A Road Map for Business

Success
Course
objectives:

This lecture provides an introduction to the

concepts and methods that are useful in
understanding the fundamentals of
different types of business decisions.

RVS INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES & RESEARCH

SULUR, COIMBATORE 641 402.
1

Business
Business11
Liane and Shannan of
Tasty Brand

Given the current obsession2 with label

reading
and
organic
ingredients,
surely there must be dozens of organic
baby food brands, right?
That's what Los Angeles moms (and
friends) Liane (far left) and Shannan
(left) thought.
But they were wrong.
The pair started making organic pastes
for their own babies and couldn't
believe how few options were available
in stores.
So Liane, 42, a local TV reporter, and
Shannan, 38, a Cordon Bleu-trained
chef and former cook at one of
Wolfgang
Puck's
restaurants,
got
inspired to provide one.
Today the brand is carried at Whole
Foods, Fairway, Tops, and other chains.
The company turned a profit four years
after its founding, and it's on track for

Business
Business22
Chris Zane of Zane's Cycles

Chris Zane - experience business.

Whether he's selling bikes in his
Connecticut store or filling orders for
corporate rewards programs, he knows a
successful business is about more than
just selling stuff.
Zane, 46, got his start at age 12 fixing
bikes in his parents' East Haven,
Connecticut, garage.
At 16, he persuaded his parents to let him
take over the lease of a bike shop going
out of business, borrowing $23,000 from
his grandfather at 15 percent interest.
His mother tended the store while he was
at school in the mornings.
In his first year, he racked up $56,000 in
sales. This year, he expects to bring in
$21 million.

Business
Business33
Limor Fried of Adafruit
Industries

Adafruit Industries, which sells do4

it-yourself electronics kits.
For every kit Adafruit sells, Fried
posts design files, schematics for
circuit boards, and any software
code needed. She welcomes people
to use the information, and sees it
as a way to foster innovation.
"People want to see the world
become a better place through
science and engineering," Fried
says. "We're going to need the
current and future generations to
get inspired."
Fried launched her company in
2005
with
$10,000
that
was
supposed to go to her tuition.
Anytime she made a profit, she
made a tuition payment.
Today, the company ships 150 to

Business
Business44
George of Oak Street
Boot makers

shop
to
shine
shoes
every
5
Saturday.
John Vlagos, a Greek immigrant,
was hoping to show his son that
working with your hands is difficult
and that he should find a different
profession.
Well, it backfired. When he realized
how hard it was to find a pair of
quality shoesto wear to the kind of
jobs that required them, he went
back into the family businessto
design his own.
Today, there is a six-week wait list
for a pair.
"It blows my mind that people are
walking the streets in New York, in
Chicago,
in
other
countries,
wearing
something
that
I
designed,
says
Vlagos.

Business
Business55
Kenny Lao and David Weber
of Rickshaw Dumpling

Kenny Lao (far left) and David Weber (left)met

in 2002 when they were students at NYU's

Stern School of Business.
They joined forces to enter the Rickshaw
concept in a business-plan competition in 2004.
(They placed second behind a scrapbooking
company that was never heard from again, as
far as they know.)
The partners opened their first store in 2005.
Soon after, they opened a second, which quickly
proved too ambitious. "It was a really dark
time," Lao says. "It almost bankrupted us,"
Weber adds. After they closed that location,
they decided to try a food truckand the success
was almost immediate.
Their trucks produced the steady cash flow that
made a second go at brick-and-mortar
expansion possible.
The business has grown to 70 employees, and
the partners hope to double revenue this year.

Business
Business66
Erin Baker's
Baked Goods

Wholesome

day, I caught a call from a woman

7
asking for the nutritionals. We
were selling them naked in a jar at
Quality Food Centers," remembers
Baker (and yes, that is her real
last name).
The
woman figured out the
cookies were only two Weight
Watchers points, and word quickly
spread. How quickly?
In a year (1999), Baker's business
went from two employees to 100.
ThenWeight Watchers suddenly
changed its points system. In a
period of eight months, the
company lost about 60 percent of
its distribution.
How did the bakery recover? Two
words: new products. Bakersays
the company moved away from

 He thought he had everything

8
he

Business
Business77
Scott Harrison of Charity: water

wanted:
model
girlfriends,
a
Rolex, a BMW.
But he wasn't satisfied.
He didn't like the fact that things
like
toothpaste
had
better
marketing
campaigns
than
lifesaving causes. There were a
few other thingshe thought he
could change. So at 30, Harrison
founded Charity: water, which
brings clean drinking water to
developing nations. One goal was
to make sure that the branding
wouldn't suck. To date, Charity:
water has funded 3,962 water
projects,
providing access to
clean, safe drinking water for
17,94,983 people in 19 countries.
Harrison's goal now? Raise $2

Business
Business88
Jason Toews and Dustin
Coupal of GasBuddy.com

local gas prices and 9 founded

GasBuddy.com in June 2000.
At the time, Toews was working as
a
computer
programmer
and
Coupal was an eye doctor. The
partners nurtured the website
over the course of the next
decade, persuading drivers to log
in and share gas prices--not an
ideal situation, of course. Then, in
2009, they realized the potential
of mobile apps. So the company
launched Android and iPhone apps
later that year, which were
instantly popular.
Today, six million people have
downloaded the apps. And though
the website still draws more
traffic, the number of users who
come to GasBuddy through a

10

Business
Business99
Oren Bloostein of Oren's
Daily Roast Coffee and Tea

After

graduating from the University of

Pennsylvania,
Oren
Bloostein,a
Long
Island, New York, native,moved to New
York City and found a job at Saks Fifth
Avenue, working in corporate retail.
It was 1979, Bloostein was 23, and he was
completely miserable. "I wanted to be
somewhere where I didn't have to report to
15 people," he says.
So he quit his job in 1984 and founded
Oren's Daily Roast in 1986.
With a $50,000 gift from his parents,
$30,000 in personal savings, and a loan of
$25,000, Bloostein opened his first location
in a 400-square-foot shop at 1574 First
Avenue on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Twenty-five years later, Oren's Daily Roast
is a near-$10 million business.

11

Business
Business10
10
Joanna Meiseles of Snip-its

When Joanna Meiseles took her son Ben,

now 20, for his first haircut, she wanted it
to be special.
She even brought along a camcorder to
make videos to show his grandparents. "It
wasn't so much a bad experience," says
Meiseles. "But it wasn't everything I hoped
it would be."
So Meiseles set out to create the "most
amazing place for a kid to get a haircut."
Snip-its is now the largest salon focused
on children's haircuts in the country, with
63 locations and plans for U.K. franchises
in the works.
Back in 1995, when the first location was
opened in Framingham, Massachusetts,
Meiseles saw it as a prototype. "I
immediately saw something that could be
big," she says

12

Steps of new Business

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Business
Business

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Concept
What do you understand by Business Environment?
- Business is an integral part of:
Ecological system
and Social system
- Business Decisions like;
What business to do?
Which should be the customer segments to target?
What business strategies to be adopted?
Where, When and How to do the business?
Whether to continue the business?
Whether to expand the business?

Significance of Business Environment

Why Business Environment is important?
- Business environment analysis

- Business decision
-Internal Environment Internal
Environment
.Strengths
.Weakness
-External Environment
. Opportunities
. Threats

BUSINESS
DECISION

External
Environment

18

How general economic conditions affect business?

Income levels
Distribution of income
GDP trends
Sectoral Growth trends
Demand and supply trends
Price trends
Trade and BOP trends
Foreign exchange reserve position
Global economic trends

What would be the impact of economic conditions in

business?

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Management
Successful managers tend to:
Be active
Be aggressive
Display a high degree of orientation

Managerial commitment is critical because market

penetration
requires
a
vast
amount
of
market
development
activity, sensitivity toward environments,
research, and innovation.

Become aware of business opportunities.

Determine the degree of the firms internationalization.
Decide the timing of when to start the process and how quickly it should
progress.

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Proactive Motivations
Profit advantage
Unique products
Technological advantage
Exclusive information
Tax benefit
Economies of scale

21

Reactive Motivations

Competitive pressures
Overproduction
Declining domestic sales
Excess capacity
Saturated domestic markets
Proximity to customers and ports

22

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What do you do for business success?

BUSINESS
1. Consumer Analysis
2. Product/Service/Brand (offering)
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Analysis
Price Analysis
Distribution/Supply Chain Analysis
Promotion/Marketing
Communications Analysis
Employees/Staff Analysis
Infrastructure/Building/Vicinity
Analysis
Work ethic/Workforce attitude to
work Analysis
Environmental Analysis - - PESTLE

SUCCESS

1. Culture
2. Political Stability
3. Trade Regulations
4. Economic
5.
6.
7.
8.

Development/Conditions
Marketing/Business
Infrastructure
Product/service fit
Market size, potential
Competition.

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