Deadly DEBT !

Yes its deadly. 

Inadequate debt wont allow your business to grow and entrepreneurs will suffocate & die. (business will die)

High debt will drown you in the burden of interest. Yes more debt without adequate productive use will eat into your profit. Invest excess debt thoughtlessly and inability to repay will make your account NPA and your otherwise profitable business will also sink. 

No bank /institutions will finance NPA accounts. Inability to raise finance means stagnation.   

Debt is necessary for growth but its adequacy is what matters the most. Many businesses are out of business today just because of either of the two scenario mentioned above. 

Understanding play of -  cashflow , adequate sustainable leverage (debt) , criticality of  margin & contribution , cash conversion cycle  , inadequate working capital , debt trap , fixed and variable cost , current ratio , cashflow to debt ratio etc are very fundamental to every business. 

Even if you do great business, illiteracy of financial implications will undo all your great marketing efforts. 

All entrepreneurs deal with money & work for money but unfortunately many entrepreneurs do not understand money part of the business. 

Why enterprises MUST expand their area of Influence ?

“Expand your area of Influence” and we remember great author Stephen Covey.  This is referred for personal development as one of the habits of effective people. However this also applies in the realm of better and delightful customer experience.  Yes to compete in such severe market condition every company must expand their area of influence.

Expand the definition of your offering and you will know area to be influenced.

Tirupati Balaji temple trust believes that their responsibility for devotees starts only when devotees are at the temple campus, restaurant thinks their job is only to offer food in side the eatery, telecom company thinks their role starts when a customer become their customer to use their voice /data services, manufacturers think product dispatch is the only job they are suppose to do likewise banks , hospitals every other business can think limited or expand their area of influence – its up to them.  In their book The Experience Economy - Author Duo says add ING to your offerings. This ING is what customer wants. Add ING and you see expanded area of influence.

Balaji Temple Trust started thinking of transport , logistics , devotees , online booking , queue management and every possible thing that devotees would think of while thinking of visiting Titupati. Asian Paints has started offering home decor solution to end user from merely selling paints.  Every enterprise HAS to think beyond their physical area of influence and keep expanding their area of influence not only to offer total solution and adding ING in their offerings but also to better their customer experience.  How else will you expand your market-share?

(This applies to every employees and professionals.)

7 Ways to Boost {encashble} Bottom-line

Increase Profit without More Sales.

- Check your rate of interest on borrowing. See what is impacting your ratings and work to improve the same , better rating will bring down your financial cost

- Calculate interest and bank charges debited in your account. Chances are there there may be excess charge or calculation error.

- Be watchful about dead & slow moving stock. Yes it helps in higher borrowing of working capital loan but it compels for more blockage of resources like finance, space, raw material and mfg cost & lengthen the cash conversion cycle.

- Validate in-source and outsource strategy. Many a times in-sourcing requires asset, labour, finance, raw material storage and depreciation etc as cost.

- Validate business processes. Many a times business processes re engineering is critical as process adds to cost. Wrong or lengthy processes are the cause of leakage. Lean Business Processes are not only cost saving but it speeds up the organisation also.

- Manage your forex risk. If your motive not to earn out of forex gain, hedge the risk as open risk will invariably will end up in forex loss in most cases.

& Ofcourse if you can increase sales price without increase in sales quantity, that will be a great booster. It is proven that an increase in sales price by Rs.1/- can have far better impact on bottom-line than decrease in cost by Rs.1/-

Enjoy your profit and remember its profit on hand matters more than profit only in books. Its not about book profit or camouflaging books. Its a tangible cash profit.

Passion ( Karma ) Vs Patience ( Destiny )

You may have huge PASSION for entrepreneurship or for that matter anything. 

You need double the PATIENCE to pursue it till you become successful. 

Apart from commitment, hard work , focus the only thing  that can really made a big difference is PATIENCE.

It take huge amount of PATIENCE to be really excelling and become successful at your PASSION. 

Lage Raho is the only option and you may not see light at the end of tunnel and silver lining on clouds and yet you have to keep pursuing. 

In  times of mass movement in the area of start up entrepreneurship. Business Idea matters most but PATIENCE is equally important virtue. 

Passion will empower us for KARMA and destiny will test our patience. 

" Patience and time do more than strength or passion."  Jean de La Fontaine (One of the widely read French Poets) 

Are you auditing or living ?

Everywhere we find appointed or un-appointed Auditors always. People criticising others , other's work , other's behavior , finding fault has become their way of life. These auditors will never see right and good  side of the people and things. 

Finding fault in everything is not about perfection oriented mind but its about critique state of mind. Its a disease. Even if the things or person is not right there is no need to wear the cap of auditor in every walks of life. 

Let it remain imperfect. We are not concerned with every imperfect and wrong things/persons. Things will be imperfect , people will do wrong things ,  life will appear to be unjust , but let it be. 

( Audit means an evaluation of a person, organisation, system, process, enterprise, project or product i.e. everything )

We audit best of the cricketers , we audit prime minister , we audit work of best of the artists , we audit great film makers , we audit our neighbor , we audit our boss , we audit our relatives , infect we audit everything and every person we know. We not only audit but like a good consultant we have solution for everything we audit. 

Many a times it is perfectly okay to ignore imperfection even in our area of influence and that includes our own imperfection. 

Pause for a day and watch your behavior & count - to how many things,  situation and person we have some suggestions to be better ? 

Then ask , is it necessary ? Does it really matter ? Nine out of ten times, it doesn't. Just stop being an auditor and start living your life. 

Who is your GURU ?

We find GURUs in all walks of life these days. GURUs are in vogue and everyone with some oratory skills tries to become GURU . 

Be it Management GURU , Finance GURU, Yoga GURU, Spiritual GURU ,  Fashion GURU , Image GURU , Fitness GURU & all kind of GURU. We are in fact surrounded by GURUs. 

Selecting the right GURUs is the major challenge when everyone is surrounded by GURUs and everyone is seeking GURUs. Demand is met by supply however supply is mostly of substandard qualities. 

Type	School Teacher	PHD University Professor	Practicing Professionals
Qualification	Learn to Teach	Learning for self so Teach	Learned, Self Practice & Teach

Whenever you are selecting GURU on any subject validate his/her qualification on the above criteria.

Will you go to swimming GURU who has no practical experience ? Apply similar test for all GURUs. One may not have matching drowning feeling with other GURUs but at the end if GURU is inexperienced practically drowning is certain. 

Seven BIG reasons to bring Customers Experience at the core of your business

Yes these are BIG reasons as ignoring these can have BIG impact on your business. 

- Your present or future competitors are working on it.

- Your customers are bored with your brand and are looking for something fresh and different. 

- Routine is boring that's why we explore more and more restaurants/food , cloths , travel destination , people & everything else.  

- That will give your business edge , sustenance power and competitive advantage. 

- Customer will spread words about your good deeds and experience you crate for them - Social media and physical network. 

- Smallest of non pleasant experience can move customer away from your business. Don' t ignore any aspects of customer experience.   

- Even if you have huge & long customer loyalty , your new competitor will have power to break that  - Flipkart did for crosswords , Samsung did for Nokia , Smart Phone did for Blackberry , Times Now did for CNN IBN/NDTV

Creating better customer experience is a daily job of every enterprises.  

Shake well before use - Your company / Institutions & Even Yourself

Unless you shake up the bottle, you will get diluted version of the medicine. Unless you shake up the institutions /companies, you get diluted performance. Therefore shaking up MUST be a part of regular activity if medicine or institutions have to perform at its finest potential. 

Our Institutions and companies for that matter perform below the potential merely due to non shaking up regularly. Mr Arvind Kejriwal & Team Anna have shaken up our democracy. People are now more forthcoming , speaking up and participating in democratic process and issues concerning them. 

Even at companies new CEO can bring life if he is enthusiastic and have capability to see things in different light. Status-Quo is the biggest challenge everywhere. Status Quo is nothing but unshaken condition. 

Look at the leaders who shook up the things. 

Public Life: 

Arvind Kejriwal , Narendra Modi , Nitish Kumar , Rajiv Gandhi , TN Seshan, CAG Vinod Rai , Manmohan Singh of 1991 , Ex BMC Commissioner Subodh Kumar........

Corporate: 

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Narayana Murthy (IT), Kishor Biyani (Retail), Dhirubhai Ambani (Capital Market and Business)...... 

There are many institutions and companies that are looking for someone who really can shake them up and enable them to realise and/or  regain its true potential. 

Shekhar Suman Show Movers and Shakers might have lived its life, but we need Movers/Shakers everywhere, or else we all r likely to go sleep. 

Are you a Shakers or waiting for one?  

Name some of the Movers & Shakers known to you? 

What is your team size?

What is your team size? 

Did any one ask this to Amitabh Bachchan or Seth Godin or Barack Obama or Krishna in Mahabharat ? 

Yes one person chose team over Krishna i.e.  Duryodhan and we all know the fate of entire Team Duryodhan. 

Question is often asked at every organisation whenever one goes for consultancy , What is your team size ?  

Team matters when an individual does not matters. But team does not matter when individual matters. In all the 4 names stated above , they only matter and they even need not have team at all. 

Every HERO of their own field work in SOLO mode.  When Sanjay Datt goes to Jail howsoever big his team may be its of no use to producers. Likewise it applies to everyone. 

Team matters but one need to know the difference - When ? 

One has to decide whether team is relevant or the person ? 

Who is the next leader competent to replace you ?

Leadership is EXTREMELY important. World is facing huge leadership crisis at all level. Corrupt leader is one problem but incompetent leadership is what I am discussing today.  

There are discussions all around about difference between leaders and managers.  That difference is startling and critical when managers are given leadership role. 

Managers are Cook and leaders are Chef. 

Leaders don't require instructions while managers do. Leaders don't need map to follow but they create their own road map, while managers cant do anything without map. Leadership is scarce and very precious as leaders defines & execute the destiny of the organisation or country they leads.  

There may be 5 to 7 founders of Infosys but among them who can lead? Hardly one or two. Being a part of the team if very different than being a leader of the team. It requires vision, fairness, anticipation, inspiring goal setting , executing , reasonableness , patience , firmness , perseverance , fearlessness & pressure handling capability and many such qualities. 

Richard Branson inspires dream and innovation, Narayan Murthy inspires fairness and consistency,  Vinod Rai , Ex CAG inspires fearlessness , Gandhiji inspires truthfulness , patience and walk the talk qualities , Indira Gandhi & Sardar Patel inspires firmness , Our BCCI Chief Srinivasan inspires pressure handling capability & Narendra Modi inspires vision, firmness, execution, fearlessness & pressure handling capability. They all are competent in their roles and predominantly displays qualities and leadership styles they have used in their role as leader. 

Look at leaders around you and find out what he or she inspires ? If the reply is NOTHING then these are leaders occupying leadership role without being competent for the role. 

To share my experience I suggest all leaders wherever they are leading to just find their replacement from the people they are leading.  I am sure you will not find many faces who can aptly replaces you considering the role you are playing as a leader.  Its a rare commodity & therefore valuable like brands. 

For top leaders of every organisation and institution , one of the very critical roles is to identify  , train and make next generation of leaders ready to take charge. Howsoever robust the organisation is today with its brands , technology and customer loyalty , incompetent leader can spoil the game and every sustainable competitive advantages an organisation enjoys.    

Who is the next leader competent to replace you ? If you don't have the answer or clue - leave everything else and find the answer.