How to Find Internal Rate of Return (IRR)

For a business proposition, an individual always start the business with some initial investment.  After a regular internal, which may be a month or a quarter or a year, one takes stock of things which may also be required by the land laws.  One must be having some financial outcome just after the completion of an interval, which may be positive (net return or income of that interval) or a further net investment (which can be taken as negative income or return).  Thus, after some periods of time intervals, one may be having a series of positive and negative incomes/investments recorded after each of the regular interval including the initial investment.  If one is interested in knowing the overall return from one’s investments over the entire period from initial to the present time, one may adopt the following procedure.

The algorithm one may adopt is:

1.    Fix a point of time; say the beginning of the said business or the present/ current time.

2.    With proper sign (negative for net investment and positive for net income at the end of the regular interval) list all the financial cash flows over the period from start to present time.

3.    Take the entire series of cash flows valued at the fixed point of time settled at step 1 by assuming a rate of return (r%) which can be one’s gut feeling or first rough guess.  Normally one may take it as 10%, if not known.

4.    Add all the Net Values at the fixed point of time to zero.

5.    Solve the value of r with iterative method (numerical method).

6.    Value of r is your Internal Rate of Return (IRR).

The same can also be obtained by fitting the financial function (IRR) in EXCEL package of MS office, if available.

Need to Write A Winning Project Proposal – Do Read it

Introduction

A project proposal is a document you write with one objective/goal i.e., to convince a funding agency that you are the right and best organization/person for the specific assignment. When you bid on a project, you are into a highly competitive process and is competing against other organizations / freelancers with similar skills. Unless you make your strengths and experience shine in your proposal, you could miss out the present opportunity as winning profiles backs winning proposals.

The Beginning

Step one is to read carefully through the project proposed (RFP or TOR) by the funding agency and make sure that you understand it fully before you start writing the bid. It is highly recommended that one should use the proposal templates (if provided), but make sure that you personalize your proposal for each assignment – even if for the same funding agency. Writing a winning project proposal begins with by successfully matching your talents, interests, and skills to the project/ assignment under consideration.

Start with a Strong First Impression

The first impression is always very important.  The first few lines of your project proposal are your “key” lines and it would help the reader to form impression on you and your organization. When the official of the funding agency (the evaluator) gets your proposal, these are the lines that will make him or her decide to keep reading your proposal with interest or keep on skipping the various pages. If the evaluator requires a specific response to show that you read the entire project, put it always on top or high light the same some where in the beginning. Do not try to creatively embed your response in a sentence. Chances are good that, if the evaluator does not see it immediately, he or she will not even read the rest of your proposal with some intense zeal.

Sell Your Specific Strengths

What is your most marketable trait? Include it underneath any required responses. This trait may vary depending on the project. For example, if you are applying for a project that is more academic oriented, your and your team’s educational qualification will be the first focus. On the other hand, if the assignment requires a specific skill (experience) set, you should focus on the team’s experience. On rare occasions, such as when the funding agency needs an assignment finished quickly say within a week’s time, you should put something such as a time estimate near the top as the same is highlight of the assignment.  What other qualities do you have that make you a good fit for the assignment? Outline them in one paragraph if possible.

Answer all the Funding Agency Questions with due importance

Next, be sure you answer all the questions the funding agency might have asked. Sometimes these questions can be answered throughout your text (even at the top); other times you can just set them in their own paragraph(s) with proper headings and sub-headings.

Provide Time and Cost Estimates

After you have explained why you would be the best team to complete the project, then it is time to provide time and cost estimates. Be accurate with all possible details. If some mention is there about the overall time available in the TOR of the funding agency, do stick to the overall time target and give the details of the time line for all the important events/ benchmarks of the project.  Provide precise time estimates with all possible and required details along with staff requirements, so that the funding agency gets more confidence in giving out the project. Provide precise cost estimates with all possible and required details too, so that the funding agency further gets more confidence in giving out the project.  Most funding agencies do not like placeholder bids, so ask questions, if any, before bidding.

Lastly Don’t Forget Your Manners!

Finally, thank the funding agency for reading your technical proposal. Make an impression, so that even if you are not chosen for that particular project, the employer might think of you for future projects. If you are awarded the project, you will be starting off on the right foot!

A few More Precautions for Writing a Winning Proposal:

Stick to the templates provided – both in terms of required details and size expected. Only rarely should your proposal grow to be bigger than the box in which you type it. Try to keep it about that size, or in some cases less, without sacrificing quality.

Use your templates too – if it adds to the value of your proposal without irritating the officials of the funding agency, as you need to make individualized proposals. However, templates save time, and they prevent editing mistakes that can cause you to be overlooked for the assignment. Regardless of whether you filled in a template or wrote from scratch, you should always write in complete sentences and reread a proposal for errors before you post it. 

Premium proposals are best used to draw attention to your bid on projects that fit your profile perfectly or assignments where you are competing against many other organizations. Of course you want every project to which you apply, but using premium proposals all the time can drain your bids.

Winning proposals have work samples attached even if you have them posted on your organization’s profile. If you cannot attach a sample, point the funding agency to your profile and put samples there.

What is and how to conduct qualitative research?

Qualitative research uses unstructured data collection methods, such as observations or documents to find themes and meanings to tell our understanding to the world. Qualitative research tends to try to uncover the reasons for behaviors, attitudes and motivations, instead of just the details of what, where and when. Qualitative research can be done across many disciplines, such as social science, healthcare, education and business.

To do qualitative research, there are six following steps one can follow:

I. Question(s) under study:  A good research question needs to be clear and specific. For any qualitative research, question should explore reasons for why people do things or believe in something.

II. Literature review:  A literature review will also help you to become better informed about the topic you are choosing and help you to determine if there is a need for your question to be answered. A literature review can help you find out what others have found about your question. Doing this may help you to focus your question more specifically.

III.   Choice of a qualitative research methodology:

v Case Study Method – This method of qualitative research is an in-depth study a specific individual or phenomena in its existing context.

v Ethnography – It is research designed to explore cultural phenomena. It is the study of human interaction and communities through direct participation and observation within the community which one wish to study. Ethnography, as the empirical data on human societies and cultures, has become popular in the social sciences in general.  The typical ethnography is a holistic study and so includes a brief history, and an analysis of the terrain, the climate, and the habitat. In all cases it should be reflexive, make a substantial contribution toward the understanding of the social life of humans, have an aesthetic impact on the reader, and express a credible reality. It observes the world (the study) from the point of view of the subject (not the participant ethnographer) and records all observed behavior and describes all symbol-meaning relations using concepts that avoid casual explanations.

v Grounded Theory – The purpose is to develop theory based on the data collected. It looks at specific information and derives theories and reasons for the phenomena.

v Phenomenology – It researches the world through the eyes of another person by discovering how they interpret their experiences.  It is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness.

IV.  Collect your data: There are several methods of collecting data that you can use to do a qualitative research.

v Focus groups – Structured or unstructured focus groups allows for interaction between more participants and the interviewer about your topic. This form of data collection can be efficient as it involves more than one respondent at a time.

v Interviews – Unstructured interviews with research subjects is a form of data collection in which you allow your respondents to answer freely. The interviewer can probe and explore topics as they come up.

v Surveys – Written questionnaires and open-ended surveys about ideas, perceptions and thoughts is another way in which you can collect data for your qualitative research.

v Participant observation – Participant observation is the immersion of the researcher in the community or situation being studied. This form of data collection tends to be more time consuming, as you need to participate fully in the community in order to know whether your observations are valid.

v Direct observation – Direct observation of a situation or your research subjects can occur through videotape playback or through live observation through a one-way mirror. In direct observation, you are making specific observations of a situation without influencing or participating in any way.

V.  Analyze the data collected: Once you have collected your data, you can begin to analyze it and come up with answers and theories to your research question(s)/queries.

v Statistics – You can analyze your data using statistics. Descriptive statistics simply describe what the data is showing while inferential statistics tries to formulate conclusions beyond the data.

v Pattern Analysis– Identify themes, ideas and patterns in your data.

v Narrative analysis – Narrative analysis focuses on speech and content, such as grammar, word usage, story themes, meanings of situations and the social, cultural and political context of the narrative.

v Content analysis – Content analysis looks at texts or series of texts and looks for themes and meanings by looking at frequencies of words.

VI.  Report Your Research:  When preparing a report on your qualitative research, keep in mind the audience for whom you are writing and make sure that your purpose for the research query is compelling. Explain your research methodology and analysis in detail in the report besides your findings.