Business 101

As the new business year starts I’m reminded of some basic principles that seem so often to be forgotten or applied topsy-turvy. You set a goal for yourself your team your unit or your business. You develop a plan of how this can be achieved (your strategy). You determine what this plan will cost to implement (your budget). You review your goal against your budget, and adjust for the possible (your forecast – revenue, margin, estimated GP). Seems a simple process, but often habit or circumstance or ignorance leaves you setting budgets before coming to grips with a goal or working through the mechanics of your strategy. Often this results in frequent reforecasts or adjustments, and when large enough can cause some serious explaining to your boss, your manager, your board, your shareholders or worse, your partner (my wife in my case…).

I really recommend a calm early approach to the new year, full of circumspection of the past year, honest reviews of achievable goals and detailed strategic sessions to determine just what it will take to reach your goal/s. Then build your budget with the single focus on enabling that strategy.

Linkedin’s latest record – 100 million members!

I joined as member 153242 after discovering a community of trusted business contacts at Linkedin.com. Now they grew to a business network of over 100 million members! That is just fantastic though I guess the employment agents would be more excited about that than most!

Congratulations LinkedIn!

Integrated transaction platforms

With online technology developing quite aggressively we have an ideal opportunity to design and commission all-inclusive solutions for enterprise clients. You can also define this as multi level x-commerce solutions, where the traditional x-store or x-mall or multi-store customer facing platform is completely integrated with the transaction processing platform.

Having one platform that integrates all the required components for environments with a high volume of transactions to operate with the minimum external assistance makes me quite heady.  For example imagine a system that starts out day one with an integrated eBay, PayPal and Skype module.  Having the time to work out each component’s role with the platform, clearly defining where data can be shared within a common database, and setting out combined parameters for a smooth UI, and so on, could start us off on a whole new path in regards to x-commerce.

There are so many advantages to such an initial integrated model not just from a technology point of view, but also in terms of operations.  One view of a customer, one process to resolve disputes, one fee recipe to determine all revenue contributors in a transaction from end to end, and so on and so on.  Are there examples of such combined and integrated solutions already?

Vaporware, the age old technology scam

I have a real pet peeve, and its solutions being offered to customers that simply do not yet exist or do only a part of what they should, vaporware in other words!  It’s been a bane for me for years, way back during the old Netscape vs Microsoft wars, then during my tenure at ICL, and since when consulting with clients and seeing just what their suppliers try to sell them. The issue with vaporware is that it starts with dishonesty, a sale to a customer based on fictitious features that then leads to shifting delivery dates and higher budget demands whilst the vendor tries to ‘finish’ the product at the customer’s expense.

I have no problem with the concept of selling components to customers that then needs customization once purchased.  In fact this modular approach we apply in the transaction management software we developed.  It makes sense to build components or modules into a platform that then needs customization for a customer, as opposed to writing a fresh solution from scratch every sale you get.  There is logic in approaching software development in such a way.

Time and again tenders or quotes are awarded on the back of dubious claims by solution providers, and it is the client who ends up with a raw deal.  The current economic climate does not help either as everyone seems even more desperate for business.  A bad situation is just made worse, and we should not stand for it.  As consultants though the task is ours to evaluate those solutions and manage the client and supplier’s expectations.  Tough when time lines and budgets tighten around you, but necessary if the client is to have a fair deal.

Developing a smart vendor evaluation process is a first step in the right direction, and it needs to be a process that keeps up with the fast changing world we live in.  We all know the basic questions to ask, but often we weigh them incorrectly leaving us with a short list of the usual candidates, to the exclusion of new dynamic solutions who may be looking for their first project, but have no references or solutions with a different approach because we were too vertical in the type we were looking for, and so on.  A flexible approach with a framework of core requirements and an openness to fresh ideas is not an easy balance to find I agree, but there seems to me to be no other option.  Technology changes so quickly these days that being too rigid in weighting your supplier evaluations or being to casual in your selections could cause your client financial pain and an incompatible outcome.

virtual payments nirvana

I often converse with companies and individuals seeking to ‘reach the un-banked’ through various technology solutions, either based on cards, ‘e-wallets’ or mobile phones, and am quite surprised when during the conversation the issue of where the cash for such solutions would be processed is met by some confusion or inaccurate responses by those very business people.  I specifically state it like I do, because ultimately no matter how ‘sexy’ or ‘sophisticated’ or ‘uncomplicated’ such a solution sounds, it always needs bank accounts behind it.  The unbanked will still need a place where cash is loaded and dispensed and those funds found within this solution will still be settled into and out of the solution owner’s own transactional (bank) accounts under customers instruction.  All solutions I have seen and or experienced work this way, though many may hide those bank accounts under several digital layers or they process those virtual account transactions through individual physical bank accounts or combined project bank accounts.  So to call these solutions anything other than banking solutions would be wrong in my opinion.  The line ‘how to reach the unbanked’ would make more sense if it reads ‘how to bank the unbanked’.  This may result in more regulatory appreciation by the ‘non-bank’ owned payment solution providers and their customers in the future, but is that such a bad thing?  It still stuns me that many people use PayPal for example without reading its own T&Cs that clearly define just how little regulation it is required to abide by…  The rush to new technology or the latest fad payment solution should become tempered when merchants and ‘account holders’ alike realize that there is no ‘virtual payments nirvana’, no silver bullet solution for the unbanked, and no ‘easy’ compliance process, though history shows otherwise.  If they are offered such, I would suggest they take a long hard look at the company’s terms & conditions, as well as the regulations they are subject to or not.  ‘Access to cash’ is what technology either makes easier, cheaper, more difficult or more expensive, and most if not all new ‘virtual payment’ services give you access to your own funds or enable you to access digital services using cash. What you as both a customer and a merchant need to figure out is if the choice you made makes your life easier and more risk free, and your banking and or payments less expensive, or not.  Your cash either sits in a bank account in your name or in someone’s else within such solutions, and they are either regulated or they are not.  For many customers, such clarity of the issues comes too late.

Internet strategies for SME’s

Very often, and especially on LinkedIn.com I read about people and companies wanting to start their own online business, and most often they ask for a recommended ‘shopping cart’ or ‘e-store’ software to build their venture on.  Most often too, when you respond to them and ask them for more information regarding what they wish to do, it becomes clear that they wanted to start the plan by securing a good platform, a e-commerce system on which to build their business.

That sounds perfectly logical and for many mom-and -pop type business ideas, the cookie-cutter approach works.  Much like SAP can sort out processes within a company that implements it because it enforces certain rules on them required for it to work correctly, these e-commerce systems will force people to think through what it is they need before being able to launch their business.  Without certain key features being addressed within such a system, the site won’t go into production or won’t work correctly when you try to take it into production.  So for the majority of small ideas for an e-store type business these products will work very well, and I often recommend my favorites to some of these questioning parties.

However, starting with selecting an e-commerce platform when you’ve got an Internet idea, is possibly the worst decision you can make.  We used to say that on the Internet everything and anything is possible, but we try and box them all in similar ‘open source’ or ‘commercial’ e-c0mmerce platforms these days.  Imagine if we accepted that art could only be done on a canvas – we would have some wonderful pieces of art to this day, but we would not have a ‘Sistine Chapel’ or Michelangelo’s ‘David’ or Villa of the Mysteries.

If as an SME you are planning to go on the Internet and launch your e-business there, try and think expansively and plan like the corporates and brands do.  Work out what it is you want to do, what you want to sell to your customers, and how you want them to experience this.  Put together a business plan and a strategy to achieve it online.  You cover the basics, for example, you would need to be ‘connected’ to the Internet to enable your business, you would need to have a payment system or bank connected to enable you to do paid for services or product sales, and you will need a fulfilment service and a customer service, and so on.  But the way you plan your online presence, its shape, its function, its look, and its exposure, all contribute to the customer experience of your idea, your plan, your business.

Once you have these all down on a document, no matter how rudementary, sit down with someone, friend or family or local consultant who are Internet savvy, to work through it with you to grow your idea into a mature model  before looking for an e-commerce system to enable your business.  Only after such an exercise would recommendations for e-commerce systems make any sense to you or have any value for your business.  Planning your e-commerce venture this way enables you to better choose an open source e-commerce platform, a commercial e-commerce platform or a design agency to provide the vehicle on which to launch it.  At the same time you are better equipped to answer the questions the bank or payment processor will ask of you before awarding you an account against which to accept card, e-wallet, and/or ACH payments.

There are more details to the above, but this post is about getting people to sit down and plan their idea out before jumping on the most popular e-commerce platform and trying to force your idea to work through it.

Internet and email fraud

Having had enough of people forwarding me yet another email promising free iPhones, iPads, Microsoft cash, Google cash, and whatever, I am writing this post where I hope to summarize enough information and resources for people to inform themselves of what is fraudulent on the Internet and their inbox, and to hopefully wise-up and stop themselves and others from being duped, robbed and impersonated ever again!

Good prevention practices:

1. When you receive an email from any person or place or an email address that you have NEVER seen before, don’t open it even if the email subject line mentions a single word or phrase (usually amongst many) that sounds vaguely familiar. The chances of this email being spam is about 99.99%! Delete it!

2. When you receive an email, often forwarded by someone you know, promising free products or even cash if you would forward it to everyone in your email list as well as to usually a specific person’s address in the corporate or company that is sponsoring the gift, Microsoft, Google, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and so on, please don’t forward it – remember if it sounds to good to be true it is too good to be true!. Delete it!

3. When you do receive an email as mentioned in point 2, and you feel it really is just too good to be deleted, please please please do not email everyone in your address book by including their email addresses in the email TO: field or in the email CC: field. If you must send on this little treasure do so by blind copying everyone you want to email, in other words make sure their email address are only in your email BCC: field, and nowhere else. That way I can delete your email when it comes to me and not be concerned you just gave me up to every spam engine hunting out there!

4. If you do open a marketing email that you realize you never signed up for, mark it on your system as SPAM, and if you use an online or web mail system, marking the email as SPAM will protect many others to whom that email may be forwarded in the future.

5. When opening an email that has an attachment be very very cautious!  Attachments can contain very malicious code that can infect your computer in many different ways and can copy itself through emails to all those friends of yours in your address book within seconds. Ensure your own safety and those of people in your address book by having an active security software tool running on your PC that is up to date as well.  They normally have an email scanning tool that will warn you of any uncertainty as to its source or as to the possibility of it being malicious.

6. Dont trust unsolicited emails from well-known companies or brands!  Even the FBI is currently being impersonated, so be safe by being suspicious of any unsolicited email.

7. Your bank, building society, financial planner, financial advisor, 3rd party payment service, municipality and so on and so on, should NEVER have to reach you via email to ask anything of you!  Emails from any such an establishment should only ever inform you of new products or services, highlight possible downtimes, and so on.  No unsolicited email from these companies or services should contain links that you must click on to update your personal data or ask you to include personal data in your reply to them.  This is a RED FLAG if you do receive such an email that it almost certainly is a fraudster phishing for personal information.

Resources:
1. Bobbear – Closed at the end of April 2010, a sad day for the fight against Internet criminals.
2. http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/escams.htm – read this list through very carefully before responding to that one email ‘promise’ that you feel is just to good to turn down!
3. eBook Scams – fantastic and extensive article about the ebook scams doing the rounds since late last year. Relates to any e-shop purchase you wish to make.
4. Top 10 Scams – The Times posted this wonderful ‘TOP 10′ list of scams – sadly I know people who fell for a few of these…
5. Internet Scams – Erick Chang posted this list on his blog – the Nigerian Fraud he is referring to in the first section should read ’419′, but the list makes for easy and quick reading, hence my including it here.

WARNING – You get to work this morning and there in your inbox is an email from a friend currently travelling, who says to you that he or she has been stranded in London / NYC / Singapore or where ever, without funds after having their wallet and personal belongings stolen whilst traveling.  They inform you either in the original email or subsequent to your response that they can use a ‘loan’ from you, and that you should send them a Moneygram or Western Union wire asap as this is the only way that they can receive funds at the moment.  Quite often they leave a ‘hotel reception’ telephone number for you to call as well, just to help you better understand their predicament.

WHATEVER YOU DO, BE SUSPICIOUS.  IF YOU ARE UNSURE ABOUT IT CONTACT THE CONSULATE IN THE CITY WHERE YOUR FRIEND APPARENTLY IS AND ARRANGE FOR YOUR FRIEND TO MEET A COUNTRY REPRESENTATIVE WHO CAN HELP THEM FIND A RESOLUTION TO THEIR PROBLEM SHOULD THEY TRULY BE IN TROUBLE.  ALSO CHANCES ARE THAT YOUR FRIEND MAY BE BLISSFULLY UNAWARE OF THE EMAIL TO HIS OR HER FRIENDS, SO IF YOU HAVE THEIR MOBILE NUMBER FROM BEFORE, PHONE THEM OR SMS THEM TO CHECK.  HOWEVER DO NOT SEND CASH AS YOU CAN BE ABOUT 100% SURE YOU ARE BEING SCAMMED…

This list is not extensive, and has been written more out of frustration than actual concern, as I am still astounded how many of us fall for blatant scams like these every day.  Simply put – if it’s too good to be true it probably isn’t.

Virtualization

One of the more exciting experiences I have had the past few years has been the discovery and analysis of virtualization tools, initially through virtualbox on Ubuntu and there after server technologies, with a quick foray in the soon to explode desktop market and the discovery of ‘…the hypervisor…’ (only we geeks could have thought up that term, right…)!

The past few months, whilst finding my technology roots again by dabbling with wireless solutions, I was introduced to proxmox, and boy, did I get excited! The ease of installing appliances with such ease and getting those slices working at an optimum rate, as well as experiencing how fast one can back up and restore servers, gave me such an adrenaline kick I’m still messing with VM’s and VA’s some 2 months on.  With my attention span that’s a miracle…

The heavy weights in the virtualization world may scoff at proxmox when comparing it to their own preferred platform, but for me the opportunities that proxmox offer to those of us who are server virtualization virgins just cannot be ignored. It is a great piece of software and running on Debian it has performed very well for the applications I needed running as VA’s.

Find more about proxmox here.

Debit card terminology

There are many misleading terms that have been bandied around in the payment card industry that confuses customer and service provider alike, especially these days with so many ‘white label’ resellers marketing their debit cards as ‘credit cards’ and what not!  For example the word ‘prepaid’ does not mean the same to me as ‘pre-funded’ for example, though many card product marketing documents use them interchangeably.  Fixed value versus reloadable makes the ‘prepaid’ card even more confusing for some.  I’m not an expert on such terms, but having things cleared up a bit would make me a much happier consultant.  So if you deem yourself to be an expert on these matters, please feel welcome to comment as much as you like.  I’ll make up a little cards industry thesaurus as it were from all contributions

One business strategy, not two

Over the years I have heard many companies speak of their e-commerce or ‘internet’ strategy as if it is some secret or hidden agenda that has covert operators hacking around in the dark trying to ‘hit’ on the magic SEO numbers that will realize the company huge numbers of online visitors with the accompanying bonus for the coverts of course. I am 100% behind a planned attack when approaching e-commerce or when considering launching an Internet presence as a business, don’t get me wrong.
What bothers me is that the starting point is often so wrong, with the board or management within a company spending their time considering ‘real world’ issues whilst the ‘other’ team focuses on developing some sort of e-commerce strategy often even as a secondary department or company to the main. It bothers me because so many companies in fact should start with one strategy for the whole, one plan to reach their market, grow it and retain its loyalty. We should be encouraging business to talk about their business strategy first and foremost (see my post for SME’s here on a similar topic).
My mantra since Netscape days has been to make company execs understand that there is only room in their budget and planning for one strategy, the core one, the reason why they do business, the core value their customers love, and so on and so on. One strategy as your starting point means everyone, from the tech savviest to the semi retired within such a company, will know exactly what needs to be achieved in terms of their business. One strategy determines how the Internet and mobile channels will be tackled, and what those two channels will be required to deliver to enhance the company’s bottom line and justify their existence.
Too often we react, doing what we think or know our competitors may be doing, and in so doing we dilute our value proposition to the customers and to our shareholders. We invest in serious technology because we are told to or because our IT team has recommended it, regardless the value to our core strategy as a business. As a consultant I try to help and inform my clients for example to consider the line ‘technology should be an enabler to THE goal’ when too often it becomes the goal. An exercise to me that seems to always work is for a management team to re-evaluate their strategies and decisions against the original core strategy that brought their company to where it is. Like Nokia and Berkshire Hathaway have proven, change is good too, if it is a total change.

However this post is not about core strategy re-evaluation, but rather about aligning our e-commerce or internet or mobile strategy to our core plan and to keep reminding ourselves to check how far they have drifted from the middle. Of course right there we have some excellent pointers to discuss in another post – the reasons for such a drift may not always be negative. However, most companies, I generalize here as it is the vast majority in my view that should consider this, should have a single strategy for their business, and they need to study carefully the benefits of implementing any x-commerce project against that strategy before making the call.

One strategy takes everyone within the company along for the x-commerce ride, if it fits, and one strategy creates a framework of achievements such an implementation must reach for to be deemed successful. One strategy also very quickly shows when any x-commerce implementation would not fit, and in doing so a decision can be made quicker and often at a much lesser opportunity cost than usual, as to whether such a venture should be created as a separate department or company apart from the main. When that is done, the creation of a new x-commerce unit will be based on solid business principles that can contribute worth to its parent instead of bleeding out the budget each year.