October 2022 - Page 12 of 12

Top 5 Successful Women Entrepreneurs In India

Women in India have come a long way from being just ‘homemakers’. The world now sees them with a different eye and a new respect. Women entrepreneurship in India has come a long way from women working only part time.

Successful women entrepreneurs in India have made their presence felt in every field be it the world of politics, music, fashion, movies and entertainment or business. Hindu scriptures defines women as the embodiment of ‘Shakti’ and she lives up to image every time, whether it is problem solving at home or running a successful business.

Here we have listed 5 of the most successful women entrepreneurs in India who continue to inspire us with their versatile abilities, persuasiveness, problem solving abilities, willingness to take chances and risks and the ability to motivate people around them.

Dr. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw: Also known as the ‘Biotech Queen’ of India, Dr. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is listed in the Forbes magazine as 50 most powerful women in International Business. Starting with a capital of just Rs.10,000 with her garage as her office, she made her first product in the year 1978. Her company Biocon has since then touched new height in the field of biotechnology. An active social activist she is a true role model for aspiring entrepreneurs in India

Indira Krishnamurthy Nooyi: No list of successful women entrepreneurs in India is complete without the mention of Indira Nooyi, the CFO and president of PepsiCo. Her ability to make quick decision and tenacity to follow up has enabled her to make PepsiCo one of the biggest brands in the market today. Indira Nooyi is listed as the fourth most powerful women in the world by Forbes Magazine.

Ekta Kapoor: We all have a love hate relationship with the famous “saas-bahu” serials on the Television but we cannot at any level ignore them. This bubbly and extremely professional creative director of Balaji Television has won the hearts of millions of Indian women. She is one of the most dynamic and successful women entrepreneurs in the Indian television industry. Also known as the ‘Queen of Indian Television Industry’ she started her career in with the sit-com Hum Panch. According to her the reason of her success is to be closely involved with all the aspects of the serial including picking up the artists herself.

Neelam Dhawan: When we are discussing the successful women entrepreneurs in India we cannot leave the leading name in the IT sector out of it. Neelam Dhawan, Managing director of Microsoft India, has carved a special niche for herself in the IT industry. She looks after the company’s sales and marketing division of the country in India.

Shahnaz Hussain: She is a part of this list of one of the top women entrepreneurs in India because she started form nothing and has made her company, Shahnaz Hussain Herbals a $100 million enterprise. She broke the traditional advertising myths and the popularity of her company is solely due to mouth-to-mouth publicity only. Shahanz was awarded the Padma Shri by the Govt. of India in 2006.

No More Excuses for Small Business Owners for Not Growing Their Businesses

When talking about business related issues, solutions, and technologies, you will almost always group businesses as small and large. While the separation is there, it won’t be wrong to say that in a modern where digital technologies prevail, it should not be a problem for small businesses to compete with large ones. The large corporations have the advantage of having more resources without a doubt. However, there was not a time in the past when growing and expanding was as easy for small businesses as it is today.

Digital Marketing for Everyone

Digital marketing starts with a website today. When it comes to website designs, more money does not always mean a better design. If you are working with the right people and are clear about your requirements, your website can be just as impressive as the website of a large business. In fact, internet users today are more in favor of simplistic websites with a focus on the information they are looking for rather than the glitter and sparkle.

As for social media marketing, there is no difference in the size of the market that small and large businesses have to target. They are both targeting global audiences and how good they are at it is not defined by how much money they put in their marketing efforts. Social media marketing is free marketing, so there is no excuse as to who has more resources.

And if you believe that the large corporations make it to the top of the search engine results, you always have a better and more effective niche to compete within – local. With local search engine optimization, small businesses can compete with the medium and large businesses head to head. In simple words, regardless of the size of the business, everyone has access to the same market and same people today. What matters is who does it better.

Digital Solutions Are Available Specifically for Small Businesses

When it comes to software solutions for businesses, the focus is not on large corporations anymore. Today, all types of software solutions have their versions built specifically for small businesses. These digital solutions allow small businesses to cut down their costs and make use of the same technologies that large companies are using.

Take the example of CRMs. At one point, there was a notion that customer relationship management software are only for large businesses, but the things have changed quite a bit today. Web-based CRM are a revelation for small businesses. First, these CRMs provide great marketing, database, customer service and sales solutions to the businesses. Second, they are unbelievably affordable. If you own a small business, you don’t even have to worry about software integration, hardware compatibility, updates, and upgrades, etc. Keep in mind that with in-house solutions, these are the costs that make it difficult for small businesses to grow financially.

With web-based solutions designed for small businesses, you can now have access to a world-class CRM at a fractional monthly or yearly cost. Other affordable digital solutions available include invoicing software, bookkeeping software, payroll software, etc.

Customers Have the Power in Hands

The Internet has empowered customers like never before. You can’t say that just because a business is in multiple countries, it will be impressive enough for people to buy its products. The amazing thing about today’s economy is the power that customers have in their hands. Online reviewing websites, YouTube videos, blogs, etc. are among many platforms that allow customers to know more about businesses. In fact, even Google now puts business ratings and customer reviews right within its search results.

What this means is that when a customer searches for a business today, he/she is already able to see the reputation of the product they are going to buy. Furthermore, negative reviews from customers can greatly affect the sales of business, giving other businesses a chance to make their name.

Furthermore, it’s not just the quality of products that matters today. In the modern world, businesses are competing for better customer experience. If your business can give customers the experience they are looking for, your growth is inevitable despite the small size of your business.

Funding Is No Issue for Startups

It is always the starting days that matter the most for business. When you are a startup, you are looking for ways to fund your business so you can materialize your idea and polish your product/service according to the requirements of the customers. Finding a platform where you could connect with investors was a challenge in the past. This is not an issue anymore.

With like our websites, it is easier than ever for small businesses to get in touch with investors and get the right amount of investment that sets them on the path of growth. These are websites that act as a bridge between investors from all around the world and startups. With traditional banks and lenders, you are only limited to a local audience of investors. When you can’t find an investor in your local market, your hopes are almost dead.

With online funding websites, all you have to do is create a convincing pitch that explains the viability of your startup to the investors and its scope. Your pitch along with all the necessary information that you think investors should see goes on the website where it is visible to hundreds and thousands of investors. If you have done your homework and have a team of right professionals on board, getting the right investment is just a matter of hours or days.

Final Words

You can see that a small business can overcome almost all of their challenges much more efficiently today. Starting a business has become so easy that even students can be entrepreneurs today. They can lay the foundation for a business using just their pocket money. From connecting with the right investors to cutting down operational costs, all can be done from the comfort of a person’s home. The only thing that makes the difference today is if you are confident enough to take the first step.

The Complete List of Things to Evaluate Before You Open or Invest in a New Venture

Do you have an innovative idea you wish to market? Are you planning on opening a new business? Are you investing on somebody else’s idea?

If you said “yes” to any of these questions, don’t do it just yet!

Starting or investing on a new venture can be an emotional process full of anticipation and excitement. You need to keep a cool head and treat the process with the utmost objectivity.

To help with that, I’ve put together a complete list of questions you NEED to answer before you even think about putting a business plan together. This will help you make sure that no overlooked variable makes you incorrectly go forward or not. Make sure you don’t skip any part of the process and end the exercise with a very honest yes or no decision based on the answers.

You will find it difficult if not impossible to answer some of the questions. It is very important to understand the sureness of each response and the risk that each unanswered question implies. Handle this risk by analyzing scenarios with the different possible answers.

Write down a simple comment to each question, doing this formalizes your analysis. You can also think about each question in a SWOT analysis context identifying each one as a Strength, Weakness, Opportunity or Threat.

The Dos and Don’ts to keep in mind:

Do this all the time

Be methodic, analyze completely. Understand the need, competition and constrains, then tailor and differentiate.
Be on the lookout all the time for the fatal flaw that will make this fail.
Lots of questions can’t be answered or are too vague, check the risk of not knowing them.

Don’t Do This

Don´t follow the classic idea method: “I have an idea, let me think how to shove it to the channel or customer”.
Don’t focus on the features of the product, focus on the need you are trying to fulfill.
Don’t get tempted to skip a full analysis.
The most frequent mistake is to think everybody in the market is like you. If you like the product, everybody else will.
It is common to confuse a good idea with a good business opportunity, they are not the same.
Thinking “We have no competition” is only for naive entrepreneurs.
Don´t obsess with first mover´s advantage, most of the time funds prefer second movers because the idea is already validated.

The questions you need to answer:

Product or Service

Can you describe the business idea in 25 words or less?
Is the idea scalable? Is it limited to your time or something else?
Can your offering later change / adapt?
Risk of not being able to develop / manufacture the product?

Market or Customer

Can you do formal market analysis or only informal? (Interviews, observations, focus groups, surveys, market experiments, etc.)
Who is the customer? How precisely can he be defined? Location, profile, etc.?
What problem are you solving? Why would the customer buy? Does he want to?
Commercial risk, no willingness to buy?
How big is the market? Growing or shrinking?
How penetrated is the market by the industry? What share can you get fast? Later?
What price is he willing to pay? Based on what? How important is it?
How price-conscious is your customer?
Risk of change in consumer behavior?
Can the target market later be changed? Can you later attack other levels in the value chain?

Industry

Can you do formal analysis or only informal?
Is it thriving? Shrinking?
Do suppliers have power? Risk of supply shortage? Change in price?
Barriers to entry:
. Contractual? Patent or trademark?
. Lead time in tech development? Innovation?
. Management? People?
. Location?
. Regulations and government?
. Other barriers?
Can barriers change easily?
Do you have relations in place?
. Customers?
. Suppliers?
. Partners? Talent? Investors?
Experience in industry? Yours? Other management?
Risk of regulatory or other government related changes or intervention?
Technology risk of obsolescence?

Competition

Can you do formal competition analysis? If not, what informal analysis can you do? Is it good?
Who else is attacking the market? How? Successfully?
What is your competition´s pricing strategy?
What is the closest thing in the target market to your product? Are you a first mover? Second? More than that?
Strategic advantages / differentiators. Clearly visible to consumers or only in your mind? Sustainable? True, important and provable?
. Function? Design? Quality? Uniqueness? Innovation?
. Delivery? Channel? Availability? Location?
. Cost? Marketing? Sales?
. Ignorance of buyers?
. Customer service?
. Other?
Are you taking advantage of a certain opportunity, situation or advantage?
How fast can competition catch up?

Channel

Which options do you have?
Which one is the ideal? Why?
If the first choice does not work, does it make sense to try others?
What channels does your target market prefer?
Which ones are your competitors using?
How much integration do the channels have?
Will the channel change with customer habits or tech?
Risk of no access to the correct channel or consumer?

Sales and Advertising

How will you get customers?
How will you retain customers? Is it important?
Describe the necessary salesforce?
Can a salesperson of ordinary skills sell it?
Do you need advertising? Which kind? How much? Is it important?

Economics

How clearly can you model the basic economics of the idea? (Costs, sales, margins, required capital, ROI, etc.)
Will there be economies of scale? Are they important?
Accounts receivable? Can it become a problem?
How will you finance initially? Later?

Management

Do you have or can get the necessary management team?
Do management / leadership / organizational capabilities make a difference? How big a difference?
How valuable is intellectual property?
Does it make sense to do this solo? It normally doesn’t.

Other

Validation:
. How fast can you know if the business can work or not?
. Can you define the variables to know it? How fast can the data flow?
. Do you need product development to know? Dangerous!
. Do you need a long selling process or many tries to know? Dangerous!
Can you diversify? Not easy on new ventures, but can it be done?
Give me the biggest drawback / risk (fatal flaw) of the idea? The one that will make it fail?
Enlist the seemingly fatal flaws that can be fixed.
Does the idea fit your life objectives? Workload?
Do you feel passionate about the idea? Enjoyable? Are you doing it only for the money?
Give me the upside / best case scenario?
Give me the downside / worst case scenario?

Indian Startup Scenario – India Towards Its True Potential

India ranks among the top five countries in the world in terms of the number of startups founded. India has made tremendous growth towards the creation of innovative startups and has emerged as the 3rd fastest growing hub for technology startups in the world.

Introduction of initiatives like GST and Make In India have given a momentum to the startup economy. Indian Start-ups are moving on the upper line and are expected to increase in size and number in the coming year. It is measured that India houses around 4,200 start-ups, creating more than 85,000 employment opportunities. With over $5 billion worth of investment in 2015 and three to four startups emerging every day, it is projected that the number of startups in India will increase to more than 11,500 by 2020, with job creation from these entrepreneurs reaching 250-300k. The number of Investors has also risen multi-fold in the past few years.

Recent Developments

Indian startups have undergone many developments in the second quarter of 2017. From being selected in the Google’s accelerator program, to raising funds from the Chinese investors, the startup ecosystem has been quite encouraging. Google selected six Indian startups for the accelerator program in July 2017. Startups using latest technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence have been chosen for the same.

Limitations

Despite such promising statistics, only 9% of the Start-Ups have female founders/co-founders. Delhi NCR, Bangalore, and Mumbai, along with Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai account for more than 90% of the Start-Ups in India. The focus is largely limited to information technology-enabled products and services including e-commerce, aggregators, analytics, health-tech and online payments. Amongst all this, the product start-up sector has been largely ignored. A big factor behind India’s growth is software enabled firms such as Flipkart and Ola. Rarely do hardware product companies bring about such success. The reason for this can be attributed to the lack of funds. India’s ecosystem clearly does not have any scarcity in terms of capital. However, only a very small amount of this capital reaches these startups. Additionally, startups in India spend five times the amount of effort to raise funds as compared to US startups.

This is where the Government intervention is required. Through the provision of alternate sources of funding and through a partnership between the Industry and Academia, the government can facilitate and accelerate the growth rate. Alternate debt financing instruments will help Start-Ups and other small enterprises to overcome the problem of lack of adequate collateral, limited cash-flow and the high risk involved. While direct support of start-ups and the right kinds of skills to start & run a business are important, the ease of doing business in the country also matters a great deal. This includes ease of starting a business, obtaining relevant permits, accessing credit, paying taxes, etc. The Labour laws in India are out-dated as well. Thus, appropriate government policies are required to make the Indian Start-Up Ecosystem reach its true potential.

However, Government and international organizations are investing in innovative ideas. Monetary and infrastructure support is accelerated. Start-ups are also making good use of the facilities available and are showing a sign of good times. This can certainly not be dismissed as a passing trend and it’s surely going to change the way the markets are working today in India. Government initiatives are also expected to play a vital role in the startup ecosystem’s bright future. For instance, the commerce and industry department of the Indian Government is planning to organize a south Asia regions’ meet of startups for exchanging new ideas and increasing interaction among them, thereby showing confidence in startups.

Thus, the scenario in the last quarter suggests that the investors’ interest towards funding the India startups remains strong. Next quarter is likely to be more attractive owing to the economic reforms and their implementation. Startups are now focusing on cutting losses, increase their overall valuation and attain operational excellence. These qualities along with the positive sentiments of the investors and support from the government can make the startup ecosystem of India reach new heights in the near future.

Successful Business Strategies for Garment Importer and Exporters

Whether you are a garment importer or exporter, while operating in the international market platform you need to be extremely careful about each and every move of yours. Achieving success as a garment importer or exporter requires maintaining good quality of garments, timely delivery, and several other factors to be considered.

Especially the garment exporters India who are exporting goods like garments, apparels, accessories, textile, etc to other foreign countries must plan out long term and short term strategy planning for overall success. In order to succeed in the country’s textile and garment sector scenario, the garment exporters India need to plan their micro – level strategies intelligently for an entirely win-win situation. Everything starting from quality of the product to providing different varieties to development of latest designs to product warranty to time management to generation of new business leads should be taken care of effectively. These are some of the things to be considered for leading the trade.

Providing quality goods.

No matter which trade you are involved in, but the guarantee of success comes with quality assurance. If you have established maximum quality control at each and every stage of weaving, processing, garmenting and finishing of the garments, then your final product is bound to attract the buyers. Strict quality inspections ensure that your company builds a strong brand reputation.

Providing different varieties

In order to ensure interest of the buyers and having an edge over competitiveness, it is important to present product diversification in the garments to be exported. The garment exporters India should try to add the element of newness to their collection by introducing range of garment collection season-wise like spring-summer collection, autumn-winter collection, etc. They should also try to add new variants to their collection in terms of segmenting the garments like nightwear, evening wear, corporate clothing, lingerie, casual wear, etc.

Timely deliveries

One of the most important things that add to the reputation of the garment exporters India is their punctual services. Hence it is most important for every trader to ensure that his final products are delivered on time. Despite manufacturing the final products on time sometimes a consignment gets delayed due to unknown reasons like ingressives and lazy attitude of the middleman involved, delay from the shipping agencies, problems at customs clearance, etc.

Though there are many ups and downs in the business cycle of the garment importer and importers, but with a little help from the leading database companies like Infodrive India, you can succeed in this global trade. The company provides a comprehensive list of shipping companies, brokers, import export policies and the countries guidelines in regards to the trade.