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10 Things That Will Screw Your Business

Posted by: Arul karuppannan Posted on: October 24, 2019 Business Challenges , things that will screw your business

Whether you have a start-up or an established business; your organization is always at risk.

When you are just starting out, you have to be careful and set a strong foundation for your business. And once you have established your business, you have to be careful to ensure that your business continues to perform well. While it is tempting to fuck all the things, do whatever you want, if you don’t follow the good business practice, you would not be able to stand a sure chance in the existing competitive market.

There are an array of business practices that can ruin your chances of building a successful business. And some of the worst business practices involve:

Not Establishing a Proper Business Plan

The importance of building an adequate business plan cannot be stressed any further enough. Business realm is extremely uncertain, and if you go into it headfirst without a proper plan, then you might have to close your company before it actually gets started.A business plan is a comprehensive guide for your organization that outlines the primary goals and how you plan to achieve those goals. It is a vital strategic tool for all entrepreneurs. A well-laid-out a business plan not only helps you to prioritize your tasks, but it also helps in achieving short-term as well as long-term objectives. Though a business plan is an imperative aspect of entrepreneurship, not everyone feels that there is a sheer need for it. Many businesses try to avoid this step altogether because they think business plans are irrelevant. However, many business funding experts state that merely having a good or even an excellent business idea is never enough. Even when you have a thriving business idea, if you don’t have a plan to execute and implement it properly, your business idea would not work.

Ignoring the Importance of Leadership

When establishing a business, it might be helpful to have a leader who is well-aware of requirements and challenges, associated with your line of operation. Having a leader is paramount to ensure smooth business functioning. Leadership is a vital aspect of business management that helps in achieving optimum efficiency in accomplishing to every business objectives. Leadership is a business skill that can influence and motivate your employees to work towards achieving a common business objective.

Many start-ups overlook to the importance of leadership in their business; however, leadership should be present in the organization from the outset. While you are busy in getting the clients and managing them, a leader thus effectively communicates the plans and policies to the employees. They work with the employees to understand the needs and challenges of the existing business process and talk the same with the upper management to obtain a viable solution. With an experienced mentor in the team, the employees will stay lot more motivated to work with utmost efficiency. He or she would tackle the conflict between the team members and try to solve it efficiently. On the whole, with a proficient leader in your team, you will be able to maintain a positive work environment.

Failing to Hire the Right Professionals

You need the right professionals in your team to execute your business ideas properly. While you might think you are well capable of handling all aspects associated with your business on your own, it would not be efficient, and you would end up creating a mess. You would need the assistance of professionals; for instance, for your daily marketing endeavors, you need to hire a digital transformation company to do the job.

Hiring the right people is an expensive process as you would have to spend money on job postings, skill tests, background check, etc. However, if you hire a person without any proper procedure, you would have to go through the complete process the second time, hence doubling your cost. Therefore, it is an initial cost that will help you garner optimum returns in the future. Furthermore, with a proficient member on your team, allow you to fast ensure that there is maximum operational efficiency, and you are able to achieve your business objective effectively. Having a do-it-yourself approach might be saving you money for the time being, but if you take on something that you don’t completely understand, you are likely to incur more cost.

Not Maintaining Your Accounts

Having a “fuck all the things” attitude towards your business can land you in a bigger mess than you can imagine. Not properly maintaining your accounts can get you in deep financial troubles. If you don’t get your accounts straight; how are you going to know the financial status of your business? Managing your accounts should help you identify the same. Every now and then you must evaluate your business in order to gauge its performances. And with financial statements, you can evaluate past records with the present ones and determine your financial growth.

While nobody understands your business better than you do, however, your financial records can certainly provide to be valuable information and insights. These records can help you make better business decisions. Generating essential quotations, invoices, estimates are vital. In fact, estimating the costs earlier can eventually help you determine whether or not the deal is profitable. If you would rely on what suppliers’ costs you, you will lose money faster than ever. By properly organizing your records, you can easily find important data of your business when needed.

Not Setting Employment Contracts

Irrespective of the size of your business, it is important to maintain a well-laid out plan for an employer-employee relationship. An employment contract in simple terms is a legal agreement between the employers and employee designed to provide both parties protection. It will help you avoid misunderstanding and unnecessary liabilities in the future. A well-structured employment contract benefits both employees and employers. It lays out the obligations and rights of each party, ensures total job security, protects employers from certain risks.

For workers, this agreement provides a sense of security that they are working under a professional business that has a set of clear rules and policies laid out. For employers, on the other hand, it renders to the security that employees are well-aware of the obligations and has fully complied with the employment terms. It will also protect your clientele and intellectual properties. Creating an employment contract is not that difficult. You can hire a business attorney who will be in a position to help you draft the agreement in order to protect your business.

Inadequate Business Value

Generally, small business owners don’t have a clear idea of how to properly charge their services scrupulously. They often charge less than their competitors in a way to attract an audience. However, it could impact your growth in the future drastically. It all depends on the way you set your service prices to have a tone of implications on your business. Therefore, it is important to understand how pricing impacts your overall business model — pricing your service centers on goals, strategy, positioning, governance, and business process. Furthermore, it required you to have an extensive understanding of your target customers and the value of your product given to the customers.Setting optimal pricing can help your business achieve profitable growth. Unsuccessful companies follow a conventional cost-plus pricing method rather than focusing on value-to-customer approach. Therefore, they are often unaware of the value their products and services thoroughly deserve, losing the chance to obtain a substantial amount. You must understand the product value you offer customers and if and only if, the possible charge of the additional value you offer. If you are not pricing your products right, you are risking some permanent damage to your business.

Not Listening to your Customers

In today’s time, the customer truly is the king. Your target audience can break or do even your business. Therefore you must hire the right digital transformation company in order to conduct thorough market research, in order to ensure that your customers are more than happy with your products or services. Merely extending quality products is not just enough; you have to back it up with exceptional customer care services. You have to make an effort to listen to the customers, answer their every queries, and go beyond what they expect.

This approach will help you generate customer engagement and build a strong relationship with them. Besides, retaining loyal customers is cost-effective than getting new customers. When your existing customers are satisfied with the services you render, they become loyal to your brands. According to research, 60-70% of customers return to make a purchase whenever they get good customer services from a company. This is the only way to stand out from the crowd and sustain your business in this extensively competitive market.

Not Getting a Business Insurance

Businesses, often small businesses make a mistake of not getting business insurance in an attempt to save money. They couldn’t have been more wrong with their decision. Business realm is extremely precarious, and you would never know what might happen in the near future. Even when you have a plan in your hand, some unplanned circumstances might occur, such as fire, theft, or any natural calamities. What happens then? As a business owner, you are responsible for protecting the interests of your employees as well as investors.With no back-up, you would not be able to cover up for the loss you have incurred. Therefore, the entrepreneur must always plan for uncertainties. And with business insurance, businesses can now gain financial support that will further help them recover from the loss. Without insurance, you are likely to borrow money from outside to make up for the loss, thereby getting yourself in a pile of debts. Rather than considering business insurance as a cost, think of it as an investment that will help you protect your businesses forever financially.

Confusing Business Environment

The lack of internal structure is one of the biggest mistakes that businesses make. Businesses owners tend to have no work plan assigned for their employees, and in turn, they never get their work finished in time. This directly impacts their credibility in the market.

Having a liberal business environment allows employees to work flexibly and such work culture is certainly important. However, you should not just let everything be itself, because that will only create havoc in your workplace. While you provide your employees with the necessary freedom to work, you must also have well-structured roles and responsibilities allocated for each of them. Your workers might not always take up responsibilities and finish them in due time.

So in order to ensure that everything is organized and as per the schedule, it is important to have a clear cut internal structure in place. Let your employees have the freedom to work on their own, but also ensure that they are made aware of the deadline. You have to build a structure that gives them comfort and flexibility and adhere to your business objectives.

Lack of Adaptability

A business that works on their own terms can never be successful. It is because in today’s market, your customer is the king, and as a business, you have to be providing what customers exactly wants. With so many options available in the market, the needs and expectations of customers are increasingly growing. And businesses that fail to cater to these needs will not be able to sustain in the market for long. Therefore, it is important for you to constantly execute market research, understand what the market already has, what customers expect and build a plan to offer that.

This is also the reason why customer engagement has become such an imperative part of the marketing process. You should hire a digital marketing company, that can help you stay connected to your target audience. This way, you will know what their needs are and fulfill them time and again. Building a strong customer relationship is one of the most effective marketing strategies that will help you stay ahead in the competition. If you continue to follow your conventional methods and offer the same kind of products and services to the customers, you will have to close your business soon enough.

The Bottom Line

While having an excellent business idea that might set the foundation, the real work starts only after that. Running a business is a continuous task, and you cannot afford to have a lazy attitude, especially in today’s competitive market. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to carefully analyze, plan and execute every aspects of your business.

Top 5 Ways to Utilize Automation in Your Business

In order to determine whether or not you should introduce levels of automation into your business, you first need to understand the efficiencies it would create. As time goes on, many organizations are starting to see the value automation can bring. And more and more often, companies are choosing to adopt automation software that can do countless back-end tasks to save time, money, and the hassle that often comes with large-scale projects.

Some worry automating a business could lead to fewer jobs and subsequently hurt the economy. Most automation practices, however, are meant to be supplemental in nature and not meant to replace employees. For most industries, utilizing this type of technology can help to complete redundant tasks, allowing employees to focus on more critical matters of the business. Here are some great ways in which automation can benefit your business, whether it be financially or strategically.

1. Reduce Repetitive Task Work

One of the biggest benefits of utilizing process automation software is to save time on repeatable project tasks. From jobs as simple as inputting data into spreadsheets, configuring applications, and simplifying order processing, automating your business can have countless benefits. Think of the hours that will be saved and manpower that can be allocated to more important tasks if routine procedures are taken care of with virtually no error.

The average time it takes to process an order manually is around 5 minutes. If this procedure was automated, it would take a quarter of the time and would mean more workers allocated to fill orders, resulting in a higher level of output. This same scenario can be applied to almost any department of a business, and work effectively regardless of the volume of data, the number of orders or any other inputs that companies encounter regularly.

2. Better Visibility and Continuity Across Departments

Overseeing multiple projects, accounts or departments can make it extremely difficult to focus your efforts for an extended period of time. This can make it difficult to see how the company is performing outside of your prerogative. Similarly, measuring your employee’s level of output as well as their delivery speed in order to set department standards could take months and extensive resources to collect the necessary data. Automation tools can handle all of this and provide feedback in real-time to give you all the information you need to be a successful manager.

Visibility both within a single department and across multiple divisions of a business can help day-to-day operations run smoothly and efficiently. Employees who are not meeting quotas and process inefficiencies will be apparent and easy to monitor. Not having to worry about micromanaging a staff takes a significant strain off of your shoulders and should, in most cases, improve the overarching perception of the “business hierarchy.” Automation will dramatically reduce the unknown elements of inefficiency many businesses struggle to locate within their processes and fix.

3. Increased Accountability of Employees

The rate of productivity of employees will now be under dramatically more scrutiny by management due to the fact that visibility is improved when automated task monitoring is implemented. Accountability will, therefore, become a prominent aspect of day-to-day business operations. And not only does accountability take place on a personal level, but it will balloon to incorporate the “team” mindset that is built into most business models.

Employees who are falling behind in their workload compared to their counterparts will stand out. Similarly, the data collected makes discerning high-performing individuals just as apparent to management. With this in mind, employees across all disciplines will be more productive and efficient, knowing their performance is being logged for evaluation purposes. No one will want to be the one who falls to the back of the pack, making each project or task a priority for those looking to succeed and thrive within the company.

4. Improve Dollar Retention Rate

Did you know that it is 7 times less expensive to keep current customers than it is to find and convert new customers for your business? With the improved turnover time and efficiency that comes with automating business practices, you will ensure that your customers continue to be satisfied with your performance and as a result, should continue to work with your company in the future. As you sign new clientele who see the impressive work you are doing for them, your revenue will increase while fewer clients will be lost to under-performance or competing businesses. Although the initial investment and setup of automating tasks may be steep, the benefits can be seen almost immediately, followed by a huge increase in the bottom line.

4. Eliminate Excess Waste

Completely eliminating lag and waste during production is almost impossible, but with automated services to control the rate at which projects are completed, the total amount of material and money that is lost during manufacturing can be dramatically reduced. Pair automation with other money-saving techniques such as more affordable materials, closed-loop manufacturing processes, and volume reduction to ensure your waste is minimized. This is a perfect example of how automation is used only as a supplement to a workforce. Although machines can create products and complete certain services, the human element is an integral part of almost all business practices.

The cost of unused and waste material is incredibly high and is almost always reported as a loss each quarter or by year’s end. The savings you earn from using automated production plans could be allocated elsewhere, improving other departments or upgrading current technologies used within the business to even further boost efficiency.

The act of automating your business is a fast, easy, and financially beneficial way to increase the efficiency and overall production of virtually any business. Evaluate what areas of the company would benefit from this switch, calculate the potential return on investment of automating, and research what the best option is in regard to your budget. It won’t take several years or even several quarters to see the benefits of automated processes. You will be netting a profit from the investment before you know it.

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Lead Management: What is it and Why do you Need it?

Posted by: Arul karuppannan Posted on: May 10, 2019 Lead Management , Lead Management App Development , Lead Management Apps

Sales is undoubtedly the most crucial component of any business. It is that part of a business which attempts at getting customers into buying more, so that more revenue can be generated. The more the sales, more will be the revenue, and this translates to better profitability.

Now, having realized the paramount importance of sales in any industry, it is to be borne in mind that lead generation is the foundation upon which sales prospects can be constructed. Sales leads—the data identifying potential buyers—happens to be the lifeline of any modern business today. As is to the common practice among modern businesses today, technology plays a key role in managing this critical element. The innovative lead management technology is being extensively used by many global enterprises.

What is Lead Management Software and How Does it Help Businesses?

Lead Management Software Helps Enterprises to Efficiently Manage Leads

In the simplest form, leads are your potential customers who show interest on your product or service, but have not yet made a single purchase. With business growth comes an increased load of leads that needs to be managed efficiently, in order to channelize the flow and convert as much leads as possible among existing customers.

The process of capturing leads and tracking their behavior to qualify and engage with them, until they prove to be ready for moving to the next phase of making a sales transaction, is called lead management. It is through automating the lead qualification process to the maximum possible extent that enterprises can handle their leads, come in from varied sources efficiently. Here’s where Lead Management Applications play a key role in assisting the sales teams of modern business organizations.

How Does a Lead Management System Work?

A Lead Management Software Development Company helps enterprises by providing business-specific features that assist handling of the various stages present in the lead management process. The key features are discussed below:

Capturing leads from multiple sources is enabled

An effective lead management software must help users easily capture leads that’s originating from various sources in real-time, securely. Lead capture automation ensures feeding each lead into the system and thus prevents lead leakage.

By capturing the source as well, it helps identify which marketing campaigns deliver and which ones don’t. It is capable of assessing automatically the sources that generates the most number of leads and revenues for the organization. Leads from different sources such as emails, chats, and web forms are captured and delivered securely for consideration.

Lead enrichment & tracking helps the sales team

When a lead enters the lead management tool, its profile gets automatically enriched with commonly available information such as the company name, job title, social media profile, etc. This relieves the sales team from having to take the extra effort and spend time on researching and manually entering data.

Tracking website visitors helps businesses to obtain an idea about what leads are predominantly looking at the site, their position in the buying process, and the likelihood of their purchasing the product or service. Better understanding and communication with leads is enabled mainly due to the ability of identifying their buying intentions.

Factors such as links clicked, pages visited, downloads made – the lead’s general activities on the website, in addition to email and product engagement are tracked together efficiently. With these valuable insights, the sales team personnel’s will be able to understand leads’ interests and then customize the sales efforts accordingly.

Lead scoring feature for qualifying the leads

Leads get checked for identifying their worth – to assess whether they can be pursued or not. Those qualified leads alone are considered sales-ready. Lead scoring, the methodology for ranking the leads, for determining the sales-readiness of a potential buyer, is simply employed for effectively qualifying leads.

According to the rating of their interest on the product or service, their position filled in the purchase cycle, and how they match to a specific business, leads can be scored.

Scoring is done by assigning points to leads through rankings such as A, B, and C or by making use of terms such as ‘cold’, ‘warm’, or ‘hot’. Assigning score to leads in accordance with their location, job title, their behavior on the website, and email engagement, the sales team can now quickly distinguish between qualified and unqualified leads. Making use of scoring method for qualifying the leads facilitates sales personnel to pinpoint the right sales leads and tends to invest their time optimally.

Secure distribution of leads

When a business is small, it may be possible to manually assign leads to individual sales representatives pretty easily. With increasing number of leads and a growing sales team, this might cause delay in the lead response process or may altogether make it impossible. A reliable lead management tool has the capability of automating lead assignment to appropriate sales representatives on the basis of a few set criteria’s.

Efficient distribution of leads to the right sales personnel and territories facilitates prioritizing the leads in a better way, by the sales team themselves. Capturing leads needs to be followed by effectively passing them on to the relevant persons in the sales team. This empowers the leads to have a consistent experience, when they are required to make queries.

Ongoing nurturing of leads and monetizing them

Although it is the expectation of every sales team, the possibility of each and every lead being converted into a paying customer is getting remote. Not all leads can be converted sales-ready. Quite a few leads may be present in the awareness or research phase, trying to figure out the suitability of your product or service. It is the responsibility of the Lead Management Apps to facilitate sending nurture campaigns to such generated leads.

With an efficient Lead Management Software in place, enterprises may educate them through demonstrating the value of their services or products. This may be performed by sending relevant contents and promotional offers to leads. They may be nudged forward in making a decision about buying.

Why is Lead Management Considered Crucial?

In order to manage the flowing leads and qualify them according to their worth quickly, an automated lead management system becomes essential. Manual processes will not suffice in the modern business settings. Furthermore, lead management software helps optimizing an organization’s sales strategy to be efficient. It also enables analyzing how a potential customer gets converted from being a prospect to a lead to a customer.

“Managing leads is one of the most important things any business needs to learn, because that’s how you help interested parties find the products they need from you.” – Brad Hodson

What are the Exclusive Benefits of Lead Management Software?

It enables sales reps to identify and focus on only sales-ready leads. This maximizes sales opportunities
Engaging with the right leads is enabled; sales reps are backed by essential contexts. This results in improved conversations.
Eliminating unwanted data while providing necessary information, the lead management system improves response time exceptionally well.
Automated tools for lead management facilitates assigning leads to the right persons and prioritizing – this helps to enhance productivity while increasing ROI.

Wrap-Up

Lead generation is the crucial part in every business that keeps your pipeline active and filled with a flow of new prospects. In the contemporary business arena, it is evident that having effective Lead Management Applications in place would definitely offer unlimited opportunities to enterprises. It helps avoid pitfalls such as lack of insight and lack of nurturing, while reducing waste and increasing conversion rates.

MVP or EVP: What is the Right Option for Your Startup?

Posted by: Arul karuppannan Posted on: March 18, 2019 EVP or MVP , Exceptional Viable Product , Minimum Viable Product

Startups and the zeal to solve problems with technology

The Indian start-up ecosystem is one of the most talked about phenomena in the tech business industry for the past half a decade. The likes of Flipkart and Dunzo have motivated millions of entrepreneurs to explore new possibilities of business by solving real-world problems that enhance the quality of life for a common man. While there are numerous ways to solve any problem, technology helps you solve them with utmost efficiency and sustainable long-term approach. It is one of the dominant forces which lead to the onset of app development companies rising to fame and essentiality. On average, an incredible 30,000 new mobile apps are submitted for review and hosting at the Apple App Store every month. It is a considerable number, and it says a lot about the importance of technology, the industry focuses on mobile applications and broadly convinces us for believing that mobile app development companies are vigorously active and they mean nothing but business.

What is the standard approach?

Irrespective of how well a start-up scales itself or tries to limit the focus of resource allocation, the ultimate objective of every start-up is to be as profitable as possible. The general approach which they take for being more profitable is to solve real-world problems with sustainable technology solutions via mobile apps within an optimum budget. So, the monetary aspect or the budget of any start-up leads us to a critical choice which every product-based start-up has to make. Whether a startup should go with MVP or EVP?

Quick Knowledge

MVP or Minimum Viable Product is a strategy of building products where the start-up launches a product just with all original features and functionalities that can help them stabilize and show up early in the market. It requires minimal resources and development of core services before a product enters into the market.

EVP or an Exceptional Viable Product is a finished product out of the finest and most advanced prototype which a product could witness. It requires a comparatively more massive amount of resources and also delays the launch or increase time-to-market for any product. The final product is fully cooked with all possible functionalities which are required to implement the whole elaborated idea.

What is the most important thing to note?

Startup incubated products in the form of mobile apps are subjected to the choice of strategy between MVP and EVP. It is essential not just to think but think it through; right till the end, launch and further evolution of the product.

When you look at it with a farsighted approach, it is easy to understand that both of these approaches of product development will require a similar amount of money when counted lump sum. It is just two different strategies of product development that make the start-ups shell out their budgeted resources with different approaches and at different points of time during the product development life-cycle.

Every start-up is advised to ensure that they have foolproof management of monetary resources before they pursue either of them. However, it is true that MVP will require lesser money in the initial phase, but the overall expenses until the project gets completely incubated will be more or less similar.

Here are the most critical points which every start-up consider before opting for MVP or EVP

Brand Visibility & Reputations

Business and politics are all about perception and reputation. Every business generally has a long-term approach to building a loyal base of customers who are willing to try and upgrade everything that their favorite brand offers. That is the kind of cult every company wishes to possess in this competitive scenario. To maintain the same, all the companies have customers who have a set impression of their favorite brand and also expects a certain level of quality and consistent innovation. For instance, Apple lost a considerable number of very loyal customers as they mellowed down on change since iPhone X and further. You might think that Apple is too big a company to be compared with startups, but the analogy remains valid.If you think your start-up already has such a base of loyal customers and huge followership, you should typically go for a proper Exceptional Viable Product. It will help you manage everything and roll out a product which matches or exceed the expectations of your loyal customers.

There are startups which are yet to get into the competition of building a base of such loyal customers, and the objective is to impress and convince the most probable customers merely. For them, Minimum Viable Product is also a good option as it will help you showcase the most robust functionalities and features in a quality driven mobile app. Fortunately, it happens in the early stages of a start-up product.

Contemporary competition and competitor profiling

All the start-ups are advised to use their market and domain research while choosing between a minimum viable product and an exceptional viable product. If your respective business domain has firmly stable dominant business leaders, MVP might put you under a dark spot of an unattended corner. Whereas, the famous ones steal all the limelight and your product might fail to reach the customers effectively.In such a scenario, it is always advisable to go all out and put all your eggs in one basket. You should go for an impressive, comprehensive exceptional viable product that leaves no stone unturned to impress your loyal customers and also build an excellent reputation for the startup.

Insight based approach

Your choice between the MVP and an EVP might also be governed by insights about your competitors and their expected time-to-market. It is essential to be the trendsetter and an early riser in every industry to capture the market more efficiently. If you think that it is critical to strike the hot iron with a hammer early on, despite having numerous persuasive reasons to go for an EVP, you may take the fast track route with an MVP and create a buzz in the market. It will also help you take the lead and handle the budget, timeline issues on a short-term basis.

Nature of Business Idea

Start-ups should also consider analyzing the nature of their business idea while making a particular choice. A mobile product idea may be only short-lived or is simply induced because of a temporary upcoming event/opportunity. You may rush with an MVP and not wait for somebody else to capitalize on the occasion by launching a similar product before you do.For instance, you may be looking to create election-dedicated news and content delivery mobile app product. Now, it becomes imperative for you to launch the product well before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in May. You should directly go for an MVP ruling out the possible choice of an EVP. This will be a great publicity incentive for your start-up.

On the other hand, if you look to build an application with a long-term approach and try to put out an EVP, it might be very late and the elections might either be gone, or they might be around the corner. There would be no time for you to market the app in an optimum budget.

Why are the choice between NDP EVP is critical for every start-up?

A wrong choice between an MVP and EVP can lead to a diminished impact of your product in the market.You might require a longer route to publicize the product. There are potential risks of complete failure as well.
If the wrong choice is made for an exceptionally large-scale project, this may lead you in a situation where you might not be able to reap optimum benefits of launching and fulfilling the business objectives behind the idea. Probably, you may not even be able to complete the project.
There can be chances of newcomers who might take an imitator’s approach to build a product very similar to yours and much better then what you might end up rolling out. The world is full of resources, and business ideas are capitalized just like that. It will also make you bear a loss of market research and technology innovation as somebody else might impress the market before you.

Conclusion

Making the right choice between the two primary product development strategies is a critical part, but ultimately the technology and value creation should win. Although the possibility is very less if you out rightly focus on building a potential product, it is bound to succeed with either of the strategies. It might take longer to reap the benefits, but if you are hitting where it matters, the market will surely acknowledge the innovation and efforts.

The dilemma in choosing between these shouldn’t drag down your enthusiasm and commitment towards building the right product; instead, it is important to see such critical decisions as an opportunity to take the lead if your competitors lack. Moreover, the trend of SaaS products is growing at a rapid rate, making the right choice of product development strategy will become even more crucial. There is a considerable data-driven business research and management approaches hitting the arena. It might lead to the inception of efficient tools which can gather information about the present scenario of your start-up and efficiently suggest you which is the right approach.

Industry 4.0: The Greatest Phenomenon of the Millennial Generation and what it could mean to them?

Posted by: Arul karuppannan Posted on: January 25, 2019 Industry 4.0 , Industry 4.0 Applications , What is Industry 4.0

What induces the most significant transformation?

Every technology surfacing in the Indian IT industry is like a story unfurling with every chapter having the prerequisites, performance and then the consequences. The mature minds and lively enthusiasts are the contributors and sometimes drivers of such a conglomerate of technologies. Retrospection lanes through which the story of technological developments has passed makes one mature and also helps understand the need tour of the topsy-turvy tech industry. Also, how it grows eventually into substring of successes and a lot more.

The seed of this ultimate transformation spinning about its head started way back in the 80s with the contemplation of computers. There was a sense that productivity could even reach an all-time high as the world could witness. It is an ultimate story with so many sequels passing through the computation world. The world had seen something as unusual as the mobile technology. Once the mobile technology was up for grabs and the world could understand how amazing it is, it was the time for integration of computers with the mobile technology which led to the rise of something as impactful as what we call Mobility, today.

Continues…

The rise of potent technology is best complemented with the ever-expanding horizons of computing performance. Moreover, the procession and some in-depth applications which the world had not even dreamt of. The rise of this technology compliments the ever-expanding horizons of computing performance. Precision and some detailed applications surfaced, which the world had not even dreamt. With a sense of mobility setting in among the industry leaders and the formal players, this sort of boom in the computing performance helped the world understand how big data could surface.

Did you know?

Artificial neural networks first came into commercial and industrial existence in the 40s and 50s. However, the concept was demanding peaking computing performance with minimized trade-offs of time material cost. Now, as the world would suffice with high-end computing, artificial neural networks have regained attention and on possible applications, directly concerning the lives of commons.

What sets up the stage for Industry 4.0?

You might be amazed to know that the journey which we have travelled through, has milestones named the industrial revolution one, two and finally the rise of computers with industry 3.0, generally regarded as the third industrial revolution. This surely changed the face of manufacturing industry like never before.

Did you ever think what made the internet so successful? It was the maturing use and in-depth applications of computer devices.

What according to you helped smartphones be one of the most impactful inventions of the 20th century? It was the predominance of the Internet which helped the world realize the need for seamless connectivity and its importance in mobile data.

The major give-a-way out of the small analysis is that nothing great happened just because it had the potential and the world could believe in it. Every life-changing transformation which has affected the industries was cohesively be supported and powerfully backed by a foundational reason in the form of a technology or a burning need.

What’s next?

Studying the nature of transformations in the technology industry has helped the most mature minds predict what could be next. With the computers reaching an un-perceived level of productivity, Internet widening the wingspan and mobility being used up to the potential, data is abundant. It might seem unbelievable, but according to the scientists, the world has produced more data in the past decade than the whole 20th century.

With something available in such abundance, the industry does an all-around check of the potential it has, and led to the rise of data science and what we call today the backbone of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and the rising trend of data science in almost all fields like health care, automotive, education, next is the turn of data being hauled over the connected bunch of devices. It is already settled under the name of IOT or Internet of things.

What is Industry 4.0?

In the simplest of words, Industry 4.0 is the name given to the fourth industrial revolution, by the information technology fraternity. Described by the route, industry 4.0 primarily labels the trend of optimization and automation accompanied by data being exchanged. This involves the setup of manufacturing machines and several IOT devices. So basically, it is nothing but an interconnected, completely and highly potent industry trend seen presently in the age of data science, automation and the so-called artificial intelligence.

How impactful is Industry 4.0?

According to Forbes, use of computing devices, sensors and deploying artificial intelligence on the past existing data has helped and African goldmine to increase their overall output by approximately 3.7%.

3.7% directly mean an annual saving of US$20 million.

Welcome to the world of industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 is carving a world of difference to all major sectors

What is the game all about?

The manufacturing industry has seen a change like the daylight and darkness among all spheres of IT-based manufacturing units. It is a visible impact that the onset of the transformation led by the primary technology leads to a magnetic pole of techniques and related phenomena. Industry 4.0 is best complemented by the opportunity which is driven by the abundance of data, big data, and analytics — terabytes of data flowing across devices and being stored for making some foundational artificial intelligence logic and logical agents. Manufacturing has an end-goal of creating and delivering sheer value to the consumers. Thus, contributing to maximum customer management systems and different enterprise networks with accurate and real-time decision-making.

Please Note: Manufacturing bots and several reports are an example of automation and they have nothing to do with artificial intelligence. It is a common notion which requiring rectification at the users’ end.

How automation is improved by AI?

Imagine a robot, which works day in and day out, it produces the desired articles and is an integral part of the manufacturing line. It does its work, never gets tired and is always on the toes for further production. Moreover, it can start interacting with you like humans, gauge its performance and also make the necessary changes in the style of working to increase productivity. That is precisely how automation is posted to its maximum potential with artificial intelligence in full support of analytics based on big data.

Ideation is not a cakewalk. It takes a lot of brainstorming, contemplation and several other techniques of product development. Then, the product hits the existence as a prototype and then finally turn into a finished product. Moreover, the spine which connects all these dots is the technique of stimulation. People are extensively using simulations to gauge the requirements and detailing their plans of operations to hit the existence as a prototype. Then, finally turn into a for nest products. It also results in a perfect harmony among products and within the process.

That has some act on any large-scale manufacturing business as automation increases productivity and optimization shoots up the overall profitability supporting the increased cash flow.

IoT comes in…

Primary industry for the modern IOT version is the perception of industry 4.0. The interaction and ensured communication of a large pool of unfinished products which communicate and stand in sync with the present status of product development and production. It takes a great deal to decentralize decision making within the manufacturing line. However, it takes a shorter route with industrial IOT, as it decentralize analytics and enables real-time responsive technologies for sustainable business growth.

How secured is the ‘connected’?

Industry 4.0 is leveraging cybersecurity in an altogether different perspective. Grand phenomena and is putting an all-time high stake in cybersecurity with seamless connectivity across devices and the incorporation of IOT. Security is exploring its older avenues of application with the driving force of industrial IOT and before the industrial revolution.

Conventional cloud computing technology is also playing its substantial part in making the industrial revolution hit in the real sense. Network generated clouds are having high capability of hosting and managing real-time operations across devices and hubs all across the industrial IOT setup. For instance, any data being transmitted across all the IOT enabled devices in the industry, needs to be managed appropriately and stored through reliable infrastructure which is readily capable with the cloud technology.

Industrial IOT led fourth industrial pollution is also nurturing some new techniques for sampling and prototyping through the means of 3-D printing. It not only cuts cost, but also has a lighter manufacturing overhead, enablement of complex manufacturing designs with lightweight construction.

Hurdles on the road for Industry 4.0

Privacy, Isolation, Overall Security

Industrial IOT has redefined the meaning of seamless connectivity and it has attained an all-time high degree of super cohesive, effective in sync communication. It is meticulously including all devices and indirectly, humans. The process of procuring and communicating large chunks of data is exposing our personal and sensitive information to potential threats which might be undercover with any privacy protocol or an overall security layer deployed in the cloud.

This matter requires conscious attention because approximately 76% of businesses have reported being a victim of some security slack and have landed themselves in a highly compromised situation.

The idea of industry 4.0 might look fancy from the outside, but it can have a huge overhead which might seem unreasonable to many. Stabilized and scaled businesses reason their growth in terms of futuristic investments they have done in the past. This can lead a business to critical fracture point which may seem like a cliff to jump off or a runway to the flight of success. In simple words, it is just about a much-needed calculated risk thoroughly verified by the need of the hour and the direction in which the business is supposed to grow.

It has already been discussed a lot that virgin technologies and phenomena like industry 4.0 will change the face of workforce. There will be a dire need to reskill and up skill ourselves in this dynamic era driven by technology, for the rest of the 21st century. Humans are having an edge over all other creatures on this planet in terms of their cognitive abilities. The ability to read and understand should be a foundation for every job which is taken up in this era driven by data and supported by technology. For an instance, the machines can only eat up jobs which can be easily automated and have a confined ecosystem of dynamicity and requirements. But humans can excel in their analytical, creative and innovative skills for making this planet a better place.

Industry 4.0 wrapped up

Approach in manufacturing techniques is a commendable leap to reach a new level of conceptualization, automation and further optimization of manufacturing industries. This might seem to be under a critical spot of bother due to economic burden but it is most likely to report in terms of increased growth and profitability. Another great aspect catalysed by industry 4.0 is a sharper focus of many government organizations and corporate’s research and experiments. Ability to easily 3-D print and simulate their ideas is a great motivation to the whole scenario for a more mature and profitable manufacturing business.

Two sided coin, industry 4.0 is also having its own speculation, the rest of employment and overall security in a highly connected network between devices and humans.

How can I issue GST invoices manually?

Posted by: Maran kavin Posted on: December 22, 2017 GST invoices , GST Invoicing Software , How to issue GST Invoice

Easy-to-use, Simple, yet Efficient GST Billing Software Exclusively Designed for the Indian Market!

It is a uniform platform across the globe now, with several of the world’s nations having adopted the GST model of taxation. Although several nations have been following this tax structure since long, there are a few that are making the transition from their earlier system to the Goods and Services Tax regime. This necessitates entrepreneurs and businesses to have an efficient and appropriate invoicing system that gels with the new tax regime.

Helping Small Businesses with Invoicing, Reporting, and much More

Importance of Effective Invoicing Under the GST Regime

With unprecedented changes having occurred on the business scenario in the global markets – caused by the paradigm shift toward the new GST system, it has become essential to assure a smooth and seamless billing process. Aimed at enabling businesses to be able to issue invoices efficiently with less efforts, and clients as well as officials to effortlessly view and understand the billing elements, the modern GST invoicing system offers transparency and clarity- thanks to the modern online billing software.

Innovative Online Invoice Software for the Modern Day Business and Entrepreneurs

Unique Features of the Online Billing Software

Aligning with the requirements of the new GST format and its guidelines, the online invoicing system provides all necessary uniform features expected by various nations.

All GST taxpayers can design their invoice format according to their own style and requirements
Only a few fields have been made mandatory in the invoice
Attractive and impressive invoices can be quickly and easily created
Inventory tracking feature is provided
Financial analysis and reporting are possible
Multiple companies can be managed
Integrated with several payment gateways, the state-of-the-art billing system enables receiving payments online
Customized invoicing software offers multi currency support

Designed to Suit Indian Business Environment – Enables Getting Paid Faster

The Significant Role Played by Digital Invoicing Systems in Modern Business Era

Invoices are seen to be extensions of brands in the contemporary business setting. Being capable of customizing your invoices to include your business logo and stay in your own language are vital in keeping abreast with competitors and achieving business success. The modern invoicing software allows you to control the appearance and feel of your invoices, rendering them attractive and memorable to your customers as well.

Offering various beautiful color themes out of which you may choose yours, the digital invoicing system lets you have your invoice to adopt your logo’s color, or other secondary colors which complement it. It takes just a few seconds to create unique theme for your estimates and invoices. You may even customize your payment receipts. Custom fields suiting to your specific business and easy communication of important details are the highlights here.

Advantages of the Invoicing Software

Teams & businesses can be managed
Detailed reports
Easily prepare elegant invoices
Quotations and estimates
Tracking time and expenses made possible

Tips to overcome financial problems and difficulties for business

Posted by: Maran kavin Posted on: September 8, 2017 financial difficulties , financial problems , how to overcome financial problems , how to solve financial problems , solutions for financial problems

Regardless of whether you run a small business, aspire to own a startup, or operate as a freelancer, getting started with a free online invoice generator is one of the powerful ways of building your business successfully online.

Significance of Online Invoice Management Tool

Online invoice lets businesses to make invoices quickly with attractive invoice templates. These invoices can be prepared, sent and paid online. The online invoice tool may be downloaded without the need for any additional software. Freely available, the online invoice management tool enables businesses to make beautiful and customized invoices according to specific needs.

By switching to electronic invoices, you can save time for processing as well as payments, bring down costs, increase productivity, and avoid disputes. By making the process easy and accurate —that otherwise may prove difficult— the online invoice management tool gets invoicing done efficiently and quickly.

Crucial Role Played by Online Invoice Generation App in Business

Proving to be advantageous to customers as well as businesses, the online invoicing app enables enhancing productivity of the invoicing process. It helps reduce considerable man hours and unnecessary processes.

The major challenge of invoice disputes and customized billing that is facilitated by online invoice management app can significantly reduce invoice exceptions. The overall efficiency of the system is improved too. The billing challenges that reduce efficiency and add unwanted costs may be eliminated by using this.

Challenges in Invoicing

The following common challenges can be tackled effectively by prudently using an online invoice generator:

Long time taken for approvals and payments
Traditional ERP systems may prove time – consuming and have only limited functionality
Spreadsheets may be inadequate; they may prevent one from clearly understanding things in detail
Presenting financial reports may sometimes become complicated
Inaccurate billing may lead to customer wrath
Lack of visibility into payment and invoice data

A Stepping Stone for Every Business –Online Invoice Generator App!

What Makes the Online Invoice Generator Software Special?

The online invoice generator software helps businesses to overcome problems and issues by offering the following key factors:

It is possible to build simple invoices: Involving nothing flashy, this software is not at all complex. Invoices are expected to be thorough but simple – which is achieved by using this software.
Perfect layout for the invoice: providing the specific structure that users need, this software strikes a balance between completeness and simplicity.
Online invoicing is possible: Sending your invoice in PDF format to clients directly is possible. After completing your invoice, all you need to do is email it to clients.
You can have your hard copy as well: You can save the invoice to your computer and print it.

Offering robust invoicing management solutions to businesses, the online invoice generator is an affordable and great tool suitable for small businesses.

Offering to prepare a complete invoice on the spot with need for easy information filling, online invoice generator makes the lives of entrepreneurs and businesses easier.

Best practices for an effective Dashboard for business / MIS (Management Info System)

Posted by: Madhu Kesavan Posted on: April 6, 2017 Dashboard for business , Develop dashboard for business , importance of management information system , Management Information Systems , What is management information system , What is MIS

Most organizations today are seeking new technologies to enhance operational capacity and reduce costs of operations. One of the main challenges facing any type of organization in the modern setup is enhancing efficiency in an environment of increasing operational costs. One way of enhancing productivity in any organizational setup is by leveraging the data generated and using it in decision making.

The Role of a Dashboard/MIS

A dashboard for business or an MIS (Management Info System) plays a similar role to that of a heart in the body. This system ensures data collated from different parts of your organization are processed and then presented in a manner that will help make the right decisions.

By integrating a dashboard in your organization, you will ensure all teams have the necessary information when they need it. For instance, a supply manager knows the inventory in the warehouse through the warehouse management system (WMS). At the same time, the market department has information from the system showing which products are flying off the shelves and which ones require a new marketing strategy.

Whether you are in the healthcare or automotive industry, you have to set in place systems that will help you optimize the information you have in the organization. An effective Management Info System helps in strategic planning, operational and management control, scheduling control, goal setting, organization communication, decision making and risk management among other areas. Today, dashboards are the de facto face of business management applications and they are integral in business intelligence (BI).

Dashboard/MIS Implementation Challenges

While dashboards and information management systems have become ubiquitous in modern business, there are still challenges which most companies face in the implementation of the systems. In some cases, dashboards are created on-the-fly and with time they become loaded with meaningless information.

For every dashboard that is an integral tool in a business, there are thousands which are just pretty interfaces full of graphics which will not help business teams. The early days of dashboard integration into business involved fusing pretty graphics with the right information displays. While this might sound like an ideal solution, there is still more that needs to be done.

Modern web MIS and dashboard design now blends usability, utility and aesthetics to provide a system that adds value to an organization. In order to achieve this, it is important to observe the best practices for an effective dashboard. Below are some of the guidelines that will help you achieve this:

Design A Purpose-Filled Dashboard

If you don’t know the application, business case behind the app, there is no way you are going to build a helpful dashboard or MIS platform. Your design must start with these questions;

who is your audience?
What is the value of the dashboard to the target audience?
What type of dashboard is best suited for this audience?

In essence, you have to know the role of the users in the organization, their workflow, skill range, business data expertise, and customization needs.

Involve the Users

Truth be told, most people are resistant to change and one way of encouraging your staff to embrace a new dashboard or MIS is by involving them in the design. In fact, it is recommended that every stakeholder in your business, from the supplier, vendor and driver, to the inventory manager and accountant, should have a say in the design of your dashboard. This creates a sense of ownership and they will not revert to their beloved spreadsheets after you have launched the system.

Use Iterative Design

If you want a dashboard that will be acceptable to the users, make sure it is developed using an interactive design. One of the main concerns faced by dashboard designers is the fact that clients always return after the project is complete claiming the dashboard doesn’t fit their specifications.

It is important to request the designer to follow iterative design where a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, refining, feedback and finally the end product is used. The idea is to ensure users love the dashboard you provide.

Focus on Form and Content

What you are going to include in a dashboard should be a key factor which even surpasses the look. The format is important but the content matters even more. In terms of form, consider the structure, design principles, and functionality. Factors that may influence the dashboard form and content include timelines, aesthetic value, mobility, collaboration, data details and density.

As a rule of thumb, when designing a dashboard, make sure you add performance indicators, use basic designing principles, keep data fresh, include actionable information and don’t overload.

A dashboard presents crucial information for better management decisions. At W2S Solutions, we build complex web and mobile applications and build Dashboard that helps SME’s and Entrepreneurs to promote their business. To make the dashboard really useful, application has to be filled with quality datas and It’s high priority to finish the whole system before getting into managing the datas.

How to hire a Chief Technology Officer for your business?

Posted by: Madhu Kesavan Posted on: December 19, 2016 cto for startup , how to find a cto for a startup , How to hire a Chief Technology Officer , how to hire a cto for a startup , startup cto job description

How to hire a Chief Technology Officer for your business?

I was recently asked to provide a Job Description to hire a CTO. It can’t be given over the phone and I thought its good to write more.

Not every great idea is actually successful when it makes to the market. This is where a CTO comes in. A Chief Technology Officer can help make the difference between an Innovation app or just an app sits in the shelf.

What a CTO does?

It is challenging to find a technology entrepreneur who understands the world of business. Many entrepreneurs will believe their product or idea will be the best gift to humanity, but fail to develop a successful IT strategy for the long term success of their company. A CTO’s primary task is to ensure that the IT strategy for your idea will serve your company’s business strategy.

They help with technical design and platform selection

Do you have the tools and resources to bring your idea to life? Your CTO will guide you on the best path to take in order to provide the best design that your customers will be able to appreciate and afford. They’ll help ensure that team remains in check to ensure that your plans remain viable.

They see the bigger picture

You may think your idea is the greatest thing that everyone’s been looking for and market is investing Millions surrounding your Industry. It really helps to have someone who keeps things in perspective and look at the bigger picture.

The CTO keeps the capabilities of your technology and what it lacks in the forefront of their mind. They know what it can and cannot deliver. They understand your idea from what is written to what isn’t. They know its architecture and what it will take to bring it to life.

They’ll help you see options

CTOs are able to see the potential in an idea and help steer its development. When everyone else is tempted to say no or ‘we can’t, CTOs will see the possibilities and help everyone see them too. They’ll determine what needs to be done to achieve these new possibilities and how much it would cost. They’ll help you determine which option is dangerous and which would be worth considering.

Budget

They will help to manage IT spending by choosing wise options. Once you are famous and your Idea is wisely implemented, Cyber attack is an area to focus more. Providing a cyber security to your app is similar as securing your country’s border. You would not know the pressure, heat till you were in CTO’s shoes.

How to Hire a CTO for your Startup?

Some startups need a CTO early in the development process. Others can go without a CTO for some time. Whatever stage you are in development, Learning how to find a good CTO will come in handy whether you want to hire one now or later on.

The following are some essential tips for finding a great CTO.

Define the requirements and job description for your CTO

You need to determine what type of person would be best suited for the role. Some characteristics that make a good CTO include:

Experience

You’ll want to work with someone who has been down this path before and been successful. They must have built SaaS based Enterprise applications and successfully launched it.

Openness to new approaches

You’ll want to have a CTO that seeks to understand different approaches. You won’t want a person who thinks they know all and won’t want to even consider a new approach to a subject.

Looking to advance their career

The candidate should see the CTO position as a stepping-stone in building up their career. They should be hungry. They should really want to take on the role of CTO.

Familiar with variety of technologies

Avoid anyone who says they can only code in one language. The technology landscape is changing fast and you’ll need someone who can handle different technologies such as Web and Mobile applications development in order to ensure that your product remains relevant.

Willing to wear multiple hats

Your CTO won’t be coding all the time. They’ll have to be able to carry out various tasks. It is therefore important to hire an individual who understands this. Nowadays they will have to know about cloud computing, server administration, cyber security, and do competitor analysis. Having hybrid skillset including business and IT is a great asset.

Your CTO should have the right technical skills. They should also have the right soft skills. Decide what soft skills are important to your company e.g. motivation, mentoring, integrity or patience to stay with you. They should fit in with your company’s culture. Though everyone works to make money, but you cant enforce a CTO to just work for cash / equity unless if there is no real bond and love your idea.

CTOs come in all types. Some are technical wizards while others are visionaries. You’ll need to identify what you need in order to find the one that suits your company’s needs. Whatever it is, Trust will be the main factor moving further to have a successful relationship.

Let us know if you are looking for a CTO and best of luck!

4 Tips for Automating Workflow

Posted by: Madhu Kesavan Posted on: November 8, 2016 automate business processes , benefits of automating business processes , benefits of business process automation , business automation , business process automation

Using process automation software can dramatically improve productivity and efficiency in your company. However, this greatly depends on how successful you are at implementing automation. The following tips will help you integrate automation software more effectively and therefore fully benefit from using the software.

Begin with your goals in mind

If you want to see improvement in your business, you should know what improvements you actually want to see. This ensures that you’re working towards something. You can’t hope to achieve something significant if you don’t know what you’re working for or towards.

Begin by identifying your goals and breaking them down to areas that need to be improved. Be specific when setting goals. This will help you better measure your progress.

Identify areas that can be automated

This means understanding key processes that you can automate. Some areas you may want to look at including employee training, timesheets, job card submission, task approval and other such processes. What are the deficiencies in your current processes? What can you improve on? What parts of the process would benefit from automation?

In order to effectively evaluate each process, you need to do the following:

Take time to learn each process from beginning to end
Document each step or task. Step by step documentation of a process ensures in-depth understanding of the process, who is responsible for each step and the resources required in each step.
Understand what needs to be done to successfully complete the process.
Identify bottlenecks in the process and how automation can improve the process.

Choose an automation tool

Now that you fully understand the processes and areas that can be improved through automation, you can select a tool that will meet your needs. The software tool should be user friendly especially if many people need to access it regularly. It should also be easy to access.

An automation tool should make the process efficient and therefore increase productivity. You should therefore reduce redundancies and make it easy for employees to complete tasks without significantly slowing down the process.

Implementing a simple and straightforward tool that can be easily customized to meet your company’s needs will make the implementation quick and simple. Employees can adjust faster to a user friendly tool.

Inform and train your team

The new system will only be worth it if your team makes good use of it. It is therefore important to ensure that they understand the importance of the new system and how it will benefit them and the company. They should be trained to use the system. Be sure to address any fears or problems they may have with the system early.

These tips will help you get the most out of automation. And if you are looking for effective tools to improve your teams performance, you should read Tools to increase your Team’s Productivity.

Not Establishing a Proper Business Plan

Ignoring the Importance of Leadership

Failing to Hire the Right Professionals

Not Maintaining Your Accounts

Not Setting Employment Contracts

Inadequate Business Value

Not Listening to your Customers

Not Getting a Business Insurance

Confusing Business Environment

Lack of Adaptability