Oprah Winfrey - The Story of an Entrepreneur - Essay Example

Despite a vacuum of formal business plans, she has mostly been successful in all of her endeavors. One of the reasons for her consistent success in the business field is the vision of her business- humanitarian services for the less fortunate. She is considered to be a transformational leader, who has a clear vision and direction for her business.  

            Modern businesses cannot be run without the presence of formal strategic plans and business models since there exists an extensive degree of competition in the prevailing markets. Companies need to formulate effective strategies from the analysis of relevant data to survive in modern markets. Oprah has been able to achieve success without any formal structural planning because her fame and humanitarian attitude have been some of the major drivers of her business. Her successes reaffirm her decision to adopt a risk-taking entrepreneurship approach. Her personality and spirit could not have been better reflected in her business if any other approach would have been adopted. Decisions based on gut feelings suit her unique business needs and vision. However, the adoption of this strategy might not bear the same success for other organizations since other businesses would not be coupled with Oprah’s influential profile.

Answer 2: Oprah Winfrey understands her social responsibilities and takes extensive measures for the betterment of society. She promotes the spirit of helping others among her employees as well, to develop an organizational culture of humanitarianism. Oprah has established O Angel Network which initiates social welfare projects in different societies, rebuilding projects for areas struck by natural disasters, etc. She has always contributed 10% of her annual savings to humanitarian projects.

            Oprah Winfrey is one of the most influential women in the recent history of mankind. Her fame has played a vital role in bringing about awareness for some of the social issues that were not being addressed effectively. It is natural for the masses to join well-known personalities in their causes and movements. People tend to trust Oprah and her dedication to the betterment of the societies. It is due to Oprah’s commitment that people trust Oprah with their donations.

            Her vision to help individuals has transformed the business into an extension of her own personality. She does not feel comfortable letting others intervene in the process of making decisions. This aspect has made her perform =reatly in her projects and endeavors; however, this has a significant downside related to it. The employees of her enterprises are bound to follow Oprah’s decisions and vision in all respects. This type of rigidity may be disturbing for the employees working for her. However, her humanitarian spirit has made her enterprises into well-known entities that are able to produce large revenues and become part of global projects, for example, HBO announced their pact with Harpo Inc. who would be developing and producing documentaries and movies for the respective channel (Harpo Productions Inc, 2009). Wilson (2004) stated that Harpo Inc has been known to produce $150 million as its annual revenue around the start of the 21st century.