What is ‘BUSINESS’?

A business is not the culmination but the inception of new ideas coming from different minds working together. A business is amalgamation, collaborations of different investors, or a single investor working consistently to incorporate their ideas in place to give it the accurate shape or structure, and at the same time making sure that the ideas gives profit without shedding unnecessary expenses from own pocket. The soul purpose of a business is not restricted to profit making, but to ascertain that it gives the consumers what they demand because a satisfied customer gives assurance that your ideas have clicked and at the same time worked for you.

A business spread and reaches more ears through word of mouth and for the proper growth and smooth running. For this purpose, every business requires a business expert. He/she plays fruitful role in helping the business reaching the desired heights. The business expert is also known as a business analyst. Just as an analyst analysis the potential risks before indulging in or performing an experiment, and act as a medium to neutralize the damage. The business expert/analyst performs the same job.

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ROLE OF BUSINESS EXPERT:

• A business expert gives you new business ideas about the top profitable business which is an advantage because it saves your mental energy, which otherwise would have been wasted or invested in figuring or making plans about ideas and availability of resources to implement the same.
• The business expert is a knowledgeable and well learned person who is aware of business tips for success, and along that is person who is familiar with new Indian business or recent successful startups to give a boost and an encouraging flight to the ideas impregnating your brain.
• The expert floods the table with engaging, profitable and top business with equal and at par business for women in India. The expert also suggests and gives knowledge of successful businesses run by women, and successful businesswoman names. In this field matrimony business are considered as the safest option for women, not because they are women, but because they are women. A woman is a wife, mother, sister, aunt and performs various other relations. All this and much more makes a woman a valiant warrior. She is very well accustomed with the needs of men at different stages of life. By suggesting this, we are not degrading woman power but sharing our view points in relation to more accustomed business for them, to start with.
• The expert is a baggage filled with infinite ideas for tips relating to successful business startups, and for previously running business to match with the latest and new technology. This gives the opportunity for further exploring the business. They also inspire the entrepreneurs with successful business stories which motivates them, propelling them to work even harder to achieve their dreams.
• The business experts elevate the situation for smooth transition. They further palliate the transition to ensure smooth transaction between the buyer and the seller. They analyze the transaction keeping in mind even the minute details, to ensure peaceful and profitable dealing.

Ideas

We have so far learnt that the role of business expert is to gives ideas to business owners and exploring the vulnerabilities of the ideas suggested by the experts for insuring safety before investing or starting the business. Business experts have deep knowledge and insight about various businesses to keep the owners safe from sudden losses.

These business experts are a team of professionals,who study the opted business from heal to toe. Their primary role is to gather, document and analyze various business details, requirements ranging from manpower to machinery. They are also involved in solving business problems as required and are involve design technical solutions. The Business analyst also works together with the stakeholders and subject matter expert to understand their problems and giving the best solution to their needs.

Skills

• A good business expert or analyst must be communicative:

The business expert must be very strong communicators, especially in the verbal sense. This means that they must be able to work in team and analyze their needs in a manner that can help them resolve conflicts and problems, both within and outside the company.

• He/she will have strong documentation skills:

A good business expert/analyst will learn how to document each of their project and learning from mistakes. It is important that a new business expert/analyst note down everything that they learn from their projects as it will help them take better decisions in the future.

• They will have strong documentation skills:

A good business expert will learn how to document each of their project and learning. It is essential that a new business expert notes down everything that they learn from their mistakes as it will help them take better decisions in the future. Also, if similar problems arise at a later stage, they can implement the same solution, thereby saving a lot of time and unwanted problems.

• They will have strong documentation skills:

Many business experts/analysts will have to work with stakeholders across many platforms. That is why it is necessary that business experts should have an open and clear communication with stakeholders both on the business and the technical sides. While a team may have disagreements within itself, it is important that a they must listen to every side of the conversation before taking any important decision. This would mean that they must be ready to take on responsibilities at every stage and build trusts between the team members so that company can achieve goals with minimum difficulty. Hurdles and impediments.

• Problem solving and critical thinking skills:

They must be well accustomed with the company profile and specification, enabling them immediate problem solving with critical thinking at the same time.

• Conclusion:

 Employing a business expert /advisor is dependent on the nature of the business. However, it is advised that every business, whether small or big must employ a business expert/advisor for ensuring timely fulfilment of tasks. He/she can act as an official relating to timely completion of work.

The world of business management is becoming more of a game of football.

Managers of football teams formulate strategies and decide on playing formation. On the field, though, the team has to think on its feet and respond in real time to a chaotic and ever changing situation, which is no different from business environment today. It has to respond to strategies, tactics and on-field formations of the rival team. The team manager can interject only in a limited way, i.e. peripherally, from the side-lines, during breaks and substitutions.

As the game progresses, the players take on each other’s roles depending on the situation with no manager or captain to instruct them. The players are a team in the truest sense. Every player is aware of the objective. That is, to score a goal and to prevent the other side from scoring. There is role clarity, mission clarity and group cohesion. Eventually, the team that succeeds is the one which is more adaptable and responsive than the other, skills, speed and stamina notwithstanding.

This defines the roles of managers as well. Just like football managers, the managers in the corporate world have to build good teams with necessary skills; build an organizational culture and eventually hold people accountable to that cultural credo. They have to build self-governed teams in which members trust each other and have the liberty to question one another and resolve differences apart from learning from their mistakes.

Today, the business management world is very different from the 1900s when Taylorism (Scientific Management) flourished and efficiency was fervently worshipped and pursued. A business dialectic which mandated profit only with lowering of costs, led to a stratification of work-place culture into managers (the guys with brains) and workers (the guys with brawn). Any creativity from workers was discouraged.

Today, advances in information and communication technology have made it possible to eliminate information asymmetry both within the organisation (between staff) and in the market place. Bowing down to person who proposed Strong and Weak market theory in finance, today no company or brand can dominate the market or no company can consistently beat the market.

The life of strategic innovations does not last few months, forget about years. A small development on the opposite side of the world can throw the best prepared strategic plans out of gear. Similarly, the working class distinctions are now dimmed with services taking equal importance as products do. Today people plan and also implement and have blurred the class distinctions that Taylorism had created. No class distinctions can be made in consulting, process outsourcing services, Information Technology etc.

All these developments would force CXOs to devolve planning, resource generation, control and monitoring functions, traditional management functions, to operational staff or people at the field. The rapidly changing marketplace, in which strategic advantages cannot be sustained forever, is pushing and will further push companies to ensure that advantageous tactical opportunities are not lost. The organisations of today cannot afford a big and slow hierarchy with endless levels of approvals. Lean, mean, flat and nimble – this the trinity of survival. The organisation of tomorrow will not be hierarchy of individuals but a network of teams. (https://rajneeshrastogi.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/team-based-on-organisations-a-new-organisation-structure/ )

Given the current levels of competitiveness, many companies are now providing increased autonomy and more effective risk-delimited freedom at workplaces. They are eliminating redundant and obsolete hygiene encumbrances to improve motivation and productivity, and are trying to tap into the latent creativity of their employees. For example, at Srijan, we would let team members approve each other’s leaves, work from homes and let them hold each other accountable through daily standups.

The managers of today have to increasingly rely on teams of members with complimentary skills, a democratic framework where team members can challenge each other’s mindsets to develop optimal solutions or take optimal decisions. Peer level controls, or as some people say, tribal controls, have proven to be more effective in ensuring compliance with organisation norms and value of the team. effective cohesive team of high performers would automatically develop its own criteria for recruitment and would ease off performers who are not able to meet with their quality standards.

Once the team members understand the purpose of the organisation, the role of the team to which they belong, and are equipped with the necessary information, the organization would win. Does this then beg the question: who should build such teams?

Cradit :
https://rajneeshrastogi.wordpress.com/2017/02/26/what-corporate-managers-can-learn-from-football-teams/

The world has become very complex and is moving to an age of artificial intelligence. Toffler would have defined it as the fourth wave. This age is characterized with quick dissemination of information, a globally connected world with services being provided digitally over the wire. The markets, including financial markets are interlinked, connected and inter-dependent. The orderly world, in which companies knew and understood their business environment, knew their competitors, could predict and prepare strategic plans has now given to a world where their business could be upstaged by a disruptive technology from a startup on the other side of the world. Competition is always on heels threatening to bite if pace slackens.

Organizations can only survive by building teams that can respond to changes in environment, take decisions and implement them. These are teams that have the authority, responsibility and accountability for their decisions, something similar to football teams (https://rajneeshrastogi.wordpress.com/2017/02/26/what-corporate-managers-can-learn-from-football-teams/). With increasing complexity and increasing dependence of tasks, a person could be member of multiple teams that may run horizontally across functions or may run across vertically in a functional area. (https://rajneeshrastogi.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/team-based-on-organisations-a-new-organisation-structure/). For example CFO in a country office would be member of senior executive team and also a member of finance team. The structure can be a strategic choice for the organizations to succeed.

The role of CXOs (CEOs, COOs, CMOs, CFOs etc) would be to build effective teams and build a culture with shared values that binds teams together. Effective teams are characterised by cooperation, collaboration and seamless interchangeability in roles. Teams, like Tribes, also have their own norms that all team members are expected to follow, and use peer pressure or social pressure to ensure compliance.
Organisations need to provide an enabling environment for teams to flourish and succeed. This would require changes in structures, policies and workflows. Some of my experiences are shared below

1. Recruitment is team’s responsibility

Interpersonal relationships are an important element of team success besides trust. Hence it is essential that primary responsibility for recruitment resides with the team. The team could recruit by building consensus amongst its members or giving each member a veto. At Srijan Technologies, a company I worked with, our philosophy was that recruitment is everyone’s responsibility. Beyond functional skills, it is attitude and other soft skills that are important but are difficult to gauge through questions.

Attitudes and biases can be sensed by individuals. That is why we preferred in-person interviews over ones on skype or phone. While the immediate team got more weightage, the interviews also included extended teams or other stakeholders who would be working with that candidate. We once had a situation where a senior developer and the CEO had differing judgements on a business analyst candidate. We had an open discussion on the issue and finally went with the senior developer’s choice.

Another instance I recollect is from CARE, an international NGO. We were interviewing for a project manager for a program with commercial sex workers (CSW). The project director included some CSW’s in the interview panel. His hypothesis was that if a candidate is not comfortable interviewing with a CSW then they would not be comfortable managing the project, and a CSW could best assess the candidate’s comfort. I would say the same logic extends to teams.

2. Successful teams sit and work together.

Getting all the members to sit together is the most effective way to minimize information asymmetry within a team. Physical proximity promotes and encourages transparency. There are no barriers to communication such as inertia of lifting a phone or calling someone when s/he is busy. The team members can see each other’s availability and quickly resolve issues. One of the biggest advantages of such arrangement is the formation of deeper bonds within team members. Teams provide an emotional anchor especially to new members.

The company does not have to run a mentorship program. The team members act as mentors and guides. Since the same cannot be done for Distributed teams – other tools and practices need to be adopted. For example, scheduling a daily team meeting; Tools like common folder with access rights to everyone. Thanks to tools like google docs, chatbots, etc., Distributed teams can collaborate effectively.

3. Democracy in organization and teams

One of the ways to improve decision making in teams is to encourage team to take decisions by consensus. This may seem like wastage of time, but it ensures ownership of decisions by all the team members. People understand democracy as decision making by voting or decisions of majority. But actually democracy is much more than that. ( https://rajneeshrastogi.wordpress.com/2015/04/27/indian-experience-with-democracy/ ). At Srijan we encouraged teams to take decisions by consensus.

4. Team is the Boss

We delegated all operational decisions to the team such as negotiations with the customer, pacing the project, allocation of work to the team. Decisions on approval of leave or work from home was delegated to the team. A supervisor is supposed to monitor the work, but its peers or team members who can provide the best assessment of whether a person has turned in an honest day’s work or not. In my work life, I have come across situations where companies have multiple layers of authority delineation.

In practice, I have seen managers trusting the teams or person on the ground and approving those requests without even simple questions. Organizations can cut down on decision making processes by delegating most of the approvals to the teams and also empowering teams by giving them authority but also hold them accountable.

5. Communication, Trust and feedback

It is essential to build trust and communication between the team members. This helps in reducing politics or charges of favouritism. At Srijan, we would even have 360 degree feedbacks with all the team members sitting together and providing feedback to each other. The rule was that anything that cannot be said in open should not be said. The fact that the organization was structured around roles and not positions also meant that there was no competition amongst team members.

At the organization level, the company used to keep open books. We had sessions where the balance sheet and profit & loss account was shared with everyone. The most important behaviour that seniors have to demonstrate is to allow juniors to question them on their decisions. Give out a message that no subject is taboo and all conversations are welcome.

6. Abolish performance appraisal system and have Shared Goals and Shared rewards.

Teams can only work when the team shares rewards and frustrations of defeat and no single person is singled out for either. It is no wonder that football (soccer in US) does not have man of the match award like cricket has ( https://rajneeshrastogi.wordpress.com/2014/12/28/teams-and-performance-appraisal-systems/ ). A good team of learners who are motivated and enjoy their work would like quality output and ease out anyone who slows down the team.

More often than not, the person would automatically move out. As Gen. Stanley McChrystal mentions in his book “Team of teams” most often repeated reason for dropping out of Seal’s training program BUD/S was that I cannot slow down the team. Rather be the weakest link in the chain, people move out.

Replace Performance appraisal with performance feedback and counselling. Use it to provide feedback to an employee. https://rajneeshrastogi.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/salaries-and-performance-appraisal/. We at Srijan used system of Salaries and performance bonus to reward performance during the year.

7. Define purpose of the organisation and teams

In this fast changing business environment, the companies will have to redefine their indices for growth. The inspiration to growth will come from purpose. What the organization plans to do and achieve. Similarly teams find meaning in their work if they identify with its purpose. If the team knows its purpose, it will also be more confident in moving away from established procedures to ensure that the purpose is met with.

8. Define values and hold teams and people accountable

The team has to fit in the larger organization and should share the same values and culture. Culture and values act as glue and bind the teams together. A very good example of it is Mckinsey that operates as distributed teams but come together as one company with one culture.

In a nutshell, if companies can create teams with diverse set of people, develop a culture of trust and decision making by consensus and are willing to share information with the teams, remove barriers to flow of information within the organization, then the organizations can create self-managed, self-learning teams

Credit : –
https://rajneeshrastogi.wordpress.com/2017/03/18/building-football-teams-at-work/

Most people have the habit of postponing things at a later date even though they know that it will put a lot of burden on them at later stages. This applies for all age groups as well as to all people irrespective of whichever field they are working in.  Being a business owner or if you are planning to become one, you cannot afford to delay things. The effects of procrastination in business are far-reaching. Procrastination or unnecessary delaying of things due to any reason could be detrimental for your personal growth as well as for your business.

You look at any successful business stories in India and you will find that they have no place of procrastination in business at all. Evolvers is one such startup which has been empowering, evolving and engaging with each other to meet the needs of the SMEs which used to remain pending for long. https://evolvers.co.in/about/

There could be various reasons why most people suffer from this issue. It may be due to some sort of fear. Sometimes people working in the office feel that a particular task assigned to them is very difficult. At that point of time procrastination in business occurs as employees try to avoid that task at any cost or prefer that the concerned task should be handled by someone else. There might be some tasks which we dislike or are not of our interest areas hence one tries to put off tasks like that. But one needs to understand that sooner or later one has to do those tasks in waiting as they impact the proper working of the organization.

Another reason why people procrastinate is that they find a job or work that they are doing as boring and repetitive. But one must understand that if you are working in a particular organization then you have no choice of your own. You need to abide by all the rules and regulations of the organization in which you are working. On the other hand, entrepreneurs know that they need to lead by example and hence the founders themselves ensure that they are accountable for their tasks at hand and make sure their teams also remain accountable toward their work and perform it with full dedication.

Thus, the companies where there are open discussion and responsibilities are clearly stated and the founder himself is leading from the front by showing discipline attitude and doing task timely, then their team also does work with the same spirit.

Most of the entrepreneurs know that networking plays a great role in the very venture. They understand that a strong professional network will go a long way in finding solutions to tasks which might seem impossible at first and were getting unnecessarily delayed. This is why Evolvers have been continuously and in a very rapid manner have been growing their network.

Let us see why procrastination is bad for business and why it is a cause of worry, what it results in etc:-

1. Opportunities getting missed

You ask any famous startup or maybe an entrepreneur of a particular organization and they will tell you that opportunities do not strike twice. They will also tell you that in business they have to face a lot of unforeseen circumstances over which they do not have any control. Every business entrepreneur has seen more failures in their life before getting successful. But the difference between how to become a good entrepreneur and why some entrepreneurs succeed in their life is that they see opportunities in every failure they encountered and they create opportunities for themselves instead of waiting for it to come to them.

If an entrepreneur does not take advantage of the opportunity coming his way, then the competitor will be ready to snatch the opportunity from your hand which could provide to be a major roadblock for your business as today is survival of the fittest world scenario. Hence, business leaders must evaluate all the options and quickly arrive at a decision ad must remain committed towards it.

2. Customer relationship gets spoilt

One of the main effects of procrastination for business is that your relationship with your customers will be affected to a great extent. You may not see the changes taking place in initial stages but gradually it might impact your business and could even lead to the closure of your business which you have built over the years with a lot of hard work. To win big in a start-up industry you need to ensure that you consider your customer as your major priority and provide replies to their queries promptly.

3. The brand image of business gets affected

Every successful entrepreneur knows that the reputation of their organization holds a lot of importance for them. To ensure that it keeps on growing and capturing larger market share and even for entering new markets, they need to ensure that their customers are satisfied with their services. But due to procrastination problem sometimes it happens that timely complaints are not adhered to of the customers and even some employees postpone their work because of finding that task boring, or they might not be interested in doing that task on a particular day or they might be finding the task too difficult, etc.

Due to these activities, the image of the startup can be impacted to a great extent. One of the most important things to keep in mind as an entrepreneur is that in today’s digital world anyone can find out about how your business is doing, what your customers are saying about your business and can see what discussions are going on in the forum about your business. Hence one needs to ensure to set the right work culture and make everyone in their business understand about who is their topmost priority for the successful functioning of business operations to ensure that the relationship and trust with your customer are maintained and your brand keeps on growing in the market.

4. Heath of an individual gets affected

Procrastination in business operations can result in affecting both the personal health of an individual too apart from affecting the efficient working of the organization tasks. The regular habit of procrastination has been seen to be the major cause of serious health implication such as hypertension and cardiovascular diseases.

One may argue as to how health has anything to do with procrastination. The reality of the situation is that the habit of postponing tasks unnecessarily causes overburden of the workload at a later date which leads to additional stress being created. Due to this additional stress, our body reacts negatively and causes illness or sickness or other health issues. Hence it is for your betterment as well as for the organization that certain benchmarks are set so that employees know that their activities are continuously been monitored and what they have to complete by what date.

Also, the business leader must tell its staff members about why procrastination is bad for business and their individual growth and must motivate them and involve them in providing useful suggestions which could lead to the growth of organization so that they feel like an invaluable part of the company and work to their fullest potential. By working this way, the procrastination can be eradicated to a great extent after all one just requires changing their mindset and thinking regarding this issue and rest can be taken care of. They should not take it lightly and see it as a serious impediment to their growth.

5. Goals are not achieved in a time-bound manner.

To be counted among the successful business stories in India, every startup must have documentation and tracker sheet and it should be shared with every staff member so that everyone is aware of their roles and responsibilities daily and can work accordingly. When one has things in writing and that too on a high order priority basis, no one needs to ask each other and it would result in more focus oriented work.

Hence, to ensure that procrastination does not delay in achieving your company goals and your personal growth, work as per the documentation. One must prepare a to-do- list in their personal life and must work on the high priority areas as the very first thing in the morning. This way they will ensure their success while simultaneously contributing towards the goals of the organization. Tim urban presented beautifully as to what goes in the mind of procrastinators in a very beautiful way in his ted talk and you can read about the same through this blog post.

Hence the key to avoid procrastination and to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in India is to ensure that your goals are in writing, everyone is aware of their daily priorities and then working in a focused way in the desired direction.