Potential entrepreneur
should follow following important steps for setting up micro, small or medium
enterprises.
1st –
selection of product: - It all starts with selection of business opportunity.
Business opportunity may be service or trading or products identify such a
business opportunity which can generate sufficient profit.
It
may be a raw material based or demand based or foot loose industry. One has to consider
following points and take a ‘GO’ or ‘NO GO’ decision.
-
Does the business idea give you immense
pleasure or satisfaction, does it fulfills your inner needs like positive feeling.
-
Does it have a market potential in your
identified market area.
-
Is it the need of the clients, customers
or market?
-
Caring out a basic market survey.
-
Experts’ opinions from Govt. Organizations,
consultants, etc.
-
Competitors study.
-
Is it an innovative or creative idea?
-
Discussions with support system.
-
Conceptualizing a business plan.
On each aspect you have
to think whether to go ahead or not to go.
As there are 4Ps of marketing, there are 4ps of project
conception also; they are as follows.
1)
Product – Its features, advantages &
benefits.
2)
Process – It’s a making of a product
what technology is to be used to produce the product.
3) Place
– Location of the business. Earlier it was one of the at most import aspects.
But now business men say it is not the location but it is destination.
4)
Partner – support system which will
assists you or the financial or technical collaborations.
Choosing a product
Entrepreneur should
also consider following aspects while conceptualizing the project.
-
Packaging of the product
-
Branding the product
-
Availability & procurement of raw
materials
-
Latest technology available
-
Outsourcing the services
-
Market access
-
Product warranties & guarantees
-
Support system mechanism
-
Incentive and subsidies
-
Availability/cheap labor
-
After sales service
-
Product design & development
-
Latest technologies available with CSIR,
etc.
Market
availability or development is the key area in product selection. One has to
consider following areas.
Restricted
items – items like alcohol, automobiles, gold, and almost 25 items are
restricted to start in SSI.
Banned items – Due to saturation or some statutory
requirements few items are banned in SSI. Ex: An audio/video cassette to CDs,
to pen drives to documents on Google, etc.
List of items reserved for exclusive manufacture in SSI –
There are hundreds of items in this list. One has to refer this list and understand
the vast scope to choose product from SSI field. One may refer this list in
District Industries Centre in the district or MSME website.
Products having export potential – one has to contact
foreign chamber of commerce, WTO, EXIM Bank, to understand such potential,
EXIM Bank has developed an excellent model to conduct the
export – product portfolio analysis based on three parameters like;
-
Supply capability in product group.
-
Domestic environment
-
Export market attractiveness
This analysis gives
rise to product groups with high potential or low potential.
One also has to be
careful about the laws of the country one is exporting to.
Few examples of business ideas
-
Automatic car washing centers.
-
Shikakai powder
-
Semi or mechanized bricks plants
-
Authorized dealers for 2 wheelers, 4
wheelers.
-
Pressings and laser cutting machines.
Potential entrepreneurs may refer my book titled
‘Business Opportunities, search you will get it!’ published by Continental
Publications, Pune.