Entrepreneurial approaches: Launching New Ventures

What are entrepreneurial approaches?

The IGI Global publication of timely knowledge, defines an entrepreneurial approach as a multi-dimensional course of action based on imagination, initiative, innovating and motivating attitude as principal dimensions that are designed to address challenges evolved in the external environment after studying its overall & segmental viability and undertaken to reach the desired goal in any particular domain.

The Entrepreneurial Approach In Strategic Management

Case Study: Why employees are becoming entrepreneurs

“When I come to work in the morning, I take off my brain, hang it on that hook over there and put on my hard hat. When I leave at night, my brain goes back on and my hard hat hangs on the hook. At night, I am running an entrepreneurial garbage collection business as part of my entrepreneurial approach strategy.

I’m already making more at night in four hours than I do during the day in eight hours. My boss will be so surprised when I tell him why I am quitting because he hasn’t even noticed that I have a brain. In fact, he wouldn’t know a good idea or employee initiative if it stared him in the face”. This is what we call the employee mindset which leads to the entrepreneur mindset

This short excerpt from an employee turned entrepreneur, contains many of the reasons why employees would want to adopt an entrepreneurial approach and leave their “job security”, to venture into the unknown waters of the uncertain marketplace.

Sometimes the reasons have to do with the way they are treated in the workplace. In the example above, the writer echoes the cry of many competent employees whose ideas and abilities are overlooked or exploited by management.

Many a salaried employee looks at the huge salaries earned by top executives and thinks: “Why can’t I benefit from the fruits of my labour too, instead of enriching someone else?” Some even think that managing a business simply means attending meetings and spending time on the golf course.

Others realise that starting and running your own business is hard work and risky, but they look forward to the challenge and are prepared to put in the effort and the hours to achieve their goals

Of course, some people have no choice- they cannot find a job, or perhaps they are facing retrenchment or retirement without an adequate pension.

Whatever your current situation may be, remember that statistically speaking, your chances of making use of your entrepreneurial ideas to grow your business into a successful one are small. Make sure that you gather sufficient knowledge before venturing into the marketplace; unless, of course, you have to do something to survive, or are already running a business and want to improve it.

By all means, start trading, for example, buying and selling things from home or at the side of the road, which is the easiest form of survivalist trade. But it remains a very hard way of making a very small living.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t venture into business, but in order to give yourself the best chance of success, the most sensible way of going about it is to adopt the approaches to entrepreneurship:

3 Approaches To Entrepreneurship

• Find a job, even part-time, or as a volunteer: Use the job to observe and learn all you can about how organisations work, how business works, and how people work together
• Convince the people you work for in every possible way to give you an opportunity to manage more work, more systems and other people
• Gain management experience, Save money, start a business on the side and Become an online entrepreneur

Every Entrepreneur Should Have Direct Approach

However, if you do decide to start a business without much work experience, never stop reading and learning, even while you are running your business. Get constant advice. Learn from your mistakes. It is the most difficult path to choose, but there are many people who have achieved success this way.

Theoretical Approaches To Entrepreneurship

There is a lot of knowledge online. I came across Wealthy Affiliate University. I did a review of the online entrepreneurship Course they offer. I believe they are one of the best places to gain knowledge on entrepreneurship, online entrepreneurship, digital entrepreneurship, virtual entrepreneurship and what some call, technology entrepreneurship.

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• What business ideas do you have as an entrepreneur.
• Do you have the knowledge to build a website for your business? No Stress, they teach you step-by-step until you have your very own WordPress Website
• And a lot more questions.

1. Entrepreneurial Approach One: You have what it takes to apply your  entrepreneurial approach – Seize the opportunity

An entrepreneur is a person who undertakes and operates a new enterprise or venture, to offer a new or existing product or service, into a new or existing market. This can either be for a profit or not-for-profit outcome and assumes some accountability for the risks involved, i.e. s/he is aware of the possibility of profit or loss. S/he seeks to add value to the marketplace.

An entrepreneur can also be a contractor who acts as an intermediary between parties – seeking to add value to all parties concerned.

2. Entrepreneurial approach Two: “To Entrepreneurship” or “not to Entrepreneurship”?

Many definitions of entrepreneurship, can be found in any literature describing business processes. The earliest definition of entrepreneurship, dating from the eighteenth century, used it as an economic term, describing the process of bearing the risk of buying at certain prices and selling at uncertain prices.

Other later commentators broadened the definition to include the concept of bringing together the factors of production. This definition led others to question whether there was any unique function or whether it was simply a form of management.

Early this century, the concept of innovation and technology was added to the definition of entrepreneurship. This innovation and technology, which we decided to refer to as entrepreneurial ecosystem, could be;

• Process innovation and technology,
• Market innovation and technology (entrepreneurial marketing),
• Product innovation and technology,
• Factor innovation and technology, and even
• Organisational innovation and technology.

Later definitions described entrepreneurship as involving the creation of new enterprises, especial online enterprises, with the entrepreneur as the founder.

3. Entrepreneurial Approach Three: Intrapreneur or Entrepreneur?

The Modern Approach To Entrepreneurship

Research says that an intrapreneur is a person employed within an organisation and who is highly competent at adding exponential value to that organisation; a person who acts as an intermediary between the organisation and the customer and who generates great value for both parties.

Perhaps you are currently employed and are offered the opportunity to utilise your entrepreneurial skills and tendencies by becoming an internal entrepreneur or intrapreneur – “a person who focuses on innovation and creativity and who transforms a dream or an idea into a profitable venture, by operating within the organisational environment”.

Intrapreneurs are inside entrepreneurs who have entrepreneurial intentions to follow their founder’s example. Intrapreneurs, by definition, embody the same characteristics as the entrepreneur, namely:

• Conviction,
• Passion, and
• Drive.

If the company is supportive, the intrapreneur succeeds. When the organisation is not, the intrapreneur usually fails or leaves to start a new company.

Will you rather be into Knowledge-Based Intrapreneurship?

Intrapreneurship is the practice of entrepreneurial skills by or within a company. Employees, perhaps engaged in a special project within a larger firm, or managing a particular business unit, are supposed to behave as entrepreneurs while having the resources and capabilities of the larger firm to draw upon.

Innovation and technology in any company are about knowing how to make things better and depends on people who approach their work like an owner/ entrepreneur, even if employed in a big organisation, to turn good ideas into realities.

Without a wide distribution of entrepreneurial energy, without many people in many teams figuring out a piece of the larger dream and making it happen, corporations get stuck in old ways, age and die.

The term “Intrapreneur” dates to a 1985 book by Gifford Pinchot, “Intrapreneuring”; a revised edition, entitled “Intrapreneurship in Action“ is currently available.

If you are offered an opportunity to be an intrapreneur within your company, i.e. the opportunity to change the organisation and make a difference, you need to consider the following:

• This may be an opportunity to take your career to new heights by helping to drive the future of your company
• Whether you are asked to develop a product, service, channel, or application, you can either make your mark or seal your fate.

You have to decide whether you are going to:

• Seize the moment
• Pass on the opportunity
• Leave to become an entrepreneur

The Situational Approach To Entrepreneurship

• Your corporate and salaried people do not feel empowered to make needed changes but you do.
• Your hourly people do not connect the quality or quantity of their work to the success of your company or an increase in their pay, but you do.
• No one in your company, including your sales force, has really had to sell an idea, product, or service to make a mortgage payment, but you have.
• You see your organisation going along to get along, but you can’t.

The more the Intrapreneur expresses him/ herself, the more the company is forced to confront its own effectiveness and learning in the process. If the organisation is supportive, the Intrapreneur succeeds. When the organisation is not, the Intrapreneur usually fails or leaves to start a new company.

You should pass on the opportunity or become an entrepreneur when:

• Your employers are motivated more by protecting their wealth than they are by creating new value.
• Your owners are threatened, weak and don’t really want to change.
• Insiders protecting the status quo control your organisation.
• The pain of your organisation changing is greater than the pain of your organisation not changing.

Every effective worker has intrapreneurial traits that may or may not culminate in an entrepreneurial venture

4. Entrepreneurial Approach Four: Qualities Of A True Intrapreneur.

• Sees opportunities to grow the existing business
• Calculated risk-taker within his/her area of responsibility or department
• Increases value in the existing organisation
• Aligns his/ her personal vision with the existing organisational vision
• S/he is often a specialist who later develops general management skills
• Flexible and able to adapt to organisational shifts

Case Study: The www.3m.co.za – South Africa

Many organisations are still able to generate enough new products and services to create new jobs – at least as fast as the old ones are destroyed through automation and obsolescence. 3M’s internal entrepreneurs or “intrapreneurs” generate so many new products that 30% of their sales are new within the last five years. 3M now has 60,000 products and they keep growing.

Case Study: The www.oticon.co.za – South Africa

Oticon, the highly successful Danish hearing aid manufacturer, was ageing and dying when the company was turned upside down. Employee choices became the new management structure. Now employees volunteer for tasks and projects all over the company, sometimes working from several teams and learning many skills that add up to whole-business effectiveness.

They have dissolved bureaucracy by establishing a voluntary network within the organisation based on the internal market choices of people and teams. And since becoming more entrepreneurial, the company’s profits have grown six-old in two years.

5. Entrepreneurial Approach 5: Traits Shared By Both Intrapreneurs And Entrepreneurs.

They are:

• Good communicators
• Principled
• Optimistic
• Independent and interdependent
• Socially-minded
• Proactive
• Problem solvers
• Tenacious and resilient
• Self-confident
• Creative
• Intuitive
• Goal-oriented
• Prepared to learn from their and others’ failures
• Passionate
• Focused
• Motivators of people

Factors That Should Influence Your Decision To Leave Your Job.

Entrepreneurial Personality And Theory

Ask yourself how close you are to becoming an entrepreneur or a new venture startup. Your answers to the following questions will help you to decide whether you should stay or you should go, but bear the following in mind:

• Do you long for independence? Working for someone else can be frustrating sometimes, but you still need to be disciplined and able to get on with others when you work for yourself.
• Do you need job satisfaction? Self-employment allows you to do the job in your own way, and it is very satisfying when your way is shown to work. You do, of course, also have to take responsibility when it does not work.
• Do you desire achievement and success? There can be some glory attached to running your own business, but make sure that you are not trying to prove that you are something you are not. The venture may even fail, despite your hard work. Will you be able to deal with failure?
• Do you need more money? This is not usually enough of a goal in itself, as wealth is by no means guaranteed. You need to be sure that, even if you never get rich, you still want to pursue a business of your own.

If your answers to all the above questions are a resounding yes, then it is time for you to seize that opportunity, challenge yourself and your psychological approaches, and adopt an entrepreneurial mindset and your entrepreneurial approach. Become an online entrepreneur.

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