For Discussion: The challenges of Soho
The Challenges of staying connected
Most of the time, people might think that we are working when we are in the office of the company’s building and we are free when we are out of the building. In fact, many types of occupations are not easy as that as they have more work load that are complicated, such as the professional services and etc. Take an example of Accountant, about half of all CPAs work in a home office or work full-time in a small office. According to a CPAs surveyed by the ALCPA’s CPA Insider™ E-newslatter staff on the growing SOHO trend, about 34% of CPAs reported toiling at least 20 hour per week in a home office or small office with 27% working exclusively in a SOHO office. The reasons for this are because it is convenience, time flexible, cost control and fewer interruptions.
However, about half (51%) of the CPAs identified “isolation from peers” would be the most challenging issue in working SOHO as they felt that it is more difficult when it comes to communication, building alliances, trust and camaraderie. Due to their profession, it is a personal responsibility and essential for them to stay connected and keeping current with all their responsibilities. They have to be connected with employers or employees, practitioners and clients, and also maintain their professional contacts by attending the professional meeting / conferences.
Compete with the Big Corporations on the web
Normally, when we search for something in the internet, those links which appear on the above are the sponsored link, which mean that it is an advertising that paid by the companies. Most of those links are belong to the big or huge companies and corporations as they are the one who can afford to advertise at the popular search engines, such as google, yahoo and etc, and also other high traffic sites. Besides, they also can afford to get those experts to help them design their websites and refresh their content frequently so that they could attract many more new people and maintain and keep them coming back.
Attracting customers to your web site
As a Soho, apparently, they did not have a physical shop or outlet, so they only way to connect and communicate with their customers is to go online. A website is essential. After the website has been set up but they found out that not many people are visiting their website. Less people discover their website will lead to cause of low sales and less profit.
Costs of running your business
The reason for most of them who choose to run a Soho is because of the cost saving. They do not need a large amount of money to set up their business. It also indicate a weakness in that reason, which is they did not have enough or extra money to run their business. Although Soho saved a lot of cost but it still has some hidden cost. For example, a software system that they needed for the online business is costly and the technology needs to be keeping current.
Time management
Time management is always an issue. It is more obvious in Soho as they would mix their private time and business time together easily. For example, a mother who wants to do business at home while taking care of her children, she might be too busy doing her business and pay less attention on her children or in the other way round. It might be to much freedom until they forget the time and somehow it may also affect their health if they are spend too much time in their office.
Reference
http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/330790/going_soho_the_challenges_of_staying_connected/index.html
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/r-article-a-80399-m-5-sc-49-small_business_owners_share_their_biggest_challenges-i
http://www.wilsonweb.com/articles/compete.htm
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ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of challenges met by Soho. Among them, i believe that tops three of the challenges are:
1. Money to keep the business going
2. Long term illness of self and key employee
3. Losing customers to a larger company
SoHo can save a lot of cost for the owner. For example, the cost of physical store. But it doesn't mean that it does not incur any cost. They still have to incur other cost to keep running their business.
They cannot afford the absence of himself and key employees due to the illness for an example. They are important in running the business especially in SoHo. If one of them take on leave, they cannot do their daily activities like usual.
Lastly, SoHo also concern that they will lose their customers to bigger company. Comparing to bigger company, SoHo do less advertising and promotion.
Sources:http://www.workingsolo.com/boco/faqboco.html
I agree that people who work in SOHO need to have a good time management. Besides, a good control on their desire is also necessary. Due to there will be more temptation, SOHO workers needed to be able to concentrate on their work even in an "attractive" environment. For instance, while working on their work, they might also playing Facebook games at the same time. As working SOHO does not have a boss to observe on, SOHO workers tend to be working more freely and do whatever they want.
ReplyDeleteOne of the challenge of SOHO is communication. The communication barrier is constructed due to the diminish of face-to-face direct interaction. SOHO does not necessarily to be worked alone, it may be working in group as well. I recommend that SOHO worker group to have a weekly meeting to solve this issue. This is to minimize the conflict during work and also to exchange information among the group.
As mentioned, website could be one of the most important business tools for SOHO. Unfortunately, unlike gigantic company or corporation, SOHO does not have the capital to hire an expert web designer to change their layout by time to time to retain their web visitors. However, SOHO may have their own strategic competency. As SOHO does not have large amount of customers, they may able and easier for them to fulfill every customer's demand and at the same time create a good relationship with the customers to maintain their market share.