Creative and Innovative Thinking

Industry in the world

h3ncy — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:04:04 +0000

One day I and my friend discussed about industries development in the world. We were talking about the progressive development of manufacturing industry in China and also the industry in UK. The interesting thing we found that the manufacturing industry in UK cannot develop well like in Asia, say China or Japan.

As we know that there are three kinds of industry in the world. The first is agriculture industry. This industry only reaches 2-3% in the world. Indonesia is one of countries, which still focus in this industry. Agriculture industry is dominantly managed by under developed and developing countries. This type of industry is strongly characterized by farmers as the main actors. Farmers, very often, are recognized as blue collar, whom people considered as low class labor in working place. That is why developed countries do not choose this industry for their main economic mainstream.

The second industry is manufacturing. This industry still reaches less than 30% in the world. Nowadays, China has become a leader in manufacturing industry in the world, especially in Asia. China has developed many plants of industrial sectors to increase their economic development. The main reason why this industry increases and develops well in China is because of human resource factor. As we know that China has a huge population in the world. In addition, the labor cost is really cheap there. No wonder if many firms all around the world try to compete and move their plants to China.

The third is service and financial industry. There are more than 70% service and financial industries in the world. This type of industry, of course, are dominated by developed countries. Most of developed countries in the world, including UK, focus on running this industry. There are some reasons can be analyzed why developed countries focus on this industry. The main reason is the high labor cost. Living expenses in Western countries are more expensive than those in Asian. Consequently, they will get higher salary than others working in the same place in Asian countries. In addition, people in developed countries are educated well so that they probably do not want to work as ordinary worker such as blue collar or working in manufacturing sector. Firms in developed countries prefer to outsource some products from other countries to support their businesses. They will buy products, which are needed by firms because it is much cheaper than if they produce the products in the firms. But, they will still maintain the research and development (R and D) to cultivate more innovations within their companies.

United breaks guitars

h3ncy — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:43:33 +0000

Have you ever heard about the title above? It is a song title. The story of the song tells about Dave Carrol’s bad experience when he travelled from Halifax to Nebraska in Spring 2008 by using United Airlines. His lovely guitar was broken by the employee of airlines. He claimed about it and tried to get reimbursed to the airline but there was no response until one year.

As his expression of anger, he wrote a song ‘United breaks guitars‘ and put it in Youtube video. Surprisingly, his song got response from many people. There was 10 million views in 10 days. He was successful to tell people about the bad customer service of the United Airlines. And until now, there are 4,324,864 views of the youtube song.

What happened to the company? The interesting is there is a significant influence of the song to the company’s stock market. Its stock market decreased significantly after the song launched to the public. The company then lost many loyal customers and lost a lot of shares. Finally, they could not gain a competitive advantage in the market.

Long time no see..

h3ncy — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:50:29 +0000

It’s been a while that I have not visited this ‘home’. It’s not because no idea to write but merely just because I was so busy recently with my research. Actually, there are a lot of stories to tell and to write here, but sometimes no time to write or even to see a bit.

Hope that you will not feel disappointed about it. I promise to be more active in making a ‘story’..enjoy..:)

Business competition (part 3)

h3ncy — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 05:31:12 +0000

There are some aspects determined whether the business proposal have potential to compete among competitors. In my opinion, there are two important aspects indicate that the business proposal has potential to be the winner. First, the idea should be interesting. There should be something unique and different from others that have opportunities to compete in market in future. Second, the business has potential to develop. It means that the business proposal has a high quality to be a real business later.

Moreover, some aspects should be also considered, such as marketing plan, competitors, financial plan, organizational plan, and risk and exit. A good business proposal will know the prospects of the company in market. How is the strategy to market the products or services to potential customers?; and what kind of marketing plan they will use? Advertising plan can be one of marketing strategy to promote their products and services, should be clearly stated in the proposal. Their business competitors should be stated also in the plan. Who are they? What have they done in the market? And how can the company you will build compete with them? As startup, the company will needs some capital, such as investment of cash money from the owner. It needs to mention and to explain details in the proposal. Perhaps, if the break event point of the potential buying and selling can be predicted, it will be very interesting to show to judging panel. Finally, do not forget to describe about the risks; what are they and how the company will face some risks. In addition, how the company will exit from the market if there are some risks such as bankruptcy or mismanagement that can happen in future.

Thus, if those aspects are explained clearly and the feasibility study mentioned details in your proposal, I am sure, your business proposal will be considered to go to the next round and potential to be the winner. Goodluck!

Business competition (part 2)

h3ncy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:04:51 +0000

Our business is about consultancy firm, which offers a help for any individuals or businesses to open and expand their markets in China. The consultant firm called ‘The Green Company Ltd.’ focuses on biorefinery products. Nowadays most people in the world use petroleum as non-renewable energy. As we know that the energy is getting decrease and decrease while all people around the world need it. So, it is important to find any alternatives energy to substitute the non-renewable energy. In twenty years in future, we cannot predict about the available of non-renewable to fulfill the needs of human being around the world. Thus, we think that biorefinery is one of the alternatives to produce energy. Biorefinery is using the complex conversion of biomass. Biorefinery has a potential market in the world. Experts estimate that biorefinery will grow and achieve 280 billion per year to 500 billion per year by 2013. It is a huge market to compete in sustainable development.

In the second round, which supposed to be semi-final, we need to submit a complete business plan of our company. In this second round we have to provide details information about our company, including the financial plan and organizational chart. We then divided jobs to complete our business plan. My partner focuses on unit point of sale (ups) and marketing plan, while I need to focus on competition plan, operational plan and financial plan. The financial plan is the hardest one since both of us do not have skills in doing it. I tried to ask many friends who experts in this field. I had to read some books and articles talking about feasibility study how to start and conduct a business. I discussed with some people who know more about business matters.

In the plan, we are supposed to be the owner (CEO). I am the president and my fellow, Amir, is the vice president of the company. We also need five directors in our organization chart. Then, I tried to lobby some experts to put in our organizational chart. They are professors in university. Some of them agreed and wanted to join us, but some of them did not due to some reasons. You know, lobbying needs patience and time. You need to explain more about your business plan and propose. Some people will ask you why you choose them as your directors and what they will contribute with in the company. Pfff..it is not that easy. I realize that making a plan for a business is not that simple, and running the business is harder and more complex than making the plan.

Trying so hard to find materials to support our business plan, we submit our second business plan to the committee of the business competition last 23rd of March, which is the close date to submit the proposal. We are not confident enough in this second round. Time matters since we do not have more time to prepare it, while we have a lot of things to do, including our research as well. “Men propose, but God dispose”, said the wise word. We know that the decision will be decided later by the committee. From this now on we have tried our best.

Last 2nd of April, finally, I got a message from one of the business competition committee.

Dear Hensi,
How are you? First, thank you very much for your participance of the 
China UK Entrepreneurship Competition 2009, you have done very well 
and get into the first round. However, due to decision of the judging panel, 
you are not selected to get into the semi-final. Though it's already good 
enough for you to get into the top 20 of the competition of the over 100 
submissions. We would like to keep you in our talent database, if we have 
further activity information, we will let you know.
 
Best Regards
Sincerely
Secretary General of Organizing Committee
 
We are not lucky to get £2,000. Oh dear..
When I told my supervisor about the bad news, he just replied me.
“Well done..”

Business competition (part 1)

h3ncy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:01:10 +0000

Last month my fellow research (White Rose project) from The University of Sheffield, Amir bin Ahamat and I joined a business competition held by CIDAK (China Innovation and Development Association UK). The business competition is aimed to let young entrepreneurs use their creative skills and intelligence of designing businesses models, and to help develop business between China and the United Kingdom (UK).

This competition is open for any individual or teams of up to four members, who interested in China and the UK businesses. The winners, of course, will get prizes. The first prize is £2,000, the second prize is £1,000, the third prize is £500, and the fourth prize is £300. I said to my friend, “This is a good chance for us to get money. Haha..”. We imagine we will get the first prize and what we will use the money for.

There will be third rounds to go to be the winner in this competition. The first round was opened on last 2nd of February and closed on last 2oth of February. There were more than 100 participants, who joined this competition, in this first round. The participants are coming from all over the UK and we are one of them. On 7^th of March, I got an email from the committee:

Hello Hensi,
 This is to say congratulation that your business plan are selected by the reviewers to get into the next round of the competition, please refer to the attached criterias, and improve your plan accordingly, the revised full business plan in English should be submitted by 23rd of March. Then we will have 8 shortlist to join the face to face presentation discussing with the judging panel in Lancaster.
 If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me.
 Kind regards
 General Secretary of the 21st Century China UK Entrepreneurship Competition

Finally, we can go to second round and defeat other competitors in the competition. But, it must be more difficult since we need to follow some criterias and improve our plan better.

The ‘core’ a company should have

h3ncy — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:53:19 +0000

In dynamic competitive advantage in market, a company should have creative ideas to offer. So, what skills that a company must have in order to sustain in long-term market? The answer is they need to understand first about their core business. The core can be seen from the strength and weaknesses they have. Based on Barney (1991), a company should have some characteristics in order to be unique. They are rare, inimitable, non-substitutable in market.

Disruptive innovation

h3ncy — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:41:47 +0000

This term is very popular since Prof. Christensen from Harvard Business School launch the book titled ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma. Disruptive innovation is exactly a type of innovation. But, the way it offers to the market is very different. Sustaining innovation tends to improve the technology rather than offer a different thing that people who are not the customers or familiar with the product or services. A very simple example can be seen from the game industry. As we know, Japan is still the biggest game industry in the world, in which two popular brands, Sony and Nintendo, are winner in the market. At first, Nintendo launch Super Mario Bross to the market. Then the market was disrupted by Sony which was launching Play Station 1 (PS 1). Most of people, especially kids and youngsters play the game. Then Sony try to improve it again by launching PS 2 and PS 3. Then, Nintendo disrupted the market with the product called Nintendo Wi. The target is people who are not familiar with the game since it is very simple to play. Every people can easily play it without any difficulties of lack of skills in playing the game.

Be different in the market

h3ncy — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:12:00 +0000

Nowadays, a company is facing difficulties in growing the business since a lot of competitors play in the market and they compete each other to attract the customer’s heart. But the problem is how to attract them if they are not the loyal customers? What about if competitors offer the same products because imitation in market? No one can predict the market, even what customer needs and wants because sometimes they give respond differently although most of customers like products and services with cheap price and good quality. Listen to what customer’s needs and wants is not enough to do. So, the company should listen the different thought and ideas from their customers. This different things can lead the company to do some trial and error to the market by launching something new and different. If the company can disrupt the status-quo player in the market with their innovative ideas, they can get the sustainable advantage in the market.

Motivations to share knowledge

h3ncy — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:08:31 +0000

Actually, it is not easy for employees to share their knowledge. They need some motivation to do it. So, manager in the company has the rule to do it. There are some ways to motivate them to be willing to share their knowledge well.

First is by implementing human resource practices in the company. Some human resource practices can help them to share their knowledge, such as giving some incentives plan. If the employees are rewarding when they are sharing some ideas, it can make them to do it more and more in another occasion.

Second, manager should empower their employees, too, so that they will have more power and chances to express their ideas and tell their experiences to others.

Third, provide a good climate for employees. If the environment supports their working, they will feel ease to tell something to others.