Business Today: Plan for Better Tomorrow

Prof. (Dr.) Bibhas K Mukhopadhyay

The ongoing happenings require a conscious and undivided attention. A well-groomed strategy could not only help protect the fund deployed, but also enable to face competition through customers’ confidence building. 

 

In fact, the world of business has been changing very fast and unpredictable too. It is being rightly viewed in the business world today that ‘coping with the complexity of today’s business environment is not about predicting the future or reducing risk. It’s about building the capacity, in yourself, your people, and the organization to adapt continuously and learn speedily, in order to maximize the chances of seizing fleeting opportunities’.

 

Clearly, there is no snap shot prescription as to arrive at the win-win situation tomorrow. At best one can predict about the line to be followed tomorrow!! Actually, in today’s unprecedented talent crunch, the business world as a whole is grappling with developing the leadership, talent, risk awareness and of course the very task of building up / inculcate positive- change- adapting- attitude.

In today’s fast changing world business is not just a cake walk / goodwill tour that one lands, grabs the opportunity and then vanish. Myopic approach is suicidal. Truly, success means a long-term phenomenon – continuous market scans and adapting to change-friendly approaches. Strategy existing today may not be liked by the next generation and thus quick adaptability system is required to remain inbuilt.

Global business arena has been changing very fast making it difficult for the poor-walkers to retain the market. There is a lot of noise out there. Merger / amalgamation / tie-up arrangements / outsourcing are being watched out – still something more is needed and that too on an urgent basis especially for  our indigenous banks  especially considering the existence of a very competitive world where there are many hungry competitors – the number too going up by leaps and bounds.

 

In today’s business world competition comes in many forms: price / service / quality / speed of delivery / uniqueness / experience / experience / knowledge / contacts / resources / brand equity, so on and so forth. Boosting of service quality, keeping in view the very nature of effective demand, is the crying need. The challenge is not only to acquire the customer, but also to retain him in the business for furthering the process of improved customer value.

What is more : the fact remains that the market share  once gone would be very difficult to regain as not only the number of C O R E[ Competitors, Opponents, Rivals and Enemies ] is on the rise but technology also is being continuously replaced / is on a continuously changing positions.

 

And of course the formula for trade off comes into play in such a vital context.

Be it a commodity marketing or services marketing ultimately it is the quality that matters. Quality is nothing but a summation of cost and time. Changing any one of these variables would lead to change the outcome. If the amount of time is shortened to complete the assignment, either the cost is to be increased or quality is to be lowered. Quality refers to identifying the quality standards relevant to the assignment and determining how to measure and satisfy them.

 

Managing capital and risk exist at the front door. Tapping the high growth opportunities ensuring capital efficiency stay thus at the forefront. Essentially, before the broad objectives / strategies are set the crucial aspects are to be kept in mind. The risk factor, that is to say determining the risks likely to affect the implementation and evaluating possible responses. Business without risk is similar to day without night! It is just like sugar and salt in life.

 

Consolidation would definitely continue to be the key factor – but obviously is not the end as is presently thought of, rather the tip of an iceberg!! Tying up / amalgamation / merger with the stronger is definitely one of the way outs. But what are the things that are to be done thereafter – have the problems faced by the regional rural banks been solved after the mergers which are already taking place in a big way!

 

Obvious enough, the choice of strategy also depends on facts and circumstances – may be one particular strategy becomes outdated or calls for supplements not necessarily by discarding the older one. This renovation is thus a continuous process. The redesigning of existing processes can effectively lead to dramatic enhancements in performance that enables the organization to deliver greater value to customers in ways that also generate higher profits to the stakeholders.

 

 

The issue is a burning one in as much as the same not only affect liquidity, profitability and equity of individual company but affects the national economy by freezing the supply link also, which, in turn, terribly affects the process of capital formation.

 

Is it not the fact that the path   to   success   is   an   elaborate   one? A long journey before one comes out of the tunnel indeed! Tasks remain unending: [a ] building the credibility; deciding on what to do; identifying the competitive edge; locating what makes service successful; understanding what makes the service fail; what makes ourselves  stand out [b] knowing about our customers & prospects : who needs us - at the market, in order of importance , whom do we want to be our customers, whom don’t we want , where are they, how do we get to them, when is the best time to get to them, what turns them on  and of course what turns them off ???? It is the goodwill ladder that is to be ascended. One only get a single chance to make a first impression & to most of the demanders’ first impression becomes the last impression – rightly or wrongly!

 

So, focusing on, measuring and redesigning the customer-facing and internal processes improvements could be there in areas like: cost, quality, speed, profitability and of course stability.

 

Arranging for such change-over calls for more than rearranging work- flows –   which does what tasks,          in what locations,         as well as in what sequence.

 

So for making the new process work the need is there to ensure that the jobs are redefined broadly backed by updated training system to support these jobs and at the same time enabling decision making. The process and the outcome are to be studied for next course of action.

 

The broad areas under such a change-over method include, among others: reshaping organizational cultures to emphasize on team performance, fixation of personal accountability, customer’s importance; managers overseeing the tasks rather than supervising and realigning the information system so that the cross-functional processes work smoothly than simply support departments.

 

Without knowing what to concentrate on and when the executives would be unable to master the science of transforming the business processes!

 

Even when the BPO is resorted to the need remains as to managing the outsourced matters. Process implementation road map must be developed.

 

Business processes must become more mature and the Institution must be able to deliver higher performance – spatially, temporally, hierarchically and functionally. Obviously, to achieve the same the starting point is designing [ the comprehensiveness of the specifications as to how the process is to executed ]; followed by the performers [ people executing the process based on skill and knowledge ]; owner [ persons shouldering the responsibility for the process as well as the results ]; infrastructure [ information /  M I S  that support the process ]; and of course the metrics  [ the measures the company uses to track the process’s performance ].

 

For developing high performance processes, Institutions need to offer the very supportive environments. It is that greater competent Institutions that emerge as the victor; while others struggle to keep the heads over water.