Tonys Coffee Shop Business Plan

Business plan to open a coffee shop, written by an experienced shop owner, worker and entrepreneur. Includes many bonuses and extras including email and personal consult.

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James Surowiecki: How Netflix beat Blockbuster.

In the nineteen-eighties, a new kind of chain store came to dominate American shopping: the “category killer.” These stores killed off all competition in a category by stocking a near-endless variety of products at prices that small retailers couldn’t match. Across America, independent stores went out of business, and the suburban landscape became freckled with Toys R Us, CompUSA, and Home Depot superstores. But the category killers’ reign turned out to be more fragile than expected. In the past decade, CompUSA and Circuit City have disappeared. Toys R Us has struggled to stay afloat, and Barnes & Noble is in the midst of a boardroom battle prompted by financial woes. And, last month, Blockbuster finally admitted the inevitable and declared Chapter 11.

The obvious reason for all this is the Internet; Blockbuster’s demise, for one, was inextricably linked to the success of Netflix. But this raises a deeper question: why didn’t the category killers colonize the Web the way they colonized suburbia? That was what pundits expected. Companies like Blockbuster, the argument went, had customer expertise, sophisticated inventory management, and strong brands. And, unlike the new Internet companies, they’d be able to offer customers both e-commerce and physical stores—“clicks and mortar.” It seemed like the perfect combination.

The problem—in Blockbuster’s case, at least—was that the very features that people thought were strengths turned out to be weaknesses. Blockbuster’s huge investment, both literally and psychologically, in traditional stores made it slow to recognize the Web’s importance: in 2002, it was still calling the Net a “niche” market. And it wasn’t just the Net. Blockbuster was late on everything—online rentals, Redbox-style kiosks, streaming video. There was a time when customers had few alternatives, so they tolerated the chain’s limited stock, exorbitant late fees (Blockbuster collected about half a billion dollars a year in late fees), and absence of good advice about what to watch. But, once Netflix came along, it became clear that you could have tremendous variety, keep movies as long as you liked, and, thanks to the Netflix recommendation engine, actually get some serviceable advice. (Places like Netflix and Amazon have demonstrated the great irony that computer algorithms can provide a more personalized and engaging customer experience than many physical stores.) Then Redbox delivered the coup de grace, offering new Hollywood releases for just a dollar.

Why didn’t Blockbuster evolve more quickly? In part, it was because of what you could call the “internal constituency” problem: the company was full of people who had been there when bricks-and-mortar stores were hugely profitable, and who couldn’t believe that those days were gone for good. Blockbuster treated its thousands of stores as if they were a protective moat, when in fact they were the business equivalent of the Maginot Line. The familiar sunk-cost fallacy made things worse. Myriad studies have shown that, once decision-makers invest in a project, they’re likely to keep doing so, because of the money already at stake. Rather than dramatically shrinking both the size and the number of its stores, Blockbuster just kept throwing good money after bad.

As for “clicks and mortar,” it’s a nice catchphrase, but there’s not much evidence that consumers really need a company to offer both: Blockbuster tried to make a selling point of the fact that you could rent a movie online and then return it to a store, instead of popping it in the mail, but the allure of this was lost on most people. In practice, “clicks and mortar” just meant that Blockbuster had to spend lots of money and time integrating an entirely new information-technology system into the one its stores already had. Meanwhile, Netflix could focus on making its distribution system bigger and more efficient, in large part because it was starting from scratch. Similarly, in the late nineteenth century, department stores like Macy’s tried to enter the mail-order business that Sears had pioneered, but, since Sears had been designed around the mail-order business, its competitors were unable to catch up.

Unlike Sears, though, Netflix isn’t going to have decades in which to bask in its success. Its domination of the DVD-rental market comes just as people are moving toward streaming and downloadable video. As has already happened with music, the business of renting and selling movies will soon be about moving digital files rather than physical objects. Streaming is already a big part of Netflix’s business, and it has signed up partnerships to let consumers get movies via video-game machines, Blu-Ray players, and so on. But this is a market in which Netflix’s expertise in shipping red envelopes as quickly and efficiently as possible will no longer be a competitive advantage. It’s a market that’s already quite crowded—with Amazon, Apple, the cable companies, and now Google (which just rolled out its own TV product) all competing. And it’s a market that remains wide open technologically—no one really knows how, or on what devices, most people will watch movies in the future. In this environment, it would be easy for Netflix to fall back on its safety cushion, milk the existing DVD business for all it’s worth, and try to slow down customers’ migration into streaming, particularly since a customer who streams movies is less lucrative than one who rents three DVDs a month. But then, a decade from now, we’d be writing Netflix obituaries that sounded just like the ones for Blockbuster. Sometimes you have to destroy your business in order to save it.??

What Is A Business Plan And How Can It Help You

Starting up your own business can be a very attractive and exciting thing to do. However, the setting up and running of a business is also a very challenging thing to do. It requires lots of commitment, persistence, organisation and planning. It also involves finding a market that will make you money and finding enough capital to get your business set-up and ready to go.

After you have done your market research into finding a potentially profitable market you need to come up with a business plan. A business plan sets out a road map of what your business is about, what it will achieve how it will achieve it and when. Therefore, the plan will include your business aims and objectives, the resources that will be needed to achieve these objectives and evidence that these objectives are achievable. Depending of the situation a business plan can outline the business objectives based on a year or even up to 5 years.

If you are starting up a business you will more or less need starting up capital and loans to help your business get off the ground. Raising capital will be essential for paying rent, buying office equipment and stock. Unless you have a very rich and generous relative the only place that you are going to get the capital you need will be from the banks. Your business plan primary aim is to convince the banks that you have a viable business to lend you the money to start it up.

When using a business plan to raise money from banks you need to ensure that it is comprehensive and well researched. Not only will they be looking at whether the market you are entering is a viable one they will also be interested at looking at the financial side and your future capability of the business paying back the money that will be lent.

Qualcomm Releases Augmented Reality SDK

Qualcomm Inc. said this week it is making its Augmented Reality (AR) Software Developer Kit available for the delivery of new interactive 3D apps to Android smartphones.

Augmented reality adds to the immersive experience virtual reality brings to computer-generated environments with features like real-world graphics and sounds, and its development is being driven by video games and cell phones. Qualcomm's QDevNet online developer network will offer the SDK, which can be used to develop 3D experiences for everyday objects like gaming on tabletops and interactive media on product packaging and promotional items, the company said.

"Qualcomm is making it easy for developers to create interactive 3D content for the real world," said Jay Wright, director of business development at Qualcomm, in a statement. "By making the Qualcomm AR SDK available at no charge, we are encouraging all developers to start building innovative applications and services today."

Computer vision technology is incorporated into the AR platform and SDK so that graphics can be tightly aligned with underlying objects, the company said. Unlike current AR applications that use a phone's GPS and compass for mapping applications, Qualcomm said it is leveraging a vision-based AR approach, which "enables a fundamentally different user experience in which graphics appear as if they are anchored to real-world objects."

The vision technology Qualcomm is using "involves superimposing computer-generated content over live images viewed through cameras on a mobile device,'' said Victoria Fodale, senior analyst, Mobile Devices, at ABI Research, in an email. "Vision-based augmented reality allows computer graphics to be tightly aligned with real-world objects. Essentially, the SDK enables developers to incorporate interactive 3D content in their applications."

The SDK's advanced features will enable the augmentation of everyday images on printed media, along with basic 3D objects such as boxes used for product packaging, Qualcomm said. The ability for users to interact with AR applications just by touching real-world surfaces is also supported by the SDK.

There are a number of Android apps that already do augmented reality, such as Google Goggles, which conducts a search for information about an object, said Ken Hyers, senior analyst, Mobile Devices, at Technology Business Research, Inc. The class of apps that use augmented reality is really useful, he said. "It's adding information on top of reality. When I have gone out with my Android phone to do touristy things, I've been able to hold my device up to a building and the phone knows to get the GPS to identify the building and overlays a Wikipedia link so I can get info about what I'm looking at."

AR applications can be used in a variety of different industries, Hyers added; any requiring a layer of information on top of something a user is looking at. "Qualcomm is trying to figure out more ways to layer their Snapdragon processor … it's very powerful and they want to see it in more devices."

The Qualcomm AR SDK is available as a beta release and can be downloaded at developer.qualcomm.com/ar.

Are your star players about to bolt? You need to know before the job market warms up. That story and more in the new, all-digital issue of InformationWeek's Boardroom Journal. Download it now (registration required).

Crystal Reports 2008 Win Nul 0

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Matter Management Reporting - A Business Objects Approach

Corporate legal Matter Management systems are implemented through multi-million dollar projects that frequently result in unpopular, underused tools that never provide the expected return on investment. One element, common to many such situations, is the limited utility of the data being captured. The data in the matter management system is either irrelevant or inaccessible to the interested parties. Integrated Matter Management reporting is the solution to this problem.

In the best case, future reporting needs have been considered and included as critical inputs in the design phase of the larger matter management project. In the worst case, reporting was left out of the design entirely, and end users and management are already angry and dissatisfied with what they perceive as a very expensive failure. Once this type of deficiency is identified, Matter Management specialists can correct the design and integrate the key reports into the system that will make it more relevant to day-to-day business and the reporting requirements mandated by management.

The right specialists will be fluent in matter management as well as management reporting and the underlying tools. These subject area experts can upgrade and enhance a successful matter management system, or salvage and improve one that is foundering. Specialty consultants are crucial to a successful matter management implementation because of their unique combination of experience, independence from vendor influence and accountability to the client organization that engages them. The same advantages make them most desirable resources during a project remediation. Skilled resources that rely on the good will of their paying client are highly motivated to comply with customer timelines and expectations.

A good matter management reporting implementation will be flexible, responsive, logical, and user-friendly. The tools most often employed to retrieve and display data from a matter management system are Business Objects (or Crystal Reports), Microsoft Access, Cognos, and Microstrategy. Most of these are Business Intelligence platforms (MS Access is not). Using these tools, a skilled designer creates a metadata layer that interprets complex data for use by end users and report writers (metadata means 'data about data').

In Business Objects, the metadata layer is called a "Universe". Sound universe design is the heart of a successful reporting effort. Poorly designed universes will result in several significant problems, including:


Inaccurate reports
Performance problems (with Reporting, the application and/or the database server)
User dissatisfaction (with usability, results, etc.)
Proper universe design will incorporate the following practices and features:
Custom universes and objects, built to address customer reporting needs.
Consistent, logical universe layout
Clear and friendly naming conventions.
Multiple universes, built around clusters of related data.
Logical, consistent points of interface between universes.
Efficient database joins
In a Business Objects universe design, multiple universes should be created, according to the complexity of the data and business processes involved. The separation of data into multiple universes improves the usability and performance of the reporting environment. Usability is enhanced as the reporting interface presents fewer choices, with more obvious correlations and interactions between fields, so that a report writer can create more accurate reports more quickly. Performance is enhanced as database communications are simplified and streamlined. A matter management reporting environment will use a Matter (Case) universe to anchor the rest of the data. A Finance universe contains everything about invoices and budgets. The Finance universe can be linked to Matters when a more complex report requires details from both universes. A Contacts universe presents all of the details in the "rolodex", encompassing all of the people and companies that are involved in any way with a legal matter in the system. Other universes will link to it whenever additional contact details are required. A Timekeeping universe will present timesheet data and have links to the Matters and Contacts universes. Other universes may be necessary, depending upon the business processes that are part a firm's Matter Management system. These may include an Intellectual Property universe, a Discovery universe, a Risk Management universe, and others.

Once the universes are in place, reports are created through the collaborative efforts of business experts, analysts and report writers. Specialty consultants are a superior resource during this step because they can fill the latter two roles, while conversing fluently with the business experts to maximize reporting results and minimize delivery time.

Summary
A strong reporting implementation is vital to the overall success of any Matter Management system, in many cases driving the benefits that provide the ROI for the entire project. Experienced specialists can contribute dramatically to the success of the effort. The reporting design should be flexible enough to accommodate its ongoing success, as active users will constantly develop new questions for their reports to answer. Good reporting will improve the user experience and management utility of the system, raising both data quality and participation among the user population.

© 2007 Matt Gwilliam

Ways of Ensuring Business Growth Now and in the Future

People invest in big or small businesses for a myriad of reasons such as attaining independence where one becomes his/her own boss. Others enjoy the flexibility to work when and where you want while others get to work at something they enjoy and thus utilize their talents to the maximum.

You will realize that you might actually achieve financial freedom by running your own small business than by working for someone else. As a matter of fact, many engage in business mainly for the financial rewards (profit). Profit is not an absolute concept, but is what an individual defines it as.

Accountants, business people and economists disagree on suitable definitive solution to the problem of defining and measuring profit. Nevertheless, profit is income and it is unlimited, as in the case of monopolies. For a company to realize a profit, it is necessary to make a sale. While it is often thought that the business objective is to maximize profit, in reality the prime business objective is often survival.

Income maximization has been noted as a false objective in many cases. The maximization of income may lead to retention of obsolete equipment, employment of low grade personnel at low pay, purchases of cheap inputs, cut-backs in research and equipment and the like. Due to a policy of low investment in business aspects like marketing, hiring and mechanization, income may be drastically increased in the short run, but in the longer term, the company will be over taken by its competitors and lose its markets share.

Organizations should not have its objectives as maximizing profits only but also take into consideration ways of producing quality products and services and also meet its operating costs. This will ensure its survival and expansion both in the current period and in the future.

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