Growth - Key Motivation of A Going Concerns

Growth as a Business Target

As a business owner, it is only natural that growing the business is the key motivation. Business can grow in terms of number of sales, the amount of revenue, the size of market footprint or even the number of customer base you have. Some would say when their business is making more profit this year, and then they would claim their business is growing. This delusion is not just a misleading statement but also a useful tool used to cover up the plummeting sales.

Depending on which sector you are in, the growth rate would be different. Growth rate also depends on the lifetime of your business. A new start up will easily garner 10% -15% growth rate compared to businesses that are already 4-8 years in business. An online start up can easily grow by 300% if you consider the amount of traffic going to the website.

I just plucked the numbers out of my head. I don't have any reference for that ;-)

Why grow my business?

     ....Why not?

Some small enterprise owners choose to just settle to whatever they have right now. This is normally the case in the area where there are not much economic vibrancy e.g. traditional residential area like kampungs.

While this is not always the case in bigger cities, some enterprise owners just cannot articulate the need to grow their business. 

The actual fact is, small and medium enterprises make up the whole bulk of country's economy. The growth of SMEs will then be cascaded into country's economic growth which then give a huge impact in overall well being of the society.

Besides that, by growing your business (depends on how you want to grow it) you can tap into more resources and expertise plus unlocking the value of your business.

Now do you feel like wanting to grow? 

How to grow my business?

1) Through merger

Merging two or more enterprises into one single entity is not an easy feat as it sounds. Merging businesses needs a lot of efforts and wills from all affected parties. All the roles and responsibilities have to be clear and well defined, because at the end of the day you don't want to see one or the other get a free ride.

2) Acquiring another business

Identify another business that has the synergy with your business. For example, if your a pizza company, you might want to consider acquiring flour manufacturing company instead of acquiring a company that makes the pizza box.

Or, acquiring another pizza company would be easier.

3) Organic growth

This is the slowest path of them all. Growing organically means putting all your sweats and tears plus all your monies to grow your business through means of opening new branch, revving up marketing force, capturing bigger market, launching new products and up selling services and products to current customers. This path although the slowest, it would bring the best out of the organisation should the growth target is achieved.

End of year

2014 is ending and businesses are already charting courses to brace through another challenging year. The organisation I am working with has the following target to achieve by 2020:

1. Grow core business by 10%
2. New product to churn 20% of total revenue
3. Integrated services to provide 30% of total revenue

Some analysis:

By growing at such rate in five years time the business will be 60% bigger than it is today so that makes 160% of current size, and adding in no. 2 and no. 3 target which are pratically the same size as the core business...

revenue from core business + 20% + 30% = total revenue

160% + 50% of x = x

x = total revenue = 2 x 160% = 320%

...there you go, we are actually talking about growing the business to 320% of its current size in five years time.

=)

So, what growth target do you have now?

How to get your first car for free

Hello folks!

It has been a while since my last entry and tell you what, writing is so not my cup of tea especially when writing in a language that I only use 30% of the time. So, bear with me and read this entry till the last line before you switch to the other tab on your Firefox browser or may be your Safari or anything other than IE.

I came across this book by a guy who claimed he has a method on getting a car for free. Well, the one thing that will surely comes to your sane mind is that nothing in this world is actually free. You will have to bear the cost for everything you want to have - includes your time, energy and some money - in the end how much yield you get is the question.

Here is the step:

1. Get a cheap and cheerful car for less than RM5000 in cash.

Yes surely you can, but I don't know what kind of car. Imagine we are all living in the realm of the author who proposed this idea where there is such a used car.

2. Get yourself insured and make sure you gain your No Claim Discounts (NCD) year to year.

The tip is, don't involve in any accident. If you do, don't claim from your insurer but claim from your spouse.

3. After five years, get yourself a new car with annual insurance premium of RM3000

Remember, there is such car. Get yourself a Honda Accord for example(cheapest premium is RM3849). At this point, you are not actually paying full amount for the insurance premium because you have gained your NCD. After five years, your NCD is already reaching 50%. So, you are only paying RM1500 for your insurance.

4. After another five years, then only you get your first car for free.

Applying the 50% discount to your new car's premium, you will save RM1500 x 5 = RM7500! The cost of your first car is RM5000, plus minus all the costs which would incur to you, surely the total cost is almost 7 - 8 thousand.


I've warned you, yes if seems free, but it takes you ten years and a bit of your savings initially. If you feels like all the figures are not making any sense, just ignore it. My purpose is to make a point on how is it possible. I believe the original author does so.

Good value for money - Coffee Bun

Coffee bun or sometimes called as Mexican bun is a bun with butter filling and topped with crispy brownish coffee flavored topping. I never heard of it before as I was just returned to Malaysia four months ago until the night me and my family had dinner together in one of the restaurants in Summit USJ. My wife bought three pieces of coffee bun from Pappa Roti outlet in front of the restaurant at RM2 per bun.

At that point, I felt like the bun was very worth it as it opens up my appetite and I had a good feeling about it. Several weeks later, I came across with the same bun in Tesco Ampang but priced with RM1. I thought coffee bun is a signature bakery product of Pappa Roti but clearly I was wrong. I bought three of them - the bun did not taste as coffee-ish as Pappa Roti.

Then began the journey to search for another competitively priced bun.

I have a colleague who works in the same building but different office, who always car pool with me. One day, he offered me one of the bread he bought from Rotiboy. Thumbs up as the bun tasted very good (same taste same price as Pappa Roti).

One night, when we were out shopping for grocery at Mydin USJ, I asked my wife, "Is there any Pappa Roti here?". She didn't know so I went searching for it, and guess what, there is one! But it is called Roti Papa. I asked the lady "Akak, ada roti kopi tak?" ("Excuse me, do you have coffee bun?"). She opened the oven situated just behind her in the small kiosk and gave me two pieces. It is RM2 each and they call it cappuccino bun. It tastes fair but we were not happy with the price.

The journey doesn't ends there.

I decided to search for the bun in La Boheme. The sells coffee lady at RM1.50 and I was very happy for it. Poor thing, the price says it all. The bun was too light like it did not have any fillings, and weak coffee taste. So, red tape for coffee lady.

Heard of Federal Bakery? They said they are established like since 70 years ago. OK, forget about history. So, I tried one and A++ for it. Good taste, crispy outside, great butter fillings inside and it is RM1.50 =) i smiled all the way. Finally I found one good value for money coffee bun.

If you feels like getting more value for your money, why not try bake them? Get the recipe here: http://www.myresipi.com/top/detail/830

December is coming

Greetings Earthlings!

Wednesday this week will be the first day of December 2010 and new year is approaching fast. One of the good things about approaching new year is, Year End Sale is coming! (well it has already began days ago)

visit http://www.tourismmalaysia.gov.my/ for more info

If you do not know where and how to start, try Offerstation.com to look for shopping information in Malaysia and you can even look for warehouse sales!

visit http://www.offerstation.com/index.htm to start shopping

ProfitMalaysia Trivia:

1. Malaysia is known for its three times a year Mega Sale which is a nationwide event. Some stores offer discount up to 70%.

2. In the UK, Boxing Day is the day of shopping madness. Everything's on sale at rock bottom prices. Boxing Day usually falls on 26th Dec every year. The best place to shop is Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth and Bicester Village in Oxford.

3. Black Friday is famous in the US, begins a day after Thanksgiving Day, which marks the starts of Christmas Sale.

Learn from the star

Hello again!



Do you know Afzal Abdul Rahim?

He is the CEO of Time dot Com, also owns several other corporations.



Do you know Kevin Zahri?

He is a fitness celebrity cum entrepreneur and wrote many fitness and health articles.



What about Juaini Johan? Heard of The Sale ?

Of course some of you might not have heard of this name. She is currently running her own business.


OK. Now you know who they are and their professions. Do you know what they have in common?

Yes, they business minded person, running they own business bla bla bla etc.

But, what else?

Three of them are Mechanical Engineering Degree Holder ;-)

So all of you out there, if you are bored waiting for your paycheck every 26th of the month, look for a way to be financially independent. Remember this: not all business degree holders are good businessmen. Be creative and be different. Look around you and you will notice there are potentials in everything. Now, let's make some profit!

Save and Easy | Jimat dan Senang

Hello folks!

Beginning of April 2008 the Government introduce the concept of Save and Easy where prices are rounded up to the nearest five cents.

Save - means you save some money (one or two cents)
Easy - don't have to carry one cent coins

(sorry it's in Bahasa Malaysia, but I am sure you can interpret the figures)


Well, it's clear that, not in all occasions you will save one or two cents because there are times when you will have to 'donate' to the shop. I am not sure whether this would apply to online shopping as well.

This system has resulted in mixed reactions but most of us are surely do not feel good about giving the money that we shouldn't be paying in the first place. Meanwhile, somebody proposed something different. The Sabasun are very kind as they will decrease the price to the nearest five cents. In all, we'll be saving at maximum four cents for every receipt.



While you cannot always find a generous store, there is always a way to get around this. It involves some strategy and only (easily) applicable to single kind of item in one purchase. Consider this:

Jusco is now having an offer for their drinking water. The cheapest 1.5 liter bottled drinking water is priced at RM0.69 (filtration water) and RM0.89 (distilled water).
If you buy:-

one : pay extra 1 cent
two : pay extra 2 cents
three: save 2 cents
four : save 1 cent
five : nothing to lose, nothing to gain
six : pay extra 1 cent

Buying three bottles at a time will give you the maximum savings. If you are planning to buy 12 bottles (equivalent to 1 carton) which will costs you RM10.70 at a time, why not buy three bottles at a time? This will saves you 8 cents =)



p/s I bet no one is bothered enough to do that just to save 8 cents.

Saving lifes

Hello and greetings!

On this very faithful Monday, my team should have been given a new task from our supervisor. But the thing is, our supervisor was not around so our Monday was ruined and no one can save it. Why? When you were anticipating something to come in your way but it turned our to be something else, it is going to be very frustrating, isn't it?

Talking about saving somebody's day etc. it is often related to bailing out in business terms. The word 'bail-out' is also used in judiciary system when you want to take someone out of police custody.

note: I am not a qualified economist to talk about this. My intention here is just to share everything that's happening here and outside Malaysia.

Bail-out measure is doubted as unpopular steps in economic terms as you are helping a helpless entity for it to stay alive if not profitable. In May this year, several EU countries and IMF approved a rescue package to help Greece's ailing economics. Greece is suffering from 300bn euro debt, equivalent to 115% of its GDP.

In return for the rescue package, the Greek government agreed to cut salary increase and bonus payment for public workers, increase VAT (or GST in Malaysian terms) from 21% to 23% and more taxes here and there bla bla bla (stuffs for normal citizen like us would hate).

Today, another country made to the headline on BBC news. Irish Prime Minister was quoted as saying "We are now in a position to apply for assistance" and EU-IMF pact will negotiate with Irish government on the rescue amount while the Irish Finance Minister believes it will be less than 100bn euro.

Let's consider our situation. According to a source, Malaysian debt stood at 34.3% to the GDP or RM233.92bn last year and one of the government officials said the Malaysia will go bankrupt if something is not done.

Another fact, Malaysia has been approving deficit budget since the year 2000 while several neighboring nations including Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore gained surpluses a few times.

(deficit means: you spend more than what you earn)

I am not promoting bad perception on my beloved country, no seriously. I am just giving some awareness on what is going on and pray that we will not end up becoming Greece (or Ireland) of South East Asia.


ProfitM: make sure you start saving now $$