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market leadership

7/27/2016

Research Local Market Dynamics
Understand the community culture

Aaron an entrepreneur headed out to New York to seek opportunities. He decided to work for a local business owner who had a store in Brooklyn. The owner explained, “In New York we do business with everyone”. Real estate is so expensive in a big vibrant city, you have to generate maximum income to cover expenses and turn a profit.

Aaron realized that you should focus on the vibrancy of the city which for him translated to lots of paying customers. He headed out to Vancouver, British Columbia and identified a niche for supplying trendy costume jewellery to local stores. Aaron had a source in Thailand who could supply attractive designs at a very reasonable price. He identified Vancouver stores that would carry his line of Trendy Thai costume jewellery.

What do we need to know about the local market?
Cities are not homogenous markets. Identify the part of the city that offers the best opportunities for initial business. This could then serve as the base for subsequent expansion into the other parts of the city. Define your business goals and obtain factual information that supports your goals.

Do a comprehensive analysis of the local economy and social connections. Determine the market size. Assess the market conditions such as seasonal changes, short as well as long term trends and growth potential.

Once you have completed those steps, identify actual and potential competitors. Finally, evaluate the possible impact competitors will have on your market share, pricing strategy and profitability.

Discover your best options by researching identified prospective customers. You must evaluate the opportunities and threats of doing business with them. What are the benefits of doing business with the identified prospects? Assess the ability of any prospects to purchase on a regular basis and to make prompt payment.

Next, analyse the information and market data to evaluate the business risk. Decide if this justifies doing business in the local area and with the identified prospects. If it does, you’ll need to develop a market growth strategy.

With these steps completed, you should be well on your way to a successful entry into the local market.

Aaron identified several Vancouver stores in trendy locations who had attractive display shelves. He spent time getting to know the local business community by attending weekly business connection events in the neighbourhoods where these stores were located. He also got involved in local community social events to get a better understanding of the typical customers for his costume jewellery. All this data was collected and analysed.

Aaron became active on the social media platforms created by the event promoters. This enabled him to have an outreach bigger than the membership of the local chamber.

Interestingly, the online promotion via social media keeps Aaron connected not just to local businesses but additionally to local consumers.

Get active on your city business connection and stay connected with businesses and consumers 24/7.

Siddha Param
Consultant, Author, Speaker

Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth

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Financial Leadership

7/20/2016

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Grow With Business Stakeholders
Invest in your human supply chain

Richard had worked for a major building material supplier in the construction industry. The lesson he learnt that stuck in his mind was on the importance of sound credit control management. That meant understanding the value of financing and prompt collection of payment.

The supplier was in the middle of the supply chain between the manufacturer and the end construction company. This meant he had to manage stakeholder relationships along the supply chain that included third party trucking companies. Making sure the materials were delivered and payment collected in a timely manner was crucial to maintaining profits.

Supply Chain Stakeholders - Industry Knowledge
Richard started his own company supplying building material to medium sized construction businesses. He effectively financed the construction projects his customers undertook as he gave them credit on the sales.

Richard invested time in selecting customers who had a reputation for paying promptly. This required knowledge of who in the industry had a good reputation for delivering on a project. As Richard explained, “You want customers who are successful. These were the ones with the money to pay you”.

Richard tailored his supply chain and credit control system based on his past experience with the major building material supplier. He only supplied material from manufacturers who were established in the market. This ensured the quality of the material supplied.

The entire sales transaction from order to delivery was documented and the trucking company making the deliveries had to make sure deliveries were acknowledged by the customers. Richard invested time in explaining the importance of documentation to the people involved in the supply chain from manufacturer to customer.

Business succeeds when every individual in the supply chain buys into the system and performs to the terms agreed.

Stay focused on maintaining stakeholder relationships to sustain business profitability.

Human Value Chain- Product Knowledge
Richard had a clear vision of the direction his company needed to go in terms of growth. He was always open to learning about new industry practices and the technology platforms available for communicating his decisions not just to his team members but also to all the stakeholders involved in the supply chain.

Richard constantly communicated innovative ideas to individuals along the supply chain. The idea is to get all stakeholders to accept and implement innovate ideas in a manner that adds value to the supply chain. Too often a technology platform is introduced before there is acceptance of the productivity benefit by the individuals involved in the daily use of the platform.

In business innovation should act as a motivator that spurs stakeholders towards improving the efficiency of the supply chain by ensuring they remain a strong link.

Sustaining Supply Chain Relationships- People Knowledge
To ensure stakeholders perform productively show them how they will profit from the action. This is the essence of competitive leadership in finance, operations and people motivation. All change in a work function should benefit both the business and the individual involved in performing that work function.

It is important to fire up the imagination and enthusiasm of your suppliers and team members so that they go that extra mile to give customers exceptional service. When a business delivers quality it becomes easier to collect payment.

Such a competitive leadership investment in stakeholders promotes long term high performance that adds value to the supply chain and increases profits.

Siddha Param
Consultant, Author, Speaker

Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth

Click For Link To:

BUSINESS SERVICES

CENTRE FOR EXCELLENCE

BUSINESS EXCHANGE MALL CONNECTIONS

Do share this article on social media and with those interested

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Market Leadership

7/13/2016

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The Advantage of Entrepreneurial Agility
Play to your strengths to build a market

Britain outside the EU has been likened to Singapore in relation to Southeast Asia or Hong Kong in relation to China.

Small businesses too can grow in an environment dominated by big businesses. Just look at how South Korean electronics and automobile companies have grown their market share in a global market dominated by Japanese, European and American corporations. The competition just can’t seem to understand how the South Koreans did it.

Creating New Market Space
There was a time when one family owned just one or maybe two televisions. But now it is virtually each individual in the family having not just one but maybe even several devices to view television content. The creators of video streaming transformed the television and movie industry along with the whole revenue model through mobile streaming. Innovative thinking is the key to creating new market spaces.

In Vancouver, commercial real estate rental space is a major cost factor in running a food business. The solution for some entrepreneurs has been to use food trucks or smaller café space with a take-away counter for street eating. Locations with high foot traffic are the preferred places for such businesses. Going for volume with lower food prices has proven to be a winning formula.

Filling Gaps in Established Markets
Traditionally in supermarkets, customers bought ingredients they had to wash, cut and cook at home or they bought frozen meals for heating.

The consumer demand for easy cooking fresh meals has encouraged supermarkets to stock pre-assembled uncooked meals that only require popping into an oven to cook a fresh meal. No more washing, cutting, mixing to a recipe before the cooking begins.

These pre-assembled uncooked meals have the taste and texture of freshly cooked meals with so much time saved. People want fresh and convenient which is now possible with supermarkets playing the role of kitchen helpers who prepare and assemble the ingredients in disposable cookware.

Another response to the consumer by supermarkets is to establish smaller outlets near residential areas so customers can make more frequent quick trips to pick up meals more than once a week. This innovation in meal offerings has created an opportunity for small businesses who promote home delivery of pre-assembled uncooked local flavour meals.

A catering company in England supplies local pubs with a full menu of semi-cooked traditional English pub meals. The pub only needs one kitchen staff to take the meal out of the refrigerator to complete the cooking that takes minutes. This allows busy pubs to serve traditional meals at an affordable price.

Look for that gap in the market that you can exploit by listening to and analysing feedback from customers. A complaint may actually be a signal of an opportunity waiting to be exploited.

Innovation Leads To Competitiveness
Think outside the box to find space for your products in the market. Keep your mind open to ideas by attending business presentations, reading widely, networking, conducting consumer surveys and seeking consulting advice. All successful business leaders invest in continual life-long learning. This is a sound investment for sustained high growth.

Siddha Param
Consultant, Author, Speaker

Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth

Click For Link To:

BUSINESS SERVICES

CENTRE FOR EXCELLENCE

BUSINESS EXCHANGE MALL CONNECTIONS

Do share this article on social media and with those interested

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Business Leadership

7/6/2016

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Improve Your Business Partnerships
Establishing long term relationships

This Article originally appeared on TradeReady.ca

The purchasing agent of a North American store chain (the importer) based in Hong Kong successfully negotiated an import-export agreement with the sales representative of a South East Asian manufacturer (the exporter).

The two individuals believed they had communicated clearly the expectations of their respective companies. The exporter’s sales representative informed management that the importers were looking for a pricing that would enable them to give huge discounts during the Christmas sales period.

For two years the relationship worked well with prompt delivery and payments between the parties. On the third year disputes arose as to alleged product defects found in a shipment of two containers of products.

The manager with the exporter insisted through an email that payment had to be made under the terms stated in the agreement as they had delivered acceptable quality for the price charged. If there were any defects they would be repaired at the exporter’s expense.

The purchasing officer with the importer through an email stated that the importer refused to accept delivery of the two containers of products which he insisted the exporter take back.

A series of emails over a couple of months were exchanged between these two individuals that showed a hardening of positions with a threat of litigation made. At that point the correspondence stopped between the parties and the dispute remained in limbo for several months. Then a consultant was called in to suggest a way forward to resolve the dispute.

The consultant examined the documents and email correspondences. He noted the differences in expectations and perspectives of the exporter’s manager and the importer’s purchasing officer.

The consultant guided the two parties away from the emotions of the two individuals who had exchanged emails towards an objective assessment of the facts based on reasonable expectations under the import-export agreement.

The consultant did this by restarting communications between the parties by encouraging the exporter’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to communicate directly with the importer’s Purchasing Manager. A settlement proposal which had been emailed at the early stage of the dispute was used as the basis for settling the dispute. This removed the negative human emotions from the negotiations.

The CEO and Purchasing Manager reached a settlement whereby the importer at its’ own expense shipped backed the two containers of products to the exporter. This ended the monthly warehousing expenses incurred by the importer.

Upon receiving the two containers the exporter found that except for a few items of defective products in one container which were repaired, they were able to resell the two containers of products through an agent of an importer in Europe.

The parties should have established transparent communication channels to address issues and resolve disputes in a timely manner when initially negotiating the import-export agreement in Hong Kong. This could have sustained the business relationship.

The lessons from this case for international business negotiations include the following:

1. Transparent Communication Channels
Negotiations are not just about getting to an agreement but rather a process that establishes a working relationship reflected in an agreement.

Establish communication channels for conducting the relationship in a way that enables individuals working for both importer and exporter to find amicable solutions to disputes that arise.

2. Dispute Resolution Mechanism
Designate an independent negotiator or mediator that the parties can turn to for trusted guidance on how best to move forward once a relationship becomes strained.

The emphasis should be on avoiding litigation by either helping to re-establish sufficient trust to re-build a working business relationship or arriving at a dispute resolution with an amicable settlement.

3. Focus on Business Relations
Focus on the business relations and not on the personalities involved in the relationship. Business interest dictates acting on facts and not mere opinions.

It is important to monitor communications. A well-managed dispute resolution mechanism should guide parties away from the personal interest and ego of individuals.

Open communication channels should be monitored by senior managers who can intervene early enough to prevent toxic relationships from developing between individuals in direct communication at the operational level.

4. A Positive Exit Strategy
Not all business relationships can be salvaged. In such an event there should be mechanisms built into the agreement on how to calculate and allocate cost; as well as on how both parties can terminate the agreement and exit the relationship in an expedient manner.

In our case of the North American importer and South East Asian exporter there was a lack of the above mechanisms for dispute resolution, amicable settlement and exit that could have saved them time and money.

Both the importer and exporter have moved on to doing business with other parties. Hopefully their experience becomes a lesson on the importance of negotiating international business agreements that establish relationships based on performance, quality standards, open communication and mechanisms for dispute resolution.

Siddha Param
International Business Consultant

Reboot your business plan for sustained high growth

Click For Link To:

BUSINESS SERVICES

CENTRE FOR EXCELLENCE

BUSINESS EXCHANGE MALL CONNECTIONS

Do share this article on social media and with those interested

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