What do you call the desires luxury and extravagance that signify wealth and expensive way of living?

Everyone has his or her own needs and wants. However, people have different concepts of needs and wants. Needs in business are important things that every individual cannot do without in a society.

These include:

1. Basic commodities for consumption
2. Clothing and other personal belongings,
3. Shelter, sanitation and health
4. Education and relaxation

NEEDS – important things that every people CANNOT DO WITHOUT in a society (in business)
WANTS – desires, luxury, and extravagance that show wealth and an expensive way of living

Basic needs are essential to every individual so he/she may be able to live with dignity and pride in the community of people. These needs can obviously help you generate business ideas.

Wants are desires, luxury and extravagance that signify wealth and an expensive way of living. Wants or desires are considered above all the basic necessities of life. Some examples are the eagerness or the passion of every individual which are non- basic needs like; fashion accessories, shoes, clothes, travelling around the world, eating in an exclusive restaurant; watching movies, concerts, plays, having luxurious cars, wearing expensive jewelry, perfume, living in impressive homes, and others.

Needs and wants of people are the basic indicators of the kind of business that you may engage into because it can serve as the measure of your success. Some other good points that you might consider in business undertakings are the kind of people, their needs, wants, lifestyle, culture and tradition, and social orientation that they belong.

Possible ways on how to generate possible ideas for business:

• Examine the existing goods and services.
  • Are you satisfied with the product?
  • What do other people who use the product say about it?
  • How can it be improved?

In addition, you introduce new ways of using the product, making it more useful and adaptable to the customers’ many needs. When you are improving the product or enhancing it, you are doing an innovation. You can also do an invention by introducing an entirely new product to replace the old one.

Business ideas may also be generated by examining what goods and services are sold outside by the community. Very often, these products are sold in a form that can still be enhanced or improved.

• Examine the present and future needs.
  • Look and listen to what the customers, institution, and communities are missing in terms of goods and services. Sometimes, these needs are already obvious and felt at the moment. Other needs are not that obvious because they can only be felt in the future, in the event of certain developments in the community. For example, a town will have its electrification facility in the next six months. Only by that time will the entrepreneur could think of electrically- powered or generated business such as xerox copier, computer service, digital printing, etc.

• Examine how the needs are being satisfied
  • Needs for the products and services are referred to as market demand.
  • To satisfy these needs is to supply the products and services that meet the demands of the market.

The term market refers to whoever will use or buy the products or service, and these may be people or institutions such as other businesses, establishments, organizations, or government agencies.

There is a very good business opportunity when there is absolutely no supply to a pressing market demand.

Businesses or industries in the locality also have needs for goods and services. Their needs for raw materials, maintenance, and other services such as selling and distribution are good sources of ideas for business.

Market – whoever will use or buy the products or service.
Product – anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need.
Goods – tangible things that are produced, bought, or sold, then finally consumed.
Services – activities that other people or business do for you

• Examine the available resources around you.
  • Observe what materials or skills are available in abundance in your area. A business can be started out of available raw materials by selling them in raw form and by processing and manufacturing them into finished products. For example, in a copra-producing town, there will be many coconut husks and shells available as “waste” products. These can be collected and made into coco rags/doormat and charcoal bricks and sold profitably outside the community.A group of people in your neighborhood may have some special skills that can be harnessed for business. For example, women in the Mountain Province possess loom weaving skills that have been passed on from one generation to the next generation. Some communities there set up weaving businesses to produce blankets, as well as decorative items and various souvenir items for sale to tourists and lowland communities.

    Business ideas can come from your own skills. The work and experience you may have in agricultural arts, industrial arts, home economics, and ICT classes will provide you with business opportunities to acquire the needed skills which will earn for you extra income, should you decide to engage in income-generating activities. With your skills, you may also tinker around with various things in your spare time. Many products were invented this way.

• Read magazines, news articles, and other publications on new products and techniques or advances in technology.
  • You can pick up new business ideas from Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, Business Magazines, Go Negosyo, KAB materials, Small- industry Journal. The Internet serves as a library where you may browse and surf on possible businesses. It will also guide you on how to put the right product in the right place, at the right price, at the right time.
  • Listing of possible businesses to set up in an area may also be available from banks or local non-government organizations.

Different stages that can be used in selecting the right business idea

• Stage 1: Screen your ideas to narrow down to about five choices
• Stage 2: Trim down the five choices to two options
• Stage 3: Choose between the two
• Stage 4: Decide which business idea worth pursuing

ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING
Environmental scanning is defined as a process of gathering, analyzing, and dispensing information for tactical or strategic purposes. The environmental scanning process entails obtaining both factual and subjective information on the business environments in which a company is operating.

SWOT ANALYSIS
Stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It enables organizations to identify both internal and external influences. It’s Primary’s objective is to help organizations develop a full awareness of all the factors involved in a decision.

It is a useful technique for understanding your Strengths and Weaknesses, and for identifying both the Opportunities open to you and the Threats you face.

The method was created in the 1960s by business gurus Edmund P. Learned, C. Roland Christensen, Kenneth Andrews and William D. Book in their book “Business Policy, Text and Cases” (R.D. Irwin, 1969)

SIMPLE RULES FOR A SUCCESSFUL SWOT ANALYSIS

• Be realistic about the strengths and weaknesses of your business when conducting SWOT analysis.
• SWOT analysis should distinguish between where your business is today, and where it could be in the future.
• SWOT should always be specific. Avoid any grey areas.
• Always apply SWOT in relation to your competition i.e. better than or worse than your competition.
• Keep your SWOT short and simple. Avoid complexity and over analysis
• SWOT is subjective.