Market Conditions and Competitor Strengths - Assignment Example

Characteristics of an Entrepreneur Introduction Richard Branson, that maverick entrepreneur who rewrote possibly the entire rulebook of entrepreneurship, views entrepreneurship as one unending party that promises lots of fun and equal measures of hard work. It is indeed an awe inspiring life that Branson has lived and it is equally fabulous when one considers that this man started off with practically nothing worthwhile and gradually fought his way up through severe bouts of dyslexia and a chronic shortage of capital. But he never lost faith in himself and had firm belief in his dreams. When he was a school kid he started a school magazine and unlike many other school kids of his age he did not rest at bringing out one edition. He kept on his quest for prospective customers who would buy space in his magazine and did this bit of marketing mainly through the pay phone installed in his school. One fails to stop marveling at the entrepreneurial streak that this young boy exhibited when most boys of his age were busy playing games. The success did not come anytime soon and after some backbreaking and focused effort finally on one fine day he received his first breakthrough in the form of a cheque of £250 from an advertiser. The most notable part of this entire episode is that he did not waver in his faith even for a moment through the whole exercise and was never shy of putting in hard work for it. This personal attribute of staying focused in the face of severest odds is perhaps the single most important attribute that separates an entrepreneur form the rest of the crowd (Branson 2006). Do entrepreneurs have special attributes? During the early 1980s and right through the 1990s media, both electronic and print, and several academicians researched on the special attributes that made entrepreneurs out of ordinary mortals. Such research outputs usually set out a list of must-have attributes and generally invited readers to do a self check to find out whether they have it in them what makes an entrepreneur. It had become quite fashionable to label certain characteristics as entrepreneurial attributes. One of them was surely an ability to take risks but hardly any such publication clearly mentioned just where when such an ability to accept risks crossed the limits of prudence and became downright foolhardiness. Another very much touted behavioral characteristic of future entrepreneurs was an extra desire to achieve something in life (McClelland 1999). The characteristic, as was evident from the words that described it, was extremely vague and had more hype in it than any real substance. One would hardly be able to locate an individual who does not want to achieve something in life and there would possibly be no difference in this regard between an entrepreneur and an ordinary person who is in employment of other. Therefore, the claim an entrepreneur has more desire to achieve something in life hardly has any credible basis. With passage of time the fad that entrepreneurs had that something extra in them which made them venture into the realms of uncertainty started wearing off and it has now been reasonably accepted that every individual, irrespective of which walk of life that person has chosen for themselves, will achieve success only if they have that urge in them to succeed. That urge will motivate them to put in hours of hard labor and would also prevent them from losing their focus till they achieve what they had set out for. Thus it may be inferred that while an entrepreneur does not have any less or any more desire to achieve than any other individual, the entrepreneur does indeed have a genuine desire to take control of their own future. And, in this regard they differ significantly from other individuals that provide service in the employment of others. This significant wish to script their own future has made a Richard Branson or a Bill Gates what they have been. This bit of information helped us a lot when we decided to set up Kivama. As we were not sure whether we had in us what it would take to make an entrepreneur, we were initially rather nervous whether we would be able to really make it but when we realized that an entrepreneur is really no different from an achiever in any other field and as we were sure of our desire to have, if not total but at least partial control over our future, we did not hesitate any further and went ahead with setting up our new business venture Kivama. Salient features of entrepreneurial mind and whether we exhibited those traits Modern management experts describe an entrepreneurial mind in terms that we use everyday possibly because these experts want to emphasize that entrepreneurs are not any different from other individuals, it is only that they are perhaps more intense that others in certain aspects. Entrepreneurs have a vision about what the future might be and have the ability to convert their vision into commercial success. This exceptional ability to properly visualize the future with some degree of accuracy and the power to choose the best alternative course of action among several available alternatives identifies a genuine entrepreneur (Brännback and Carsrud 2009). Before setting up Kivama, we toyed with several other options ranging from serving hot chocolate at one end to setting up a clothes repair store in Cambridge Market. Finally we settled for Kivama but that decision was not something done in an impulse or because of some ‘gut feeling’ our team members had. There was hardly any element of arbitrariness as we zeroed in on Kivama. We actually undertook a thorough analysis of availability of certain crucial factors as equipment, i.e. capital requirement for the proposed venture; availability of proper place where we can set up the business and whether we possess the necessary technical skills to carry out the operations successfully. Once we were reasonably certain about these basic requirements we undertook some detailed exercises to ascertain whether the proposed venture would be profitable or not. For this, we carried out fifty surveys among the age group of 18-25 years – the age bracket within which most of customers would reside and found a positive response. Thus, assured of a reasonable demand, we progressed to the next stage of evaluating the market through PESTLE analysis. But we knew a favorable market is not enough, an in-depth analysis of our strengths and weaknesses was also done through SWOT analysis. Once we were absolutely sure that the chances of success of this new venture were reasonably bright, we proceeded with the actual act of setting up the business (Hindle, Klyver and Jennings 2009). We were acutely conscious of the importance of working capital and how it fluctuates on account of seasonal demand. Hence, we investigated the extent of seasonal influence on our proposed venture and found out that Kivama would not be subjected any appreciable seasonal fluctuations in demand and thus were definite that there would not be any need to make arrangements of additional capital during ‘active’ seasons. This realization, to be very honest, reduced our worries to a great extent. By undertaking this analysis we also exhibited our concern for the financial aspect of the business and thus proved that we had created a business plan that was bound to succeed (Gumpert 2003). Conclusion Though it would be rather irrational to attribute special psychological qualities to an entrepreneur that would separate them from other individuals, it is a fact that entrepreneurs are indeed able to spot opportunities where others fail to observe anything. But while simple spotting of an opportunity might set a few hearts racing, it is indeed a long way to actually establish a feasible commercial venture that would be able to withstand the vagaries of an intensely competitive market and other macro variables that are more often than not beyond the control of an individual entrepreneur. Thus, system analysis of market conditions and competitor strengths and expected demand is necessary before a business venture is started. Read More