“I would start a business if only I could come up with an Idea (cont…)”

Believe it or not I do run training sessions on How to read a Newspaper. I even ran a training session for HSBC to show their business staff how the daily newspaper could give them lots to talk about to their business customers about improving their business.

What I am going to do is go through the theory over the next couple of days and then on Tuesday the 6^th of May go through certain quality newspapers and try to identify at least 10 business ideas and opportunities!

First thing I need to talk about is Change. It is one of those words that gets overused and is laced with machismo connotations. Lets be honest change is only good when we are the ones driving the change – when we decide for example to have a spring clean or get fit or learn a new skill etc. When you are the Change ’ee’ rather than the Change ‘or’ – it is not so pleasant. I have worked in many organisations where the only constant was change – and it was very unsettling.

If you are looking to start your own business– you should see yourself as a changeor. What you are looking for are changes in the environment that create an opportunity for you to exploit.

Many companies use a technique called Environmental Scanning (I learnt about it on my MBA, and it was one of the most valuable lessons). You are looking to pick up changes in the wider environment that you would be able to exploit – or that you might need to defend against.

The changes you could look out for can be broken down into certain categories and you might find the acronym, STEEPL useful to remember.

• S – stands for Social changes
• T – for Technology
• E – for Economic
• E – for Environment
• P – for Political
• L – for Legislative

Tomorrow, I will go through these changes using two examples of different businesses. One is a small chain of cafes and the other is a Fund Management Business. But please do think of a business or sector that you would like to use for yourself.

Till then….

Technorati Tags: business ideas, start your own business, Environmental Scanning, STEEPL

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