Leveraging technology for a competitive edge (ENTREPRENEUR INDIA)

If there is one thing in common amongst leading businesses across the globe, it is the fact that technology is an integral part of their overall business strategy.

I have always emphasised on the need for startups to clear the Concept of T.E.S.T. and POC to improve their chances of succeeding in the market. In my previous articles, I have already elaborated on three aspects of T.E.S.T., i.e., ‘Team’ and ‘Execution’. In continuation, I’ll be covering ‘Technology’ in today’s post.

There is no doubt that technology will drive the future. Be it our homes, workplace, or any other aspect of our day-to-day lives, technology will rule. In fact, it already does, its scope will expand further.

But what is it that has made technology an indispensable part of our lives? The answer is simple… it simplifies everything we need to do.

It is precisely because of this reason that businesses can benefit tremendously by integrating technology into everything they do, be it Operations, Human Resources, Finance and Accounting, Inventory, MIS, Supply Chain Management or Customer Management. Businesses that leverage technology are inherently more scalable than those that do not leverage technology across various functions.

Technology: An integral part of business

If there is one thing in common amongst leading businesses across the globe, it is the fact that technology is an integral part of their overall business strategy. It has enabled them to consistently derive the maximum value from within and deliver it to customers. It has enabled them to scale up and become the reckoning force that they are, across the globe. Consider names of leading companies across any sector and you will see a strong role of technology in their business strategy. Be it Google, Apple, Accenture, Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Airtel, Vodafone, Microsoft, or Nestle, or even manufacturing companies like Samsung, Bajaj, Honda, etc.

Many entrepreneurs of startups and small businesses, even if aware of the advantages that technology offers, are usually wary of implementing it fearing the cost or inability to allocate people who can make the most of it. But time and again, it is proven that the pros far outweigh the cons and it will add tremendous value to the business in the long run. In fact, startups stand to gain significantly by integrating technology into their operations because their superior performance on various parameters on account of technology itself will act as a barrier for entry for other potential market players.

For a business, technology does much more than making things simpler. Overall, it helps improve the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization multifold across functions, which has a positive impact on its top-line and bottom-line. It ensures better speed and accuracy in operations and enhances the responsiveness towards operational and environment-related challenges.

Gaining a competitive edge

Whether you want to ensure better and faster communication through email, forecast market trends to come up with a winning strategy, track your inventory across multiple warehouses or generate the most complex MIS reports, that can take hours or even days to do manually, technology ensures that you can accomplish all this in a matter of just a few seconds.

Moreover, technology can help cut costs significantly by minimizing the manpower requirement and operational expenses and optimizing productivity. Ultimately, it is a company’s costs and responsiveness tothe dynamic market environment that serve as vital components in getting a competitive edge in the market, and this is where technology can make all the difference.

Technology complements all aspects of a business. While it is not technology alone that gives the business an edge, leveraging it to complement your efforts on all other fronts is what sets you apart and gives you an edge over others in the market. It can help you create a unique identity or value proposition and give you a lead over your competitors. Be it email, VoIP, cloud services, mobile technologies or social media, there are a host of technologies available in the market waiting to be tapped by companies.

The good part is that these technologies are now easily accessible and affordable and some of themcome absolutely free of cost, or at a very affordable cost in the SaaS (Software as a Service) model.

Leveraging the benefits of technology

As is the case with all functions in a business, it is the people within the organization who play a crucial role in leveraging the benefits of technology. Simply adopting technology just because others are doing it will be no good unless people are trained and retrained to use it effectively and optimally to give the business a competitive edge.

However, it is important to note that for a business it is not enough simply to adopt and integrate technology. Since newer and better technologies are emerging faster than ever, making the older ones redundant, it is equally important to identify the relevant ones and implement them sooner than your competitors, to not just ‘get’, but also ‘sustain’ your competitive edge.

For More Details - http://www.ghvaccelerator.com/

Source : EntrepreneurIndia. 

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T.E.S.T. your 'Execution' capabilities to build strong business foundation (ENTREPRENEUR INDIA)

This post is with reference to my previous articles on the Concept of T.E.S.T. and PoC and the importance of the first ‘T’ i.e., Team.

Like always, I reiterate my firm belief in the fact that startups that are well positioned on the T.E.S.T. (Team, Execution, Scalability and Technology) and PoC (Proof of Concept) criterion, stand a greater chance of tasting success.

Since I have already elaborated on T.E.S.T. and one of its vital aspects – ‘T’, i.e., TEAM – in the aforesaid links, today I will reflect on the next link in the chain i.e., “E” or EXECUTION.

“Without strategy, execution is aimless. Without execution, strategy is useless.” - Morris Chang, CEO, TSMC (a Taiwan based semiconductor manufacturing company)

This quotation pretty much says all that I want to convey in today’s post.

While most business leaders lay emphasis on strategy formulation or planning to build a strong foundation for the business, they often miss out on one key aspect that is instrumental in making plans materialize. And that is EXECUTION. Though planning plays a key role in any business, what is even more important is how, or rather, how ‘effectively’ those plans are executed. Even the best laid plans in a business stand to fail if not executed well.

A research by Dr Kotter, CIO at Kotter International, on this subject suggests that roughly only 5 per cent of all organisations succeed in implementing their strategies. A whopping 70 per cent of them fail in execution. The remaining 25 per cent are able to achieve only mediocre results on this front. The fact has been validated by several other studies.

This clearly reflects that companies currently undermine the importance of execution, not realising that building strong execution capabilities can help them acquire a competitive edge in the market, which can benefit all its stakeholders in the long run.

While developing a strategy or long term plan is considered to be a humongous task; and one that will decide its fate in the long run, the real challenge lies in executing it and bringing the strategy to fruition. This is where the real investment in time, effort and resources actually happens. And this is the stage where companies usually stumble.

Talent: An Important Tool

Talent is a critical tool that can be instrumental in effectively bridging the gap between strategies and the actual outcome by way of execution. Hiring people with the right knowledge, skills, competencies and experience and upgrading these skills from time-to-time, as the market demands, is therefore vital to building strong execution capabilities for an organisation. Moreover, a culture of meritocracy and an effective reward and recognition programme can further help motivate and retain talent and bring out their optimum potential, which can boost the overall execution capabilities of the organization.

But, that’s not all. While the senior management in most organisations usually focuses on drawing up strategies that can give them an edge in the market, the execution is usually delegated to the teams. To draw out the best capabilities of people who will actually be executing the plans, what is most important is that the plans are clearly communicated and understood not just by the core team, but, by every single employee who will work on making them a success.

A study by Harvard Business Review reveals that 95 per cent of employees do not understand their company's strategy? In that case, how can the companies expect them to execute the plans? Plans, therefore, need to be clearly and precisely formulated and communicated to everyone within the organisation. Also, while their execution may be delegated to the teams, the actual responsibility and accountability ought to rest with the senior management to ensure successful implementation.

Since strategies or plans are usually devised for a longer period of time, for them to be easily comprehensible by everyone, they need to be broken down into small term ‘SMART’ goals (i.e., Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound goals), so that every single person understands exactly what is expected from them in terms of performance to be able to effectively contribute to realizing those goals, and therefore, the long term plans.

It will also ensure that the communication that percolates down is consistent and no game of ‘Chinese Whispers’ comes into play, thereby leading to filtering or misinterpretation of the information or plan. Effective communication of the plan therefore ensures that all efforts are directed towards a common goal, thereby maximizing the impact of execution.

Monitor the Progress

The next step then is to monitor the progress against these goals to know the current position viz-a-viz the actual target. Unless a proper tracking mechanism in place, it’ll be difficult to track the deviation from the actual plan and take corrective action.

Also, what is important to note is that planning and execution are both interdependent on each other. While planning provides the basis for execution, it is important to take inputs from those involved in execution to understand the ground realities and undertake course correction, if required, to address the dynamic market environment. The more these two functions work in tandem with each other, the better competitive advantage a company can enjoy because of its ability to quickly adapt or respond to market conditions. This is what will set it apart from others and put in on the course to success.

For More Details - http://www.ghvaccelerator.com/

Source : EntrepreneurIndia. 

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Sectors luring investors interest in 2015 (ENTREPRENEUR INDIA)

The Indian market has been flushed with investments in recent times. This is great news for entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs from various sectors, as this seems to be just the beginning of what lies ahead.

With innovative ideas ruling the new-age businesses, investors across the globe are confident of what the Indian market has to offer and continue to lookout for the next big disruptive idea that has the potential to change the market and be a game changer.

The first level of disruption has already taken place and created a stir in the market. Whether you talk about eCommerce ventures such as Flipkart and Snapdeal, Taxi aggregators like Ola Cabs and Uber, Healthcare disruptors like Practo or Online Restaurant guides like Zomato, each of them has proved to be a huge disruptor in the sector that they operate and left a lasting impact – an impact that has changed the market forever and lead to an evolution of that sector.

However, it is the next level of disruption that now has the investors keeping a keen eye on the Indian market, regardless of the sector. For instance, with mCommerce, an extension of eCommerce, is gaining in terms of popularity. The market will see yet another shift and give a big boost to the mobile apps market.

Then there’s the Internet of Things (IoT). The market is primarily driven by hi-tech gadget lovers across the world. The domain includes breakthrough technologies like Google Glass as well as others that allow your door to unlock using facial recognition or your AC temperature to adjust automatically to your comfort level once you enter your room. These technologies are here to stay because of their growing demand among the discerning customers, who want nothing but the best for themselves, and are sure to be a favourite with investors in the coming years.

As for 2015, going by the recent trends, frugal innovation seems to be yet another favourite buzzword for investors. Be it smartphones, cars or household items like detergents and soaps etc., market leaders as well as startups are slowly realising the importance of frugal innovation and adopting it as an important part of their strategy to get ahead of competitors in the market.

It is the key to building sustainability for a product, service or brand. Frugal innovation means not just doing more with less, but rather, much better with fewer resources. It is all about integrating affordability, quality, simplicity as well as sustainability. Companies are increasingly working on how to improve their effectiveness and get better results with fewer resources and offer better value to their customers.

For example: In 2010, under the aegis of Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever, the company undertook the huge challenge of doubling the company’s revenues to 80 billion euros, while simultaneously halving its environmental impact by the year 2020. Ever since, it has built in sustainability and social inclusion into the core of its operations. The efforts have helped Unilever in building up and strengthening the frugal innovation engine that can help profitably serve 4 billion customers across the globe by 2020 in a socially and environmentally responsible way.

What investors primarily look for when they identify such disrupting business ideas is their long term sustainability and scalability. A high growth potential within a definite time frame is yet another prerequisite for attracting investors. Ideally these business should be growing or have the potential to grow faster than its competitors in the market and follow a steep, hockey stick growth curve.

In addition to the above, I believe that a business that clears the unique evaluation criteria of T.E.S.T. and POC (T.E.S.T. refers to Team, Execution capabilities, Scalability in the business model and Technology, while POC refers to Proof of Concept) stands a greater chance of receiving Stage A funding, which can be crucial for the future of the business.

To elaborate on the T.E.S.T. criteria, no business can succeed in the marketplace unless there is a great team in place, with right skills, capabilities and experience to lead others. An ideal team is also in a better position to execute and implement the business plan and give shape to the business. A great team needs to be backed with a great business model and technology that makes the business sustainable and scalable.

Similarly, POC or Proof of Concept refers to a test that proves that the hypothesis about the business concept has been proven. It could be a hypothesis around a technology innovation, service, value proposition, price-point, business model or anything that needs to be proven or demonstrated.

Most businesses that have a successful product or service believe that they have a successful POC. But POC ought to go beyond that and should include testing all aspects of a business that are vital for its success.

For instance, are you able to produce the product or deliver the service at a cost that is financially viable? Do your prospective customers see the value of the product or service, and are they willing to pay the price that you expect them to pay? In short, POC is about validating the commercial viability of the business. That is because planning different aspects of a business is as important as the actual innovation, product or service itself.

Any business that successfully meets the aforesaid parameters is sure to grab investors’ interest and there’s no stopping them thereafter.

For More Details - http://www.ghvaccelerator.com/

Source : EntrepreneurIndia. 

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