Monday, October 22, 2007

A PROBLEM CAN BE A POTENTIAL BUSINESS

It was well said by leading business author " Robert T. Kiyosaki" in his book "BEFORE YOU QUIT YOUR JOB" that most sucessful business models in the world rotate around two things.

1. It solve a problem
2. It fulfill a need

This was taken into consideration by Rahul Munjal, grandson of Brij Mohan Munjal ( founder of Hero Group ) and he started his own venture called "EASY BILLS". Here is an article on easy bills of Rahul Munjal.

"" Rahul Munjal had spoken to a number of his friends in the United States when he was studying there. One theme that kept recurring was about the problems they faced in day to day life in India. Munjal confided in FINANCIAL TIMES that this was the best way to zero in on a potential business model.

“Ask 10 people what their greatest problems in life are. If three of these problem are common to those 10 people you have three ready made business model in your hands,” laughs Munjal.

Problem is the moot word. Munjal went out to make money through his company Easybill by solving one of the most touchy problem in middle class India: queuing up to pay bills. “In India they don’t mind selling you stuff but they will kill you if you want to pay for those services,” he laughs. “After that they get surprized if people don’t pay their electricity bills and phone bills.”

After Easybill had its way, it was found that men took less leave to pay their bills and took more leave to take their children out to the park and their wives to the movies. It was also found that women who were housewifes now more often paid the family’s bills at the friendly neighbourhood grocer. This was a paradigm shift in the life of the average Indian middle class worker.

Rahul Munjal and his team can be credited to have transfromed a potential problem into a business opportunity. Men are happy too as their wives share more of the backroom jobs of running a family and they get to spend quality time with the kids. That’s fair isn’t it? “Every society has a stage of development,” says Munjal. “In the USA they complain they have to pay for electricity. They say that the federal US government should provide them with electricity free of cost. Here in India, people are ready to pay but they have no electricity for good parts of the day. This is the anomaly and business models should be planned keeping all these factors in mind,” says Munjal.

Right now, he has interesting anecdotes about different utility companies. For instance, a power utility in North India supposedly does not download the paid data from the interim server to the main server sometimes for six months. Another proof that companies in India are not interested in their customers paying them. “Previously, companies used to make it as difficult for their customers to pay them as it was to get their services in the first place,” says Munjal. Now this CEO has his sights set on increasing his company’s services’ footprint throughout India. At the same time, he is continously re-negotiating agreements with utility companies for the best deal.""

No comments: