As a strategic consultant for Businesses, mostly for start up ventures, I would attend to around 50 enquiries a month. My experience with several such business enquiries since the last few years has been quite surprising and disappointing too. It is disappointing because most of the callers turn out to be specific to embark on to a business of their choice. The fundamentals of business set up like market evaluation, idea research, and the need for process documentation have never been felt to be important in their business pursuit.

As a matter of best practice, marketing capability should come as the first metric in analyzing the Business investment. The market capability means the readiness of the market to accept the product and the willingness on the part of the investor to wait for the results while continuing with the brand positioning efforts. This aspect is again the most ignored one.

Many of the callers query for a unique Business that is not present elsewhere. The pointer here is that it is very risky to start any such Business unless it pivots on the most unique, innovative and huge customer focused requirement. The other type of callers have been impulsive entrepreneurs who owing to situations like forced unemployment or recession led unemployment or with competitive spirit to prove oneself get on to business thought. Such an impulsive investment would only make them restless for return on investment besides placing them in piquant management situations leading to operational dysfunction and business loss at the end.  They don’t like to care for such possibility in the spur of the business thought.

Here again are other classes of callers who want to get into Business without moving from their home. Mostly they are housewives who want to utilize their leisure time to earn some business income. Such a possibility is remote unless the person becomes part of an ancillary network for a large marketing company or possesses unique skill set like arts, crafts, tutoring or culinary skills to earn home based income. However the thought of this category of callers is very genuine, but the mindset that they do not want to step out for neighborhood marketing or research or community service like activities – which truly will engage them in a productive activity – doesn’t realize their dream to become entrepreneurs.

This is a disappointing category of callers who have already invested huge sums on a given business idea and are on the edge of collapse. Like an emergency patient who should undergo an operation but doesn’t have money, these entrepreneurs ultimately would not be able to continue their venture for financial constraints [even with a small working capital to put their operations in course]. Neither would they have reached to a finished product level to raise project finance for marketing.

At the end I would find some 10% of the callers relevant for entrepreneurship. The above situations are the result of lack of entrepreneurship education or mentoring for aspirant ventures. Again this clearly shows the spirit of entrepreneurship among many people around us irrespective of the size of the business they would like to start off.

May be it is time to take up entrepreneurship education to community level through periodic workshops and micro loan melas and social enterprise support.

The knowledge dissemination in this context can happen through various Business Schools making their faculty and students as the supporting mentors. Entrepreneurship is the tool for employment generation. Thus it is essential to spread the awareness to increase the quality rate among the callers as above.

We are in 2012 now.  The new year this time has brought several exciting business opportunities at almost nil investment to any investment size.  These opportunities are going to rule the market at least for a decade from now.  I would like to talk here about my choice of top 5 businesses for 2012.  Let us look at them:

1.0 Web 2.0 Technologies

This is one of my favorite areas of business investment.  We can explore business opportunities like (a) Online marketing (b) Social Media Consulting (c) Content development for web and digital documents (d) Enterprise Analytics (e) Services to develop personal branding.

One can start a business in this line with a minimum investment of 1 PC from home.  The one other important requirement would be he / she should be English literate with definite knowledge in written English.  This is most ideal for freshers who are passionate to work on their own full time or part-time.  Considering the rapid growth of Internet users, online media has emerged as one of the foremost options for business promotion by small and big companies.  The business opportunities indicated from (a) to (e) above surround Internet and Internet technologies.

Though this is part of Information Technology, I consider this as a marketing and branding opportunity where one doesn’t need to possess any programming or technical skills except using social media platform.

2.0 Food Processing:

Every business activity related to manufacturing, processing or trading of food items falls under this category.  It could be milk dairy, ready to eat food items, juices, edible oil, or energy food.  There are hundreds of such opportunities around us.  We can in fact aim at organic version of these products.  Government of India is consciously promoting food processing sector with loans, subsidies, technology know-how and many props.  Changing food habits, growing tastes for global food culture, and increasing purchasing power have contributed to the demand of varied food requirements besides the natural increase in the population.  Thus, food sector has become most vital investment opportunity.  The increasing presence of Indian and Global retail chains have brought the need to bring forth food variety.  Besides, it is possible to start a business in this line with low investment like INR 2 lakhs onwards.  A right business for every one including a housewife.

3.0 Retailing

This is another excellent opportunity though demands sizable investment.  What could constitute a business opportunity in this line?

Branding of any consumer product especially a private label product whether it be a food item, textile product, health care item or any other proprietary or sourced product retailing.  For example, one can source a couple of products from local manufacturers like Self Help Groups or other MSME segments and brand it in their own name.  We can see a brand name to every other item today whether it is Wheat flour, masala powder, rice or so.  It only denotes the potential to market a particular item with guaranteed quality.  The one requirement to take up this kind of business opportunity would be right sourcing of the chosen product w.r.t. price, quantity, quality and period of agreement.

Besides the market for luxury product retailing is very profitable and growing.  It can be any thing like an imported exotic food consumables, non-jewellery articles made by silver or gold, furniture, imported building material and more.

4.0 Information Technology

This is one of my favorite business opportunities.  Indian market needs considerable technology implementation in business applications.  It can be customized solutions for a particular segment, web applications, portals, or ERP applications.  I foresee a great demand for mini or micro ERP provided it comes with competitive price and cost effective support and operable from PC to mobile.

Other potential opportunity is mobile or handheld based business management for business persons to end user.  Sales force management applications ported to telecom mobiles with PC like connectivity to cloud applications will be a great choice.  A sales person in the field should be able to effectively perform his field sales, update data in real time to the server, access other business data on cloud, or switch to his personal applications from the same mobile instrument.  Every other task we perform on PC could be ported to a mobile though with limited functionality.  Even that limited functionality is acceptable to users provided it comes with ease and performance.  A provider in this line should extend total solutions consisting hardware, software, deployment and maintenance to capture real market.

Internet portals are another great business opportunity in the present times.  We can convert every offline business to online business model at a very reasonable investment.  We are all used to online transactions whether it is ticketing, product review, product purchase, online education and many more.  We are in a true e-commerce era.  A right time for people to make online a money making platform.

5.0 Solar Energy

Energy sector in India is undergoing a great movement of tense and uncertainty.  India has pitched a great hope on thermal power projects.  However, infrastructure problems like land acquisition, coal supply, institutional finance have derailed the hope.  Today, we have several pending thermal power projects which are suffering for these reasons.

Wind energy, hydel power or bio mass power are not as viable or feasible to be operated any where.

The one great choice we have is Solar Power solutions.  A right investment opportunity as a few MW plant to 1 KW roof top solar unit.  The prices of solar PV modules are very attractive.  The investment per MW plant has come down from INR 20.00 crore to almost INR 9.00 crore.  The prices are further falling internationally.  It is time for some one to invest on this as a long term business opportunity.  This is right time to build expertise and setup a business.  It can be grid connected solar plant or tailor made solution for an apartment, office building, village or industry.

There definitely many more business opportunities.  But these are my choice.  Hope you would take-up a profitable venture.

Wishing you all a Prosperous, Delightful and Peaceful New Year 2012.

Reliance and Tatas among 150 others in race for Solar Projects

Over 150 companies have evinced interest in developing large solar photovoltaic projects of up to 20 MW. These include Reliance (Anil Ambani Group), Lanco, Mose Baer and  the Tatas. Also in the race are public sector companies GAIL (India) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. According to official sources, the requests for selection (RFS) were received for 218 solar PV projects amounting to a capacity of over 2500 MW, which was much higher than the capacity offered, that is, 350 MW. The RFS were invited by the government as part of the batch of Phase-1 of the National Solar Mission.

India’s Solar Power costs may fall by 2015

India’s solar power costs could fall by more than 40 percent by 2015, allowing the industry to compete against domestic oil and gas firms without the help of state subsidies, according to the head of Lanco Solar.

Solar technology could provide a kilowatt hour of power at about Rs 7 to 8 a unit in the next few years, down from the current Rs. 11 to 12, due to surging global capacity, said Lanco Solar CEO V Saibaba. That would enable solar power to become a more viable option to coal, which costs around Rs 2 a unit, in fueling Asia’s third largest economy and the world’s third-worst carbon polluter.

“The most important thing is the economics of scale are coming,” Saibaba said “In the next three to four years, I see the solar power costs coming down to Rs 7 to 8 a unit.”

Large thin film PV system installed in India

While most of India’s solar energy development has been dominated by off-grid systems and crystalline silicon technology, Belectric Photovoltaic India, a subsidiary of California based Belectric, has announced that it has commissioned the first utility scale solar power plant in India to use First Solar thin film modules, at Sri City, Andhra Pradesh. The project features 14,000 First Solar thin film modules installed over about 5.3 acres. After a four month long construction period, the project has begun generating an annual total of about 1,666,000 kWh of electricity enough to power about 7000 Indian households, and save approximately 110 tonnes of CO2 every year.

Tata BP Solar commissions another plant in Orissa

Tata BP Solar Ltd, a joint venture of Tata Power and BP Solar, added yet another megawatt scale scale solar power plant to the list of those installed and commissioned under the Rooftop and Other Small Solar Power Generation Plants scheme in Orissa. The 1 megawatt plant was synchronized to the grid recently. This project uses 4400 crystalline silicon modules of 230 watts each, spread out over an area of 5 acres. The solar power plant will generate 1.42 million units of electricity in the first year.

US bank to fund Indian solar projects

 Two Indian solar projects are receiving a total of US $103.2 million in financing from the Export-Import Bank of the US.

A statement released by the bank stated that these two approvals in the final months of fiscal year 2011 bring the bank’s total financing for Indian solar projects in FY2011 to US$ 176.4 million.

The projects called Dahanu Solar Project in Jaisalmer district and Tatith Project in Gujarat are thin film solar power plant and photovoltaic crystalline power projects respectively.

“India is making a big push for renewable energy,” Fred P. Hochberg, chairman, Ex-ImBank said. “Solar companies in the US know that if they can get into this growing market, they have a bright future ahead of them. Ex-Im Bank stands ready to help our exporters win that future.”

The last two loans approved by the Bank are for a 40 MW and 5 MW project in Rajasthan and Gujarat, respectively.

Solaria introduces high performance solar module

Solaria Corporation, a global manufacturer of solar photovoltaic modules, recently announced a new 270 watt solar module designed and optimized for industrial and utility-scale tracking applications. The 1 x 1.9 m frameless module features Solaria’s proven technology that optimizes the use of standard crystalline PV.

Solaria modules are the first PV modules with the form factor, mounting system, and installation processes optimized for tracking systems. The modules can be installed on single axis horizontal, dual axis and azimuth solar trackers using conventional installation methods.

These high-efficiency modules are also available in a complete, integrated tracker package. The Solaria STS-1 solar tracking system combines modules, trackers, and expert design services to optimize systems performance and deliver high energy yields.

Content source: Electronics Bazaar

Image source: Google Images