Why people fail in business - and How to succeed?


With growing opportunities, most people today have their own vision of entrepreneurship.  People desire of running their own business rather than a 9 to 5 job. But in Nepal starting own business means going into a war zone where the never-ending question arises in mind.

Questions to deal with first???

Before starting a business there comes a lot of question like what business should I do?  How much investment do I need in business? Will my family support me or not?  Can I do this alone or should I go with any partner? My friends are also  into job and have their own house and car, should I take a risk of doing business? If I won’t succeed, I will lose my career also then what I will do?  These horrible questions arise in everyone’s mind that somehow pushes the person back to point where he was standing.

Only the people with a positive answer to all the questions above move forward, the rest give up here itself.

Some Common Reasons

After analyzing various scenarios people start their business. The interesting fact comes in an entrepreneur life when business fails. The worst part about a failing business is that the entrepreneur is unaware of it happening. It makes sense, because had the entrepreneur really known what he was doing wrong, he might have been able to save the business. Some entrepreneurs live in a land of denial while others are unaware of their mistakes.

In Nepal, however, what has been seen throughout the business journey in the past few years is that most of the business that have failed tend to have met their fate due to a few common reasons like lack of strong planning, leadership failure, lack of capital, ignoring customer needs, poor locations, inability to learn from failure, poor management, premature scaling, lack of focus, and macroeconomic factors.

Startup Timing

It is widely said that ‘Luck is not a business model’. People who started their business just before this pandemic struck, are having the worst possible luck.  The Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown to curb the spread of this deadly disease have affected different businesses differently. This is a major problem  for startup businesses as they are facing severe financial crisis, including payment of salary and rent. This is because most of the startup businesses generally  are on a tight ‘working capital’ which makes  it very difficult for them to sustain their business. As a consequence, we have been seeing many startups shutting down their shop.

Succeeding Formula

For business, a strong plan plays a vital role. Strong business plan must include core values, the fundamental beliefs to drive the business. Local Cultural adaption according to place is important, market research in every phase is more important, real focus on your customer should be there, involvement of customer in product development helps business to move forward in normal situation.  

But now this is a very tough and challenging time for everyone, not only for startups but also conglomerates.

There is only one path in this difficult time i.e. being hopeful, working hard, and trying out every possible strategy, like being active on social media platforms so one can maintain their brand presence in the market and partaking in various e-seminars, one can also collaborate with other startups or merge with similar startups, exchanging each other’s products and services, or merging with similar but big corporate houses. The last option would be to liquidate the  business, if one does not see any other way..  In this competitive and evolving world, one needs to change their strategies every now and then to sustain in the market and outperform its competitor.  

 

Richu Ghimire, richu@suvodassociates.com.np

  

 

 

The views expressed in this piece are of the Author solely. This blog or any part contained should be taken as an advice or suggestion. UHY Suvod Associates does not guarantee the accuracy of the technical content or material provided on the information if any.