Business is the least understood word even by an entrepreneur. Colloquially, ‘business’ is defined as any ‘activity that results in profits’. Is there a larger meaning to the profit making? Is making profit only tangible in results? Can the same be assigned a larger meaning, where profits could also be intangible and which when achieved, can make the complete environment a better place to live in? All stakeholders must rise beyond viewing it all from a limited perspective.
Apart from the objective of providing ‘bread and butter’ to the owner, any business must give something back to the society. Let us identify what is needed to run a successful business. If we do not do so, we can end up in wasting precious resources. Here are six steps to run a successful business.
Are you ready to be an entrepreneur?
We must be clear about the reason for running a business. Entrepreneurship is a bigger venture than only taking over the ‘family business’ and toeing the line and making money. We must have a larger vision to establish and run our businesses. That vision needs to provide a value-add to every life connected with the business. Through clarity of thoughts, effectiveness can be obtained in all the domains.
Need to have a clear picture
It is important to have clarity of resources we have and how much planning can be done with them. Without this, a mismatch happens between the resources held and what we wish to achieve. Dream big but plan and execute within the available resources. Some of the key resources which need consideration are time, money, manpower, and machinery. A fine balance is to be maintained by the business owners so that all of these resources are optimally used to help realise profits.
Ask questions
The business owners must address four questions — why, what, when, and how — before embarking on any planning or execution. These questions when answered would bring clarity to the process of planning and execution. Even if the owners can get the answer of ‘why?’ The answers to the other three would automatically get aligned. The outcome of all actions would be optimal, always.
Consider the following situations: “Why should I take the raw material from this company? The raw material is good of a good quality and costs are competitive. It is available with the manufacturer and the cost of delivery is less.”
Bigger picture
All business owners need to develop a keen eye to develop focus and concentration on the task in hand. It could be of planning, assigning a task to someone, or executing something by own-self. The intensity of focus and concentration would give them effective and optimised results. Business owners must concentrate on the ‘bigger picture’ rather than on the ‘micro’ aspects of business. We have a tendency to focus on resources which fetch smaller dividends and thus lose much on optimisation of resources. ‘macro-management’ is the key to success for the business owners.
Be intuitive
Entrepreneurs must develop a strong intuition. Business is all about creating your own brand, reading the market for raw material and the knowledge of where the goods can be sold. A keen sixth sense would always be an asset with business owners. Calculated risks are better than those taken without an insight. A good intuit would give a head start to the entrepreneur in most of their endeavours.
Business owners must remain calm at all the times. A calm mind can make them an effective analyst in any given situation. How to remain calm in any adverse situation is an art and can be learnt with the innate quality of being open and flexible. Calmness would be the business owners’ powers of observation, listening, and flawless execution.
Slow and steady steps
Entrepreneurs need to develop an insight to have an alternate plan. It is evident that situations in business are very dynamic. Change is the only constant of life. As we grow, we must imbibe the art of having a ‘Plan B’ which can be implemented when the first plan fails to achieve dividends.
Business owners must take small steps rather than leaps which are on weak foundations for brand creation and resource planning. Small, firm steps can prepare a launch pad which can fetch them better dividends and can prepare the ground for larger leaps in the future.
These steps can help small business owners avail better and quicker results. It is with diligence that they can pick up nuances of running a fine business which can be a win-win situation for all who are a part and parcel of the business. It is only then that the complete contribution to the environment would be taken care of by these business owners.
Source: The Economic Times
