Manoj Ranaweera Posts

So, you are a start-up bringing your first product to market and potentially every business on the planet is a target. How do you decide which companies to target initially? This is when customer profiling become important. Customer profiling focuses you to identify the type of company you believe you have a higher chance of converting to a revenue generating client. How do you go about accomplishing this given UK alone has more than 2.1 million registered companies? You need to apply number of criteria to reduce this number to about 50 companies to initially target. Once you got your…

I just got back from listening to Martin Beaumont, chief executive, Co-operative Group Ltd at Manchester Business School. Martin spoke passionately about the corporate turnaround that is taking place within Co-op Group under his leadership. Their vision is to be the best co-operative business in the world. How does this vision relate to typical UK business? Very differently. Because his stakeholders include co-op members and focus is not just on revenue, profitability and growth. To get your head around this, first you need to understand what a co-operative is… “a co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to…

A friend just introduced me to “the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint“. Guy Kawasaki is right! It is true. Most start-ups are poor at delivering a clear strong message to VCs. VCs are not interested in working with companies that does not have the right management structure, etc because its hard work and they have many other propositions to choose from. Many start-ups, specially those in the technology space, falls into catch 22 scenario, i.e. cannot develop product, generate revenue, let alone acquire clients without external funding. You have no chance of getting funding if there is no product, no revenue…

Everyone knows who BT is. But do you know how much influence BT had in creating entrepreneurs? I had the fortune to work with BT Retail in the past. And during my involvement, I had the opportunity to research Internet Service Provider (ISP) market. Most of the CEOs who run top ISPs today, worked for BT in their career at one point or another. Today, I was told by Vodafone that SE 990i I have been awaiting for since X’mas 2005 may not be released this month. So, I started looking for alternatives and I came across i-mate, a company…

I recently came across vyew pronounced as “view” from Zoli’s and Dennis Howlett’s blogs. In the past I have trialled both gotomeeting.com and webex, and came to the conclusion that webex is priced too high and bandwidth hungry. So, I was going to settle with gotomeeting.com. We need a on line meeting product that has following features: Web based – because we are a web based company and therefore promotes such applications. Thereare other valid reasons than this!! Can be easily set-up – if it does not require software installation on your machine, this is even better Can use to…

On January 2006, Cisco reported “British small businesses are receiving inadequate customer support and intelligence prior to making crucial technology buying decisions. According to the survey of 400 UK small businesses, the majority of small businesses (42%) feel left in the lurch after purchasing technology, due to insufficient post-sales support or training.” I came across this article on outserve.biz blog, and the author of blog comments “ I think the above can be caused by the standard VAR (value added reseller) model, whereby the emphasis (and majority of the income and therefore profit) is centred on the initial sale with…

I have been awaiting for this phone since back end of last year. Vodafone and Carphone Warehouse is promising delivery in May 06. I am not sure I believe any of them, as they both promised delivery in Q1 06 before. What do you use and why? I am looking for an alternative if SE 990i is further delayed. David, thanks for your suggestions through Skype and your blog. Update 1: Signed up with O2 and got XDA Mini S. Vodafone just lost me as a customer, as they were not flexible enough to upgrade my phone free and sign…

I learned yesterday that one of my business acquaintances father in law has passed away after illness. My wife also lost number of her family over the years. It is taking her a long time to come to terms with her losses. This got me thinking. How do I want to be remembered? What thoughts do I want to have just before I die? Obviously, we all want to be loved, and want to give the best possible opportunities for our kids. If you take family and close friends out of the question, what then? I think I want to…

I just came home from attending a lecture given by my friend, Felix Martin, Alum of Manchester Business School on CSR. For simplicity, he titled the presentation “Should psychology of CSR permeate management decision making?”. Felix is corporate counsel at GE Commercial Finance. Based on the case studies and discussions that took place, I split companies generally into: Those who does not have the budget or has the inclination to see benefits CSR brings Those who has a budget but are bad executioners due to lack of senior management buy-in Those who build it into organisational culture, thereby using CSR…