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Tuesday, January 1, 2013

What is your business expectation this year?

The Punch - Nigeria's Most Widely Read Newspaper
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What is your business expectation this year?
Jan 2nd 2013, 01:21

When you run a business over a period of time without a specific aim or target in mind, you could be likened to someone walking on the street without a definite destination. Such a person may be trekking and sweating profusely, yet he doesn't know where he is going. You can call that aimless wandering – full of action without any effect. So it is for an entrepreneur who runs his or her business without a definite goal or target to be achieved over a particular period of time.

Some businesses might be 'making it' (so to say) without a plan, but the performance would have been better if such businesses work with specific purposes and targets. And who says businesses will always have their ways in future without good plans?

In 2013, you have another opportunity to begin the new period on a better and more determined note. What would you like to see in your business in the next 12 months? How are you going to get it established? What performance do you pray to record during the year? How do you get it achieved?

A business owner who sells just one product (a mono-product business) is exposed to a future dotted with uncertainties. The product he sells may become outdated or a new technology will push him out of business. Without a good vision, goal, target and plan, he may soon realise that customers are no longer buying his product and before long, he is out of business. He may not be able to blame anybody, not even the country or government. If some relatively big businesses can run out of patronage due to lack of proper visioning and action planning, how much more a micro or small business?

Motorola is a known brand. Few years back, the brand controlled the mobile industry at a time by having market share of about 50 per cent of the cell phone. In 1995, Motorola had the opportunity to enter the digital market early, but it passed up the chance by holding on to the archaic analogue designs. Within four years, the brand's market share slumped to about 17 per cent. The brand attempted to improve its market control in the Nigerian market with a type of handset nicknamed 'pure-water' when the country newly embraced GSM. But what is the number of people using Motorola handset today even in Nigeria? Even a well established global brand can miss it if it fails to plan properly. There was a time in the life of Nokia that the company surrendered in its attempt to come out with a smartphone. Though a leading brand in the manufacturing of mobile devices, Nokia was off-mark with 'Symbian OS' smartphone operating system, and various smatphone companies criticised the performance of Symbian's default web browser. They recommended alternative browser at that time. The brand had since approached Microsoft to produce operating systems for its smartphones.

Running a growing and thriving business is a function of proper visioning, goal and target setting, strategic planning, work planning, and deployment of right stimulus. As a small or medium scale business owner, you need to see a vision for the business in the next 12 months. So, what is your vision for the next one year? What are the goals and targets for the business during this period? If you see your business making a net profit of N60m in 2013 (vision), you should be able to understand how the business performance should look like to enable you achieve it. Your business has to make an average of N5m every month for you to hit N60m in a year; and making N1.5m everyday profit if you are opening for business five days a week. But you should lay your hands on information such as, 'What month or months will patronage be at lower ebb and what month or months' patronage will be high?' Don't say your business is not seasonally-affected, for even food business gets higher patronage at a particular time.

How do you now set your goals to enable you turn your vision into reality? What you are aiming to achieve should be specific (for instance, N60m in a year). Your performance should be measurable (in this wise, what are your indicators of success and how do you know you are making good progress?). The next issue is to find out if what you see that you want to pursue is achievable and realistic (it may be a sheer waste of time to see a business with N10,000 capital producing N1.5m profit everyday). Also important is whether the time frame, a period of 12 months, is suitable and sufficient for the business to achieve the performance you believe you should record. If the time is not suitable or sufficient, the vision may be for another appointed future time. Therefore there is no need to cut your life short by running faster than your capacity and finding yourself under pressure to delve into unhealthy business deals.

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