Master Entrepreneur Frank Casagrande, BusinessEdge Solutions Inc. Chairman Wins E&Y Award for Entrepreneurial Vision, Business Acumen and Contributions to Society
Master Entrepreneur Frank Casagrande, BusinessEdge Solutions Inc. Chairman Wins E&Y Award for Entrepreneurial Vision, Business Acumen and Contributions to Society
Those who know Frank Casagrande call him New Jersey’s master
entrepreneur. That reputation once again served him well: He was named
by professional services firm Ernst & Young LLP as New Jersey’s
Entrepreneur of the Year in the services category of the Ernst & Young
Entrepreneur of the Year R 2005 Awards in New Jersey. [PRWEB Jun 24,
2005]
Master Entrepreneur Frank Casagrande, BusinessEdge Solutions Inc. Chairman Wins E&Y Award for Entrepreneurial Vision, Business Acumen and Contributions to Society
Grok Headline matches for Master Entrepreneur Frank Casagrande, BusinessEdge Solutions Inc. Chairman Wins E&Y Award for Entrepreneurial Vision, Business Acumen and Contributions to Society
Alvaka Networks’ CEO, Oli Thordarson Wins Gartner Vision “VISIONARY AWARD”
Alvaka Networks’ CEO, Oli Thordarson Wins Gartner Vision “VISIONARY AWARD”07/08/2004 02:06 AM Oli Thordarson, Founder and CEO of Alvaka Networks, a California based
Managed Service Provider, has once again been recognized by his peers
by winning VAR Vision's "Visionary Award." [PRWEB Jul 8, 2004]
Chicken Entrepreneur Frank Perdue Dies (AP)
Chicken Entrepreneur Frank Perdue Dies (AP)04/01/2005 08:17 PM AP - Frank Perdue, the folksy CEO who turned his father's backyard egg
business into one of the world's biggest chicken companies by
appearing in TV commercials that featured his remarkably bird-like
face, has died. He was 84.
Final Quadrant Solutions wins the Microsoft Solution Builder Program award
BusinessEdge Solutions’ Kate Townsend One of Two U.S. GAMP 4 Trainers
BusinessEdge Solutions’ Kate Townsend One of Two U.S. GAMP 4 Trainers03/27/2005 03:05 AM Kate Townsend has recently been appointed as a GAMP® 4 instructor for
the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE),
making her one of two such instructors in the United States and the
fifth instructor worldwide to teach several hundred pharmaceutical
professionals yearly about the GAMP 4 approach to the validation of
automated systems. [PRWEB Mar 27, 2005]
Collins Computing’s Randy Forkner Receives Eagle Award from Microsoft Business Solutions
Collins Computing’s Randy Forkner Receives Eagle Award from Microsoft Business Solutions07/30/2004 03:17 AM SoCal Executive Randy Forkner of Collins Computing was recognized as a
leading executive in the Microsoft channel. He is one of only 10
people to receive the Eagle award, which Microsoft presented at the
Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto, Canada. [PRWEB Jul 30, 2004]
Wharton School Team Wins University of San Francisco 2004 International Business Plan Competition - MicroMRI of the Wharton School Takes Home Pacific Specialty Insurance $10,000 Grand Prize. See Complete Results of the USF Entrepreneur Contest at http://www.BusinessPlanCompetition.org
Gold Mini-Sabers For Master Replicas Collectors Society Members
Gold Mini-Sabers For Master Replicas Collectors Society Members08/03/2004 12:46 PM Master Replicas put Collectors Society member exclusive Gold Mini
Obi-Wan Lightsabers on sale today. Customers become Collector Society
members for a year by purchasing a limited edition item directly from
the Master
Replicas website. This is a gold version of their Convention
Exclusive saber Master Replics first sold last weekend in San Diego,
and will be selling at all the major conventions this year. This saber
is $35.00 plus shipping and handling and limited to 2,500 pieces.
Business Link for London surveys entrepreneurial motivation
$25,000 Entrepreneur Contest: All Graduate Students may Register to compete for $25,000 and the chance to present their new business proposals before Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists at the University of San Francisco 2004 International Business Plan Competition. (http://www.businessplancompetition.org)
Renowned Business Guru, Dr Eli Goldratt, Makes His Viable Vision Offer to Top Executives; Companies to Receive Free ‘Vision Work’ from Dr Eli Goldratt
Renowned Business Guru, Dr Eli Goldratt, Makes His Viable Vision Offer to Top Executives; Companies to Receive Free ‘Vision Work’ from Dr Eli Goldratt03/14/2005 04:09 PM Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt, author of the international best-selling
business book “The Goal” will be in Bogota on April 5, Chicago April
8, Amsterdam April 19, and Kiev April 21 for his Viable Vision Offer
world tour. Other countries on the 2005 tour include: China, Chile,
Hungary, India, and Brazil. The Viable Vision Offer is based on
Goldratt’s body of work in the Theory of Constraints (TOC). Goldratt
defines a Viable Vision as the specific strategy and tactics to turn a
company’s current sales level into their profit level within 4 years.
For example, a $100 million sales company will achieve a $100 million
profit level within 4 years. [PRWEB Mar 9, 2005]
Junction Solutions Announces Vertical Market Success for Microsoft Business Solutions - Axapta
Junction Solutions Announces Vertical Market Success for Microsoft Business Solutions - Axapta07/07/2004 09:40 AM Junction Solutions, a leading provider of Microsoft-based business
software applications and services, today announced a number of new
clients signed in June of 2004 for Microsoft Business Solutions -
Axapta and Junction's newly released Axapta for Direct to Consumer.
These clients include Diamondback Tactical, Phoenix, AZ; Frankford
Candy & Chocolate, Philadelphia, PA; and Ouray Sportswear, Englewood,
CO. Junction continues to expand its customer base by delivering
innovative Microsoft solutions for discrete and process manufacturers,
multi-channel retailers, and wholesale distributors. "We are pleased
that our clients have selected Microsoft Axapta and Junction Solutions
to meet their critical business and technology needs," stated Brian
Carpizo, President of Junction Solutions. "Contributing to our success
was the continued acceptance of our new vertical solutions. Junction
is experiencing growing interest our Direct to Consumer product as
well as our upcoming Process Manufacturing release."
Entrepreneur turns hot dog cart business into global enterprise
Today, the average North
American entrepreneurial business lasts just four years, the average
sole proprietorship even less. Yet entrepreneurship is not rocket
science; it's nothing more (or less) than making a living for yourself
with your business partners, instead of depending on some indifferent
corporation to provide you with a living wage. Running a business is
certainly no more difficult than raising a family, or landing a job
and
building a career with a big company. The essentials of
entrepreneurship could easily be taught in every school, and there'd
still be plenty of time left for the rest of the school curriculum.
But, perhaps because big corporations and the governments they control
want the 'labour force' to be meek, subservient, fearful and insecure,
most people have come to perceive entrepreneurship as a complex and
difficult art, fraught with danger, unprofitable, emotionally
scarring,
and demanding of enormous courage and energy. "It's certainly not for
everyone", I keep hearing.
Entrepreneurship requires self-knowledge of what you're happy doing,
what
you're especially good at,
how much you're willing to put into your enterprise and what you
expect
to get out of it. Without this self-knowledge, you're likely to be as
miserable in your own business as working for some unappreciative
boss,
and that unhappiness will bear directly on its success. Beyond that,
all you need are common sense, self-confidence, and a modicum of four
key, learnable skills:
creativity (the ability to discover and apply new
ideas),
communication (written and oral),
information processing (the ability to distil,
analyze and interpret it), and
Then it's simply a matter of learning and following the process that
every entrepreneur has learned by trial and error, to set up and
operate your own business successfully, on your own terms, and
actually
have fun doing it.
One of the 15 steps in the process of establishing and running an
enterprise is avoiding the
landmines.
In MBA school they now call this Risk Management. This article
identifies ten of the major landmines for entrepreneurs, using some
real-life examples. I don't believe any of the enterprises described
below is still in business (though some of the entrepreneurs have
moved
on, learned their lesson, and succeeded in other businesses):
Copycat businesses: Thirty years ago I did some
financial consulting for a small start-up cruise
ship operation. They acquired and
completely renovated a ship, which was lovely, got the licenses,
hired the appropriate staff, set up the business systems, and then
waited for the customers to roll in. After all, the competing
operations on the same run were all fully booked. But this operation
was an unknown quantity, and before they realized that just being
similar to a successful and busy business wasn't enough to succeed,
they sailed off into the sunset, empty. Franchisees beware.
Over-estimating the market:
Consultants love to sell you spreadsheets that will 'forecast' your
income and cash flow. An inventor friend of mine used one of these to
persuade himself to produce and sell a new organic nutritional
supplement he had developed. His research showed that the annual sales
of this type of product North America-wide was $X billion. The
spreadsheet encouraged him to plug this number in, along with his
estimate of what share of this market he could capture over three
years. Needless to say, he never sold anywhere close to this amount of
product, because that's not how you go about forecasting sales.
Being too far ahead of or behind the market: A
client of mine bought the North American rights to a new technology
that would extrude a rugged, colour-fast plastic that could be used in
decking, fencing, and other outdoor applications. He spent a fortune
setting up the manufacturing plant. Problem is, he did this in the
1980s, when plastics were distrusted as 'cheap', wood was
cheap, and creosote in pressure-treated lumber was not yet known to be
a carcinogen. Being 10-15 years ahead of the market cost him his life
savings.
Biting off too much:
A company that I was brought in to help liquidate had been doubling
its
sales and employee headcount every nine months. They were providing
turnkey computer networking equipment and installations to mid-size
companies, and had recently moved upscale to large corporations,
school
boards and government departments. As its receivables and inventories
soared, it started paying more money for qualified talent, and its
suppliers and bank both put it on short leash. Finally, despite record
monthly sales, it simply ran out of cash. The owner turned down two
very opportunistic 'investors', who wanted control of the business in
return for working capital, and the bank pulled the plug.
Not listening to the customer, or offering a solution in search
of a problem:
A lot of entrepreneurs are inventors, scientists, artists, artisans,
administrators, teachers or managers. Sales is not their forte, and
they're more comfortable working with ideas, materials, plans or
systems than with those pesky people called customers.
If you're not at home spending a lot of face time with customers,
better partner with someone who is. If you want to see what happens if
you don't, just browse any of the free software sites on the Web and
see how many downloads most of them have. Some of them are quite
intriguing, but because they don't meet a customer need, they'll never
be more than that. Great prescription for a hobby, deadly for a
business.
Not consulting with or listening to the right advisors:
A client of our firm in the early 1990s, a company which had been in
the commercial printing business for 80 years, brought us in for some
technology and corporate finance consulting. As we learned about the
business it became obvious, first, that they could not afford the new
equipment they proposed to buy, and secondly, that their profit
margins
were going through the floor. They had built their reputation on high
quality printing work, but the market was no longer willing to pay for
it. The new equipment would allow them to automate and eliminate some
labour costs (and keep up with newer competitors with no sunk costs),
but the cost of the new equipment would exceed the savings. We advised
the company they needed to find some new markets, new higher-margin
products, and new customers who would pay more for their quality work,
or else drastically cut costs. They were convinced their customers
would stay loyal, and the market for quality printing would rebound.
They didn't, and the company shut its doors two years later.
Blowing the budget:
As most women will tell you (but many men seem unable to fathom),
budgeting is simply a matter of ensuring that the cash going out
doesn't exceed the cash coming in. The problem is, every start up
costs
more -- sometimes two or three times more -- than initially expected.
It takes enormous self-discipline, patience, pacing, and sometimes
financial creativity, to mete out dollars at a rate that will ensure
there is enough cash to launch the business under the worst case scenario. I
know of a dozen businesses that closed before they opened because they
failed to do so, and others that lost control of their business
unwillingly because that was the price for a late cash infusion. 'Risk
Capital' might be more accurately called 'Heartbreak Capital' -- it is
obscenely expensive.
Groupthink:
Back in the 1970s I was appointed Deputy Receiver for a computer and
peripherals distributor. They had been put on 'close watch' by the
bank, and I had to get authorization for, and sign, every cheque.
While
I was there I attended and took notes at management meetings. I was
assailed at each meeting when I presented my factual reports on profit
and cash flow. I was nicknamed The Undertaker for my 'relentless
pessimism', and almost physically ejected when I questioned the
validity of some unsupported fees that had been paid by the much-loved
CFO, who was on leave of absence looking after a very sick relative.
The six-man management team, intact since the start of the company and
each heavily personally invested in the company, used to come out of
their meetings with cheers and high fives, confident, contrary to all
logic, that the company was poised for turnaround and sales 'in the
pipeline' would soon bring a return to happy days. They would feed off each others' boundless
optimism. They just needed to work
harder. Happier
days never came, and the CFO, it turns out, had defrauded the company
to pay for his relative's substantial medical bills.
Litigation:
A small biotech company whose CEO I met at a conference a few years
ago
was bemoaning the huge cost of registering and defending patents. He
said they had been forced to sell off one promising product to a
competitor in order to pay their legal bills to defend their other
intellectual capital. That had slowed them down to the point they now
feared that another competitor would beat them to market, rendering
the
results of the litigation largely moot. Big companies can afford
armies
of expensive lawyers. For small companies, significant litigation can
spell disaster. The competitive advantage of the entrepreneur is
agility -- when products get mired in legal wrangles, it may be better
to cut bait and move on to other ventures than to fight adversaries
with much deeper pockets in court.
Buying the MBA hype:
Graduates of business school are taught how to be middle managers of
large enterprises. Unfortunately, that knowledge often don't translate
well to entrepreneurial businesses. A client of mine brought in a
young, very successful MBA grad (he had his own daily spot on one of
the local radio stations), who had, it appeared, no experience at all
with entrepreneurial business. The company, which was modestly
profitable, bought the young man's well-delivered 'grow or die'
message
and decided to 'go upscale'. They spent a small fortune on
advertising,
and set up a sales office and warehouse in another country.
Unfortunately, the media in which the ads appeared were not the ones
used by the company's customers, and there was not enough money to
properly penetrate the foreign market. The expenses produced almost no
growth and almost sank the company. They salvaged the situation, and
their business, by finding an enterprising competitor in the foreign
country who took over the hemorrhaging 'branch plant', and then
striking a reciprocal marketing alliance with them.
Many entrepreneurs I know feel very lonely, exposed, and helpless. The
big consulting firms aren't interested in them until they grow bigger
or go public. The smaller firms are selling one or two specific
products, and rarely have entrepreneurial skills to share. And these
suppliers are expensive. The government is cheaper, but with a few
notable exceptions they aren't very helpful either. As a result, many
entrepreneurs have formed their own 'support groups', helping each other
to avoid the landmines, and learning from each other's experiences and
failures. Retired entrepreneurs are another good source of advice, and
a quarterly business breakfast with a trusted entrepreneur or advisor
with some experience in the trenches can be an excellent investment.
These breakfasts don't need an agenda -- they're run as an informal
'interview', with the advisor asking pertinent, open-ended questions
and listening and offering counsel and options and ideas. They are a
critical element of what my new business, The Caring Enterprise Coach,
offers.
Another technique entrepreneurs can employ to alert themselves to
potential landmines is establishing an Advisory Board made up of
people
who have well-rounded business experience, knowledge of markets, and
skills the entrepreneur and his partners lack. Such Advisory Boards
are
often reciprocal, offering mutual support and advice in lieu of fees.
I
am constantly surprised how few entrepreneurs use such 'support
groups', relying instead on their own instincts, the counsel of
inexperienced and costly 'professional advisors', and others (bankers,
customers, franchisors, and various 'agencies') who have only a
nominal, and purely financial, interest in the entrepreneur's success.
Some 'support groups' and networks have been set up as money-making
ventures, but these tend to be unwieldy and their members terribly
needy -- ten people looking for advice and new customers for every one
capable of offering useful information or counsel in return. It's best
to create your own.
The problem, of course, is that most entrepreneurs are paradoxically
too busy fighting fires and avoiding landmines, to be able to invest
time finding and networking with support groups and other valuable
advisors who can help them avoid the next round of fires and landmines. But, despite the
failings of the first generation Social Networking tools, such
tools hold enormous promise. Although Shoshana Zuboff coined the term
The Support Economy
to refer to federations of businesses working together to support
their
shared customers, the first true Support Economy may well be
entrepreneurs supporting each other.
(Eleventh instalment of the
upcoming book Natural
Enterprise.
List of previous instalments here.)
A lot of readers of How to Save the World will probably
be disappointed with this chapter in my upcoming book Natural Enterprise
for two reasons: I'm not going to plug any specific vendors of
technology for small business (although I've identified quite a few,
including some regular readers), because by the time the book comes
out
this information could well be obsolete. (When the book comes out
there
will be a companion website with a list
of recommended vendors of technology, though, so don't despair). And
although buying technology is one of the most fun parts of new
enterprise formation, my advice is to buy as little as you can get by
on. Most entrepreneurs, in my experience, go overboard.
There is no blueprint 'best answer' for what technology a new
entrepreneurial business needs. It depends on the industry in which
you
operate, the number and location of your customers and products,
whether your product or service can or should be effectively offered
online, and a host of other factors.
So the first thing to do is develop a Technology Plan. Although you can hire a consultant to
do this with you (don't let
them do it for
you), you can also develop the draft plan yourself and then run it by
tech-savvy people you know, and (more importantly) other, established
entrepreneurs you know with businesses of a similar type and style to
yours. The entrepreneurs who've already gone through this process can
tell you what you really need, and how to avoid the missteps they
made,
and this can really save you money and grief. You also need to talk to
some prospective customers about your Technology Plan, because if it's
inadequate to meet their expectations you'll need to re-think it. And
if they shrug and say it doesn't matter much to them, that probably
means your technologies are mostly internal, back-office tools: Avoid
spending too much on toys your customers (who ultimately pay for them)
don't see or benefit from.
The Technology Plan need not be long, but it does need to be carefully
thought through. Here's a checklist of the types of technology it
should address. For each type, you'll need to assess whether you need
it at all (some manual alternatives work just fine, and will do so
even
when your business scales up), identify and evaluate the alternative
tools available (including an increasing number of free alternatives),
and budget when to buy and how and how much to pay for each.
Telephony:
Most telephone companies offer packages designed for entrepreneurial
businesses. It's essential that your telephone system, often the first
point of contact with new customers, be reliable and professional.
Consider voice messaging, call waiting and call routing needs. Look at
them from the customer's viewpoint. Consider VoIP alternatives
including free (but not yet ubiquitous) solutions like Skype.
Fax: I keep thinking fax is dead. It isn't, yet. Avoid
the hokey systems that require customers to call twice to send you a
fax.
E-mail:
If you want to be taken seriously, you need your own e-mail/web
domain,
even if you don't have a website. Make sure it's short and easy to
spell. Shop carefully -- prices are all over the map. Cardinal rule of
e-mail: If you give your e-mail address to customers, check your
e-mail
very frequently (route it to someone else in the business if you
can't)
and respond to customers immediately.
Public
Website:
Depending on your business, this may be the most critical technology
you buy, or you may not need one at all. Talk to as many others as you
can before deciding what you need and who to buy from. You will
probably need someone to host your website, and the package the host
provides will probably include software to build and maintain your web
pages, and limit the size of the site and the volume of traffic
(beyond
which you pay extra). Most hosts also offer scalable additions for
e-commerce at an additional price: Product catalogue, shopping cart,
order management and credit-card handling etc. Beyond that, the sky's
the limit: You can add functionality to do online surveys, offer
multimedia presentations, provide help-desk support for your products,
and many other business applications. As with telephony, think this
through from the customer viewpoint: What do they want, what do they
need, what might they actually not want to see on your site. Keep it as simple as
possible, easy to use, clean-looking, and professional in appearance.
If you're not
taking orders for your products over the Internet, it's unlikely that
putting marketing information on your website will produce much
benefit: Focus your site content instead on educating your site's readers. If you give people
useful information 'free', they're more likely to want to buy from
you. Exception:
Put a few, enthusiastic, signed customer testimonials at the top of
your site (but get the customers' permission first). And make sure
your
contact information is up there with it, and that you're there to take
the calls when they come in. And give your customers a simple way to
give you feedback, good and bad, on your site. The good feedback can
be
the basis for testimonials and viral marketing. If you don't give them
a simple way to vent bad feedback to you directly, they'll vent to
others (including potential customers) instead.
Financial Information System:
Depending on the nature of your business, you will have certain
statutory reporting and filing requirements for your business.
Technology can automate these somewhat, but unless you have a lot of
small transactions (purchases, payments, sales and cash receipts), or
a
lot of different products and services that you need to track and
inventory separately, technology isn't going to reduce your paperwork
burden that much or tell you anything you don't already know. Find a
financial system that meets your needs, not the government's. That probably means
a system that will allow you to budget, forecast and monitor cash flow
day-to-day, easily. Don't buy a huge, complex accounting package with
thousands of General Ledger accounts and reports you don't use to
manage your business. Again, thinking of the customer first, you want
invoices and other financial paperwork that is visible to the customer
to look professional. If you have a lot of employees, consider
outsourcing payroll and HR records management -- it's usually the most
cost-effective application for small enterprises to farm out.
Customer
Information System:
If you have (or hope to have) a lot of customers your first database
application will probably be a customer information system, listing
contact information, sales calls (held and scheduled) and successes. A
simple spreadsheet application (free over the Internet) will probably
suffice until you get more than, say, 100 customers.
Order
and Inventory Management System:
Depending on volume and nature of your business, you may need
Point-of-Sale (POS) and Inventory Management software to keep track of
what and how much you've sold. Most entrepreneurs don't have enough
distinct products or enough individual transactions to require this,
and some accounting packages include rudimentary invoicing and
inventory management capability.
Intranet:
Once you reach a certain size, or if your organization is virtual
(i.e.
your people are physically scattered), you'll probably need some kind
of internal website, a space behind a firewall where your people can
communicate and collaborate. Don't design it in a laboratory -- get
the
people who will use it to design it with you. Possible applications
are: Scheduling and calendaring, Document- and file-sharing, Internal
e-mail and instant messaging, Internal newsletters, Housing databases
purchased from outsiders used by all employees, Hosting collaboration
and project 'spaces' and tools. Your work colleagues will tell you
what
they need, what makes sense to share, and to what extent (e.g. setting
up meetings automatically for other colleagues) they're willing to
allow technology to impose on and make some decisions for them.
Desktop
Publishing and Marketing tools:
Unless others have told you that you have a real flair for this, or
it's your business, this is best left to professionals. If you're
relying on viral marketing you need very, very little marketing
material. A business card, a brochure, a simple website -- that's
probably it. Get some one-time professional input on these, and then
leave them alone. I know, designing these things yourself is fun. But
it's not the best use of your time. And the results can be truly
ugly.
Computers, Mobile Devices and Local Area Networks for the Front
Line:
Let the users specify what they need, hardware, network and software.
Consider free alternatives to the major business software packages.
Stress connectivity applications over processing power, memory and
multimedia applications -- they're the ones with payback. For
applications essential to your business, make sure you have backups
for
everything -- the data, the hardware, the customer connectivity. Even
the smallest business needs some redundancy and security systems.
Customers just won't tolerate 'down time' anymore. But the more
sophisticated your systems, the more costly the redundancy and
security
systems become -- think about this before you go for wireless
networking.
Weblogs
& Social Networking Applications:
I am of course biased about these technologies, but I'm the first to
admit that they aren't the easiest to use, they aren't for everyone,
and they aren't yet ready for prime time business application. If your
colleagues are weblog-savvy, consider them for specific business
purposes: Capturing valuable business lessons, Archiving subject
matter
expertise, and as a Substitute for internal newsletters. And consider
running a weblog as an adjunct to your public website -- they can be
informative and engaging for customers and prospective customers, at
minimal cost. And keep a close eye on the burgeoning world of social
software: There is a burning need for better tools and databases that
can help entrepreneurs find partners, colleagues, advice, information
in context, and even customers. Someone's going to figure out how to
meet this need.
Once you have your Technology Plan completed and vetted by users,
customers and other entrepreneurs, you have one more critical decision
to make: Lease vs. Buy. This
decision is getting more difficult as the number of creative financing
alternatives increases. There is a new phenomenon called "pay as you
go
computing" that looks at most or all of the above technologies as a
single computing 'utility'. There are companies that now offer
'utility' computing packages, where you outsource all of the
purchasing
and maintenance of the technology of your business to a third party,
in
return for a single monthly payment that varies with your usage. The
big computer companies are likely to offer 'utility' computing by the
end of this year, though probably on a less extensive and less
flexible
basis. Unless you're a whiz with numbers it may be hard to figure out
whether to go for such a plan or not. My advice: Gather up all the
costs and the leasing, financing and 'utility' computing quotes, buy
your friendly accountant lunch and have him compute what's the best
deal. That goes as well for any lease vs. buy decision in your
business: Cars, premises, and machinery. The calculations are
complicated but straightforward -- if you're an expert in Present Value computations and
discounting variable cash flow streams.
Not only is the array of technology choices dizzying, it's changing
daily. That's why the key is to leverage the Wisdom of Crowds: Talk to
a lot of people, especially other entrepreneurs, who are usually all
too willing to tell you their technology success stories and horror
stories. It's all part of the homework for building a Natural
Enterprise.
OK, dear readers, this
is the chapter of Natural Enterprise that I feel least confident, and
competent, writing. So please tell me: What's missing, and what have I
got wrong? Remember that this book is for the novice, so I've tried to
keep it simple and jargon-free. This chapter will get the last
re-write
just before the book goes to press, but I'm still worried it will be
obsolete by the time the book hits the stores. What do you
think?
(The final*
instalment of
excerpts from the
upcoming book Natural
Enterprise.
)
The
hardest part of entrepreneurship is getting the business up and
running. Perhaps the second hardest is deciding when to let it go.
Consultants will tell you every business has four stages in its
life-cycle: Start-up, Early growth, Maturity, and Decline. They'll
draw
you a sigmoid (S-shaped) curve to illustrate it -- a long slow start,
then a surge as it catches on, then levelling off, and finally
dropping. That curve represents revenues and profitability, but it
often tracks closely with the passion of management and public markets
for the business as well.
How does this apply to a Natural Enterprise which, almost by
definition, is not focused on growth, but rather on well-being of its
member partners, and on sustainability? The experts suggest that a
company that is continually innovating can pile one of these 'S'
curves
on top of another, and theoretically grow at a reasonably fast pace
forever. Innovation is equally critical, as we have seen, in
entrepreneurial businesses, but its purpose in these businesses is
somewhat different: to (a) discover new unmet needs that replace
products and services that are no longer needed (or have been obviated
by other companies' disruptive
innovations),
(b) discover new applications and markets for the products and
services
you already offer, and (c) continuously improve your products and
services as you understand more deeply both the customer's needs and
the solution alternatives. This is a process that offers entrepreneurs
a tremendous competitive edge over large corporations, which get very
attached to, and defensive of, existing products and services (in
which
they are heavily invested), and hence are loath to change. The
pressures of meeting public shareholder expectations also makes large
corporations short-term focused and less willing and able to
incorporate radical innovations that can 'cannibalize' existing
offerings and cut into short-term profits.
So while the large corporation uses a mix of innovation, massive
marketing, acquisitions and globalization to try to sustain growth as
long as it can, and eventually and inevitably goes into a phase of
permanent decline, divestiture or absorption into a newer, growing
organization, more agile entrepreneurial businesses can stay healthy
indefinitely, provided they
don't grow too large, cease to be innovative or succumb to the lure of
low-cost capital through public ownership. If the large corporation is
the 'dinosaur' of the business world (big, rapacious, hugely
successful
but doomed to die), the entrepreneur is more analogous to a community of small animals,
sustaining itself indefinitely as long as it doesn't succumb to an
'ecological' catastrophe. While competent entrepreneurs need not, therefore, worry
about either the problems of rapid growth or the problems of
inevitable
decline, it doesn't necessarily follow that the enterprise should
aspire to live forever. Here's where the elegance of self-managing
systems shows itself to best advantage: The members of a Natural
Enterprise vote with their feet if and when the organization no longer
meets their needs. There's no need to plan for the sunset of the
enterprise because it will happen organically if and when its members
choose to dissociate from each other, naturally.
Most entrepreneurs strive, usually without success, to put in place a
succession plan, to encourage either family members or key employees
to
'buy them out' when they're ready to retire. Why don't these plans
work? Two reasons: (1) to some extent the entrepreneur is
the enterprise, he or she represents it to its customers, and has so
much of the wisdom, the intellectual capital of the enterprise caught
up in his/her head that its value to someone else, even a child of the
entrepreneur, is often negligible, and (2) it's hard to transfer the
passion of the enterprise to someone who wasn't part of its inception
and life-long realization -- most entrepreneurs, unless the price is
very low, would sooner start
their own business than take on someone else's with all its 'baggage'.
Natural enterprises don't have to worry about succession -- they add
and lose members organically as the needs of the business and the
competencies and needs of the members evolve. Natural enterprises have
no shares and no hierarchy to worry about transitioning, and the
concept of 'retirement' doesn't apply -- if a member's needs change
such that he wants to spend less time on enterprise activities, he
simply declares this to his partners and they will, using the
self-management techniques outlined earlier in this book, re-jig the
mix of members and roles (and if necessary identify and invite someone
new to join) organically to compensate. If you're in an organization
with people you love, doing work that you love, why would you ever
abruptly and completely 'retire' anyway? Just as an old goose never
'retires' from the flock, but just transfers responsibilities to
others
in the flock as needed, the concepts of retirement and succession just
don't apply.
The global business community, setting aside the somewhat artificial
constructs of large multinational corporations -- hierarchy,
oligopoly,
unequal distribution of resources, propensity to bribery and
corruption, lack of responsibility for others' well-being etc. --
meets
the definition of a complex adaptive
system. It's complex, rather than complicated, because it's
impossible for anyone who
know everything
about it, or even everything needed to make a significant business
decision. Like an ecosystem, the global business community (again,
ignoring the corporate dinosaurs) is non-hierarchical and
self-organizing, and despite the fact no one is 'in charge', certain
decisions and behaviours that work
very well tend, in an evolutionary fashion, to emerge
over time (which is why complex adaptive systems are sometimes called
'emergent' systems). Using a combination of self-adjustment (in
self-interest) and instinct, like flocks of birds that swirl in the
air
like a single organism, and stay in perfect formation during
migrations
of thousands of miles that, thanks to the 'collective intelligence' of
the flock, take them precisely
to their nesting grounds each year, entrepreneurs and their customers
comprise an adaptive commercial 'ecosystem'. More than any other
factor
it is this attribute, this elegant capability to do the right thing
almost perfectly, collectively, every time, that makes Natural
Enterprise -- natural.
And that brings us to the end of our journey.
[I'll be putting a brief re-cap of the entire book, and the key things
to remember, here, when it goes to press]
It is my hope that the purchasers of this book and other entrepreneurs
will take advantage of the Internet, and particularly the new and
evolving social networking tools, to learn much more about Natural
Enterprise and about entrepreneurship in general from each other, than
I could ever hope to teach in this one volume. To that end, I have
created (I'll do this soon, and blog
about it)
the Natural Enterprise Forum. Readers are welcome to use it to pose
questions or comment on this book, or to tell their personal
entrepreneurial stories (to give other readers all-important context)
that capture your learnings, good and bad, about entrepreneurial
business. I'll be active on this site.
In addition, through my business Meeting of Minds(website for this also going up shortly), I
can offer entrepreneurs, Natural or otherwise, guidance, advice and
coaching on a wide variety of business-related matters, especially
business innovation. Pricing and contact information may be found in
Appendix Two.
* Table of Contents for Natural Enterprise: Making a Joyful Living with People You Love
(each chapter will be edited for book form, additional material will
be
added to some chapters, a bibliography will be appended, and about 50
'mini-case studies' of entrepreneurial best -- and worst -- practices
will be included throughout the book.):
PART
THREE:
Chapter Sixteen
Appendix One
Appendix Two
SUSTAINING
MOMENTUM Entrepreneurial Business Evolution (today's post,
above)
The Natural Enterprise Online
Forum
The Natural
Enterprise Coaching Service
Park N Shop implements Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains to manage retail business
Print Manager Plus Wins W2KNews Top Award for Best Print Management Software, Best Price, Best Quality in the Industry American-British Company Software Shelf Receives Software Award
Print Manager Plus Wins W2KNews Top Award for Best Print Management Software, Best Price, Best Quality in the Industry American-British Company Software Shelf Receives Software Award05/31/2004 02:14 PM Software Shelf International, Inc., an American and British software
development and marketing company today announced that its flagship
product, Print Manager Plus(R), has won the coveted Sunbelt W2KNews
Top Award for Print Management Software. The award is presented at
Microsoft's Tech.Ed 2004 for Best print management software, Best
price, and Best quality in the industry. The Award was won as a result
of voting from over 500,000 W2K News subscribers consisting of Windows
NT/2000/2003 Administrators, MIS Managers, MCPs, MCSEs and IT
professionals around the world. Print Manager Plus solves the problem
of the hidden cost of printing in organizations. According to
Datamation document costs consume up to 15% of a company's revenues.
Print Manager Plus reduces these costs. [PRWEB May 26, 2004]
Voting Machine Companies Make Political Contributions to Both Democrats and Republicans - New Report Traces Campaign Contributions of Companies that Produce E-Voting Machines
Down and Out wins Locus Award06/30/2004 01:05 AM This is so freaking cool: my novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
has won the Locus Award for Best First Novel of 2003. The Locus Award
is based on a popular poll of readers of the trade mag, a larger group
than even the Hugo voters, making it the largest beauty contest in the
field. I couldn't be any happier: thanks everyone! Hope to see you at
the World Science Fiction Convention in Boston, where the award will
be presented.
Link
AP: Garnett Wins First MVP Award (AP)
AP: Garnett Wins First MVP Award (AP)05/02/2004 04:58 PM AP - Minnesota's Kevin Garnett has won his first Most Valuable Player
award, sources told The Associated Press on Sunday. The Timberwolves
said there would be a major announcement regarding Garnett on Monday
afternoon at Target Center. Two team officials, speaking on condition
of anonymity, said Garnett would receive the NBA's MVP award.
PowerBook G4 wins D&D award
PowerBook G4 wins D&D award05/27/2004 10:38 AM Apple receieved a Silver Award from the British Design and Art
Direction (D&AD) awards last night for its PowerBook G4...
Last night I returned from this year's Shareware Industry Conference, and I'm
pleased to report that FeedDemon won an SIA award for "Best
Internet Enhancement or Utility." I'm not much of a public speaker so
my acceptance speech was shockingly brief, but I do want everyone who
attended to know how thankful I am that I won.
Unfortunately, my laptop's modem died while I was away, so I've got
quite a bit of catching up to do. If you're waiting for a reply to an
email or forum question, you should hear from me during the next 24
hours or so.
Grok Description matches for Master Entrepreneur Frank Casagrande, BusinessEdge Solutions Inc. Chairman Wins E&Y Award for Entrepreneurial Vision, Business Acumen and Contributions to Society GrokA matches for Master Entrepreneur Frank Casagrande, BusinessEdge Solutions Inc. Chairman Wins E&Y Award for Entrepreneurial Vision, Business Acumen and Contributions to Society
Master Entrepreneur Frank Casagrande, BusinessEdge Solutions Inc. Chairman Wins E&Y Award for Entrepreneurial Vision, Business Acumen and Contributions to Society
The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry:
(Eleventh instalment of the
upcoming book Natural
Enterprise.
List of previous instalments here.)