10 Rules of Thumb for Startup Investment Valuation

http://blog.startupprofessionals.com/2012/11/10-rules-of-thumb-for-startup.html
MARTINZWILLING

Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” Many entrepreneurs stumble at this point, losing the deal or most of their ownership, by having no answer, saying “make me an offer,” or quoting an exorbitant number.

I’ve written about this before, but it’s a mysterious subject, and I’m always learning more. This time I’ll use a hypothetical health-care web site company named NewCo as an example to illustrate the points.

Two founders have spent $200K of personal and family funds over a one year period to start the company, get a prototype site up and running, and have already generated some “buzz” in the Internet community. The founders now need a $1M Angel investment to do the marketing for a national NewCo rollout, build a team to manage the rollout, and maybe even pay themselves a salary.

How much is NewCo worth to investors at this point (pre-money valuation)? What percentage of NewCo does the investor own after the $1M infusion (post-money ownership percentage)? Well, if the parties agree to a pre-money valuation of $1M, then the post-money investor ownership is 50% (founders give up half interest, and lose control). On the other hand, if the pre-money valuation is $4M, the founders ownership remains at a healthy 80% level.

So what magic can the founders use to justify a $4M valuation (or even the $1M valuation) at this early stage? Here are the components and “rules of thumb” that I recommend to every startup:

1. Place a fair market value on all physical assets (asset approach). This is the most concrete valuation element, usually called the asset approach. New businesses normally have fewer assets, but it pays to look hard and count everything you have. NewCo might be able to pick up an initial $50K valuation on this item.
2. Assign real value to intellectual property. The value of patents and trademarks is not certifiable, especially if you are only at the provisional stage. NewCo has filed a patent on one of their software tool algorithms, which is very positive, and puts them several steps ahead of others who may be venturing into the same area. A “rule of thumb” often used by investors is that each patent filed can justify $1M increase in valuation, so they should claim that here.
3. All principals and employees add value. Assign value to all paid professionals, as their skills, training, and knowledge of your business technology is very valuable. Back in the “heyday of the dot.com startups,” it was not uncommon to see a valuation incremented by $1M or every paid full-time professional programmer, engineer, or designer. NewCo doesn’t have any of these yet.
4. Early customers and contracts in progress add value. Every customer contract and relationship needs to be monetized, even ones still in negotiation. Assign probabilities to active customer sales efforts, just as sales managers do in quantifying a salesman’s forecast. Particularly valuable are recurring revenues, like subscription amounts, that don’t have to be resold every period. This one doesn’t help NewCo just yet.
5. Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) on projections (income approach). In finance, the income approach describes a method of valuing a company using the concepts of the time value of money. The discount rate typically applied to startups may vary anywhere from 30% to 60%, depending on maturity and the level of credibility you can garner for the financial estimates. NewCo is projecting revenues of $25M in five years, even with a 40% discount rate, the NPV or current valuation comes out to about $3M.
6. Discretionary earnings multiple (earnings multiple approach). If you are still losing money, skip ahead to the cost approach. Otherwise, multiply earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by some multiple. A target multiple can be taken from industry average tables, or derived from scoring key factors of the business. If you have no better info, use 5x as the multiple.
7. Calculate replacement cost for key assets (cost approach). The cost approach attempts to measure the net value of the business today by calculating how much it could cost for a new effort to replace key assets. Since NewCo has developed 10 online tools and a fabulous web site over the past year, how much would it cost another company to create similar quality tools and web interfaces with a conventional software team? $500K might be a low estimate.
8. Look at the size of the market, and the growth projections for your sector. The bigger the market, and the higher the growth projections are from analysts, the more your startup is worth. For this to be a premium factor for you, your target market should be at least $500 million in potential sales if the company is asset-light, and $1 billion if it requires plenty of property, plants and equipment. Let’s not take any credit here for NewCo.
9. Assess the number of direct competitors and barriers to entry. Competitive market forces also can have a large impact on what valuation this company will garner from investors. If you can show a big lead on competitors, you should claim the “first mover” advantage. In the investment community, this premium factor is called “goodwill” (also applied for a premium management team, few competitors, high barriers to entry, etc.). Goodwill can easily account for a couple of million in valuation. For NewCo, the market is not new, but the management team is new, so I wouldn’t argue for much goodwill.
10. Find “comparables” who have received financing (market approach). Another popular method to establish valuation for any company is to search for similar companies that have recently received funding. This is often called the market approach, and is similar to the common real estate appraisal concept that values your house for sale by comparing it to similar homes recently sold in your area.

Remember that all the components, except the last, are cumulative. Even if a given investor excludes some of the components from consideration in your case, your credibility will be bolstered by the fact that you understand his interests as well as yours. In any case, the analysis will prepare you for the heavy negotiation to follow.

Precision is not the issue here – the task for the entrepreneur is to build a company that is worth at least $50M before thinking about an exit -- no investor wants to spend more than five minutes arguing the fine points of the last valuation dollar.

So what is a reasonable valuation for a company like NewCo? My advice for early-stage companies like this one is to target their valuation somewhere between $1.5M and $5M, justified from the elements above. A lower number suggests that the founders are giving away the company, while a much higher number may suggest hubris or lack of reality on the part of the owners.

Of course, we have all read about the “new” company with $100M valuation, but I haven’t met one yet.

Marty Zwilling

How Studying or Working Abroad Makes You Smarter

http://time.com/79937/how-studying-or-working-abroad-makes-you-smarter/
Annie Murphy Paul


Young woman at museum.Ryan Donnell—Getty Images/Aurora Creative

Research shows that experience in other countries makes us more flexible, 

creative, and complex thinkers.

How does studying or working abroad change you? You return with a photo album full of memories and a suitcase full of souvenirs, sure. But you may also come back from your time in another country with an ability to think more complexly and creatively—and you may be professionally more successful as a result.

These are the conclusions of a growing body of research on the effects of study- and work-abroad experiences. For example: A study led by William Maddux, an associate professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD, found that among students enrolled in an international MBA program, their “multicultural engagement”—the extent to which they adapted to and learned about new cultures—predicted how “integratively complex” their thinking became.

That is, students who adopted an open and adaptive attitude toward foreign cultures became more able to make connections among disparate ideas. The students’ multicultural engagement also predicted the number of job offers they received after the program ended.

More generally, writes Maddux, “People who have international experience or identify with more than one nationality are better problem solvers and display more creativity, our research suggests. What’s more, we found that people with this international experience are more likely to create new businesses and products and to be promoted.”

Angela Leung, an associate professor of psychology at Singapore Management University, is another researcher who has investigated the psychological effects of living abroad. She reports that people with more experiences of different cultures are better able to generate creative ideas and make unexpected links among concepts.

Like Maddux, Leung found that the advantages of living abroad accrue to those who are willing to adapt themselves to the ways of their host country: “The serendipitous creative benefits resulting from multicultural experiences,” she writes, “may depend on the extent to which individuals open themselves to foreign cultures.” This openness, she adds, includes a tolerance for ambiguity and open-endedness, a lack of closure and firm answers.

Could it be that people who choose to study or work in other countries are already more inclined to be complex and creative thinkers? David Therriault, associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Florida, anticipated this possibility. He and his coauthors administered creative thinking tasks to three groups of undergraduates: students who had studied abroad, students who were planning to study abroad, and students who had not and did not plan to study abroad. The students who had actually studied abroad outperformed the two other groups in creative thinking.

Studying or working in another country can make us better thinkers—more flexible, creative, and complex—if we’re willing to adapt and learn from other cultures. As the title of an article by William Maddux advises: “When in Rome . . . Learn Why the Romans Do What They Do.”

The Health-Care System [from the more insurance advance system]

The Health-Care System Is So Broken, It’s Time for Doctors to Strike

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/29/the-health-care-system-is-so-broken-it-s-time-for-doctors-to-strike.html
By Daniela Drake

Doctors are miserable, patients are miserable, and there’s no end in sight. It’s time to revamp the health-care system from the ground up—starting with primary care.

Dr. Zubin Damania thinks physicians should go on strike. “Physicians go into medicine with the best intentions,” Damania said, “and then we find ourselves working in a system that’s abhorrent to us. But if we rose up together, this broken system wouldn’t stand long.”

Dr. Damania, founder of an innovative medical center in Las Vegas called Turntable Health, believes that the health-care system is so broken—and the proposed fixes so feeble—that doctors need to take matters into their own hands. “Practicing doctors on the front lines are the ones with the most skin in the game,” he told The Daily Beast. “We can make changes that work. No one wants it more than we do.”

What he means by “practicing physicians” is that they aren’t also consultants, insurance executives, policy experts, medical leadership, media doctors, or academics—the so-called “thought leaders.” Instead, the revolution must be led by over-worked, over-burdened, quasi-burnt-out physicians—82% of whom feel powerless to influence the profession.

It may not be as impossible as it sounds. Motivating demoralized doctors is something that Dr. Pamela Wible, a family physician in Oregon, has some experience with. As she describes in her Tedx talk, she was once so miserable as an employed physician that she went on strike, refusing to work in a place that didn’t give patients the time they needed.

A few months later, she opened her own practice. “It was simple. I went to my community to find out what they wanted in health care. I held nine town hall meetings,” Dr. Wible told The Daily Beast. “They wanted less technology and more humanity. I ended up creating an ideal clinic designed by my patients.” Her trick? She keeps her overhead so low she doesn’t even have any staff. That was nine years ago, and she’s still going strong.

Dr. Wible is part of the Ideal Medical Practice movement—with over 500 clinics across the country— that minimizes costs so doctors can spend time with patients, not paperwork. The goal is the happiness of both patient andphysician.  “Doctors are happiest taking care of patients,” Wible said. “When we love our work, we give the best care.”

For last three years she’s been hosting affordableworkshops to teach doctors how to open their own Ideal clinics. “At first doctors don’t believe they can do it, because they feel so powerless,” Wible explained. “By the time they leave, they have a vision and a plan. Some quit their jobs and open Ideal clinics a few months later.”

When asked if doctors should go on strike, Wible responded, “By boycotting inhumane workplaces… we free ourselves to be healers again. I’ve been practicing medicine this way for a decade. Imagine if all doctors did the same.”

But to get physicians to see they aren’t powerless, Dr. Wible believes they first need to be healed. So she hosts her workshops at a tranquil, forested retreat. “The trauma we experience in medicine so often disconnects us from our heart and soul,” she said. “When doctors lose connection with their purpose, some cope by becoming money-focused, power-hungry—some prey on other physicians.  But many become silenced, helpless victims.”

That sense of powerlessness is something that Dr. Damania can relate to. He was a hospitalist at Stanford University Medical Center in what “became a soul-crushing, lather-rinse-repeat” cycle of hospital medicine. Likening doctors to the “the undead” in his TedMed talk, “Are Zombie Doctors Taking Over America?,” he described himself as “a disconnected, burnt-out zombie with a stethoscope.”

So, in an act of rebellion, while still at Stanford, Damania began posting Youtube videos as ZDoggMD.  In a twist of events, his videos caught the eye of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. “Tony thought I was losing my mind,” Damania said, “but he thought maybe I was just nuts enough to come up with something out-of-the-box for health care.” So Hsieh hired Damania to create a health-care program for Las Vegas, where Hsieh has a downtown redevelopment project.

As a hospitalist, Damania thought a lot about why patients ended up in the emergency room. It wasn’t that the excellent Stanford community physicians needing to do more training, clicking, or charting. In fact, the breakdown stemmed from too much of that stuff. “Clinicians know best how to help their patients,” he said. “Anything that interferes with that relationship is part of the problem.”

The conclusion? Damania realized that traditional models of health insurance simply have no place in primary care.

Indeed, more than a decade ago, practicing physicians around the country had already figured that out. They developed a model called Direct Primary Care that charges a monthly membership fee—usually $50 to $100—so that doctors can focus on taking care of patients, not billing insurance—which can actually be a lotcheaper for patients.

Damania partnered with the direct-care group Iora Health in Massachusetts, which utilizes a nimble electronic medical record (EMR) designed by their own practicing physicians that allows patients to write in their charts—and tracks patients who need close follow-up. With less overhead, Iora provides preventive services that might be considered luxuries: health coaches, support groups for anxiety and depression management, alternative care like acupuncture, and classes in tai chi, cooking, and meditation. Understandably, patient satisfaction is high.

As a bonus for doctors, there are no ICD-9 codes to worry about. No worry thatMedicare will demand repayment. No threat of audits or accusations of fraud. No time wasted documenting irrelevancies. No administrator coming down from the fifth floor to demand increased productivity from a doctor who just coached a scared 18-year-old through her first Pap smear.

“For me, Turntable was more a mission to save providers than anything else. To give them a space where they’re free to practice in the way they always wished they could—and we have great outcomes,” Damania said. “I believe it’s because doctors can bring their innate passion to the job every day—they’re empowered here.”

Not surprisingly, direct-care groups are expanding across the country. And, like many other doctors, Damania believes direct care is the only way to fix primary care. “If we radically restructure primary care,” he said, “we’ll end up reforming the whole medical system from the ground up.”

“Trying to patch the current system is preposterous and destined for failure,” said Dr. Damania. “I always say you can’t polish a turd. That’s what most pundits and consultants are trying to do: hence the advent of the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) and ‘patient centered medical home’ constructs. These do nothing to address the culture. They simply impose more restrictions, mandates, and parameters on dangerously stretched physicians.”

But many careful observers believe that “dangerously stretched physicians” are actually what some people want. After all, dangerously stretched physicians can’t connect well with patients—hence the booming industry of patient satisfaction scores. Dangerously stretched physicians can’t keep up with the literature—hence the need for more frequent physician testing.  Dangerously stretched physiciansmake mistakes, which perpetually empowers those who string doctors up on the iron rack of contingencies in the first place.

What’s more, dangerously stretched physicians can’t refute the pernicious notion that patients want to be customers. “People don’t want a business transaction with their doctor,” said Dr. Wible. “They want to be patients again—they want that sacred relationship back.”

Fed-up doctors want that too—and many have begun to reclaim the covenant between doctor and patient. One doctor started a direct-care clinic and wrote an article titled A Year Into Direct Pay: It Doesn’t Suck to be a Doctor Anymore. Another started an “Ideal Clinic” in New York where volunteers help her do the billing. Physicians started humane direct-care groups, like Iora Health andQliance, that are now attracting investor dollars and expanding.

Dr. Damania sees a seismic shift coming. “Physicians need to see that doctors all over the country are beginning to flip the script—we aren’t powerless,” he said. “I’m really hopeful. I think we can fix this thing.”

A Doctor's Declaration of Independence

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304279904579518273176775310?mod=trending_now_2

By  

DANIEL F. CRAVIOTTO JR.

It's time to defy health-care mandates issued by bureaucrats not in the healing profession.

In my 23 years as a practicing physician, I've learned that the only thing that matters is the doctor-patient relationship. How we interact and treat our patients is the practice of medicine. I acknowledge that there is a problem with the rising cost of health care, but there is also a problem when the individual physician in the trenches does not have a voice in the debate and is being told what to do and how to do it.

As a group, the nearly 880,000 licensed physicians in the U.S. are, for the most part, well-intentioned. We strive to do our best even while we sometimes contend with unrealistic expectations. The demands are great, and many of our families pay a huge price for our not being around. We do the things we do because it is right and our patients expect us to.

So when do we say damn the mandates and requirements from bureaucrats who are not in the healing profession? When do we stand up and say we are not going to take it any more?

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services dictates that we must use an electronic health record (EHR) or be penalized with lower reimbursements in the future. There are "meaningful use" criteria whereby the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services tells us as physicians what we need to include in the electronic health record or we will not be subsidized the cost of converting to the electronic system and we will be penalized by lower reimbursements. Across the country, doctors waste precious time filling in unnecessary electronic-record fields just to satisfy a regulatory measure. I personally spend two hours a day dictating and documenting electronic health records just so I can be paid and not face a government audit. Is that the best use of time for a highly trained surgical specialist?

This is not a unique complaint. A study commissioned by the American Medical Association last year and conducted by the RAND Corp. found that "Poor EHR usability, time-consuming data entry, interference with face-to-face patient care, inefficient and less fulfilling work content, inability to exchange health information between EHR products, and degradation of clinical documentation were prominent sources of professional dissatisfaction."

In addition to the burden of mandated electronic-record entry, doctors also face board recertification in the various medical specialties that has become time-consuming, expensive, imposing and a convenient method for our specialty societies and boards to make money.

Meanwhile, our Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements have significantly declined, let alone kept up with inflation. In orthopedic surgery, for example, Medicare reimbursement for a total knee replacement decreased by about 68% between 1992 and 2010, based on the value of 1992 dollars. How can this be? Don't doctors have control over what they charge for their services? For the most part, no. Our medical documentation is pored over and insurers and government then determine the appropriate level of reimbursement.

I don't know about other physicians but I am tired—tired of the mandates, tired of outside interference, tired of anything that unnecessarily interferes with the way I practice medicine. No other profession would put up with this kind of scrutiny and coercion from outside forces. The legal profession would not. The labor unions would not. We as physicians continue to plod along and take care of our patients while those on the outside continue to intrude and interfere with the practice of medicine.

We could change the paradigm. We could as a group elect not to take any insurance, not to accept Medicare—many doctors are already taking these steps—and not to roll over time and time again. We have let nearly everyone trespass on the practice of medicine. Are we better for it? Has it improved quality? Do we have more of a voice at the table or less? Are we as physicians happier or more disgruntled then two years ago? Five years ago? Ten years ago?

At 58, I'll likely be retired in 10 years along with most physicians of my generation. Once we're gone, who will speak up for our profession and the individual physician in the trenches? The politicians? Our medical societies? Our hospital administrators? I think not. Now is the time for physicians to say enough is enough.

Dr. Craviotto is an orthopedic surgeon in Santa Barbara, Calif., and a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.

Billionaire Bigots’ Social Media Suicide

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/29/billionaire-bigots-social-media-suicide.html
By Amanda Marcotte

Thank smartphones and Twitter for exposing the secret misogynistic side of two very rich and powerful creeps this week.

We live in an era where a combination of social media and smartphones allows us to record the most detailed minutia of our everyday lives. Because of this, the walls between the concepts of “private” and “public” have started to crumble, causing widespread hand-wringing in the media over the dangers of sexting, selfies, and even domestic photography. But while there are some real problems with the way digital technology is drawing the parts of life that used to be more private out into the sunlight, there’s also a major upside that shouldn’t be overlooked. In the past, it was all to easy for people with wealth and power to behave in bigoted, even violent ways in private without much fear of being held accountable in public for it. Now, with the spread of digital technology threatening to expose their private life, it’s becoming harder for the rich and powerful to hide behind a well-oiled PR machine while acting like monsters in private.

In the past week, two very rich and well-connected men—Donald Sterling, the owner of the L.A. Clippers, and Gurbaksh Chahal, the CEO of RadiumOne—are finally feeling the heat for their “private” behavior because of digital technology. Sterling’s racism has been something people have known about on some level for years, but an audio recording—one almost surely captured by a smartphone—of him berating his girlfriend, V. Stiviano, for daring to appear in public with black people, was leaked to TMZ and immediately spread like wildfire.

It’s one thing to know abstractly that someone has been accused and found guilty of racial discrimination, but the visceral impact both of Sterling’s ugly opinions and the vicious tone he takes with Stiviano clearly resonated with the public. Starling’s team, the Clippers, protested in a playoff game by wearing their jerseys inside out during warm-up and leaving them on the floor. Now people from all corners of the sports world are calling for Starling to lose his team ownership.

Interestingly, the fight that the anonymous tipster recorded between Sterling and Stiviano was also over Sterling’s desire to control Stiviano’s social media presence. He loses his temper with Stiviano because she posted a photo to Instagram of herself and Magic Johnson. “I’m just saying, in your lousy f**king Instagrams, you don’t have to have yourself…walking with black people,” he scolds, adding, “Admire him, bring him here, feed him, f**k him, I don’t care. You can do anything. But don’t put him on an Instagram for the world to have to see so they have to call me.” Sterling wants Stiviano to treat her black friends like they’re a dirty secret to be enjoyed in private, when she, not being a nutty racist weirdo, wants to treat them like you do any other friends. And what do we do with friends? We take pictures of ourselves with them and put them on Instagram.

Social media also helped play a role in shaping the response to Sterling’s outburst, as fans and others took to Facebook and Twitter to make it clear how unacceptable they found this. Various celebrities who, in the past, would have stayed silent or used their PR agents to issue official responses instead took to social media for brasher, less filtered—and therefore more popular—responses. Snoop Dogg, Rihanna and Lil Wayne all denounced Sterling in highly shared posts on Instagram and YouTube. Social media helped capture the rising tide of anger at Sterling, causing sponsors to pull out and the NBA to start exploring options about what to do.

Something similar happened at RadiumOne. The growing social media outrage against Gurbaksh Chahal, the founder and CEO who was accused of beating his girlfriend, led to the RadiumOne board voting to fire him. The outrage stemmed in no small part from the sense that Chahal was not being held properly accountable for his actions. The police grabbed a video, taken by Chahal’s own security cameras, of the incident that reportedly shows Chahal hitting his girlfriend 117 times in a half-hour, but the judge threw it out because it was obtained without a warrant. Between this and his girlfriend’s reluctance to cooperate with law enforcement, Chahal was able to plead down to misdemeanor battery charges and not see a day in prison for his crime.

In the past, a wealthy and powerful man like Chahal, under the gun like this, would usually hire a PR agent to get his side of the story out to the press. Nowadays, however, the ready availability of digital technology makes it all too easy to skip the professionals and go straight to the public with your side of the story. This is exactly what Chahal decided to do, writing a self-serving defense of himself on his personal blog titled “Can You Handle The Truth?” where he both minimized the severity of his crime and tried to garner sympathy.

It was a bad idea, at least for Chahal. His attempt to defend himself backfires dramatically, as he comes across as arrogant and misogynist. “The humiliation and shame I feel is immeasurable. The dollar cost to my business and my reputation is incalculable,” he complains, failing to mention any suffering or humiliation he dished out to his girlfriend as he chased her around the house while hitting her.

Chahal swears he abhors “violence of any kind,” but most of his piece is geared toward minimizing his responsibility for choosing to use violence. “The situation that resulted in my legal case began,” he writes in the passive voice, as if the beating was something that happened to him instead of something he chose, “when I discovered that my girlfriend was having unprotected sex for money with other people.”

“I make no excuse for losing my temper,” he writes, even though that’s exactly what he did by blaming his girlfriend’s actions for tempting him into beating her.

He accuses people who are outraged about this story of bad faith: “This was all overblown drama because it generates huge volumes of page views for the media given what I have accomplished in the valley,” he whines, as if it’s impossible for people to actually be concerned that a wealthy man with access to top-line legal counsel is avoiding having to see justice for what is a very serious crime. Not that Chahal accepts that domestic violence as serious. He wavers between calling the accusations against him “false” and “misleading” and admitting that he did it, but saying it’s no big deal and just a matter of him “losing his temper.”

It’s a nauseating read, but it’s also a huge gift to anti-domestic violence activists. By skipping the traditional process of having a PR agent launder his public statements to make them sound humble and accountable and instead going straight to the public with his blog, Chahal ends up producing a textbook example of the dissembling, self-serving rationales that are common for domestic abusers to produce when caught in the act. Even though Chahal claims to have “learned a lot from this experience” and that he “will continue to grow,” he comes across as someone far too narcissistic and selfish to do either.

Between Chahal and Sterling, this past week has demonstrated a huge advantage to the way social media and digital technology are shining light on parts of our lives that used to be much easier to hide from the public. Privacy is a great thing and we should want to preserve some of it, of course. However, “privacy” has also been used in the past as a cover for all manner of bigotry and violence, and that is a kind of privacy that people ought not to have.

8-tips-personal-branding-lewat-LinkedIn

http://the-marketeers.com/archives/8-tips-personal-branding-lewat-linkedin.html#.U1ZqtVWSyTM
 Jaka Perdana



Pasar terus berputar dan semakin kompetitif. Sejatinya, bukan hanya perusahaan saja yang merespon perubahan tersebut, namun juga personal. Sebagai seorang pekerja profesional, sudah menjadi kewajiban memiliki sesuatu yang unik, menjual, serta berbeda agar bisa diterima oleh komunitas lebih luas.
Hal itu berlaku ketika seorang profesional ingin menunjukan kapabilitasnya di media sosial. Lewat media tersebut, seorang profesional bisa mempromosikan kelebihan serta up date terbaru mengenai dirinya, jika suatu saat ada perusahaan lain tertarikuntuk merekrutnya, tentu dengan penawaran yang lebih baik.

Media sosial LinkedIn adalah tempat para profesional menjual kemampuannya. Bukan hanya membicarakan posisi, tapi informasi serta knowledge terbaru bisa dibagi kepada rekan sesama profesional, untuk membangun imej positif ataupersonal branding. Lindsey Pollak dari LinkedIn membagi 8 tips yang bermanfaat bukan hanya untuk mencari pekerjaan, tetapi juga untuk personal branding.

1. Otentik itu penting. Brand personal terbaik adalah ketika apa yang ditampilkan secara online memang merepresentasikan seseorang sebenarnya. Menunjukan personalitas yang baik wajib untuk ditampilkan di LinkedIn. Namun untuk menjual personalitas di LinkedIn tidak bisa menggunakan kata puitis.
LinkedIn menyediakan fitur yang bisa mengombinasikan kemampuan menjual personalitas, bersamaan dengan kemampuan dalam bidang pekerjaan. Sebagai tambahan, mintalah mantan dan rekan kerja saat ini untuk menulis rekomendasi LinkedIn terkait kemampuan mengkombinasikan interpretasi personal dan pekerjaan.

2. Ciptakan headline yang menarik. Headline dalam profil LinkedIn adalah tag line dari personal brand. Inilah yang pertama dilihat ketika orang lain melihat profil LinkedIn seseorang. Buat headline sebagai brand unik dengan sedikit kata, namun merepresentasikan kemampuan dan menarik. Contoh: IT support manager and trusted Mac expert.

3. Konsisten. Data dalam profil LinkedIn, resume, dan elemen lainnya harus konsisten, jangan berbeda-beda. Jabatan, lama berkecimpung di industri tersebut, dan penghargaan yang diberikan perusahaan harus match. Hal ini penting agar orang lain yang membaca profil tersebut tidak bingung, serta merepresentasikan keinginan seseorang dalam berkarir.

4. Tingkatkan aksesibilitas. Memiliki brand personal yang baik, namun tidak ada seorang pun yang tahu, itu percuma saja. Tingkatkan aksesibilitas profil LinkedIn dengan menyertakan URL profil ke dalam kartu nama, resume, atau media sosial lain. Status pun wajib di-up date. Hal itu bisa berupa kegiatan atau proyek yang sedang dikerjakan sekarang, konferensi yang sedang dihadiri, serta buku atau artikel yang sedang dibaca. Brand personal bukan hanya 'Siapa diri Anda', tetapi juga 'Apa yang Anda Kerjakan'.

5. Bangun jaringan yang terpercaya dan strategis. Membangun jaringan dengan orang-orang atau perusahaan terpercaya akan meningkatkan juga brandpersonal. Bangun lingkungan teman-teman di LinkedIn dengan teman terpercaya, mantan rekan kerja, para direktur berbagai industri, dan profesional lainnya.

6. Up date pengetahuan. LinkedIn bisa menjadi salah satu platform untuk menunjukan isi kepala pemilik profil. Situs ini menyediakan LinkedIn Today yang menyediakan berita terbaru berbagai kanal industri. Selain itu juga, ada LinkedIn's Answers. Jawab pertanyaan di LinkedIn's Answer dengan benar dan ikuti terus perkembangan perusahaan yang masih satu industri.

7. Berbagi kemampuan di LinkedIn Groups. Grup dalam LinkedIn ini bisa menggali kemampuan terkait bidang yang paling diminati. Sebagai contoh, apabila tertarik di bidang manufaktur, pastikan grup yang diikuti terkait di bidang tersebut. Di grup itu, pastikan komentar dan jawaban memang relevan serta menunjukan kualitas personal yang tentunya menarik perhatian orang lain.

8. Bermurah hati dan saling membantu. Tolong menolong di LinkedIn amat krusial, terlebih namanya juga media sosial. Brand personal akan tercipta dengan baik ketika kita mau membagi kemampuan, pengetahuan, rekomendasi, serta memberi selamat atas kesuksesan orang lain. Efek dari murah hati tersebut, orang lain akan menghargai balik dengan merekomendasikan profil kita kepada orang lain.

Indonesia Tak Lagi Masuk Daftar Fragile Five

http://politikindonesia.com/index.php?k=pendapat&i=55501-Indonesia-Tak-Lagi-Masuk-Daftar-Fragile-Five-


Johanna Chua

Politikindonesia - Kinerja ekonomi Indonesia terus mendapat apresiasi. Indonesia dinilai mampu melakukan perbaikan fundamental ekonomi secara signifikan dalam 1 tahun terakhir. Situasi saat ini membuat Indonesia disebut sudah layak keluar dari kelompok Fragile Five atau 5 negara dengan ekonomi rentan guncangan.

Kepada pers, Managing Director dan Kepala Ekonom Citigroup Global Markets Asia Johanna Chua mengatakan, dari 5 negara yang masuk kelompok Fragile Five, Indonesia menunjukkan perkembangan paling signifikan dalam mengatasi defisit neraca berjalan (current account deficit).

Defisit neraca berjalan adalah akar permasalahan ekonomi negara berkembang. “Tahun ini Indonesia kami proyeksi keluar dari basket (kelompok) Fragile Five," ujarnya pada “Seminar Citi Indonesia Economic & Political Outlook 2014” di Jakarta, Rabu (16/04).

Fragile Five adalah istilah yang dicetuskan raksasa perusahaan investasi Morgan Stanley pada 2013 lalu untuk Indonesia, India, Brasil, Turki, dan Afrika Selatan. Kelima negara ini masuk kelompok emerging markets yang selama ini mendapat guyuran dana segar investor sebagai imbas stimulus di Amerika Serikat (AS).

Begitu AS berencana mengurangi program stimulus (tapering off), dana-dana asing kabur dari 5 negara tersebut. Akibatnya, selain defisit neraca berjalan, nilai tukar mata uang di kelima negara tersebut juga anjlok.

Johanna menyebut, tahun lalu Indonesia merupakan salah satu negara yang mengalami dampak terburuk dari guncangan pasar finansial global setelah The Fed mengumumkan rencana tapering off. Itu terlihat dari nilai tukar rupiah yang anjlok dari level Rp9.500 per dolar ke Rp12.300 per dolar.

Demikian pula indeks harga saham gabungan (IHSG) Bursa Efek Indonesia (BEI) yang anjlok dari level 5.000-an ke 4.100an. "Itu seperti serangan jantung bagi industri finansial di Indonesia," ujar dia.

Namun, ujar Johanna -ekonom yang berkali-kali dinobatkan media internasional sebagai analis keuangan terbaik di Asia Pasifik, Indonesia ternyata mampu membalikkan kondisi yang terpuruk. Itu terlihat dari perbaikan signifikan current account deficit dari 4,4 persen Produk Domestik Bruto (PDB) pada triwulan II 2013 menjadi 1,98 persen pada triwulan IV 2013.

Rupiah dan IHSG juga menunjukkan perbaikan signifikan sepanjang 2014. “Ini karena Indonesia merespons gejolak dengan cepat dan tepat. Sedangkan negara-negara lain telat merespons,” ucapnya.

Johanna memuji langkah sigap Bank Indonesia (BI) yang sejak pertengahan 2013 secara bertahap menaikkan suku bunga acuan BI rate dari 5,75 persen menjadi 7,50 persen untuk mengerem laju ekonomi. Demikian pula langkah pemerintah yang langsung mengeluarkan paket stimulus kebijakan ekonomi untuk mengurangi ketergantungan impor.

Negara-negara Fragile Five lain baru bereaksi pada awal 2014 ketika fundamental ekonomi mereka makin buruk. Karena terlambat, responsnya pun menjadi berlebihan atau over-reaktif. “Misalnya Turki yang Januari lalu langsung menaikkan suku bunga dari 7,75 persen menjadi 12 persen, sehingga pasar terkejut," ujarnya.

Menurut Johanna, Indonesia memang masih akan mengalami perlambatan pertumbuhan ekonomi sebagai konsekuensi strategi menekan defisit neraca berjalan. Namun, dengan pertumbuhan di kisaran 5 persen ekonomi Indonesia masih sangat prospektif.

“Jadi, the worst is over (yang terburuk sudah berlalu). Sekarang Indonesia masuk tahap stabilisasi untuk tumbuh cepat lagi di masa mendatang," ujar dia.

World’s Most Profitable Banks in Indonesia Double U.S. Returns

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-04/world-s-most-profitable-banks-in-indonesia-double-u-s-returns.html
Sanat Vallikappen and Berni Moestafa

The lime-green Yamaha Mio motorbike that Suryadi bought in 2011 to commute to his job pumping gas in Jakarta would have cost 11.8 million rupiah ($1,221) had he purchased it outright. Instead he took out a loan at 16 percent.

Now the 44-year-old father of three is making monthly payments to PT Bank Danamon Indonesia (BDMN) that eat up about one- fifth of his salary. He’ll end up paying 46 percent more than the cost of the bike by the time he retires the loan.

“I don’t have the money to pay in cash,” said Suryadi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. “Paying in installments is all I can afford.”

Borrowers like Suryadi have helped make Indonesian lenders the most profitable among the 20 biggest economies in the world, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The average return on equity, a measure of how well shareholder money is reinvested, is 23 percent for the country’s five banks with a market value more than $5 billion, the data show.

That’s greater than Chinese banks of the same size, which have an average return of 21 percent, and Canadian firms with 20 percent. It’s more than double the 9 percent in the U.S. Profitability might have been even higher if Indonesia’s lenders weren’t also among the most inefficient, as measured by the ratio of operating expenses to total assets.

Interest Margins

Returns in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, are driven by net interest margins, the difference between what banks charge for loans -- an average of 12 percent, according to the central bank -- and what they pay for deposits. The average margin for the country’s big banks is 7 percentage points, the highest of the 20 economies, according to the latest available data compiled by Bloomberg.

“It’s a basic supply-and-demand equation,” said Ken Timsit, a Jakarta-based partner and managing director at Boston Consulting Group, which has studied the profitability of banks worldwide. “There’s plenty of demand for credit, but limited supply,” making it lucrative for banks to lend.

The profitability of lenders including PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BBRI), whose 34 percent return on equity is the highest, and PT Bank Central Asia (BBCA), the largest by market value, contrasts with that of Western counterparts such as Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), Barclays Plc (BARC) and UBS AG (UBSN), which have lowered targets as they reduce risk-weighted assets to meet higher capital requirements.

Global banking return on equity fell to 7.6 percent in 2011 from 8.4 percent a year earlier, below the 10 percent to 12 percent average cost of equity, McKinsey & Co. wrote in an October report. U.S. banks had an average return on equity of 7 percent in 2011, while European lenders earned zero -- or 5 percent excluding the most indebted nations such as Spain and Greece -- according to the study.

Takeover Target

Indonesia’s high net interest margins have prompted banks such as DBS Group Holdings Ltd. in Singapore, where the figure averages 2 percent, to look at acquisitions. DBS, Southeast Asia’s biggest lender, made a $6.8 billion bid in April for 99 percent of Bank Danamon and is awaiting regulatory clearance.

At odds with the profitability of Indonesia’s banks is their inefficiency. The ratio of operating expenses to assets, a measure of the cost of providing services, ranges from 2.5 percent to 4 percent at the country’s biggest lenders, according to Boston Consulting Group’s Timsit. It’s 2 percent in Malaysia and 1 percent in Singapore, he said.

The higher expenses are largely a function of Indonesia’s geography, said Alexander Chia, a Kuala Lumpur-based analyst at RHB Capital Bhd. (RHBC) With 17,508 islands, 6,000 of them inhabited, and with more than two-thirds of the country’s 242 million people living in rural areas, it costs more to operate and staff a branch network, he said.

‘Not Efficient’

“Indonesian banks’ efficiency is still lacking compared with other countries,” said Robby Hafil, an analyst at PT Trimegah Securities (TRIM) in Jakarta. “Our banks are trying to cover operational costs by increasing net interest margin, and as long as operations remain inefficient this practice will continue.”

Indonesia’s banking regulator agrees that the system isn’t efficient and relies on high interest rates for profits.

“They want to give a higher lending rate because the cost of providing banking is too large, because they are not efficient right now,” Hartadi Sarwono, a deputy governor of Bank Indonesia, the country’s central bank, said in an interview in November. “If they reduce the cost, then they can reduce the lending rate, and not necessarily reduce profits.”

Inflation Rate

Indonesia’s history of inflation, averaging 7.3 percent in the past 10 years, has kept benchmark interest rates for the past year at 5.75 percent, one of the highest among major economies, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The country’s benchmark rate, as high as 12.75 percent in April 2006, is lower only than Russia’s 8.25 percent, India’s 7.75 percent, Brazil’s 7.25 percent and China’s 6 percent.

“For consumers, the interest rates still feel low given that Bank Indonesia’s benchmark interest rate is at a record low,” said Isfhan Helmy, a Jakarta-based banking analyst at PT Sucorinvest Central Gani.

The lower benchmark rate, along with a March 2011 central bank rule requiring banks to keep loan-to-deposit ratios above 78 percent, has helped spur lending. Halim Alamsyah, another Bank Indonesia deputy governor, said in Jakarta Jan. 10 he expects loans to increase 23 percent this year.

Consumer Loans

Much of the gain has come in retail and consumer loans, which are more profitable than those to companies, said Pahala Mansury, director of finance at PT Bank Mandiri (BMRI), which is 60 percent owned by the government and Indonesia’s second-largest lender by market value.

Bank Mandiri’s microlending, consumer and small-business units accounted for about 30 percent of total loans at the end of September compared with 25 percent three years earlier, according to company filings. The segment contributes 50 percent of the lender’s revenues now and may account for 40 percent of its loan portfolio by 2014, Mansury said.

Bank Central Asia increased its consumer loans by almost 50 percent in the quarter ended Sept. 30 from a year earlier. It accounts for 27.5 percent of the lender’s total loans compared with 25 percent a year earlier.

Nonperforming loans, at record lows of 2 percent for Indonesia’s banks, could increase this year as a result of the rapid rise in lending, according to a Nov. 19 Fitch Ratings report. Banks will be able to sustain profitability because they’re making adequate provisions to cover losses, Fitch said.

The top five banks by market value account for almost half the loans in Indonesia’s banking system. Bank Danamon, which has a unit dedicated to vehicle loans that caters to borrowers like Suryadi, had the highest net interest margin at 9.84 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It was followed by state-controlled Bank Rakyat with a margin of 8.37 percent.

Bank Profits

Rakyat’s 2012 profit rose 23 percent from a year earlier to 18.5 trillion rupiah, the highest on record since 2000, it said in a statement on Jan. 31. The profit growth is the result of the bank strengthening its focus on microlending, it said.

Citigroup Inc. (C), the second-largest Western bank in Indonesia with 22 branches in six cities, has a net interest margin in the country of 4 percent, according to Tigor Siahaan, chief country officer for the New York-based company. About 65 percent of profits come from business dealings with large companies, which explains thinner margins than some of the local lenders that focus on consumers, Siahaan said.

The lender was banned in May 2011 by Bank Indonesia from adding new wealth-management clients for one year and new credit-card clients for two years after an employee was accused of stealing $5 million from her clients and a customer died at a branch following meetings with Citigroup debt collectors. The bank said it would return the stolen money to customers. An internal investigation into the death didn’t reveal any physical violence, the company said.

Loan Ratios

As profitable as lending in Indonesia is, banks have made loans to only 28 percent of the population, or about 67 million people, according to World Bank data. Loans outstanding at the country’s 120 commercial lenders totaled $272 billion at the end of November, according to central bank data. That’s about 30 percent of 2011’s gross domestic product, the lowest loans-to- GDP ratio among major Asian markets, said Stephan Hasjim, a Jakarta-based analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc.

Neighboring Singapore and Malaysia have loans-to-GDP ratios of 150 percent and 125 percent respectively, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, based on cumulative loans outstanding at the end of the most recent month for which data is available and 2011 GDP figures.

Economic expansion in Indonesia, the world’s 16th-largest economy, will average 6.4 percent from 2013 to 2017, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated in a Nov. 18 report. Its GDP was $846 billion in 2011, according to International Monetary Fund data.

‘Serious Issue’

Still, the country’s banks may have difficulty improving the loans-to-GDP ratio unless they expand their deposit base, Bank Mandiri’s Mansury said. That’s because the central bank capped the loans-to-deposit ratio at 100 percent to prevent excessive risk-taking. It’s 85 percent now, compared with Singapore’s 95 percent and Malaysia’s 78 percent. A ratio above the maximum is allowed only if a bank’s combined Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital exceeds 14 percent of risk-weighted assets.

“Maybe there is demand to borrow, but whether banks can provide the kind of liquidity that is required in the next four to five years will become a very serious issue,” Mansury said, citing deposit growth that hasn’t kept pace with loan growth.

Through the first 11 months of last year, total loans in Indonesia’s banking system increased 20.3 percent to 2,647 trillion rupiah, while deposits rose 12.4 percent to 3,130 trillion rupiah, according to Bank Indonesia.

It’s a “cash society,” Mansury said. “Even money that is in Indonesia isn’t being deposited in the banking system.”

Shadow Banking

In a survey of new microlending customers last year, Bank Mandiri found that only 30 percent had any formal financing before coming to the bank, Mansury said. Customers said they were willing to borrow from commercial lenders because rates are lower than those charged by informal financing networks.

Shadow-banking borrowers pay as much as 50 percent a year, according to Syafrien Anwar, a former senior sales manager at PT Nusantara Capital Securities. Shop owners can be charged an overnight interest of about 5 percent, he said.

Indonesian banks are wary about lending as a result of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. The economy shrank 13 percent in 1998, and the country took a $43 billion IMF bailout as its currency slumped, companies defaulted on debt and more than 80 banks failed or were nationalized or recapitalized.

“Everyone has in mind what happened in 1998, and all the bankers are very conscious of the importance of being prudent with their balance sheets and knowing who they lend to,” Boston Consulting Group’s Timsit said.

Fee Income

A scarcity of data about borrowers’ creditworthiness and the relatively high interest rates charged by banks, some reaching 30 percent according to a Citigroup report, also contribute to low loan penetration, he said.

Profits “are commensurate with the needs of the economy, and what can really make the net interest margins go down will be better bank infrastructure, better customer data, better creditor data and better identification, rather than pressure from the regulator to reduce interest rates,” Timsit said.

When margins start falling, fee income from activities such as trade with other countries, investment banking and insurance should pick up, contributing to profits, he said.

That view is shared by Citigroup’s Siahaan, who said he expects non-interest income from activities such as cash management, trade and foreign-exchange hedging, currently about 30 percent to 35 percent of the firm’s business in Indonesia, to increase as companies stop treating banks just as loan houses.

‘Very Easy’

“A loan is a very easy product to sell,” Siahaan said. “Our money is not going to be much more beautiful than that of the guy next door. But if I advise our client on a different hedging strategy that makes sense to his portfolio and his assets, depending on what’s the latest view in Europe and the global economy, including the currency markets, then that’s a very different proposition.”

Other foreign banks that have stakes in Indonesian lenders include Malayan Banking Bhd. (MAY), which holds 97.5 percent of PT Bank Internasional Indonesia (BNII), according to the Malaysian firm’s website. Qatar National Bank SAQ (QNBK) owns 69.6 percent of PT Bank Kesawan, and Standard Chartered Plc 45 percent of PT Bank Permata (BNLI), data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Central bank measures such as lowering benchmark rates and encouraging more competition in lending are expected to push down interest margins, Fitch wrote in its November report. Last year the central bank also required banks with assets exceeding 10 trillion rupiah to make public their prime lending rates, the percent they charge their most creditworthy customers.

Continued Appetite

“Competition will drive these very high margins down going forward, but it may take many years,” Nomura’s Hasjim said.

Meanwhile, high rates haven’t curbed Suryadi’s appetite for borrowing. He’s saving up money to build a house that may cost about 50 million rupiah.

“I really want this house,” the gas-pump operator said. “I would like to borrow some money.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Sanat Vallikappen in Singapore atvallikappen@bloomberg.net; Berni Moestafa in Jakarta at bmoestafa@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chitra Somayaji at csomayaji@bloomberg.net