SME Startups

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Looking for a start-up business but not sure how to start? Let Innovation Evolved help you chart out the road ahead with its services. Innovation Evolved Business Startup Services make things easier for you. Apart from the essential guide to starting a business, these include how to write a business plan, how to franchise and how to adopt technology for business benefits.

The First Step: Idea

The first step of starting your own business is coming up with a business idea. Businesses start from a common point - an idea. Having an idea is very important. It might be a product you've always wanted to make, or a service you feel people need. It might even be something people don't know they need yet, because it hasn't been invented!

The Second Step: Business Plan

You need a plan in order to make your business idea a reality. If you intend to seek financial support from an investor or financial institution, a formal written business plan is a must. Even if you don't anticipate seeking financial support, a simple business plan can give you clarity about what you hope to achieve and how you plan to do it.

In general, your business plan should outline your business goals and the motivation behind them, as well as your plan for reaching your goals in terms of marketing and funding.

The Third Step: Finance

Starting a small business doesn't have to require a lot of money, but it will involve some initial investment. There are a number of ways you can fund your small business, including:

You can also attempt to get your business off the ground by bootstrapping, using as little capital as necessary to start your business.

The Fourth Step: Choose Business Structure

Your small business can be a sole proprietorship, a partnership, a limited liability company (LLC) or a corporation. The business structure you choose will impact many factors from your business name, to your liability, to how you file your taxes.

You may choose an initial business structure, and then re-evaluate and change your structure as your business grows and needs change.

The Fifth Step: Register the Business

Your business name plays a role in almost every aspect of your business, so you want it to be a good one. Make sure you think through all of the potential implications as you explore your options and choose your business name.

Once you have chosen a name for your business, you will need to check if it's trademarked or currently in use. Then, you will need to register it. A sole proprietor must register their business name with either their state or county clerk. Corporations, LLCs, or limited partnerships typically register their business name when the formation paperwork is filed.

Don't forget to register your domain name once you have selected your business name.

The Sixth Step: Licensing and Permissions

Paperwork is a part of the process when you start your own business. There are a variety of small business licenses and permits that may apply to your situation, depending on the type of business you are starting and where you are located. You will need to research what licenses and permits apply to your business during the start-up process.

The Seventh Step: Business Location

Setting up your place of business is important for the operation of your business, whether you will have a home office, a shared or private office space, or a retail location.

You will need to think about your location, equipment, and overall setup, and make sure your business location works for the type of business you will be doing.

The Eighth Step: Accounting System

Small businesses run most effectively when there are systems in place. One of the most important systems for a small business is an accounting system.

Your accounting system is necessary in order to create and manage your budget, set your rates, conduct business with others, and file your taxes. You can set up your accounting system yourself, or hire an accountant to take away some of the guesswork.

The Ninth Step: Business Promotion

Once your business is up and running, you need to start attracting clients and customers. You'll want to start with the basics by writing a unique selling proposition (USP) and creating a marketing plan.

Then, explore as many small business marketing ideas as possible so you can decide how to promote your business most effectively.

Once you have completed these business start-up activities, you will have all of the most important small business bases covered, and be ready for small business success.

Challenges faced by SME:

Lack of IT Support

IT personnel are in high demand and are often attracted to bigger companies and MNCs. It is very difficult for SMEs to attract good IT personnel. It is even more difficult to retain them. Moreover, good IT personnel are expensive and may not be affordable by most SMEs.

Lack of IT Literacy

Many of the employees in SMEs started from the ground up after working with the company for many years. Some of them are often holding supervisory and managerial positions. These employees may not be IT literate and often have high resistance to the changes in the working process that they are comfortable with after many years.

Absence of adequate and timely banking finance

As a SME/SMI, financial resources are often limited. This often forces company to select a solution, which appear to be cheap initially. However, the hidden costs will start to emerge during implementation. This sometime causes the project to be abandoned or sometime sent the company into further financial crisis.

Lack of Human Resources

Implementations of some bigger scale IT project especially those that involve business process across different departments or require large amount of initial data entries require human resource during the implementation. Some SMEs are often in the stage of frequent fire fighting and shortage of manpower. This makes it very difficult for them to allocate time to carry out implementation. Furthermore, there is always a conflict between getting the daily routing work going and to do the "Extra" IT implementation.

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