Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship, another word that comes into mind is Business. The word 'Busi-ness' clearly states itself as 'Busyness'. To become successful in business, really you have to be busy in making your business plans, then start implementing and executing them and then to hold that position and to nourish it further and to be ahead than competitors.

The process of starting a business, building and nurturing it is very creative.

Entrepreneurship is a process that involves identifying and reducing four major types of risks over time: people, technology, market, and financial. This is accomplished by the right combination of vision, strategy and execution. Although a compelling vision and a set of strategies are important, it is often execution that differentiates great companies from good ones.

The word entrepreneur originates from the French word, entreprendre, which means ‘to undertake.’ In a business context, it means to start a business.

An entrepreneur is a person who has possession over a new enterprise and assumes full accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome. Entrepreneurs develop new goods or processes that the market demands and are not currently being supplied.

Entrepreneurs have many of the same character traits as leaders.

Entrepreneurship is the practice of starting new organizations or revitalizing mature organizations, particularly new businesses generally in response to identified opportunities. You start your own business when you have something to sell that you thought others would want to buy.

Whether you've been entrepreneurs for years or are just starting out, you own your businesses for many reasons other than money. It's as simple as RESPECT: regard, esteem, solvency, passion, employment, connection and time.

To be a successful entrepreneur, there are lots of qualities that need to be there in an individual, like:

• You have to be a self-starter.
• Business owners need to develop working relationships with a variety of people.
• Business owners are required to make decisions constantly, often quickly, under pressure, and independently.
• You have to balance your family life. The strain of an unsupportive spouse may be hard to balance against the demands of starting a business. You may have to adjust to a lower standard of living or put family assets at risk.

Most successful entrepreneurs share certain personal attributes, including: creativity, dedication, determination, flexibility, leadership, passion, self-confidence, and ‘smarts.’

"Smarts" is an American term that describes common sense joined with knowledge or experience in a related business or endeavor. The former gives a person good instinct, the latter, expertise. Many people have smarts they don't recognize. A person who successfully keeps a household on a budget has organizational and financial skills. Employment, education, and life experiences all contribute to smarts.

For the right person, the advantages of business ownership far outweigh the risks.

• You get to be your own boss.
• Hard work and long hours directly benefit you, rather than increasing profits for someone.
• Earning and growth potential are far less limited.
• A new venture is exciting.
• Running a business will provide endless variety, challenge and opportunities to learn.
• The independence to do what you wanted to do, and to do it in a way where your principles and values would not be compromised. Where your potential would not be capped by the potential of a boss.

One of the strength of a start-up is that the people involved - the entrepreneur, any partners, advisers, employees, or even family members. They have a passionate, almost compulsive, desire to succeed. This makes them work harder and better.

Advantages of Entrepreneurship

Every successful entrepreneur brings about benefits not only for himself/ herself but for the region or country as a whole. The benefits that can be derived from entrepreneurial activities are as follows:

• Enormous personal financial gain
• Self-employment, offering more job satisfaction and flexibility of the work force
• Employment for others, often in better jobs
• Development of more industries, especially in rural areas or regions disadvantaged by economic changes, for example due to globalisation effects
• Encouragement of the processing of local materials into finished goods for domestic consumption as well as for export
• Income generation and increased economic growth
• Healthy competition thus encourages higher quality products
• More goods and services available
• Promotion of the use of modern technology in small-scale manufacturing to enhance higher productivity
• Encouragement of more researches/ studies and development of modern machines and equipment for domestic consumption
• Freedom from the dependency on the jobs offered by others

But it is important to ask: Why would a consumer choose to buy goods or services from this new firm?

One important factor is the uniqueness of the idea. By making a venture stand out from its competitors, uniqueness can help facilitate the entry of a new product or service into the market. It is also very important to make a proper business plan. It provides a compass for negotiating the unforeseeable challenges ahead, rather than a definitive roadmap to success.

"The business plan process helps the entrepreneur shape his/her original vision into a better opportunity by raising critical questions, researching answers for those questions, and then answering them."

Basic negotiation, influence and persuasion skills are critical. Successful entrepreneurs build lasting personal relationships based upon trust.

This is the age of professional management, and the professional managers appear to be doing well in big and Fortune 500s corporations. Unlike the entrepreneurs, they do not have to risk their own money to reach the top. By investing only time and effort, a professional can become the master of a big corporation with thousands of employees and shareholders, billions of dollars in assets, and the power to stimulate or undermine the economies of cities, states and entire nations. Professionals head almost all of the largest companies.