Business Ideation

Sources of getting existing business ideas: Given below are some of the important sources of business ideas.

1.Reading books: The first source of finding out business ideas are books. To be precise textbooks, handouts and other material. Aspiring entrepreneurs could get accessibility to such material by becoming members of a course in entrepreneurship.

2.Media: The media, both electronic and print media in local languages and in English provide valuable information. Media indicates the state of the economy and economic indicators. They also discuss the customers and their preferences. Care should be taken that media reports should be considered as preliminary information and further research should be conducted to authenticate the data provided. Special focus should be on the business media which can provide valuable data and information.

3.Trade publications: Trade or commerce divisions have their own publications which carry valuable information. Prospective entrepreneurs should get into the habit of collecting such publications and noting down the salient trends and indicators.

4.Talking to the customers: Talking to the customers to find out what his/her unsatisfied need or want is of paramount importance. Customers might not be very articulate but the entrepreneur has to listen, probe, analyse and find out the unsatisfied need and explore if there is a lurking business opportunity.

5.Talking to Suppliers: The raw material suppliers are very sharp and have ideas that they can't implement for lack of finance. They are also willing to share their ideas with the entrepreneur.

6.Talking to the Distributors: Talking to the distributors, who are the marketing intermediaries, is critical. Distributors are in regular touch with the customers. Their regular interaction with the customers means that they can discover hidden needs and wants. A distributor had commented that the chocolates supplied by most of the companies were melting in the tropical Indian heat. This prompted one company to introduce liquid chocolate as a new product and another company introduced the old chocolate in a new package which was tough and which could resist high temperatures.

7.Talking to experts and consultants: Experts/ consultants are available who can help aspiring entrepreneurs in getting ideas for new business. But experts/consultants are not easily available and even when available are costly. It is better for the entrepreneur to try to find out sources of new ideas himself.

8.Buying competitive products and trying to reverse engineer: One of the sources of new business is to buy a competitive product and completely disassemble it. Then try to make the same product with the locally available raw material. The problem is, that product could be patented and the production of the same product could be a violation of the patent rights. Chinese manufacturers excel in reverse engineering.

9.Bench marking: It is a concept by which a company considers all the best features of the products available in the market. In many cases the features found in one product are not available in another. So the objective of bench marking is to find out the best features of the products in the industry and make them all available in one product. Bench marking is very difficult and needs lots of technical expertise.

10.Attending seminars and trade shows: Attending trade shows, seminars, exhibitions, bazaars are a very good idea to find out new sources of ideas.

11.Getting information through friends in the government: Many prospective entrepreneurs cultivate friendship with influential government officials. These government officials could brief the entrepreneur about any likely change in policy or taxation or any matter involving the business.

12.Self-research: In many cases the entrepreneur himself could conduct systematic research to find out about hidden needs and wants that exist in the market place.

13.Sponsoring research: This is research that is conducted by someone else for the prospective entrepreneur. The results or findings of the research will be shared with the sponsor (entrepreneur).

14.Commercially available reports: In many cases published information is available about business ideas. Often called as business directories they contain up to 300 business ideas that are detailed. Details about the product, investment, machinery, working capital and human resource and finance needed are given.

15.Browsing the Internet: Internet is a virtual library once it comes for business ideas. Ideas can be accessed at great speed and at minimal cost. Internet information in many cases is not authenticated and should be considered only as preliminary information. Further research should be conducted to authenticate information taken from the Internet.

16.Consulting concerned trade associations: There are many organisations specifically set up to help prospective entrepreneurs for example Federation of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, CII, EDI, NEN, SIDBI etc.

17.UNDP, WB, FAO, ADB and other world organisations: World organisations like the United Nations Development Programme, World Bank; Food and Agriculture Organization also can be approached. Their web sites carry valuable information.

18.Every problem faced is an opportunity to find new business ideas: A problem is an opportunity behind a curtain. Mosquito problem have been converted into business by making products like mosquito nets, creams, powders, insect repeller, insect killers etc.

Likewise in a country like India where only a minority speaks English, all the televisions carried only English remote controls. It was a great opportunity to introduce regional language remote controls. SONY Corporation realized the problem of people carrying heavy tape recorders on their shoulders listening to loud music much to the annoyance and anger of all concerned. Later SONY introduced a low weight, portable and personalized SONY Walkman, which became a run-away success.

Business Ideas For existing Entrepreneurs:

1.Reading competitor's published reports: One way to get ideas is to read competitors’ published material and find out about their new products.

2.Attending competitor’s annual general body meetings: Attending a competitor's annual general body meeting is one way to find out the new ideas and products that could be introduced by that company. As these meetings are only for the company personnel and the shareholders, the entrepreneur has to get an invitation to attend the AGM or find a friendly investor who will attend the meeting and give details of the proceedings.

3.Talking with competitor’s sales people: Sales people have information about both existing products and to be introduced new products. But it is not ethical to query the current sales people. Remember what you will do to others, others can do the same to you. That is your competitors could do the same with your sales people.

4.Talking with competitor’s former employees: Same as above but it is quite ethical as the sales people have left their employees and are free to talk unless they are bound by clauses of confidence.

5.Collecting competitor's advertisements and press reports, and news stories: Advertisements and press reports, and news storiesgive information. They should be collected and studied. They routinely give out details of new products, improvements etc.

6.Appointing detectives or moles in a competitor's organisation: This comes under industrial espionage where one company appoints detectives to infiltrate competing organisations and find out information. A mole is an employee of an organisation who takes appointment in a competitor's organisation to find out information and passes it to his original company.

7.Going through the trash of the competitors: This entails picking up the office trash of competitors’senior executives and examining it for critical information.

Methods of generating new ideas

Even with a wide variety of sources available, coming up with an idea for a new venture can still be a difficult problem. The entrepreneur can use several methods to help generate and test new ideas; including focus groups, brainstorming, problem inventory analysis and reverse brainstorming.

1.Focus groups: A moderator leads a group of people through an open, in-depth discussion. The group of 8 to 14 participants is stimulated by comments from the other group members in creatively conceptualising and developing new product ideas to fulfill a market need. In addition to generating new ideas, the focus group is an excellent method for initial screening of ideas and concepts. The results can be analysed more quantitatively making the focus group a useful method for generating new product ideas.

2.Brain storming: It is a method for generating new product ideas and is based on the fact that people can be stimulated to greater creativity by meeting others and participating in organised group experiences. Although most of the ideas generated have no basis for further development, often a good idea emerges. Criticism and negative comments are not allowed. Freewheeling is encouraged and quantity is desired (more the merrier), and combinations and improvements of ideas are encouraged. Others’ Ideas can be used to build a new idea.

3.Problem inventory analysis: Instead of generating new ideas themselves, consumers are provided with a list of problems in a general product category. They are then asked to identify products in that category that have the particular problem. This method is often effective since it is easier to relate to known products to suggested problems and arrive at a new product idea that is problem free than to generate an entirely new product idea by itself. Problem inventory analysis can also be used to test a new product idea.

4.Reverse brainstorming: Reverse brain storming is the same as brainstorming except that in reverse brain storming criticism is allowed. This ensures that the number of new ideas that are generated are limited to a manageable number. But care should be taken to see that criticism does not affect the morale of the group participating.

By:Dr M Anil Ramesh

The author is a Professor -Marketing, Chairman, Training and Consultancy, and Chief Controller of Examinations at Siva Sivani Institute of Management, a premier B-school in Secunderabad. Send your queries to [email protected] and [email protected].