A business that brings in sufficient profit is worthwhile for the owners to continue operation. At the heart of every business is principally a collection of five interdependent rules, each of which flows into the next:
Value-Creation:This is discovering what people need, want, or could be encouraged to want, then provide it to them. When business operators are in a competitive market, buys from the same suppliers as its competitors and works the same way, it creates the same value as everyone else. To succeed, a business has to create added value for a potential customer. Well, a business looks at its position and its potential customers and innovates to add corresponding extra value to what it offers. The business buys and works to create value so it can sell the result at a higher price than is paid. Value creation is perhaps the single most important aspect of any executive work.
Marketing:This is attracting attention and building demand for what you have created. In this process, you make your business noticed to people who need or want your products or services. Many small businesses come up with amazing business ideas but then fail to market it successfully. You need to go out and spread the word about your products or services to the right people in order to build your customer base. Advertising and selling are part of the process but there is still a lot involved. There are mainly six key aspects you need to focus on when marketing your products or services. These are called, the six ‘Ps’ of marketing:
Product-Price-Promotion-Place-People-Processes. Product are the good and services you are offering, Price is setting a suitable amount of money for your products or services that will help you to be profitable and stay competitive. Promotion is the method you will use to advertise and sell your products and services, this can be through: website, social media, blogging, e-newsletters, networking etc… Place refers to how your customers will be able to purchase your products or services. The People you have to engage with are the suppliers, distributors, wholesalers, stakeholders and employees to get your product or services to the market. Processes is by putting in place a right customer service and business processes that are essential to support your marketing goals
Sales:This is turning prospective customers into paying customers by completing a transaction. In any business, the department that generates revenue is the sales. You may have a good manufacturing operation, a good cutting-edge technology, a tight financial goal or a progressive and forward-thinking management technique, but a sales mechanism must be there, or everything else is useless. While it is at times difficult to draw the boundary at where the marketing process ends and the sales efforts begin, the sales effort is that which actually collects the money for the business. The marketing effort is to create favorable conditions for the sale to take place. In other words, the marketer leads the horse to water while the sales team makes it drink.
Value-Delivery: This is giving your customers what you have promised and ensuring they are satisfied with the transaction. Every successful business actually delivers to its customers what it has promised. There is a term for a those who takes other’s money without delivering equivalent value. This is what they called “scamming.” Value-Delivery encompasses everything important to ensure every paying customer is a happy customer. Without this, you do not have a business. A good business will deliver the value they have promised to their customers in a way that surpasses the customer’s expectations. Customers always like to get the benefits of their purchases quickly, reliably, and consistently. Therefore, the happier a customer is, the more likely it is that this customer will purchase from the company again. Happy customers also increase the probability that will let others know about what you do, improving your reputation and bringing in even more potential customers. A successful business satisfy its customers most of the time in the midst of a changing environment while an unsuccessful businesses fail to make their customers happy, lose them, and eventually fail.
Finance:This is bringing in enough money to keep your business growing and to make your effort worthwhile. The finance department is the one that manages all cash flow into and out of a business. Vendors and creditors need to be payed correctly and on time to keep things running smoothly. It is important to know that the goal of any finance function is to achieve three benefits which are; lowest costs, business support service and effective control of the environment. Money is the life force of a business and finance is the nerve center. The need of finance in business is to promote and build a business, win assets, create products, run market surveys and advertise. The usual view of finances focuses on being reactive, efficient, quantitative and risk averse. Financial institutions and banks are in business to provide capital to businesses, consumers and investors to help them achieve their goals. The use of financing is important in any economic system, as it allows many companies to buy products out of their immediate reach.