Entrepreneurial Approach to Profit and Social Responsibility - Literature review Example

Entrepreneurial Approach to Profit and Social Responsibility Introduction Entrepreneurship refers to the business of taking a risk in coming up with new ideas and innovations. Entrepreneurship involves seeing an opportunity where others are not able to see it, take advantage of it, and exploit it with an aim of making a profit. An entrepreneur is therefore, an individual who initiates innovations, financing and business activities in an effort to transform the ideas into an economic resource. An entrepreneur is viewed as a risk taker in the business venture. This paper will discuss of the two leading entrepreneurs, Rich Gorman and Adi Saravanan to determine their entrepreneurship approach in relation to profit and social responsibility. Entrepreneurship is about risk taking, seen an opportunity where others are not able to see it and taking advantage of the opportunity. Adi Saravanan and Rich Gorman are such leading and successful entrepreneurs who saw an opportunity where other people around them were not able to see. They took all the risks involved in the business and financial undertakings to venture and later emerged successful and became millionaires as a result of good entrepreneurship. Adi Saravanan Adi Saravanan, an engineer by profession, graduated from the University of Bharathiyar, developed interest in being a successful entrepreneur as a result of the opportunities’ he saw in the business world when working in the financial department of Samar Financial Limited. Adi Saravanan also holds a degree in Business and Financial Management from the University of Periyar and Masters form the same university. His hard work made him get a promotion to market the products of the company. He later got another job at Ashok Leyland finance limited where he worked within the financial and treasury departments. He had a lot of interest in finance and information technology that made him co-find a company named Allsec Technologies where he is the Chief Executive officer. This company offers Business Process Outsourcing services ranging from payroll to web solutions and retail healthcare services to various industries in India and Philippines. Adi Saravanan’s Leadership Style Leadership styles are the skills, traits and behaviors that a leader exhibits as he or she interacts with his workers. Adi Saravanan as the president of Allsec Technologies is portrayed as a democratic leader. As such, he uses a democratic leadership approach to manage the company’s activities. This is because he encourages participation of all his workers and staff in decision makings. He also ensures that workers are consulted on what is supposed to be done for the benefit of the company as a whole (Northouse, 2009). His democratic leadership style is also seen in that he does not closely supervise his employees but instead gives instruction and trusts that his instructions are to be followed since all decisions made are done in consultation. Adi Saravanan’s Approach to Profit making Adi Saravanan developed various strategies to ensure that his company became profitable. The first thing he did was to ensure that costs are kept low by eliminating unnecessary expenditures. He also ensured that the focus of the company was to improve shift utilization by getting more clients. He ensured that the services provided are customer focused and that they met customer expectations. This is in terms of both quality and quantity. This way, he maintained the loyalty of his clients and customers. He also makes sure that the staff he hires as are professionals to ensure that quality services are delivered to the clients. This was demonstrated by the quality of payroll services and BPO services offered by Allsec Technologies (Drucker, 2006). Adi Saravanan’s Strategies to Social Responsibilities A company is supposed to give back to the society through corporate social responsibility. This is because the society is normally impacted in various ways – positive and negative – by the company. In some cases, environmental pollution occurs as a result of an organization’s activities, for example. The main aim of social responsibility is to give back to the employees, community and/or larger society without expecting profit in return. Saravanan ensures that workers welfare in the company are respected. Saravanan ensures that the confidence of his clients’ is boosted through the provision of quality services. The company should therefore, provide for risk management strategies to protect the society. Adi Saravanan ensured that corporate social responsibility is integrated as a culture to ensure that the society is rewarded for the role they play in supporting Allsec Technologies. As the President, he ensures that the employees and the society are protected from the environmental pollutions caused by the company. One of the initiatives adopted by the entrepreneur is green computing. For Saravanan, the Small Business Administration and SCORE tools most applicable include Technology (SBIR/STTR), loan programs, and Entrepreneurial Development resources. These are important to the businessman since the business may need more finance for expansion and resources for the development of the enterprise. Furthermore, the business may need to apply technology in its management and service delivery to a greater level. Rich Gorman Rich Gorman is another leading entrepreneur in the franchise industry. He is a sales trainer and founder of Gorman Training, Inc. a Franchise of Sandler Training. He has over 25 years of experience as a sales manager and this has made him become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the sales industry. His success is mostly attributable to the approaches that he uses in handling his customers, clients, employees and the society at large (Drucker, 2006). His main point of focus is on helping his clients become successful in their various businesses and lives. Rich Gorman’s Leadership Approach For a leader to lead effectively, he/she needs to understand what will move workers to perform the various tasks assigned to them. A good leader should always be self-motivated for him to be able to influence the workers to carry out their duties. Rich Gorman uses a motivational approach and applies social responsibility to drive his company sales high. He does this partly by ensuring that consumers are directly dealt with without involving middlemen in the dealings. His motivational approach is also demonstrated by how he effectively communicates his ideas. He evaluates his goals of satisfying his consumers and supports any changes necessary, maintaining an insight into consumers’ needs (Northouse, 2009). Rich Gorman’s Leadership Style Gorman argues that it is important to know how to deal with employees at the workplace. He also demonstrates that an effective leader like him must at all times develop the trust in his workers by hiring the right team of professionals. Gorman in his leadership style ensures that he only hire employees who are hard-working, intelligent and who are committed to the work assigned to them in ensuring that the company’s goals and visions are met. All this attributes makes Gorman one of the democratic leaders. This is because he gives his employees the autonomy to work without close supervision even as they are allowed to schedule their work timetables (Northouse, 2009). Considering that the entrepreneur focuses a lot on social responsibility, the Small Business Administration and SCORE tools/resources most applicable include customer relations, sales marketing and PR, and Franchising. The entrepreneur needs to understand how to balance social responsibility and profit making. Furthermore, the leader may gain morn sight into the business of franchising. Rich Gorman’s Strategies to Improve Company Profits Rich Gorman has been the driving force behind Sandra Training Company due to his well structured approach to win the loyalty of his customers. He uses direct response marketing strategy where consumers are directly dealt with without having to involve the middle man. This ensures that the consumers are given quality services thus winning their loyalty as noted by Drucker (2006). This in turn translates to more profit as the loyal customers are able to market the company to other consumers who may not have known the company. The cutting down of the middlemen in dealing with the consumers is a strategy that saves money by minimizing costs and as a result improving the profit margin. Gorman also ensures that the feedback he receives from consumers are considered in the development and implementation of strategies. He is also an entrepreneur who is committed to sharing the best tips of opportunities’ and using his skills and experience to improve the products offered in the market. How Rich Gorman Manages Social Responsibility Rich Gorman values the role played by the society and the employees in ensuring that the company remain successful. Gorman emphasizes the benefit of offering employees opportunities for growth and development. The willing employees of his company are offered scholarships for further studies based on a criteria established by the company. The company also engages in several activities that are aimed at helping the society including sponsoring schools, creating environment awareness, and providing grants to small organizations. Rich Gorman sees to it that employee rights are respected and their needs attended to. He argues that for the company to remain successful, it needs to consider giving to the clients even as part of the larger society (Friedman, 2007). In view of the two leading entrepreneurs discussed, Rich Gorman and Adi Saravanan, it is certain that for one to be a good entrepreneur, he or she must be able to offer good leadership, maintain customer focus, and understand the value of the employee in the company. While profit orientation is the core objective of every business, social responsibility ought not to be neglected. This is so considering that some organizations thrive and indeed make profits by focusing more on the welfare of the society rather than on making a kill. References Drucker P. F (2006) Classic Drucker: essential wisdom of Peter Drucker from pages of Harvard Business School. Massachusetts. Harvard Business School Publishing. Friedman M. (2007) The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits: Corporate ethics and corporate governance. New York Times Magazine. New York Times Publishing, Leach J. & Melicher R. (2011) Entrepreneurial Finance: Mason. Joe Sabatino Publishing. 441-470 Northouse P. G (2009) Leadership: Theory and Practice. California. Sage Publishing. Read More