Lesson Learned from Entrepreneurship Program and Their Future Applications - Coursework Example

LESSON LEARNED FROM ENTERPRENUERSHIP PROGRAM AND THEIR FUTURE APPLICATIONS by State Date Introduction An entrepreneurial effectiveness and awareness can be evaluated using an entrepreneurial effectiveness model. An entrepreneurial effectiveness model is a representation of an entrepreneur’s personal reflection, career plan and assessment of the entrepreneur’s capabilities. The model evaluates an entrepreneur’s enterprise awareness, mindset and capabilities with the aim of prospecting the potential effectiveness of the entrepreneur. Enterprise awareness refers to the level of understanding of enterprises and what an enterprise means to the entrepreneur. On the other hand, entrepreneur mindset refers to factors such as personality, social identity, ambition, motivation, confidence and other personality traits that may influence the effectiveness of an entrepreneur. Finally, entrepreneur’s capability refers to intrinsic entrepreneurial skills, attributes or talents that are outstanding with regard to entrepreneurship. They include creativity and innovation, recognition of opportunities, decision making capabilities, leadership and management, interpersonal skills, communication and strategy skills among others. Entrepreneurial capabilities are set of skills that are inherent to potential entrepreneurs (Nieuwenhuizen & De Beer, 2008). As mentioned earlier, enterprise awareness, entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial capabilities help to evaluate the prospective entrepreneurial effectiveness under the entrepreneurial effectiveness model. Entrepreneurial effectiveness is the measure of the potential value of an entrepreneur. It refers to the potential that an individual has in succeeding in an entrepreneurial venture. Overall entrepreneurial effectiveness is represented by an exhibition of qualities such as independent self-direction, generation of business and career options, venture creation among other similar qualities. This paper evaluates how personal awareness, mindset, capabilities and overall entrepreneurial effectiveness have developed during the entrepreneurship module based on the entrepreneurial effectiveness model (Awasthi & Sebastian, 2006). Further, the paper evaluates how the development can help in shaping my future career. Self-assessment on entrepreneurial capabilities Prior to taking the unit on entrepreneurship, I would have rated my entrepreneurial capabilities below average. This may have been attributable to a view that starting new business is complicated and overly risky. My abilities to identify entrepreneurial venture, investigate on entrepreneurial opportunities, applying innovation, make venture plans and develop markets were considerably below average. However, the experiences through the module have greatly shaped my entrepreneurial capabilities. Specifically, I have undertaken activities, learned a lot of new things and developed ideas on potential entrepreneurial venture that I can explore further. In addition, the experiences have influenced me to resolve to explore the available opportunities in my native country Qatar and start a business before joining my MBA. The following is my assessment of how my awareness, entrepreneurial capabilities and the overall effectiveness have developed during the course module. What I did in the course of the module In the course of the module, there are numerous activities that I was involved in which developed my enterprise awareness, entrepreneurial capabilities, entrepreneurial mindset and my overall entrepreneurial effectiveness. The course module involved more than just class work. For instance, there were numerous group activities and personal projects, among other very vital undertakings that greatly shaped my abilities. During the group activities, each member was assigned a role. Group activities were critical as they helped with regard to aspects such as sharing ideas and evaluation of ideas. They were, specifically, helpful in developing abilities such as understanding of enterprises and dispelling fears about enterprises that were inherent before the module. Further group activities helped to develop skills that positively correlate with entrepreneurial effectiveness. For instance, leadership roles helped in enhancing individual’s capacity in leadership, decision making and communication among other similar attributes. All this attributes correlates positively with entrepreneurial effectiveness and will be very helpful in the future career path. Within the group settings, we investigated entrepreneurial opportunities, helped in selection of the ideal ventures among the opportunities, identified relevant innovations, theoretically applied the innovations to the entrepreneurial ventures, made strategic plans and developed markets for the potential ventures. This helped in developing personal and interpersonal qualities that enhance both personal abilities to identify, assess, evaluate and start entrepreneurial venture (Ramachandran, 2009). In addition, the process also improved my management capabilities, especially with regard to planning and strategic decision making functions. These functions are also very critical in entrepreneurial venture management and are indispensable for an entrepreneurship venture to be successful (Hitt, Ireland, Camp & Sexton, 2001). A major highlight from the group activities was the ability acquired in interacting with people and making important decisions for a group of people. The two functions greatly enhanced my interpersonal interaction and leadership skills and abilities. Further, group work was critical in the evaluation of the prospective ideas within the community. We discussed in details the ideas within the community that could be turned to entrepreneurial ventures. Among the major opportunities that could be turned into a business are the opportunities inherent in technology advances. For instance, online businesses were identified as crucial trends that provide endless opportunities for business development. In addition to group work, I engaged in projects that were meant to improve and develop my entrepreneurial capabilities through experiences. For instance, I engaged in a project where I gathered opinions from potential customers for an opportunity identified by the whole group. The experience was very worthwhile and was responsible my change of attitude towards my view of entrepreneurial ventures. Prior to this experience, I had a comparatively negative view on entrepreneurial ventures- I thought that starting and running business was very complex and complicated. In addition, I thought of entrepreneurial ventures ways of exploiting opportunities in the society with the sole aim of making a profit. However, from the experiences, I changed my view on entrepreneurial ventures greatly. I now have a better understanding of enterprises, I no longer view businesses as complex and I view of entrepreneurship as more than just exploiting opportunities for a profit. In addition, I had the opportunity of making a business proposal for the very first time. The process of making the business proposal was invaluable to me. It presented me with the opportunity of having firsthand experience with regard to how it would feel to plan for starting up an entrepreneurial venture. I was able to explore the various aspects of startup that are very influential to entrepreneurial success. For instance, making the plan helped me to make and understand important financial projections. It emphasized the role of adequate planning and helped in reflecting on contingencies and making prudent plans that incorporates the unforeseen challenges. The process is critical in the future as it will greatly improve my ability of making adequate plans of turning an idea or opportunity into an entrepreneurial venture. Specifically, business planning will critically influence my ability to evaluate, plan and actualize the online business idea that I plan on starting in Qatar. What I learned I gained a lot of essential knowledge in the course of doing the entrepreneurial unit. First, I was able to gain a lot of experience and knowledge with regard to how to start and operate a business. The information was acquired through critical class work, group activities and personal projects. Specifically, I learned on how to evaluate potential opportunities, planning to exploit the opportunities and the critical activities that should be undertaken while running a business. Some of the key highlights include; the knowledge on how to make effective business plans, practical learning on how to assess and exploit opportunities, the importance of finances while doing business and how to conduct market research. The ideas and insights gained in the course Apart from the skills gained and the entrepreneurial abilities acquired in the course of doing the unit, I also gained critical inspirations and insights with regard to entrepreneurship. For instance, I realized that business success was greatly influenced by hard work and knowledge and not luck. Further, I gained insights on how to cover for the imperfections by working hard. I am also now able to use my personal experiences, knowledge, entrepreneurial capabilities and personal positive attributes- for instance innovation and creativity, to build up entrepreneurial ideas and converting these ideas into successful business ventures (Kor, Mahoney & Michael, 2007). Another key inspiration that I acquired was with regard to exploring ventures not just for profits. The idea of social entrepreneurship was a very new idea to me. In the course of doing the entrepreneurial unit, I gained the insight of how I can use my knowledge and skills in entrepreneurship to identify and start entrepreneurial ventures to alleviate or eliminate social gaps within communities. For instance, an entrepreneurial venture can be started for the purpose of alleviating poverty, bridging information gaps within communities among other reasons and not necessarily to make profit. This insights and inspiration will be critical in helping me determine ventures that will not only rake in profits but also help me reach social objectives. Such ventures are more fulfilling as they achieve more than one objective for entrepreneurs (Lyons, 2013). Actions Before I joined to do my MBA, I was thinking of starting a business. However, I was not sure of the specific business that I wanted to start. Have been interested in entrepreneurship for a long time, I had been on the lookout for business opportunities around. I had numerous opportunities that I thought I would explore. Initially, I was attracted to a number of businesses since I thought were lucrative, from the experiences I had seen from my friends, family members and the general public. With time, I came to realize the need for creating a business that entrepreneurial in nature. This means that the business needs to be very creative (Desmond & Faulkner, 1995). . Entrepreneurial businesses are businesses that are created in response to a business opportunity that has been perceived by a person. This person is the entrepreneur. Initially, I was more of a business oriented person than an entrepreneurial oriented person. I would only think of a business idea because it brings in some returns on investment (Hess, 2012). At the moment, I think I have grown in the sense that I am looking at a business in the sense that it will be sustaining some demand somewhere. This means that the business ideas that I am developing at the moment, rather than being only inspired by the returns on investment, they are inspired by creating supply for some demand. This means that marketing for the products and services will be the easier part since there is already demand for the goods or services that I will be producing or selling. Also, there are other aspects of the business that I have learnt to consider in the businesses that I would intent to start. One of them is value addition and making unique products or services (Kumar, 2008). Currently, the business ideas that I am developing are online. With the current trend, where people are becoming busy yet they still need to do their shopping, online businesses are better suited for them. People will be able to buy their goods and services by ordering them online, they could as well pay online and have these delivered using courier services. Thus business is facilitated by the increasing usage of internet, where more people are currently using internet than before. With adequate marketing of the business, I am certain that a good number of people would be interested by the idea of buying their stuff online. To do this successfully, I will need to do a conclusive market research in my home country, Qatar. Since I have a number of business ideas that I would like to do, online, I will have to do adequate research to determine which one is more viable. This means that the business should be legal in the jurisdiction I intend to do the business, I will be aware of the break even period, how people will accept my business, and other aspects that pertain to the business. This is very important since it would be necessary to have a clear working formula (Hess, 2011). Also, I will need to involve different organizations in Qatar to get assistance on the viability of the businesses that I am planning to start. For instance, the government of Qatar has initiated a number of programs that are aimed at facilitating entrepreneurs. I will visit them to see how they can assist me in my ventures. It is after conduction my research that I will chose the most viable online venture which I will start. ‘Special Moments’ During the course on my study, there are a number of moments that I consider to be very special. Some were good, others were bad. After the course, my thinking and perception towards starting a business was impacted by my realization that starting a business is not as challenging as I though. Initially, I looked at businesses that people had set up and I could think that it must have been very hard for them to start such businesses. However, after the module, I realized that starting a business only requires a person to conduct adequate study, and to have a clear plan for the business. Conducting an adequate study means, I will have to do comprehensive research around so that I can get enough information about the business. This information includes the legal obligations of the business, strategies to use to be more productive, the market, suppliers, competitors, and other parties that are relevant for production and selling or the goods or production. This should be treated as a process where one learns the proponents of the business. Planning for the business includes determining how capital will be raised, how production will be done, who will do it, how marketing will be done, who will do it, and where you see the business in the future. This is important since it will enable a person starting a business to run it, knowing what they want to achieve. It gives the business a goal. I had a rough time gelling with my group members. At the beginning of our coursework, most group members were not committed to our work, something that made me very uncomfortable. We could organize for group discussions, but lack quorum since most members never attended. When we assigned members some tasks to research on their own, most of them did not do this assignment. Also, members would attend group discussions but fail to contribute to our discussions. Professor David Rae had to talk to me, and convinced me against the idea of changing my group. Working with these members was a tough task, although with time thing got better although they were never perfect. This made me realize how taught it can get to start a business with another person who is neither your relative nor is he/she your friend. I imagined that although there could be mutual respect, it is very hard to cope with people that you do not know their personality. This is part of what affected me. When we were choosing group members, I had just met the people we formed the group, and barely knew them. This did not give me the chance to choose their traits. Starting a business with a person you know very well is important since you already know their traits, which makes the working relationship healthy. In the group, we could not easily agree on the suitable times to set our timetable. This is because we all had different schedules, but every person wanted the timetable to fit into their schedule. Few people wanted to compromise their personal timetables in favour of the group’s timetable. This meant that we had to compromise the group’s timetable to favour those of some individuals. At times, we had to meet over periods of time that were not proportional. My bright moment in the group was when my group members chose my idea, that we build ideas to make better choices. There were other suggestions, and each person had to support their idea and convince others that it was a viable one. When they chose my idea that was a very happy moment for me. Personal & career goals In life, I want to become a very successful person in my country. Since I want to be an entrepreneur, I want to start a really successful business in my country, one that will inspire a lot of people in my country and change their lives. This will make me very proud, my family and friends will be very proud of me, and my achievements. In life, I am motivated by the fact that I want to be a very successful person and want to taste my own success. My family has achieved a lot in Qatar, since I do not want to ride on fate or sit down and brag over this, I am motivated by hunger to achieve my own success. I want to be a better person than any member f my family. My family members, having set the bar too high for me motivates me to work even harder, to succeed in life and better them all. I value a number of things in life. I value respect that I accord myself, because I believe that for people to accord respect to a person, the person needs to respect themselves first. I believe that to succeed in life a person needs to be very hard working, handwork pays and rarely will someone to succeed without handwork. They need to put a lot of energy, spend time and energy to ensure that they succeed in life. Since I want to be very successful in life, I need to work very hard (Allen, 1999). That is why I regard handwork. I believe that having feeling for other people makes a person a very important member of the society. In life, we have to live together with harmony and peace with other people, and minding about them. Feeling other people is part of minding for them. I believe that honesty is very important to ensure that a person is very successful. Using ways that are not honest to gain success could get you success but you will never be happy with success gotten through such means. Lastly, I hold generation of income very highly. Without generation of income, I will never be successful. This means that I need to generate a lot of income to be successful. To me success is very important to me. However, I believe in being involved in my own success, such that I need to be part and parcel of my own success. Also, I believe that every person can achieve the level of success that they want or aim to receive, and that nothing is unachievable in life. People need to try to be successful by doing their level best. As for my career, I aim to be a very successful public relations manager and be a successful events manager in my country, Qatar. I believe that I would impact people, by advising them on their public relationships and manage their events. This will make people, more so those who are very busy, have good public relations and have events they fancy without having to compromise the work they do. I will also give a lot of positive improvement to the same. At the moment, I am doing enough research on how to achieve this goal. The management course that I have taken will also enable me achieve this goal. In the next two years, I am aiming to open my first business, and get a better job – having gotten my MBA. I have confidence that I will achieve all these goals since I have been committed to all my goals in life, I have been committed to the tasks I have previously done. Also, some of my current achievements have been a result of previous goals and handwork to achieve. Conclusion The knowledge and skills acquired from undertaking the entrepreneurship course unit have greatly impacted my enterprise awareness, entrepreneurial mindset, capabilities and the overall entrepreneurial effectiveness. The module involved a number of activities ranging from class work to group work and personal projects. All the activities have critically enhanced my understanding and experience with regard to identification and evaluation of opportunities. Further, the skills have also enhanced my capabilities to undertake operations involved in the starting and operation of entrepreneurial activities and the running of successful businesses for profits, and for the sake of attaining social objectives such as bridging of information gaps. In addition, the module has sharpened by inherent capabilities and skills. For instance, it has greatly enhanced my creativity and innovation, my decision making capabilities, interpersonal skills, and communication skills. These abilities were especially greatly enhanced during group assignments where each person was assigned a role a factor that helped to advance critical skills especially in relation to interaction with other people. All this developments will greatly influence my future entrepreneurial undertakings and career. The information and knowledge will be specifically helpful in the opportunity identification and evaluation and the start and running of a new venture that I hope to start in my native country, Qatar, before I join my MBA studies. References Allen, K. R. (1999). Growing and managing an entrepreneurial business. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Awasthi, D. N., & Sebastian, J. (2006). Evaluation of entrepreneurship development programmes. New Delhi, Sage. Desmond, G. M., & Faulkner, M. (1995). The ideal entrepreneurial business for you. New York: Wiley. Hess, E. (2012). Grow to Greatness: Smart Growth for Entrepreneurial Businesses. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Hess, E. D. (2011). Growing an entrepreneurial business: Concepts and cases. Stanford, California: Stanford Business Books. Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., Camp, S. M., & Sexton, D. L. (2001). Strategic entrepreneurship: entrepreneurial strategies for wealth creation. Strategic management journal, 22(6‐7), 479-491. Kor, Y. Y., Mahoney, J. T., & Michael, S. C. (2007). Resources, capabilities and entrepreneurial perceptions. Journal of Management Studies, 44(7), 1187-1212. Kumar, S. A. (2008). Small business and entrepreneurship. New Delhi: I.K. International Pub. House. Lyons, T. S. (2013). Social entrepreneurship: how businesses can transform society. Santa Barbara, Calif, Praeger. Bottom of Form Top of Form Nieuwenhuizen, C., & De Beer, A. A. (2008). Entrepreneurial skills. Lansdowne, Cape Town, Juta & Co.Bottom of Form Ramachandran, K. (2009). Entrepreneurship development: Indian cases on change agents. New Delhi, Tata McGraw-Hill Pub. Co. Top of FormBottom of Form Top of Form Read More