Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The top 18 things that a businessman should know

I'm returning to this blog after a long period of inactivity. Inactivity on the blog, that is - in real life the degree of activity around me has soared like Delhi's blazing heat in this, the hottest early summer in decades.

Manu, Varun and I have been designing the Family-Managed Business program that we are going to launch shortly. We have been thinking that in this program we will focus on a different aspect of family-managed entrepreneurial business each month. Thus the 18 month course will allow us to dive into 18 different things, which should together provide a practical and comprehensive 360 degree view.

To decide what these top 18 things should be, we first drew up independent lists. When I compared my list with Prof. Varun's this morning, I was not surprised to see that there was a 90% overlap. (I haven't compared it with Manu's yet.)

This then is my informal list, in no particular order, focused solely on practical topics for the small-scale or medium-scale business:


  • Defining your narrower market niche (in which you are THE best)

  • Developing a vision for your business (this is closely tied to the first point)

  • Leveraging the power of Internet marketing (using websites, SEO, SEM, social networking, blogs, etc.)

  • Getting the most from real world marketing (ranging from smarter business communication to cultivating newsmedia for PR)

  • Conceptualizing, planning and executing initiatives (project management)

  • Scaling an organization through modularization and processes

  • Understanding accounting and tax optimization

  • Understanding people and what they are good at, developing reporting systems

  • Leveraging business IT

  • Understanding business law, contracts and litigation

  • Managing your time and your mind

  • Understanding quality

  • Maximizing profit and cash flow, not just sales

  • Balancing family relations and the business

  • Professionalizing the family business without affecting the bottomline

  • Learning the art of selling and negotiation

  • Managing business risk

  • Handling the regulatory environment



  • Most of this I learned by trial and error and had we been taught this through our formal education, we would have done better and gone further.

    Anything I left out?

    4 comments:

    ASHISH SHARMA said...

    Respected Sir,

    Good Morning!

    The learning which you share with us through this post (The top 18 things that a businessman should know) is really good because it will be beneficial for our future and we will take care of this 18 points...

    Regards,

    Proton Ashish Sharma
    Fall 09

    Unknown said...

    Respected sir,
    This blog provides us basic understanding about family managed business & topic it covered.In upcoming blog if you would throw more light on the topic then it will benefit us to large extent.
    Regards,
    Pranav

    dolphin said...

    Good Morning Sir,

    The wisdom you shared and compressed the macro experience in these 18 points, is great. These points will definitely act as Check-Points for the coming generation of Entrepreneurs.
    Sir, I think that understanding the local market and reacting accordingly (like Mc Donald) could help a lot to grow, rather than working on a common concept everywhere.

    Regards
    Pr. Dheeraj Jain
    (Fall '09)

    Unknown said...

    Respected Sir,

    These key points are a great help for an Entrepreneur and you covered almost all the areas. The following areas can further add up -

    1. The scope of the business - local or global,
    2. Fallacies and wrong assumptions which lead to compromises and hence poor quality or service,
    3. Legal aspects and network security

    If the business involves large amount of data to be handled then courses like - database management and data mining are also crucial.

    Regards,
    Robin Singh Vasu
    (Fall 2009)