UNDERSTANDING THE BUSINESS DIAGNOSIS MEETING

Businesses strive for growth more than anything else. It is this strive that is interpreted as efficiency in the business. The rate of efficiency is required to be high for the simple reason that a business that doesn’t grow dies. With the death of any business come several implications that would be appropriately dealt with in a later post.

Startups are reported to have a 90% failure rate. This is translatable to different periods within the life of the organization. KCC ‘s startup support system develops a strategic and time tested invaluable solution to this challenge with its overall needs diagnosis analysis that presents a comprehensive outline of the deficits the startups may be experiencing.

Generally, businesses and startups fail because of low profits, inability to grow and the stress with dealing with a never ending demand. Low profit margins usually arise out of high operations cost and an inability to reconcile such costs with returns appropriately. When businesses fail to grow, they stagnate and soon get locked in an impasse. This deadlock stifles innovation and progress and could as well kill any business. The structural organization of the company suffers when it is absolutely unable to deal with increased demand. When a company has to produce more and offer more services than it is presently able to, it must make significant structural adjustments, implement unrealistic private policies and suffer the long term breakdown.

KCC’s business diagnosis session employs an assessment of the existing deficiencies in your company. This assessment typically defines the current situation in the company, the missing links and an estimation of what the future outlook of the company should represent. Consequently, the assessment identifies the causes and problems associated with your current performance and suggests what priorities should be pursued by your company. Instructively, KCC develops solutions and growth strategies that would complement internal growth strategies of your company.

Our methods vary, depending on the identified challenge with your company. Rest assured however, that we are definite and resolute in projecting time tested solutions for the explicit needs of your company.

Talk to us here, our team of consultants would be pleased to meet you at your convenience.

 

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RAISING FUNDS, THE KCC WAY

Korsell Corporate Consult has a commitment of ensuring businesses survive, even in the face of differing circumstances. We understand the challenge that arises with raising funds, due to the incensed disposition the economy hurls at startups and entrepreneurs.  Nevertheless, KCC offers a scope and medium to reconcile these challenges with the prospects that are available, in sync with the mission that drives our existence. If there was ever any ease with which startups and existing businesses would raise capital, it has to be because KCC has a record niche with the ease and simplicity with which it offers this service.

Accessing funds is a herculean task, and rightly so, given the substantive advantage, wealth and worth it brings to a business. Nevertheless, KCC opens the Pandora’s Box a second time and lets you in on a leap into the hope and glaring prospects that subtly lie obscured and scathed from your eyes. We have a network of investors with a net worth that transcends the raw cash you would need to an emphasized premium on value and returns. Hence, we do not only help you with capital brokerage, we guide you into making the best financial decisions for the sustenance of your business and project.

Our equity investment plan keeps you alive in the long term and equips you to increase your revenue base significantly.  Our fund brokerage process encircles an assessment of your eligibility, not necessarily to declare you unfit for the capital brokerage service, but summarily to present you with a needs diagnosis that would prove its utility in the administration of your business, when you are ready to grow.

It is necessary to note that the generally accepted eligibility requirements for accessing capital and funds are a 3-year audited financial report of your organization and a complete business plan. Nevertheless, different investors provide different requirements and our role in the brokerage process would ensure that your best interests are emphasized at all times and a regulated system that is applicable and specific to your organization.

It has never been a gentleman’s thing to leave you short and clueless on the road. While we commit to best practices, rest assured that KCC would guide you through to financial liberties and untold wealth. Living your dream is definitely possible, the KCC way.

 

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THE PROBLEM WITH RENT

Business do not thrive in a vacuum. Whether you decide to operate from home or a specially designated office space, you are not absolved from the realities of the rent problem. Ghana has a rent policy that is as applicable with businesses as much as it is with domestic residence. Nevertheless, the truth is that rent charges would increase without regard to the success or otherwise of your business. It is important to forecast these potential increases and adopt best strategies to effectively handle them.

Rent hikes and underpricing are a result of a disequilibrium in the market demand and supply for housing. Substantively thence, it is necessary to understand that rising rent prices are an indication of high demand for same. At this rate, it is nearly impossible for real estate and home owners to consider reductions in the rent charges. This means extra costs for your business, one you may just not be ready for as a startup.

In this wake, consider a long term ‘Buy Your Building’ program. This is a bold agenda and comes with significant sacrifices and commitments. The net effect in the long run is however tremendous. It affords you the chance to recoup extra costs that may have been incurred in previous years and lets your business entrench its vision to be permanent. Given that you have committed such significant resources to purchasing your office space, chances are that you definitely would not want to fall out of business. Inadvertently, you kill two birds with a stone.

An alternative to the sole purchase of your rent space is to share the absolute cost with other businesses that occupy the space with you. This joint rent ownership is healthy only when the businesses involved produce dissimilar goods or services. The summary prospects are much the same as the ‘Buy your building’ program described above, except that it is relatively less expensive since the cost is shared with others.

Perhaps, the most important option you can consider is to rent out portions of your business space to other entities in order to increase your disposable income. Of course, this must only be done with the permission of the owner of the facility. The idea here is to ensure that no space is left vacant when it can fetch additional income. Rent out your conference facility to a group that needs it more than you probably do, sell your unused parking area to private entities that may request access to the facility you are located in etc.

At Korsell, we believe your business must thrive regardless of the circumstance you operate under. If there is a problem with rent such as undue rent charge increases and shock evictions, we recommend you talk to the Rent Control body in Ghana for the best redress. Nevertheless, adopt these strategies and keep your business operational. Remember it is important for your customers to identify you with a central location at all times.

 

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IN THE EYES OF A CUSTOMER

This is a hypothetical interview conducted with a customer. It is intended to provide first-hand insight into the needs and basic expectations of a customer in order to guide the provision of services. This interview is structured in a generic sense and would prove useful for any startup.

P.S. It is assumed that the basic courtesies have already been exchanged. The interview commences with the main issues brought into perspective.

Interviewer: Why would you buy from a company?

Customer: I usually would buy the things I need from any company, depending on whether it is located close to me or not. In other words, I am more determined to prevent extra costs that may arise from having to transport the commodity or service across a long distance. Nevertheless, I am bound to remain loyal to a company if it affords me the best service, compared to many others who are selling the same thing.

Interviewer: What is the one thing that drives your loyalty?

Customer: I am bound to be loyal to a company that does not only sell to me, but meets my welfare needs. I don’t only need a place to buy from, I need a place that thinks about me as well.

Interviewer: For you, where does your interaction with a company begin and end?

Customer: I should expect a company to reach me through advertisements, by any means possible. If it is a company that does not offer me extra value other than what is sold across board, my interaction with them is as good as dead after I make the exit. If the opposite happens, my interaction with that company has no ends.

Interviewer: What would you call value addition?

Customer: I believe every company exists to solve a particular problem. For me, value addition arises in the Unique Sales Proposition the company adopts. This USP must have me as the focus and should make it impossible for me to not return

Interviewer: Would you consider it necessary for a company to know why you are buying their service or product?

Customer: Absolutely! It is the only condition upon which I would be sure the product or service is cut out to meet my specific need. Otherwise, I may just be fixing square pegs in round holes.

Interviewer: How do you suppose a company would know why you are buying the things you are purchasing at a particular time?

Customer: By communicating with me. The company should talk to me about my needs and communicate the value addition I am getting from their service. By this, they would be in the position to understand why I am making a particular purchase and would be better placed to tailor it to my demand.

Interviewer: Given that you are already buying from someone, what would you want the relationship between the two differing companies to be like?

Customer: Ordinarily, I would expect there should be some competition. It is the only way I would know they are striving to be the best at meeting my needs. In a more definite sense however, I expect they would know where I get my deepest satisfaction from.

Interviewer: is it necessary for a company to know how much money you have to spend?

Customer: In a strict view, yes. But in a stricter view, absolutely yes! The company must be able to predict my purchasing power and spending ability so that there is no embarrassment of the demand and supply chain. What better way to ensure utility of production and purchase than wield some knowledge of how much I can really spend on an item.

Interviewer: What drives your opinion of a company?

Customer: I don’t form an opinion of a company in isolation. It would always arise from a summary of whatever experiences I suffer at their hand.

Interviewer: What is the best gift you would give a company that treats you well?

Customer: My absolute loyalty. My loyalty means I not only buy from you but give people reason to buy from you as well. My recommendations and referrals to family would never cease when a company treats me right.

Interviewer: I thank you for your time.

Customer: It is a pleasure.

 

Photo Credit: Sustainable Farming Conference’ 17.

A BUSINESS LEADER’S NIGHTMARE

There is a very special reason for the existence of leadership in every business space. At top glance, leadership provides direction, motivation and guidance for the pursuit of stated objectives. There is a great tendency to lose the focus of the organization and business when there is leadership crisis within the organization. Undeniably, leadership provides a central symbolic figure within which the business organization may find its representation. The business leader has a responsibility of identifying what strategies are best applicable for the enterprise and applying the organization to the best procedures and protocols.

Essentially, the idea of a business leader arises in respect of an identified follower base. The follower base is the vehicle of implementation of the vision of the business leader, akin to the ideals and objectives of the organization. It provides support to the stated goals and in equal measure, steers the activities of the organization towards meeting its targets.

For any business leader, a disloyal staff could mean the end of the business. It frustrates productivity and wears off any incentive to encourage ingenuity, given the fear that it may lead to complete uneventful sabotage.

Shelter Adeti is Executive Secretary at Korsell Corporate Consult. She avers;

“I can deal with a system that does not make me a leader. I would however have a hard time dealing with a system that makes everyone a leader in his or her own right”.

When a business leader has to deal with a staff that is highly skilled and still very unyielding to authority and company structures, it is very necessary to be tactful, compromising when necessary and still unwavering in upholding the values of the organization.

By all means, communicate appropriately the lines and limits that exist in consistence with the company’s organogram. Depending on the form of rebellion you are dealing with, you may not have to compromise on your standards. A business leader has every need to acknowledge his own authority before he expects same from his staff. An assertive leader may come across as authoritative and domineering. Nevertheless, is this ruthlessness not what is needed to crush any rebellion? It is neither brutish nor Machiavellian any more than it is prudent and productive.

Note however that your customers are not your employees. See how to deal with different types of customers and their complaints.

A business leader has to focus attention on several other emerging challenges in the organization. Lay off disloyal staff if you have to, implement sanctions at any cost and make sure there is no room for sabotage and disloyalty. It is the greatest challenge any business leader would have to deal with, especially when it involves a very efficient and skilled staff. Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize a unity of authority from which coordination in the organization would emerge.

The long term effects of such emphatic and drastic resort is a righteous fear that provides peace and serenity within the workspace.

 

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Avoiding the Shiny Object Syndrome

By the time he was 24, Kwao had developed the knack for creating ideas at every break in the office. He knew most than many his peers. It excited him to know he was the ‘idea-man’, the one-stop hub to generating solutions the office needed. He was the space within which new ideas emerged- from retail, to marketing and even to growth. The problem with Kwao was that his ever active mind never gave the chance to fully develop an idea that could work a specific solution in any given situation. Like the proverbial Jack of all trade, he was master of none. Before long, he had outlived his relevance, since there was nothing within his work environment that seemed perfect. Kwao’s Shiny Object Syndrome obstructed his goals by drawing him into new endeavors he was never prepared for. This did cost some capital, as his office was consistently pressured to experiment with new and untested ideas, following Kwao’s obsession with doing new things at every turn.

An entrepreneur must learn the value of developing focus and aligning all resources along that focus. While it is always beneficial to develop new ideas that are necessary for organizational development, you should be weary in committing to ideas that are not especially in sync with your original focus.

The danger with the Shiny Object Syndrome is in its ability to steer you off your target. It creates pleasantness with every prospect you see and ultimately blinds you against the real threats that lurk around the corner. Given time, it can completely ruin your treasures and eventually kick you out of business.

Develop ideas when you have to; only be sure the idea is what you really need at the time in your organization.

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