"Starting Own Business - Some Guidelines" - by Roman Ahsan

STARTING OWN BUSINESS – SOME GUIDELINES:

|Published: ‘MONEY PLUS’, THE NATION | March 23, 2009

By Syed Roman Ahsan

For those with extra zeal and motivation to achieve results, starting one’s own business could be a better deal than searching for jobs in newspapers and online job sites, or being stuck in jobs that do not cater to their tastes. The only obstacle here could be the country’s persisting economic slowdown, otherwise business opportunities can always be pursued. An individual needs to first work on the ideas of initiating the right kind of business and opting between small scale and big scale businesses, which depend on the amount of capital that one has. It is not necessary to launch a completely new product or service rather many business ventures thrive on presenting commodities or services that are already available in the market in a more efficient form with added benefits.

Next thing required is a business plan which need not be necessarily lengthy. The plan should include your working on the variable cost and fixed cost of the project, besides covering the actual cost incurred on the product or service. It should also include the magnitude of the potential target market. A most significant step is identifying the competitors, their competing strategies and their locations. The plan should also embrace measures to penetrate the market scene and the barriers to accessing market such as high constant costs i.e. those incurred on works. Extra time should be devoted in developing your product and paying attention to details of the required materials and making your product eye-catching.

It should be evaluated how much financing is required in the business giving it a section in the business plan. How you are going to manage the costs to start and run your business is another issue. The modes of payment are to be decided. The need for loan from institutions should be identified. Will you finance the project yourself? While planning to start your own business it is also imperative to estimate the amount of money you need to support yourself while planning your business. Another key element in business planning is organizing your initial marketing plan while remembering that heavy amounts need not be allocated for marketing. For example, if you are planning a marketing research agency that caters services to FMCG firms providing solutions to their marketing and advertising strategies, then you need contacts with the right persons rather than focus on advertisements. This usually involves previous experience of dealing with brand/product managers apart from marketing and advertising professionals in this field. For other businesses like accounting firms, word of mouth could suffice.

The infrastructure for your business should be developed very early. This does not imply here a state-of-the-art office, rather maintaining complete contact details of your clients/customers, relevant business and other help books and strong technology base. Many small businessmen do not monitor their profit and loss trends and that is why their projects fail to take off. Also, when they decide to sell their businesses after some years, the business flops since they lack contact details of their customers and other history. Customer details have considerable importance for a business without which the company can lose credibility thus unable to fetch a good market price.

Before starting a business, assistance from marketing research techniques can serve a very constructive purpose. For example, if one wants to launch a business of home delivery of fresh juices, it would not be a time wasting effort if a small questionnaire based on questions probing the usage and attitude habits of general consumers of drinks is drafted and the potential buyers conforming to the relevant socio-economic classification criteria are surveyed by the interviews. The sample size of this exercise need not be very big, but the questionnaire should be designed so as to gauge the consumption preferences of the target segment that might help in the finalization of the actual product including selection/determination of the delivery service. Target locations should be identified and a contact list of interviewees in this mini-survey should be developed prior to approaching them. This would help in getting good responses from the consumers compared to random selection.

The marketing research exercise would primarily focus on whether your project has the current to survive in the local business scene. However, prior to conducting MR, it would be better if you do some homework on your own. You can just go around and talk to people you know about the feasibility of your product or service that you intend to launch. This would serve as a background work of preparing for marketing research activity. The most important thing is to choose the product or service that is in line with your own tastes and preferences. Apart from marketing research, advertising strategies are must these days which depend on your investment-level.

The timing of product/service launch is very crucial since many projects fail even though they have a conceptually strong foundation.  If the desire to create a product/service is there that fulfills the market needs aptly, then the business can carve its niche and attract consumers very easily.

In this era of globalization, young entrepreneurship is on the rise in Pakistan. These days many young entrepreneurs are entering the local market scene working closely with foreign clients. Some of the areas they choose are call centers, software development apart from content development and hosting solutions for websites. To start these ventures these individuals first acquire some actual experience themselves in the relevant fields, and then establish their own businesses. Hence, for such businesses, marketing research and other preliminary steps might not be required though business plans still need to be developed. Their clientele depends on the relationships they build in their respective fields.

Much unprofessionalism has also crept in due to this since young entrepreneurs do not know how to conduct themselves well, but overall it can be deemed as a healthy phenomenon with lots of business activity. For instance, software houses these days are also hosting content development and web-development teams working for foreign markets. The office infrastructure in such cases usually consists of only two to three rooms with homely environments. Depending on their business scale, these firms not only provide employment opportunities to the youth, but are also acting as a bridge between Pakistan and the international markets. Prospective young businessmen need to however realize that the more the experience one has and the richer the experience, the more potential their business has to take off!