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Market Research

7/29/2015

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Turn Ideas Into Business Opportunities
Research Competitors & Collaborators


The process of researching the merits of a business idea is equally important for all businesses large, medium or small. The probability of business success greatly increases when decisions are made based on facts supported by evidence.   

We need to stay focused on refining the idea by gathering market intelligence on whether there is a consumer need for what is being proposed. Equally important is the assessment of whether we can profit from the idea.

For a business that offers multiple products it is essential to identify the true profit generator.  In the United States a major food franchise sells doughnuts with coffee. Despite having a wide range of doughnuts on offer, the true profit generator is the coffee sold. Yes! The money is in the coffee.

Do your research on the size of your potential market. An individual who designed an improved bag for lawn mowers approached a company to manufacture the bags for him.  His plan was to sell them to a major national distributor. The manufacturer gave him research data that showed a bigger market selling in just one state south of the border. It would be more profitable to sell there instead.  

The following guidelines for market research and analysis are worth spending time on:

Determine Your Business Image
What does your business name represent to consumers?
Who finds your business image appealing?


Research your target market and work out a communication strategy to attract customers.

A company targeting a younger market segment should want to adopt messaging that speaks directly to that audience. The music industry hires people who understand the culture influencing the music audience.

A T-shirt design company targeting teenage music listeners successfully created a market demand by getting a band to wear their T-shirts. Additionally, the company keeps their name in the news by using social media to reach out to their target market by providing constant updates daily on the music scene.  

Cultivate Your Customers, Consumers & Advocates
Baby products are consumed by babies but it is the parents who are the customers. Parents tend to listen to health care professionals and other parents recommendations as to which brands are beneficial and safe for their babies.

We find baby product manufacturers constantly conducting surveys and producing informative literature targeting health care professionals and parents. A lot of investment is made in establishing an interactive relationship with customers and their trusted advisers because they are effective advocates for baby products.    

Understand Competitors & Utilize Collaborators
Evaluate your business, your competitors and potential collaborators utilizing a SWOT analysis. This requires analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats posed by competitors and collaborators. Build on the strengths that you and your collaborators have. At the same time you need to act of the advantages arising from the weaknesses of the competition.

A local bakery was able to exploit the fact that they offered breads baked fresh on the premises to accompany their lunch time soups and salads to compete effectively against the other food outlets in the neighborhood. There was always a longer lunchtime line of customers at the bakery as compared to the other outlets.

To be highly competitive, constantly seek out market information, analyze the data and act decisively.

Siddha Param
International Business Consultant

Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth

Click For Link To:

CENTRE FOR EXCELLENCE

BUSINESS EXCHANGE MALL DIRECTORY

Do share this article on social media and with those interested

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Business Innovation

7/23/2015

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Business Innovation Teams
Growing with empowerment


People tend to propose ideas when they are in their comfort zone. Promoting a work culture that encourages sharing of positive ideas leads to improved performance.    

Delivering World-class Quality
Patrick was a young entrepreneur who started a building maintenance business with very little capital. He did however have a deep passion to deliver high quality services. Within a couple of years he had secured contracts maintaining the high-rise buildings of several large corporations downtown. This he achieved by providing world-class services at a very competitive price. Patrick attributed this ability to the fact that he had a team that was as driven as he was to deliver high quality.  

What was it that made his team so passionate?

His answer was, he and his team acquired their skills working with a large national building maintenance company which used the latest equipment. After work he and his workmates would head off to the pub and over drinks discuss how things could be improved.

Patrick exhibited a natural leadership style that encouraged his workmates to suggest innovative ways to make their work easier and save cost for the company. He took these innovative ideas to the company management. When the management declined to implement these innovations, Patrick’s workmates encouraged him to start his own building maintenance business with assurances that they will join his business team.  

Patrick took the risk of starting up his business with an offer to new clients that they need only pay him if they were satisfied with the quality of service. Otherwise it was to be considered as free service. The innovations suggested by his team resulted in operational cost savings that made Patrick’s pricing highly competitive. This resulted in the early business success.

Patrick seeks consulting advice regularly and constantly encourages his team to suggest innovative ideas to grow the business. His leadership style works because it is based on the following principles:

Encouragement And Challenge
At team meetings, Patrick likes to pose constructive questions. He helps his team members to identify and build on the strengths of their innovative ideas. The other team members are encouraged to give constructive criticisms that can improve on those ideas.

Stimulating A Culture Of Creativity
Team members are encouraged to seek self-improvement with opportunities provided to attend training programs. His business has a learning environment with a mini-library of self-improvement books made available to the staff. Post mortems of work carried out for clients are conducted weekly with the aim of finding ways to better serve the client.

Non-judgmental Evaluation and Interventions
All conflicts are dealt with in a positive atmosphere. When an individual is found to have under-performed he or she is encouraged to take responsibility with the aim that they learn lessons that lead towards improved performance and better service for the clients.

Timely interventions are made to improve on a situation when things don’t turn out as planned. Patrick remains non-judgmental until all the facts are clear and evidence is produced to support or disprove a contention. His belief is, Every business setback is an opportunity to learn lessons on how to improve performance.

These leadership practices have created a work culture that encourages continual innovation, making Patrick’s business highly competitive in the market.

Siddha Param

International Business Consultant

Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth

Click For Link To:

CENTRE FOR EXCELLENCE

BUSINESS EXCHANGE MALL DIRECTORY

Do share this article on social media and with those interested

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Planning Strategy

7/15/2015

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Staying Motivated When Strategies Shift
Using vision to inspire competitiveness 


Ben was a manager of a sales team that had built up a large base of clients and prospects over a decade selling furnaces to home owners. He and his team had planned an effective strategy to continue cultivating a growing pool of prospects in identified neighbourhoods around the city. They had honed their tactics on closing a contract with customers based on the brand they were promoting.

Ben subsequently received instruction from the company’s head office informing him that the company will discontinue selling the particular brand of furnaces due to financial issues with the manufacturer. The company would instead shift to selling a new brand of furnaces offering different terms of payment to customers. Ben now has to work out a new strategy to retain prospective customers who were assessed as being ready to buy and have installed the discontinued brand of furnaces.

The vision of the company still remained the same; to be the market leader in the city for furnaces. However the strategy had change. Ben now had to communicate how and why the strategy had changed.

His task was to help his team to plan a strategy for the sales team that the team members could believe in and own so that they were convinced by the advantages of switching brands.

A ‘buy in” by the sales team that the new strategy and changed tactics better served the existing vision of the company was critical in boosting morale and re-igniting the passion to go out and sell the products.

Ben and his team successfully devised tactics to convince existing prospects on the advantages of purchasing from their company because of the quality of the new brand of furnace, superior services and better financial repayment terms.

The lesson we learn is that by sticking to your vision, you can plan a new strategy and adopt new tactics to promote new products when the business environment changes.

It is good to remind ourselves of the following:

To achieve business success clarify your vision, plan your strategy and take action.

Siddha Param
International Business Consultant

Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth

Click For Link To:

CENTRE FOR EXCELLENCE

BUSINESS EXCHANGE DIRECTORY

Do share this article on social media and with those interested 


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Time Management

7/8/2015

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How to Have a Productive Day!
Make the best of the 24 hours


All business leaders from CEOs of Multi-National Corporations to sole-proprietor Micro-Multinational Businesses have the same 24 hours at their disposal to carry out task and achieve goals.

How do successful leaders achieve the task that lead to success?

We Are All Busy People
A local DJ interviewed the CEO of the global group of companies that owned the local radio station. He noted that the CEOs agenda for the day included items such as; 11:03am call Manager at the Middle East office, 11:12am video conference call with London office, etc.

The DJ asked, “How to you manage such tight schedules which continue through the day?”

The reply from the multimillionaire CEO was, “We all lead extremely busy lives involving work and family commitments no matter what position we hold in our work life. The answer lies in having the discipline to prepare for meetings, prioritizing activity and managing time”.

Here are some tips worth working on;

Set Time Limits for Each Task.
Having an agenda and preparing for a task enables you to stay focused on completing the task.

Avoid distractions and deviations from the set agenda. It is important to complete task in the order of priority. Delegate research to specialist to shorten the time needed to complete the task. But remain responsible for checking on the accuracy of the information received.

Avoid Multi-Tasking
Create separate file folders for the different areas that need your attention such as operations, customer relations, finance, suppliers and support resources. Make sure specialist in the respective areas focus on delivering information on the designated areas first before offering feedback on other areas outside their scope of responsibility.

Give the task that needs to be completed your undivided attention. Focus on the individual item on your agenda and complete the task before moving on to the next item on the agenda.

Make Fact Based Decisions
Hindsight is always 20/20 vision. In business making timely decisions based on all available information is critical to achieving long term success. It is therefore important to stay current with vital information.

Establish channels for timely information update from within your business and from all stakeholders in your business. You should not be in a position of having to put off completing a task due to a lack of information that should have been available.

Technology should be used to help you complete task in a timely manner. Remember, the old adage, “Time is money”. So, ask yourself if you need to check your e-mails before attending to a task.

Get an electronic assistant to help you stick to a schedule and to organise breaks to recharge yourself. It is important to remember that, “Quality of living is the ultimate measure of success”.

Siddha Param

International Business Consultant

Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth

Click For Link To:

CENTRE FOR EXCELLENCE

BUSINESS EXCHANGE DIRECTORY

Do share this article on social media and with those interested 

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