When one ventures into own business, it is imperative that one mentally, physically and financially readies oneself to tackle problems in areas like finance and money management, personnel and administration, marketing and sales, taxes and duties, production and stock management and so on. Over a period of time, any shrewd businessman learns to tackle these problems amicably, sometimes by prudent management and sometimes by trial and error.

But what I would consider as the hardest part of owning your own business is the tackling of BUSINESS UNCERTAINTIES that befall on you by force majeure, over which you have little control.

Every businessman, particularly at small level of business will have his niche area of operation or specialization. Not every businessman can afford to have a widely diversified portfolio of products and services to offer so as to cushion himself from the ups and downs in any one segment of the economy. If some extraneous happening that is beyond your control casts its influence on your niche area, then you get hit the hardest.

We can see several examples:

- An automobile ancillary getting hit by unprecedented rise in global oil prices.

- A poultry farm getting affected by sudden spread of bird flu.

- A micro-motor manufacturer catering to Hard disk manufacturers getting affected by the very replacement of Hard disks drive by advanced flash memory storage devices (a potential possibility in the near future).

- A manufacturer of Cathode ray tubes for computer monitors getting affected by the sweeping change in technology to LCD/ Plasma Monitors

- A real estate developer catering to developing office space for BPO (Business process outsourcing companies)in India getting affected by a recession in USA

- A machine tool builder getting affected by a global recession in manufacturing Industry

- The entire economy of a country getting a jolt on account of a massive terrorist attack (as happened in USA on World Trade Center)

While large business houses may have a strong financial muscle to invest on Research and development and be ready to face frequent technological changes, small business houses may not always be prepared, nor be able to make massive investments that will help them insulate from potential uncertainties. Even assuming that technological changes can be tackled to some extent if you are vigilant and you have affordability to invest heavily on R&D, how about facing globally affecting threats like a fuel price hike, a major war, nature's furies like a massive earth quake, tsunami, hurricanes and storms, draught etc?

Thus, in my opinion, the hardest part of owning your own business is facing uncertainties which are beyond your control.

Learn more about this author, C.V.Varun.
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