Friday, May 05, 2006

For Entrepreneurs Seeking To Exploit New Media

The emergence of this new media is completely participatory and very complex from that is generally conceived by people. Orientation will decide the future actions and chances of running a successful business.

Following steps are very important to be a successful entrepreneur seeking to exploit this new media.

1. Background research on market

One has to do some market research such as which services and products are in more demand and what are the orientations /virtues of the companies (competitors) providing them. It is very important to understand the current market because it is changing everyday. This will help in deciding the orientation.

2. Target maket or customers

Next important thing is defining the target market. People are not willing to spend money unless they get what they want. There are majorly four kinds of people as (a) who are ESCAPISTS, (b) who are AESTHETIC and want ENRICHMENT, (c) who are interested in EDUCATION and ERICHMENT, (d) who are interested in ENTERTAINMENT. One needs to make sure that he is targeting/ catering the products/services to all of these four categories, if he wants to earn money.

3. Orientation & Service Quality

In-order to decide the orientation and service quality, apart from above two steps, one needs to know who are his competitors and what is their orientation, virtue, strategies for playing right game at right time. He needs to know how to get into the decision cycle of the big giants in the market. It is easy to make fast money once the business reputation is built. For this the orientation and service quality are very important. Example : Google

4. Technology & Innovation

Technology keeps changing everyday as the world is changing fast. So innovation plays an important role in business to succeed against the competitors. That is why the new concept of Business Intelligence is coined. One should make sure, that he is putting enough efforts in it. It may be possible to collaborate with small and individual firms in order to compete with some big giant in the market. Example of technology and innovation: As far as, creating content and downloading on web is concerned, many corporate giants had built the so called distribution pipes with download speeds greater than upload speeds. The possible improvement is making efficient use of the technology to provide much faster service for both uploading and downloading as compared to competitors. Example: Google

5. Service virtue and Competitors virtue

It is very important to have service virtue and for that one needs to know his competitors virtue. Customers should be happy and they should return back. Examples are: Ikea, Kansai Airport, Hard Rock Café, and Outback Steakhouse

6. Design for experience

It is a challenge to design and structure a business with emphasis on "Customer Experience." If one wants to make money, Customers should be happy and they should return back.
Examples are: Ikea, Kansai Airport, Hard Rock Café, and Outback Steakhouse

7. Design the configuration of service

One needs to make efficient use of the new media tools to give better services and also focus on collective intelligence in the form of new filtering and collaborating technologies. One needs to design the configuration of service in such a way that he should be able to provide what other competitors are not. I should efficiently use the network effects to create market places because sometimes, they only become barriers to entry to other business rivals.
Examples are: Google, Microsoft, Ikea, and Shouldice Hospital

8. Playing the right game

Once the business starts running well, the product growth or service cycle will reach its peak value and then will start maturing. It is important to maintain the market share, value created the quality of service and expectations of the customers. Playing the right game at right time is more important in in pre-mature state of service cycle and also after that to maintain the market share. Getting into the decision cycle of the big giants in the market, knowing their game strategies would help to solve this problem and improve the business prospects further.