Before we understand about the business management, let us first do a bit of introspection with the help of below questions.
- How much daily time do you invest in generating new business?
- How much daily time do you utilize for awareness of market & competition?
- How much daily time do you spend on value addition to business?
Are you one of those entrepreneurs who are spending less than 50% of their time on the above activities? Then it is time you need to rethink on your business management processes. From my experience of close to two decades, it is evident that successful businessman spends more than 80% of their time on the above activities. When a person in business or owner is not able to invest 50% of their daily time in the mentioned areas, it is majorly due to their improper business management.
You may be thinking, what makes me say that. Let me give you more insight on activities most of the businessmen end up spending their time in a day.
- Procurement & Negotiations
- Customer Complaints & Servicing
- Day to day operational issues
- Fund & Financial Management
One may think the above activities are adding value to the business, but are these activities adding to your business or they are helping you run your business. The above-listed activities are tasks that only require your approvals or attention and not your time for execution.
Now let us understand the aspects of business management more in detail. A businessman needs to focus on below-mentioned resources more for enabling himself/herself to focus on generating more profitability. I break these factors in major three categories, which I call HMT: H – HUMAN, M – MONEY & T – TIME. As an entrepreneur or future entrepreneur, you understand how important these factors are and when a business manages aspects of these three factors well, they have achieved 50% of their business goal. For rest 50% goals you are equipped once you have these three factors arranged. Let us look at each one in-depth with some simple tips which can be implemented right away without any additional investment.
H – HUMAN RESOURCE
Most operational tasks we have people to support you in your business activities. Although most people in business fail to utilize their people most effectively, majorly due to lack of confidence in their team as far as their quality of work is considered. This lack of confidence is merely due to assumptions or some past experiences. Instead of limiting the belief of low competence, the businessman should invest his time in aligning the human resource to work as per his/her requirement. This not only unlocks his time but also gains the employee loyalty. Tips to utilize your human resource better:
Tip 1: Set your expectations from the role and not the person
Tip 2: Hire person as per expectation, not as per availability
Tip 3: Invest your time in developing talent instead of managing attrition
M – MONEY RESOURCE
The world has moved digital, and there are so many new business ideas that have evolved with the necessity. As an entrepreneur, one must look for future needs and direct their business goals as per the evolving needs, so does financial management strategies. We all know now about late Mr Dharampal Gulati, famously known as ‘Spice King’. He, even at the age of 63 years, had the foresight that investing in advertising is the right decision to reach the consumer and build demand for his product. MDH had released their first ad in 1984 with celebrities, when television advertising was not a trend, Mr Gulati invested his money, and we all know how successful he made his brand with more than 60 product varieties in nearly 150 countries. From a small wooden shop in 1947 to a 1000 crores plus empire today. Tips keeping in mind today and tomorrow business needs:
Tip 1: Invest in digital media, be it for processes or promotions
Tip 2: Invest in consulting services instead of employee liability
Tip 3: Don’t save on compliance aspects, the country is going digital too
T – TIME RESOURCE
All of us have 24 hours in a day, and we can only multiply it with more people to the same system. To add more people, you need to spend more money. So if you are a budding entrepreneur and you do not have money to invest in people, you have 24 hours to compete with people who have multiplied with more people. To do so, you need to manage these 24 hours in a way that you do not miss on any priorities. We all have three things to prioritize; Self, Family & Work, so each priority gets 8 hours, now you break these 8 hours into sub-categories and prioritize them. In the same way, more logically, you should set preferences of your business goals by reverse engineering to achieve what you want in the given time frame. Tips for better time utilization in business:
Tip 1: Total time to be divided into the number of resources & multiplying with number of hours
Tip 2: Track the progress and check if the time is utilized well
Tip 3: Do not borrow time from other priorities as they always mess the balance of life for you as well for your team.
Business is all about earning more money and satisfaction of doing a good work that is helping you change the world around you in whichever way you want to. Be it by providing service or goods to your clients. Every business wants recognition and identification; the business manager decides the intensity. The potential of your business is within you. A lot has been blamed to the circumstances and policymakers, first introspect your actions and then judge the result you are getting.
