Strategies and Decisions of Oleg Tinkov - Essay Example

?Entrepreneurship Table of Contents Introduction 3 Entrepreneurial Background of Oleg Tinkov 3 Entrepreneurial Journey of Oleg Tinkov 4 Entrepreneurial Opportunity for Oleg Tinkov 5 Transformation of the Opportunity into Business 6 Business Strategies and Decisions of Oleg Tinkov 6 Challenges and Remedial Actions to those Challenges by Oleg Tinkov 7 Entrepreneurial Network of Oleg Tinkov 8 Role of Luck and Fortune for Oleg Tinkov 8 Conclusion 9 References 11 Introduction This paper has been designed for the purpose of undertaking an inclusive analysis of entrepreneurial traits in relation to a selected entrepreneur. In accordance with the perception of Rae (2006), the main purpose of the entrepreneurial analysis is to stimulate deeper personal awareness and reflection on a person’s intentions towards potential entrepreneurial journey. With the gained support from the author’s perception, the aim of this paper has been designed towards development of personal entrepreneurial characteristics and entrepreneurial state of mind. In this paper, entrepreneurial analysis of Oleg Tinkov will be considered. Entrepreneurial Background of Oleg Tinkov Oleg Tinkov, the great popular and well-known entrepreneur of Russia, was born in a typical Soviet-era industrial town of Siberia in a miner’s family. The specialty of the town is that every people are seemed to survive within the same pattern of life. However, it was Oleg Tinkov who broke the traditional lifestyle of his community and grew up to become an entrepreneur. His father played an essential role in influencing him for becoming a successful man in life and it is worthwhile to mention that many positive qualities have been instigated within him by his father. It was his father who taught him to be honest, simple and hardworking. A degree is held by Oleg Tinkov from St. Petersburg’s Leningrad Mining University and he also completed his studies on a course of marketing at UC Berkeley. In the year 1993, Petrosib was established by him and it was sold by him after it grew to a considerable extent. Then he established Darya, a producer of meal in semi-finished form, which was again sold out for building on Tinkoff breweries along with a cluster of 12 restaurants. The business of breweries was sold off by him during the year 2005 in order to form Tinkoff Credit Systems, aimed to provide credit card solutions (The Russia Forum, 2008). Entrepreneurial Journey of Oleg Tinkov According to Paul Burns (2001), personal characteristics and traits, societal culture, antecedent influence and situational factors are the strongest influencers on entrepreneur (Burns, 2001). Thus, it is important to note that Oleg Tinkov’s journey towards becoming an entrepreneur started at his childhood itself due to his father’s influence. As he grew old, cycling became one of his favorite leisure activities. Entrepreneurial analysis with respect to personal traits and characteristics suggests that entrepreneurs possess similar characteristics to those of sportsmen. Therefore, it is implied that his passion for cycling also has led him forward in his journey towards entrepreneurship. As challenging moves for Oleg Tinkov during his start ups, situational factors played an important role too. The micro-environment factors were prevalent within the country such as that of changes in perception, mood and meaning of the societal communities. Oleg Tinkov challenged the macro economic factors such as economic changes within the country and market structure. His challenge was initiated by his motive of grasping the first mover advantage in the market generated after the disintegration in the Soviet Union. He held extremely strong instinct of defeating any challenge and every time evolved as a winner and this trait has been activated upon him through his immense interest in cycling (Tinkov, 2006). Entrepreneurial Opportunity for Oleg Tinkov Oleg Tinkov is a constant seeker of business opportunities and it is his search for the best which has never allowed him to remain stiff to a single business. Throughout his entrepreneurial career, he has followed the strategy of opening up a business, make it grow strong and famous and sell at a huge profit. The exact time of selling the businesses determines his enormous capability of grasping opportunities. Each business of the entrepreneur is an ‘opportunity exploiting’ process and his present business, ‘Tinkoff Credit Systems’ Bank is on the process of taking advantage of the undeveloped market in Russia. His interests towards the US market have influenced him for thinking about exploiting the Russian market position and evolve as a winner. Oleg Tinkov, at certain stage of his life after making his earlier ventures successful, realized that he holds strong potential of recognizing moods of the people, their needs and accordingly applying technologies at the right time. This is verifiable from the success of his beer and dumplings businesses through innovative marketing campaigns and technologies. It is also due to his high recognition potential that the innovative and completely new to the Russian market, the grocery production plant was built up by him. The plant complies with the standards of the Western hygiene rule. Most importantly, he evolved as the first Russian entrepreneur to sell businesses. Transformation of the Opportunity into Business The sought opportunity for the financial institution’s business was turned up into a reality by Oleg Tinkov through follow up of a simple strategy of continuously striving for reducing cost and an ‘accountable policy’ for debt. This is the formula which the entrepreneur learned from the financial crisis during the year 1998 (Anishyuk, 2009). The idea for the formation of financial institution was turned up into reality by Oleg Tinkov fundamentally through building up of an operational team. The tactical building of the businesses helped him in staying in an operationally active position despite the world crisis during the year 2009 (Egidaco Investments Limited, 2009). However, the main reason behind this success has been the entrepreneur’s state of mind of bridging the gaps between technologies, structure of the market and policies of the government of the US economy and those of the Russian economy. Thus, it can be mentioned that team building and exploration of the developed market had laid the foundation of the businesses for Oleg Tinkov. In addition to this, recognition and adaptability to the changing scenario of the country have added excellence in his businesses at every points of time. Business Strategies and Decisions of Oleg Tinkov It will be essential to mention the preliminary strategies and decisions taken up by Oleg Tinkov as an entrepreneur in the earlier stages of his business career. He was critical about the effective monitoring of each of his business departments such as that of operations, finance and marketing. Oleg Tinkov’s first business, Technoshok was indulged in importing and selling of computers, televisions and other electronic devices. The entrepreneur built up a strong operational team for accomplishing the entire process of importing activities. After conduction of comprehensive market research, Oleg Tinkov realized that the Russian people have desire to pay high prices for a high quality product. This realization made him charge high prices after building up the belief among the people that the products were of high quality. Moreover, the absence of adequate competition in the field of trade retail along with adoption of advanced practices such as that of integrated marketing communication helped the entrepreneur to become a leader within the sector. Challenges and Remedial Actions to those Challenges by Oleg Tinkov Oleg Tinkov is an entrepreneur with enormous quality of bringing innovative ideas into action. As far as his business technicalities with respect to earning stable profits are concerned, he has been able to avoid situations of crisis due to his innovative traits of doing business. However, a time arrived in his life when he realized the inadequacy of proper business knowledge. Oleg Tinkov without completing his university studies got involved in businesses and successfully ran his initial start-ups that did not demand high skilled knowledge of businesses. But, at the age of 31, he realized certain lacking in his knowledge possessions. This is a major challenge for the entrepreneur as he understood that for the pursuance of opportunities based on technology, it is important to possess technical business knowledge. As he possess the traits of ‘never giving up’ attitude, at that age, he got himself admitted in the UC Berkeley’s Program for Marketing Diploma. After completing his studies there, he grew well acquainted with the technicalities of doing the right thing at the right time and with the right process. Entrepreneurial Network of Oleg Tinkov Before building up his start-ups in Russia, Oleg Tinkov was of the notion that entrepreneur should believe more in his own capabilities than his well wishers. He was a strong believer in his capabilities of excelling on his business ideas and this is the reason for which he strived towards creating a new successful business with the previous successful business. In other words, he worked with the formula of building up new businesses by selling off the already successful present business. However, it is essential to mention that his huge involvement in Cycle racing leisure activities has helped him in building up a huge network with due course of time (Drizzten, 2004). However, in the recent times, he has built up wide social network through the present popular social networking media such as that of ‘Twitter’. At present, Oleg Tinkov communicates any new operations related to his business through Twitter so that people on a worldwide basis get to know his business operations. Role of Luck and Fortune for Oleg Tinkov It is believed that in business, the entrepreneurs are the makers of their own luck (Rovira & Trias de Bes, 2011). Luck or fortune is a mere factor in entrepreneurial life, quantification of which has yet not been done. However, at the same time, it is also believed that entrepreneurs are more likely to succeed in their second ventures than that of their first (Sinha, 2008). This can be a factor of ‘luck’. Thus, in Oleg Tinkov’s case, while he was in Suana, he met a Greek man who told him that he is indulged in business of importing equipments for food production to Russia and would like to sell ravioli machines. This fact made Oleg Tinkov think of starting his dumplings business that later on became a huge success. Conclusion From the overall analysis of entrepreneurial traits of Oleg Tinkov, it can be stated that there cannot be the most appropriate ingredient for the best entrepreneur blended with certain portion of characteristics and certain portion of luck or fortune. Conversely, it is a combination of various factors which can only be enhanced by the entrepreneur himself. The entrepreneurs, who realize the importance of the most appropriate factors, ultimately become successful. However, at the same time, the entrepreneurs can conduct an in-depth analysis of the situational factors for interpreting the entrepreneurial traits and strive towards adopting those traits. It has also been found out from the entrepreneurial analysis that people who are more indulged in challenging activities such as that of sports and hold strong notion of winning each of the game are more likely to become a successful entrepreneur. Above all these facts behind becoming a successful entrepreneur lay the capability of identifying opportunities in the market and grasping each of the opportunities. Change identification and adaptation to changed environment are undeniably the most important characteristics of an entrepreneur. References Anishyuk, A., 2009. 1998 Financial Crisis Brings Tinkov Profits in 2009. The St. Petersburg Times. [Online] Available at: http://www.sptimesrussia.com/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=30152 [Accessed June 13, 2011]. Burns, P., 2001. Entrepreneurship and Small Business. Palgrave. Drizzten, 2004. Oleg Tinkov's Potential. Magnifisyncopathological. [Online] Available at: http://www.drizzten.com/blog/2004/06/oleg_tinkovs_potential.html [Accessed June 13, 2011]. Egidaco Investments Limited, 2009. Tinkoff Credit Systems Report For 2008. Press Release. [Online] Available at: http://www.cisionwire.com/egidaco-investments-plc/r/tinkoff-credit-systems-report-for-2008,c412459 [Accessed June 13, 2011]. Rae, D., 2006. Technology Analysis Strategic Management. Routledge, Volume: 18 Issue: 1; pp. 39-56. Rovira, A. & Trias de Bes, F., 2011. Do Entrepreneurs Need Good Luck?. Becoming an Entrepreneur. [Online] Available at: http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/becominganentrepreneur/a/goodluck.htm [Accessed June 13, 2011]. Sinha, 2008. Skill Vs. Luck In Entrepreneurship: Failed Entrepreneurs Most Likely To Be Successful In The Second Venture?. Entrepreneurship. [Online] Available at: http://www.pluggd.in/entrepreneurship/skill-vs-luck-in-entrepreneurship-failed-entrepreneurs-most-likely-to-be-successful-in-the-second-venture-1428/ [Accessed June 13, 2011]. The Russia Forum, 2008. Oleg Tinkov. Bio. [Online] Available at: http://2008.therussiaforum.com/bio/tinkov_bio.html [Accessed June 13, 2011]. Tinkov, O., 2006. Minding his own Business. Cycling News. [Online] Available at: http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/riders/2006/interviews/?id=oleg_tinkoff [Accessed June 13, 2011]. Read More