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If you asked to any of the business person around you about their business / project performance then they will tell you about their profit / loss, sales, revenue, etc. Maybe someone will tell you about their percentage of growth in comparison with the previous years. And you may wonder why most of them aren’t considering other factors of business / project which are crucial for their business success. I would say that the lack of awareness about such factors are limiting their business monitoring system. In another scenario someone may understood about those factors but unable to evaluate in a proper way. If you are aware or not there are critical factors for all businesseswhich are driving your business / project strategy, we call it as “Critical Success Factors” in management terms. And there are some pre-settled and specific indicators to evaluate thesuccess of business with different factors which we call as “Key Performance Indicators”. How to find out your critical success factors? Firstly you understand that critical success factors are the answers for the question “why would customers choose us?” And these are combination of all activates of your business including the managerial activity. Moreover this includes factors about current business operation and future success. Initially you have to set your “Business Model” which includes 9 building blocks from Customer Segmentation, Value Proposition, Channels, Customer Relationship, Key Activities, Key Resources, Key Partnerships, Revenue Model and Cost Structure. When you have finished with your Business Model you have to list out what all are really required to deliver your value at its best level. For E.g. If you are in real estate development business then your critical success factors may be completion the building on time, reduce the construction cost, faster sale of property, proper management, better branding & marketing, best in class customer experience, etc. now businesses has to measure whether we could achieve these objectives or not. Here we use KPIs. Evaluate with KPIs The basic difference between KPI and CSF is that critical success factors are the factors which take strategy forward while KPI measures how far we could achieve our strategies or it succeeded in the business. And KPI is measuring the after effects of strategies implemented with CSF not the direct evaluation of the strategies. If we take the same example of real estate development business we may set the KPI of time taken to complete each floor / unit in building against the CSF of completion of building on time, cost per square feet against the CSF of reduce cost, sales call and sale in the a month against CSF of faster sale of property, etc. Remember! CSFs and KPIs will change across Industries, business, departments, process / activity, etc. since it’s all depend on the nature of business, resources available, promoter of the businesses and moreover we do all of these valuation against the pre-settled missions by us not by the industry. The problem is that there are 100s of KPIs to choose from and companies often struggle to select the right ones for their business. The wrong KPIs bring the danger of pointing people into the wrong direction and even encouraging them to deliver the wrong things. So it is advisable to accept a professional help on this and understanding about your business objectives of success factors are vital. by Bareer Jazim Ameen Ahsan Strategy Consulting
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Customer are considered as the heart of all businesses. Many business complaints that we got a good sale in our first time but then in a longer period number of customers went less, existing customers aren't buying more, failing in creating loyal customers, marketing campaigns aren’t effective, etc. A vital reason for this is inaccuracy in defining your customers, many businesses believes that all people in the market are their customers and they tried to promote their product or service to a mass audience. In fact businesses must make a conscious decision about which segment to serve and which segment to ignore. How to define my customers? There is a simple way to define our customers by asking a simple question of “who do we want to communicate to?” there are different ways to answer this question such as dividing a customer base into groups of individuals that are similar in specific ways relevant to marketing, such as age, gender, interests and spending habits. That is Customer segmentation. Who needs to consider this? When it comes to starting new business, it is vital to establish whether there is a market for your products and services and identify the type of people that would make the ideal customers. And for existing businesses it is important to change their current customer segment, to provide more offerings, create loyal customers, etc. Who is your real customer? Your real customers are those to whom your product or services matches 100%. In other words a real customer is the one who has the intention, ability and capacity to the product or service you offer. Moreover your product or service has to solve any of his/her problem. Who isn’t your customer? The main understanding of the customer segmentation is that everyone isn’t our customer. You have to be very specific about the customer you are going to serve. A business can’t make everyone happy but a business can make a smaller group of people happy. If you tried to solve the problems of many types / category people then you can’t offer different variety of products or service with many options. E.g. if a customer visit your retail home appliances business to buy a refrigerator with budget of 15000/- he would like to choose one among many selections but if your business decided to target all the customer group, then you can’t display many collection this will affect your business badly. How Segmentation will Help You? Segmenting your customers can help you to identify a niche market which is specific, well-defined area of your market and that may be overlooked by competitors, this allows for the effective allocation of marketing resources and the maximization of cross- and up-selling opportunities, possibility to create and deliver tailored promotional tools, offers, products and services, etc. marketing materials sent out using customer segmentation tend to be more valued and appreciated by the customer who receives them, this will help in customer retention and loyalty. Finding of new products or services to the existing clients is more accurate and chances of sales conversion success is higher when we do a better customer segmentation. Not only do companies strive to divide their customers into measurable segments according to their needs, behaviors or demographics but they also aim to determine the profit potential of each segment by analyzing its revenue and cost impacts. By Bareer Jazim Ameen Ahsan Strategy Consulting Entrepreneurs who are not structured and disciplined in their management often make fun of professional business advice as "Academic Theory". This is a normal trend among entrepreneurs who are not willing to change and prefer to find excuses.
"Theoretic management" advice does exist. But it's mostly from College lecturers, who do not have any experience in practical business. But advices from experienced professional business consultants comes from many years of working on different types of organisations and industries leading by solving key issues. So every time, you get to hear any suggestions about your business, about an area that needs improvement, don't escape by calling it "Theoretic". Think about it. It might be something that will help you improve your business. Best of luck for you and your enterprises! Business Insights from Ameen Ahsan Strategy Consulting www.ameenahsan.com 7558-900-800 | www.ameenahsan.com 7th Floor, Hilite Business Park, Calicut Business Consulting | Feasibility Studies | Project Reports While watching a talk by Alibaba.com founder, he said something that's interesting. Something that can change the entire way we do businesses. A change that can destroy many existing businesses and give birth to many.
It's going to be like a mega earth quake. It will be the shift from B2C to C2B! B2C or Business To Customer, means the businesses that traditionally produce products or services and sell to customers. That is companies who "convince " customers to buy what they have to sell. But with so much data getting captured about each customers these days, new companies might come up who will use this data (real wishes and needs of each customer) to tailor make every product or service for him! This is amazing in the sense, customers tell what they want and it gets delivered. That is companies selling only customised food, clothes, stationery, cars, machines, mobiles, TV etc, you name it. Now think of this, extending to almost all aspects of our life or commercial & individual shopping! This will change our business models fully. It will be fully centric on customers or niche customers. It will be heavily tilted towards customer relationship and loyalty. It will totally change the platforms through which we interact with customers like the nature of our shops, it's sizes, it's layout, it's presentation... It will change the whole layout of our websites. The advertisement budget will be heavily shifting to social media ads than print (if it's still alive) and TV ads. We think it will change everything. Including your business. Will you be ready for it? Business Insights by Ameen Ahsan @ Ameen Ahsan Strategy Consulting 7558-900-800 | www.ameenahsan.com 7th Floor, Hilite Business Park, Calicut Business Consulting | Feasibility Studies | Project Reports Every dry season we talk about the need and ways for a good utilisation of monsoon rain water. That when our wells are dry. We wait for rain to come to be more prepared for next year dry season . But when it rains we forget everything.
This happens in our business as well. During recessions or down season, we plan about how to improve business, how new investments should be made, what important changes are required. Things that they cannot do now, as season is down and cash balance ces are not good. But when the season comes or economy recovers and business is in full throttle, we forget or ignore those plans we did, and continue in old ways. And once the good times are over, and it's dry, we repeat the wishing process. So let's do something positive in our business and in rain water harvesting! Best of luck for you and your enterprises! Business Insights from Ameen Ahsan Strategy Consulting www.ameenahsan.com Please share to all Entrepreneurs & Management graduates If you wish to get our message direct, then save our number +91-7558-900-800 and whatsapp us your "Name", to join our Broadcast List. Being eco friendly is something we all love to talk about. But do we actually practice that in our business?
How can a business be Eco Friendly? 1. Make sure your business does not discharge wastes that pollute the rivers, the soil, and the air 2. Make sure your staff, where they live and discharge is not spoiling our water, soil and air 3. Make sure that we are not wasting raw materials, electricity and fossil fuel, due to our operational inefficiency Investing into building more efficient systems will make it profitable for you in the long run. Investing into not discharging your wastes into rivers and soil or air, is more than profitability. It's about human survival. If your business can't be done without spoiling nature, then don't do it. There are many other opportunities. Always remember, nature does not need us. We need it. Nature determines our future. Best of luck for you and your enterprises! ----- Ameen Ahsan While making decisions we often make the mistake of assuming that the most "popular option" is the best option. But it need not be so. Things, People, Brands become popular because they are known to the public, because they advertise more, or are old enough in the market or due to a zillion other reasons. But that does not mean, a better option is not available. It might be just not be that popular. *How does this affect us?* We end up Not buying a better raw material, not buying better machineries, not hiring the best services, ... In Short taking the wrong decisions, that can cost us opportunity costs or cost us net profits or cost us a competitive edge. So don't select a product, service, option or decision just because it is what everyone prefers, but do it after studying properly all other options. And select the best (need not be the most popular) option, to be more competitive. *Clarity of Thinking is important* for Right Decisions. If you can't assess these facts by yourself, engage experts to help you. *Best of luck for you and your enterprises!* Business Insights from *Ameen Ahsan Strategy Consulting* 7558-900-800 | www.ameenahsan.com 7th Floor, Hilite Business Park, Calicut Does joining IIM or Harvard make you smarter? Does using certain branded cosmetics make you a model? Does swimming everyday make you tall and athletic? Or is the truth .... Only the Smartest people get into IIM and Harvard, as a result, the outcome is always smart? Cosmetic ads you see, are by models so they look great? Only tall and athletic build people can be great swimmers? This is an important aspect for business. Half of advertising would not exist if this illusion did not exist. This illusion is also created by branding. Now decision makers need to make sure, they do not fall into this trap. If they do, like many thousands they will not get the desired results, but keep spending their time, money and effort for this illusion. *So what to do?* Don't go by what you hear from advertisements, peer pressure, general "trends" or even "most" success books! Assess the facts, know who you are, know your Strength, Weakness, Opportunities & Threat, and act accordingly. *Don't use other successful person's life as your "Life's Template".* *Clarity of Thinking is important* for Right Decisions. If you can't assess these facts by yourself, engage experts to help you. *Best of luck for you and your enterprises!* Business Insights from *Ameen Ahsan Strategy Consulting* In today’s growing economy, more and more companies are looking to have their business online. Having an E-commerce is one of the most important business decisions a company could make in today’s fast moving environment. According to investor words, E-commerce is The buying and selling of products and services by businesses and consumers through an electronic medium, without using any paper documents.
There are many different way a company can benefit from having an e-commerce site for their business, in this way company will get more benefits. Like, cost reduction, increasing profits/more economy, expanded geographical reach, visibility, variety. Cost reduction: One of the most tangible positives of ecommerce is the lowered cost. A part of these lowered costs could be passed on to customers in the form of discounted prices. New technologies allow you to take virtually any part of your business online, that include supply chain management, billing, shipping, procurement etc. Streamlining these business processes through online systems will allow companies to cut costs significantly in almost every sphere of any business. Doing e-business is cost effective: It reduces logistical problems and puts a small business on a par with giants such as Amazon.com or General Motors. Every financial transaction eventually turns into an electronic process. The sooner it makes the conversion, the more cost-effective the transaction becomes. Expanded geographical reach: Store can operate without geographical limitation; the business can now reach customers globally by allowing customers to carry out business without the barriers of distance on time. This will convert more customers into consumers, while expending the customer base of the company and building strong brand awareness and customer loyalty globally. Economy: In e–commerce there is no physical store space, insurance, or infrastructure investment. All you need is an idea, a unique product, and a well–designed web storefront to reach your customers, plus a partner to do fulfillment. This makes e–commerce a lot more economical and more profits from the business. Variety: An organisation or a company can reach wide geographical areas with variety of models. It more help to customer choice and it will lead to increase the sale. For example; Online shopping is big advantage for jewellery retailing business. They have variety items on gold, silver, platinum, other precious stones and watches. It help to put more items on display. To know more about how AASC can add value to your existing business or new upcoming project, please call +91 -7558-900-800 ----- Author: Afsal T Safnas, PGDBM (Edexcel-UK), works at Ameen Ahsan Strategy Consulting. Email: info@ameenahsan.com Mobile: +91 -7558-900-800 Business plans are often mistakenly associated only with startup businesses. But without an evolving, written business plan, company management can easily find itself overwhelmed and reacting to events, instead of managing proactively.
So if you haven’t updated your business plan since your startup days, it might be time to consider writing a business plan for growth. Periodic planning can help sustain growth and profits, and is a practice that’s vital to keeping up with the ever changing business s landscape. Five Key Elements Here are five key elements to consider when drafting your business plan for growth. 1. Define your goals Create a list of long-term goals. Be sure to choose goals that are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed. These goals will guide you as you work through your business plan for growth, and will help focus your efforts on doing what it will take to achieve these goals. 2. Set up milestones Milestones should be established to mark your progress against reaching your goals. Include details in the milestones such as customers you hope to acquire, and additional employees you might need to hire. Elaborate on how these activities will contribute to achieving your goals for growth. 3. Plan for cash Growth strategies such as geographic or product expansion can initially generate negative cash flow. Increasing revenues doesn't necessarily mean increased profits, because at the outset, the cost to achieve growth can be high. Your financial plan, especially your cash flow projections, will be vital in determining how you’ll sustain your company’s growth without putting you under. 4. Profile competitors Have new competitors emerged since you established your company? How have your existing competitors changed in response to your entrance into the market? Be aware of how your competition can affect your goals. Strategies to address competitive forces can include adjustments in: · Price · Speed · Quality · Niche markets 5. Track your progress and evaluate the results To track your progress, establish company and industry benchmarks against which you can measure your performance. Conduct a gap analysis which compares “Where are we today?” with “Where do we want to be?” To know more about how AASC can add value to your existing business or new upcoming project, please call +91 9995-631-727 ----- Author: Jaseem, works as Junior Business Analyst at Ameen Ahsan Strategy Consulting. Email: info@ameenahsan.com Mobile: +91 9995-631-727 |
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