Why Businesses Fail?

Have you ever wondered why most of the businesses fail in Pakistan? The idea behind the business was brilliant, catchy, innovative, revolutionary, out of the box, original and yet the business could not flourish. There can be infinite reasons but particularly the most common two that I have found and are mostly consistent are as follows:

1) Poor Service

The first in the list is poor service. If you have a good genuine product with weak service then consider your business days numbered. If any business wants to excel in B2B relations then it must provide state of the art services to its clients. A good service provided would encourage positive referrals. The best way to market your business is through word of mouth -- let your customers do that for you!

A particular example of poor service or business operation can be seen through the following incidents:

We needed a server for our company, so I called couple of distributors operating in Islamabad. One of the distributors after receiving the call told me to contact after an hour because they are having lunch at the moment. Yes I would wait for sixty minutes to call you again and not call your competitor the very next moment for my need.

I needed to repair my laptop's broken LCD. I personally went to different repairing shops in the town to get the best deal. Some were charging a lot relatively. One particular shop gave me the best price for repairing and even gave a warranty of one year but I refused to accept their deal. Why? Because the shop keeper communicated indifferently and without any interest. Isn't it quite simple? If you want business from me, you have to show some interest first! Well I felt comfortable with the shop offering the same price but less warranty time because the people were more cooperative and respected the potential customer.

When you are doing business you have to make your customers comfortable to work with you. Always go out of the way to make them feel at home all the time. If you make the business offering complicated for them expect them to change their business partner the next time! Why would I do further or more business with you if you are unable to provide me the service as per the agreement? Provide value to your customers and you would reap benefits out of your business!

2) Lacking Professionalism

What is professionalism? To give your best even when you are not feeling so. What is ethics? Moral correctness of the specified conduct. Many businesses forget while doing business that they have to follow some level of professionalism and ethics as well. Examples of being professionally unethical include paying your employees late or paying your business partners not at time. When you are doing business you have to follow the universal morals. Your employees sustain your business, you need to respect them with their needs. Your partners help you get the business, you need to be at your best professional behavior with them. I have seen it a lot that employers because of their ignorance do not respect their employees and have big turn over rates. What happens when you are not professional with your employees? They leave you! Employees are the main asset of any organization and experienced employees are critical to your business stability, respect and revere them.

Trust is very important between an employee and employer relationship. If the employer does not trust the employee then expect the same from the employee. Having said that businesses should not be people specific but function and process oriented. Your business processes must be so strong that even if an employee leaves there is minimal repercussion. Businesses that are people specific are prone to disaster and waiting to be kicked out of business sooner than expected.

Do you expect to retain customers or do business after business with them if you were not professionally astute in your initial point of contact? No business is lucky the next time, you have to work hard, you have to give your best, you have to be easy to do business with, you have to be empathetic, you have to be far-sighted, you have to be visionary, you have to be persistent to get business after business from the same customer. A little unprofessionalism at your end can also affect your other potential leads as well.

Conclusion:

Any idea can be turned into healthy business if followed up with great service and high professionalism. The best you can do is sell me once but to sell me twice you need to be wise. :)

Ignorance is bliss

Life consistently teaches us various aspects of living. What we learn today benefits us tomorrow or in the long run. It wouldn't be wrong to judge life as being a continuous journey of learning.

I love the phrase of paradigm shift. The 'ah' or 'oh' moment when we come to know of something opposite to our thinking, belief and set of mind is the paradigm shift. Life is a linked-up thread of paradigm shifts.

Being ignorant is an important facet of our lives. The unpredictability of life makes it fun and full of joy. A life with spoilers would surely spoil it. What if you were a salesman and knew already that you would close that billion dollar sale? What if you were a mountaineer and knew already that you would never be able to reach the top of Mount Everest? The excitement, the enthusiasm, the hope, the motivation would certainly be not there at all.

Not knowing what would be the outcome of your efforts makes the journey of achieving something worthwhile. The journey more than the end result is what makes us enjoy our lives but not knowing the end result beforehand is the prerequisite. Hence the wisdom prevails... Life is bliss... Ignorance is bliss!

The CIA Triad

Information Security is all about the CIA Triad -- Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability. Often when we talk about Information Security we generalize it to IT Security which simply limits the overall general definition of Information Security. Information Security is the ensuring of Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability of Information System. Information System is any system which processes data -- even a sheet on which attendance is being taken makes an Information System.

Understanding the CIA triad helps us understand the Information Security posture of any Information System. The best way to absorb the definitions of Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability is to know their antonyms:

Confidentiality --> Disclosure
Integrity --> Alteration
Availability --> Inaccessibility

The disclosure of sensitive information to an unauthorized entity would hurt the Confidentiality. The illegal alteration in original information would hurt the Integrity. The inability to access the information when and where needed would hurt the Availability. That means...

1. Confidentiality is ensuring non-disclosure of information.
2. Integrity is ensuring accurateness of information.
3. Availability is ensuring access to information when and where needed.

The CIA Triad is pretty much dependent on each other as well. The breach of either C, I or A might let to the breach of other CIA Triad.

Laughing at what we cannot fathom

Smartness is overrated. You cannot be smart and yet successful. Similarly you cannot be successful yet smart. Were those people not smart who laughed at Galileo saying earth revolved around the Sun? Was Galileo smart? What really makes you smart? Thinking like the norm or thinking contrary to the norm? Whatever the case, smartness is overrated. What really matters is accepting one's lack of knowledge in understanding the unfathomable and trusting one's heart with what one believes in till the white light dawns -- making one change his / her belief.

Usually being humans we laugh at what we cannot understand or what we do not want to understand or what we think is ridiculous without going into intrinsic minute details or what we assume to be otherwise. Knowledge is a very good tool to handle one's lack of understanding -- the more you are knowledgeable the more you understand, I humbly believe. There is this saying which I love to use every now and then and it would be perfect time to use it right now... "Not ignorance but ignorance of ignorance is death of knowledge." Which means ignorance itself is not pitiable but rejecting the very fact that you are ignorant is pitiful.

So the next time someone says... The heart can think on its own. Air stores the spoken words which can be retrieved later on. There are planets like earth having living beings. Humans can regrow their organs. Do not laugh, respect the idea and keep silent. Remember, humans can fly now, O genius!

Appreciation Matters

There are many little things which we tend to ignore that matter a lot and have prolonged consequences. It is a matter of very subtle understanding to know that we get the most crushed and disheartened from the people who are very close to us. How often do we shout at our siblings just for the sake of shouting. We always belittle their ambitions for no good reason. We seldom support their success and always highlight their failures. The confidence of an individual is shattered the most not by anybody else but his/her own parents, brothers and sisters. Do not do that! Do not touch that! Look what you have done! Stay out of my room! Do not play here! We most of the times give importance to material things rather than our own blood. Is your laptop more important than the heart you broke of your little sibling just for touching it? Certainly not.

The words we use during our family conversations can encourage and discourage someone and somehow we negate this fact a lot. Often more than we notice we do not appreciate the relationships that are very close to us. We take them for granted. It might be because we get such precious relationships without much conscious effort. A simple gesture like thank you on receiving a glass of water or cup of tea can spread instant gratification. If we start using words like please, kindly, sorry and start taking responsibilities of our deeds the world around us would become a touch better for certain. We all like to be appreciated be it parents, siblings, teachers or any body else around us. How often do we appreciate the garbage collector of our street? How often do we appreciate the sweeper of our office? These are the little tiny things whom appreciation can give a pleasing feeling lasting for eternity.

Please the next time someone does a good thing for you surprise him/her by saying thank you! And yes, thank you for reading this. :)

Self Belief

We all feel gloomy and redundant in many phases of our lives. In those trifling moments we tend to go into our shells and want to spend some time there. The good with the bad and the bad with the good are part and parcel of life. We have to live with what we get that is for sure. Somehow in such phases we underestimate the power of sharing. When we are feeling down we do not want to share or talk about it. From my experience the mind that creates a problem has difficulty solving it. That is where sharing helps a lot. When you share you start feeling lighter. The burden held by one is shared by more. Moreover, you might get a solution of your problem through sharing as well.

What really gets us going? Is it Hope? Inspiration? Motivation? Faith? Belief? Trust? Ultimately it is a mixture of all these that gets us up each time we fall. Falling down is not an issue at all but not getting up and giving up is where the true mantra of life and living is lost. When we are feeling down that is where our hopes, inspirations, motivations, faith in our thinking, belief in ourselves and trust in our abilities kick in and make us stand and deliver to the best we can once more. Having something that we can always rely on in hard times would always breathe new life in us. That reliable force and phenomena is none other than our own belligerent self.

Mere Human

Isn't it so that we are right even when we are wrong? Why do we impart such ignorant behavior? Why do we tend to be like that? Why do not we just accept our mistake and let it go? Is it due to lack of knowledge? Is it a manufacturing fault or something? If it really is a universal fact then anything associated with humans has the same chance of being wrong as being right.

Let us take some generic examples here...

1) It is perplexing to know that Science with all its glory is still in constant process of evolution or I dare must say confusion. Classical Physics and Modern Physics are the epitome of this perplexity.

2) How many religions are there in the world? Can they all be right? They certainly are for each of their followers. Islam is right for Muslims as Christianity is for Christians.

3) All these arguments of whether homeopathy is right or allopathy holds an upper hand certainly give murky view of ayurvedic medicines.

The human thought process is not consistent. There is nothing permanent about what is being said, believed and done. What is taboo today would be altogether a common commodity for coming generations.

We all are mere humans after all!