Saturday, August 16, 2008

Getting a good army for small business

One of the most fundamental problem, small business faces, are related to recruiting a good set of people, who can get the business run, in a warrior like manner. Small business has smaller recruitment budget, and they would be hardly noticed, if they want to catch the advertisement bandwagon. So, they has to device strategic means to get noticed . One of the most successful strategic means is creating a people network, which would carry information about supplier,customer,friends,employee's family and friend . Whenever a new recruitment requirement comes in, let the information flow to the network . Based on my experience , I have seen a strong reponses in all the cases , where all the people who reads the mail, has a first hand experience of the company. This way the advertisement expenses is curtailed, and also the manpower, who gets in the company, comes from, to certain extent, trustworthy sources .

Budgeting -- The most crucial factor for small business

The start ups or small business has to be extremely cautious about budgeting . Right from the start there has to be numerical projection about the expenses and income, plotted in a well mannered documents. Not only it help to be more conscious about the financial picture of the company , but also it helps to find out the patterns which lead to economic failure and economic success. Once a person can find out the reasons of his economic failure and success in daily level, he will be insulated from situation of ultimate financial failure like bankruptcy.

Understanding economic failure in small components also helps to analyze the causes behind it, in a more detailed fashion . Reading the previous budget, and its outcome is an ultimate guide for building business acumen, related to one particular business . No entrepreneur, should afford to miss this opportunity, as it is one of core building block for the success of the small business.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Investment Climate and revenue sources of renewables

Commercialization of renewable energy sector has drawn significant investment .At the same time,it kept its pace with the growing global concern over climate change. Development of clean energy stands as a priority to both India and the Global institutions and nations.

India is able to install capacity of 10,000 Mw renewable against its potentiality of 80,000 Mw. This indicates the need for important policy changes that non-conventional can be as attractive as the conventional one and attract more investment . In fact there is a growing interest in renewable space on the account of addressing GHG issues on climate change . However , success on renewable space depends on certain critical factors listed below

1.Strong Government Support for the sector
2. Long term stable cash flows
3. Attractive underline power prices
4. Greater understanding of resource,technology and operational issues
5. Increasingly strong project owners

The investment climate for renewable was quite positive and lot of investor is showing interest on it. Project Finance is easily available as Indian Government is giving a strong support on the renewable with his nodal institution Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Sources (MNES) and also through the corporate entity Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA). There is also different fnance available starting from Senior debt by clubbing lenders,Junior debt - Mezzanine finance , lease/Tax based finance and PPA structure under market based revenue mechanism. In short there is good investment climate both at regional (state) and National level too.

The Future of Energy Security

India has understood the importance of renewable energy as sustainable energy source in early 1970. The political will followed, in 1982 by forming , Department of Non-conventional Energy sources. In early 1992 , the department was upgraded into full fledged Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (MNES) , now re-christened as Ministry of New and Renewable Energy since Octobor 2006 .

India's effort in renewable energy can be divided into three distinct stages

1.1970 - 1980 - Capacity building and R&D , largely in National laboratories and Educational Institution

2. 1980-1990- Large scale demonstration of renewable energy which involved , Non -Governmental Organization (NGO) , Self Employed Groups (SEG) and grass root organization . This programs are often subsidized by Governess funds.

3. 1990 - 2008 :
Application of mature technologies for power generation based on wind,small hydro,biogass co-generation and other bio mass . Further there was industrial application of solar and other forms of energy .There is also a shift from subsidy driven mode to commercial driven mode. This has lead to a rapid change of the sector towards next generation technologies in Solar,Hydro,Fuel cells and bio-fuels.

India has somewhat aligned with the global institutions in making a carbon free economy . It has already contributed on Clean Development mechanism (CDM) and has high level commitment on introducing CDM in a more pervasive fashion. In fact nowhere in the world , there is one dedicated ministry for handling renewable energy . India has also pioneered its effort on the direction of climate change by introducing a larger share of renewable technologies in CDM. It has been observed by the Nobel prize winner Organization Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) that renewable play a great role in environmental friendliness and checking emissions of green house gases (GHG).

There was a policy of developing a private sector around renewable which will give different range of incentives for investment and entrepreneurship in this sector . There has been a lot of major reforms in State Electricity Regulation bodies to enable renewable play a critical in production and distribution of renewable . It has also been seen as a efficient way on rural electrification and solve the energy needs for cooking in rural households.

These entire set of activities around renewable prove a point that renewable will play critical role on the future of our energy security . However , there is a need of a lot more aggressive efforts towards renewable and entrepreneurial action in order to increase the share of renewable in energy production and distribution with the growing environmental concerns around the world.



Monday, August 11, 2008

Importance of treasury planning for state

The starting point of a planing activity, for a state is budget. To define the heading and the projection of cost on those headings requires, comprehensive view on treasury related activities. Most of the time , a broader viewpoint on the set of activities taken out by treasury was found missing . That's why on the core of budget , stands the treasury planning , which would do the number crunching exercise, enunciating the practical dimension of abstract policies.

Partners and Employee problems in small business

The structure of a small business often has not reached into a level , which can be denoted as structure . This creates a potential problem to address human development issue on a standard policy framework . Further , these lead to excessive personalization of the entire system . At the same time ,it brings huge wastage on management time, addressing human conflicts of different nature , without the ability to give solutions to them. To solve this problem ,there needs to be a solid policy framework , which can address issues in a self-serving manner, leaving very few conflicts to be discussed , across the table.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Financial Troubles Group

There are two group of activities , which is the major cause behind the financial trouble of state . The group of molestation, along with the group of obstructions, plays a major role on creating financial troubles of state.The activism culture of Bengal is another enabler for group of molestation and obstruction activities leading to loss of wealth . The only way to encounter these is to create a pro-development activism. These could bring a lot of momentum in counteracting obstruction and molestation ,eliminating financial problems.

Consumer Protection

Recently , I saw the ad 'Jago Grahak jago' in DD-News . Though the ad, had a pretty simplistic approach , to the complex problem of consumer protection of the state .It definitly makes a point on the role of consumer protection and activism of civil society in it.It is with awareness of the standards of a service, alongwith attributes, that a consumer can protect himself automatically.