What is Entrepreneurship?
- Entrepreneurship has a great potential in the business settings. The power of entrepreneurial mindset should not be underestimated, it actually carries a great potential to reach the top notch approach.
- Entrepreneurship is a full time job which requires dedication, consistency, hard work, self motivation, willingness to go to great lengths in order to achieve the set benchmarks.
- Entrepreneurs are known to be the innovators, they are creative and with their entrepreneurial mindset, innovate products which create value to the end consumers.
- The core value proposition of entrepreneurship is to analyse a given market and try to fill up the gaps by introducing products which help consumers to solve their day to day problems.
- Entrepreneurs are owners, producers, market creators, decision takers, they have the ability of taking up calculated risks, also referred to as the fourth factor of production along with other factors such as, land labour and capital. They are an important component within the ecosystem.
- Entrepreneurs play a considerable part in generating employment opportunities so they are also said to be the backbone of the Nation’s economic progress. Hence, they play an important role in the development of the country at large.
- The word entrepreneur comes from the French word “entreprendre” which means to undertake.
- An entrepreneur is a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money. Entrepreneurship means the willingness of an individual to start a new business venture by taking up risks and managing it in this technology enabled competitive global environment.
- Entrepreneurs are known for their great innovative methods, pioneering with a descriptive product or technology and their constant research in order to better their services and creating value to its end consumers.
- The size of the business, the type of the work, the age or formal education of the individual does not restric the entry of the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are people who are great leaders who have the courage to offer and share an idea or product with the world creating value to the consumers by solving a problem or filling gaps. They try to make market a better place where the needs of the consumers are satisfied by hyperscaling the various business activities and trying to gain a profit margin in between.
Howard Stevenson, a long time professor at Harvard business school, defines, "Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled."
Webster dictionary defines, "The definition and entrepreneur is a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money."
The Oxford English dictionary defines, "An entrepreneur is a person who organises and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so."
CASE STUDY: ENTREPRENEURSHIP
For example, In today’s technology era there are various E-Commerce/ Quick commerce platforms which help consumers get their groceries/ goods delivered within 10 minutes at their door steps. This model is indeed very helpful and requires a great dedication from the promoters point of you in order to get to the position in which they stand today.
Building the model is not a matter of a single day, it requires a lot of dedication, focus, research and development, making supply chain analysis, partnering with the delivery agents and with various joints from time to time, simultaneously, having top level executional practices, which inturn, has helped the business venture to make 10 minute delivery possible. This indeed is an inspirational move, the entrepreneurial mindset plays a potentially great role and helps one to reach great heights.
Building an efficient, successful, high end business model which makes deliveries possible in the span of 10 minutes is no joke, it requires a lot of strategic management, excellence execution, hyperscaling of responsibilities, partnering with various third parties and delivery partners and at the same time making sure that all these factors are coordinating well. It is a massive structural framework which needs proper execution methods in place in order to maintain the standards.
What is Entrepreneurship Development?
Entrepreneurship is a meaningful and purposeful activity of an individual or group of associated individuals undertaken to initiate, maintain and improve profitability by production and distribution of economic goods and services.
Entrepreneurs undertake entrepreneurship, it is a procedure of setting up a business venture. It is a process where one decides to build a business by finding the market options and mobilising the available resources.
They analyse a given market and try to fill those gaps or makeup the deficiencies in the market by satisfying consumer wants, creating value and make significant profits.
Characteristics of Entrepreneurship:
Innovation:
Innovation is the base of entrepreneurship. The introduction of new combination of various factors of production is innovation. Entrepreneurs are individuals who think out of the box, analyse the market trends and try to read between the lines and strive to fill the gaps or the shortcomings within the ecosystem. They cater to and create value for their end consumers. They pioneer the launch of a new trend, work fashion and satisfy the consumers by creating value and bringing excellence execution, hyperscaling, better prices, etc.
Economic Activity:
Entrepreneurship is a business activity which is primarily undertaken with the motive of earning profits by creating value to the end consumers. An entrepreneur produces a new product for the consumers as per their needs. He or she feels the need to satisfy human wants and create value as well in exchange of profits. Entrepreneurship is a strategically managed activity which requires a combination of various processes like excellence execution, supply chain management, hyperscaling of various responsibilities, partnering with various business partners, maintaining and executing these processes efficiently while, simultaneously, meeting the needs and demands of the consumers.
Strategic Management:
Creating a successful and valuable business requires a great effort from the entrepreneur’s point of you. It is an activity where various factors of production have to be organised in order to get to the point of the end potential. The organisation’s workforce, supply chain management, monitoring the execution systems, the loopholes, maintaing robust safety and security systems are to be taken into consideration by the entrepreneur on a timely basis. There needs to be a thorough check on each and every activity involved right from the production to the consumption stage.
Creativity:
Innovation should have a strong support of creativity. Creativity is an element which helps a person to think out of the box and it turns out to be the essential part of entrepreneurship. Having a creative mindset is the foundation of building great and successful business ventures. Creativity equals to innovation.
Leadership:
- Building a business is all about being able to manage the workforce. A person who wants to be a successful entrepreneur should have more passion of doing something that just maximising the profits. Effective leadership qualities and great managerial capabilities are the most important facets of running a strong profitable business venture. An entrepreneur must have the ability to lead and manage.
- Effective leadership in the business settings plays an integral role in the success and reputation of the business in the long run.
- Leaders are the ones who show and create the path for the members, they are the ones who create the strong work ethic with the set of goals to achieve and delegative the work and responsibilities accordingly.
- Leadership is a skill which helps people channelise the actions through someone towards the right direction. Effective leadership and motivational strategies can provide individuals with the range of insights that are applied in various personal and professional settings.
- Leadership proves to be a powerful tool in Management and organisational behaviour, it helps in influencing individuals to achieve organisational goals and maximize the performance and profitability in the long run.
Workforce:
The workforce of the organisation is the foundation of the business venture. Although an entrepreneur is wise enough to handle and check each and every procedure involved within the business, he or she is not in the position to execute all these activities simultaneously. There needs to be experts at every stage and level of the business, each vertical of the business should be managed by the person assigned. Sound and efficient work force takes the organisation to the next level and is considered to be the asset of the firm. The business organisation must make sure that it has the best team for each department with the top level executives who are experienced enough to take the best economic decisions, this will help the company to grow exponentially in the long run.
Risk Analysis:
Entrepreneurs are known for their courageous risk bearing capabilities. Risk is a factor which every business comes with, and efficient entrepreneur will try to take up calculated risks. Risk management plays an integral role in the business settings. Identification and evaluation of various financial risks relating to operational, credit, market risk, etc. The entrepreneur has to use various tools in order to reduce the risk associated and create risk management methods like investment in sound/reliable and creditworthy insurances.
Gap Filling Function:
Entrepreneurship is a kind of business venture which arises when gap exists within the ecosystem. Entrepreneurs try to fill in those gaps by creating innovation and satisfy the customers and in between they earn great profit margins.
Process of Entrepreneurship Development:
Entrepreneurs sometimes undergo through a process of training which helps them strengthen their entrepreneurial motive and acquiring skills and capabilities necessary for playing the entrepreneurship role efficiently.
Training:
- Training is the systematic process of implementing the required knowledge which is necessary for an entrepreneur to become a skilled person in handling the day to day tasks and lead the business in a successful and efficient manner. Training is a scheme of instructions which is planned, systematic, consistent, pervasive and monitored to measure its effectiveness. It is an important input of managerial development.
- Training is something which helps to broaden the vision of entrepreneurs by providing them with suitable opportunities for an interchange of experience within and outside an industry. It helps them to build the necessary skills which are required for them to execute the tasks and tackle the challenges smoothly.
- It imparts the knowledge of marketing of goods, production methods, consumer education, the way to deal with investors, appropriate methods of fund raising, interacting with third parties, partnering with business partners or various NBFCs (Non Banking Financial Institutions), the style of top notch negotiating or how to be a diplomat negotiator, etc.
- With the help of efficient training methods there can be minimization of excessive scraps, wastage, defective outputs regarding the production process. To gain an overview regarding the recruitment and retention of sound and efficient workforce, the type of employees they are searching for, training and retention of the same. Training helps in improving the overall efficiency of an entrepreneur, it helps them to accept new technology, builds team spirit, standardisation of various processes, hyperscaling, effective delegation of responsibilities, minimising industrial accidents.
Entrepreneurship Development Programme EDP:
- Entrepreneurship Development program (EDP) as the term suggests is a systematic program designed to help a person in strengthening his or her entrepreneurial motive and in acquiring skills and capabilities necessary for playing his or her entrepreneurial role efficiently with a top level approach.
- It is defined as ‘a programme designed to help a person in strengthening his/ her entrepreneurial motive and in acquiring skills and capabilities necessary for executing the entrepreneurial role efficiently.’
- It is a tool through which potential entrepreneurs are identified, motivated to undertake new ventures and given professional training to manage the unit.
- Entrepreneurship Development program (EDP) was first introduced in Gujarat in 1970 and was sponsored by the Gujarat Industrial Investment Corporation.
The EDP includes the following steps:
- Arrangement of Infrastructure
- Selection of potential entrepreneur
- Imparting the required training
- Selecting the training personnel
- Selection of a specific method of training
- Excellence execution and follow up
Objectives of EDP:
- To foster the entrepreneurial growth within the ecosystem.
- To help entrepreneurs to handle and tackle critical situations by imparting necessary training programs.
- To promote optimum utilisation of available resources.
- To focus on the growth and development of backward regions, improving economic status and promote betterment.
- Entrepreneurs are the job creators, entrepreneurship leads to generation of huge employment opportunities in the work ecosystem. Success of entrepreneurship leads to exponential growth of the economy.
