HOW not TO START A small BUSINESS (understanding key issues in marketing) Management guru, Peter Drucker once observed that in business nothing happens until somebody sells something. Everything a business does create cost. It is until a buyer comes that a business can think of profit. And the buyer is the customer. A business exit for the purpose of detecting the expressed and unexpressed need of a reason number of customers and to create products and services that will satisfy that need at a price that will generate a reasonable amount of profit to keep the stakeholders motivated to continue to satisfy that need and to have reasonable reservoir of capital to respond to competitors and changes in the business environment. No one should go into business without discovering a particular need that customers have that matches his capabilities and resources No one should go into business fully without testing how those customers will respond to his products and services by investing a bearable amount of capital to test his assumptions about the need he had discovered and his capability to satisfy that need at a reasonable price that produces the required profit and motivation to want to invest fully. This is a concept that is called lean start-up strategy. No one should go into business without knowing who his close competitor is. No one should go into business without a proven method of obtaining feedback from the environment and his customers about his product offering so as to continually improve his product in order to maintain long term relationship with customers. This is an important part of what top business schools teach. It is called the 4Cs of marketing. Sound businesses begin with market orientation as against production orientation. A business with production orientation produces products and look for buyers. A business with a market orientation sees a need and researches it to ascertain it viability before production. So, it is important to understand the following 1. Customers and potential customers needs and preferences. 2. Your companys capabilities and resources. 3. The strengths and weaknesses of a close competitor, their products and production system. 4. The political, economical, social and technological trends in the environmental context where the business operates. Both small, medium and large businesses must constantly keep an eye on this.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 18:49:13 +0000
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