Month: August 2019

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.

Categories
Process & Business Expansion

How to Develop a Business Model to Make Loyal Customers?

Business Model

Introduction

  • How to develop a business model?
  • Are you unable to developing an effective business model?

You might be a budding entrepreneur and like other successful entrepreneurs, you also might be vying to establish a successful business.

But, are you too struggling to develop an effective business model?If yes, then this article is a must-read for you.

If you too are looking for ways of how to develop a business model, then the “ABCDE Model” as we have created, is going to help you out as much as never before.

What is ABCDE Model?

A = Analyze || B = Brainstorm || C = Create || D = Deliver || E = Evaluate

Let us look at all aspects of the ABCDE model one by one.

Analyze

For developing an effective business model you need to analyze your target customers and the target geographical area.

You need to put your feet in your customer’s shoes to understand their behavioral pattern and their needs.

It is then only you will be able to strike the right chord of your customers.

Brainstorm
Analyzing is followed by brainstorming the gathered data along with your team to understand the customers’ needs.

A small survey can be done in the market to understand your customers’ needs.

You have to do an assessment of your target customers by asking them questions.

On the basis of analysis of those surveys and responses, you have to create your product or service.

Create
After understanding the customers’ needs, and developing an effecting business model, you have to establish your factory or business to start production of the desired product or service.

Many entrepreneurs think that the success of their first product will either make them millionaire or doom them.


While producing your first product, keep in mind that the first product is never your final product. It is only meant for testing and not for success.

So, you must be prepared for the first failure!

But, you must analyze ‘why the first product failed?’ and improve accordingly.

Deliver
After producing a product or service, your next step should be the delivery.

You need to select a proper channel to deliver and distribute your product or service to the customer in a cost-effective manner.

Evaluate
Now, as you have delivered your first product, it’s time for you to evaluate your product by getting customers’ feedback.

It is also called testing, measuring, and adapting.

You need to assess whether you have achieved Customer Delight or not.

If not, then you have to bring changes in your product accordingly.

You have to improve your solution architecture repeatedly to reach Customer Delight, which is a continuous process.

If you genuinely adopt the “ABCDE Model”, you will never have a question like how to develop a business model that can take you to the level ahead.

Categories
Business Case Studies

Lijjat Papad Company – A Story of Women Empowerment

Women Empowerment

Introduction

  • Do you want to know how the Lijjat Papad company led to the empowerment of women?
  • Do you want to know how the cooperative movement can lead to scalable business?

Lijjat Papad Company was started in South Mumbai by seven women on 15th March 1959.

They started preparing papad at an operational cost of Rs. 80 and made a profit of 50 paise.

They kept on increasing their manpower (which included only women).


Lijjat Papad Company did not have an owner; they made everyone an owner. This is called cooperative movement.

In cooperative movement, if there is a loss or a profit, it will be for everyone. So, let us study some of the vitals of the Lijjat Papad business.

Empowerment of Women

Lijjat Papad Company has encouraged the housewives to use their cooking skills and become the owner of an organization. These women started earning between Rs. 10,000-15,000, which lead to the empowerment of women from a disadvantaged background.

Lijjat has provided respect to women. Some of the women of Liijjat were able to make their children study in AIIMS and IIT. The women working in the Lijjat Papad Company are called Lijjat sisters.

Built a Strong Channel

Every day, Lijjat sisters are picked up by a Lijjat Papad Company bus from their homes to the Lijjat branch center, which has three windows:

(i) Deposit Window

At this window, the Lijjat sisters deposit the Papad made by them. After receiving the Papad, a quality check is done and the Lijjat sister receives a deposit slip.

(ii) Payment Window

Lijjat sisters show the deposit slip at the payment window and get their daily wages.

(iii) Collection Window

At this window, Lijjat sisters get the kneaded dough to make more Papad.

After collecting the dough, the Lijjat sisters get back into the buses that drop them at their homes.

Standardization

The Branch head of a Lijjat Papad Company center is called “Sanchalika”. She gets the full training from the company and an aluminum rolling board.

This rolling board is standardized. It keeps the shape, size, weight, and thickness of a Papad standardized.

Standardization in the Papad is the reason why 4.8 Billion Papads made by 45,000 Lijjat sisters all over India have similar tastes.

Network

The Cooperative Movement triggered by women entrepreneurs led Lijjat Papad Business to spread their legs to 82 branches in 17 states of India. Today, they export papad worth Rs 80 crores in 25 countries. They have a turnover of Rs. 1600 crores.

They have also come up with different products like masala, Mirchi, soap, detergent, and readymade chappati.

They are able to expand their business because of their stringent sourcing policies.

They maintain standardization in their raw materials like asafoetida (heeng), black pepper (kali mirch), and urad dal by bringing them from specific places.

They never use machines for making Papad. Whenever they need to expand, they increase the number of Lijjat sisters.

They distribute the profit among the Lijjat sisters. They have a profit-sharing model.

As a result, they are able to bring unity among the Lijjat sisters and are ready to work extra for the company.

Maintain Transparency
Lijjat Papad Company has strong foundational policies. It has 0% gossips and 100% transparency policy.

In this policy, whispering and politics are not allowed and if someone wants to say anything then they have to say it aloud.

As a result, a common purpose and vision are designed for the empowerment of women for poor communities to increase their economic participation.

Strong Vision

Octogenarian Jaswantiben Jamnadas Popat is the co-founder of Lijjat Papad Company. If she had wanted, she would have become the owner of the billion-dollar company.

But, she wanted to empower the women and give them respect so that they can make their children study.

From starting, the business model of Lijjat Papad Company is business-oriented instead of NGO oriented.

They have a sound foundation of accounts and finance. They have focused on sales, marketing, branding, and promotion from starting.

They have standardized the sourcing and the quality, size, and shape of the Papad.

They have never accepted donations instead they have given donations. They want to keep their cash flow statement positive.

So, they keep their accounts and finance so strong that they have never taken supplies on credit and they make the payment of suppliers instantly.

Also, they have never given goods on credit to their distributors. They take instant payment from the distributor. They make daily payments to Lijjat sisters.

Maintains Career Growth
The growth of the Lijjat sisters is also very transparent. They join as a roller and then gradually go through various departments to become the Branch head.

After promotion, the Branch head is posted to the corporate office of Lijjat Papad Company in Mumbai where she becomes a member of the committee. This committee has 21 members who govern the whole business.

Among these 21 members, some become the treasurers, some vice presidents, and some presidents.

This committee conducts weekly and monthly review meetings- branch wise, department wise, division wise, and product-wise.

Quality Control

Lijjat Papad Company also has a quality control team branch wise. One member from the quality team visits the home of Lijjat sisters to ensure that they are using all the quality parameters while making the Papad.


The coming period is not good for Lijjat Papad Business because today is the time of innovation, automation, process orientation, and Blue Ocean.

Any big businessman can purchase machines for rolling and making Papad with the help of only 450 women.

He can give growth, promotion, incentive, and training to the talented manpower and can make Papad at high speed and grow the business rapidly through a scalable model.

Categories
Motivational

Change Your Destiny with Power of Belief System

?
Introduction

  • What is the power of Belief System?
  • What Belief System do you possess – Negative or Positive?

Your ’Belief System’ is the core strength that you believe in. Your belief system can make you or break you. It can give you a hopeless end or endless hope or it can make you cry or try.

Belief System can make you strongly mental or mentally strong

What is Real Motivation?

The motivation which depends on an external source is always temporary in nature, but the motivation which comes from an internal source is permanent. 

’Belief system is the real source of motivation which comes from internal source’.

Belief System can be of two types:

Negative Belief System

Positive Belief System

Believe system can make you do the worst or greatest of the things depending upon what kind of the belief system you possess.

You can understand the power of a belief system is so much that:

  • In Thailand, women pierce their whole body with bamboo sticks, because they think that God Buddha gets pleased, and they get purified, while it is torture for others. 
  • In Eastern parts of India, women walk barefoot on burning coal, because they believe that Goddess Durga gets pleased and they get purified. But it is torture for others.
  • In some places on the earth, people kill innocent women and children, thinking that their God is getting pleased, and they will get heaven because it is their belief system.
Wherever you are today is based on Belief System that you have developed

The belief system is that one strength which can help you conceive, believe and achieve. Whatever you conceive, and you firmly believe, and there is a great possibility that you will be able to achieve.

Convert Your Anger into Resolution

Mahatma Gandhi was thrown out of 1st class coach of the train by white people because of his skin color in South Africa during the British era. 

Gandhi protested saying that ’I am a barrister and I have a first-class ticket’. But white people didn’t allow him in 1st class owing to his skin color and threw him out of the train. 

Agonized from this act, Gandhi said, ’You threw me out of the train, I will throw you out of my country.’

It was the power belief system that he convert his Anger into Resolution, which led a mass movement for the independence of India.

It’s okay to have Anger, but it’s bad to get angry.

People who created history in the world are the people who were able to convert their anger into resolution. One revolution can bring a major revolutionary resolution.

Be the Only One

If you try to be the best you will become number one, but if you try to remain unique you will become only one. 

  • Be that unique ’Blue Ocean’, where you are the only one by creating your competitive strength. 
  • Your competitive advantage will finish all competitors in ’Red Ocean’ and you will become a competition yourself.

Speed of Implementation

People who implement their learning at lightning speed are those who grow fast, while others remain stuck in their patterns.

One top quality in every successful CEO is Speed of Implementation.

These people have a mental thermostat which helps then convert their every learning into the actionable plan at lightning speed. 

Your success depends on your speed of converting your learning into an actionable plan. You can make your business successful by increasing the speed of your implementation. 

Speed of Implementation will follow the below steps:

  • Hearing
  • Understanding 
  • Mediating
  • Digesting 
  • Applying

Implementation of Knowledge is Real Power.

Knowledge is not the real power, it is only potential power. It is the implementation of information that gets you real transformation

The kind of patterns you develop through your learning and their actual implementation in business will actually determine your future.

Power of ’NOW’

One most powerful word that can change your life is ’ ’Now’. 

You cannot improve the future in the future; you have to improve the future right now or never. The notion that good days are coming is actually bogus.

Good days will never come in the future, they will come right now, right here.

The people who have been successful in the world understood the power of a belief system, so do can you script the new history of success.

Categories
Startup

Why Startups Fail in India?

Introduction
  • Are you planning to start a new business?
  • Do you want your Startup to be successful?
  • Do you know why startups fail in India?
No Indian city is among the top-10 most popular Startup Cities in the world, whereas only one Indian company (Asian Paints) could make it into Forbes top-25 innovative companies in the world.
Owing to the inability to run business, funding to Indian Startups plummeted from $7.5 billion in 2015 to $3.5 billion in 2016.
One of the major reasons behind the failure of Indian Startups is the lack of innovation based on consumer’s needs.
If you too are an entrepreneur and struggling to retain your Startup, the following points will help you figure out why startups fail in India and how to recover from the crisis.
Reason #1: Missing Innovation around Customer’s Money Making Model

Undeniably, the major reason why startups fail in India is the lack of exactly needed innovation to cater to the problem of customers, due to which no Indian company could dominate the world market so far.
They lack the innovation to invent a product which can make people’s life easy by understanding their need.
Reason #2: Negative Cash Flow, Negative Working Capital
Another most important reason behind the failure of Startups in India is negative cash flow and negative working capital.
Continuous cash inflow is necessary to run your business. Even if your book of accounts is showing profits, delay in payment may hurt your working capital to continue the operations.
In the absence of adequate working capital owing to delay in cash inflow, you start searching for funds to continue the business, which after some level fades away investor’s trust in you.

Reason #3: Expansion with Negative Margin
Many Startups in India, without having adequate gross margin, go on expanding their business by giving heavy discounts and deals.
Commons reason why startups fail in India are:

  • They don’t build long term plans for a source of profit to cover their profit margin and acquire market.
  • In the quest of selling at the lower price, they keep on compromising with their gross margin and end up being bankrupt.

Reason #4: Lack of Talented Manpower

If you don’t build a team of highly capable, enthusiastic, energetic, and talented people to execute your plan and vision, chances of making your Startup long-lasting would be less.

You need to work on: Competency mapping, Competence assessment of your manpower, and Convert your ideation into execution.

?Reason #5: Scalability with Recurring Revenue Model

To boost the scalability of your business, you need to create a strong base of regular customers to maintain your recurring revenue. Many Startups go on ’making new customers, at the cost of losing existing ones’.

While engaging new customers, they are unable to retain their present customers, which disturb regular inflow of revenue and consequently hurt their profitability and scalability.

Reason #6: Mixed Marketing Signal and Wrong Positioning

The main reason behind why startups fail in India is that most of the Indian entrepreneurs don’t know how to position their product in the market, who is their perfect customer and who is not their perfect customer.

They launch their product, without proper segmentation of customers through studying customers.

It is imperative to position your product on the basis of its identity, price, value, feature, and reliability after studying consumer behavior. It’s marketing and branding strategy will be based on its right positioning.

Reason #7: Releasing Product as a Laggard

The untimely or delayed launch of a product is the prime reason why startups fail in India, which plays the most crucial part of its market share and profitability.

Indian Startups launch their products so late in the market that the market becomes saturated, which compels them to give schemes, discounts, and offers, and end up ruining their profit margin.

Reason #8: Save Yourself from Getting Outcompeted

While launching your business, you need to observe your competitors and be prepared to tackle any disruption caused by them.

Reason #9: Missing the Process of Converting Feedback into Feed-Forward

Taking into account the customer’s feedback and the complaint is what helps you bring appropriate changes in your product. ’If you ignore their feedback and complaints, they will switch to your competitors’.

Customer’s complaints about your product signify that he wants to be with you, but the only thing that he is expecting is to bring change in your product.

Reason #10: Business Model of Complete Eco-System

Digital giants like Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, and Android are examples of those who have built a huge ecosystem by converging all stakeholders and customers on a single platform that could cause disruption in the market if they plan to exit.

Identify the reasons for your debacle. Correct it and streamline it. Definitely, you will be the next Unicorn.

From the above 10 points, you would be able to understand why startups fail in India and direct your strategy accordingly to make it successful.

Categories
Sales

How to Increase Sales through Competitive Advantage

How to Increase Sales through Competitive Advantage
How to Increase Sales through Competitive Advantage

Introduction

  • Does your product have uniqueness over your competitors?
  • Is your product providing maximum benefits to the customers?
  • Do you want to know how you can increase sales through competitive advantage?

In this age of cut-throat competition and with the onset of online shopping platforms, forget doubling your sales, selling your product itself has become more challenging.

Does this situation panic you? Are you searching for a formula to increase your sales or say double your sales?

Then your wait is over!

Read the article to increase your sales through competitive advantage more than double.

Sales are 90% Conviction and 10% communication of your conviction.

What is a Competitive Advantage?

Every product has some unique features and some benefits. These two put together, may act as an advantage for you over your competitors.

But will this lead to increasing your sales? The answer is No!

It is by focusing on benefits that come attached to these unique features, you can double your sales.

So, focus on those features of your product that provide maximum benefits to your customer. This will act as an advantage for the customer over your competitors. And, this is what we call as a Competitive Advantage.

Let’s understand this with some sales strategy examples as given below:

Example #1:

This CASE pen is beautiful. This is the feature of the pen. But, if you want to sell, tell the benefits of the pen to the customer.

What is the benefit here?

This pen writes beautifully and it will help beautify your handwriting.

So, focus on the benefit to the customer.

Example #2:

The average mileage of Case Company- Back loader is good. This is the feature of the back loader.

What is the benefit here?

You can save Rs. 2 lac per year by purchasing it.

So, focus on the benefit to the customer.

Where to Focus?

In Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says,

Na Anayatra Kinchit Asti Dhananjaya..
Sarvai gunai samasitai surah..

It means to focus on finding unique qualities to create a Blue Ocean strategy!

When applied to business, it would mean “Focus on those qualities which are not with anyone.”

And this is what we call as a Competitive Advantage.

If anyone has become a millionaire or billionaire, it is just because of competitive advantage.

But the question arises ‘Where to focus?’

You will get the competitive advantage not by addressing the objection but killing the objection in advance.

Don’t think about undercutting. If this is your focus, you will kill your gross margins.
An expansion without Gross Margin is committing suicide.

So, don’t focus on cutting down your gross margin, focus on competitive advantage. By doing so, you will kill the competition.

So, don’t focus on cutting down your gross margin, focus on competitive advantage. By doing so, you will kill the competition.

Categories
Marketing

How to Make Your Brand Go Viral With 5 Simple Steps?

?Introduction

  • Are you worried about making your brand viral?
  • How to make your brand go viral with less investment?

It’s easy to make your brand viral by incurring huge expenditure on marketing and advertising. But, how to make your brand viral through ‘Organic Branding’ and ‘Economic Branding’?

In other words, how to make your brand go viral by spending less on marketing and advertising?

In this article 5, important tips are given to make your brand viral by spending less. 

Let’s explore!

Tip #1: Feeling Vs. information

In your ads for branding and promotion, are you only talking about your product or trying to connect with the people’s emotions/feelings?

People Are Not Interested in Who You Are,

They Are Interested in How You Make Them Feel.

So, what kind of feeling your brand is able to generate is important for making your brand viral through organic branding.

Remember, all the ads that became viral had a great emotional touch with the audience. 

Example:

Do you remember the ad of Samsung LED TV Repair?

If you had seen it you certainly would. Because it had a strong emotional touch.

In the ad, a Samsung mechanic drives through the curvy and rugged hilly roads to repair an LED TV in a Blind Student’s hostel situated at the hilltop.

On reaching, he finds that all the blind students were waiting for their TV to be repaired so that they can listen to their host elite friend singing in a reality show.

Effect of the ad
: Samsung reported a jump in their sales of TV, that is, a J-Curve in Sales.
So, your Brand Recall Value depends on how you made the user feel through your advertisement, sales pitch, and promotional schemes.
Tip #2: Socially Responsible Emotional Story
To make your brand viral, you will not have to spend more on your brand’s advertisement, if you resort to ‘Organic Branding’ instead of ‘Paid Branding’.
You need to understand that buying behavior of consumers are influenced by emotion and not by logic
So, your advertisements and campaign should have a Socially Responsible Emotional Story.

Tip #3: Attention Seeking Potential

Earlier, the advertisers used to keep the end of an ad engaging so that users can go home with messages intact.
But with the coming of remote control operated TV sets, the user has more control over what they want to see.
So, your advertisement or campaign must be attention seeking from the very first second.
If this is not so, then the user can very quickly switch to other channels.
To get the attention of viewers, brands use advertisement techniques that invoke extreme emotions.

For Example:

In a Deodorant Ad, a man sprays deodorant on his body and girls get attracted to him from all the directions.
There are so many other ways of attention-seeking potential which can be handy for you and your product, so choose it wisely whichever suits your product.
The below methods will boost your understanding of how to make your brand go viral
A. Testimonial Route of Social Proof:
Some advertisers and brands use reports and surveys to make customers believe that the product they are showcasing is one of the best. If you don’t use it, you are going to be disadvantaged.
Some examples of such brands are USHA, Fena, Colgate, Sensodyne, etc. 
Moreover, many brands have this tendency to use a doctor’s coat to make people believe that the product is best for you.
B. Unexpected Expected Delightful Surprise:
To avoid huge investment, instead of hiring an expert agency, many companies opt for someone with little hands-on making creative ads and they spoon-feed their ideas to the audience. 
But it fails drastically because if you spoon-feed your audience, they will not admire the things they already know. 
The audience likes unexpected ads with delightful surprises in the end.
The ad should be designed in such a way that leaves a smile on the faces of people. 
Pidilite did many experiments in doing things like this; they made a few ads that left a smile on people’s faces and things that were unexpected.
The same thing happened with the ad of Royal Stag -Men will be Men, Airtel followed the suit.

Tip #4: Call for Action with a Jingle

Jingles are the most powerful way to make your brand viral. It catches the attention of the audience. It gets absorbed in the minds of people effortlessly.

This is because the human brain registers the jingles and music easily as compared to other things.

As soon as viewers watch such ads, they start singing or humming the jingles unconsciously. 

Jingles have hidden commands for viewers. As they keep humming them, when they go to a shop, they purchase the same product.

For Example:

The jingles of Uncle Chips, Vicks, Mango-Frooti, Bajaj advertisements are so popular that it has increased the sales of these products drastically.

Tip #5: Exaggerate the Insecurities and Fear
 

As a tool of organic branding, over the last few decades, many brands have exaggerated the insecurities and fears in the mind of common people.

They keep on glorifying and amplifying it throughout the ad to convince the viewer that if they won’t take their product or service, they will be at a loss. 

They generate a sense of compulsion and a sense of urgency among the audience.

For Example:

In the ad of hair oil, they show hair fall problem or dandruff issues.
In the ad of LIC policy, they show that an untimely death can happen to anyone and many more things like this.

Even Baba Ramdev, who runs an ad of hair oil where he shows that the other companies are using components that can cause cancer.

Given the 5 steps as above will help you understand how to make your brand go viral without increasing cost on branding and promotion.

Categories
Strategy

Do you know why strategy execution fails in business?

Introduction

  • Do you know why strategy execution fails in business?
  • Are you focused on Strategy or Executing the Strategy?
  • Do you want to execute your Strategies effectively?

There is a myth prevailing across the business community that if strategies are good, an organization will definitely work.

They solely rely upon ‘ideas and innovation’ to run their business and undermine the importance of strategy Execution.

Big corporates make many strategies, work on various innovative ideas by pumping billions of dollars.

Still, their failure to execute those ideas actually lead them to an unexpected demise.

Thousands of organizations are failing due to the improper execution of their business strategy.

Let us understand why strategy execution fails even after making world-class business strategies.

Corporates’ Failure to Execute Ideas

Even after being the first entrant into mobile phones, Research in Motion, the makers of Blackberry, and Nokia lost 85% market share to new entrants due to lack of efficient execution.

Even after having a powerful business strategy, ideas, and innovation they failed dramatically in execution. This led others to grab the market from them.

Ideas and Innovations are not Sufficient

Sole dependence upon the ideas is the prime reason why strategy execution fails even after pumping millions of dollars on innovation.

In present market conditions, it is utterly a myth that with an “idea” one can become “Crorepati” (millionaire).

An Idea is just a seed, but it needs Sun, Air, Water, Fertilizer, and Pesticide to become a big tree -which is called Execution.

Why is Execution so Important?
Such is the importance of strategy execution in an organization that accomplishing a plan without it is merely a myth.
Normally, an organization doesn’t figure out money-making models and fail to make efforts score, results score, and scoreboard.
Plans and policies can be made in a board room, but the execution is not a child’s play. It is a systematic way of turning cognitive ideas into reality.

Seamless execution on your inspiration can become even bigger than innovations.
Strategies and innovations are important, but without excellent execution, they are completely irrelevant.
Innovation can be purchased, strategists can be hired, but the execution has to be done by you only.

Be Fast Mover, Not First Mover

This is not the world of first movers but fast movers. Although Bollywood started making movies inspired by Hollywood, now, its revenue has surpassed that of Hollywood.

OYO Rooms launched an online hotel booking service in India by adopting a model of AIRBNB from abroad, but now, it has become so big that AIRBNB cannot even compete with it in India.

In the same manner, OLA Cabs began its operation after many years of the launch of Uber in India, and now, it has become larger than Uber in the country.

Get Inspired by Others

Xerox’s computer was not as bad as it now appears to be, but it lacked execution.

The emergence of Steve Jobs’s Apple and Bill Gates’s Microsoft in the world of the operating system did not leave the space for Xerox to breathe anymore.

There were many mobile operating systems like -Blackberry, Symbian, MeeGo, Palm OS, and Windows.

But, they left an inch of space in the market!

Seeing the space, Google launched the Android killing all competitors in one go. It created a single point ecosystem and open platform for mobile and software manufacturers, which no one could think of.

Failure to Execute

Thanks to their ability to undermine the importance of strategy execution, Nokia, Siemens, Blackberry, Motorola and Sony are no more a household name as they used to be.

Once, market leaders, they lost the race with the entry of Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi.

Though strategies and innovations are very important for an organization, but “ideation without execution is only illusion and delusion.

The entry of Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali has driven centuries-old organizations like P&G (Procter and Gamble), Dabur, Hamdard, and Unilever out of business.

The story is no different for Search engines. Web crawler and Lykos were launched in 1994, AltaVista and Excite in 1995, Yahoo and Dogpile in 1996, and Ask Jeeves and MSN in 1998. But they could not sustain the market to inexperienced Google, which was launched in 1998.

All these corporate failures are examples of failed execution even after having good ideas, strategies, and innovation.

Today is the time of not only innovation and ideas but taking inspiration from surroundings to execute business and scale it up.

Hence, why strategy execution fails could be well understood with the explanation as given in the article.

Categories
Sales

7 Tips on How to Increase Sales

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Introduction

  • Do you want to retain your existing customers and create new customers for a lifetime?
  • Do you know how to increase sales? 

Read this complete article to know tips on how to increase sales and create loyal customers. These ideas will help you retain your existing customers and create new customers for a lifetime.

Tip #1: Customer’s Name is the Sweetest Desert to Him

The first workable tip to increase your sales is connecting with your customers by knowing their names. 

Customers love to hear their names from others. 

If you are a small shop owner, you should give a personalized touch to your customers by greeting them with their names.  Apply this little tip, you will get big results.

It is psychologically proven that every individual loves to listen to his name.

In a survey of 100 people, it was found that the waiter’s tip increased by 14% when he gives a good-quality mint along with the bill at the time of clearing. 

When there were children along with the customers, waiters bring candy for kids instead of mint and this increases their tip to 27%.

Though it won’t cost much, if you give your customers some specialized, personalized and customized service, they will come to you again and again, which will help you increase your brand value, brand equity, and sales.

Tip #2: Co-Creation of Innovation with your Customer

Whatever changes you are planning to bring in your products or services, you should take extensive feedback from your customers. Your customer should feel that he/she is also part of the innovation. This model is called the ABCDE model.

A-
Analyze the needs of the customer.

B-
Brainstorm the actual requirement of the customer.

C-
Co-create; involve your customer in the product’s creation. 

D-
Deliver 

E-
Evaluate

This is one of the reasons for Subway’s success, as the customer creates its own customized meal. Co-creation empowers the customer and if the sandwich does not taste good, then also the customer doesn’t mind as he himself was involved in creation.

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Categories
Business Case Studies

How to Build a Successful Franchise Business

Introduction

  • Do you want to expand your business?
  • Do you know to know what makes a franchise successful?

Franchise is one of the easiest and fastest ways of expanding a business. If you want to know how to build a successful franchise business, you need to first clear about different franchise business models.

Once you are clear with the franchise business model, you can look forward to investing your money in an established brand or even can set up your own franchise chain.

Before getting into the details of how to build a successful franchise business, let us first understand why businessmen are more interested in expanding their business through franchise business.

Why go for Franchise Business?

One of the reasons that people go for a franchise business is its increasing success rate and decreasing failure rate.

    • In franchise businesses, the startup cost gets minimized because the working model is already made, and you don’t have to invest in various combinations to make your business come on track.
  • In this business, you get a master franchisor that helps you in developing the skills to run and expand the business.

There are many advantages as well as disadvantages in the franchise business.

Let us first discuss what makes a franchise successful.

Advantages of Franchise Business

1. In this business, you get a proven trademark, logo and an established brand name.

2. An established working business model.

3. You get the customer’s ready footfall.

4. Everything is already defined be it the content, context, training, or print.

5. A system to train your manpower.

6. In some brands, you also get the support of the national marketing team as well. This saves the investment of your extra money and time because the marketing is done by the team for you.

Disadvantages of Franchise Business

1. Higher Entry Cost and Ongoing Cost

If you want to know how to build a successful franchise business, then you should understand that taking up the franchise of an established and popular brand will cost you a lot. You have to invest a good amount of money.

On the other hand, if you start your own burger shop the cost reduces to almost 10% and the profit also increases.

There are several franchisors that will give you their own infrastructure, software, database, and computer but in return, they will:

  • Keep a tight eye on what you are doing; you will be under strict surveillance.
  • Check the standard of the place, the database and everything, regularly.
  • Not support you as you would have expected.

All they are interested in is royalty.

2. Lack of Flexibility

Do you want to jump into a business where the possibility of bringing in some other product becomes zero?

  • In this case, you will not be able to bring in any new ideas or variations.
  • You will just have to stick to the basic standards and follow them.

Big brands standardize their processes and products as this is what makes a franchise successful. However, this restricts the franchisee.

The bigger the brand the stricter will be their rules and norms because they already have a large customer base.

So, choose wisely before you join hands with someone for kick-starting a successful franchise business.

3. Thorough Research

Thorough research of the brand whose franchise you want to take is one of the important factors of how to build a successful franchise business.

If you are willing to take the franchise of a brand, then do check that what it’s market status is because your brand will also be known with the parent brand.

If your parent brand is not going well in the market, your reputation will also be hampered irrespective of the efforts and money you invest in it.
So, you should do the following:
  • Check the brand’s product, positioning, and pricing.
  • Go and meet the other franchisees of the brand and ask them about:

1. Gap between what they expected and what is deliverable.

2. Gap between commitment and achievement.

3. Support from the company.

The above points are the factors that make a franchise successful.

4. Check the Failure Rate

Now after meeting the existing franchisees, you must go and search for some of the franchisees who have been shut down.

  • Go and have a word with them to get an insight and the problem due to which they were forced to close down.
  • You have all the right to know that where was the problem, was it with the franchisor or the franchise.
  • Check on the internet and decide only after you have satisfactorily done your research.

5. Franchisor Controls all the Cards

After finalizing the brand you want to work with, the documentation is the next most important part of how to build a successful franchise business.

  • Before you sign the papers, get assured that they are benefitting you as well.
  • Let your lawyer read the terms and ask him for guidance.
  • Carefully go through the agreement before signing and if needed negotiate things with the franchisor.

6. Consider Doing it Yourself

It is true that joining with a big brand will give you big business and will demand big investment but on the other hand, sometimes things can go well for your brand as well.

Who knows the brand you built that is low on business and investment could boom up and become a bigger brand.

Business is not rocket science; it needs possibility, passion, a business mindset, and some analytical ability.
Hope these points will prove to be helpful on how to build a successful franchise business.