Transcript Entrepreneurship and Developing Creative Strategies By D. J. Power Entrepreneur      The term entrepreneur is often used broadly to describe a person who starts a.

Entrepreneurship and Developing
Creative Strategies
By D. J. Power
Entrepreneur
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The term entrepreneur is often used broadly to
describe a person who starts a business.
An entrepreneur organizes, operates, and assumes
the risk for a business venture.
Successful entrepreneurs change the competitive
situation by innovating with new products, processes
or approaches.
Entrepreneurs identify and exploit opportunities.
Within a company such a person is called an
Intrapreneur.
Schumpeter
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capitalism sparks entrepreneurship
entrepreneurs innovate by figuring out how to use inventions, and by
introducing new means of production, new products, and new forms of
organization
Innovation by entrepreneurs leads to “creative destruction” of existing
businesses and industries and progress
For economic development to happen, there have to be leaders who display
energy to act in new ways and are also motivated to do so.
Schumpeter calls the leader the “Man of Action” (Mann der Tat), and he
describes him as someone who does not accept reality as it is.
Schumpeter argued that the innovation and technological change of a nation
come from the entrepreneurs, or wild spirits.
Schumpeter writes: “The Man of Action acts in the same decisive manner inside
as well as outside the usual tracks in the economy. He does not feel the
restrictions that block the actions of the other economic actors.” (Schumpeter
1911:132)
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1942.
Creative Destruction
http://a-successful-entrepreneur.blogspot.com/2008/06/entrepreneur-man-ofaction.html
Characteristics of Entrepreneurs
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An enthusiastic vision, the driving force of an enterprise.
An interlocking collection of specific ideas not implemented in
the marketplace.
Overall blueprint to realize the vision is clear, however details
may be incomplete, flexible, and evolving.
Promotes the vision with enthusiastic passion.
With persistence and determination, the entrepreneur develops
strategies to change the vision into reality.
Takes the initial responsibility to cause a vision to become a
success.
Takes prudent risks.
Assesses costs, market/customer needs and persuades others to
join and help.
A positive thinker and a decision maker.
Traits of Entrepreneurs
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A desire to achieve
Hard work
Desire to work for themselves
Nurturing quality for a new venture
Acceptance of responsibility
Reward orientation
Optimism
Orientation to excellence
Organization
Profit orientation
John G. Burch, Business Horizons, September-October 1986
Strategic Thinking
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Anticipate what might, will or could occur in a situation
and how it is possible to shape or influence what is
occurring so that what one wants to occur actually
occurs.
Think about consequences and choosing actions to
achieve objectives.
Try to turn a situation to one's advantage.
Ask the right questions in a solution-oriented manner
Conduct appropriate analyses to formulate plans and
strategy.
Anticipate competitor actions and preparing to counter
or thwart them.
New Venture Plans
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A new venture plan usually refers to a plan for
starting and operating a new business venture.
A new venture is usually a business enterprise
involving some risk in expectation of gain.
Venture is often used to refer to a risky start-up.
The term is broad enough to encompass tasks
related to any new venture whether initiated by an
individual, group or organization for a profit or nonprofit motive.
Venture planning answers the question, Should I be
doing this and why?
Developing Creative Strategies
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How can CEOs develop creative strategies and
enhance innovation?
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Assemble “creative” teams - diverse,
heterogeneous, charge to be “creative”
Creativity enhancement techniques - learn them
and use them
Design “creative organizations” – structure,
culture
How can we design “creative”
organizations?
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Push decision-making down in the organization
structure -- decentralize
Open new channels of communication
Down play rules
Provide rewards for creativity
Create special programs – retreats, seminars on
creativity
Creativity enhancement techniques
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Brainstorming
Synectics – use analogies
SCAMPER – Substitute? Combine? Adapt?
Modify or magnify? Put to other uses?
Eliminate or reduce? Reverse or rearrange?
Attribute list – modify systematically
Challenge assumptions
Nominal Group Technique (NGT)
Brainstorming
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The following steps are required for effective
brainstorming:
Describe the problem or decision and state the
objective of identifying as many ideas as possible.
For example: Why did market share decline? or How
to increase market share?
Determine how team members are to be separated –
same place vs. different.
Generation vs. Evaluation
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Provide time to brainstorm. Time needed depends
on members’ familiarity with the issue.
Encourage idea generation by asking members to
do the following:
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Withhold self-criticism of ideas
Be as creative as possible and do not worry if the ideas
seem wild
Generate as many ideas as possible, quantity is what is
wanted
Hold an idea evaluation meeting, or at least
separate the idea generation and idea evaluation
phases of the meeting.
Nominal Group Technique
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The idea generation stage of this technique is
very similar to individual brainstorming in that
individuals work alone. The nominal group
technique includes the following steps:
Present to team members, both orally and in
writing, the issue for which ideas are needed.
Let team members list ideas on a yellow pad
for about 10 minutes.
Generate
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Have each member generate new ideas, individuals do
so in the same location as other team members. Crosschatter and criticism of ideas are not allowed.
Record individual ideas by going around the team and
asking for one idea from each member at a time.
Continue until all members’ ideas have been recorded.
This procedure ensures equal participation among team
member, keeps the team involved in the process, and
increases individual involvement.
Discuss
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Discuss, in order, each idea.
Discussion should focus initially on meaning and
clarification on an idea.
After seeing the complete list of ideas, team members
should individually brainstorm new ideas again
Shift focus to discussing agreement and disagreement
about the importance and/or validity of each idea.
Preference
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Team members should then be asked to choose from
the entire list a specific number of ideas (e.g., 7-10)
that are most important and rank them. Assign a
score of one to the least important and so on. The
most important item in the list should have the
highest score.
Determine the team’s preference by counting the
ideas with the highest scores. Those ideas are
considered the most important and valid ones.
What are the major challenges for
the Entrepreneur?
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No fixed business model to follow
Hard to accurately identify risks
Non-level playing field, esp., local company vs MNC
Deterioration of government protection
forbusinesses/industries
Increased competition among businesses
Improved and faster information flows
Increased competition to find investor funding
(globalmarket)
Increased competition for talent
What are some practical steps for a
“would be” Entrepreneur?
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Embrace an Entrepreneurial Mindset by turning
problems into opportunities
Asking the right questions like “how can I afford it?
rather than saying, “I can’t afford it!”
Learn the skills required to use resources available
only in another country
Make networking with people a part of your lifestyle
Don’t be afraid to fail! Try and then try again.