Ethics in Business and Cooperation (Partnership)

            An entrepreneur with all of their advantages and drawbacks require cooperation with other, which in turn is reached Win-win Solution. Good cooperation will be created, if the cooperation was based on the values ​​of cooperation to be mutually agreed. One issue that must be considered in this business partnership is "Business Ethics in the Work".

John L. Mariotti (1993) reveals there are 6 basic of business ethics that must be considered, namely:

a) Character, integrity, and honesty.

Every person has a character essentially different from each other, so that the characters show personality or personality of a person who shows the qualities of a particular person or group of communities.

A person who has good character, usually have high integrity. Thus, the meaning of integrity is the nature or the circumstances indicate coherent whole, so as to radiate authority. Therefore, people with great integrity usually become more honesty than ones with less integrity. Thus, sincerity and honesty shows the basic attitude of every human being.

It's supposed to be an entrepreneur to choose partners who are not just honest but also potential. And also has character and integrity. Character, integrity, and honesty are the three interrelated things or is one unit that forms a "personal tough". Wachyu Suparyanto (2004) in his book entitled "Instructions To Start Entrepreneurship" say "is the perfect partners who have the ability in many ways beyond our ability and be honest because if the ability is very high, but with no honestly he's going to lie to us or in other words the fence eating the plants. On the other hand if the partners are honest but with low ability, he will make us tired.

b) Trust.

Trust is the belief or assumption that something that believed is true or real. Trust is the capital in the business that does not appear out of nowhere or impromptu. Trust was built or born by experience. Therefore, the trust of the process that may be raised in a short time even could also in a long time.

An entrepreneur who will work with the parties or others will choose a partner who he believes, who has been through the due diligence process as partners. This testing process can be done either through observation or reading track record prospective partners, either directly or through the other that trusted. It is appropriate that partners with whom cooperated is the person or party that can really be trusted, because once fail in chose the partners it will be difficult to rebuild the trust.

c) Open communication.

Due to cooperation based on the interests of both parties, then in business cooperation there should be open communication between the two. Communication between both parties is important, because business requires a lot of information to support business interests. Exchange of information and discussion on both sides of the joint venture that runs can not happen if one party shut down or less open. Therefore, open communication is one of the partnership bases to be built.

To understand this communication problem, we must know the Ways of developing Ability to Communicate.

d) Fair.

It has been disclosed in the previous description that the aims and objectives of the cooperation is "Win-win Solution", which means that in cooperation there must be justice between the parties. This means that if the business carried on at a disadvantage, it is not the only one of the parties who should bear the loss, but must be shared. Vice versa, if a profit, they both make a profit. The amount of losses and gains of each determined by mutual agreement at the beginning of the cooperation contract was signed, which is usually based on the contribution of each party in such cooperation. Thus, just shows the attitude is not one-sided or benefit / harm others. Fair is easy to pronounce, but the weight to be carried out by humans because only God is infinite justice.

e) Personal desire on the part of the partnership.

Entrepreneurs who conduct business cooperation with other parties have a specific motivation, which is formed by certain desires to be achieved from such cooperation. It can be said that almost no cooperation is build without specific wishes of the parties who are partnered.

The desires of both parties may be economy, such as the desire for more advanced and evolved, the desire to expand the market and so on, as well as non-economic desires, such as enhancing the capabilities and experience as well as the wider business association. Desires will drive or be motivator shopped run cooperation in harmony.

f) The balance between incentives and risk.

As in the aspect of 'fair' described earlier, this aspect of the balance between incentives and risk can also mean fair. That is, in business, there would be a risk that must be borne by each party and any incentives received by each as a result or impact of the risk borne.

          The balance between incentives and risk is always there as long as business cooperation exists and both parties agree to keep it. If one party is not able to run the risk, then the auto incentives in the form of profits would not be achieved, and of course this will disrupt the continuity of cooperation effort.

Risk Taking in Small Business

     An entrepreneur is a calculated risk taker. They are excited at the challenge. Entrepreneurs avoid situations of low risk because there is no challenge and avoid high risk situations, because they want to succeed. They like the challenge that can be achieved.

What is a risky situation?
      Risk situation occurs when you are asked to make a choice between two or more alternatives, which would result is unknown and must be judged objectively. This situation contains the potential for failure and potential for success. The greater the possibility of loss the greater the risk is.

      Most entrepreneurial traits are interrelated. This is all the more force on risk-taking behavior. Some regard include:
1. Taking risks associated with creativity and innovation as well as an important part in turning ideas into reality.
2. Taking risks associated with self-confidence
3. Knowledge realistic about your own abilities is also important.

In taking decisions there needs to be an alternative that should be taken, namely "risky" alternative or "conservative" alternative depends on:
a. The attractiveness of each alternative
b. How extent to which you are willing to lose.
c. Relative likelihood of success and failure
d. How much do you improve?

      Most entrepreneurial traits are related, among others:

•  Taking risks associated with creativity and innovative.
•  Taking risks associated with self-confidence.

      Personal risk-taking is essential in realizing your own potential as an entrepreneur. For example: taking risks in a personal relationship with wife, friends and neighbors will help you gain the experience to assess and take risks and deflect small risk reward potential.

Developing Creative Ideas
      Risk taking and creativity are important characteristics of the entrepreneur. By trying to be more creative, you also become more aware of good ideas, then you will be better prepared to take risks that need to implement your ideas are the most productive. Don’t ever force your ideas on someone. People need time before they can accept something new. The idea that involves the organization's future is risky. Every person usually somewhat hesitant if  there is a risk.
      To reduce the risk of rejection of an idea, following suggestions may help:
• Try to express your ideas to the wife or your friends.
• Choose a place and time to put forward your ideas to others.
• Put forward your ideas little by little

Investment Risk

     The risk of an investment proposal is defined as a variability of profit possibilities. Decision situations on investment can be divided into three groups, namely the situation of certainty, risk, and uncertainty. The difference lies in the unknown is whether the probability of occurrence of an event.

     In risk situations the probability is known, whereas in situations of uncertainty probabilities are unknown. Issues to be discussed here is a situation of risk, although the terms risk and uncertainty are often used in the same sense.

     Almost all investments contain elements of risk, because all investors can do is to estimate some of the benefits expected from the investment, and how far the possibility of actual future results may deviate from expected results.

     Investment risk implies that the return will come at a time when that can not be known but can only be expected / estimated.

     There are several sources of risks that could affect the magnitude of the risk of an investment include:

1. Interest rate risk

2. Market risk

3. Inflation risk

4. Business risk

5. Financial risks

6. Liquidity risk

7. Currency exchange rate risk

8. Country risk

Decision making

      

Decision making is a process of selecting a particular alternative from several alternatives. So, make decisions is a process of choosing among a variety of ways to carry out the work. The more experienced in decision making, the greater the confidence and it will be more action-oriented. If an Entrepreneurial able to take a decision within the bounds of a reasonable time, perhaps he was able to take a favorable decision so that at any time up business opportunities.

An Entrepreneurial must quickly take a decision in order to use the opportunity as well as possible. Entrepreneurs, who want to get ahead in business, should be able to play reasonable to rely on intuition, ideas that are full of creative and innovative. They also have to look at issues in a broader context, bearing in mind that major decisions will have long term consequences for its business operations. An entrepreneur is expected to be more active and be more creative, because he must make a decision (decision making) without the help of quantitative data (data-shaped figures) or an experienced support staff.

Entrepreneurial success in a business is depending on the ability to make decisions that enhance the ability of business in the future.Decision-making ability can be gained from experience over the years. However, in practice there must be errors, which must be quickly recognized and correction action taken. In large companies, typically decision-making was based on the basis of the data and documentation contained in the survey company, business reports, and so on.

This information usually has been compiled in a way that has been determined, in accordance with the techniques of problem solving. The guidelines or the key for making decisions is as follows:

1. First, determine the facts of the matter are already known.
2. Identification; which field of the issues that are not based on facts. In a field known, an Entrepreneurial must use logic, reasoning, and its institutions to make decisions.
3. Courage and enthusiasm so necessary in implementing a decision.
4. Willing to take aggressive action in implementing a decision.
5. Take risks mediocrity if there is great uncertainty.
6. In certain circumstances, may be better to pass on something that has been successful in the past.
7. Stay away from decisions that will drastically change the current organizational structure.
8. Decisions need to be tested first.

An Entrepreneur must start implementing the decision; all the doubts and uncertainties must be disposed of far away. If you are faced with the alternative to choose, so make careful considerations. Collect information and may request the opinion of others. After that, take decisions and do not hesitate. With the various alternatives that exist in the mind, the Entrepreneurial will be able to take the best decision. Many factors can influence decision making such as motivation, perception, and learning.

Marketing of Agricultural Products

   

One of the functions of marketing is advertising. In the marketing of agricultural products there are some problems that may arise in the advertising of agricultural products including:

1. The influence of advertising was not so apparent to the product being advertised. This is due to the average properties of the product that is not elastic and the substitution with other goods. So that sometimes the ads are not only enjoy by the farmers who became the advertiser but other farmers who have products similar to those in the ads. This can happen because of agricultural products produced by many farmers and spread in different regions, and it is very difficult to give a special label on the product that generated a lot of these farmers.

2. Many agricultural products must be processed first, so the identity of the product is missing. This will complicate the advertising for the product origin that is not recognized anymore by the consumer.

3. Product quality is not uniform; advertising can only be carried out on a good quality product only.

4. The product is generally a perishable goods and durable, so advertising is difficult to do if it approach the period expired.

5. It's hard to label on agricultural products. Agricultural products are generally not branded, and have a similar appearance and produced by many farmers.

6. Agricultural products have less emotional appeal, which can be used in advertising.

7. Difficulty obtaining funding for a lot of ad creation.

To address the problem advertising the agricultural products, there are some things we can do include:

1. Perform specific product advertising, and local identification.

2. Advertising and marketing is done in farmer groups together so that more can arrange the supply of products on the market
3. Program advertising is done in coordination with other marketing activities.
4. Maintaining the quality / freshness of the product in accordance with the advertised so as to stay fresh when it reached the consumer.
5. Counting the effectiveness of advertising for a product carefully so that ads will remain a profitable thing to do.

 

Business Strategy

       Business strategy can be used to reduce business risks. Some of it is the diversification and integration strategy.

• The strategy of diversification:
Diversification strategy is a growth strategy where the company expanded its operations by moving to different industries or different products / variable. Diversification strategy can be performed on a related business field (related diversification / concentric) or unrelated business (Diversification unrelated / conglomerate)

• The integration strategy:
The strategy of integration is performed by expanding the company's operations by combining the company with other companies in the same industry and do the same thing. Integration can be done through a merger between companies in the same industry.

Repurchase agreement (Repo) and Banker's acceptance (BA).

    

In addition to Treasury Bill (T-Bills) and Commercial Paper (CP), an instrument commonly used in financial markets is the Repurchase Agreement (Repo) and Banker's Acceptance (BA).Repurchase Agreement (Repo) is the buying and selling securities with the agreement that the seller will repurchase the securities sold on the date and at a price set in advance.

Banker's Acceptance (BA), is one of money market instruments that can be transferable. In principle, the BA provides an alternative to credit, especially when goods are shipped to be sent abroad.

a.BA provides an alternative to credit
b.Acceptance period usually ranges from 30 to 270 days, a period of 90 days where the most common
c.BA is a money market instruments are high quality and can be cashed
d.Used in export-import trade