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5 Reasons Your Startup Should Be in Healthcare

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | 5 Reasons Your Startup Should Be in HealthcareWhen you think of startup companies, you may think of some obvious ones that are now household names. There are social media platforms, mobile video games, banking apps, ride-sharing services and home rental marketplaces. You know them well.

An arena that isn’t as often spoken about in the same breath as these other game-changing companies is the healthcare industry. The Patrick James Trico Group is well aware that startups in the area of medical innovation and data processing are where the biggest and most beneficial progress will be.

1. A Better Patient Experience

With technological advancements, a patient’s healthcare experience should begin long before a visit to the doctor’s office. Artificial Intelligence and wearable tech could collect analytical information for the doctor to evaluate before you even make an appointment.

The appointment itself could be scheduled by an AI-driven system in much the same way that pharmacies use software to send automated calls and texts when a patient needs a refill. There is a wide range of possibilities for improvements in all aspects of a patient’s experience.

2. Automated Data Collection

Robotic automation of data collection is an area in which many hospitals and healthcare facilities could benefit. Human administrative errors are a common occurrence, accounting for countless mistakes, which could cause someone to pay a higher price or, at worst, have the wrong procedure performed.

With data collection performed by robotic automation, many of these errors could be prevented. Other industries already use similar automated data collection and machine learning to streamline their business, creating straightforward, painless engagement and happy customers.

3. Improved Information Storage

Your healthcare information is fragmented across all the different clinics, hospitals, doctor’s offices, and any other health facility you’ve ever been to. Rarely do these entities communicate well and share that information without some complicated process of requesting that such information be sent from point A to point B.

A central ecosystem that houses data easily and safely would allow medical staff to retrieve patient records instantly, avoiding potentially harmful mistakes and allowing for accurate and timely care. An AI-driven functionality could also find and address any anomalies in patient records.

4. Creative Innovation

Medical researchers do a lot to progress healthcare and provide much-needed information by way of well-researched and thorough study. But often the solutions offered by those immersed in the healthcare field are from a calculated, linear and dogmatic approach.

Entrepreneurs are creative innovators willing to think outside the box and attack a problem from a completely new point of view. Their solutions may require some reframing of the way a facility currently does business, and therefore might never occur to a dyed-in-the-wool healthcare professional.

5. Everyone Benefits

Efficiency and progress in the healthcare space will benefit everyone involved: the healthcare providers, the patients and, of course, the startup company that provides the innovation.

Institutions with leadership that understands the need for the most effective quality care will be smart to embrace the technological advancements that startups may provide. The patient will reap the benefits of efficient and smart healthcare and the startup will reap the rewards of the market.

How Do I Start A Small Business?

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Start a small business|How Do I Start A Small BusinessIntroduction

Starting a small business and achieving a reasonable amount of success in the same business requires you to follow quite a few steps. All the budding entrepreneurs and business people understand this phenomenon; thus they make the initial preparation and planning very compact, strong, and full-proof.

Apart from conducting detailed market research, finding out fair clientele, performing surveys, retaining target groups, exploring SEO, and researching public data, which are obviously important factors, one must also remain very adaptable to changing situations. That is the key step towards a successful small business.

How can I start a small business?

1. Preparing a Proper Idea

If you are going to start a small business, an all around preparation of a proper idea is very important. Generally, it includes various factors like; 1. What are the products and services you want to provide to your customers? 2. What will be the market where you want to get into? 3. How will be the market where you want to enter? 4. What kind of better offers can you make for your consumers, than the contributions made by the already existing companies?

You are also required to concentrate on few other components, which are;

  • Why are you trying to launch a small business? What kind of needs will you satisfy? Will it be a personal need or a market need? It is important to have these answers before starting a small business.
  • You can consider opening a franchise for any established company where you will only require to find a proper location and arrange funds for your operations.
  • Having a solid ground of reasoning behind your idea
  • Before starting a small business, you are always required to understand how you are going to make your customers’ lives smoother! And what kind of values are you going to add to their lives? In a nutshell, a proper realization of your target customers is extremely important.

2. Conducting thorough Market Research

Detailed end-to-end market research will help you identify your customers upon which you can further perform competitive analysis in order to understand the various advantages of your small business.

Thorough market research will always lead you towards a realization of your consumer behaviour, customer base, and diverse economic trends. Additionally, you can also collect various demographic information of your customers like age, height, weight, preferences, property value, family members. It will provide you with a mixture of chances and limitations of your small business idea.

Once these are completed, evaluate the following gradually;

  • The Market Demand for your products and services
  • The Market Size of your Small Business.
  • The employment rate and income scope of your customer base!
  • The outreach of your business.
  • The living location of your customers
  • What is the market saturation!
  • The price fixation of your products

3. Writing an Effective Business Plan

A proper business plan is a detailed outline of the structure, functioning, and future growth of your business. An effective plan is chalking down the purpose and goals of your business.

There are two kinds of business plans, which are respectively: Traditional Business Plan and Lean Start-up Plan. The former is a standard and detailed structure, while the latter is an uncommon structure with the summarization of the key topics.

However, the traditional business plan is only widely used and includes;

  • Creating an executive summary mentioning the mission statement, vision, services, employees, leadership team, location, products, of your business
  • Sharing an informative company description with the minute detail of your organization like the business solutions, business services, consumer base, competitive advantages, store location, etc.
  • Conducting a thorough market analysis to understand the target market, industry standpoint, business strengths, market trend, market theme, etc.
  • Describing the legal structure of your business and portraying an organizational chart for everyone
  • Describing the offerings of your services, the product life cycles, intellectual properties as well as the research and development procedures of your business
  • Mentioning the entire marketing and sales strategy with its amendments, financial projections, procedures of retaining customers
  • Clearly mentioning the funding requirements with the specified amount and its typecast. You are also required to inform about the usage specification of the funding along with the future financial plan
  • With the utilization of proper charts and graphs, portraying the present and anticipated income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, and capital expenditure budgets, etc.
  • Providing supporting documents by means of appendix including credit histories, permits, resumes, legal documents, reference letters, contracts, pictures of the products, licenses, etc.

4. Accurately Evaluating Your Finances and Funding Your Business

When you think of starting a small business, it is a sure event that there will be an associated cost or price. Therefore, you are required to determine what will be your start-up cost.

Before obtaining sustainable revenue from small business, here are the few steps which you can acquire.

Conducting a Break-Even Analysis – As a business owner, if you can determine the price of conducting a break-even analysis, then in the long run, you can anticipate how profitable your products and services will remain!

Fixed Costs / (Average Price – Variable Costs) = Break-Even Point –

Many entrepreneurs and businessmen apply this method as a means of a tool because it helps them to understand the minimum requirement of their business performance for attaining success. It also helps in determining the production goals.

Break-Even Analysis helps you in;

  • Determining the profitability
  • Obtaining information about fixed rates, variable costs, total costs labour costs, etc.
  • Analysing the data properly

Considering the Funding Options 

The available options of funding for your business can respectively come from;

Business Loans – You can opt for a commercial loan or even a small business loan from Small Business Administration.
Business Grants – There are various kinds of business grants which can be secured and do not require to be paid back like minority-owned business grants, grants for women-owned businesses, government grants, etc.
Investor Funding – many investors can also fund your business
Crowdfunding – Crowdfunding is a widely utilized funding option as it doesn’t engage much risk, however, launching an equity crowdfunding campaign can help you in obtaining many small amounts of money from several crowd-funders.

5. Choose Your Business Structure Wisely

The correct choice of your small business structure is going to influence all your daily operations, taxes, filing, personal liability, and asset management, .Henceforth, choose it wisely so that you can obtain the right balance of your legal protections and advantages.

You can choose from the below-mentioned options;

  • Sole Proprietorship
  • Partnership
  • Limited Liability Company (LLC)
  • Corporation – C Corp
  • Corporation – S Corp
  • Corporation – B Corp
  • Close Corporation
  • Non-profit Corporation
  • Cooperatives.

Other Steps Associated with Starting a Small Business –

Although the above mentioned are the primary steps associated with starting a small business, however, there are also few other steps, which are;

  • Choosing a Proper Business Location
  • Choosing a Business Name
  • Registering Your Business
  • Obtaining Federal and State Tax IDs
  • Applying for Required Licenses and Permits
  • Purchasing an Insurance Policy
  • Opening a Business Bank Account
  • Choosing the Proper Vendors
  • Growing and Developing an Effective Team
  • Advertising and Branding Your Business
  • Promoting and Growing Your Business

Conclusion
Efficiently and carefully following these steps will lead you towards starting your dream small-scale business.

 


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor |Akash TripathiAkash Tripathi is a Content Marketing Manager at Top Mobile Tech. It is a blog where I cover all the tips & tricks related to Mobile and more related to tech. Stay connected to the rest of the world with Top Mobile Tech. We bring latest and critical news to your mobile and computer devices.

Top Things To Think About When Starting A Business

StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Starting a Business|Top Things To Think About When Starting A BusinessStarting a business can be exciting and daunting at the same time. However, if you get it right it can lead you to success and a completely different way of life. It can be difficult to know where to start and what you should be prioritising, especially when you are expected to wear many hats and complete several tasks all at once.

Let’s have a look at some of the things you need to think about when starting a business:

How To Fund

One of the first things you’re probably going to want to think about is the funding for your business. You need to take into consideration what you’re start-up costs will be. When thinking about this you need to think about things like:

  • The equipment you need
  • The marketing you will require
  • If you’re going to need to employee
  • Are you going to outsource any areas of the business?
  • Do you need working space or are you working from home
  • What do you expect your running costs to be each year?
  • And more.

Once you’ve collated an idea of all the costs that you may come across, specifically in your first year and then your next 4 years, you can start to think about how you’re going to fund your new business. Do you already have the start-up costs saved? Or do you need to look at startup business loan options? If you do look at business loans, make sure you include the repayments in your running costs until it is paid back.

Your Name

This is one of the most important areas that you need to think about, it’s the way that your customers and clients are going to identify you. Are you planning on using your name or are you thinking about using something unique? Once you know your name, it’s advisable to check that this trading name is available on places like companies house. If you move away from being a sole trader, you don’t want to trade as one name and be forced to change it because someone is already using it later down the line.

Your Marketing

This is something that you will need to think about as a priority. It’s the way that you are going to be able to get your services and products out there and spoken about. Think about who your products and services are aimed at and do some research about how these people like to see their products. A lot of people now make use of social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter as viable ways to market their business. If marketing isn’t your strong point, it might be worth either employing a marketing expert or using outsourcing. If you outsource you have access to skilled freelancers or marketing services that are experts in the field. Many new businesses use this as an option because it saves a lot of time and often money.

These three areas are three important areas to consider when starting a business. Of course, there are others to factor in. Do you have any important areas that you could share in the comments below?

How to Start a Successful Retail Business

The retail industry is the practice of selling goods to the public for their direct use, not for resale. Many people dream of starting their own business in retail. Starting a successful retail business can be challenging, but like other challenges, it can also be very rewarding. There are several important steps to starting a successful retail business, and all are equally important.

What?

It is critical to know the type of retail business that you are starting. What will you be selling? Not only will this drastically affect your business plan, but it is also important to know as you are setting up the legal structure for your business. This can be expensive to change later, so be sure that you are ready from the beginning. It is also very important once you have decided what kind of retail business you will be running, to read up on any laws related to that business. This way, you will know about the different rules that must be followed and your business will be completely legal. It is also important to consider the internet. Will your business offer online shopping right away? This is another crucial detail to iron out because of the importance of having an online presence in today’s economy.

Where?

The location of your store is very important. It must be both within your budget and in a place that people see and can get to easily. The location can often mean the difference between success and failure since you want people to come to your store. Sometimes, the best location is too expensive, so have several options in mind in case one doesn’t work out. Not only do you need to know where your store will be located; it is also important to know where you will be buying your supplies from. By having the right supplies to make and prepare your products, or the right wholesale products, you will be more successful. It is critical to find a vendor that you can partner with, one who will work with you in the selling process while also helping with defective items. If these products are going to be shipped, you need to establish a time for that to occur.

Who?

Hiring the right people is very important to a successful retail business. Without good customer service and a range of useful and unique products, people are much less likely to shop at your store. Customer service is critical and keeps people coming back to your store because of the pleasant experience. Websites like jobapplicationcenter.com will be invaluable assets in helping your company find the help that it needs to be successful. Be aware that you will also need to apply for an Employer Identification Number from the Federal Government if you are planning to have any employees. It will also be important for you to figure out the target audience of your business. This will impact the way that you advertise since different approaches work for different audiences.

Operating a successful retail business takes a lot of work. However, if you take the time to organize the what, where, and who, the process can be much smoother.

The Tools Every Small Business Should Have

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article
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As a small business looking to expand, it’s vital that you are as efficient and professional as possible. Thankfully, there are a lot of fantastic tools that can help you with this, and ensure that you have a competitive edge…

Slack

Slack is a great tool, which enables all of your team to communicate more efficiently. It will allow you all to share files, call each other, send messages, and it even lets you send ‘tacos’ as a reward to employees who’ve done well!

Microsoft Office 365

Although there are lots of free alternatives, you still really can’t beat this Microsoft office software for efficiency and professionalism. It will allow you to complete lots of tasks, including billing, generating presentations and chatting with your team very effectively.

GSuite

Google’s GSuite was built with the intention of offering a total range of business functionality. It enables you to buy a business domain, setup and manage a company email client, track visitors launch ad campaigns, track website analytics and much more besides, and all for just $50 annually!

EchoSign

As a small business, you probably don’t have a huge amount of money to spend on paper, ink, and printers, and thanks to EchoSign, you don’t need to because you can simply upload documents to their server, and have them sent to the other party, who can then sign them digitally. You’ll save a fortune.

Goodhire

Hiring staff can be a nightmare, especially when you’re a small business, and you perhaps don’t have experience of doing so. You have to advertise, conduct background checks, organize drug screenings, test the applicant’s skills and much more besides – it’s a lot, but Goodhire will do all of that and more for you, and they will do it in 24 hours or less!

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Upwork

Upwork is a great website, which is full of talented freelancers looking for work. As a small business, this is a boon for you because it gives you direct access to professional web designers, sales people and content writers for a fraction of the cost of hiring them full-time.

Intercom

Intercom is a business communication tool that lets you speak directly to your customers via live chat amongst other things. As you will know, being able to communicate effectively with customers is of the utmost importance if you want them to positively rate you and come back for more, so having a solution like this right at your fingertips is a real benefit.

SalesLoft

SalesLoft is a great way of boosting your sales and growing your customer base, especially in the early days. It comes with a host of features that help to make your sales department more effective such as sales specific email design and a built in sales dialer.

A Great Team

Your employees are the best tools you have. Sure, they might not fit inside your smartphone, but they will be the ones working by your side contacting customers, creating products and doing the small task that help to make a small business bigger. If you invest in nothing else on this list, at least make sure that you assemble a great team.