SMALL BUSINESS AS WE DO!

Part – IX

Financial Management

Cash flow management is the most challenging task for small businesses. Most of the time small businesses starts with small investments without much liquid money as back. Many hidden factors were not calculated in the initial plan and budgeting.  Small businesses also deal with similar small businesses or clientele and their cash flow issue also effects and this is kind of chain reaction. Poor resource management, inadequate sales and marketing efforts are also key factors behind cash flow issue.

To streamline cash flow below considerations are important;

1.       Budgeting

2.       Regular Profit and Loss analysis

3.       Efficient resource utilization

4.       Effective Sales and Marketing

In case of mismanaged cash flow following steps may help in managing cash flow.

1.       Expense cut

2.       Down sizing

3.       Increase in Price

4.       Short term loans

However, every step must be linked with business situation, sales forecasts and budgeting.

Most important of all is hiring a proper accountant and follow all accounting rules and processes.   Honestly speaking only two factors can make good stream of cash flow.

1.       Sales

2.       Profits

Strong, effective and realistic marketing strategy and result-oriented team to achieve sales targets is   important for business growth and at the same time pricing and payments terms must have detailed   consideration to cover all the costs, over-heads and enough profit margins that in case of any bad   times, organization should have cushion for back-up.

Without proper documentation, easy payment terms and leniency results in bad debts and hard to   receive from clients. This not only wasted lot of time but give further financial loss as resource   dedicated to receive also has cost.

Many small businesses follow pricing and other financial numbers as per market conditions or   market norms instead of their own calculations. This practice also resulted in less profits or no   profits. Every single business has its own circumstances and situations. This is right that one has to   follow market trends to compete in the market but considering own conditions is also mandatory to remain profitable and set adjustments accordingly. With proper budgeting, profit and loss calculations, sales targets achievements and resource utilization, this is not a big deal to remain and grow with reasonable profits.

Make Profits!

Writer, Shahid H. Qadri is Founder, CEO of PNTGlobal.com, small business dealing in IT enabled services since last eighteen years.

SMALL BUSINESS AS WE DO!

Part – VIII 

Project Management 

Project management does not apply only for companies giving services but this is equally applicable to other kind of organizations because Production or Trading can also be taken as short term or long-term kind of projects. These are activities to run business and to make money and these activities are linked with human resource and material resource and without a proper management, this is not possible to have smooth and efficient business flow that eventual grow. 

Standard procedures must be set-up and followed to run the business. Timely adjustments in the processes are must to keep moving. Reporting mechanism is important to see the results and to apply corrective measures whenever required. 

There are different kind of proven controls and processes available and applied without inventing the wheel again. 

Sprints, Scrums and use of White boards are some activities in use by almost all kind of companies to check and follow activities on daily basis with efficiency and less hassle. 

Efficient management need proper, clear Communication, documentation and reports. These are must. 

Every project has a start date and an end date. In between there are mile-stones and goals. Without making time-lines a part of commitment, this is unlikely that the organization will grow. This need clear understanding of scope of work. Jumping in to a task without understanding its nature and solution is most killing factor for an organization.  Pert Charts, Gantt Charts and use of proper project management tools help managing projects and without these project management may turn into a night mare.  

Engaging proper team for projects is the key behind successful projects. Proper hierarchy with clear understanding of roles and responsibilities are also very important and avoid misunderstanding and messing up of projects.  

This is always important to give enough time to plan project execution and get into pre-process activities before going to execute projects. Initial time spent in pre-processing can save lot of time, in case project get messed-up. 

Let’s Manage! 

Writer, Shahid H. Qadri is Founder, CEO of PNTGlobal.com, small business dealing in IT enabled services since last eighteen years.

SMALL BUSINESS AS WE DO!

Part - VII

Customer Relationship Management 

Sales and Marketing brings customers and clients and their satisfactions level decides the future of organization.  No organization can survive if there is without enough number of satisfactory clients. Quality of services and/or products is not the only factor required to satisfy clients. Pricing comparable with similar services and products available in market is also very important. However, the most important factor is communication. Availability to client is one of the most important factor. This allows the client to share his or her requirements or grievances and bring trust in the organization with a hope that he or she will get the proper product or solution from the organization.  

Strong touch-base with clients and proper follow-ups make it easy to build trust with clients. Be clear and honest with clients.  

Customer frequent feedback is very important not only to correct organizational weaknesses but to improve the quality of services and products. Instant feed backs as well as periodic touch base to get their opinion about your organization should not be ignored.  

Remember a satisfactory client act as the most effective marketing manager for your organization. Both positive and negative remarks of a client have long term effects in the market and hard to resist. Positive testimonials of satisfactory clients are like assets for any organization and construct a history that keep increasing the good well of the company.  

Similarly, negative remarks of clients become liability and need quick actions and corrective measures to get rid of this liability as soon as possible and listening and understanding the grievances of angry clients and giving positive solution to same may help converting the liability into an asset. This is not possible all the time because there are many internal and external factors to satisfy the client but attitude should always be to help and satisfy the client. 
Remain committed to your client for Cost-effective and Quality oriented efficient services
Let’s Care! 

Writer, Shahid H. Qadri is Founder, CEO of PNTGlobal.com, small business dealing in IT enabled services since last eighteen years.

Small Business as We Do!

Part - VI

Sales and Marketing

Setting up business and start producing something is relatively easy if compared with Marketing and Sell. This is because, while you are setting up a business or producing something, it appears as no one is in front of you but when you start trying to sale, there is lot of competition in this Global village.

Some time it feels as everyone is trying to sale and no one is busing. Also, in many cases, while planning small business, marketing and sales budgets were ignored. Fact is the Marketing and sales budgets should be much more than that of actual product cost. Even it could be more than fifty percent of total budget.

Due to technology, internet and social media Sales and Marketing techniques are changed completely. Digital Marketing is more effective and less costly than the conventional marketing techniques. However, conventional marketing still has its own impact.

Marketing and Sales strategy may contain;

1.   Cold Calls

2.   Emails campaigns

3.   Search Engine Optimization

4.   Social Media Optimization

5.   Paid Online Advertisements

6.   Print Media

7.   Electronic Media

8.   Exhibitions

Adapting any or many of the above depends on the nature of product or services of the small business. Marketing mix is always recommended instead of using a single way of doing Sales and Marketing.

Lead generation, touch base and follow-up are the main steps towards sales. Conversions depends on factors like;

1.   Sales Pitch

2.   Understanding requirement

3.   Offering right solution

4.   Quality of solution

5.   Reliability of organization

6.   Cost of solution

7.   Sales person competency

Last factor is the most important and this factor is governed by passion, knowledge, experience and qualification of sales person.

Without good effective Sales and Marketing strategy and resource to implement the same, no business can be successful.

Sales and Marketing needs patience, consistence and right steps in right direction. This is just like Fishing. Boring and tiring till you get a Fish.

Let’s Sale!

Writer, Shahid H. Qadri is Founder, CEO of PNTGlobal.com, small business dealing in IT enabled services since last eighteen years.

Small Business As We Do! 

Part – V

Human Resource Management

From hiring till retention, human resource management need lot of considerations. For multi nationals and big organizations, hiring and retention is not that challenging as in small businesses. This is because most of the time employs takes small businesses as punching bag. Fast turnaround of employs put small businesses in trouble as most of the time is wasted in finding and training resources and once they are ready to become productive they left the organization putting the organization in trouble again. Therefore, this is imperative to make sure that the resource is reliable in terms of availability at least till the completion of any specific project or task. Formal contracts are also important, which in many cases ignored by small business owners.

Below are some of the points important to remember while hiring a resource.

1.       Be sure what kind of human resource is required in terms of;

a.       Qualification

b.       Skills

c.       Experience

d.       Salary Budget

e.       Job Period

f.        Location

2.       Secondary considerations are;

a.       Age group

b.       Gender

Above all the most important factor is attitude that includes personality, appearance, confidence, intelligence and integrity. Most of these factors can be judged only based on experience and feel. In any case these should not be ignored.

Hired person must be clearly informed about the responsibility, expectations, report system, office decorum and policies. Regular evaluation reports and corrective measures including penalties and bonuses are important to keep the discipline and productive professional environment.

Hiring a proper HR-consultant, even on part time basis is worth to have an efficient, productive and profitable professional business environment.

Capacity and Capability are the two main factors defining the productivity and profitability of an organization.

Capacity can be termed as quantity of resources including human resource and capability is the quality of resource. More employs do not mean the organization will give more profits because it also depends on the skills and experience of the team member to produces results. In-competent resource is nothing but a liability and competent and able resource is an asset.

Capacity can be increased any time by adding more resources but capability need continuous training's and mentoring.

To retain capable and experienced resource the most important factors to consider are;

        1. Relationship between management and employ

         2. Working environment

.       3. Financial compensations

These factors play important role for employ to remain or not with an organization.

Let’s Hire!

Writer, Shahid H. Qadri is Founder, CEO of PNTGlobal.com, small business dealing in IT enabled services since last eighteen years.

Small Business as We Do!

The basic purpose to start a setup of small business is to prove that entrepreneurs can we successful at their first step towards a successful small business. The main role and responsibility of small business is to cater niche segment and to full-fill all the requirements of newly established firms at a lower budget.

Part – IV

What will be Your Role?

Small business means less resources with big dreams to make reality. This need patience, hardworking and consistent struggle. Small business need strict rules to follow otherwise things will become out of control and result will be a failure. To keep things in control and financially feasible, most of the time small business owners has to play many roles from Strategic Planning to Supervision. Time management, proper documentation, reports mechanism and controls make it easy to adapt all kind of roles.

Businesses normally has following areas to manage.

1.  Human Resource management.

2.  Financial Management.

3.  Sales and Marketing.

4. Client Relationship Management.

Depending upon the requirement and financial conditions, small business owners may hire persons to look after the areas or part of the areas mentioned above. However, at the top of these small business owner himself has to watch.

Human resource role in any organization can be divided in to three categories.

1. Director, the one who can foresee the future both in terms of opportunities and issues.

2. Manager, the one whose main concern to keep things moving to achieve the targets.

3. Worker, the one who is mostly focused on what is in hand and give-up whenever there is any hurdle.

Most of the time small business owner has to adapt the role of any one mentioned above. He or She act as Director and at the same time be on floor to help the team as their Managers and in case of emergency or situational requirement they are in field to work with the team.

Small business owner can not afford to hesitate doing anything. They cannot confine themselves to a particular rigid set of responsibilities. They need to have an open mind to accept any position any time to keep things moving.

Let’s work!

Writer, Shahid H. Qadri is Founder, CEO of PNTGlobal.com, small business dealing in IT enabled services since last eighteen years.

Small Business As We Do!

To relate the previous two parts; part I and part II which is associated to small business as well. However, this is brief connective among the two parts which explains in detail all the attributes associated and are mandatory for small business. As explain in part I the question is answered what is small business? Similarly part II is a elaboration who can do small business? 

Part-III

How to Start Small Business

Easiest way to start a small business is Just Start it. Yes, take a risk. Some times there is no harm in taking calculated risk. If you are feeling shy or hesitant in starting a business then you are not the one who can be an entrepreneur. Sorry but it’s a truth. Brave, bold and confident attitude is the first step to become successful entrepreneur. This does not mean that do things blindly but too much thinking will not take you anywhere. Think, Plan and Act.

Even most thoughtful businesses with well managed plans often fail. Doing business itself is a risky job but this is why entrepreneurs and businessmen enjoy their success because they reach their destination after taking many risks.

          Thinking and Planning a small business should have a checklist including;

      1. Evaluate yourself first

           2. Go for an idea.

           3. Get market feedback for the idea.

      4. Who will be your Audience.

      5. What kind of efforts will be required.

      6. What should be the minimum and maximum budget.

      7. Divide your plan in phases and milestones.

      8. Think for possible Partners.

      9. Set Goals with Timelines.

      10. Get Started.

Don’t get afraid from failure. Don’t think something small or something very big. Don’t think that what others will say. Those who are your well wishers will encourage you, even if you fail and those who are not will never feel happy even if you are successful so no need to waste time to think how others will feel. Think inside you and think what will make you feel happy. Your happiness will give you encouragement and motivation than anything else. Do what you enjoy and enjoy what you do.

Get it done!

Writer, Shahid H. Qadri is Founder, CEO of PNTGlobal.com, small business dealing in IT enabled services since last eighteen years.