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Description:
Join me for a discussion with Shoumo Ganguly. Shoumo is a business consultant and expert on the topic of business models. With a long, storied career with many large corporations (from IBM, projects with Toyota, and a long stint at PricewaterhouseCoopers) he's got a lot of experience and insights to bring to the table.
As I do with all my guests in our first episode, we get to know him.. he tells his story from his roots in India to the story of his career and his arrival in America in 1999. He walks us through what's influenced him and what led him to start his own consulting business.
Then to cap it off we dive into his ideas around Business Models.. how he's taken things he learned in the corporate world and molded it, boiled it down for small businesses. If you're starting a new business or building one, there are some great nuggets in this episode. Don't miss it!
Saumya Ganguly
Shoumo (Saumya Ganguly) has a vision of a world where all small businesses prosper. In that world all startups succeed and all social enterprises create an impact. He does his part by creating strong business foundations for long-term growth that can absorb short-term shocks. Shoumo brings to the table a perspective acquired over years of solving business problems. A lot of those were for global brand clients of PwC, IBM Business Consulting, and Cognizant.
Shoumo brought years of experience in consulting, financial accounting, and program management experience into Obligent Consulting. Through the firm, he helps business owners with startup, growth & marketing strategies. He is a business counselor at the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at Rutgers. Shoumo also mentors at a Rutgers graduate tech commercialization entrepreneurship program. His perspective has been shaped over three decades of experience that encompasses global Fortune 100 to Main Street businesses, over multiple industries, in multiple roles, and across multiple countries.
If you would want to connect with him on LinkedIn, be sure to tell him you listened to this podcast (so that he knows it is not a random connection invite.) You may also check out the Obligent Consulting business profile on Alignable.
THE MEAT OF IT!
- Intro: You Win or You Learn
- Shuomo's story from his roots in India… an Industrial town.
- Worked in a transnational firm – exposed to many different people and cultures.
- Company merger put him at IBM for a few years.
- Left IBM and Joined Cognizant in 2005
- IT Services outsourcing firm
- 2008 transferred to US
- Business environments since 1984
- Accounting to Consulting
- Financial Knowledge + Software
- PriceWaterHouse in '91
- 1999 was when he left PWC and started coming to the US.
- Worked at SAP Functional
- Accounting to Consulting
- LEARN from organizations you work for.
- What sparked his interest in how other organizations were structured.
- Business Models .. interest began
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
- 2013 .. needed to change what he'd been doing for health reasons.
- The doctor prescribed a change in job
- Realizations that he wasn't happy.
- Finally pushed himself off the ledge .. out onto his own. Leaving the corporate life.
- John Zachman – mapping a physical enterprise, matrix framework
- Tool for a merger, acquisitions.. or reengineering a business.
- Why he became a consultant
- Businesses going out of business in the 3rd-7th year of their life.
- The challenges of applying enterprise concepts to smaller businesses.
- Funding
- Small businesses have to think short term AND long term.
- Small businesses feel like they can't invest in strategy and decision-making
- Creating a tool that collapses complexity into a simple framework.
- Created a Zachman-like framework
- “Business Model Canvas”
- Business modeling perspective
- 9 elements to function properly
- ‘Idea' to successful implementation
- Steve Blank – Lean Startups Methodology
- Wait… What's a startup? vs?
- Examples:
- Regular Restaurant vs Ghost Restaurants
- Regular cabs vs Uber
- Offshoots of older ideas, an attempt to disrupt the market
- Examples:
- Validation of Business
- Starting a business
- At the beginning of a business, you just need to make sure you're solving the right problem.
- In the starting phase, you rely on ‘other' funds to get started which can take different forms.
- Ways to validate an idea
- Getting paying clients and early adopters
- Testing ideas, scoping out your products or service offerings
- My story about testing ideas, having ideas.. and finding validation when someone actually pays me for that service. Sometimes it does better than you thought
- Undercharging in the beginning
- Finding other value from that transaction or client
- Business Models vs Business Plans
- Components of the business model we are discussing
- Basic breakdown
- Breaking down into 9 elements – 9 questions
- Grouping these into:
- Viability
- Feasibility
- Desirability
- How deep do you go with your business model?
- Fail fast .. and other future discussions. 😉
Connect and Learn More from Shuomo Ganguly
- Obligent Consulting
- Alignable profile – Obligent Consulting
- LinkedIn – Obligent Consulting
- Personal LinkedIn Profile
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE BELOW!
Check out these related Episodes:
- Episode 17: How to Expand & Contract Depending on Your Volume of Business
- Episode 11: A Conversation with Doland White
2 Comment(s)
Matt – this was a great conversation with Shoumo. Learnt a lot.
Glad you enjoyed it Jyotirmoy! Thanks for the feedback. 🙂