“Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people”.
– David Sarnoff
The rise of entrepreneurs in the 21st Century is massive, yet not surprising, with over 213 million companies operating worldwide. While these numbers bring opportunities and optimism for prospective entrepreneurs, they also bring competition. If you’re an economist, you know how crucial business competition is to ensure markets work efficiently. However, for any entrepreneur, competition can bring out the worst of them. So, what does it take to run a successful business in the modern business world?
Yes, indeed! The numbers might be against a business succeeding, but with enthusiasm, creativity, and a bit of savviness, surviving in a competitive environment is undoubtedly more possible. Let’s explore how your business could overcome these external pressures and stand out in a competitive landscape.
How to Run/Start a Successful Business
To run, or start a successful business, there are a lot of considerations that come into play. While the below suggestions aren’t mandatory, they will certainly make life easier. No matter how significant the business venture is, it’s crucial to have some structure to follow to stay focused and remain on the path to success.
Research your industry
No business can succeed if there is no market need for its products or services. Approximately 42% of startups failed in the United States because there was no market need for their product in the past decade. That’s why researching your industry is very important. It would help if you devoted your time and energy to studying market demands before coming up with a business. Understanding market demands can help you identify your target audience, and understand their needs.
Nevertheless, research entails much more than that. Researching your competitors who are also trying to meet the same market demands as you, is the next business order. More than 19% of startups fail because existing businesses out-compete them. Any business plan will be in vain if a large number of existing companies already have successfully implemented the same business plan. As a result, take your time in research regarding your industry before getting into it. More often than not, a successful business is one that breaks the mold.
Make A Competitive Landscape Analysis
Analyzing the competition in the industry that you plan to break into is one of the most crucial yet difficult steps for any individual. Knowing and analyzing other companies’ performance provides businesses with a standard to follow and uphold. Moreover, it allows opportunities for companies to identify ways they can differentiate themselves from the rest. Through a competitive landscape analysis, any business can objectively measure how their organization differs from other competitors in various aspects, from customer success to marketing to any other service provided by the company.
Keep Detailed Records
Every organization has an accounting department for a reason. For a successful business, keeping detailed and organized records becomes more crucial as your company scales. These records consist of employees, sales, costs, or any business operation that takes place. Records can be easily stored and used for operational or analytical purposes, with the help of automation and software. These records can provide any organization with information about where the company stands financially against its competitors.
Balance Risks and Rewards
“Greater the risk, greater the reward.”
“Go big or Go Home.”
Such phrases are often reiterated before undertaking a business venture, but they are often misunderstood. The Risk-Reward Tradeoff is a topic that has often been debated, and there is no clear conclusion whether following these ‘business strategies’ is sustainable or not. Businesses usually have made risky decisions that have paid off, but it’s not essentially always the case. The need to balance the number of risks that a company makes is why companies try to calculate risk. By calculating the risk, any company can find out precisely what the downside is or can be to any business decision. As a result, a company can make successful business decisions by maximizing rewards while minimizing risks. Finding the right balance is vital, and this balance is subjective to how calculative the risks are.
Consistent Evaluation
Business classes prepare individuals with various types of frameworks to use to analyze the condition of a company. Whether they are some do’s and don’ts or something more complicated like S.W.O.T. analysis ( Strengths Weakness Threats Opportunities), consistency is vital. Businesses are continuously running, even when the office might not be, and must be constantly checked up. At this moment, we refer to ‘the business’ as ‘the people that run the business and their health. Evaluating employees by running through “their numbers” might not be enough to determine their performance. Factors such as their engagement, behavior, health, and other behaviors should be factored in and evaluated regularly to see if they are the right fit for your company. While they might be time-consuming, they would undoubtedly decrease employee turnover and increase employees with more significant experience in the company.
Think Long-term
Growing a business requires setting short-term as well as long-term goals. Often, these short-term goals lead to your long-term goals. However, it’s essential that there is also focus on the long run rather than just the short run. Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither was any other successful business venture. Staying focused on long-term goals is much more important than short-term goals such as quick money. It often takes time for companies to become profitable, whether the companies are successful or not. It’s essential to stay focused and remain committed to the company during short-term distress when you know there is potential for long-term growth. Yes, this might mean making some sacrifices in the short run. However, such sacrifices are what help companies become more successful.
Lastly, when you’re thinking long-term, be creative! Creativity makes a business stand out, which can only happen if entrepreneurs are open to new ideas and approaches to the company.
How Celayix can help you run a Successful Business
Our company, like any other company, strives to succeed using tips from such checklists. As a company specializing and focusing on business-to-business services, we strive to provide the best employee scheduling software services for businesses that would help them become more efficient. Companies seek resources that give the workforce more independence and less stress as the world moves towards automation.
Celayix’s workforce management software is there to do that. Our automated employee shift scheduling system helps reduce time wasted on manual scheduling. This would allow companies to spend more time scaling the business. Lastly, with the technology available for business operations, our goal is to make the most efficient use of the technology present and provide you with a solution for any workforce management problem.
