Angy's musings

Use technology in your favour

2020-10-19T03:31:00.000-07:00

Dear Entrepreneur,

When you hear the word technology, how does it make you feel? Are you ecstatic because you are tech-savvy or it overwhelms you because you are not comfortable around technology?

Lately, I have been taking stock of my business and looking for areas that need improvement and technology is one of those areas. If like me, you are not a digital native, technology can be quite daunting. There are just too many technological solutions out there that it's difficult to sift through them and find the right ones for one's business.

At the same time, we all know that for our businesses to be agile, we have to embed technology in them otherwise, we run the risk of burning out trying to ensure that every part of our businesses runs smoothly.

If as entrepreneurs, we are going to have more time on our hands, increase our process speeds and open ourselves to more business, automation is inevitable.

Workflow automation

One vital area that requires automation is workflows. Menial, simple, repetitive and trivial tasks that consume so much of our time with little profit and yet are important for the functioning of businesses are great candidates for automation. Automating them also helps in removing human error.

Consider the example of a fast-food joint. Back in the day, when you placed your order at the counter, the till operator would write your order on a piece of paper, punch in the items in the cash register and pass the order on a piece of paper to the kitchen. What could go wrong with that, right? Except, we all have a tale of a time our order wasn't sent to the kitchen, and we had to wait for an inordinately long time to get our order!

Also, can you see the repetition in that process- writing the order on a piece of paper then entering it onto the cash register!

Automation in the fast-food industry improved the industry's turnaround times and eliminated the risk of orders not reaching the kitchen. With an automated process, the till operator enters the order directly into the order terminal which, is linked to the kitchen, so orders are not lost. At the same time, because the till operator doesn't have to repeat work, they can now take more orders than before.

Advantages of workflow automation:

Workflows are made effective. All steps in the process are integrated, ensuring that each phase happens as quickly as it can and on time. In a fast-food joint, order taking takes less time now than it used to because there is no longer repetition of the order taking task as was the case before.
Automation encourages greater collaboration between departments as everyone involved in delivering on a process has access to workloads of each task and timelines.
Automation helps management with planning as they can see the progress of each event within the business allowing them to help out when anything ever finds itself held up along the way. For example, if the front office is receiving a lot of orders, management can make an on the spot decision to move people to the fulfilment department so that there is no hold-up in the delivery of orders.
Automation allows a business to maximise efficiency while reducing the risk of failure, allowing companies to achieve their set targets.
Automation allows people to know exactly what job they need to carry out for that specific task.
Automating your workflows makes it much easier for you to start preparing and planning each part of your business in the right manner.

The argument for automating our businesses is greater than our fear of technology, so if you haven't already, it is time to use technology in your favour.

The Lean Machine!

2020-08-31T02:45:00.000-07:00

Without operations, there would be no business, and yet, some businesses focus the least attention and resources here, until trouble hits. It's insane, right, given that it is through operations that a business serves its customers.

Often, successful operations are a product of infinitely titchy tweaks (continuous improvement) as opposed to the big bang type of changes (radical). Maybe that's why they often get forgotten once a business is set up and running.

Characteristics of successful operations

Successful operations are necessarily

Efficient- producing with little effort or cost as is possible.
Effective- add value to customers, i.e. produces what customers really want.
Externally supportive- they provide a source of competitive advantage.

As businesses run, over time, one finds that slack builds into the operations, and they will no longer be as efficient nor as effective as they were before. They will, therefore, no longer be a source of competitive advantage.

Poor operations comprise rising production costs even as competitors are managing to contain theirs, increase in customers complaints regarding the product/service, for example, poor customer experience in the tech sector, and rises in defective products.

To avoid operations reaching this stage, continuously improving them is paramount. One easy framework a business can employ in ensuring that its operations are effective and efficient is LEAN MANAGEMENT.

What is Lean Management

Lean Management is a management practice based on the philosophy of continuously 'doing more with less.' One of the pillars on which Lean management is built on is eliminating waste, where waste is any activity that does not add value either to the business or the customers.

Why Lean Management

Many companies undertake lean first and foremost to survive, and secondarily to flourish. So if a business's operations are no longer a source of competitive advantage, or are sluggish, this is a tool they can use to improve them.

By analysing one's operations, one can tell which of these wastes are available in their operations and seek to eliminate or minimise them.

Though a very simple framework, Lean Management can bring enormous relief to operations, especially when one considers that there is an indirect correlation between reducing non-value adding activities and increasing customer value. So the benefits of implementing Lean management in business are immense.

Remember that Lean management is a continuous improvement tool, so you can analyse your operations at regular timeframes and reduce or eliminate waste in your operations.

Good luck turning your operations into a Lean machine!

Business strategy

2020-08-07T03:37:00.002-07:00

Often when entrepreneurs speak about business strategies they mention growth, revenue and profit targets. While this is commendable as it serves as a guide for entrepreneurs; these are just goals, plans, targets and not a strategy.

What is strategy?

A strategy is a set of actions taken by an organisation in pursuit of their long term objectives. As such, strategy is focused on a company’s long term plans- 5years or longer.

So when talking about strategy, ideally, it should read, 'our strategy is (name of strategy). It is about (define what the strategy is about). We will emphasise these actions (state the actions to be pursued). Our expected outputs are (revenue) by (year). Check out DHL’s strategy https://www.dpdhl.com/en/about-us/mission-and-strategy.html

The reason most entrepreneurs cannot articulate their strategy is that they have not crafted one. In this installation, we will walk through the crafting of a strategy.

Please note: this is not an exhaustive exercise, and the frameworks mentioned here are interchangeable with other frameworks out there.

Why strategy?

A strategy assists a business to achieve outstanding success by identifying its sources of superior business performance and advancing actions to be taken that exploit these sources of superior performance in a world were turbulence, unpredictability and intense competition will continue to dominate, such as now with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 3 steps to strategy formulation:

1. Analysing:

A good business strategy considers how the company competes in its industry and location. In turn, this requires a good analysis of an organisation’s internal environment as well as the external environment in which the business operates.

External environment

Industry dynamics

To understand the industry dynamics and the industry’s ability to sustain profitability, analysis of the external environment is needed. Porter’s 5/6 Forces framework is a great resource to use as it considers:

(1) competitors (incumbents),

(2) the threat of new entrants (entry and exit barriers),

(3) customer power (switching costs, market size, etc),

(4) the threat of substitutes (products/services that can be used in place of yours),

(5) supplier power (the ability of suppliers to become your competitors and the power suppliers can wield over you in supplying to you),

(6) complements (products/services that can be paired well with yours).

Key success factors (KSF)- Customer

For any business to succeed, it needs to understand the KSFs in its industry. The KSFs are gleaned from customers and can range from price, speed, quality, user experience, etc, so it is paramount that whatever product/service offered meets these KSFs.

Internal environment

One must be aware of an organisation's key resources and capabilities to exploit them to grow their business! Strategy formulation helps you dig deep into your organisation and find your strengths and if you have none, pushes you to develop those resources and capabilities.

A useful framework to use in evaluating resources and capabilities is VRIO (Valuable, Rare, Imitability, Organisation) developed by J.B Barney. Testing resources and capabilities- financial, HR, tangible and intangible (knowledge, brand, patents, data)- using this framework will reveal where the competitive advantage lies, and the resources and capabilities that need exploiting for your organisation to generate superior profits. It will also reveal the resources and capabilities with a potential for improvement.

2. Choosing:

After considering your external and internal environments and determining your competitive advantage, it is time to decide how you are going to compete in your chosen domain.

A framework to use for this is Porter’s generic strategy, which posits that a business can either compete in a narrow market (niche) or broad market, and either focus on cost leadership or differentiation, though this has been amended to include an integrated cost leadership and differentiation strategy.

3. Implementing:

When you have decided on the strategic direction to take, it is finally time to implement your strategy. But before you implement, test for congruency between the analysis undertaken and the choices made.

An easy way to determine if there is congruency is to test the choices for:

Suitability: Does the proposed strategy match the needs identified from the strategic analysis. The strategy should be consistent with the environmental or resource analysis and fit the organisational objectives.

Feasibility: How well it would work in practice and how difficult might it be to achieve.

Acceptability: How will the various organisational stakeholders feel about the expected outcomes of the strategy – typically in terms of risk, profitability, reward, ethics and the effect on relationships.

If the choices being considered meet these criteria, then go ahead and implement your strategy!

Note of caution: Strategy formulation and implementation is an iterative process, not linear, so you can adjust your strategy as you go along to take into account changes in your environments.

How to overcome -isms in business/life

2020-07-17T02:21:00.003-07:00

I don't know whom I am speaking to today, but I just want you to know that as an entrepreneur, you shall face discrimination in your line of work. That's a given, but it's not important. What's important is how you react to that discrimination.

So today, I am going to share my experience with discrimination:

An entrepreneur I am working with made this confession to me two days after I started mentoring him:

‘Since I joined this platform, I have been reaching out to male mentors only because I was biased against women, but none of them got back to me. When I saw your profile, I decided to give you a try, and you surprised me when you responded.

I wasn’t expecting much from the sessions, but since I had signed up, I decided to turn up. I am glad I did because of the depth of your analysis of my situation and the poignant issues you are raising that I had not even thought about. Do you mind if I recommend you to my friends?

That, my friends, is called sexism! It is alive and well in every sphere of our lives.

Lessons learnt:

💥As you go about your business, know that people will judge you and cast you aside not because you are not good at what you do, but because of whom they are.

💥When you turn up, bring in your A-game. It doesn’t matter whether you are being paid or doing it pro bono. Wow the pants off your client!

💥Don’t get mad at the –isms thrown your way; get even by being the best version of yourself

What has been your experience with -isms and how have you dealt with them?

Employee onboarding

2020-07-07T07:01:00.001-07:00

Dear entrepreneur,

While it has become fashionable for companies to want to hire someone who can ‘hit the ground running,’ the reality is while they know how to do their job well, they do not know how to do it your way!

Every company has got its own operating systems, its own unique way of delivering on a service/product, so you really can’t hire someone today and let them loose in your organisation without training them.

It is imperative that you arm them with the skills and tools they need to succeed in your organisation, otherwise, they will be frustrated and leave you or you will be frustrated and fire them before they have brought to you their A-game.

Sometimes, arming them with the skills involves meeting with them weekly and directing their efforts in a way that meets your core values, vision and goals. Take the time to indoctrinate in your employees your ethos, values, culture, so that they can align their skills with your corporate persona. A garrulous but highly performing employee will destroy your company. Do not sacrifice your future for short-term wins.

So before you have someone go out and represent your brand, make sure that they understand what your brand is about and they embody your values, otherwise, they will alienate your customers and stakeholders.

What employee onboarding systems do you have in your organisation to ensure that you get the best out of your new hires?

Everyone a marketer

2020-06-25T06:16:00.000-07:00

Dear Entrepreneur

Everyone in your organisation is a marketer. And yes, that includes your support staff, i.e. cleaner, driver, etc. Before you look at me askance, wondering how your cleaner could be your marketer, consider the proliferation and growth of the network marketing industry estimated to reach US$160 billion dollars by 2021. No special skills are required for one to become a network marketer- in fact, being a great salesperson is usually an impediment to success in network marketing. People join network marketing from all walks of life, and yes, some of them were cleaners in their previous lives. So, this beckons the question, why are you not leveraging your employees to market your company?

Marketing is concerned with attracting customers, building relationships, communicating service/product benefits in a bid to influence perceptions. While the marketing department can and is capable of handling these tasks, one notes that building relationships is not solely the preserve of the marketing department. If anything, the marketing department’s interaction with customers is limited when compared to interactions the whole organization has with customers. So, does it not make sense then to turn everyone in an organization into a marketer, albeit, a part-time one.

If we look closely at our own interactions with companies we buy from, we will note that we have progressed from first time buyers to advocates because of the product elements and also the service quality we receive when dealing with the company. For most of us, our interactions with the marketing department personnel are limited, if not non-existent. We deal with the operations teams, the sales teams, the delivery guys, finance teams, receptionists and sometimes when we visit- the cleaners. It is these interactions that determine whether we buy from a company; deepen our relationship with them and/or even refer them to our own network. It behoves you, therefore, to ensure that every client interaction with your company adds shows your company in a positive light. Does it therefore not make sense to make every staff member a de facto marketer?

Network marketing’s success is premised on turning everyone who joins them into a marketer. The business runs on repeat business because the industry provides the requisite training to their recruits (most of them at least do), and the previously unskilled workers thrive. This, therefore, means that to turn your organisation into a mean marketing organisation training on customer service, client relationships, service quality etc is paramount. A receptionist who disrespects a client will cost you revenue, a driver who is rude to a client will cost you business, and likewise, an accountant who fails to provide a client with a refund on time will cost you business. Is it therefore not worth it to arm your staff with requisite skills to turn them into a marketer?

How many of you have all your staff as marketers? How did you manage to get everyone to rise up to the challenge?

Growing your business

2020-05-27T02:51:00.001-07:00

'I thought running a business would be hard to start but would get better over time. We've increased our revenue, hired more people, ..., so why am I overwhelmed?' Does this resonate with you as an entrepreneur? This is a common refrain from entrepreneurs wondering how turning their idea into an exciting venture resulted in them wanting to pull out their hair in frustration and working all hours to resolve issues.

According to Steve Blank (the father of modern entrepreneurship), there are 3 stages from startup to a large company:

Steve Blank

50% of startups fail within 5 years of inception

If your business is at this stage- the search stage- you beat the odds stacked up against you! Most startups fail here because they lack a good product/market fit, have cash flow issues, etc. You will, however, note that your organisation is agile- pivoting in response to changes in the environment- risk-taking; has few processes and does whatever it takes to get the work done. You run on adrenaline!

71% of businesses fail to make it past year 10

In this period, startups move from search to build stages, and while the reasons for failure at this stage are varied, startups tend to grow beyond the capacity of the founder to handle every aspect of the business. Also, their sources of competitive advantage in the search stage i.e. overly customised product/service, founders involvement in everyday tasks, whatever it takes mentality and one centre of power, become their Achilles heel when they progress to the build stage.

Systems and processes

To succeed in the build stage, installation of systems and processes in a startup is vital. Systems and processes allow one to (1) understand clearly how their business operates, (2) tease out the important processes from the unimportant ones, (3) offer a consistent product/service, (4) focus on idea generation and (5) take time off work confident in the knowledge that the business will continue to run in their absence, Yay!

If you are ready to enjoy running your business again, here are a few simple steps to instituting systems and processes in your organisation:

1. Analyse your transformation process

Determine what your inputs are, how you source them, how you transform them into your final product, etc. Ask yourself which of the steps you are taking are working, what's not, how long does it take to move from input to output and what you would change?

2. Evaluate your processes

Analyse your processes and (1) determine their efficacy in achieving your end goal, (2) get rid of processes that add no value to your transformation process (3) reduce the time it takes to complete a process, (4) reduce the number of people needed to complete a process and (5) identify where in the process value is created and whether that value accrues to the customer or the business.

3. Create process maps

These help you identify all the necessary steps in your transformation process and ensure that each process feeds seamlessly into the next. Starting with the desired outcome and working backwards will help in highlighting the necessary processes. When done, compare this to your current processes, look for the most efficient steps and eliminate any unnecessary ones. Write down the process; that way, everyone in the organisation has access to it and can implement it.

4. Test your process

The only way to find out if your process makes sense is to test it and tweak it where the results are not as desired. While testing your process, also decide on which steps in your process can be automated and automate them.

5. Test-run with your employees

This goes without saying. Since your employees are at the forefront of delivering to your clients, train them on how to use the set process map and encourage them to adhere to it to avoid variances in outputs.

6. Systems improvement

A system is a living thing and, therefore, should be adjusted in light of new information. Staff should feel free to suggest changes to the processes.

Note:

1. There is no need to wait until you are in the build stage of your business to implement systems and processes. They can be implemented as soon as you work out your product/service delivery process.

2. The move from search, build, grow is not linear and there are no hard and fast rules about how long a business spends at any of these stages. It very much depends on the nature of the business.

What systems/processes do you have in your business? When did you implement them? If you do not have any, consider looking at implementing them and get in touch if you need help navigating the process.

Taking businesses online

2020-05-12T00:30:00.002-07:00

Covid-19 has come and upended the way we have been doing business. Talk to any business owner and the conversation will veer towards taking their businesses online. The global lockdown has had business owners rethinking their marketing channels and so it is not surprising that almost everyone whose business can be moved online is looking to do so. Those still holding out on taking your businesses online because your business has not been affected by covid-19, know that you are missing out on an important constituent for your business that is online and should make plans to engage them.

But, before one thinks of taking their business online one should come up with a digital marketing strategy, and in this article, we will look at some of the issues you as an entrepreneur should consider.

1. Target market & segmentation

It is vital that you have a clear understanding of whom your target market is. To do so, you should be able to clearly break them down by demographics, geography and psychographic elements. You will also need to understand your customer buying process, i.e. how long it takes them to move from need awareness to purchase. Once you are clear on whom your target market is, you will find reaching them becomes easier and cost-effective.

2. Channel

Tied to the target market is knowing where your target market congregations online. When you sold your wares in a shop, you relied on footfall for your clients, with an online business, you have to be clear on where your target market spends its time or searches for your products. Here you could be thinking of using a website to drive sales, online shop like Shopify, e-Bay, Amazon, FB, etc or you could use social media, mobile apps to reach your target market. However, given the many social media platforms available there is a need to decide on which of these you will use- FB, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.

When thinking of the channel(s) to use and how to use them, consider what purpose that channel will fulfil. Are you using the channel for informational purposes where you share content? If you are, how engaging will your content be? Or is the purpose to convert your leads into sales? Also, consider whether you would like your channel to be interactive and how responsive will you be?

3. Reach

Determine how you are going to reach your target market. Will you do so organically or use paid ads? If you plan to use paid ads, do you have a budget for this and what outcomes would you consider as successful utilisation of your budget? If using organic growth what activities are you going to engage in that will allow you to reach your target market at the level you want? Who will be responsible for engaging with your followers- you or a hired social media manager?

4. Goals and expected outcomes

Set SMART goals that are aligned to your business objectives. This will guide your actions and ensure that you focus only on activities that lead to your expected outcomes. Once your goals and expected outcomes are set out, you will want to track your performance, so you need to decide on which metrics to measure e.g number of followers, the number of shares, engagement, post reach, mentions, conversion rate, click-through rate, bounce rate, testimonials, etc, There are many metrics out there that you could use but focus only on the ones that help to meet your marketing objectives and by extension your business objectives.

5. Payment systems

For some businesses, the payment systems they used while offline will be redundant while operating online, so it is important to device payment systems that will suit your online clients. The beauty of living in 2020, covid-19 excepting, is that there are myriad of ways that payments can be made, so select the ones that are convenient to both you and your customers from mobile money, to Paypal to stripe, credit cards, etc.

6. Returns

Selling products brings its own challenges with regards to the inability of customers to try on a product (clothes, shoes, etc) before buying and the same is true for services too. To counter this problem, some service providers offer free trial periods during which time a client decides whether or not the service meets their needs before they splash money on it. So, determine how you are going to deal with clients wanting to return products they had purchased. How you handle this will in part determine your customer's satisfaction with your service.

6. Listen to your followers

Finally, the most important point I would live you with when operating online is to listen to your customers. Client feedback has never been more important and easy to get than now. Act on their concerns.

Let me know what other strategies you would add or subtract to these in your online business.

How to stay productive while working from home.

2020-04-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

Covid-19 has seen a change in the way we work. For most of us, working from home is our new reality, and it is only fair that if you are new to it, or you love the hustle and bustle of an office, you would find it daunting. In this blog, I will share some insights on how to stay productive while working from home from both an employer's and employee's perspective.

Employer's perspective

As an employer, you need to consider the following issues when you ask your employees to work from home and ensure that they can be productive:

Security

Ensure that you have policies on data security in place to regulate remote work.

Are your internal systems accessible remotely or are they password or secure key protected? How are your staff going to access your company intranet while working remotely?

Communication

Be clear- clarity and brevity are key

Minimise your communication. Only send messages when necessary, do not inundate your staff with messages.

Have rules on communicating and set expectations e.g. when to call vs when to message, response times to messages & emails, etc.

To compensate for lack of physical contact, use video to communicate with team members. This allows you to address any concerns much better than with other forms of communication

Alignment

Be clear on deliverables- set weekly targets, KPIs

Be clear on delivery timeframes

Depending on your workflows, smooth the handover/takeover process especially between departments.

Have meetings at least once a week on video with your team.

Relationships

Touch base with your subordinates. Find out what challenges they are having working remotely, their productivity, morale, etc

Exhibit emotional intelligence- show empathy

Execution

If you can, use productivity tools like Asana, Slack, etc which details who is responsible for what and ensures that all the information is easily shareable and staff can collaborate easily on tasks

Google suite allows you to collaborate and edit documents live

Implement systems and process that are followed religiously to avoid a breakdown in work

Where possible, allow your staff to determine the time they work instead of rigidly sticking to an 8-5pm workday.

Capacity

Provide staff with the tools they will need to carry out their tasks if working remotely eg laptops, wifi/internet bundles, airtime, etc.

Train them on how to use productivity tools- slack, zoom, etc

Make remote working fun and less lonely- take breaks and ‘meet by the water cooler’ for a chat

Employees perspective

With the employer having provided all that an employee needs to do their work, it now falls on the employee to be productive. As an employee, consider the following issues when working from home:

The right frame of mind

Get up knowing you are going to work even if that work is to be conducted from your home

Feeling demotivated- talk to your manager

Start work on time

Conducive environment

Where possible, create a home office that detaches you from the home activities allowing you to concentrate on your work.

Wherever you choose to work from, make sure it is comfortable as you will be sitting there for +/- 8 hours.

Set ground rules with your household and stick to them. Let them know when you are busy, when they can approach you, when they should not approach you, etc.

Be deliberate

Be clear on what you want to achieve- refer to your weekly targets, KPIs

Create a to-do list: this will help you stay focused on the work you need to do

Seek help when you are stuck. Do not let a problem fester

Time management and prioritisation

Now that you know what needs to be done, prioritise your work and handle the most important tasks first.

Time yourself- this gives you an idea of how many hours you are actually working and whether or not you are using your time efficiently. I use Toggle for this, and I am currently trialling Time Doctor.

Build-in flexibility into your work. Remember your workmates, clients, family, etc will require your time too during the course of the day. You cannot ignore their requests.

Come up with a clear plan on when you will respond to emails and messages from colleagues so that you are not distracted from your core work. If your company has set guidelines on this, follow the guidelines.

Collaborate

You are working from home, but not working alone. Collaborate with others

Assist those in need and ask for help when in need

Socialise

Participate in virtual co-working to recreate what you would do when in an office

Do drop by the ‘water cooler’ and chat with colleagues

While being social, be respectful of other people’s desire to not engage in non-work related banter

Set clear boundaries- Depending on your company’s agreed on forms of communicating be clear when you are available to chat, when you do not want to be disturbed, etc.

End of the working day

End on time

Switch off all work gadgets.

Go spend time with your family, exercise, walk, etc

I wish you all the best with the new normal way of working!

Business Processes- Start-ups and SMEs

2020-03-17T07:20:00.000-07:00

Without a doubt, successful businesses the world over have managed to remove/limit complexity in their organisations. One way of doing so is by designing processes that take away guesswork in the way a task is performed. So, that means that regardless of who handles a task, the way it’s done, the quality and speed of execution will always be the same. Take for example your favourite bakery; every time you visit it to get your favourite cake slice, the cake tastes the same, and that is precisely why you keep frequenting the bakery. None of us ever asks which pastry chef is on duty; we just rest in the comfort of knowing that the next day we come for that cake slice, it will taste just as good as it did today. The reason the quality is the same is that such bakeries have laid down processes that everyone follows to the letter, ensuring a consistent product.

Because businesses are complex machines, there are many parts to them, aka departments, it follows, therefore, that each department should have its own processes, so in the end a company has a plethora of processes, i.e. accounting processes, operations processes, sales processes, etc. Remember, the reason for coming up with processes is to limit complexity and make companies agile, but if a company is going to end up with a plethora of processes, is that not introducing complexity and drag in the organisation?

A global company I once worked for was big on processes, which helped streamline our work. Unfortunately for us, these departmental processes were developed in isolation of other departments. So instead of simplifying our work, they ended up adding layers of complexity to the way we did business. You would find a process in sales would clash with a process in operations, which in turn clashed with processes in accounting. We were constantly frustrated at the ‘other’ department(s) whose ‘inflexibility’ made it difficult for us to achieve our goals, and at the same time, we were failing to meet our customer expectations as an organisation. It was only after we sat down as a company and aligned our departmental processes that we started to pull in the same direction, and offer the great service we had promised our clients, which translated into increased revenues.

As a business, do you have well laid out processes or do you rely on the presence of some individual who seems to have a knack for doing a certain task? In your organisation, how do you design your departmental processes? Is it a collaborative effort between departments or each department develops its processes in isolation of other departments? Let’s chat!

Business in the midst of epidemics for start-ups and SMEs.

2020-03-02T07:18:00.000-08:00

How many businesses out there have ever included disease outbreaks on their business risk assessments? Up until recently, and all thanks to

Covid-19, disease outbreaks were not an issue I considered a risk that needed mitigating by a business. But given the way world markets are tumbling in the wake of Covid-19, is it not time that businesses took epidemics as a potentially serious threat to their businesses? Read the newspapers these days and you will read of Toyota keeping its factory in China shut and how that will impact their revenues, Primark with 40% of its goods coming out of China trying to find alternative source markets or Apple with its Iphones assembled in China having to delay production and launch of their new smartphones, which will indubitably have a negative impact on their revenues. These are all big companies; they can weather the storm, but what of start-ups and SMEs, how are they currently faring, and how will they fare in the future if disease outbreaks, as predicted by WHO become prevalent?

An e-commerce start-up that I am rooting for and am quite bullish about has found itself at the mercy of Covid-19. They have China as their sole source market, and so for the first two months of this year, they have had depressed sales because until recently, nothing was coming out of China. The founders of this business are bootstrapping, and cannot afford even a day of closed Chinese borders unlike your Apple, Toyota, et al. We all know how fickle clients are; there are only so many apologies and explanations you can give to your buyers for why their goods are stuck in China- even if the reasons are beyond your control, as is the case with Covid-19- before they switch their patronage to your competitors, who have diversified source markets.

If the Covid-19 epidemic is not contained soon, it will bankrupt many a start-up and SMEs with high exposure to China. It’s time businesses took another look at their business models and re-did their business risk assessments taking into account disease outbreaks and how they could mitigate them.

How is your organisation affected by Covid-19? What steps have you taken in your organisation to mitigate its impact? Going forward, what strategies do you have in place to combat another epidemic? Drop your comments in the comments section and let’s discuss.

Website content

2020-02-25T07:10:00.000-08:00

So, recently, a client asked me to listen to a brainstorming session they had had and tease out information they could use as content on their website. Prior to this day, I had never paid any attention to content creation but had experienced it as a consumer on websites I visit. Some content I found helpful, others not so much, and others even frustrating.

This got me thinking: what makes for good content on a website? So I did a bit of research, and came across content strategy. This means that the content should assist an organisation to achieve its long term goals. It's not just about coming up with content for the sake of content, or so that people can say you have a website! The content purpose is twofold: 1. to meet business objectives and 2. to meet user expectations.

According to the foremost thought leaders in content strategy, CEO and founder of Brain Traffic Kistrina Halvorson, and co-founder of Dialog Studios Melissa Rach, content strategy comprises content components as well as people components, but I will focus on the content components here, specifically content substance, i.e. what messages does content need to communicate to our audience?

But what is good content? Without getting too academic, according to some gurus in this area- Chakraboty et al (2015), there are 3 dimensions to content which are:

1 1. Informativeness- the ability of a web site to make information available,

2 2. Usability of information- users perceived ability to utilise content i.e. reduces consumers’ search costs by helping to access the information available on a website more efficiently

3 3. Quality of information- the quality of the content in a website and the suitability of the content from a user’s perspective.

So good content should meet these dimensions. Getting this information was an aha! moment for me. It shed light on why I enjoyed visiting some websites and found some very frustrating. It had all to do with the purpose the content on those websites was meant to fulfil, and whether the content met the 3 dimensions of content. The ones I hated failed to meet my expectations which are generally to find useful actionable information.

I don't know about you, but I hate company websites that sell products but do not display the prices of those goods, and instead invite you to contact them for a price!!! Like, what the hell! If I wanted to call you and ask for a price, I would not have wasted my time browsing your website. These websites rank poorly on the usability of information. Inevitably, this leads to very poor user experience. Depending on the product they are selling, they could lose a potential buyer to a competitor whose prices are easily accessible. I was looking to buy a car recently and found the Toyota website content usability on point. It reduced my search costs by ensuring that the information I needed, in this case, car prices, was easily accessible. Its competitors, on the other hand, required that I call them for a price, which I did begrudgingly as I need to find a car within my budget.

I also hate websites whose content is not properly laid out. Have you been on a website where you keep scrolling down and new information keeps appearing and there seems to be no end to the stream of information, yet you still cannot find what you are looking for? It’s almost as if you are reading a 100-page word document but on a webpage! That is a poor quality layout of the webpage. One wonders why such information could not be curated into various pages on the website.

Anyway, a seemingly simple task got me researching content strategy and what makes for good content and marrying it to my own experiences with content. What has been your experience with the content on websites? If you have a website, did you follow any particular strategy in creating that content and does the content meet the 3 content dimensions? Which of the content purposes does your content fulfil? I would love to know your experiences with website content. Drop your responses in the comment section and let’s have a discussion on content creation.

Cheers

Angella