This section is devoted to analyzing the competition – whether the current competition, or potential competitors who will attempt to enter the space if the business is successful.

Key questions to answer:

• Who are the current competitors? What is their market share? How successful are they?
• What market do current competitors target? Do they focus on a specific customer type, on serving the mass market, or on a particular niche?
• Are competing businesses growing or scaling back operations? Why?
• How will your company be different from the competition? What competitor weaknesses can you exploit? What competitor strengths will you need to overcome to be successful?
• What will you do if competitors drop out of the marketplace? What will you do to take advantage of the opportunity?
• What will you do if new competitors enter the marketplace? How will you react to and overcome new challenges?

Competition answers the “Against who?” question.

Operations

Customers are necessary. Products and services those customers need are necessary. The next key step is to develop an operation plan to serve those customers while keeping operating costs in line to ensure profitability. The Operations plan should detail plans for research and development, processing, manufacturing, staffing, managing… in short, how to run the business on a day to day basis.

Key questions to answer:

• What facilities, equipment, and supplies will you need?
• Is research and development necessary, either for start-up purposes or as a part of ongoing operations, and if so how?
• What are initial staffing needs? When and how will you add staff?
• Who will you establish business relationships with (vendors, suppliers, etc?) How will those relationships impact your day to day operations?
• How will your operations change as the company grows? What steps will you take to cut costs if the company initially does not perform up to expectations?

Operations answers the “How?” question.

Clearly describe the products and services the business will provide. (Without products or services you have no company.) Highly detailed or technical descriptions are unnecessary – use simple terms and avoid industry buzzwords. Describing how the company’s products and services will differ from the competition is critical; so too is describing how your products and services are needed if no market currently exists.

Patents, copyrights and trademarks owned or applied for should be listed.

Key questions to answer:

• Are products or services already on the market or still in development?
• What is the timeline for bringing new products and services to market?
• What makes the products or services different? Are there competitive advantages compared to other offerings from other companies? Are there competitive disadvantages that must be overcome in some other way?
• Is price an issue? Will operating costs be low enough to allow a reasonable profit margin?

Think of it this way; Products and/or Services answers the “What?” question for a business.

Market Opportunities

Market research is critical to business success. A good business plan analyzes and evaluates customer demographics, purchasing habits, buying cycles, and willingness to adopt new products and services.

Key questions to answer:

• What is your market? Include geographic descriptions, target demographics, company profiles (if business to business)… in other words, who are your customers?



• What part of your market will you focus on? (In other words, what niche will you attempt to carve out?) What percentage of that market do you hope to penetrate?
• What is the size of your intended market? (Population, spending, etc.)
• Why do customers need – and will be willing to purchase – your products and services?
• How will you price your goods or services? Will you focus on being the low cost provider, or on providing value-added services at a higher price?
• Will your market potentially grow? Why?
• How can you increase your market share over time?

Market Opportunities answers the “Who?” question.

Sales & Marketing

Offering great products and services is wonderful, but customers must know those products and services exist. Marketing plans and strategies are critical to business success.

Key questions to answer:

• What is your budget for sales and marketing?
• How will you determine whether marketing efforts are successful? How will you adapt if initial marketing efforts are unsuccessful?
• Will you need sales representatives to promote your products?
• What public relations activities do you plan (if any?)

Some business plans include examples of marketing materials: Website descriptions, print advertisement samples, etc. While including samples is not necessary, the exercise of creating actual marketing materials can help focus and shape overall marketing plans and objectives.

Sales & Marketing answers the “How will I reach them?” question.

***Note to readers: This is a four part series, wherein we will highlight every aspect of business plan ***

A good business plan:

• Requires objective analysis and critical thinking – what seemed like a good idea can, under mature reflection, be exposed as a business lacking viability due to excess competition, a lack of sufficient funding, etc.
• Serves as a guide to operations for the first months and even years, creating a management blueprint.
• Communicates the company’s purpose and vision, management responsibilities, personnel requirements, marketing plans, and competitive environment.
• Creates the foundation of a financing proposal for investors, lenders, etc.

While each business plan is unique, all business plans share a few common elements. The following are some of the key components of a well-crafted business plan.

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary (sometimes called a Vision Statement) is a brief outline of the company’s purpose and goals. While it can be tough to fit on one or two pages, a good summary includes:

• Brief description of products and services
• Business objectives
• The market space the business will inhabit
• Justification for viability (including a brief look at competition and competitive advantage)
• Growth potential
• Funding requirements

For many people, the Executive Summary is the make-or-break section of a business plan. Companies solve customer’s problems; if the Summary cannot clearly describe how the business will solve a particular problem – and profit by doing so – in one or two pages, then it is very possible the opportunity does not exist… or the plan to take advantage of the opportunity has not been well developed.

In effect, an Executive Summary is where the sizzle must meet the steak.

***Note to readers: This is a four part series, wherein we will highlight every aspect of business plan ***

We think that the best way to present data is, by using Page numbers, easy to surf and finding information wont take any time, as the surfer can go directly to the desired page and find the relevant information.

Creating page numbers can be a difficult thing if you are using a procedural way of coding. But if you are using CodeIgniter, creating page numbers can be as easy as a child’s play. CodeIgniter is an application Framework that uses MVC architecture, which allows great separation between Logic and Presentation.

Here is all you need to do:

$this->load->library(‘pagination’);
$config['base_url'] = ‘http://www.gwtindia.com/index.php/test/page/’;
$config['total_rows'] = ’200′;
$config['per_page'] = ’20′;

$this->pagination->initialize($config);
echo $this->pagination->create_links();

The $config array contains your configuration variables. It is passed to the $this->pagination->initialize function as shown above. Although there are some twenty items you can configure, at minimum you need the three shown. Here is a description of what those items represent:

base_url : This is the full URL to the controller class/function containing your pagination. In the example above, it is pointing to a controller called “Test” and a function called “page”. Keep in mind that you can re-route your URI if you need a different structure.
total_rows : This number represents the total rows in the result set you are creating pagination for. Typically this number will be the total rows that your database query returned.
per_page : The number of items you intend to show per page. In the above example, you would be showing 20 items per page.

The create_links() function returns an empty string when there is no pagination to show.

**Note: Please change the base_url to your website / application url **

We are listing here few points to help reviewers understand how to write thoughtful reviews, that readers will find them informative, and that the content of the reviews provide useful feedback to business owners.

• Be informative and insightful

Your review should be specific and relevant to the place you are reviewing and describe what other patrons are likely to experience. Describe why you liked or disliked the place. Highlight what makes the place special and try to share something novel. From favorite dishes to secret sale racks, reviews can describe unique experiences about a business.

• Keep it real

People read reviews to learn about real experiences from real people, so be authentic. Keep your reviews to your own, direct experience with a place. Try to describe your experience as accurately as possible, including both positive and negative aspects.

• Be respectful

We don’t expect that every interaction you have with a place or business will be perfect. Sometimes, you’ll want to share negative feedback. Even if you’re frustrated, be sure your criticism is constructive. Business owners can use feedback to improve their business, but remember — they’re people too.

• Write in style

People will pay more attention to what you say when you write your review thoughtfully. Keep it readable and don’t use excessive capitalization or punctuation. Use good grammar, check your spelling, and don’t use excessive profanity. Choose the right length: People aren’t necessarily looking for formal write-ups, they want to know what’s notable about a particular place. Whether it takes an essay or a tweet — share your thoughts and be creative.

Things to avoid while writing a review:

• Advertising and spam

Nobody likes spam and it can only make its author look bad. Don’t use reviews for advertising or post the same or similar reviews across multiple places. Obviously, don’t post fake reviews intended to boost or lower ratings.

• Off-topic Reviews

Reviews should describe your personal, first hand experience with a specific place. Do not post reviews based on someone else’s experience, or that are not about the specific place you are reviewing. Reviews are not a forum for personal attacks, rants or crusades. Please also do not use reviews to report incorrect information about a place.

• Conflict of interest

Reviews are only valuable when they are honest and unbiased. Even if well-intentioned, a conflict of interest can undermine the trust in a review. Do not post reviews on behalf of others or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with the place you are reviewing.

comScore, a Palo Alto based company, on their press release say:

Facebook.com posted, an especially strong month in July, growing 12 percent versus June, to capture the top spot in the category with 20.9 million visitors. Orkut ranked second with 19.9 million visitors (up 16 percent vs. year ago), followed by BharatStudent.com with 4.4 million visitors (up 3 percent). Twitter.com had the highest rate of growth among the top five social networking sites, increasing 239 percent to 3.3 million visitors. Yahoo! owned two of the top ten social networking sites: Yahoo! Pulse (3.5 million visitors) and Yahoo! Buzz (1.8 million visitors).

Though Twitter has the highest growth rate i.e. 239% but it’s still far behind from Facebook and Orkut. If these statistics are to be believed then Twitter will become Number 1 Social Networking Site in India much sooner than expected.

No matter your budget, you’ll only pay when people click your ads, and there’s no minimum monthly charge with AdWords. Ad performance tracking reports are built right into your account, so you can tell what’s working and what needs improving.

Google Places offers an easy way to establish and maintain an online presence even if you don’t have a website. It allows business owners to add a brand new listing to Google’s local database, or to edit their existing listing that appears for free when potential customers search for them on Google.com or Google Maps.

By ensuring that basic information – like your business name, location, hours of operation and phone number – is up-to-date, customers can quickly and easily find you online. And with the option to provide additional details – such as photos, videos and coupons – business owners can stand out on the map to attract more customers. You can also edit and check your info at any time to discover how many people have seen and clicked on your free listing.

1) Model: The model object knows all about the data, that is needed, to be displayed. It is the model who is aware about all the operations that can be applied to transform that object. It only represents the data of an application. The model represents data and the rules that govern to and updates of this data. Model is not aware about the presentation data and how that data will be displayed to the browser.

2) View: The view, as the name suggest, represents the presentation of the application. The view object refers to the model. It uses the query method of the model to obtain the contents and renders it. The view is not dependent on the application logic. It remains the same even if there is any change / modification in the business logic. In other words, we can say that it is the responsibility of the view to maintain the consistency in the presentation.

3) Controller: Whenever a user send a request, it always go through the controller. The controller is responsible for intercepting the requests from the view and passes it to the model for appropriate action. After the action has been taken on the data, the controller is responsible for directing the appropriate view to the user. In GUIs, the views and the controllers often work very closely together.

How MVC work in Web Development

• First, the browser send an HTTP request to the web application.
• A dispatcher usually will get this HTTP request and determine which controller to be used. This dispatcher is usually called a Front Controller.
• The controller will receive it and from the data received, determine which model’s are needed, what data is required and what actions are needed on the data.
• The model will retrieve the data and implement any necessary actions. Then, it will return the results to the controller, successful or not.
• The controller, based on the results from the model, will then determine which view should be used and provide the view whatever data is to be published to the browser.
• The view will receive this data, implement any presentation logic to the data, and return it back to the controller.
• The controller will then return the results to the browser.

Currently, there are many Frameworks that uses MVC Architecture, popular being Spring MVC Framework, Struts, WebWork, Swing, SproutCore, JavascriptMVC , eMVC, ASP.NET MVC Framework, CakePHP, CodeIgniter .. etc.

CodeIgniter uses a segment-based URI approach rather than the conventional standard “query string” approach to URLs.

What are URI Segments?

The segments that represents the URL e.g. example.com/class/function/ID

• The first segment represents the controller class that should be invoked.
• The second segment represents the class function, or method, that should be called.
• The third, and any additional segments, represent the ID and any variables that will be passed to the controller.

We can remapped the URL , how we want using the URI Routing feature. The URI Class and the URL Helper contain functions that make it easy to work with our URI data.

Adding a URL Suffix

In config/config.php file we can specify a suffix that will be added to all URLs generated by CodeIgniter. For example, if a URL is this:

example.com/index.php/products/view/mobile

We can optionally add a suffix, like .html, making the page appear to be of a certain type:
example.com/index.php/products/view/mobile.html

Enabling Query Strings

CodeIgniter optionally supports this capability, which can be enabled in application/config.php file. If you open your config file you’ll see these items:

$config['enable_query_strings'] = FALSE;
$config['controller_trigger'] = ‘c’;
$config['function_trigger'] = ‘m’;

If you change “enable_query_strings” to TRUE this feature will become active. Your controllers and functions will then be accessible using the “trigger” words you’ve set to invoke your controllers and methods:
index.php?c=controller&m=method

URI Routing: Setting your own routing rules

Routing rules are defined in application/config/routes.php file. You’ll see an array called $route that permits you to specify your own routing criteria. Routes can either be specified using wildcards or Regular Expressions

1. Wildcards – There are two types of wildcards are used

• :num – :num will match a segment containing only numbers.
• :any – :any will match a segment containing any character.

A typical wildcard route might look something like this:
$route['product/:num'] = “catalog/product_lookup”;

In a route, the array key contains the URI to be matched, while the array value contains the destination it should be re-routed to. In the above example, if the literal word “product” is found in the first segment of the URL, and a number is found in the second segment, the “catalog” class and the “product_lookup” method are instead used.

Here are a few routing examples:
$route['blog/sat'] = “blogs/users/34″;
A URL containing the segments blog/sat will be remapped to the “blogs” class and the “users” method. The ID will be set to “34″.

$route['product/:any'] = “catalog/product_lookup”;
A URL with “product” as the first segment, and anything in the second will be remapped to the “catalog” class and the “product_lookup” method.

$route['product/(:num)'] = “catalog/product_lookup_by_id/$1″;
A URL with “product” as the first segment, and anything in the second will be remapped to the “catalog” class and the “product_lookup_by_id” method passing in the match as a variable to the function.

2. Regular Expressions – We can use regular expressions to define routing rules. Any valid regular expression is allowed. A typical RegEx route might look something like this:

$route['products/mobile/([a-z]+)/(\d+)’] = “$1/id_$2″;
In the above example, a URI similar to products/mobile/123 would instead call the mobile controller class and the id_123 function.

To create a series, visit http://google.com/moderator and select “Create Series.” (This requires signing in with a Google Account) This brings you to the series creation page.

Here you can:

• Name your series to tell your audience what it is about
• Provide a description about your series
• Add administrators who can also change the series name, description, and topics.
• Choose whether or not to allow users to make submissions anonymously
• Choose whether or not to allow users to make submissions containing YouTube videos

All of this information can be changed later through the “Edit Series” button on your series page. When you are done editing, click “Create Series”. It will look like this:

Embedding Moderator

First, place the following code in the HEAD section of your page:

[script src=”http://www.google.com/moderator/static/moderator-embed-api.js” type=”text/javascript”][/script]

Next, create an empty element on your page with a specified ID that will contain the embedded Moderator page, for example

[div id=”moderator-embed-target”][/div]

In your browser, open the existing Moderator page that you want to embed and retrieve the URL, for example:

http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=409f

For basic uses, below the target element you created above, include the URL of your Moderator page and the ID of the target element in this code:

[script type="text/javascript"> MODERATOR_embed("http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=409f", "moderator-embed-target");] [/script]

For advanced uses, you can specify the height, width and language of the embedded page using code like below, instead of using the MODERATOR_embed function:

[script type="text/javascript"]
var mod = new MODERATOR(“http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=409f”);
mod.hl = “es”;
mod.width = 1000;
mod.height = 500;
mod.embed(“moderator-embed-target”);
[/script]

Putting it all together: Here’s a sample page that embeds this Moderator series using default properties:

[html]
[head]
[title]Embedding Moderator Sample[/title]
[script src=”http://www.google.com/moderator/static/moderator-embed-api.js” type=”text/javascript”][/script]
[/head]
[body]
[div id=”moderator-embed-target”][/div]
[script type="text/javascript"]MODERATOR_embed(“http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=409f”, “moderator-embed-target”);]
[/script]
[/body]
[/html]

**Note: Please change “[ ]” with “< >”