Australian Entrepreneur Jessica May - Characteristics, Business, and Its Competitive Advantage - Case Study Example

Running Header: Analysis of an Australian entrepreneur-Jessica May Analysis of an Australian entrepreneur-Jessica May Author’s Name Instructor’s Name Course Number Date of Submission Analysis of an Australian entrepreneur-Jessica May Jessica May’s background Jessica May was born thirty six years ago in Canberra and is the founder and the CEO of Enabled Employment a profit making company that deals with the placement of people with disabilities for employment opportunities or connecting them with suitable employers. There is no much information that is available concerning Jessica May’s growing up but she joined the public service as an employee at the age of twenty and worked for ten years six of which were in executive roles. In her words, the reason why she was doing very well in her employment in the public service is because she had anxiety disorder in her entire life and hence she preferred working as opposed to be anxious. For this reason, she became a workaholic. Her professional background is in organizational change management and software development. Jessica is also a project manager. Hence in the public service, she was constantly involved in things that have never been done before (Kate, 2017). This involved a lot of start-ups for the government and had also worked on Medicare from start to finish a project that was a first and which made a huge difference for small businesses. She was so diligent in her work in the public service that she had earned a number of awards including some from the prime minister. Trouble for Jessica May started when she gave birth to her first daughter as she experienced a post traumatic disorder called postpartum thyroiditis meaning that she developed an overactive thyroid and hence all the medication she was taking to control her anxiety could not work anymore. Thus, she ended up completely anxious all the time and was unable to cope with anything. As such, she had to cut short her maternity leave so she could be back to work as soon as possible as a way of dealing with her anxiety as stated above. Her doctor allowed her to work three times a week meaning she had to disclose that she had a disability to her employer so that she could be allowed the working flexibility she needed. However, this somehow worked badly for her since her employer and colleagues started making assumptions about her ability and eventually ended up deciding that she can’t do anything. What followed was a period of reporting to work to do nothing. What is more, they stopped talking to her and excluded her entirely. She knew that this is what happens to many people with disabilities. She knew that she is performer having won two prime ministers awards but now she was being treated as a non-performer. As such, she realized that for people with disabilities, stigma is the real issue behind disability. It was then that the idea for helping people with disability but who need not be in disability pension but just need flexibility in working was born. This saw the birth of her company Enabled Employment. Based on the above discussion, it is clear that, Jessica May’s entrepreneurship has a lot to do with her background. This is because she was born with anxiety disorder and when the situation worsened after the birth of her daughter, the trauma she experienced at work got her thinking of how to help those who like her have disabilities and still undergo the same trauma. This is how she quit the public service to start her company –Enabled Employment. On the other hand, her career background in organizational change management, software development and project management was also instrumental in helping her start-up the company including developing the software, management and sourcing for start-up capital. Jessica May’s Characteristics As an entrepreneur, Jessica May possesses the following characteristics which have helped her start and propel Enabled Employment into what it is today; a) Passion- Jessica possesses a lot of passion or quest for deeper purpose. This is seen not only in her present position as the founder and CEO of her company but even when she was with public works. She only worked for ten years but six of the years were in executive levels thanks to her passion and commitment. Even when she experienced the post traumatic disorder resulting to stigma from the employer and colleague, she never gave up but the inner drive to do something meaningful not only for her but also for those who are like her kept her going the result of which is her company-Enabled Employment. b) Creativity and persuasiveness –Millions and millions of disabled people consider disability as inability. But for Jessica, she saw an opportunity in her disability. Her creativity led her to creating a company that is first of its kind globally. In addition, her persuasive spirit kept her going even when many including angel investors doubted her. In her words, it took a lot of courage to convince the investors that the idea was going to work. At one point, all the investors had pulled out their resources but she resolved to insist, not to give up until some reinstated the funds. The determined spirit has made her company what it is today. c) Versatility- After starting up the company, Jessica May wore many hats including being the manager, the secretary, the accountant among other roles until the company was up and running. She states that she has now been able to train her employees on such issues as payroll among others and she is now free to concentrate on growing the company (Brunder, 2017). d) Superb business skills- Jessica May possessed superb business skills as described above that helped her start the business and run it effectively. The business skills, her know how as well as the contacts were instrumental in making Enabled Employment what it is today. e) Risk tolerance-Her risk tolerance nature is seen in the fact that she didn’t know whether the idea would succeed yet she risked her well-paying executive job for it. This is despite the fact that there were no similar businesses elsewhere in the world. f) Drive- Her inner drive to succeed saw her disregard the stigma she was going through and saw an opportunity to help others which has greatly succeeded. g) Vision- As the founder and the CEO of the company, Jessica decides where she wants her business to go which requires vision. This has kept her boat on-shore as she looks ahead and as she sees the bigger picture about her company. h) Flexibility and open-mindedness- by venturing into her new field, Jessica was chatting an unknown direction with a lot of unknowns and uncertainties. However, her being flexible and open minded has enabled her discover new and better ways of doing things. It has also helped her accept guidance from friends and entrepreneurial organizations which has partly helped propel her company. i) Decisiveness- Jessica saw an opportunity and went for it. She did not procrastinate. She knew her right moment and made a decision to quit her lucrative job so as to seize her opportunity. The process of opportunity recognition and idea development The following the process of opportunity recognition and idea development a) Recognize a need and formulate an idea- this is dependent on many factors including past experience, education, training and skills among others and is influenced by one’s creativity. In this case, Jessica recognized a need from her trauma experience and realized how much people with disability go through in the workplace and hence saw the need to help them and prove that she is useful and hence she formulated an idea that would make her useful to herself and others (Chris, 2013). b) Recognize an opportunity –the next step is converting the idea into a business opportunity. For instance, the idea to solve problems for people with disability made Jessica recognize an opportunity in creating an employment platform specifically for them. c) Business planning- this including researching on the opportunity market potential and business environment, financing while seeking the right mix of skills to manage the opportunity. d) Entry and launching –if business planning indicates that time is ripe to launch the idea, then the entrepreneur enters the market e) Early stage development- this involves establishing the business by establishing its credibility and establishing relationships necessary for its survival. The business and its competitive advantage Faced by the challenges described above, Jessica May decided to start Enabled Employment. This is a labor hire company for people experiencing various forms of disability. The company’s uniqueness not just in Australia but globally lies in its approach to using flexible arrangement to enable highly capable people with a disability to find productive and well-paying employment. This also serves to make it easy for businesses to fill skill gaps. Enabled is a private for Profit Company that has a completely new approach to elimination of barriers of employment for persons with a disability. The company through its innovative strategies such as use of employment agency business model, remote work as well as the latest cloud technology in making the process easy for its clients (Enabledemployment.com, 2017). In addition, the company employs people with disability who are experienced and is hence for people with disability run by people with disability. The company’s competitive advantage lies in its unique kind of employment to the employment agency sector. It is the only kind of company that offers this kind of opportunities to those with disabilities. Its highly innovative nature also acts as its competitive advantage in that it is able to offer flexible employment opportunities to its clients who in most cases face discrimination in the work place. Future suggestions for the entrepreneur A few years after launching the Enabled Employment, the company is now valued more than 7 million Australian dollars. Given that this is a one of its kind launch, it does not face much competition since although there are many career solutions company, few of them deal target people with disability. As such, Jessica May should first concentrate on expanding her company both on size and scope. This is because there are many disabled people even outside Australia who would need the services offered by the company yet there are no similar companies in the countries. As such, it should be her priority to expand the company both in Australia and internationally in a bid to increase the company’s revenue and value. In addition, she should expand the scope of the business to cover areas such as offering its services to the less fortunate in society such as the Aboriginals who would find such services valuable. It is only after such expansion that she should think of selling some of its stake to outsiders and make money out of it. However, since she is the vision career, I would not advice to fully divest out of the business to prevent it from collapsing. References: Kate, S2017, How one woman beat her mental illness by helping others, Retrieved on 12th April 2017, from; http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39255217 Brunder, J2017, The psychological price of entrepreneurship, Retrieved on 12th April 2016, from; https://www.inc.com/magazine/201309/jessica-bruder/psychological-price-of- entrepreneurship.html Chris, G2013, Entrepreneurship and Small business management, London, Rutledge. Enabledemployment.com, 2017, Enabling inclusive employment, Retrieved on 12th April 2016, from; https://www.enabledemployment.com/ Read More