Independent Partners Alliance "Energy of Idea"

For the last few years, in the business environment, words related to various expectations have been pronounced with increasing frequency.
Most often, their tone is utterly negative:

• Absence of resources and investments,
• Economic prospects are totally incomprehensible,
• Taxes will be growing,
• Administrative pressure and regulatory limitations and restrictions are ever-growing,
• Self-efficacy is decreasing,
• Consumer activity and purchasing power are limited,
• and so on.

Really, all this causes anxiety and concern, as the current events regularly confirm the worst fears. Our experts’ position concerning the economic outlook for the near future is neither causing optimism. All this leads to the disagreeable thinking of the future:

• Risks are growing and this trend will continue,
• Danger of the loss of business and assets is growing,
• It is becoming more and more difficult to motivate the staff,
• Competition finally ceases to be fair.

Our position and logic are as follows: it is time to “grow up” and start taking the well-balanced decisions.

Let us look at things objectively: it is far from always that we have taken on the task of deciding the matters of the business planning, strategies and tactics development, forming the management models and quality control. It seemed to most of us that all this had been invented by the consultants just to draw the money from us. Same way, the failure to perform the work or to provide a service in time was not considered anything quite exceptional.

We believe that today each businessperson thinking of his/her own business expectations should ask oneself a number of the key questions, i.e.:

• What do I really want to create and what are my Targets and values?
• To what extent does my potential correspond to my expectations?
• How far am I ready to move to implement my plans and ambitions?

We consider that it would be a gross mistake to start any serious projects now acting alone. Time has changed, and whatever it was possible to implement being driven by the enthusiasm and the quick mind for business yesterday, is obviously insufficient today. Besides, starting a new project or scaling your ongoing business, think of whom you will be able to sell it tomorrow; at what price; and how quickly. These simple questions often seem naïve to us, and we do not think it right to ask them ourselves, sincerely believing that we are building the business "for ages" and not for sale. However, this is a mistake.

The sense we have in mind writing this article is as follows:

1. On the one hand, the business growth and survival opportunities have reduced significantly, and this trend is continuing;
2. At the same time, quite a number of new avenues appear which, to our thinking, may and will do the real good and bring the real benefits.

These new avenues imply the following:

• Forming the business to be thought out to the last detail, based on the product QUALITY and on the recognition of the role of the Consumer as the key figure;
• Building a legitimate, open and transparent business model, that both today and tomorrow will be clear to the investor and to the potential buyer;
• Providing for the business protection by means of the use of various financial instruments (which are plenty even now) and the development of the models which we call "the ring-fence" and "business on the wheels".