Ricky’s Online Business Blog

Recently my team made a presentation on SWOT matrix, an analytical tool to generate strategies for a company by matching among its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

To make it more interesting and applicable, we related the presentation to The Art of War (孫子兵法) authored by ancient strategist in China called Sun Tzu (孫子).  Here are a few quotes taken from the book of wisdom in warfare to apply to the business world.

未戰而廟算勝者，得算多也

Translation – The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought.

Explanation – Those companies and individuals who win in the business world make much calculation, planning and deliberations on their strategy and plans.  Those who plan less have lower chance of success, much less those who don’t plan anything at all!

知彼知己，勝乃不殆

Translation – If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt.

Explanation – Success comes first from knowing our own business well, including its strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of the competitors.  Understanding this does not guarantee success, but it gives us foreknowledge into our chance of success.

知天知地，勝乃可全

Translation – If you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete.

Explanation – Knowing our self and the competitors is not enough.  The environments in terms of opportunities and threats need to be understood too.  We can be good, but if the timing is not right, our effort will be in vain.

戰勢不過奇正，奇正之變，不可勝窮也

Translation – In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack – the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers.

Explanation – There are only two kinds of attack, namely normal and ordinary one (direct) and the unusual and extraordinary one (indirect).  But the combination of both opens door to endless permutations of strategies we can take.

兵貴勝，不貴久

Translation – In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.

Explanation – There is no use to analyze and over-analyze the situation until we get into analysis paralysis.  We must act with our gut and intuition, despite incomplete information, after reasonable amount of analysis has be done.  The objective of a business war is in the victory, not prolonging the process.

Do you see how The Art of War may apply to your business or life situation too?

Two weeks ago I conducted a knowledge sharing session to a group of businessmen. It was about creating and running effective business model on Internet. I’m not an Internet marketing guru. It was just a personal knowledge sharing of what I have learned to a private group.

I always plan and assess an Internet business on three levels, that is, business, marketing and technical.  Internet business is much more than just technicalities such as web design and Flash. It is also more than mere selling and marketing.

Instead, we need to think and rethink the way to attract visitors, leads, enquiries, and then convert them into customers. It is the business model that is most important.

In the session, I shared 7 general steps in details to set up an Internet business:

1. Plan your Internet business
2. Register your domain name
3. Get server hosting service
4. Develop your web site
5. Set up online payment and e-commerce facilities
6. Market your Internet business
7. Maintain and evaluate your business online

I also shared 7 ways, among others, to market a business web site online:

1. Search engine marketing
2. Trade and business directories
3. Email marketing
4. Advertisements (including banners and pay-per-click ads)
5. Blogging
6. Social media
7. Mobile marketing

It had been a fruitful non-technical introduction for business people to know how to go about starting and doing Internet business online. The feedback from attendees was quite good. I love learning, and I love sharing

This is a sequel to one previous post on my study in MBA course. I had promised before to put down my experience being back to school for each semester.

I completed the second semester from November 2009 to February 2010. Like the first semester before, I took only 2 subjects, that is, Financial Management and Human Resource Management.

But this semester #2 was most remembered for some personal problems and two memorable presentations. The first problem was a personal one which I can’t share online.

The second problem was lack of time due to a web development project. I was not in web design business, but I undertook that project to develop a web site for an event due to personal reason.

However, it affected my timetable so much that I lacked time to study and complete the project itself. End result – I didn’t get very good results this time, and I also delivered the web site late. Lesson learned – Don’t get involved in too many commitments. Being busy does not mean being competent.

Anyway, I did enjoy the second semester because two of my best and most memorable presentations were made in this semester, or more specifically, in HRM class under Dato’ Dr. Zulkifli Idris.

Dato’ Zul was one most inspiring and respectable lecturer. Instead of spoonfeeding us with information, he let students take over the class and present from the textbook to cover the whole course. Then he would chip in from time to time to elaborate on important points. Not everyone may be used to this student-led teaching style. But I liked it, and I believe all of us in class too!

Then came my turn to “teach”, I chose a topic not directly from the textbook but related to selection of employees. The presentation “Background Check Using Social Media” was on the issue of employers using social media like Facebook and LinkedIn to check job applicants.

It was one most satisfying experience delivering this presentation, partly because the topic was very much related to all students in the class, who used social media like Facebook (including the lecturer!). I believe the audience of a presentation will get interested and engaged if the topic presented becomes their topic.

The second memorable presentation was a group presentation. We interviewed my customer, an expatriate from UK and founder of one MSC-status software house, on international human resource management. We presented the findings after the interview.

Our presentation was the very last of five groups presenting on that day. We needed to keep the audience awake and engage them in two-way communication. Some people even expected and challenged us to do well, especially after Kak Liza’s group (Transformers) had set a very high benchmark in their good presentation one week before.

Group Presentation in HRM Class

To cut short a long story, we did manage to keep people awake and arouse interest in the topic. Among the tricks used included branding ourselves as Decepticons, interesting content, quiz time with prizes, giving out mandarin oranges (it was just before Chinese New Year), making fun of certain people, keeping people in suspense, and even generating curiosity on Facebook for a few days before the presentation.

Classmates Enjoying Mandarin Oranges

I also enjoyed the Financial Management class. The topic was foreign and tough to me as I was not well versed in this area. But the very experienced lecturer Dr Shamsher had developed my interest in finance. I got more interested especially after my group researched on one PN17 company and came out with a term paper on the company. I even considered taking a major in finance.

Moreover, I came to recognize the leading role of finance in a business. All the while, I had been thinking that marketing always plays the leading function. Not entirely wrong, but I found ultimately a business is evaluated on its finance, not marketing.

So, what drives a business? Marketing or finance? Finance sets the goals and drives a business. Once the goal is set, it’s marketing’s job to deliver the results. Agreeable?