We will help identify the deep-rooted problems that your business may be facing, such as
1. Marketing and sales problems :
Sales of products or services not meeting targets
Sales are good but profits are low. What can be done to increase profits ?
Unforeseen stock problems due to production planning not matching market demand
Why are customers not using your products or services? (Customer churn)
2. Financial and management problems :
Need to understand the financial health of the business
Identify risks before making important investment decisions
Require a detection system for fraud, such as accounting fraud, insider trading or money laundering
If we break down the business life cycle into 4 stages (referencing Financial Accounting: 5.6.2): Startup, Profitable, Mature, and Decline
As a business owner, I want the business to start quickly in the Startup phase, make appropriate investments in the Profitable phase, and maintain stability for many years in the Mature phase. However, I want to avoid the Decline phase. What can help... The answer is making the right decisions.
In every industry, decision-making is the most crucial aspect for business owners or leaders. Each decision will have a definite impact on the business, whether positively or negatively.
I have compared business decision-making to choosing a special animal to ride, as follows.
1.Dinosaur - If the owner of a business like you were riding a dinosaur, it would be equivalent to running an old school business that lacks measurement tools, does not utilize technology or AI to drive the business. At the end of the article, we will attach a test question to determine whether you are still riding a dinosaur or not.
2. Unicorn - an extraordinary creatures, focus on creating products or services that change consumer behavior, such as Uber or Grab, which have transformed the way we satisfy our hunger. Instead of physically going to a restaurant when we're hungry, we can now order food through an app. The unicorn strategy can generate rapid business growth. Many business owners aspire to become unicorns someday because they have unlimited budgets and high business potential. However, achieving this comes at the cost of requiring higher-than-normal investment.
3.Camel - If you choose to ride a mythical creature like a unicorn, the unicorn will guide you to create a strategy that focuses on generating profits for your business in all economic conditions. This can be achieved by creating products or services to address the needs of a specific group of customers, similar to how Pop Mart, a unicorn-shaped golden store, focuses on creating products for art toy enthusiasts. When Pop Mart built bridges for customers to access their stores and offered intriguing surprises like the blind box concept, they were able to generate substantial profits without necessarily having to change the customer behavior. Furthermore, Pop Mart has utilized predictive business to minimize the risk of financial loss in their business, such as reducing the production of products that customers do not like since camels can survive for long periods without food, withstand extreme heat from the scorching sands, and adapt to highly volatile weather conditions. They can survive and thrive in the most hostile regions in the world. This is analogous to running a business in the post-COVID-19 era because it is a business that can achieve a balanced budget and maximum cost-effectiveness based on limited resources.
*Reference : Alex Lazarow. Harvard Business review. https://hbr.org/2020/10/startups-its-time-to-thnk-like-camels-not-unicorns
Table of Content
Why have Power Ladder?
Power Ladder was founded for this specific purpose. We are not just consultants, but we also assist in helping your organization make accurate decisions by utilizing data and AI technology to improve its overall precision.
We divide the work process into a total of 6 steps (including Step 0). When you have completed all 6 steps, your business will have transitioned from an old-school business to a predictive business, utilizing technology and data to stay ahead of the curve.
Step 0
Turn vague goal into specific goal
The way to solve business problems is to start with step 0, which is the starting point. Once you have made a decision, your business will not return to step 0 again. Business owners should spend the most time on this step, because in the next steps, you will have experts to help you and you won't have to do it alone. Step 0 is the part where the business owner has to try to understand. If you want your business to grow profitably, you need to focus on step 0.
Step 0 is identifying the problem or goal, along with searching for appropriate solutions that align with the problem or goal you have set.
Let me give you an example, Ozone by Bankhaokho, had a problem with the lack of a business health check tool. So, we never knew whether our business was doing well or not due to the absence of key performance indicators. Therefore, we wanted to invest in various tools to measure performance with using a budget of no more than 3% of our revenue.
This is an example of step 0, which involves asking questions to identify the problem and determine the budget for finding a solution.
By developing a reliable business health check tool that has a real impact on my decision-making process, I can make informed decisions on increasing investments or discontinuing unprofitable ventures. All decisions are derived from having a tool called Predictive Business in my business
Step 1
Business achievement must be measured
After identifying the problem or business goal, the next step is the process of conducting Predictive Business. The owner or entrepreneur will have a preliminary understanding of the health of their own business, similar to when we are sick and go to the doctor. The doctor will examine our physical condition to determine what illness we have.
In this step, we will categorize your business problems into 3 perspectives that I have developed from Harvard Business School online. These perspectives are: the business can operate smoothly only if the business or company has profitability, customer demand, and growth potential.
The 3 perspectives of business are composed of :
P (Profitability)
C (Customer Satisfaction)
G (Business Growth)
Perspective 1 P (Profitability) - Using Predictive Business to explore Cash flow or Balance Statement can help identify potential issues. However, if we want to dig deeper to really solve the problem, we need to analyze more extensively. For example, why cash flow is not good even though the balance statement is excellent may be because we do not understand the details of the root cause of the problem. It could be due to pricing errors, overuse of the budget to the point where the risk level that the business can bear is exceeded, or even internal fraud within the organization.
Perspective 2 C (Customer Satisfaction) - How can you ensure that your products or services are still in demand, especially among the target customers in your business? The results obtained from collecting survey data or conducting focus groups, combined with processing through social media and your business website, can provide a clear analysis of whether customers still love your products or services. Do you want customers to stay with your brand for a long time? You just need to know why customers are distancing themselves and find ways to prevent customer churn. Predictive Business can provide you with answers to this issue.
Perspective 3 G (Business Growth) - This perspective measures how much the business expands its products or services to additional customer segments. We will create metrics to measure whether your business should grow in a quality manner, not just by investing in PR or marketing. You need to know that every penny you invest will truly contribute to the growth of your business.
Once you have identified the business problems, it is time to score how well your business performs in each business perspective and which areas need immediate improvement. In addition, just knowing the problems of your business is not enough. It is like when a doctor completes a health check-up and then has to prescribe medication to treat any health abnormalities. But one difference between personal health and business is that the medication used to treat business problems tends to focus on specific aspects of the 3 business perspectives
For example, if you use Data Science to analyze and find answers to why customers are canceling your product/service, that means you are testing the second perspective - Customer Satisfaction (C) - in order to identify problems, analyze them, and find solutions before it becomes too late.
Step 2
Data is more important than investment budget
Data is the new oil, undoubtedly. Data is what will drive your business forward more than the amount of investment. If your business data is scattered, it's like investing in a data-driven business and then abandoning it. And when you lack data, your business decision-making will likely be directionless, similar to driving with your eyes closed. I guess you yourself wouldn't be confident in stepping on the accelerator or investing heavily
The secret of step 2 is budgeting for investment in building measurement tools or Predictive Business. It should be suitable for the behavior of the business. In simple terms, the goal of building a business is like choosing the right animal to ride.
Step 3
Powerful person in your business
Even though AI has great capabilities in advancing your business significantly (such as training your own Machine Learning models), to the point where it can provide recommendations just by chatting or talking with it, like GPT-4o.
However, in order to utilize these AI capabilities in your business, you need to have a data scientist who is an expert in plugging in your business data with AI because AI does not build things by itself in your business, and the skilled data scientist will validate whether the answers provided by AI are correct and can be used in real-world applications.
This is the answer that emphasizes the significance of a skilled data scientist as the crucial person who drives the implementation of Predictive Business. It remains to be seen if you, as a business owner, recognize the importance of this aspect or not.
Reference: Is Data Science dead ?, Rosaria Silipo, Medium.com : https://medium.com/low-code-for-advanced-data-science/is-data-science-dead-a5d4421b4b1f
Step 4
Create your map
If you are in need of selecting a consultant or an individual capable of creating a Predictive Business, there are numerous experts and freelancers available globally. However, if you desire a team of specialists who carefully select data scientists with specific expertise in this field, particularly those in India, and have founders who possess genuine experience in successfully implementing Predictive Business in their own Thai businesses for over 7 years, then it is advisable to seek guidance from them
Power Ladder is the top-notch option for business owners from small and medium-sized enterprises to large organizations who wish to strengthen their businesses in all three aspects.
Power Ladder will work with you in developing a Predictive Business to make it is operational throughout the agreed contract period. If you have any doubts or uncertainties regarding any aspect of Predictive Business, do not hesitate to ask us. We are ready to assist you in gathering and interpreting data so that you can make precise decisions
Step 5
Get your Predictive Business
Experts from Power Ladder will deliver a tailored Predictive Business strategy that is suitable for your business, enabling your organization to thrive on data-driven insights and ensuring all your decisions are sharp and accurate. We will help you transition from the old-school way of doing business, like riding a dinosaur, to conducting business with a solid foundation in Predictive Business, like riding a camel or a unicorn.
At this point, we have a question to ask: What kind of magical creature is your current business riding on and which one would be the best fit for your business?
We Would like to know more about your business
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