Business Gap

Niche Market : an old wine in new bottle

Another very important quality of professional life is, having an eye for timely identifying the business opportunities,  Having this skill, is absolutely necessary for any success in work life. If  we watch carefully, it has its own presence and importance in all activities where exchange of commodity or service is involved. It doesn't become an important skill of the business world in recent days, after we started taking about open market global economy. It is eternally important from the time when human society started exchange of goods or any outputs, even as early at the beginning of  the barter system.

The basic principle is not much complicated, if market is currently paying or willing to pay 100$ for a particular product and we can make this product available right now with a price of 99.99$, covering our cost and profit, there is a business gap and initiate to put effort for creating that product makes a business sense. And this gap is not very static in nature, it will change with the passing of time. But both buyer and seller will accept it as an, win-win situation till this business gap exists. The moment it will vanish one party or other will start getting dissatisfied.

Success of a business, lies in this key point of timely finding out the business gap and promptly work on delivering product at right time at right place. Once business gap is over, keep on working on it due to system inertia only results to frustration. A successful dynamic organization should identify the next available business gap and start putting effort on it when it is still harvesting the fruits from its previous one. No cash cow lasts forever. This is an on going process to keep relevancy of the existence of business entity. This is absolutely true in personal level too. Even when we are in a situation of a secured routine job in a government organization, to be successful and be in the lime light or to maintain our importance in the organization, we need to develop an eye of finding out opportunity to deliver a creative output which can be useful with in the delegated job scope and silently work on it and brought into daylight at right time. We cannot ignore this golden skill of success in business and professional world.

I’ll take up an example from old time to analyze this, as I believe true principles crosses boundaries of time.

Back in late 1800 and early 1900, my family was in brass metal business near Dhaka. They had developed a logistics to collect the raw materials basically scraps from very unusual sources even from waste ammunition during war time and carry them by boat through rives and canals and bring them to their factory, where scrap was melted and cast into new utensils. This business made us very rich at some point.

I have seen same business at the home of one of my Engineering College batch mate, Pabitra Kumar Das, He is a very good friend of me, a man with lots of qualities. Last I know he was working as an engineer in Indian arm force keeping alive his heart of a poet and practicing his to do mentality, and with a brave heart which dares to do anything. I wish we’ll get opportunity to cross our path again. His family was still doing the same business, back in Nadia district of West Bengal, at 90's, following almost same system, but with time it was not that effective business opportunity any more, so they were surviving but not flourishing with that business. Over the year demand of those utensils have gone down, business doesn't generate enough revenue to keep skilled workmen to produce innovative designs and also the logistics which was the key factor of the success at that time was lost its relevance and uniqueness.

So timeliness is very important in any business opportunity and once somebody succeed finding one, many will follow the path and over the time, soon it will loose its business value. Its better to be prepared for this, and find another niche market and business opportunity in advance.

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