Entrepreneurship: Quickening the growth process is not easy but possible

Dr B K Mukhopadhyay

(The author is a Professor of

Management and Economics, formerly at IIBM (RBI) Guwahati. He can be contacted at m.bibhas@gmail.com)

India is creating opportunities for talented entrepreneurs who know how to build a successful business to identify the right opportunity, build organization, attract resources, plan and execute strategy, and navigate a complex business environment to drive sustainable success for the company.

Today’s entrepreneurship management has been a very big area inasmuch as it speaks of the capacity and willingness to develop, organise, and manage a business venture along with any of its risks in order to ensure profit. As such, entrepreneurial spirit is characterized by innovation [innovation plus invention] and risk-taking and is an essential part of a nation’s ability to succeed in an ever-changing and increasingly competitive international marketplace.

Obvious enough: Establishing the core principals of ‘entrepreneurial management’ within an organization calls for a certain strategic choice that affects a company in multiple dimensions. The aim is to empirically measure entrepreneurial management (its existence and degree) and link this measured strategic choice (for or against) with firm performance.

On this score, it is clear that companies that follow the core principles of entrepreneurial management should outperform other, more administrative firms in certain measures of strategic performance. Naturally, the linkage is very strong, linking the measured degree of “entrepreneurial management” with firm performance.

There is no other option; successful entrepreneurs recognise that change is a catalyst for innovation. So, the need is to develop the entrepreneurial mindset needed to energise existing and new companies, insights and analytical frameworks to assess market opportunities, as well as pragmatic leadership skills to launch and nurture new business ventures within a larger organisation.

They may come from families in business, from generation to generation, or may have taken direct entry. No doubt, in today’s global marketplace, family businesses are a major force and are among the most vibrant competitors in most industries. While family-owned companies often have enviable strength— long-term relationships, a reputation for quality work, aggressive reinvestment, and high stakeholder loyalty—they can also be hindered by traditional practises, internal politics, and family conflicts. In a marketplace characterised by new players and intensified competition, leading a family business has become increasingly complex. To prevail, a family-owned company must address special challenges, such as nurturing effective family work and shareholder relationships, passing the business from one generation to the next, and maintaining ownership control. These tasks require sensitive leadership from the business and the family.

A family can greatly contribute to the success of its business—and vice versa—only if the family follows a discipline mapped out by successful family-owned companies from around the globe.

Side by side, there exists the drive to launch new ventures: jump-starting innovation for entrepreneurs and business owners

Success in today’s turbulent business environment demands smart innovators who possess the unique set of skills required to identify a business opportunity and transform it into a successful company or to launch a new line of business for an existing small-to-midsize company. The entrepreneurs are to essentially improve their analytical skills, make sound investment and management decisions, manage growth, and develop essential leadership capabilities. In today’s fast-hanging environment, the situation has turned t intoa complex process of exploiting disruptive opportunities to build successful new businesses.ew business initiatives; selling the concept to investors, partners, and other parties; attracting resources; and evolving key strategies as the business grows have been intricately getting involved in the process.

Looking Forward

The crucial need is there to examine the core challenges of managing product development in a competitive, unpredictable marketplace and train up the entrepreneurs to take innovation to a new level, backed by cutting-edge concepts and pragmatic frameworks, providing new insight into product development issues such as the alignment of product innovation with corporate strategy, the impact of disruptive technologies, and the management of risk.

Next, to develop the leadership and management skills needed, it is necessary to identify breakthroughs with the greatest market potential, find sources of capital, and develop a team with a deep understanding of science, technology, and business.

It has been a fact that constant and intense focus on running a business leaves little time to learn about the latest resources, techniques, and solutions. Business owners often feel alone, not knowing where to turn for advice and answers. Often, they lack the perspective to assess their company’s performance and potential, as well as their own. This gap calls for immediate and adequate attention.

Gaining valuable new insights, sharing and developing decision-making techniques, and creating an environment that fuels their passions could, in turn, bring about far-reaching changes, and something powerful could surely happen in the coming days, provided a planned approach is adapted.

Obvious enough: funds, no doubt, have been flowing into the business sector—much more than what was there even a decade ago. In today’s complex private-public equity environment, players across the industry—investors, entrepreneurs, governments, banks and financial institutions, and professional intermediaries alike—have been taking greater interest on this score. On the part of entrepreneurs, the time is ripe to have a better understanding of the arena of financing ventures by studying the antecedents and consequences of funding decisions both domestically and internationally. Locating sources of funds is just the beginning, inasmuch as a lot depends on how the funds are utilised in a risk-managed manner.

It is good that the Government has been encouraging youth to take up projects in non-traditional fields as well. Ventures can be taken up in sectors like fruits and vegetables, floriculture, horticulture, and so on. Backward region development essentially calls for exploring the existing and potential resources. Human resource management backed by marketing strategies always stays at the top of the agenda on this score. While resource availability is not that difficult under the ongoing business environment scenario, more often than not, appropriate utilisation itself remains a laggard.

The result achieved in the next period remains suboptimal in spite of the creation of institutional facilities. The time has come to see that the latent resources—human, technological, and physical—are bolstered over time so that the markets [domestic and overseas] offer excellent opportunities to forge ahead by recognising the competitive skills. The creation of facilities over time and space is the starting point since a lot depends on how the same is absorbed, inasmuch as business is a continuous and spontaneous process.

Is it not a fact that the path to success is an elaborate one? A long journey before one comes out of the tunnel indeed! Tasks remain unending: [a] building credibility; deciding on what to do; identifying the competitive edge; locating what makes a service successful; understanding what makes the service fail; what makes ourselves stand out [b] Knowing about the customers and prospects: who needs us at the market, in order of importance: whom do we want to be our customers, whom don’t we want, where are they, how do we get to them, when is the best time to get to them, what turns them on, and of course what turns them off? It is the goodwill ladder that is to be ascended. One only gets a single chance to make a first impression, and for most people, their first impression becomes their last impression, rightly or wrongly!

The fact remains: The world wants to see the results only! What good is more business if you don’t get paid?