Category: Business
Franchising is known to be among the available options that businessmen and entrepreneurs can use as business opportunities without having to go through the usual motions of having to brainstorm and hypothesize on studies that most business tycoons would initially make. Franchising can be seen today in local food chain stores like McDonald’s, Burger King and Subway. They are practically seen in all countries of the world.
Mixed Origins of Franchising
Franchising does not really have a clear trace of its background. There has been various information as to where the franchising business originated. These include countries like China, England, and Europe and of course the United States. It is even traced as far as the Middle Ages where the business opportunity issues back then was more on the lack of transportation for the goods to be transferred from one place to another. Other considered franchising as well as a means of establishing stands, vendors and a better means of being able to offer goods towards customers in other places within the coverage area.
Franchising at a Glance
Franchising is not a new term for defining business opportunities. It extends as far as home business opportunities for people who would want to be their own boss and hold their own business hours. Franchises would usually depend on the location to which franchisees would want them to be located, ideally in populated and commercialized areas for maximum exposure. Depending on the product or service to which the franchise caters, people can even do business from their own footsteps at home. This way the expenses to be incurred such as rent or warehouse allocation expense can be avoided, an expense that is certainly something tough on the budget allocation constraints of franchise owners.
Think Big but Start Small
A franchising business does not have to start big. Just like any ordinary business, it can start from the simplest and smallest business. Like most business endeavors, as long as they are managed properly, business can grow at an instant at any time. Franchises are not different from conceptualized businesses and the varying factor would be the people who would run it and how they would view such a business at a glance.
Placement and Scope of Target Market
Placement of franchise establishments, just like any other product that most people would be interested in today would have to analyze and survey the market class to which they would want to serve. It is not merely a place and operate venture. It requires gathering strategies and putting minds into action, the usual backbone towards success in business ventures.
There will always be issues concerning the target market and identifying what product or service to serve. This has always been the issue that makes businesses different from others and unless it is properly defined, a franchise or business will falter eventually if franchising business owners are not careful.
Whether you are running, or planning to run, an offline or online business the traditional basics of achieving business success apply. For instance, it is well-known that a business that has no plan is almost certain to fail. No matter how small a business is, it needs a plan. A business plan compels you to think before you act. It compels you to find out about your business area before you start; i.e. to research your business area or to establish its groundwork.
A business plan forces you to think hard about your competition and how you are going to beat them in the market. It forces you to establish whether your business idea is worth pursuing. Why start a business that is going to fail? Isn’t that stupid?
A business plan forces you to establish the expected costs and revenues of your business, and hence to determine profitability. Why run a business when, at any time, you cannot tell whether or not the business is succeeding? If you don’t know your costs or your revenues you cannot compare them together to tell whether your business is succeeding or failing.
An online business is no different from an offline business, when it comes to business planning. It needs a business plan! Yet, how many newcomers do we see trying to make it online without even understanding the concept of business planning? Is it then a surprise that too many fail?
This article discusses 12 fundamental principles that you must understand and use in your business planning if you are going to run a successful business. The principles are as follows…
1. The Requirements Principle
A business plan must comply with the requirements of funding bodies. This is particularly key when you are applying for funding, but is also necessary when you are not applying because the compliance act itself makes the business plan rigorous. Funding bodies always have requirements that a plan must meet, and some of these are: technological innovation, presence of technical risk, and presence of commercial potential.
2. The Objectives Principle
A business plan must have clearly defined objectives and it must accomplish those objectives. A business plan is a strategic business document, and fundamental to any strategic planning process is the need to have objectives which the formulated strategies must aim to accomplish.
3. The Motivation Principle
A business plan must have clear motivations which highlight its importance. The motivations of a business plan are the reasons for completing the plan. These reasons tell us why the plan is important.
4. The Background Principle
A business plan must be the work of someone with a relevant background (the founder, for a start-up business), and the plan must comply with its authors background. A business plan should be prepared by the person or team who is going to run the business. For a start-up business, this is critical because the planning process prepares the owner for running the business. If the planning is delegated to someone else then it is unlikely that the owner will understand the plan sufficiently to be able to implement it. In these circumstances, the owner abandons the plan and does his or her own thing with deleterious consequences for the business.
5. The Detail Principle
A business plan must be sufficiently detailed to inspire confident action when executing the business; yet it must be flexible. A detailed plan is easier to implement than a superficial plan. A detailed plan suggests that the plan has been thoroughly researched and thought over. Detail inspires confidence in the owner of the business (assuming that he or she prepared the plan). A detailed plan should be flexible to accommodate changing times.
6. The Conservatism Principle
A business plan must be conservative. This means that it must always underestimate revenues while overestimating expenses. The reasons for this are underpinned by risk. A business is always executed under uncertainty… we never have all the knowledge we would like to make business success certain. An immediate consequence of this is the tendency to underestimate cost, only to find that we run out of money at critical times of a business’s execution. We also have a natural propensity to overestimate revenues… to dream!
7. The Cash Balance Principle
A business plan must always have a positive cash balance. A negative cash balance means that you plan to run out of money… to be insolvent! If you cannot realistically get the cash balance positive, without padding figures, then this is a sign that the business idea is not worth pursuing.
8. The Insolvency Principle
A business plan must guarantee against insolvency… against running out of cash. There are four ways to do this: conservative estimates so that the business always outperforms its plans, detailed cost identification to minimise omitted costs, contingency planning to accommodate forgotten items, and a positive cash balance throughout the plan.
9. The Risk Management Principle
A business plan must manage risks by convincingly dealing with uncertainty, reducing it to as close to zero as possible. This is simply stating that a business plan must be thoroughly researched, including desk research and field research. The more thoroughly a plan is researched the more it rests on sound facts, knowledge, and understanding, and the less the uncertainty and risk associated with the plan.
10. The Evidence Principle
A business plan must rest on supporting evidence, and guess work must be minimised. Sound evidence increases the reliability of a business plan and reduces the risk associated with it. And the less risky a plan is the more likely it will guide a business to success.
11. The Rigour Principle
A business plan must be rigorous complete, correct, and reliable. This means that the plan must be derived from a systematic process that attends to all the issues that must be addressed. In particular, the plan must not be rushed. The issues must be sequenced and dealt with, each at the right time.
12. The Collaboration Principle
A business plan must be founded on collaboration (not confrontation) it must satisfy the collaboration principle. This means that a business plan must be based on the works of others. It must not be opinionated. It also means that a collaborative, rather than a confrontational spirit, must exist in any business planning team if the results of that team are to be worthwhile.
Final Remarks
This article has discussed 12 killer principles of business planning that any plan must satisfy if it is to be taken seriously. Five of such principles are: requirements principle, objectives principle, motivation principle, background principle, and detail principle. These principles are a must for anyone running an offline or online business. If your business is failing it is more than likely that your failure to comply with one or more of these principles is to blame.
Business has evolved across cultures and nations to international relations and multinational businesses, seeking growth and target audiences for their products and services. With the importance placed on efficient operations, ethical and responsible functions across all business activities, and sustainable development, many companies look for opportunities around the world for better resources to shape their businesses. Global business management is about maintaining company operations in a strategic view with the world resources in mind.
Anyone interested in making a good change and positive impact on your country”s and the world”s economies can study the Global Business Management (2880) program at Centennial College in Toronto, Canada. This business management Canada curriculum examines international business practices with a global business operations management outlook. Professionals and undergrads in business can expand their knowledge and open other paths in their career through this graduate certificate program.
What will students learn in the two-year Global Business Management curriculum:
Allocate resources efficiently to improve productivity and obtain reasonable results
Diversify to other markets, including international markets, to gain new customers, product development, and Improve supply chain management by analyzing make-or-buy decisions, improving operations using an activity-based cost system, and recognizing cost behaviour patterns to forecast costs and profit levels.
Use facts and data to substantiate strategic decisions and corporate plans.
Critical thinking skills in maintaining a company objectives through the use of budgets, balance scorecards, International trade concepts such as sourcing, purchasing, and product allocation and specific examples of the policies in foreign direct investments.
Business implications of the political, economic, and legal systems of a country, including risks, benefits, and ethical concerns
Functions of the foreign exchange market and the minimizing the foreign exchange risks
Market entry strategies, positioning a company competitively in a large scale, using a foreign market selection model
Global marketing and research and development strategies, including distribution, promotion, product, and price considerations in new markets
Understanding mergers and acquisitions and outsourcing as it impacts a company”s human resources on a global scale
As a graduate student, you will learn about project management fundamentals. This will help in managing the priorities and stress that accompanies this field. Students will create a project plan in a realistic project, collaborating with a diverse team of students to achieve the same goals. Furthermore, students can complete an International Business Plan in their final semester as a capstone course in their business management program. Students will apply a systematic approach to solve problems by describing the venture”s mission and goals, products, industry growth patterns, internal and external factors, cost versus benefits, and operations in international markets.
Centennial”s Global Business Management program provides a stepping stone to a master”s education in business and a fulfilling start of a career in operations of today”s big businesses. The business management course salutes its graduates for completing an intensive amount of courses within two years. International students can apply for work permits up to three years upon graduation. Graduates can expect careers in different disciplines in business with an edge to work with the international community and possibly travel and stay abroad. Possibilities are endless with international level; positions in advertising, brand management, human resources, operations, supply chain management, and foreign exchange trading. Multinational companies and e-commerce business are potential employers, as well as government agencies.