Business Growth – Dutch Uncles

Digital Marketing Automation: The Step-by-Step Approach

Abhilash Bapanasha — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 10:33:43 +0000

Digital Marketing Automation promises great outcomes; more leads, conversions and sales, all with less labour. Automation-using companies have seen their leads and sales grow, delivering sales productivity of 14% and market overhead reductions of 12%. Redirect Focus, Reallocate Budget, Support Customer Interactions and Gather Meaningful Analytics are some of the strategies to integrate digital marketing automation effortlessly into your marketing strategy. In order to address these, Mr. Ram Jalan was our speaker for MentorED, a weekly live 45-minute workshop where industry veterans share their knowledge and experience and discuss topics that are apt and relevant to the start-up and small business fraternity.

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I have always experienced that marketing is always considered as a cost centre. I think it is high time we consider marketing as a revenue centre, because your reason to exist is itself a cost.

Mr. Ram Jalan has seventeen years of experience as an entrepreneur, marketer, researcher and internet evangelist. He is Co-founder of DINTW, a Marketing Automation and Consumer Neuroscience Lead Digital Company; Executive Director of a hyper local news outfit Ten News; Angel Investor in a B2B Footwear ERP platform. He has served several brands like Emami, Reliance Industries, IMImobile-UK, AskMe-Malaysia, Batelco (Bahrain) and has successfully implemented Digital Transformation Projects at Askme, Wave Group and Omaxe.

In brief, the session had insights on the following:

Reactive Marketing, Database Marketing, Targeting and Segmentation, Trigger Based Marketing, Email Marketing, Social Media and Content, Lead Management, Sales Enablement and Business Intelligence

It is all about Customer and Consequences

“Fundamentals of any marketing or any customer outreach revolves around consumer and the consequences.” As Mr. Ram Jalan opined, digital marketing automation has gained momentum in the last several years now and the pandemic has further accelerated the process. A high usage of the internet, rather demanded by adversities brought by the pandemic during the last eighteen months has made it climb slots on the ladder. “There are internet first brands who have generated more than 2000 crore revenue.” Also, there is a paradigm shift Internet pure business with zero fixed costs coupled with low ownership and more subscription approach.

With many changes taking place, it is also a time for a transformation at the organisational front. Thereafter, he listed five different forms of customers and it needs to be streamlined in which category one’s target customers are located.

Thereafter, the mentor elucidated a typical marketing model framework. “I have always experienced that marketing is always considered as a cost centre. I think it is high time we consider marketing as a revenue centre, because your reason to exist is itself a cost. From day one, you are incurring a fixed cost. Therefore, marketing should be considered as a revenue investment.” He further talked about the different stages of marketing from the awareness stage where a brand introduces oneself to the prospective customer mainly registering their presence and offering a solution.

Engagement follows awareness wherein the prospect’s information has to be collected. But that appears difficult without selling a unique or emergency product. But again, to convert the prospect into a subscriber, social media outreach is the way. An advantage that social media automation offers is brand listening which is nothing but a means to know what prospects and customers think about.

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I always feel that insource and outsource is a great marriage, you should have the right combination of resources inside who are great managers, who can manage people, who can manage partners and run the campaign.

An integrative and consistent approach – Need of the hour

“You will find a common thing across all your marketing outreach strategies that your customer journey should be mapped, then your marketing to sales to customer service should be dating with each other. They should not be working in silos, they should be interacting and then only your marketing to sales to customer service handoff will be smooth, you must have a pricing strategy. Forget those days when we used to say that one size fits all, it does not happen for any e-commerce brand.” Thus, digital marketing has to be an integrated approach with each of the channels generating revenue in unison and not in isolation.

Consistency is vital too. “If you keep switching off and switching on your car frequently, you burn more fuel. It is better to hold on to a constant campaign or a digital marketing outreach rather than switching it on and off.”

Audience Asks

For me, marketing or promotion leads to better reach, But the number of sales is very insignificant. What should I do?

That is a problem that exists. See, I do not know the category of your business, whether it is B2C or B2B. But one thing is for sure, in B2B business, the sales cycle is long. Rather than assessing immediately what is the sales conversion, I think it is very important to assess how my prospect is engaging with the brand. Are the prospects opening your emails regularly? Are the prospects engaging with you on social media, all-in-one marketing plans help you gather that information about whether the person is visiting your website. So, look at those matrices, look at those data points, before you start, try to convert the prospect and that would also see and define your buying journey, the next set of sales.

Can OTT platforms help in reaching marketing goals? Isn’t it too expensive?

OTT is a great platform. I mean, with forty-five to fifty percent of the internet users active today. Going on an OTT platform, whether it is free or paid content, you definitely have your share of eyeballs coming there. I think it is a very good alternative to get pricing, which is very expensive. For a ten second slot, what you pay on OTT, is one tenth of what you pay on television, forget about the Primetime events like IPL, etc. But it is a great platform to start. It is not expensive at all, if you look at the ROI of language.

The mentor is hopeful of the arena as an effective means of client communication that is emerging with an upward thrust. He suggested, “A low resource or trying to impose all marketing activities on one individual or two individuals does not give you optimum performance. I always feel that insource and outsource is a great marriage, you should have the right combination of resources inside who are great managers, who can manage people, who can manage partners and run the campaign.”

Watch the complete video on YouTube to get the complete idea of how to actualise it in your business.

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India Sees Four-Fold Increase In Patent And Trademark Registrations

Aakash Sharma — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 10:35:08 +0000

In recent years, innovations in patenting, design, testing, and issuing patents and trademarks have led to the development and expansion of “business opportunities”, making India a centre of innovation. This has also started India on its way to build a robust Intellectual Property Rights infrastructure.

Government body Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks (CGPDTM) has quadrupled the number of patents and trademark registrations in the past five years, taking “extreme caution” to expedite patent testing for SMEs, businesswomen, and start-ups.

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The patenting exercise has been simplified and streamlined along with new timelines for disposal of applications and shift to digital mode to promote ease of filing and obtaining services.

The Controller General of Patent, Design and Trademark

The Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks (CGPDTM) office is located in Mumbai. Attached to the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), it is a part of the Ministry of Commerce & Industry. The Controller General is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Patents Act, 1970, the Trade Marks Act, 1999, and the Designs Act, 2000, and advising the government on these matters.

CGPDTM officials have recently highlighted that the number of granted patents increased from 6,326 in 2015-16 to 28,391 in 2020-2021, and the number of trademark registrations increased from 65,045 in 2015-16 to 2,55,993 during the period 2020-21. In addition 4,505 rights were granted in 2015-16, rising to 16,402 in FY21. Dependence on the intellectual property department has been significantly reduced due to strict policy implementation to quickly resolve CGPDTM requests for approval of pending requests within days.

Boost for start-ups, MSMEs, and women entrepreneurs

Patent registration fees for beginners, SMEs and women entrepreneurs have fallen by 80%. The fee reductions approved by the department to help and support new entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs in the country are showing positive results. Special care is being given to expedite the examination of patents filed, especially for applications filed by start-ups, women entrepreneurs and SMEs. Looking at the impact of these processes, it is noted that E-filing has increased from 30% to more than 95%. The key emphasis is on the use of digital media. Now, every application is processed online from start to finish, and hearings are conducted on phones. People no longer have to go to the patent office physically.

What more can be eased up?

More efforts will be needed to make the process more user-friendly to raise public awareness of things like community icons, geographical indication (GI) tags, and their significance. A geographical indication is used to find a product’s geographical origin and its unique quality attached to the root. In addition, as suggested by the government, competent authorities must also envision instituting scholarships for students studying Intellectual Property law and hire professors from well-known institutions to assist with the patent examination process.

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MPhasis Growth Strategy, A Playbook For SMEs

Aakash Sharma — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 10:35:10 +0000

Mphasis Limited is an IT services company based in Bangalore, India. The company primarily provides IT and application outsourcing services. In addition to architectural consulting, integrated application development, and application management services, the company’s application services include application development, app maintenance and support services.

In April 2021, the investment management company Blackstone Limited committed to acquire a controlling stake in Mphasis for $2.8 Billion. UC Investments, a wholly-owned division of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), and other long-term financiers also plan to join the Blackstone joint venture.

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Mphasis provides integrated solutions that include business process outsourcing, infrastructure technology, and application services.

Mphasis plans to implement a “four pillar” strategy this year and beyond to drive its growth. The mid-sized IT service firm will focus on:

Capacity expansion

As companies cannot always depend on technology in a five-year investment model, a big step forward in digital participation and adoption is driving the entire cloud migration. Mphasis plans to do this flexibly. It has invested a lot in understanding how they can use data and a form of artificial intelligence to make critical decisions.

Leadership and talent

The biggest obstacle that companies today face is the lack of supply in the labour market. As Mphasis plans to do, other companies in the segment must also continue to build a talent supply chain to deliver the best customer satisfaction services and cross-industry skills under one roof. In addition to positioning capabilities, companies also need to find new positions and take advantage of global talent. Mphasis hired around 2,000 people in the first two quarters and plans to continue hiring people in India and countries with delivery centres.

Geographic presence

The geographic expansion involves the development of new markets for talent and businesses. Mphasis expects a significant market share in the Nordic countries as well as Canada and the UK. In addition, the company has expanded its distribution centres in Taiwan, Estonia, Mexico and Costa Rica, recruiting senior management and technical talent across all departments and sales functions.

Utilising IP-driven AI/ML innovations – what can other businesses learn from Mphasis?

It is time for all companies – small and large – to find unique and innovative ways to create impactful AI/ML-based business models. Entrepreneurs need to learn the “art” of innovation in artificial intelligence activities based on artificial intelligence to create sustainable solutions for technology that can be used more widely.

In this regard, they should have a clear understanding of the role of intellectual property (IP), with a particular emphasis on patents and patent information analysis. Clear information about the top AI/ML patentees: corporations, research organisations, and top patenting AI start-ups must be explored for delving into this segment.

Businesses and budding entrepreneurs in communications, financial services and insurance, manufacturing, healthcare, government, transportation, and consumer and retail industries can go a long way in following the industry trends and big players like Mphasis.

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Does Bootstrapping Give You Greater Sense of Ownership

Vaishali Das — Thu, 29 Jul 2021 12:35:09 +0000

What is bootstrapping?

Building a company from scratch with personal savings, earnings from the first sales and mere luck, without any external help or funding is known as Bootstrapping. It literally means ‘to pull oneself up by one’s own bootstraps’. Self-financing a business by using only existing resources needs a lot of support and patience. The concept is purely based on the fact that one’s time and money will drive business expansion and thus it can be both satisfying and stressful at the same time.

Why can bootstrapping be a successful model?

Bootstrapping a nascent company can be a romanticised idea. It can also work if you are enthusiastic and able to put in the hustle. It might be fruitful for those who can pull this off. There are various reasons why Bootstrapping can be a successful business model:

Full Ownership:

Bootstrapping gives an entrepreneur 100% ownership of their business. It is one of the best funding options that doesn’t dilute the ownership. When a business is bootstrapped, the founders are given the sole ownership rights and thus have the benefit of gaining 100% profit.

Having Full Directional Control:

As soon as external funding is involved, it brings in responsibility to satisfy other people’s interest. This sometimes constrains the entrepreneur’s vision. In the bootstrapping model, there’s no third party involvement which gives the entrepreneurs complete control over the steering wheels to take the company in their desired direction. This control allows the entrepreneur to establish a strong foundation and have sustainable growth.

Sense of Accomplishment:

If you wish to keep your company as a part of your heirloom and make it more of a multigenerational business, then bootstrapping is the right option for your business. It will give you that satisfaction of creating and owning something valuable.

Limited Debts:

By bootstrapping, it can slowly bring in revenue and can establish a safety net that will fund future investments in the business. As they’re never reliant on outside funding, therefore there’s no pressure of paying off the debts or taking loans for that matter if things don’t work out as planned.

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Bootstrapping has a lot of benefits and is an excellent funding approach to keep ownership in-house and limit the external debts.

5 companies who have become successful by bootstrapping

Bootstrapping is a part of many successful businesses’ stories. Around 80% of the small businesses and startups are self-funded. Bootstrapped startups are an ultimate source of inspiration, some of them are:

Zerodha: India’s largest stockbroking app and one of the finest bootstrapped companies to join the unicorn club.
Zoho: The cloud business giant bootstrapped and managed to generate revenues worth $10 million by 2000.
Kaleyra: A cloud-based multi-channel communication platform helping enterprise operators, worldwide, to power their business communication. Having a client base including big names like Amazon, Ola, Flipkart, AirAsia, Zomato, it has crossed a revenue of Rs. 693.6 crore.
Wingify: A platform known to develop world’s best tools for website optimization. Having revenues in millions the startup bagged some blue chip clients namely Microsoft and Walt Disney and Co.
Grab-on: A trusted e-commerce platform offering coupons, gift cards, promo code and vouchers. The company proved its worth by gaining profits within 15 months of its inception.

How half of India’s software company is bootstrapped

Nearly half the software product companies in India today are bootstrapped. The reason behind this could be the mindset that bootstrapping allows founders to follow their vision. Staying away from equity funding is like staying away from debt and many startups are preferring this nowadays. It can be mentioned that bootstrapping is a necessity as well as personal choice for entrepreneurs.

Is it good or bad for company’s growth – Insights for startups

The bottom line is that every business is unique and follows a different path. Bootstrapping may work for one company but for another it might be impossible.

Looking into the startup ecosystem in today’s time, it can be said that bootstrapping still is an attractive option for startup entrepreneurs. It has a lot of benefits and is an excellent funding approach to keep ownership in-house and limit the external debts. But before taking a final call one should always weigh the pros and cons and do a thorough research on the market condition for their particular sector.

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Huawei Spark Ignite 2021, Global Startup Competition

Vaishali Das — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 10:30:13 +0000

Huawei Spark Ignite 2021, a Thailand-based global startup competition is a chance for tech-startups to enter into the Huawei spark accelerator program. Its aim is to ignite the startups with financial, go-to-market, mentoring, and networking support.

About Huawei Spark Ignite 2021

This competition is all about collaborating with disruptive startups and shaping the future technologies. Huawei, one of the largest telecom companies in the world, offers upcoming startups to surpass the ordinary and build a successful business ecosystem across the globe.

Huawei technologies in collaboration with DEPA, NIA, KBTG, TusPark WHA, and Zanroo Inc. have started this competition. This is a call for tech-startups globally, to get a chance to enter the Huawei Spark Accelerator Program, to build an ecosystem for businesses not only in Thailand but also in the entire Asia Pacific (APAC) region.

This year it is offering this platform to eight tech-enabled areas:

Transportation
Media and Gaming
Financial services and Insurance
Education
Internet
Mobile
Sustainability
MICE (Meeting, Incentive, Conferences, Exhibition)

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The competition's aim is to ignite the startups with financial, go-to-market, mentoring, and networking support.

How To Apply?

To apply for the contest, the startups need to go through a long procedure where they’ll be shortlisted at every step.

1. Application (May-Aug 10)

The startups need to register on their website and have to submit a pitch deck. The pitch deck has to be of 3 slides presentation or must be in pdf format. This is a short description of the company’s growth and revenue so far, explaining their market potential and how beneficial they are for society.

2. 1st Shortlisting (Aug 11-Aug 25)

The top 30 startups will be shortlisted by the Huawei judges on the basis of the following criteria:

Relevance
Market Potential
Service Model
Business Traction
Technology USP Scalability and Limitations
Financial Viability

3. Interview Phase (Aug-26-Sep 16)

The selected participants will have a 15-minute interview with the Huawei panel. The interview will be divided into two parts. Starting with an 8-minute pitch following a 7-minute Q&A session, the startups have to give a brief about their pitch deck and business model.

4. 2nd Shortlisting (Sep 17-Sep 24)

The top 15 semi-finalist startups will be selected on a voting basis by the Huawei judges’ panel. The shortlisting will be based on similar criteria as in 1st shortlisting phase with an additional criterion of team strength.

5. Mentoring Phase (Sep 25-Oct 15)

The semi-finalist 15 startups will be mentored by Huawei experts to improve their product concept and improve or practice their proposal.

6. Internal Pitching (Oct 20)

The top 15 semi-finalist startups will virtually pitch their startup to the Huawei judging panel. The panel will shortlist the top 5 startups on a voting basis.

7. Final Live Event (Nov 8)

The top 5 finalist startups will be presenting their proposal live to a Huawei jury panel.

Plan of Action for Startups

The competition is a great opportunity for the startups to collaborate with Huawei and other top agencies. This platform will create a knowledge hub for startups to develop a deep understanding of technologies that can eventually scale up their potential in the global market. Indian tech startups who have commercially available services and products across the Asia Pacific region and fall under Huawei fields of interest should register for the competition as soon as possible.

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It’s Tea Time, Budding Tea Startups of India

Vaishali Das — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 12:27:46 +0000

Tea being the most consumed beverage after water, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, has a very progressive market in India and across the globe. In the past, tea consumption was majorly limited to the household drink and restricted mostly to street vendors with few outlets serving quality tea.

However, with the upcoming tea startups, we see a major shift. From street stalls to fancy Tea Cafes, the industry is transforming for millennial and Gen Z.

When we look at India, it is the second largest producer of tea after China where the international market demand for Assam tea and Darjeeling tea is increasing exponentially.

Tea Startups in India

Looking into the blooming market of tea and understanding that ‘The Chai’ has got no replacement, many aspiring entrepreneurs bagged the opportunity to start a business under this sector.

Chai Point

One of the first tea startups in India, Chai Point, a Bengaluru-based startup came into being in 2010. With over 100 plus offline stores, the startup majorly targets the office goers and working professionals.

It became popular with its service of delivering hot tea within 30 minutes through its online platform.

Chaayos

One of the quickly blooming tea startups in the country, Chaayos is a Delhi-based startup. It was founded in 2012 by the IIT alumni Nitin Saluja and Raghav Verma.

As their tag line mentions “experimenting with Chai”, they provide their customers with more than 25 varieties of tea with 12 add-ons, giving its customers 12000 ways of making their own tea. Through its online platform it engages with more customers.

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Given the current health crisis, tea serves as the healthiest beverage in the market.

Karma Kettle

A Kolkata-based startup, established in 2015, it is India’s finest artisanal tea blenders with 60 plus tea varieties. It is an extension of Kurseong valley of Darjeeling region. What makes this startup interesting is its theme of ‘Voyages in a teacup’- teas inspired by travel destinations across the globe.

Their USP is their wellness tea, not indulging in the artificial flavouring and colouring, and providing premium tea. Their pyramidal teabags are very famous among their customers as it allows space for the tea brew to infuse properly.

Udyan Tea

Based out in Siliguri, the startup was founded in 2012 and has
expanded to 40 countries. It offers premium teas, teaware, customized gifting solutions and B2B tea consultancy.

The startup aims to change the perception of tea consumption by providing some premium varieties of tea. With its web store, the startup is delivering unique concoctions of teas along with some rare varieties to the customer’s doorstep.

Forest Pick

This Manipur-based startup specializes in wild tea straight from the mountainous forests of Manipur. The tea is sourced from the nearby forests and not from any tea plantation.

This small startup aims to commercialize the native tea in order to uplift the local economy. The specialty of these tea leaves is that it can live for hundreds of years unlike the usual plantations.

The startup is engaged with B2B businesses with tea sellers from the US, Canada and a few European Countries. It caters through online mode via Amazon and its own website as offline business is too expensive for them as of now.

Why Tea Startup is Evolving Now

Because of the lockdown and weather conditions recently the tea industry has faced declination. However, the industry crawled back up again as tea is proven to be the healthiest beverage. Because of its antiviral properties, calming properties and other health benefits, the beverage industry managed to survive through the pandemic.

The Gen Z and Millennial have started investing in a healthy lifestyle which has increased the demands of green tea, black tea, chamomile tea, etc. This has resulted in a hike in the domestic demand and in startups like Teabox and Teaorb.

Learning and Insights For Tea Startups

Given the current health crisis, tea serves as the healthiest beverage in the market. Looking at the consumption level and never ending love for ‘Chai’, many startups are leveraging the opportunity.

Selling tea online and educating people about India’s indigenous tea sector is a good marketing strategy for upcoming startups.

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These 10 Start-ups Recently Expanded Offline

Aakash Sharma — Sun, 27 Jun 2021 05:35:04 +0000

Online retailers and e-commerce companies, commonly referred to as e-tailers these days, are investing heavily in offline retail stores to bolster their physical presence. Following the COVID-led lockdown, almost all businesses shifted online to survive and operate amidst the crisis.

But while the outbreak has lasted for a year, companies are expanding their own physical maps and expanding their reach using online and offline models to meet demand from all places, especially from small towns.

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Start-ups that gained popularity online and later launched their products offline are now trying to scale their retail presence.

10 Online Retailers Betting on Offline Expansion

Nykaa

Cosmetics retailer Nykaa has opened three stores in recent weeks and plans to open another 10-15 stores depending on market conditions. Nykaa founder and CEO Falguni Nair supports her company’s offline spread as it is essential to cater to customers who want to try the product first. The start-up retails premium beauty products through its offline stores.

Pepperfry

Pepperfry is an online furniture retailer currently with operations in more than 60 studio stores across 20 cities. The company plans to expand into the secondary and tertiary markets through a franchise model. It will open another 20 studios in the coming months in Guwahati, Agra, Raipur, Patna and Kozhikode.

Licious

Licious is a meat and fish delivery platform, and it currently has two offline stores in Bangalore and Gurugram. The start-up is planning to expand its offline business rapidly. As a food company, betting only on the internet limits the start-up’s ability to reach and operate in large areas. The company sees its plan as a combination of online and offline.

Barbeque Nation

The Barbeque Nation Hospitality’s first public offering (IPO) was launched in March this year. As of 2020, Barbeque Nation Hospitality operated 147 restaurants in 77 Indian cities and six international restaurants in the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Malaysia. It aims to further expand to all levels of Indian cities and make the brand even more significant.

WoodenStreet

After recently raising $3 million in funding, custom furniture start-up WoodenStreet opened two stores in Hyderabad this year and plans to open new stores in Kolkata and Kochi very soon. It is also planning to open a store in Mysuru and Coimbatore each by the year-end. Over the past five years, WoodenStreet has expanded its offline business to more than 25 speciality stores.

MyGate

MyGate provides security and convenience services management for gated apartments and communities. The company operates in 100 cities in India. Since 2016, it has expanded operations to Pune and Calcutta and has recently registered over 2,000 new clients on its platform in both cities. It also wants to expand to other major Indian cities.

SUGAR Cosmetics

Sugar Cosmetics is a women’s fashion platform that carefully selects cosmetics and skincare products from around the world. The start-up has already introduced eight exclusive business outlets (EBOs), apart from being present in 300 modern trade stores. The company intends to open 100 stores by the end of 2021 and expand its operations to 1,500 public and existing stores. To this end, the company is looking to expand to second and third-tier markets.

Mamaearth

Mamaearth has a presence in 2,000 stores across 43 cities and plans to expand to 5,000 over the next 18 months. The start-up has ten offline units and plans to raise them to 20% in 100 smart cities over the next two years.

Plum Goodness

Plum Goodness has 300 assisted and more than 3,000 non-assisted points of presence and plans to grow its retail business fivefold next year. The start-up claims to get 25% of its sales from offline currently.

Lenskart

Multi-channel optical prescription and eyewear retailer Lenskart’s business has witnessed a dramatic shift in its customers using the company’s online services in the pandemic year. With 90% of its present sales coming from the online channel, Lenskart is still one of the few brands which are planning to expand offline presence via retail stores. Lenskart plans to initiate more than 300 new stores as COVID restrictions fade down in the coming months.

While offline retailers are increasingly using online to avoid barriers, e-commerce companies are rightly expanding their offline presence to physically connect with consumers. Even though industry experts estimate that the bulk of e-commerce volume will come from the top 30 Indian cities, it is estimated that more than 60% of e-commerce will come from small towns in the next five years. Therefore, it is imperative for e-commerce and retail companies to build a physical customer base and settle in smaller cities.

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What to learn from the financial statements of your competitors?

Chayanika Sen — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 15:02:33 +0000

It’s great that you want to grow your business. But how do you ensure you are on the right path? Probably you have heard the phrase “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there.” Well, it holds true for businesses too. And hence you need to know and learn from your competitor’s financial statements for your own financial benchmarking. As a business, you need to understand where you stand in terms of finances with respect to your competitors. Financial benchmarking can help you set internal goals, find new market opportunities, identify your strength and your competitor’s weakness to shine through. Financial benchmarking has many other benefits too.

Where do you find the financial statements of your competitors?

If you were a large enterprise, it would have been easy and fairly simple. You would hire a consulting firm, subscribe to a huge database, and ask the consulting firm to find the problem, analyse them, and send you a solution.

But as a new business or as a start-up, this is out of the question. It is expensive and most likely out of your budget. So how can you go about digging in such information? Thankfully, there are few inexpensive ways to find this information.

Identify your competitions and gather data. Try to identify companies that are of your size and preferably in your geography.
Choose the right industry that closely represents your business.
Choose the source carefully so that there is a lot of data and not a skew done by a handful of companies.
For sources, check out your industry association. They are the best source for the information you are looking for.
The annual report is another source to dig in information for public companies.
If you have an established banking relationship, your banker can be an invaluable resource to gather inputs about your competitors. A banker looks at ratio analysis data all the time, so they can always share some noteworthy inputs with you.
You may also gather financial statements from companies like Dun & Bradstreet. This company offers individual company data on sales, nature of financing, creditworthiness, balance sheet, income statement, public filings, lawsuits, etc.
You may also seek inputs from your management accountant. They are specialised in this area and are professionally equipped to guide you on improving your ratios and how you can make your business more profitable.

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If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there.

Become familiar with reading financial statements

Now that you have gathered the information about your competitors’ financial statements, it is important to learn how to read them. Only when you can make meaningful interpretations and analyse the balance sheets can you significantly learn from it.

However, financial reporting is a complex matter and diverse too. So, here are some tips to get started.

Financial statements are filled with financial jargon. It can be overwhelming to understand everything, but an excellent financial dictionary can help you a lot.
Read the accompanying notes. Every financial statement is provided with some accompanying notes. Pay attention to them to understand the financial statement properly.
The financial statement of a company reflects the company’s financial stability. However, these numbers become easier to understand and more meaningful when you can understand the underlying realities and fundamentals. For example, it is important to understand what the company does, its products, and its business model before you delve into the numbers.
Know that no financial statements are made in a single mold. There are different reporting patterns that each company follows. Also, know that the diverse nature of business activities leads to a diverse set of financial statements. So don’t feel overwhelmed with a diverse reporting structure. Instead, take your time to get familiarized with it.
A financial statement also has several nonfinancial information. For example, you may find information on the state of the economy, competitive considerations, market forces, introduction of new technologies, workforce, etc. Although these are not directly reflected in a company’s financial statements, they play a larger role in how those financial statements look. How do you compare the competitor’s data with yours?
You may come across something called a consolidated statement while studying the financial statements of your competitors. A consolidated statement of a parent company and its subsidiaries means it represents its separate legal entities. You may consider a consolidated statement as one entity rather than considering separate statements for different entities.

So, you have the data, and you have learned how to read them. The next step is to determine how you can compare the competitors’ data with yours? For example, if you have a 15 percent net profit, is that good or bad? How would you determine that? It depends on a lot of things like the history of your business and the industry you are in, and how your competitors are doing. To evaluate your business against your competitors, you would need data like gross profit ratio, current ratio, net profit ratio, etc. Although there is much other data to consider, it is always good to begin it simple and not make it too overwhelming.

Here are some of the key ones

Net profit ratio: You need to calculate this by taking your gross profit less your overhead expenses to arrive at the net profit value. Now divide this amount by your sales income to give you your net profit ratio.

Current ratio: Take your current assets and divide them with your current debt. This will help you determine if your business is liquid. For example, are your liquid assets enough to pay your short-term obligations?

Gross profit ratio: You calculate your gross profit ratio by taking your income less your direct materials and costs of goods sold. You then need to divide it by your total sales to get your gross profit ratio.

Three important financial ratios that every founder should know

A financial ratio is an important marker for qualitative analysis of your business. It also helps you to do an accurate comparative analysis with your competitors. Here are three important financial ratios that you should know.

Profitability

Profitability is another ratio that calculates how much profit the competitors are making by selling their services or products. The most common profitability ratio is the gross profit margin calculation. So, what is the gross profit margin? You can calculate gross profit margin by subtracting the cost of goods sold from sales and dividing by sales. The profitability ratio is a good indicator for businesses to understand their income on aggregated sales of a particular product line. While a high percentage ratio indicates that companies are making good money, a low percentage means they are not making enough.

Liquidity

If you are keen to learn your competitor’s ability to meet their short-term financial obligations, liquidity ratios would be the ones that you need to check out. This is a great indicator to determine how well a company is performing under its short-term economic conditions. Liquidity ratio analysis includes the current and quick ratios.

To get the current ratio, you need to divide current assets by current liabilities. If you find the ratio high, you need to understand that the business finances with its cash. It also indicates that the company can withstand short-term economic downturns.

On the other hand, to determine the quick ratio, you need to subtract between the current assets and inventory divided by current liabilities. This ratio is an indicator of how a competitor is doing to pay current liabilities without selling its inventory. A high quick ratio is always preferable by businesses, just like the current ratio.

Financial leverage

This ratio can help you calculate the company’s long-term solvency. This ratio can help you gauge and understand how well your competitors are using debt and equity financing for business operations. Know that the debt ratio and debt to equity ratio are the two most popular financial leverage ratios that you should be knowing.

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While checking the financial statements of your competition, pay special attention to essential numbers like gross margins, operating and net profit margins, etc.

Debt ratio

When you divide the total debt by your total assets, you get your debt ratio. A debt ratio empowers you with vital information like how much debt your competitors are investing in acquiring business assets. It is usually calculated as a percentage where a low percentage means the company is financing its business operations with cash rather than debt. A higher debt ratio means it’s the other way.

On the other hand, a debt-to-equity ratio is the value of total debt divided by total equity. This ratio helps you determine how much money your competitors are receiving from private investors or the founder’s investment. It is usually expressed in a percentage.

Price Strategy Matters

You may be tempted to compare your price strategy with your competitor’s while doing a financial statement analysis. But know that competitor-based pricing works well only when the market is saturated, and it is a well-researched market. Often competitors overstate their pricing abilities. Thus only 8-15% of all businesses can do value-based pricing based on customer’s ability and willingness to pay. If you are doing strategic pricing (pricing based on a competitor’s pricing model), know that you can risk a price war that can lead to a huge loss for everyone. Ultimately a business has to be profitable, and you should not compromise on that.

What to learn from the competitor’s finances?

Understanding your competition is the first step that every business should take to strengthen its foothold in the market. While there are several benefits of understanding the competitors, checking up on the financial statement of the competition is probably the best way to benchmark your strategy. While checking the financial statements of your competition, pay special attention to essential numbers like gross margins, operating and net profit margins, etc. Also, check the salaries and compensations the competitor is offering to its employees. This is another important parameter to keep a tab on. Don’t miss to check out their sales and profitability trends too. This is a significant indicator to help you understand how your competitors are doing. Check on their marketing trends and marketing budgets too. It is essential to check their marketing expenses as a percentage of their revenue and note the differences in your financials. Try to understand what are the factors that are causing this discrepancy. Do the discrepancies need your attention? Is there anything you can do about it?

Another aspect that you need to check is how your competition is using the money. Are they using it more effectively than yours? What can you do to turn the tables?

The key takeaways

There is a lot to learn from the financial statements of your competitors. And when you implement the positives of the findings in your business, you are better positioned to turn the table and set a stronger foothold in the market.

Expert Connect

Chinmay Ananda
Business Storyteller, Financial Educator Finance Academy
Connect with our expert to analyse your financial statements and evaluate the risks and potential of your business

The post What to learn from the financial statements of your competitors? appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

New Startup Ideas to Be Funded by Maruti Suzuki Mobility Challenge For 2021

Vaishali Das — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 08:30:03 +0000

What is this challenge?

Maruti Suzuki India Limited launched the Mobility Challenge in partnership with Hyderabad-based business incubator T-Hub. The challenge is launched in order to explore the new-age technologies and help growth-stage startups to scale up their business. The sole purpose of the programme is to drive innovation for business efficiencies.

Why is Maruti Suzuki Doing the challenge?

With the launch of Mobility Challenge, the firm is looking forward to working with mature Indian and overseas startups, to expand and upgrade their business operations. The challenge provides the selected startups with an opportunity to execute a paid proof of concept, mentorship, and opportunity to become a business partner with Maruti Suzuki. Through this initiative, the automaker is eager to partner with startups, including players who are already established with an existing customer base and have a ready solution.

Which sector or industry is it eyeing upon?

Mature startups from series A to unicorn startups, across the globe with innovative ideas and solutions in the mobility space can apply for this challenge. The challenge is basically for the technology-based startups with area focus on AI, AR/VR, Autonomous Mobility, Automotive Remote Diagnostic, Automotive Serving Efficiency, Big Data Analytics, Electrification, Internet-of-things, Mobility-as-a-service, and Smart Infrastructure.

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The challenge provides the selected startups with an opportunity to execute a paid proof of concept, mentorship, and opportunity to become a business partner with Maruti Suzuki.

How will this challenge help the Startups?

The selected startups will receive support and mentoring from experts at Maruti Suzuki and T-Hub. It will also help the startups:

By providing them with a Paid PoC Opportunity to execute and develop innovative business solutions under any focus area.
The finalists of this challenge will be awarded with a PoC grant of Rs 10 Lakh.
By giving them an opportunity to collaborate with Maruti Suzuki and get the largest testbed on cutting-edge solutions which can be applied at a large scale.
To get a fast-paced learning experience alongside a proper mentorship and guidance from leading experts of Maruti Suzuki and T-Hub for scaling up of the startups.

Eligibility Criteria for Startups to Apply

The challenge is for applicants or teams who are capable of demonstrating potential conceptualization and execution of a quick PoC for the suggested focus areas. Only those growth-scale startups can apply who fulfill all the eligibility criteria:

Each startup team must have one full time employee. A ‘Full Time Employee’ by definition means someone who maintains standard business hours working on technology or ventures (at a minimum, Monday to Friday, 9:00 am-5:00 pm).
The product or technology the startup is offering for consideration provides a functionality or capability not currently available in any off the shelf product, or a functionality/capability demonstrated to possess a significant advantage over current offerings in some aspect.
The product or technology the startup is offering for consideration represents original ideas wholly owned with freedom to use or is licensed by the team.

Startups fulfilling all these criteria can apply for this challenge and win an exciting opportunity to club their startup with the big names and scale up their ventures alongside some free guidance straight from the experts itself. The deadline to apply for this challenge is till 12th July, 2021.

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The Cost of Entrepreneurship And The Impact It can Have on Your Family

Santosh Mehta — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 11:31:35 +0000

Entrepreneurship is not only a tough but challenging act. It’s not easy when you are your own boss. It does not mean that you don’t have to do anything! Having your own business means more hard work. Because you don’t have a fixed-hours job like government officials do. You have to work for longer hours day and night. These things are quite challenging when you have to send your deliveries and place orders in a specific time-frame. Or your orders will be cancelled by your clients!

Therefore, being a business entrepreneur focuses on your priorities. And you have to spend more time and energy on your business. At the same time, you have to supervise and assist your team so that you can get desirable results. Otherwise, you will lose your regular clients and you have to be in a position to make wise decision at a particular time which does not affect your business. Sometimes, especially on weekends, you spend your time on your business. Only then you can deliver your goods along with your team.

On the other hand, you may be stuck up in your office and at the same time, you are getting several phone calls from your clients regarding your delivery to be sent in time. Imagine a critical situation that arises at times. But you have to be a calm, cool and quick decision-maker who not only focuses on his business but thinks more on your future and family as well. That is more important. Therefore, make good decisions and get help from your family members.

Three Sets of Plan for Every Entrepreneur

Ideally, you should establish three sets of plans:

A family plan

Whereby members determine the overall goals of the family and the resources needed to achieve those objectives.

An individual plan

This helps each family member determine his or her own personal goals and how to balance those needs with the family’s and business’s needs.

A business plan

This addresses issues as ownership and management control, family involvement in the business and overall strategic direction of the business.

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Imagine a critical situation that arises at times. But you have to be a calm, cool and quick decision-maker who not only focuses on his business but thinks more on your future and family as well.

The Cost of Being an Entrepreneur

Incidentally, most of us think that getting into business entrepreneurship is quite glamorous. It looks that way from the outside, but it’s not. And the reality is the opposite. You have to sacrifice a lot while working continuously and sometimes relationships get affected. In order to get good profits or results, even your personal health gets affected. Success and profits take their toll: relationships suffer; personal health suffers. And you suffer silently.

Therefore, top executives and business leaders are beginning to use their stature to facilitate discussions about healthy work-life balance so that they can save their time and use their precious time with their family and friends rather than be stuck with petty issues. They live simple lives and spend family time, work systematically and select their team members wisely.

Simple Life, Long Term Success

If you are into business and getting into entrepreneurship, then learn simple methods, maintain healthy life-styles, go to the gym or go for morning exercise, sleep at least eight hours, have healthy food, avoid junk or fast food, don’t skip morning breakfast, and must have good immunity. Besides all these, you should have a close circle of friends and family.

You should spend your leisure time with your family and go for a holiday just to recharge your own batteries. This will enhance your energy and make your body fit.

What makes entrepreneurs effective, then, is their ability to not only build a successful business but manage their time in a way that allows them to maintain a healthy personal life throughout the process. While some entrepreneurs operate from the mentality of “Whatever it takes, whatever the cost, make it happen.” Whatever you sacrifice in the short term with your interpersonal relationships and personal health, you will end up paying for in the long run.

Take the example of Diljeet Singh Dogra, who is having three different companies along with his wife.

Learning from the Life of An Entrepreneur

Talented Diljeet Singh Dogra is a brilliant and successful business entrepreneur and winner of several awards. Dogra was born and brought up in the beautiful city of Jammu. After he finished his schooling, he got admitted in the Delhi University and completed his graduation. After that, he did MBA and MCom from Indira Gandhi National Open University(IGNOU).

He has worked at the Embassy of Afghanistan, but he loves the entertainment industry. Later on, he participated in “Mr Ghaziabad: A talent hunt show” and got a good response.

Having confidence and ability, he started his own co-production company called Voice Infotech. Till now, he has launched several popular singers and done many glamorous shows.

Diljeet is very supportive when it comes to helping poor children in need, or promoting upcoming artists’ albums. He always believes in helping and promoting artists and supporting them professionally.

Now, he runs Shades of Diamond India Private Limited, Jatt & Jatti by Nature, and helps the World Charitable Foundation, among others. Diljeet is Chief Executive Officer, Director and Producer in these companies. Working along with him is his beautiful and talented wife Yashasavi Dogra, who works as a Director. Besides her professional work, she is also a social-activist.

Diljeet and his wife Yashasvi are a happily married couple. They work as a team.

Excerpts from the Interview

Being a business entrepreneur is not easy. One has to spend long, odd hours. How do you manage your family, etc.?

Yes. Of course, it’s so tough to manage both at the same time. But, as family and business are both important, sometimes we have to keep aside our work for our family because family is always everyone’s priority. But we organise get-together parties on weekends, so we can spend time with our family. Even both of us cook food for them!

How many hours do you work?

We work for 13-14 hours daily according to the workload from 10 am to 9-10 pm.

What are the big challenges people in business face?

Competition is a big issue in business, especially in the glamour business. Always keep an eye on the market. Competition is tough in the 21st century! Trends change a lot on a daily basis. So, we have to get updated all the time for our magazine, our clothes range and everything so we can provide better products.

The other challenging task is the Chinese companies. They have totally hijacked the market! They sell a lot of cheap and fake products. Our Indian people run after them! Therefore, keeping them interested in Indian products in the affordable range is a big task itself!

What kind of problems do you face while working as business entrepreneurs?

Shortage of time for completing and finishing my job in time! Time management and giving time for my investors take a lot of my time.

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What makes entrepreneurs effective, then, is their ability to not only build a successful business but manage their time in a way that allows them to maintain a healthy personal life throughout the process.

Do you think being a business couple helps to cope with the work stress?

Yes, you are right. It helps us a lot to cope with work stress as we stay all the time together whether we are at home or work. So, whenever I am feeling down or stressed, my partner takes all the responsibilities of work. So, it helps us a lot. As a business couple, you can definitely trust and depend on your business partner blindly.

What is your experience in delegating tasks?

There’s nothing a person can do individually as you see if you wanna clap then you have to use both your hands. It’s teamwork. We have different teams for different jobs as we do different businesses.

What comes first: Family or Business?

Achieving a healthy and sustainable work-life balance is no easy task. Ask any serial founders, and they’ll tell you that peace of mind, health, and happiness are vital components of building a successful business. How exactly are you supposed to structure your lifestyle so that you are properly allocating resources to both your personal and work lives? Does your business or your family come first?

The blunt reality is that often the more your business succeeds, the more attention it demands. Do the math. That means less family time, which can quickly turn detrimental to building relationships with your children and other loved ones.

Jim and his Co-founder, Brian Scrone, built Family Board Meetings to prove that you can be a busy entrepreneur, and still have plenty of time to nurture your relationships with those closest to you-your family.

Quality time is a lot to ask for when you’re building a business. The constant buzz of our cell phones easily distracts us from focusing on what really matters.

So, what exactly does an entrepreneur experience at these retreats? Scrone says: “Through our quantitative and qualitative research over the last five years, we have identified that the most successful parents either have some kind of involvement in their child’s education, or keep consistent rhythms to keep the lines of communication.”

There truly is no substitute for quality time. And for some entrepreneurs, these are skills that require practice and learning. In the same way you don’t stroll into your first business and do everything perfectly, being a parent or an effective spouse is no easier a job.

These skills take time to learn. What’s important is that ambitious entrepreneurs always remember the value of investing in their interpersonal relationships.

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