Developing New Venture for an Entrepreneur - Essay Example

?Running Head: NEW VENTURE FOR AN ENTREPRENEUR Reflective Learning Essay: Developing New Venture for an Entrepreneur Collage Subject Table of Contents Exexcutive Summary Error: Reference source not found Introduction 4 REPORT 5 Individual 1 Error: Reference source not found Individual 2 Error: Reference source not found Finding An Entrepreneur Error: Reference source not found Implementation: 7 Evaluation 8 Theoretical Analysis 8 Individual 3 9 Individual 4 10 Individual 5 Error: Reference source not found CONCLUSION Error: Reference source not found References Error: Reference source not found Executive Summary This paper is analysing the innovative entrepreneurial activities of a self made proprietor as regards to reflective learning. Hinna Azeem Jewellery is a successful entrepreneurial endeavour and a number reflective learning aspects are analysed in relation with this brand. The paper also explains the way our group proceeded, both individually and collectively, to complete the task. Reflective learning enables use to learn from the past experience and improve upon that. While an entrepreneur exploits opportunities, a good entrepreneur creates opportunities innovatively. The success of Hinna Azeem in the jewellery brand is a proof of her reflective entrepreneurial skills. Introduction A few years ago Hinna Azeem was a young girl living a hectic life in London. She happened to have a passion for Gems and Jewellery. She turned to be more enthusiastic as she became familiar with it. She cherished the dream of becoming a jewellery designer and she took up the evening class to learn jewellery making and designing at St.Martin’s Collage of Art and Designing. Hinna’s dream rolled out as jewellery brand in the year 2000. It took more than two years to stabilize the business through a steady growth. Her passion for designing jewellery got better with her travelling experiences around the world including the gemstone rich areas of Africa, Asia and South America. Her professionalism and personal inclination to stones helped her to make unique and versatile designs. While it was designed to be stylish to enhance the beauty of women, she aimed to make those available at affordable prices. She promoted on the view of making a women look complete with perfect set of jewellery. The timeless designs of H. Azeem, along with affordable price tags, soon captured the attention of the masses and the brand became very popular. Steadily climbing up in the graph the company turned out to be profitable in less than two years. Her production was outsourced to suppliers in the far off countries with the objectives of cheap labour and availability of materials. Though she had gained the potential to turn her brand into an icon of fashion, using tactics like outsourcing and so on, she kept the public trust by maintaining low prices. Having achieved tremendous success in the business, Now, H. Azeem plans to enter into the category of men’s jewellery. As it enhances the market for the business, she provides an excellent customer service department with an effective network of after sale service. She outsourcers to retailers for sale and now the firm also have an online portal for sale. These could be termed as the strategic and technical skills she adapted to remain unique in the market. Being young and intelligent, she has been acknowledged as one of the outstanding entrepreneurs. She has now been recognised by scholars and news makers as an innovative, successful proprietor. Report The following is the report of our group. As we kept on moving about fulfilling the task requirements, each one of us was challenged with problems and difficulties. This report, however, formatted individually, enables one to analyse how every one had completed the assigned task in connection with our reflective learning outcomes. At the end of the individual report is the conclusion which is the group’s overview. Individual 1 An entrepreneur is the one who look forward to exploiting opportunities to maximum profitability. Some of them might wait for the opportunities, while innovative players discover or create opportunities and capitalise on them. They are the ones who realise the self potential of what they are, what they can do, who they need and what they need. This skill of proactive entrepreneurship, argues Drucker (1985), is a discipline that can be learned like any other disciplines. In the same way, Read and Sarasvathy (2005) state that a sincere practice through a course of time will enable one to acquire the entrepreneur skills, models and processes. Thus I believe that my taking up this module is a perfect decision because a ‘born’ entrepreneur might be successful but a self made entrepreneur is bound to enjoy success. On the way to success, every entrepreneur will be confronted with problems and a learned entrepreneur will be better equipped to counter them. Undergoing this module, gives me an opportunity to learn the views of others in dealing with problems. Similarly, different scholars and experienced business men have theoretically interpreted entrepreneur ship in many ways. I had this opportunity to learn them and reflectively realise how they all lead to profitability. Improving on the concept of learning entrepreneurship, Lichtenstein and Lyons (2001) had built up an Entrepreneurial Development System (EDS). This system develops on the principle of enhancing the entrepreneurial skills one should have. This system enables one to imbibe the required tactics from the life’s experience we go through. As we see how the experience of extensive travelling and experience of a hectic life of a working woman in London gave H. Azeem the ability to design her jewellery with professional and personal inclinations that makes it unique in the market. I am under impression that the intention to start up a new business can be motivated by many reasons but profitability would be the main and sole aspiration behind this motivation. Every entrepreneur has a stage he/she thinks about the best ways of entering a business. Most people at that moment think of some product or service which would be in great demand but not available sufficiently in the market. Innovative entrepreneurs even think of some products in the market about which he/she has an innovative dream. The life and success of Hinna Azeem is an example of such an innovative entrepreneurship. She always had the dream to rule the world one day. She always had a love for Gems and Jewellery of travelling merchants. The idea of business she nourished was not of a unique product. She had a tough task of analysing the welfare effects of her innovative idea by assessing their positive and negative impacts. To me, the foresightedness of an entrepreneur must enable him to have process to tackle the problems proactively. Effectuation is the process to have such non-predictive control while making decisions. According to Saraswathy (2001) effectuation causes to avoid the element of predictions when uncertainties arise. Most business men stick to old trends or leave it to instincts, when they have to deal with an unpredictable situation. As a team we worked with one mind and heart in order to get this task done. We all were involved in brainstorming to decide how we should go about using our knowledge and understanding of the reflective learning module we had. The task was equally distributed that helped to have equal contribution from everyone. As I reflect on the effectual logic I realize that we were in full control of ourselves during the process. Our final report turned out to be a document displaying how we learned about the entrepreneurial skills from the model of H. Azeem’s endeavour. Individual 2 Finding an Entrepreneur We had deliberately conducted a process to find the most successful and innovative entrepreneur available to us. We together have listed a few entrepreneurs from our immediate surroundings. Being ‘self made’ was the criterion we had for short listing apt personality for us to learn from. Among the chosen ones, we had to pick one who had enough time to spend for us and was happy to share with us the story of his/her struggles and success. Implementation Knowing a number of successful business people, I was under impression that it was an easy task to find an entrepreneur. Once I started considering them individually, I realized that they are all people handling key positions in business organisations. None of them had pioneered any business of their own. It was a moment of realization for me that I have been preparing myself to take up a unique position in the society. The position of a self made, self motivated and success-seeking business man equipped with the skills of creating opportunities for me as well as many others. After making a number of enquiries and request to some of the previously unknown entrepreneurs, an entrepreneur responded positively. Being young, energetic and enthusiastic, with a very successful business record, she proved to be the right person for us to go with. Evaluation Hinna Azeem was the entrepreneur who agreed to share the story of her business and the road through which she travelled to build it. We had already been preparing a list of questions for the interview. Each of us had to prepare questions regarding the chapters assigned to each one of us. Questions were formatted to turn his practical experiences of dealing with situations into theoretical concept. One of us was chosen to be the in charge of the interview while every one was eager to get the outcome of the interview because it was our opportunity to practically link the live situations to theoretical concepts we have learned. Theoretical Analysis Once a concept is conceived in the mind of an entrepreneur, he/she must start from who they are and what they know, thus, defining their profiles through experience, abilities and knowledge, states the bird in hand theory of effectuation (Sarasvathy and Dew 2007). Thereafter they should think of whom they know, hence considering potential stakeholders matching their own profiles for the growth of the new venture. Individual 3 It is obvious that our future, in many ways, is impacted by our past. That is why, I believe, future decisions taken looking forward would be blind predictions, therefore, future decisions are to be taken looking backward. It could be termed as the very process of reflective learning. As one starts to learn from analysing the past experience, one practices the process of self reflection, learning from both faults and achievements. As I consider the entrepreneurial skills, the word self made can not be relevant, if one fails to analyse the past and gain from those mistakes or achievements. As entrepreneurship is a self motivated endeavour, it is vital to have a constructive criticism and positive outlook about the past. Moreover, past is suppose to be the source where from one learns about the future in a business. Many operational decisions in a business can not be taken without studying the past trends and responses, so entrepreneurial logic is constructed upon past experience. Therefore, the vital part of entrepreneurial learning is the ability to apply concepts and knowledge from past experience to new ideas (Politis, 2005). Learning during the time of starting up a new business is usually termed as entrepreneurial learning. This course, however, has enabled me to apply theory to practice in numerous aspects of entrepreneurship. This study helped me to critically assess the entrepreneurial factors affecting the profitability or the loss of a new venture. I considered Gibbs (1988) Reflective Cycle to reflect on my entrepreneurial learning process. There have been a few critical incidents that I would apply this theory to reflect upon. I consider this reflecting my learning to be the most significant objective of this module. The incidents include the ways to prepare a better questionnaire for the interview, my ways of selecting the stakeholders and recognizing their strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, I need to reflect also about the completion of the task as a start up of a venture, what was my role in keeping the team together as a group that is loyal and committed? The out comes of this learning procedure can be a reference document for the future. Individual 4 The task distribution was the first assignment we had in the group. We had decided to divide the chapters equally, in addition, we had asked for the preference of the group members. So that none of the group members will be over burdened or stressed with some thing that they would not want to do. After we had decided on assigning the task, I was left with the company overview. We managed to make a better rapport with each other as we distributed the assignments. The communication brought us closer than ever and charged us with energy to work more enthusiastically. After we finished the assignment, we had given a copy of it to everyone in the group for a feedback. It was done because we had never known each other in terms of their working style. Just as Goell and Karri (2006) remind us of a link between effectual logic and over trust, by giving a feedback, all can be assured of the work quality. However, unlike an entrepreneurship, my group members are part of the group out of compulsion and not of their free choice. I wanted my team to be the best in completing this task. Therefore, the task assigned to me was greatly interesting. In order to bring quality to work, I insisted on every body going through each other’s work and giving feedback. I felt an extra sense of responsibility to maintain quality of the work. Though I was little nervous in the beginning, I went on to discuss with those members, whose work, I thought, was not satisfactory. The team began to fall a little bit apart when he finally distributed different activities. This was kind of distrust due to lack of proper communication for many days. Since it was the first time we were working together, I felt there was not enough trust among us. However, the team was moving towards the same goal. As we came to know each other well, we became more comfortable with each other. While previous experience provides training for entrepreneurs, liability of newness can only be dealt with the skill of communication (Lorrain and Dussault 1998). I had a great experience of overcoming the awkwardness of being in a new group. At the end we came together again to discuss each others’ work. Every one seems to be happy about the work as none bothered to criticise. At this point, or any point of time, none seemed to bothering or criticising others. To me it was a time to assess my leadership skills. I was happy to know that I could bring results even in an uncomfortable society. Towards end of our work, my concern was about the oral presentation I had to make. I was nervous about presenting it in front of someone who is a total stranger. Towards the end we had been happy about completing the task impeccably. The way we got along each other and thrived as a group is proof of learning outcomes in reflective learning module. Individual 5 I was assigned with the task of briefing on the skill required by an entrepreneur. Practising a broad array of skills is vital in an entrepreneurship, argues Smith and Schallenkamp (2007). The various skills must include an ability to innovate as discovering opportunities are an essential aspect of entrepreneurship. At the same time entrepreneurship has many risks involved for each of the benefit it brings. A nation’s basic improvements in socio-economic front can be determined by entrepreneurial activities in that country as every endeavour operated with correct notion and innovation has the potential to be a great business. Yet Dew and Sarasvathy (2007) stated that entrepreneurial innovation causes a vide range of destructions and hardship to the stake holders Creative notions in today’s business world have been changed with globalisation. As a result international businesses have become very common and entrepreneurships have become vital for the growth of global economy. In light of the experience of a self made entrepreneur, this paper discusses the factors affecting the entrepreneurial activity while developing a new venture. Every entrepreneur has a stage he/she thinks about the best ways of entering a business. Most people at that moment think of some product or service which would be in great demand but not available sufficiently in the market. Innovative entrepreneurs even think of some products in the market about which he/she has an innovative dream. The life and success of Hinna Azeem is an example of such an innovative entrepreneurship. Lyons (2002) describes Operational Skills, Skills to obtain raw materials and supplies, Skills to match requirement and availability, Skills to obtain equipment, plant and technology are the major technical skills of an entrepreneur. And these are the “skills necessary to be successful in one’s line of business” (Lyons, 2002). However the successful entrepreneurs are “persons who create a new venture in order to exploit their technical or job experience. They have strong technical expertise but often lack other essential skills like management experience and communication ability. On the other end of the continuum are opportunistic entrepreneurs. These are individuals who have supplemented their technical ability with additional skills such as communication, legal, economic or strategic knowledge” (Smith and Schallenkamp 2007 p.5). A compelling study of Gartner (1988) conducted almost three decades ago investigated on the activities of a successful entrepreneur, ignoring the reputation he/she had before the start-up of the business. He studied the operations leading to the creation of a new organization. Hence many researchers and scholars of entrepreneurship began to consider opportunity as the core mettle of the entrepreneurship (Venkattaraman, 1997). The concept has been evolved to a provisional assertion since then, that opportunities are discovered, made or recognized by innovative entrepreneurs (Alvarez & Barney, 2007; Sarasvathy, Dew, Velamuri, & Venkataraman, 2003). Conclusion As we were moving around with aim of completing the task, a number of activities we have done proved to be great entrepreneurial learning experience. An opportunity to know and analyse the whereabouts of entrepreneurial endeavour was an exiting learning experience. The growth process of Hinna Azeem Jewellery confirms that a start up business take time to achieve profitability. Moreover, the profitability depends on innovative decision making. For example, Hinna Azeem is outsourcing her production to reduce the production cost, she is outsourcing the sale to the retailers to concentrate more on customer service, she has also introduced online portal for sale. All these innovative ideas are helping to keep the business updated. Knowing the market well and providing products that are in demand in the market is a concept which adds value to the business. H. Azeem does her market feasibility research. Her assumptions about the market were pretty positive except for the high level of competition she was supposed to face with. Though she analyses the market, market expansion is not done without proper preparation. After tasting success in very comfortable manner, now she plans to introduce men’s jewellery. Expansion must be a stable and study process. It will be a mistake to open many branches when the first outlet is not doing well. Above all, being self reflective, innovative and technically skilled are the pre-requisites of becoming a successful entrepreneur. Hinna Azeem Jewellery brand is a perfect example of this. Reference Alvarez, S.A. & Barney, J.B. (2007). Discovery and creation: Alternative theories of entrepreneurial action. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(1–2), 11–29. Drucker, P.F. (1985) The Practice of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Gartner,W.B. (1988). “Who is the entrepreneur?” is the wrong question. American Journal of Small Business, 12(4), 11–32. Gibbs, G. (1988) Learning by Doing: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods. Oxford Further Education Unit: Oxford Goel, S. and Karri, R. (2008) Effectuation and Over-Trust: Response to Sarasvathy and Dew, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice vol. 32: 739-748 Lichtenstein, G.A. and T.S. Lyons. 2001. 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