Tag : ThemeWaves

HomePosts Tagged "ThemeWaves"
Business Plan

Design Thinking: An Introduction to the Uninitiated

by on 14 March 2016in Praveen Udupa

Suppose you have a severe stomach ache (God forbid), and you go see your doctor. You imagine you might have appendicitis and tell your doctor as such. If your doctor responds, “Oh dear! You might be right. Let’s not waste any time. The operation theatre is free right now. How about we put you down for an appendectomy immediately?” What would you think of this doctor? Obviously you wouldn’t think too highly of his skills as a doctor. You would expect the doctor to have the common sense to first diagnose the issue before venturing into a solution.

But when we come to solving everyday problems, I wonder why we check our common sense at the door. Look around you. There are plenty of examples of Band-Aid solutions. There is severe traffic congestion in a city intersection. Let’s build an over-pass flyover, only to decongest that intersection and promptly move the congestion over to the next intersection. My restaurant has severe over-crowding during peak hours. Implement a fancy Tablet based order management solution. Delhi reels under severe pollution. Let’s implement Odd-Even formula. In this age of technology, almost everyone instantly jumps to an IT based solution.

Design Thinking is an approach to problem solving and innovation. Design Thinking is a set of structured thinking steps that promises to lead us towards a workable, long lasting solution to the real problem that is faced by the organization. There are five key steps in Design Thinking:

Step 1: Empathize. It means get into your client’s shoes and feel the problem. Experience the inconvenience that the issue causes to the client. Only when you truly empathize with your client, you will gain the perspective required to solve the problem.Step 2: Define. Real problems are never apparent at the surface. What is visible at the surface is always the symptom. The actual problems are the root causes buried underneath a pile of effects. Uncover the root causes to the symptom and define the problem clearly and accurately.

Step 3: Ideate. The thing about solutions is that it needs to work for this specific client, for these specific stakeholders. There are normally never one-size-fits-all solutions. It is therefore essential to brainstorm many possible solutions and pick a few that seems reasonable on paper.

Step 4: Prototype. Build a prototype of the solution. This is an actually working solution that may not be complete in all respects. The intention is to study the impact of the solution in a study environment.

Step 5: Test. Implement the prototype in the study environment and verify if it successfully eliminates the symptom, and that it does not create any other problems of its own. If the prototype is successful, great. Otherwise, go back to Step 3 and iterate until the right solution is determined.

Design Thinking puts the customer in the center; products / services are conceived as a means to solve the customers’ problems. Every individual must become a Design Thinker. Every start-up must adopt Design Thinking with gusto.

Businessplan

Getting the basics right: How to make a good business plan?

by on 14 March 2016in Admin

If there is one thing that has remained constant in how businesses are created over the years, it is the indispensable, ever-so-sacrosanct ‘Business Plan’. The business plan of a company serves a similar purpose as a mind-map does when you ideate; it visually represents and puts down all the core and peripheries of a particular idea. A business plan is the heart of the business which explains how a business works and how it shall succeed.
It essentially helps entrepreneurs to break down the business into meaningful chunks and put in place processes like products, sales, budget, projections, milestones etc. However there are certain aspects which set aside a regular business plan from a great one. Here is a list of top 5 things which make a good business plan:

1. Brevity and simplicity are vital
Long and verbose business plans make it tedious a reader to understand the business. Brevity comes with clarity of thought. Morever, the communication ought to be universal and not targeted at a specialised audience. When an idea is put forth succinctly in simple language, it ensures that all stakeholders, experts and laymen alike, are able to grasp the essence of the business. While the technicalities are important as in the case of a tech idea for example, they can be included in the appendix. Customizing communication is key.2. Protect the business idea and intellectual property
The business plan is the first pitch/expression of the entrepreneur’s business idea. In such a circumstance it is absolutely critical to establish evidence of its originality prior to revealing it to a third-party. An unprotected business plan, which contains the business’s IP and trade secrets, is an open invitation for theft by unscrupulous parties looking to steal your valuable work. It could be anybody from a competitor to a mere disgruntled employee. As business plans are often circulated amongst several parties, it’s important to ensure the safety of the business’ intellectual property.3. Create your pitch
Your business plan is your pitch. It needs to convey how you create value and tackle the pain areas of the customer. What is it that sets you apart from your competitors? What is the business viability of your idea? These are some important aspects which need to be included alongside an executive summary. It needs to allure potential investors and customers into realising why the industry/market absolutely can’t do without you.4. Dynamism
A good business plan is one which is constantly reviewed, updated and dynamic in nature. Planning doesn’t entail predicting the future and following it despite variations. It is a continuous steering process which is subject to regular review and course correction.

5. Keep it real
The most crucial measure of any plan is how realistic it is. An excellently researched, eloquently written and beautifully formatted plan for something that’s unworkable is a bad business plan. While assumptions are inevitable, externalities need to be considered thoroughly too.