Analysis of Entrepreneurial Success of the James Caan - Case Study Example

? Entrepreneurship (collage) entrepreneurship intrduction An Entrepreneur is also an innovator who perceives and seizes potential opportunities which common people do not see. Good entrepreneurs not only undertake innovations, but also raise sources of finance to transform their innovations into economic goods. Hence, the act of being an entrepreneur is called entrepreneurship. An outstanding entrepreneurship will either contribute to the emergence of a new organization or renovation of an existing firm. Traditionally, it was believed that the potential of entrepreneurship rests with initiating new business ventures. However, in recent days, the concept has been altered greatly and presently it includes several social as well as political elements. Entrepreneurship has a considerable significance in the present business scenario as consumers are greatly influenced by innovative business ideas. The world has witnessed the emergence of many eminent entrepreneurs who contributed to the growth of modern business concepts. At this juncture, this paper will evaluate the entrepreneurial success of James Caan in his venture Hamilton Bradshaw and how his attitudes, approaches, and strategies have played a major role in the success of his venture. James Caan James Caan is a UK entrepreneur who was born in 1960 in Lahore, Pakistan. Caan, who got popularity for his innovations has been developing and selling business ventures since 1985. Lahore Business School has expressed its admiration to Caan when it awarded honorary doctorate to this innovative entrepreneur. The business world witnessed Caan’s height of confidence when he sold his venture, the Alexander Mann Group, a company with turnover of ?130m and operations in 50 countries. Recently in 2010, Caan launched his new venture HB Real Estate into market with intent to target investments. History of Hamilton Bradshaw ‘Hamilton Bradshaw is a leading mid-market private equity firm’ which is headquartered at London and it is founded by James Caan in 20031. James Caan himself made whole investments to commence this business venture and that makes the Hamilton Bradshaw different from other similar private firms. Even though Hamilton Bradshaw is a mid-market firm, it has business interests in all sectors of the industry. It ‘invests in companies across sectors and at all stages’ irrespective of the business traditions of firms; Hamilton Bradshaw is also interested in Real Estate business and it has reserved an amount of $35 million for the purpose2. Caan got a gap year after he sold his shares in Alexander Mann, Humana Mann, and Recruitment International. During this period, Caan closely watched different market sectors in addition to his advanced management study at Harvard. From his observations, Caan identified that many industries collapsed as they had failed to develop innovative concepts, and sufficient financial sources that were highly necessary. Caan had good experience in recruitment and hence he believed that the concept of HB would play a vital role in the business world if it made equity investments in financially and strategically struggling companies. Moreover, the sale of Alexander Mann also persuaded Caan to begin this new venture. James Caan strongly believed that major portions of corporate failures can be avoided if the firms are provided with sufficient strategic advices and financial assistance. Hence, HB not only finances the companies but also closely examines their business strategies. It will also identify the most appropriate resources in order to safeguard HB’s interests in those companies. Caan also believed that inter-cooperation between international business houses would avert business failures to a large extent. Since HB is a huge company having world wide network of top performing business houses, it can assist weaker member firms to get access into HB’s global network of resources and thereby increase their operational efficiency. Caan’s admirable innovativeness is evident in the success of Hamilton Bradshaw. He thought that it was easy to rebuild an existing firm rather than launching a new venture into market. Caan’s attitudes and approaches towards innovation While dealing with HB, Caan was always vigilant to explore market opportunities. He closely monitored even small market fluctuations and assessed the right time for commencing HB concept. In the opinion of Kuratko3, opportunity identification is the central concept to entrepreneurship; the Author adds that a business venture would be successful if and only it can effectively predict future customer demand trends. The concept of HB clearly proves that Caan had a long vision regarding his business and its future scope. According to the view of Malloch and Porter-O’Grady4, there are ranges of sources such as demographic changes, trends, and knowledge based concepts through which an entrepreneur gets innovative ideas so as to start a new venture (pp.111-112). As discussed earlier, Caan mainly got business ideas through the close observation of market trends. Once the innovative business ideas are recognized, it is essential to choose the most potential idea in order to carry out the next processing phases. “Every prospective entrepreneur needs to use his or her previous knowledge base to interpret the unusual sources of innovative ideas into a potential opportunity” (Kuratko)5. The knowledge base may include all previous knowledge that is beneficial for the entrepreneur to identify most potential opportunities. In the case of HB, it is obvious that Caan had acquired greater market knowledge from his previous ventures. This valuable knowledge influenced James Caan to invest completely by himself in the HB business idea. From his previous industry experiences, he clearly identified that a businessman must get greater autonomy and independence in order to carry out his operations efficiently. He adopted the very approach while running HB; and therefore, the HB management team only supports and advises the member firms in order to improve their functioning, instead of involving into the firm’s day to day operations. Similarly, on the basis of previous industry knowledge, HB has designed separate teams for recruitment and investments. This practice assists the organization to give adequate care on recruitment and investment functions. By establishing a separate investment team, HB provides venture capital to talented entrepreneurs in order for encouraging innovation. Kuratko clearly says that an entrepreneur must use his creativity at each stages of project development6. This element of creativity is visible in each and every strategy practiced by HB. In addition, an entrepreneur must be flexible so that he can bring timely modifications to the implemented project if it does not work properly7. In short, evidently James Caan has been keping all essential characteristics that an entrepreneur must possess. Caan’s distinctive strategies The term innovator refers to someone who thinks differently from others for formulating new distinctive ideas. Naturally, every innovative entrepreneur employs entirely different strategies in order to transform their business concepts into economic goods. As discussed, Caan’s HB concept undertakes weaker or failed firms and finances them strategically in order to improve their operational efficiency. Since HB deals with undertaking existing firms, it can trim down operational costs to a large extent. In the opinion of Kuratko, the considerable rate of time and efforts associated with starting a new enterprise can be reduced by acquiring an ongoing venture. He also tells that sometimes a company gets potential bargaining power while it deals with the acquisition of an ongoing venture8. Obviously, the HB’s acquisition strategy greatly contributed to the rapid growth of the company. It is identified that HB also tries to assist the small scale industries to grow further by encouraging them with advisory programs. Since the HB already possesses an efficient consultancy management team, it does not incur additional costs for providing these types of advisory services. On the strength of advisory programs, HB ensures support from rural sectors where small scale industries are operated more. James Caan believes that public support is a necessary element for the success of any venture. Therefore, he has initiated some ethical and social responsibility programs also. The James Caan Foundation is an example for the social responsibility program undertaken by HB. These types of social welfare programs have greatly aided the company to get extensive support from all sectors of the society. Conclusion Evidently, James Caan is an innovate entrepreneur who attained admirable business success in all his ventures notably in Hamilton Bradshaw. Caan closely watches changing market trends before he designs frameworks for his business concepts. It is his market knowledge and experience that helped him to proceed with the HB concept. Since the recruitment and investment functions are carried out by separate management teams, the company can effectively concentrate on these two distinct areas of business operation. Caan gave greater level of autonomy and independence to member firms instead of interfering into their day to day operations. At the same time, Caan gives timely strategic advices to his member firms so as to improve their efficiency. Social responsibility programs that HB has undertaken play a vital role in the sustainable growth of the company. Bibliography Hamilton Bradshaw, official website. Accessed 14 May 2011 http://www.hamiltonbradshaw.com/ Kuratko, D. F. Entrepreneurship: Theory. Process, and Practice. US: Cengage Learning, 2009. Malloch, K & Porter-O’Grady, T. The Quantum Leader: Applications for the New World of Work. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2009. Read More