Crisis Management for Small Business

As Canada’s Maple Leaf Foods makes its way through managing a food safety crisis, all business owners should give thought to their business’ crisis management plan. Crisis management can be defined as “a business plan of action that is implemented quickly when a negative situation occurs” (From “Crisis Management" in Encyclopedia of Small Business in enote.com). This “negative situation” could take many forms: natural disasters, embezzlement, product defects/recalls, workplace accidents/sabotage, computer viruses, etc. According to Gartner Group and quoted in the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’ document called “Basic Emergency Management Guidelines”, “43% of businesses that experience a major crisis never reopen”, and “a further 20% close within 2 years”. Good planning could help you minimize the negative impacts of a crisis.

Small Business Crisis Management

The Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness (CCEP) devotes a page to small business preparedness, including links to small business disaster management resources. The website includes free templates for downloading, like a business continuity plan and a crisis communications plan. Additionally, the CCEP produces a quarterly publication called Disaster Management Canada; back issues are available on the site in pdf format.

The British website, Business Link, which offers “practical advice for business” also offers a downloadable guide to business continuity management and a guide to developing a business continuity plan.

You can find even find background information on crisis management including models and theories, success stories, lessons learned and a variety of references, further reading and external links worth exploring on Wikipedia's crisis management page.

For further reading, don’t forget to visit your local public library to check out business planning and crisis management materials for free. A search of the term “crisis management” on the Oakville Public Library’s catalogue reveals several titles worth exploring, like one written by Ian Mitroff, a leader in business crises writing, called “Why Some Companies Emerge Stronger and Better from a Crisis: 7 Essential Lessons for Surviving Disaster”.

Doing Business in India

As a complement to my posts on doing business in China (see Feb.1/08 and Jan.18/08), this post is about doing business in India. India, too, is emerging as an economic powerhouse. Back in 2003, Goldman Sachs recognized the market potential of four countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China and coined the term BRIC for the four named countries. Jim O’Neill, the Head of Global Economic Research at Goldman Sachs proposed the thesis that the BRIC countries would become four of the most dominant economies by 2050. This thesis is still supported and more information and resources about doing business in India are being produced. If you are planning on taking advantage of this growing market, please read on…

What are BRICs?

Click here for the website link to everything BRICs on the Goldman Sachs’ website. Among other things, you’ll find an interesting video interview called “BRICs at 6” from February 2008 with Jim O’Neill, Head of Global Economic Research.

To review the original 2003 report on BRICs produced by Goldman Sachs called “Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050”, click here.

Read up on BRICs on Wikipedia by clicking right here.

From the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, click here for information on understanding India, its economy, investment, industry and services, trade and travel information.

The Economist is always a reliable source of credible information. Below are a number of links you might want to check out:

1. This link is a Special Report called “Technology in India and China: Running Fast” which appeared on Nov.8/07.


2. This link is a short background on India’s economy from Dec.31/07.


3. This link is a country briefing on India, most recently updated on Feb.9/08.

Click here for the Doing Business Project’s Report on India.

Ernst & Young has a number of reports and surveys on business in India. Click here to see them.

Cultural Differences

There are lots of books written on doing business in different countries, including India. One that I enjoyed is called “Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: The Bestselling Guide to Doing Business in More Than 60 Countries” by Terri Morrison and Wayne A. Conaway, 2nd edition, 2006. Check to see if your local public library has a copy of it in their collection before you run out to buy it. Click here to see some titles that the Oakville Public Library has in its collection on doing business in India. Click here to see materials on business etiquette in other cultures, including the “Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands” book.

The Canadian Government’s Foreign Affairs department includes an article by Rajesh Kumar on the cultural differences between India and the West: Click here to read it.

From Canadian Business Online, this article (click here) from June 2005 by Matthew McClearn discusses cultural differences, outsourcing, India’s infrastructure, government, relationships and more:

Click here for a link to a number of YouTube videos on doing business in India. Below is a presentation that I found there on doing business in India. While it is aimed at Brazilian businessmen, the content is about Indian culture.

Doing Business in China

Everyone’s talking about the great Chinese economic engine. How can your small business get a piece of the action? How can you find out how to do business with China?

Here are some suggestions:

1. Visit your local public library in person or online.

I know I say it often but your local public library is always a fantastic place to start to look for any kind of information; best of all, the information is FREE! Visit your local public library or search their online catalogue from the comfort of your home or office for titles (books, CDs, DVDs, etc.) including the terms “China” and “business”. New titles are being published all the time to take advantage of opportunities. For example, click here for a sampling of titles found at the Oakville Public Library.

Not only can you search the physical holdings of your library, but you likely have FREE access (with your library card) to the full-text of thousands of newspapers, magazines, journals, encyclopedias, tv and radio transcripts, and reference books. Go to what most libraries refer to as online or electronic databases and, with your library card as your username, do a search using the terms “China” and “business”. These databases are just like searching Google or Yahoo! but your library pays for your access to the articles! Click here for a link to the suite of databases at Oakville Public Library that provide business information (they have others too!).

2. Go to your regional business or economic development centre.

For example, if you live in Halton Region, the Halton Region Business Development Centre offers information, business advice, seminars and contacts for small business entrepreneurs to do business locally and globally. These centres partner with local libraries and government agencies to run inexpensive and sometimes free workshops for small businesses. Take a look at the upcoming seminars in Halton Region – click here.

3. Do online market research.

Here are several good sites:

Statistics Canada recently published a document detailing Canada’s trade with China from 1997 to 2006. This document (click here) includes information like leading imports and exports. Notably, “Imports from China were five times higher in 2006 than in 1997 while exports to the country tripled.” Also, “By 2003, the country (China) had emerged as Canada’s second largest trading partner surpassing the U.K. and Japan.”

Industry Canada (Strategis)’s Trade Data Online site (click here) provides import and export data on more than 200 countries including China.

http://www.exportsource.ca/ and http://www.importsource.ca/ – These Government of Canada exporting and importing sites providing a wide range of tools from a network of federal, provincial and territorial departments and agencies to help Canadian businesses do business globally.

The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) offers research, financing and consulting. Click here.

Export Development Canada is Canada’s export credit agency and enables Canadian exporters and investors to expand their international business; here is a link to their China report plus links to much more on China.

The Canadian Trade Commissioner in China assists Canadian companies looking for market opportunities in China. The site also links to:
The Embassy of Canada to China
The Consulate General of Canada, Guangzhou
The Consulate General of Canada, Shanghai
The Consultate General of Canada, Chongqing

According to their site, the World Bank’s “Doing Business” project (click here) provides “objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 178 countries and selected cities at the subnational and regional level.

http://business-china.com/ – This site provides access to information on more than 120,000 Chinese businesses in six major languages as well as industries, products and services.

http://www.chinapages.com/ / http://www.ectrade.com/ – This site contains trade categories to search for companies or products. This site is updated with news and economic information.

The National Bureau of Statistics of China site provides demographic and economic statistics for China.

The People’s Daily Online is China’s national newspaper. Click here.

The Conference Board of Canada is also an interesting place to find information. Most of their information is pricey but surprisingly you can get some of their outstanding reports for free. Here are links to two free reports:
“China’s Productivity Boom: The Contribution of Restructuring to Growth and Competitiveness” and
“Can China’s Growth Trajectory Be Sustained? "

New Year's Resolution: Be a Social Entrepreneur

Do you have a New Year’s resolution? Do you dream of establishing a viable business that also has a positive social impact? Make it your resolution, then, to become a social entrepreneur.

What exactly is a social entrepreneur? According to Wikipedia, “A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change”. Social organizations can be set up as either for-profit or non-profit but the real bottom line is to make social improvements.

More and more information about social entrepreneurship is being disseminated. For example, on December 4, 2007, The Globe and Mail featured a special section called “Report on Social Entrepreneurs”. To view these articles, either go to The Globe and Mail website and search for “social entrepreneurs” or search the online databases at your local public library; note that you will have to pay to view the articles directly from The Globe and Mail website. To save yourself some money, visit your local public library's website to see if they subscribe to an online database like the Canadian Periodicals Index (CPI.Q) which contains newspaper and magazine articles, often with the complete text and access is FREE. (It’s free because public libraries pay for access to databases for their customers’ use. Your library card number is your way in!) For example, click here to access the suite of databases that the Oakville Public Library subscribes to.

If you are seeking to establish an enterprise with social entrepreneurship as its foundation, consider contacting the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship to gain access to their incredible resources and networks.

For further reading on social entrepreneurship, check out what the New York Times calls “a bible in the field”: How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas by David Bornstein, published in 2007 by Oxford University Press. (Tip: To save money, borrow it from your local public library! Like this - click here.)