe podcasts. It could not sustain itself in the market against Apple’s iTunes. It was launched again as Twitter and today it is the world’s biggest microblogging platform.

Starbucks

Till 1983, Starbucks sold coffee beans and coffee machines.

While traveling to Europe, Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks got an idea to sell brewed coffee to customers.

Today, it is the largest chain of coffeehouses across the world.

Android
        

Similar was the story of Android which was launched by a group of people in California in 2003 as a platform to connect the camera with the computer.

It got J-curve growth when Google acquired Android in 2005 and brought significant changes in it. Today it is the single largest mobile operating system in the world.

In the above example, you can observe that no business became successful in the first attempt. They had to taste the failure, before becoming successful.

Your first product is never your final product.

Your first product is meant only for testing. So, if you get failed, then do not worry. Learn from the mistakes you made and build an improvement cycle.

Categories
Process & Business Expansion

Product Positioning Strategies to Grow Your Business

Introduction

  • How to introduce a product in the market?
  • What should your company or product be known for?
  • What is the positioning of the product?

The first rule is to identify your perfect audience because you cannot sell the product everywhere at different prices.

Whether you are an Entrepreneur, a Businessman, a Start-up or a Sales-executive, everyone wants to know the best product positioning strategies for their company or products in the market.

To position your products effectively, you should use the product-quality matrix. In the product quality matrix, there are primarily four product positioning techniques.

You can position your product in any of these markets depending on the type of product.

Let’s study these four quadrants, i.e. the product positioning strategies in detail.

Quadrant #1: Value for Money Market

In this market, companies sell good quality products at a low price. Such products are value for money.

Let us study some of the product positioning strategies examples of value for the money market.

For Example:
Suzuki’s car is considered as value for money because not only it’s resale value is good but also runs smoothly.

Another example is Relaxo; their slippers are long-lasting as well as pocket-friendly.

Quadrant #2: Opportunistic Market

  • In this quadrant, prices of the products are high but their quality is low.
  • There are no regular or repeat customers and products. Therefore, the vendor’s sole intention is to make as much profit as possible like the market at the Railway station, Highway or at Cinema halls.

Let us study some of the product positioning strategies examples of opportunistic market.

For Example:

Every day new tourists visit the Taj Mahal in Agra. So, shopkeepers’ or vendors’ priority is to make a maximum profit not to provide high-quality products or services.

Remember, in a defined category, if you are offering products at a high price with low quality, then your business will not survive.

An opportunistic market can only survive in limited space; hence you should carefully position your product.

Quadrant #3: Chinese Goods Market

  • In this quadrant, both the price and quality of products are low.
  • Here, buyers usually price-sensitive; therefore, sellers dump their cheap products in such a market for a better return.

Let us study some of the product positioning strategies examples of Chinese goods market.

  • You must have seen Chinese toys; their shelf-life is very short as the product is of low quality but the price is very competitive.
  • Here, the financial value becomes your proposition, for instance, Chinese lights on Diwali, Road-side toy seller, etc.

Quadrant #4: Premium Market

  • In this quadrant, both price and quality of product are high.
  • Branding and positioning of the product are done in such a manner that high-quality products can be sold at a very high price.

Let us study some of the product positioning strategies examples of the premium market.

 

For Example:

Brands like Versace, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, etc. are selling purse, bags, clothing lines, and accessories at a premium price.

A good quality bag which can be bought at ? 7000, they are selling similar products at over ? 70,000 – 80,000. They have positioned their products in such a manner that they sell selected products at a premium price. They have a limited market but huge margins.

Similarly, the actual price of Apple’s phone may be ? 30,000 but they sell the product for over ? 70,000 and get huge margins. Apple has created high aspirational value for their product so much that even a common man is willing to buy it on loan.

Generally, brands stick to one of the four quadrants but there are some organizations who use different product positioning strategies to launch their products.

For Example:

Relaxo’s brand, Flite comes under value for money quadrant but its Sparx brand is positioned under premium quadrant.

Similarly, Maruti Suzuki has positioned its Nexa in the premium segment. For this, the company had opened a separate Nexa showroom because they were not able to sell the product at premium prices.
If you will try to move into a different quadrant with the existing brand or without creating and positioning the new brand, the market will drag you to the lower quadrant again.

Therefore, to create a different brand, as done by Relaxo, you have to change the positioning of the product completely.

Categories
Process & Business Expansion

How to increase market share

??Introduction

  • Do you want to know how to increase market share?
  • Do you want to take your business to the next level?
  • Do you want to monopolize the market?

If you are struggling to get your business on track or want to know how to increase market share to compete in the market, this article is going to help you a lot.  

It will not only help you to increase your market share but to monopolize the market as a whole.

Do not Compete, Monopolize the Market

This point will help you to know how to increase market share. 

In a competitive market, you have to struggle to increase your market share. However, in a monopolistic market, you get the 100% market share and competition becomes null and void.

Instead of Improving Your Weakness, Improve Your Strengths 

If you keep focusing on improving your weaknesses, even after endless efforts you won’t be able to reach 100% perfection. But, if you identify your unique signature strength and focus on improving that strength, you will attain 100% perfection quickly.

For example:

If you get 3/10 marks in public speaking and 7/10 marks in article writing, then public speaking is your weakness. If you try to improve your public speaking, then it will take a lot of time and effort to reach 10/10.

On the other hand, if you focus on improving your writing skills, then it will take less effort and time to reach 10/10 from 7/10, as you are already good at it.

Thus, in business, you should keep on working on your unique signature strength. This will help

you to increase your market share.

Become Unique Not Best

?’If you try to be the Best, you will become number one. 

But, if you try to remain Unique, then you will be the Only One.’

If you become the best, you will have the largest market share. But, if you become unique, 100% market share will be yours.

For example:

?If you are not good at cooking, then it will take so much time and energy to improve it a bit. You will feel difficulty in improving it as it’s not your area of interest and part of your psychophysical nature.

But, if you are good at motivational speaking and you invest the same energy and time in it, then you can improve it quickly. You can become a master and mentor in this area and will be recognized for your talent all over the world.

Outsource Your Weaknesses

If you are weak in cooking food, then instead of wasting your time and energy in improving it, just outsource it, and focus all your energy in your strength. 

The same goes for business, rather than investing all your resources in improving a weak area, just get it done by others and focus all your energy in improving strong areas to increase your market share and become unique enough to monopolize the whole market.

Identify your Unique Signature Strength

If you will create another Facebook or WhatsApp, no one will use it. Original property registry comes for thousands of rupees, but the photocopy has no value. Don’t try to copy others, instead try to be original. 

  • Don’t Copy Success
  • Break the Rules
  • Change the Rules
  • Create new strength
  • Focus on strength

You Were Born Original, Don’t Die Like a Copy
 

Since childhood, you are trained to improve the areas in which you are weak. Leave that old notion, now the rules have changed, today you can make a career in any field. You just need to identify your unique signature strength. The market has evolved in the digital world. Whatever is your strength, it can become your career.

’Stop trying to fit in; when you were born to stand out.’

Times have changed, now, you don’t need to become a doctor, lawyer, engineer or chartered accountant: you can become what you believe in.