Starting a New Business Venture

Category: Business

Starting a new business venture can be very intimidating. Every potential start-up business owner has to consider several factors before venturing into the business. In this article, we will discuss four key factors that are considered by us as most relevant to small and medium enterprises. These factors are:

1. Identifying the opportunity

2. Finance

3. Setting up the business

4. Management

Identifying the Opportunity:

The first and primary factor for consideration before venturing in business is identification of business opportunity. This is crucial to the survival, growth and sustainability of the business. This could involve scaling the scope of existing product in the same market or expanding it frontier to a completely new market; it could also involve creating and developing a new product line from the existing ones or establishing new operating partnerships. In a sense, identifying opportunity should be the basis for considering starting a new venture. In that way, the business will remain competitive in a sustainable way. Marketing research is a strategic tool for identifying business opportunity. If you need any assistance in conducting a marketing research, kindly reach out to us at MICB-Tech; we will assist you in getting your primary data.

Finance:

It is one thing to conceive an idea and identify opportunity for the idea. It is another thing to have the wherewithal to invest in the idea or identified opportunity. Just like someone who wants to build a house will first sit and calculate its expense to see if he has enough for it, so it is with starting a new venture; it requires a lot of money (the amount required depends largely on the type of business and its size) for purchasing of materials, hiring labours, operations, marketing, and transportation. The importance of finance in business start-up cannot be over-emphasized as it plays a major role in the success of the business venture. However, there are several sources of finance available to every entrepreneur, so do not be intimidated with insufficient finance if you have a viable business idea. 

Setting up the business:

Imagine that you have identified opportunity and finance is not an issue, what happen next? Indecision and lack of good organization might hold some back from taking the next step to starting the new venture. Setting up a new business is simple but can be very tasking as it requires some levels of decision making and proper organisation. My candid advice here is to first write down a list of all activities and prioritize them. For example, you will have to decide what come first in the following activities: Business registration (legal), developing strategies, formulating policies (terms of service, privacy, human resource, operating policies etc), staffing, launching, website creation, deciding business location and rent, acquiring materials (machines, equipment or tools as may be applicable), getting permits and licenses, selection of insurance policy, creating accounting records and so forth. In my honest opinion, what comes first vary from place to place and is largely dependent on your chosen industry, operating business environment and the size of your proposed venture. These activities are crucial to the success of the business and form the set up stage and should not be overlooked or under-rated. 

Management:

The term management has been defined as the administration of an organization – coordinating all the activities and resources of the business venture. Therefore, management functions include planning, organizing, directing and controlling business activities and resources of the organization. So, before starting a new venture, an entrepreneur will first evaluate himself if he has the required skills to manage and drive the business to success. Poor management could lead to waste of valuable resources and invariably drag the business into a state of bankruptcy. There are several training opportunities online that provide prerequisite management skills. Take advantage of them as they are not as expensive as the traditional college or university programmes.

It is pertinent to mention that there are other relevant factors not considered in this article but that are as crucial and important as those discussed here depending on the potential operating environments and the nature of business. 

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