Sudhir Ahluwalia's Blog, page 13

Author and business consultant: How do I enhance brand credibility of my enterprise?

The brand is built brick by brick. It takes time to make a brand. It is your customer’s perception of the product and services offered by your enterprise. It is the reputation of the company in the market.
Do your customers perceive you as an honest company? Your value system as a leader and the enterprise you represent comes into play. Transparency, ethics, gender justice, non-discriminatory toward race, and sexual preferences are critical aspects of brand building. A brand permeates all aspects of your company. The enterprise’s attitude towards customers, employees, suppliers, state, environment, and animals reflects the brand.
You can reinforce your brand in the messaging to customers and other stakeholders. Communicate the brand values and attitudes in internal messages to employees and stakeholders. The content strategy should reflect the brand values and characteristics. Your marketing messaging should reinforce the beliefs that your enterprise holds.
The company’s positioning has to be fully aligned with the brand. The brand does not exist in a vacuum. A brand often helps in improving the social attitudes of your customer. Brand positioning has to be done sensitively and with caution. While it seeks to promote the brand value it does that without offending the belief system of your customers. It takes society along with it and helps in the development of values.

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Can you give an example of what would happen if there was no competition in the market?

Most public services provided by governments are public sector monopolies. A majority of these services do not generate revenues. The private sector will not offer these services. Where they do, they are either part of a brand-building exercise or are financed by corporate social responsibility budgets. The public perceives most public services to be inefficient with poor service quality.
Checks and balances are critical to prevent a complete breakdown of monopoly public services. In democratic societies, opposition political parties, public interest groups, and the media as essential watchdogs that help keep the service delivery mechanisms alert and responsive to their responsibilities. Wherever these watchdog institutions are vigilant, public service quality operates and continues to deliver services at optimal levels.
The service quality is poor in regions with no social or political challenge to government public service delivery bodies. Communist Soviet Union was an example of monopolistic state control over the entire gamut of public service delivery bodies. The continuance of such a state was unacceptable to the people. The state imploded from within, leading to the break up of the Soviet Union. Indeed, what followed also did not provide an optimal service delivery model. That is more a political than a question of business.
Competition and business excellence are critical pillars of quality service delivery. Monopoly services will need to innovate and develop appropriate models in which the public continues to enjoy quality services.

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How do large corporations maintain competitive advantages over long periods of time?

Having worked in a Fortune 500 company for a decade and having large corporations as clients, I have observed how successful large corporations succeed in growing at high double-digit growth rates. It is a combination of things they do that gives these outcomes.

A vision with measurable goals for leadership to emulate is enunciated. An example of such a vision is $x billion by 2025. There is no ambiguity in this goal. It is measurable, too, and sets a clear objective.Business strategy plans are regularly reviewed every three or four years. Organization restructuring and process changes are made to improve efficiency and provide strategic direction and focus areas. The plans, direction, and focus areas are aligned to meet customer needs. Process changes, leadership is re-shuffled, people not fitting in the revised strategy are quietly released, and new people are inducted.New business models are added, and old ones are shed. All these changes seek to maintain the company’s competitive edge and fulfill customer needs.

The above-listed three actions are implemented seamlessly. The changes do raise some change issues. The changes are implemented with determination and resistance from individuals handled without compromise.

I have deliberately not shared details to maintain client and company confidentiality. Leaders can take their cues from these points and bring strategic alignments to their companies to achieve and sustain competitive advantage.

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Will sustainable development lead to economic de-growth?

Sustainable development inherently will be accompanied by economic growth. Let us try and define sustainable development.

According to the UK’s Sustainable development commission, “Sustainable development is a development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

The world is already seeing this change occurring. Geopolitical events are driving prices of fossil fuels higher, and supply chains are getting reset with old ones atrophying and new ones tentatively trying to emerge.

Oil-consuming regions are being forced to accelerate the transition to non-fossil green fuels. Oil-producing areas are seeing this transition and are preparing their economies for a future world in which fossil fuels will no longer be the major energy source.

It is a period of frenetic change and economic activity. Innovation and new technologies are driving this transition. It is a change that will be comparable to the shift of humanity from the horse cart to the automobile.

Try and look at this transition towards sustainable development with a long-term lens. The change could be accompanied by short-term pain. The pain should not be construed as de-growth but a shift with old ways giving way to new ones.

You can already see the stirrings of this change. Renewable power-linked industries, for instance, are rapidly growing. The transportation sector is becoming greener.

There is no need for despair or fearing this change. It is best to embrace it.

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How do VCs decide who they will invest in?

I see pitches for M&A and investment almost every day. The decision to say yes or no to a pitch varies from project to project. At the core, you have to make a judgment call on the future likelihood of the project, giving you an exponential return on the investment you decide to make.
It could be that you like the idea and think that as we advance, it will yield high returns. Another time, it is the entrepreneur’s energy, enthusiasm, or qualifications. Sometimes, you invest because projects in a particular business segment are in vogue, and you decide to invest a small sum of money and see how it goes. More often than not, the VC’s decision to invest does not turn out to be right.
Therefore, from a startup standpoint, keep pitching to investors if you are convinced about your project. A bit of patience will attract interest. The initial investment is a leap of faith for investors and entrepreneurs. As the venture starts progressing, other factors like the number of customers you can acquire, growth in revenue, or your ability to manage the venture efficiently come into play.
The partnership between the investor and the entrepreneur should be beneficial to both. Both parties have a vested interest in ensuring the project does well. Both are partners and well-wishers to success and are willing to play their part in helping to make a project a success.

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What are some examples of a disruptive innovation in a company?

Airbnb disrupted the hospitality industry through innovation. In 2008, cash-strapped Founder Chesky and Gebbia rented out the extra room in their apartment to design enthusiasts visiting the Annual design conference in San Francisco. The Airbnb founders continued to innovate and build a product that has found sustained favor of their customers.

Based on interactions with initial hosts, Airbnb Founders made a flurry of changes to their products. The website was improved. Payment systems were made simple to use. Professional photographs of properties on offer enabled customers to better understand the offered accommodation.

Airbnb growth shot up and continues to date. Each innovation has made the product slicker, better targeted, and easy to use.

Airbnb products are now segmented to meet the specific needs of different customer segments. There are now properties customized for people who want to work in an exotic location. A luxury category of properties is now on offer, where personalized valet service is on offer. The exotic locations at competitive prices continue to be offered to customers. Each product caters to a specific customer segment.

Innovation follows a cycle. The steps in this cycle can be divided into:

1. Identify a problem to solve.

2. Identify a process that works best in the prevailing condition. Available options are analyzed, and the optimal solution is identified for implementation.

3. Engage others in leveraging collective intelligence to solve the problem.

4. Empower groups of people to throw up ideas

5. Evaluate, prioritize, and implement those ideas that will deliver the best returns.

6. Implement the best options

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How can obesity be treated and prevented?

Three factors are externally responsible for obesity and obesity control. These are:

Nutrition:

The Centers for Disease Control and www.worldobesity.org mention three critical factors that play an essential part in the development of obesity. These are:

Behavior– influences food choices. Behavior management is a useful tool for obesity control. Excess calories get converted into fats.

The environment plays a crucial role in shaping our habits and lifestyle. Availability of motorized transport at home, convenience foods, and home entertainment solutions are some factors that determine the low energy expenditure.

Genetics, too, has a role in obesity. Genes can cause disorders resulting in obesity.

Certain foods, such as refined carbohydrates and unsaturated fats contribute the most to obesity.

Certain prescription medications, including anti-depressants, steroids, contraceptives, medicines for diabetes, hypertension, migraines, seizures, bipolar disorder, allergies, insomnia, and a host of others, are associated with weight gain.

Disrupted sleep or sleep less than 7 hours or more than 9 hours can lead to obesity. Difficulty in breathing can also be a reason for disturbed sleep.

Many people are looking for a silver bullet to quickly reduce weight with the least effort. They try a variety of weight loss supplements and medications. I have reviewed the available supplements. The weight-loss benefits from such supplements, at best, can be marginal.

Losing weight is best achieved when we proceed systematically. Check with your physician before consulting a weight loss dietitian. Do not pick up one of the weight-loss diets from the ones reviewed earlier or even hire a personal trainer before a medical consultation.

The physician will order a series of medical assessments to evaluate medical causes for weight gain and identify the triggers leading to weight gain.

The next step is diet planning. The expert will help you fix short-term and long-term goals and help put a self-monitoring mechanism in place. Behavior and motivation are critical to achieving weight-loss goals and require integration into a weight loss regime.

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What is the critical element in a business pitch for investment?

An investor is looking at businesses at projects that will yield sustained returns. As I repeatedly keep saying, the investor is in the business of making money. Most investors secure funds from high-network individuals and institutions, promising them a high return on the capital deployed. The majority of the investors that you see in the market are mere intermediaries of employees of fund houses. Their mandate is to secure projects that pose a minimum risk and yield high returns.

A pitch should, therefore, contain concrete evidence that the project idea has been tested and has the potential to yield great returns. The project need not be immediately in the black. What is important is the evidence of the promise of returns. I do not subscribe to the camp that you can attract investor interest by dressing up the balance sheet. Even if an investor may fall for it, most investors hire an analyst to undertake due diligence on the asset. It will not be long before the real numbers emerge. The deal will not go through, and funding will not be done.

Competition analysis, industry mapping, and customer profiling are tools for discovering the innate strengths of a venture. At the heart of this exercise is demonstrating that the business will yield consistent returns on investment.

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Will climate change destroy the world’s ability to produce food?

Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change. It is vulnerable to increasing temperatures, weather variability, shifting agroecosystem boundaries, invasive crops and pests, and more frequent extreme weather events. Weather events will reduce crop yields and affect crops’ nutritional quality. Lower livestock productivity is also projected.
Agriculture is also a major part of the climate problem. It generates 19 to 29 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. This percentage could rise substantially as other sectors reduce their emissions. Warming tends to reduce yields because crops speed through their development, reducing output. Higher temperatures also interfere with the ability of plants to get and use moisture. Soil moisture evaporates faster, increasing plant transpiration and enhancing moisture loss.
Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Higher temperatures eventually reduce yields while encouraging weed and pest proliferation. Precipitation changes increase the likelihood of crop failures—agriculture productivity declines in the long run. Global food security is threatened to affect vulnerable and food insecure populations.
It has been estimated that 2.5 billion people in the poorer parts of the world depend on agriculture for livelihood. Without effective adaptation and genetic improvement with each degree Celsius increase in global mean temperature, global wheat yields will be reduced by 6 percent, rice by 3.2 percent, maize by 7.4 percent, and soybean by 3.1 percent.
The Food Policy Report of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), 2009, has estimated that South Asia will be hit particularly hard. Large-scale yield declines for the most important food crops will be seen. Climate change will increase prices for the most important crops – rice, wheat, maize, and soybeans. Rainfed maize and irrigated and rainfed wheat will see substantial areas of reduced yields. Sub-Saharan Africa will see mixed results with small declines or increases in maize yields and large negative effects on rainfed wheat. The Latin America and Caribbean region will show mixed yield effects.
Higher feed prices will result in higher meat prices. Calorie availability in 2050 will be lower and is expected to decline relative to 2000 levels throughout the developing world. The decline in calorie availability will increase child malnutrition by twenty percent.
Irrigated wheat and irrigated rice are especially vulnerable to yield declines. Climate change can also actually increase developed country yields. East Asia and the Pacific region, which is temperate for the most part, and Southeast Asia, which is tropical, are differently impacted. Crops are likely to fare reasonably well in temperate regions because of higher future temperatures.
Climate change slows progress towards eliminating hunger. An additional 78 million people will be facing chronic hunger in 2050. Over half of them will be in Africa, south of the Sahara (IFPRI, 2021). To offset this, annual investment in international agricultural research will have to rise from US$1.62 billion to US$2.77 billion annually between 2015 and 2050.

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How do I increase profitability of products of my company?

The profit margin on a product is governed by the customer’s willingness to pay. You can increase the willingness to pay by:

a) Look at your company’s value chain and compare it with your closest competitors’ value chains.

b) Identify the inherent competitive advantage that lies in your company’s value chain

c) Examining your business strategy and identifying changes that will help you increase your competitive advantage.

d) Developing a revised strategic plan for your company

e) Field testing your new strategy plan

f) Looking at the impact of the strategic changes on your company’s business model

g) Modifying the business model and field testing the changes

h) Building a marketing strategy and plan for the new strategy

I have shared the outline of the changes required. Get your team together, and hire a competent consultant who can help you through the process.

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