Tips from BUSINESS IDEAS Forum
| Here you can find tips and guidance how to maximize your benefit from using the BUSINESS IDEAS Forum. Look for the "  " sign to see how the discussions in the BUSINESS IDEAS Forum can help you
to generate and eventually select the appropriate business strategy.There are basically two situations you might be facing. | |
I want to learn about business ideas of other peopleI want to develop my business idea into a real business
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"There is not one best way to create business strategy, nor is there one best form of organization. The world is full of
contradictions and the effective strategist in one who can live with contradictions, learn to appreciate their causes and effects and reconcile
them sufficiently for effective action. |
I want to learn about business ideas of other people
There are four basic steps you should go through while looking for a business idea you would consider to turn into a real business. When you think you have some business idea worth trying, try to create the business strategy for it first. This helps you to discover the strength, weaknesses and potential pitfalls you might encounter during the implementation.
It is usually easier to copy somebody's ideas and achievements than to discover and promote them on your own. This is especially true when we talk about small businesses, where the business patterns can to some extent be repeatedly repeared and applied on other markets or geographical areas. Companies usually grow and expand to other territories by leveraging existing knowledge and resources. The Forum gives you insights how the businesses around the world can start and prosper.
Getting inspiration from others
Read some business ideas of different people and learn how others react to them and what information their usually need. You might find some similarities with your market or geographical areas, which could give you some ideas
what direction you might choose and what business you might try.Browse business ideas in the Forum that BUSINESS IDEAS Forum members turned to a real business.
Get a list of successful BUSINESS IDEAS Forum members who have achieved to make a business with other members.
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The business idea is worthless when it cannot be applied in the real world, i.e. the actual business environment. The business idea should be tested against your objectives and five forces describing the environment. Analyses of your business environment is considered to be one of the most important factors directly influencing success of your business but it is usually so complex that the attempt to thoroughly describe it might be a goal one can never reach. Companies operating in the particular business have the undisputed advantage, in comparison with start-ups, to use their current business knowledge of the environment and apply it for the new business direction. When these companies want to diversify their business, they often do it in a direction, which is somehow related to their present business. They are comparing how closely is their present market with its products, customers and geographical areas related to the new direction of their business. The more is the business related the less risk they usually face.
Identifying your environment
Search for businesses in the forum, which might be somehow related to your own business intention. Follow the discussions of selected postings to learn any market similarities you
might find useful for implementation of your business idea. The great thing about the
Forum is that it is constantly updated. This means that in case you need more information or you can not find information related to your business intention, you are welcome to post your question in the
Forum. Your chance to get answer from somebody else is about 37%. This is the rate of initial postings, which get currently commented.
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The resources are the means of conducting your business. They support the daily business activities of any company. The resource demand isn't constant but continuously evolves with the business needs. Many successful companies could hardly foreseen all their resource requirements in early stages of their business development. So it will be with the new start-ups. Most of them can only estimate what their resource needs might be in one year time, because they, as it is the very nature of each business, will be subjected to ever changing business environment. For the small entrepreneurs it is usually simple to review their resource needs to start some small business. Most of them think like: "Just give a try and lets see what comes up". This approach is acceptable as long as the resource demand and/or risk of loosing it are low. After they find that there is a potential to make some money, they usually, in order to limit uncertainty, start to use the incremental approach to grow their business. Their resource needs gradually grow with the growing business. The things get tougher when the initial resource need is significantly higher than the imitate return. In this case most companies create a list of possible scenarios their might face during the business development. Then they choose the scenario their think best reflects the given business environment conditions and simultaneously complies with the maximal risk the company is willing to undertake.
Considering your resources
Explore the postings, which are related to your existing business or your business intention. Learn what resources people usually ask for and how they are trying to network with other users of the BUSINESS IDEAS Forum site to get them. Remember that certain user of this site could have the prospect to provide you with a unique resource, which
might give you a competitive edge. You can also make a posting and ask the users community to give you some ideas or even offers for cooperation and resource sharing. Your chance to get answer from somebody else is about 37%. This is the rate of initial postings, which get currently commented.
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When you start to consider the value chain, which is the sum of processes you need to put into action to create your product, you find out how much you are depended on your business partners to successfully deliver your product to the market. The network of dependences is often indispensable for the very existence of your business and more importantly it could provide you the competitive edge, which your competitors might find difficult to match. This implies that the networking with the key business partners is the essentiality for each successful business. However the networking is relatively easy to maintain but rather difficult to start. The obvious question each start-up faces at the beginnings of their business is to clarify what information they will need and who can provide it.
Networking
We have learnt about one interesting feature from the Forum. It is the way the information exchange takes place there. We have found two distinct approaches.
- A user of this site makes his posting asking others for concrete help or looking for specific information or business partners. He is “pulling” the information because he wants to get specific information and he expects to
get replies to his questions.
The advantage is that he gets information, which is directly and often only related to his question.
The disadvantage is that there is a risk of missing something. The questions like “Do I ask the wrong questions or do I miss something?” might be always worth of consideration. - A user of this site gets offers and proposals from others. The information is “pushed” upon the user and might not be directly related to his original question. Subscribe for interesting business ideas being published in the Forum.
The advantage is that the user gets broader perspective of the problem and thus might decrease the risk of missing something. The users can get help from an expert having the specific knowledge to solve the problem.
The disadvantage is the information overload or even spam. The cases when you think you get too much irrelevant information.
- A user of this site makes his posting asking others for concrete help or looking for specific information or business partners. He is “pulling” the information because he wants to get specific information and he expects to
get replies to his questions.
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I want to develop my business idea into a real business
There are six basic steps you should go through while developing your business strategy. Usually you might contemplate more than one strategy to have the possibility to decide, which strategy would be the best to make your new business ideas come true.
Try to find answer for questions like:
Clearly define your expectation and objectives-What is your time scale?
-What are your products?
-What are your markets and customers?
-What are your geographical areas?
-What technologies are available?
-Is your strategy based on cost leadership or on products differentiation?
-How do you want to measure your success?Previous page Back to TopConsider the resources you will need. You can use for example value chain analysis
Questions below help you to identify the key resource areas you should take into consideration:-How you can utilize your present products and markets?
-How you can utilize your present production and technology?
-How you can utilize your present financial resources?
-How you can utilize your present human resources?Previous page Back to Top
Consider answers for following questions:
Identify your environment by Five Forces Analysis developed by Porter, 1980-What is the thread of entry taking into consideration economies of scale, the capital requirement of entry, access to distribution channels, cost advantages independent of size, expected retaliation, legislation and or government action, product differentiation?
-What is the power of buyers and suppliers?
-What is the thread of substitutes?
-What is the intensity of competitive rivalry, i.e. the extent to which competitors are in balance, the market growth rates, high fix cost, high exit barriers, etc.?
-What is the level of competition versus collaboration, i.e. buyer-seller collaboration, collaboration to increase buying power, collaboration to built barriers to entry or avoid substitution, collaboration to gain entry and competitive power.Previous page Back to TopGenerate strategy options by identifying the critical success factors
I.e. factors, which directly influence success of your business. Following issues should be considered:What are the critical success factors having in mind your answers for question from step 1, 2 and 3? Make a list of these critical success factors.
-What are your core competences, i.e. your capabilities that are vital for gaining competitive advantage through critical success factors? Make a list of the core competences.
-Scrutinize the list of core competences to ensure that it is sufficient to give competitive advantage.
-Identify your performance standards, which need to be achieved to outperform competitions.
-Assess the extent to which competitors can imitate each of the core competences.
-Decide the impact of potential competitive moves and how these might need to be counteracted.Previous page Back to TopEvaluate the strategy options from different perspectives
-Which strategy is appropriate as far as concerns the stage of product life cycle, i.e. will the strategy bring money before the product is obsolete?
-Which strategy is most suitable taking into consideration given competences and resources, i.e. which resources and competences are difficult to imitate?
-Which strategy fits best into the value chain, i.e. existing resources you already have?Previous page Back to TopSelect the right strategy options
Select the strategy with references to your strategy evaluation in step 5.
It is important to know that none strategy will be appropriate for ever. The dynamic environment will sooner or later render the strategy ineffective. Therefore it is essential that the strategy is continuously aligned with the changing environment. This can be done by regular finding answers for questions in steps 1-5.Previous page Back to Top
