No this is not a blog about sex, but just as important: protection for your business idea. When do you need to start working on protecting your new product idea in order to maximise the capital return on your investment?

We start a new series today on an Intellectual property as it relates to small innovation businesses. Now, if you chat to different people you will get different opinions on what to do. Your IP lawyer will say, “File for protection for everything” – mostly because that is what they do to make a living. Your true entrepreneur will say, “First to market will save the day and beat out the competition”. Both are right, but careful consideration needs to be taken in providing a good cover and legal protection for your idea.
So let’s unpack some of the concepts:
Any new idea that will earn you money, whether it is a new product, service or just a way of doing something old in a new way is worth protecting. But not everything can be protected by law, and not everything that is protected can be enforced. So we need to tread a careful line here so that you do not end up spending millions on lawyer’s bills and end up with a bunch of papers that add no value to your business.
IP or Intellectual Property is an umbrellas term used for Patents, Trademarks, Copy write and Designs. Each has numerous categories and subcategories, each with a different process. We will unpack some of these over the next month in this series. But to start off with here are some basic rules to follow before you speak to a lawyer and spend money:
1. Is your idea unique in design or function – unlike anything else?

2. Is your idea worth protecting locally or internationally in order to make you more money?

3. Is the name you are using for your brand or product going to add value to the product in marketing and brand identification for your customers?

4. Do you have resources to pay for protection?

If the answers of any of the above questions are Yes or Maybe, then I urge you to come chat to one of our team and see if there is a case of IP for your idea. It is better to be sure than to find out later that someone has copied your idea and is now making all your money for themselves. And yes, it does happen.
But for now: do not talk to anyone, if you do, sign a Non-disclosure Agreement and keep copies of everything: designs, emails, sketches, models and related documents.
Next week, we unpack the Trademark vs. Copy write issues.

We conclude this series this week with a look at two areas of business that are often ignored by entrepreneurs: the processes and the profits.

Most small businesses are started by one person or a small team. As the business grows, processes are generated on the fly and often made up when and where needed. This is great as it supports the entrepreneurial mindset and fast-growing nature of the business. But as things develop and other people join the team, they are left alone and often confused about what to do when and by whom. They refer things back to the original owners, who then just do things themselves, mostly because it will take too long to explain things to others and get them to do it, so they take it upon themselves to do it. Faster, easier and cheaper – Yes? Well actually NO.

Developing strategy for your internal processes is key to the development of any business from craft to enterprise. A clear set of processes that can be found and followed by anyone within the business and any new staff member, is key to growth. It also gives a sense of assurance to the business owners that things will be done and done according to the process.

Developing processes is also the key to creating internal models, frameworks and procedures that could be converted into sellable products in the future. A lot of what we coach our clients today started out as an internal process that developed into a workable model, workshop, coaching tool and online course.

The strategy around profit is just as important to the sustainability or your business. Turnover for any small business is the first measurement that we look at; but very soon, this needs to be expanded to include accounting items such as the cost of sales, expenses leading to gross and net profit. The big step for most business owners is to go from a cash business to one with proper accounting processes and reporting. It is also key to, as soon as possible separate the business money from personal money and then begin to manage the business based on profit, not turnover.

These and others we will unpack a bit more in the webinar on Wednesday. Join us HERE to be part of the live class or to watch the recorded version later.

We continue this week with our discussion on Performance Measurement. Last week we explored some practical examples on how businesses in different sectors can measure their performance using NFPIs.

This week we conclude the topic by looking at the product or service that the business offers and how the business can measure the performance of their operations.

The product or service that the business offers is the ‘raison d`etre’ of the business or the purpose of its existence. A lack of quality can lead to customer dissatisfaction and loss of sales. A company should always critically and objectively review their offering and compare it to the competition and customer expectations and needs. Business owners or managers should ask themselves:

·         Is my product or service offering good value?

·         Does it deliver quality superior performance?

·         How does it fair relative to competitors?

·         With industry developments, can my product or service remain relevant with changing technological trends?

In Summary, the following are good examples of NPFIs:

Product quality

• Percentage of items rejected by quality control
•  Number of items returned by customers

Product delivery  

•  Percentage of customer orders delivered on time
•  Waiting time from order to delivery
•   Cycle time

Customer satisfaction      

•  Number of customers returning
•  Number of complaints

After-sales service             

• Waiting time
• Number of complaints
• Use of customer surveys to measure their satisfaction.

Benefits of Non-Financial Performance Indicators

The balanced scorecard philosophy asks the critical questions at the heart of business growth and sustainability. It looks at performance from four perspectives:

1.       Customer Perspective –how do we look to the client, customer ratings?

2.       Internal business process perspective –at what must we excel?

3.       Learning & growth perspective –continuous change and growth in a dynamic innovative age.

4.       Financial perspective –how do we look to shareholders?

These four factors complement each other; for example, relatively greater customer satisfaction will result in greater revenues and profits, consequently improving the financial perspective.

Financial performance measures are lagging indicators of performance, this is because financial performance is a result of past decisions. On the other hand, NFPIs are lead indicators in that they drive future financial performance as they focus on the customer, internal business processes and learning and growth.