Marketing opportunity involving green chemistry techniques

Even with no knowledge about the complex science required to explore the concept involving green chemistry techniques, if passion and drive persist one can certainly dive deep and get a long way as a business. To get into any business segment, one doesn’t need to have industry knowledge but that is something which can develop with time. With no knowledge of the industry segment, one is more curious and doesn’t hesitate from asking questions and makes fewer assumptions (Alexander, 1985). This way, one can gain more knowledge and better insights which someone saying who have full knowledge of the industry misses out on. One with little knowledge would think like a customer and can thus be centered towards the problem of a customer and work towards enhancing customer experience.

In order to make the most out of the opportunity in a completely different industrial space of which one holds no knowledge, these can be few of the ways to get into with more confidence and make the best out of it:

Research about the topic: Cold search can be used as a way to look more into the topic. This can be digital search and looking at web reference or going through forums, groups and as such to look into similar questions asked or ask one for yourself. That way you can get the latest update on the development of the industry. In addition, one can look into books, journals and articles published close to the domain to gain more detail into it. Also, getting in touch with your friend circle through social media or in person and linking with them or the person they know who might have more knowledge about the topic would add more value (Mitchell, 2011).

Get into Action: Visit the market yourself once you have some basic understanding of the prospect to look into the potential. Get responses, look for customer reaction and document it all. Gather as many sample reactions as possible but ensure that you have at least 370 samples considering 5% error rate (Hair, Sarstedt, Ringle & Mena, 2011). Also, ensure that the questions you go out with are ones with an open end. Any other type of questions won’t provide a clear picture of what the customer is trying to say. Also as part of the same meeting with other experts of the domain either in person or remotely via Skype or other digital media would help gain more insights into the market as a whole. This way one can get better knowledge from the field - direct reaction of the customer and also some knowledge from the expert to have a better overall picture of the situation.

Document/File them all: Don’t be confident that you can remember it all. At times, you might not or recall differently which may cause a huge problem. So, keeping a notebook with all the details and new information acquired documented helps gain knowledge about the completely new subject and retain it. It serves as a guidebook as well to you when you’re out of idea on what to do next or how something works. It helps build the foundation and also helps recall things on any later occasion.

Get a mentor: Align with someone who has already been there or done that. After that define your niche and get into an aggressive mode of market penetration if possible. Even if you don’t find someone with the market domain knowledge for it being a completely new field, find someone who can motivate you and bring the talents within you out.

References

Alexander, L. (1985). Successfully implementing strategic decisions. Long Range Planning , 18 (3), 91-97.

Hair, J., Sarstedt, M., Ringle, C., & Mena, J. (2011). An assessment of the use of partial least squares structural equation modeling in marketing research. Journal Of The Academy Of Marketing Science , 40 (3), 414-433.

Mitchell, R. (2011). Increasing Returns and the Domain of Entrepreneurship Research. Entrepreneurship Theory And Practice , 35 (4), 615-619.

The businesses involving green chemistry techniques place human and ecological health at the center of profitable product design and manufacturing process. They focus on reducing the consumption of non-renewable inputs in order to shift the petrochemical based economy to bio-based economy by designing products having health focus and environmental attributes along with the functional performance (Spinelli & Adams).

With the increasing use of electronic devices like mobile phones, computers, laptops, televisions, refrigerators and air coolers among others, the e-waste production is also increasing. The e-waste production in Nepal was about 18,000 metric tons in 2017 and is expected to increase in coming years. Due to lack of proper rules, regulations and laws in Nepal regarding the management of e-waste, they are disposed carelessly that is resulting in environmental pollution along with the deteriorating health condition of people (Satyal, 2017). Keeping this in mind, I spotted that there is massive market opportunity in the business related to e-waste management. But I am not being able to start my business due to lack of knowledge about the complex science that lies behind this. In such situation, I will take following steps:

Gather Information Through Internet

Internet is the easiest and largest learning platform these days. So, I will try to gather more information about the e-waste management businesses operating in different parts of the world to know about tools, techniques and processes adopted by them through cold search or forums. This will provide me clarity about the idea I want to create my business on.

Look for Partner(s)

After collecting the information and validating my idea, I will look for partner(s) in my friend or family circle who has knowledge about the science and technology associated with this business and is willing to work on it. This will make my work easier as well as provide me an opportunity to know more about the subject.

Visit Existing Companies

In Nepal, the companies like Doko Recyclers and E-waste Management Nepal are already working in the same area. I will visit the physical location of these companies and observe their business processes so that I can gain practical knowledge about how the overall activities are carried out that will provide me clear idea about how I am supposed to run my business.

Mentorship

One of the effective ways to know about different aspects associated with the proposed business idea is mentorship. The mentors will provide us with knowledge and experience that cannot be acquired through books or internet. The encouragement and networking opportunities provided by the mentors will help in gaining industry-specific advice based on their own practice that increases the likelihood of the business being successful (Blaney, 2016).

If we go by the Timmons Model, the first step of entrepreneurial process is accomplished after the identification of available opportunities. After this, I need to build a team and work towards acquisition of the resources needed to make profitable business out of the available opportunity. So, I need to look for the team members having adequate knowledge about science and technologies to complement my skills and work together with the team members to decide on the ways to acquire financial, human and physical resources needed to run the business (Spinelli & Adams).

References

Blaney, K. (2016, October 2). The Importance of Good Mentorship in Business and Where to Find it. Retrieved from Techstars Blog: techstars.com/content/community/im...

Satyal, U. (2017, November 12). Nepal Lacks E-waste Management Laws. The Himalayan Times. Retrieved from thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/nepal-...

Spinelli, S., & Adams, R. J. (n.d.). New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century (Nineth ed.). Irwin: McGraw Hill Education.

Green chemistry technique is a movements for environment and human health, chemicals are more hazardous and toxics, then it harms our environment. Nowadays many factory/ industry in world and they are chemical manufacturing plants, Liquors manufacturing industries, cements factories and electronic appliances manufacturing company. And these company have a many chemical work due to this it affects our environment, for example, In Nepal have 30 plus cement factory and they are almost in from river side. The outlet of chemical is directly mixed with river water due to that the river is polluted day by day. And community people and animals are used to drink the water daily. So there may be maximum chance of hazardous effect on human health and environment. For solving those issue and sustain those types of business project group of expert was developed the concept of green chemistry technique. In green chemistry concept, the performance and efficiency of factory is increased/ maximized and minimize hazardous effect of human health and environment (Dunn, Galvin, & Hettenbach, 2004).

What Next?

In future or present we should be careful about nature and business sustainability. At this current time, our major duty is "How to balance the business and Nature?” so that now many expert developed a new business terms sustainable business or green business. Sustainable business or green business is an enterprise that have minimum negative impact in global or local government, community, society, or economy in a business that able to balance the nature/environment and profit/ revenue. In green chemistry has 12 principles Waste Prevention, ATOM Economy, Less Hazardous Chemical Synthesis, Designing safer chemicals, design for energy efficiency, use of renewable feeds tocks, reduce derivative, catalyst, design for degradation, real - time pollution prevention, and safer chemistry accidentals prevention (Anastas & Warne, 1998) and if we follow these 12 principle proper in our business process then only our business sustain. For example, the world greatest scientist and entrepreneur Elon Musk is design and develop a concepts where we can make our environment clean by using renewable energy sources. He is working in a solar city project where every home is able to generate energy from sunlight. Similarly he is also working in a Tesla Car project where his team replacing the petrol engine by using electricity and solar. So these are good and effective initiation and environment friendly business.

So in future, we will have a complete plan, how to re - use the chemical and health hazardous electronic appliances and medical equipment. And we will also have a good strategy on decomposing those items safely without affecting environment. Then only business will run a long time. In Nepal Khalisisi is the great and innovative idea for addressing those issues. The main aim of Green Chemistry technique is to maintain the nature and minimizes hazardous effect on human health and the environment and minimize the efficiency of business.

References

Anastas, P. T., & Warne, C. J. (1998). Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice. Oxford University Press .

Dunn, P. J., Galvin, S., & Hettenbach, K. (2004). Green Chemical . Enviroment science and Technology journals .

Green chemistry technique are what many investors have been investing into as only clean energy will be sustainable. Debate over if global warming is real has shifted into how to tackle this global issue. Investments in venture capital for this have almost tripled in 2006 to around 2.4 billion (Spinelli, Jr. & Adams). This surge in investment shows the global demand of people wanting to reduce carbon emission and the use of other hazardous agents for the growth and progress of human civilization. Instead the demand has shifted strongly over to clean energy for sustainability.

If we spot a massive market opportunity involving green chemistry techniques and I have no background into the technical aspects I would do the following.

Understand ‘Why’ before the how.

It is imperative to understand the ‘Why’ before understanding the ‘how’ aspect of any new venture. In this case we are aware of the environmental benefit of our product and no other players have seen this opportunity giving us the early bird advantage and this would be our why. We focus on this strategic difference and strengthen on this. The British Billionaire, Sanjeev Gupta informs everyone still thinks that coal backed energy production is still cheaper than clean energy which is no longer the case. He is spending more than two billion in clean energy and green steel developments in South Australia (Morton, 2018). This shows how big an opportunity is in the green technology market.

Research on the topic

Without understanding what you are doing will surely present many shortcomings in future. Therefore the next step would be to conduct research on the topic. There are three things that we can do. One is to Google and try and understand it customer target segment, its benefit, if there are competitors, its value proposition etc. The second step would be to undertake competitor analysis. Who are the big players and how with the start with this new technology, it will not take long before other mega companies will replicate similar technology. With these competitors with their massive capital investment strength, production and supply line and an upper hand of experience in doing such business would be relative importance for our sustainability.

Mentorship and Venture Capital

Therefore the next step would mentorship. If there are any such company’s or people who are involved in such business, taking their knowledge and help would go a long way. Another thing would be to generate venture capital from these experts. With stake of capital invested into your idea you increase your knowledge base and competition strength with other major competitors who can be a threat to you in future. With such partnership, it will be easier for rapid growth leaning on their expertise and utilizing their well-established network and channels.

Get Patent rights

If the technology can be revolutionary and will address a segment in clean energy that no one else has do before it would be create vital importance to safeguard your idea and patent your product or idea right away.

These are the very first steps that I would take.

References

Morton, A. (2018, July 22). Sanjeev Gupta: Coal power is no longer cheaper - and we’ll prove it. The Guardian .

Spinelli, Jr., S., & Adams, R. (n.d.). New Venture Creation . New York City: McGraw-Hill Irwin.