Entrepreneurship Archives - Page 2 of 2

Five Ways the Cloud can rev up Operational Excellence for your Startup or Small Business

by sincera | Mar 31, 2014 | Business, Business Operations, Management, Performance, Productivity

For the past year, I have been experimenting quite successfully in running my business through the cloud. I am no techie and this was not a planned model initially. However, I was clear that I needed to enable a flexible working environment for my team and ensure that my capital expenditure stays as close to zero as possible in the early stages. I had tried out tools like Box, Dropbox, Evernote and Skype for my personal use and loved the flexibility and ease-of-use they provided. So, it was a natural leap for me to integrate them into my business as well. And now that the business is growing, I went to my go-to-person for all things technical for advice on an IT plan and investments needed (I still don’t own a single server and that “felt” kind of uncomfortable when I remembered the huge server rooms at the businesses I have worked in). Turns out that I have actually been doing it right and have been part of a trend that is the new normal 🙂 . After I finished my feel-good pat-my-own-back session, I requested Shashwat, my go-to person, techie geek turned cloud solutions SME to write down what he told me in the form of a blog post so that I can share this with everyone. Here is his take on how cloud computing is not just for the biggies but is also a boon for startups and small businesses.

Cloud Computing for Small Business and StartUps

Software as a service (SaaS) has been around since the 60s, when IBM and other mainframe providers introduced the concept of time-shared computing. ISVs would host their code on remote servers providing functionality to enterprises on a subscription basis. With the advent of the internet and its increased adoption in the 90s, it gave way to a more efficient and ever-present way of computing, popularly known as cloud computing.

With higher internet speeds at reduced costs, cloud computing can be a boon for your start-up. Here’s why –

1) Productivity on the go – Productivity has been revolutionized with the arrival of personal devices. The information worker has gone desk-less and enterprise IT has been consumerized. With the Bring-your-own-device culture gaining popularity in major conglomerates, it only makes sense for startups enable their workforce with such power. With cloud storage and cloud apps, the information worker can be more agile and help the startup be nimble. There are multiple platforms/vendors to choose from, to suit your organizational needs. From software development to basic word processing, all workloads can be hosted in the cloud. And with unlimited storage options, all you projects/files are omnipresent – all the time.

2) Reduced capital and operational costs – The world’s best companies started in a garage, and not with a lot of money. Investing in a resilient IT infrastructure might not be an option available to every aspiring startup. The costs of deploying and maintaining an IT backbone, could be an expensive deal even for a small startup. For many, investing the money to the business would make more sense. The cloud helps you run your IT, without having to worry about maintaining or upgrading it – You will always have the latest and greatest. Thick clients are a thing of the past now, thus helping you reduce the need for expensive end user computing. Effectively, all you need is a browser J

3) À la carte Computing – Efficient use of IT hardware is always a concern for enterprises. You don’t want to under-size the environment to save cost and run into performance issues, OR invest a lot of money to buy real beefy hardware and have them sit underutilized. With fast growing organizations, scalability becomes a constant issue and a drain on your finances. Enter – CLOUD – you use what you pay for, you pay for what you use. The user-feature based licensing model, helps companies to pick and choose what they want to use, without having to worry about hardware costs. Scalability??? Not a problem, you can scale your user base on the fly with a few clicks of the mouse.

4) Boosted Collaboration – Audio/video conferencing, file sharing and web apps – 90% of my workday is spent on these workloads. With teams becoming more virtual now, geo locations cannot be a hindrance to productivity. Efficient use of the cloud tools ensures that people collaborate successfully. You never have to email a single project file back and forth. Multiple people can consume and work on the same data from different locations simultaneously. Business intelligence and reporting has been simplified to a few clicks.

5) Increased continuity of service – “The cloud is always on” – You can get to it from anywhere, anytime. Businesses spend a lot of money to ensure that their systems are resilient and highly available, increasing the overall complexity of the environment, with constantly increasing operational costs. A subscription based model eliminates the need for a business to plan for unplanned service interruptions. You pay a one-time subscription fee, the vendor takes care of everything else. Many cloud vendors out there also offer financially backed service level agreements for mission critical workloads, so you can concentrate on your business worry free.

So, there you go – Cloud solutions enable you to concentrate on your business and run IT, quite practically with a credit card. 🙂

Cloud Tools/Solutions for your reference:

Cloud storage:

Onedrive for business – https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/business/

Box.Net for business – https://www.box.com/business/

Google drive – https://drive.google.com/ob?usp=web_ww_intro

Business email and productivity:

Microsoft Office 365 for small business – http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/business/compare-office-365-for-business-plans-FX102918419.aspx?tab=1

Google apps for business – http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/

Unified collaboration:

Skype for business – http://www.skype.com/en/business/

Microsoft Lync online – http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/lync/meeting-software-compare-lync-plans-FX103842081.aspx

Google hangout – http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/

Social for the enterprise:

Yammer – www.yammer.com

Chatter – https://www.salesforce.com/chatter/overview/

Today’s post is by Shashwat Mohapatra. Sash is a Client Success Manager and has about 10 years’ experience working as a trusted advisor with large Fortune 500 enterprise organizations in various business verticals around the globe, focused on helping enterprise customers consistently improve IT health, drive successful projects and migration deployments.

Did you find this post useful? How have you used cloud for your business? We would love to hear back and learn from you.

Five Essentials to Consider before venturing into Entrepreneurship

by sincera | Jul 21, 2013 | Business, Career, Life, Managing Yourself

It has been a year since I went solo. Fifteen years into my career and I would rate this past year as the most satisfying and fulfilling year of my life. Hard work has been a common theme through all the years but nothing beats the satisfaction levels and the thrills of trying out something of your own and nurturing it to growth. However, entrepreneurship is not all fun and joy. There are ups and downs, small victories and big fails and we need a special mind-set and support system to ensure that we are not bouncing like a yo-yo along with our venture. Keeping the balance is absolutely essential.

I have written about the mind-shifts that I had to make within myself a few months after I plunged in an earlier post. For this annual event, I asked a very special woman, an amazing mother and a successful entrepreneur – Devina Mahapatra – who has been there, done that – to share with my readers and me on what helped her survive and thrive on her entrepreneurship journey. What are the essentials to consider before venturing into entrepreneurship, that we need to have in place to succeed? And here is her take:

A few years back, I found myself taking time off from the corporate world to dedicate to raising our kids. My goal: be home till the younger one is two. At this time, I was only expecting my first. While the joys of mommyhood is incomparable to anything else I had experienced, I got restless very quickly because there’s only so much you can fuss over an infant. By the time my first-born was a year old, I had started a business. And before I knew it, my husband had quit his high-profile IT position in a leading upcoming biotechnology firm to join the business. We quickly were living the entrepreneur lifestyle – very different from the regular 9-5 positions we had both held in the past. The accolades as well as the trials were rewarding. After seven years, our first business was sold, and my husband went on to start on his second, thereby entering the coveted group of serial entrepreneurs. Once you have a taste of being a business owner, it’s virtually impossible to turn back. However, I believe that without a few ground rules and work ethics, we would have burnt out before giving success a true chance.

Here’s my list of 5 Essentials to consider before venturing into entrepreneurship:

Essentials #1: Have unconditional support of your significant other –

By support, I mean holistic support – be it mental (challenging business strategy), emotional (provide encouragement when things are slow), physical (waking up to care for the kids at night) or public relations (keeping a calm composure and positive outlook when you just lost your biggest client). Confide in and communicate with your significant other – Err on the side of more than less. No one’s a mind reader. By unconditional, I mean in great times and terrible ones…alike.

Essentials #2: Don’t be a stranger to the facts –

Do research, and then some more. Know your competition. Know your product/service. Know the demand. Interview other business owners. Set a timeline target that’s realistic. Research goes a long way in saving you time and money.

Essentials #3: Know yourself –

Know your personality type. Running a business needs constant self-motivation in good days and bad. It takes an enormous amount of self driven discipline. Ask yourself if the business is enough motivation to get you out of bed every morning – for times to come. If yes, you’re a natural. If not, keep a motivation plan ready. Be accountable to yourself.

Essentials #4: Surround yourself with positive thinkers –

The easiest thing for people to say is no. Surround yourself with positive thinkers who emit positive energy. You will need it. Don’t hesitate to distance yourself from nay-sayers, mindless gossip and anything that doesn’t add value.

Essentials #5: Meditate Daily –

If you don’t meditate already, start anyway. Running a business will just get the universe as close to your soul as you allow. Meditation enables that. Practicing the art of maintaining peace and calm within yourself will pay off big time.

Are you thinking of going solo, starting a company or just taking a break to think about a career change? How are you preparing for this big shift in your life? What are the other essentials to consider before venturing into entrepreneurship ? Devina and I would love to hear back and learn from you.

Guest Post author : Devina Mahapatra

Pic Courtesy : Sukanya Rath

The Journey from Employee to – Five Mind Shifts that I need to work on

by sincera | Sep 9, 2012 | Business, Business Operations, Career, Life, Management, Managing Yourself, Performance, Productivity

Thomas Carlyle said – Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see farther.

It has been a few months now since I handed over my employee badge and stepped on to the road less travelled of entrepreneurship. Still surviving and never been happier !

My last blog on this topic elicited a lot of interest and questions and I thought it would be a good idea to take stock of what I have seen so far and share what I have learnt on this journey. While I did know when I started out that my life is going to change in a BIG way, what I probably had not realized as much was that most of the change would have to be in my mindset – my thoughts and approach to situations. HBS professor Howard Stevenson in his book – Breakthrough Entrepreneurship – defined Entrepreneurship as “Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.” And that certainly is a great definition in my case. As a micro-entrepreneur, my access to resources is certainly limited and I am learning how to be resourceful, identify the resources that I do have and find access to the resources that I don’t have.

So here are the five mind-shifts that I have realized I need to make and work on:

Resource #1 Time – Time is more valuable than Money: It took me around a month to realize that “time is money” is an advice best ignored as it is a definite trap. I had broken up my working hours into slots that I planned to sell. Then I realized the only way to make more money from my work is to make more time to work. And then days and nights, weekends and weekdays all started blurring into each other pretty soon till I was at a point where I lost track of all time. There are just not enough hours in the day for the work that I want to do and the kind of success that I want to achieve. Lesson learned – I need to learn the art of saying “NO” and also need to systemize my work to achieve scalability. Think about the outcome I want and then work backwards breaking it up into tasks and checklists and documenting all of it so that I create repeatable processes that clients and my team can use to deliver identical results every time–especially when I am not there. This is about moving from the “no one can do it better than me” mindset to “enabling and creating capabilities outside of me” so that I can free up my time and attention for the next level of challenges and opportunities.

Resource #2 Finances – I am my safety blanket: The luxury of a pay cheque at the end of the month is gone – so also is all the benefits and savings towards a pension that got automatically taken care of by my employer. So now the responsibility lies solely with me to ensure that I plan my finances in such a way that I am keeping aside some of the money for the future. Never being very good with personal finances, I have had to give considerable thought to this especially when one of the golden rules of entrepreneurship is to have a nest egg for living expenses and emergencies for at least one year before expanding the business or your lifestyle. This will need a lot of juggling and some level of discipline in me to achieve.

Resource #3 Ability and Skills – I am solely responsible for MY performance and growth: No more annual performance appraisals and goal setting by managers (that’s actually a relief as I have never believed in them anyway). And there is no option of learning on the job as you are expected to deliver from day one as a consultant. So, if I have to grow, it is unto me to take charge of my learning curve while balancing the two points above – time and finances. I am reading up on goal setting – 30, 60, 90 days plans that will work well for me and my business. I have also created a goal poster for myself to help me visualize my success and urge me forward. I had never imagined that I would end up spending so much time on this area ultimately considering that this was an area I never gave much attention to as an employee.

Resource #4 Technology and Tools – I am my support function: The life-lines of calling up the IT department or admin to take care of my IT or admin needs is over. I have to build up my own support structure so that I don’t waste my precious time on tasks such as creating invoices, backing up data, setting up a LAN, etc. – all business critical functions but not my core competency. I need to concentrate on my strengths and take help on or delegate my weaknesses. Hence the need to investigate the right set of tools and technology to improve my productivity. I also have to look at functions that can be delegated or outsourced with ease so I am keeping a checklist of things and documenting the processes that I need to outsource in the near future instead of trying to do it all myself. That’s another change in thought process that is important in making a smooth transition from employee to entrepreneur.

Resource #5 Being Visible – I am my marketing and sales engine – and that means that I have to move from being an introvert to someone who doesn’t shy away from marketing and legitimately promoting myself – the biggest mind shift that I have to make. This is probably something that I should have been doing as an employee too but I always thought that my work would speak for itself (and it did to some extent). Recognizing my value myself and ensuring that others know it too, never under-selling and pushing back or forward as needed is critical for my business growth. Confidence comes from action is something that I now realize too well – so my to-do list is now almost full of actions that I need to take to make me and my business visible. Sacha Chua – a fellow entrepreneur sums up it up very well in her sketch note here.

So are you in the same boat? What shifts did you have to make in your entrepreneurship journey? What else do I need to re-learn? I would love to hear back and learn from your experiences.

Pic courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uggboy/5383116954

Five Reasons why I just said Bye-Bye to a Great Job

by sincera | Jun 23, 2012 | Business, Business Operations, Career, Life, Management, Managing Yourself

OK. I did it – I just quit my job as an associate vice president in a super company where I worked for the last eight years. No, I don’t have another job offer in hand. No, I haven’t won the lottery or got a huge inheritance either. And no, I still have my wits around me. Why then am I leaving the security of a well-paid corporate job out of my own choice? The answer (and it took me around a year and a lot of self-examination to arrive at this) is simple – I want to WORK HAPPIER. In the last one year, I have made being “Happy in the Now” the guiding philosophy of my life and work being where the largest chunk of my time goes into, need I say more?

So in answer to the question I have heard quite often in the past week – “why would you do something so crazy?” – Here are the five reasons why I am trading security for risks:

Reason #1: Getting out of the “Comfort Zone” – I realized that I had become too comfortable and in my view, being too comfortable is a sure path to getting stuck and becoming mediocre pretty soon. I knew I could do more, much more than the challenges that my current environment set for me. So, a new environment made more sense. Of course this was not easy as I had to think through and get real on:
Security (myth as it doesn’t exist anymore in corporate world)
No other Option (myth as there is always another option)
or Thinking I am better off than most (again a myth, as there is no such thing as better, you have to be the best for yourself)

Reason #2: Personal Growth or Enrichment – This is about moving from a “been there and done that” feeling to a “can’t wait to get my hands on it” feeling. Hikes, promotions and awards though satisfying lose their sheen after a while when you weigh them against what it takes out of you. I have reached a stage where what makes me the happiest is when I get to try something new and succeed at it or the contentment of getting a job well done. The pursuit of lifelong learning is a reward in itself.

Reason #3: Flexibility or Independence – Ahh – the freedom of being able to choose your own assignments, be totally accountable to yourself and go after only what your own gut/heart tells you – can there be anything more liberating ? Add to that flexibility in schedules, setting your own priorities and deciding your business goals – scary but so exciting. I do realize that this makes me the only person to blame if I fail but hey – what’s life without a bit of adventure? Sure, my failure is only mine but so will be my success 🙂

Reason #4: Earning or Giving Back Potential – This one is a pure economic consideration – stay in a secure job and I know almost to the exact amount what I will earn next year, the year after that and so on – a guaranteed income no doubt but only so far that it can go. Weighing this against the possibilities (yes, you gotta be a little optimistic here) – well, the sky is the limit 🙂 . My mom’s continuing near death experiences has reinforced the fact that time is precious and there is a lot that I can and need to do to give back to the community. I have plans to leave the world a little better, make the lives of a few a little easier and there is a lot that I should and could be doing already. Grandiose, they may be but I need to convert these into reality sooner rather than later.

Reason #5: The Entrepreneurship Bug – Doing something of my own has always been a recurring dream/theme in the back of my mind almost all my life. I have very definite ideas about starting, running and succeeding in a business and have worked for others in putting these ideas into action my entire career. It was high time I think that I took the gauntlet myself. Micro entrepreneurship allows me to experiment in being agile, innovative and moving between doing and managing while limiting my risks. So yes – this is the pursuit of my dream and my passion.

So putting my businesswoman hat on now, if you are looking for someone to get things done in your business – look no further. I can manage your operations so that you can manage your business. I have covered the areas of my specialties in the various posts that I have written on this blog so far and you get a glimpse of my professional profile here. Call me your super-temp, interim COO or your brain on rent – I am available to execute your strategy through operational excellence.

Tell me what you think about my decision. Has this been playing on your mind too? What would motivate you or what stops you from following your dream?

An Idea is not enough for Success… Five more lessons from Steve Jobs

by sincera | Jan 29, 2012 | Business, Leadership, Life, Managing Yourself, Motivation, Performance, World of Work

I have never met Steve Jobs, nor worked with him, nor ever interacted with him remotely. But his products touched a chord and I have followed his life journey as closely as the new product launches every year. Maybe more so, simply because almost two decades back I shared the same dream i.e. Touch lives with Technology and make it so seamless that anyone anywhere can use it. Today a three-year old kid uses the technology intuitively and a 70-year old grandpa no longer fears the machine.

For years, I have lived with my dream. Steve had the passion to follow through. That is the difference.

I learnt from Steve that dreams simply give you a false sense of illusion – it’s how you translate that dream into a goal that sets you apart.

I learnt that an Idea is not enough – an idea is just the beginning, the real work starts after that. I learnt that it is enough to start with a broad vision, and let the details evolve. I learnt that the difference lies in how strongly you believe in the idea and (more importantly) what commitment you make to take it forward.

The 5 biggest lessons from Steve Jobs that I learnt and would like to emulate:

Lesson #1: The Passion to make a Difference – The desire to touch lives and the inspiration to make a lasting impact.

Lesson #2: The Perseverance and Courage to Pursue – To keep going despite all odds & contradictions. To always look for alternatives even when the full picture is not clear yet.

Lesson #3: The Self-belief and Conviction to be Different – The foresight to challenge conventional wisdom. The ability to manage inertia and overcome resistance.

Lesson #4: The Focus on Simplicity – The goal to constantly improve usability and drive the experience. The acceptance of using Technology as a means and not as a goal.

Lesson #5: The Pursuit of Perfection – The willingness to admit mistakes and change course even late in the game. Striving always for the best possible.

Most importantly I learnt that achievement is not built around creativity or innovation, but realized through painstaking execution.

I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.

Steve Jobs, Interview, 1995

Today’s post is written by Arti Khanna. Arti combines more than 25 years of technology and business experience in communications to look at emerging trends and incubate new initiatives in communications and applied verticals. Connecting the dots between market dynamics and strategy is her specialty.

What other lessons have you taken away from Steve Job’s life? Have you ever moved an idea to execution? Do you plan to? How do you translate your ideas into plans for action? We would love to hear back from you.

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