why A Business Plan

by Gilead Ogbonna | Feb 23, 2018 | Online Business, Technology

Making Good Use Of The Right Technology

Have you ever done things before without a pre-set plan in place? Well many of us definitely have. When it comes to business is there a need for a business plan?

“I don’t have one” was Carl Icahn’s (A renowned business man) response when asked to see his business plan for his new company.

You may think this is normal for a first time entrepreneurial adventure. But what if you were told that Carl has started many companies in his 20-year tenure as an entrepreneur?

And with all the companies Carl started, none of them have ever exceeded revenues of a million dollars. Many of them failed and Carl was forced to shut them down within the first year of business.

Does this mean Carl is a terrible businessman?

Not necessarily.

What it means is Carl did not understand the purpose and the value in creating a business plan and making good use of the right kind of technology. And unfortunately this is pretty typical of many entrepreneurs.

They think flying by the seat of their pants and relying on their street smarts and intuition is the spirit behind entrepreneurship. This could not be further from the truth.

If you don’t plan for growth . . .

Now I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that you and other entrepreneurs you know have never developed a business plan and you are doing “ok” – right?

Well, here is the big secret – you can always do better. I know for me — “ok” simply is not good enough!

And if you don’t plan for growth with the right tech you may grow, but chances are good you will not be able to sustain it. Planning for growth is essential. According to Price-Waterhouse-Coopers, “two-thirds of CEO’s of fast growth organizations develop some type of business plan”.

Deploying good technological strategy for your business plan stands to benefit your business even more.

Incorporating technology strategies into your business plan helps you to run a more competitive business. For example, you may realize that you need a certain piece of equipment to operate your business. Yet you may not immediately realize how it will affect your business financially in the long term. How you strategically use the Internet to market your business is another technology area that benefits from proactive analyzing. By addressing these areas in your business plan, you may experience less monetary surprises in your allocated budget.

Conduct Cost-Benefit Analyses

A Cost-Benefit Analysis is used to determine the payback or break-even point of any investment over a period of time. Technology continues to advance, and this fact alone makes it worthwhile to conduct a CBA on technology-based equipment and services before making a purchasing decision. Run a CBA to show the purpose of technology equipment and services you plan to use in your business. List the upfront and operational annual costs. This will include the dollar estimated value of lost time due to unforeseen circumstances, such as down-time, disruptions and sick-time. The impact of internal control, security and privacy risks must be considered on both sides of the CBA. Next, assign a realistic cost estimate to the benefits to quantify the purchase’s annual beneficial value. Deduct the annual investment from the benefits. Three years and under are typical break-even points for technology-based equipment such as computers and printers. Some investments like building purchases may take longer to reach payback. The Small Business Administration provides a CBA worksheet.

Here are some valuable links to CBA https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cost-benefitanalysis.asp

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/cba.htm 

Use Internet Resources

Place a general overview of how you plan to market your business online in your business plan. More details can be placed in your marketing strategy. Developing a website, selecting a domain name, and defining the products and services you will offer on the Internet are all parts of a good technology strategy for your business plan. Search engine registrations, social networking, directory listings and online advertisements are ways to market your business and solidify your online presence. These technology strategies, if mentioned in your business plan, can help you track your marketing effectiveness. Then, you can see more clearly where to make changes to remain competitive. Check out this link as it can equip you with more information on the use of internet resources https://www.huffingtonpost.com/melinda-emerson/small-business-advice_b_3826366.html

Plan A Technology Growth Strategy

A growth strategy for advanced technology can be internal, that is, companywide. For example, in the beginning of your business, you may have to wear many hats, including handling accounting tasks. Your two-year vision may be to improve the efficiency of business processes in accounting. After conducting a cost-benefit analysis, you could include in your business plan a goal to implement more efficient, streamlined accounting software and an employee. An external technology growth strategy for your business plan may be more customer-focused. You may need to acquire the needed equipment and services to get benchmarked with your competitors. Alternately, you could decide to outsource certain advanced technology services. Your ideas for strategic growth in dealing with technology can be added to your business plan. Furthermore, implementing both internal and external growth technology strategies covered in your business plan can keep it from becoming stagnant. Check out this link for further information on the use of technology as a strategy growth in business.

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/managing-technology-as-a-business-strategy/   

The Ultimate Online Business Blueprint

by Gilead Ogbonna | May 17, 2017 | Online Business, Technology

How to Start, Grow and Profit from an Online Business in Nigeria.

Business!

Do you run an offline business?

Have you recently been nursing the desire to take your business offline?

Are you uncertain of how to begin?

READ ON…

Running a business online has it’s peculiarities just like running an offline business does. However, with proper planning and the right engines in place, you can successfully launch and grow an online business, even if you are looking to transition your offline business.

Why Make the Move?

The most obvious reason to take your business online is the relative ease of accessibility to a wider target market which is way beyond your current locale. Online, everybody can get a feel of your business and if you are good enough, you get get rewarded with repeat business. Think of Amazon, Jumia, Konga. These are online businesses that have closed Billions in sales. Their secret- they took an offline business, re-defined it and re-targeted to a wider online audience, leading to repeat sales from every part of the world.

With the continuous growth and adoption of the internet and technology as a whole, we will see consumers opting to do more businesses online majorly because of the ease it comes with. Plus they tend to spend less (in some cases) for highly professional services compared to offline alternatives.Do a google search today and you will find online farms, online restaurants, online shoe makers…essentially services that we always thought will remain offline.

Furthermore, running an online business is generally cheap when compared to it’s offline counterpart. From cost of equipment to furniture to transportation to electricity, maintenance services fees, business plans, these all are statistics that online business need very little of. This means that it is exceedingly faster to bootstrap and launch an online business in days.

Are you seeing where am going with the?

A lot is changing really fast and so should you.

Where to Start?

There are about 5 checklist items you’ll need to take care of to successfully grow any online business. Now these processes are very important if you are looking to win. So write them down :

Research > Get Online > Online Marketing > Convert Leads/ Monetize > Analyze and re-implement

This is the quickest way you can start and grow your online business. Let’s talk about each of them, shall we.

Research

A prominent reason why online businesses fail is because of a lack of research. Many mistake research for copy. You can see Business A selling computer and doing really well. But that doesn’t mean that if you enter into the computer selling business, you too will be profitable. Let me explain;

Mr A has many contacts in big organizations that use computers regular. Because his contacts are high profile and he is really close to them, he always gets orders from their companies to make supplies. Mr A has gotten a market and is feeding his market well.

Your research to reveal where who you want to serve, where they converge and what they need. What better deal cal you offer that you competitors aren’t? You must realize that it is the answer to these questions that will reveal of a an online business is going to be profitable or not.

A really easy approach to this research is to pay attention to online conversations on social media. Social media gives you amazing insights to what troubles prospective clients are facing. Gleaning this information correctly will reveal the winning business for you. Do not be alarmed however, if your current offline business won’t cut it. I learned this lesson this lesson the hard way.

Sometime in late 2013 I finally figured out after much struggle how to make explainer videos. I was super excited at the prospect of making millions. I set to work creating several video tutorials some of which I put on You-tube, produced in Disks and started marketing with high hopes. I would soon realize to my disappointment that my target market was not ready for a that product. Sales we literally close to zero. When I finally began to research and really listen to the market, I understood what service and products to offer and the rest they say is history.

Forgive the epistle, but am sure you get my drift.

Moving on

Get Online

With your Research completed, you should have determined what business to engage in and which audience to target. At this point, you are ready to make the transition. The key determinant of this transition is the location of your audience, where they hangout online, which social media platform they frequent. This information helps you reach them quicker as you will be engaging them on the platform they like.

You will need to build your service/product/ brand’ awareness online to draw the attention of your target audience. As an example, suppose all/ a huge chunk of your target audience are on Instagram, your goal online will be to project your service and products in the language that Instagram uses. This will require using the right hashtags, sharing great content consistently on Instagram and driving traffic to your website (you can research this).

You will find it particularly strategic to own a website where you can direct your audience to from social media. A website communicates seriousness, intent and a mission. When your target audience gets linked to your website, they should be able to engage with your content in a way that moves them to action repeatedly.

Obviously, it takes some patience and practice. But with careful research as discussed above, you can create an amazing online structure that keeps your target audience engaged over and over again.

**Imagine what it would mean for your business if you had 1000 monthly visitors to your online business? Think about it.**

Convert Leads/ Monetize

Monetizing is the goal of all online businesses. It is what keeps the business and it’s owners sane and not lose their minds (insert smiley face here). The same lack of money which drives many offline businesses from one place to the other can well happen to online businesses who lack well curated and targeted marketing. Notice the link? Without great marketing in terms of your content, you will have no leads (visitors who come to your business) and as a result you make you sales.

Of course, you will need an automated process to receive payments from you new customers. This could be through a payment gateway (this is a link provided by your bank or a third party company that enables seamless payment directly to your bank account). Check out paystack for an example of a payment gateway.

Ultimately, with the correct research, proper online implementation and marketing with a payment gateway, you automate your online business and “go to sleep” in a figurative sense. Basically, you put your business in autopilot, something an offline business can never do.

Analyze and Re-implement

Now your online business should be automatically running and bringing in results. You at this point need to identify list-wise all you did that worked from the research phase with the goal of recreating the same system to a similar or different business. You can thus launch multiple online businesses (insert smiley).

Simple right? No..duh!

It takes careful planning and dedication. But obviously the results are beyond phenomenal. Now you have the blueprint; what you do with it is up to you.

I’ll like to know your thoughts. Comment below

” IT IS UP TO YOU TO MAKE YOUR DREAM A REALITY”