ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT

Business strategies for small entrepreneurial undertakings are quite different from
strategies for large corporations. This difference is mainly because large corporations are
able to change their environment to suit their needs, while small firms can only change
themselves to fit into the environment. (Raymond W. Y. Kao Tan Wee Liang , Enterprise
Development in Asia)

Business opportunities are everywhere as long as there are people with money, and they
are willing to satisfy their needs, however, there are more business opportunities for
individuals who are creative, resourceful and risk-takers because they create opportunities
instead of waiting opportunities to come. These are the real entrepreneurs and how
enterprise starts its development. (Fajardo, Entrepreneurship)

A person who combines risk, innovation, leadership artistry, skill, and craftsmanship into a
foundation upon which to build and motivate a team is an entrepreneur. This group of
human beings, sometimes previously unknown to each other, evolves into a new enterprise.

Every business moves through several stages of growth. Without change some form of
development it dies. An enterprise is a living thing (it grow from a tiny, casual idea to an
operating, profit-making firm). Someone must nurture the spark of life and guide its
development from stage to stage.

Theorists do not all agree on the names or delineation of these stages or even how many
they are, they can be listed as:

Incubation or Pre-start up
a. entity perception on the drawing board ( clear vision of the venture)
b. Product development
c. Information gathering
d. Related development cost
e. Acquiring business partners
f. Preparing business plans
g. Gathering venture capital, and
h. Mapping start-up strategies.
Start up
a. official registration and
b. incorporation of the undertaking
Development
a. Hands-on operation
 b. Cost-efficiency
c. The primary objective is to continue the sales surge
d. Attract more external financing
Growth
a. Firmly established in the market place
b. Enters growth period
c. Build physical assets
d. Continue increase sales to support the firms growing needs
e. Preparing the firm for future expansion.
Expansion
a. Sixth year or tenth year or later
b. Some enterprise may be able to continue;
c. Others have reached a saturation point and start to decline;
d. If growth occurs, it is often external, through acquisitions and mergers.
 Entrepreneurial Strategy

Entrepreneurial Strategy
simple but effective

Strategic
objectives

Strategic
fundamentals

Reinforcing the Unfavourable

entrepreneurial environment
spirit

Flexibility
You-can-never-make-
Uniformed
it syndrome
optimism
Effectiveness is
often preferable Call-a-professional
Self-confidence to efficiency syndrome

Determination You-dont-have-a-
track-record
Flexibility Start up simple
syndrome

Enterprise
Development
Process
Strategy and Entrepreneurial Undertakings

One useful way of thinking about strategy is to distinguish various types. Bamberger
identifies three:

1. Corporate strategy, which is determined by decisions on the firms products and

markets.
2. Fundamental strategy, which refers to the specialization and diversification of the
type and intensity of relationships among different products.
3. Functional strategies, which refer to resource development with respect to R&D,
finance, production, marketing structure, and personnel.

The Entrepreneurial Environment

The means through which an organization establishes and re-establishes its fundamental set
of relationships with its environment.

This formulation is interesting because it spells out what is implicit in many others: that
strategy presumes a specific environment. Thus, we will consider the ambiguous
environment that entrepreneurs face before turning, in later sections, to strategic
considerations.

The Youll-Never-Make-It-Syndrome
Invisible Barriers: peoples negative attitudes toward new ventures, preferences favouring
large companies rather than small firms, and the school system built-in bias toward
employment rather than self-employment. All contribute to an environment that
discourages the founding of small ventures.

A child trying to make a toy out of a piece of scrap is demonstrating the beginnings of
technical entrepreneurship. Too often the parents take the garbage away and buy a
ready-made fancy toy.

Similarly, our students have little exposure to design and product development. However,
the very recent development, some education systems include creative thinking as part of
the curricula.
The Call-A-Professional-Syndrome
One common piece of advice from self-styled experts is that entrepreneur must have
professional help: If I were you, I would see a lawyer, an accountant, a marketing
consultant, and a consulting engineer. Do it professionally, otherwise dont do it at all.

What these advisers do not realize is that depending on professionals in this way is not
necessary a part of entrepreneurial mind set. The issue is two-fold:

First: entrepreneurs are interested only in those professionals who will further an
entrepreneurial process and certainly not in those who will slow it down, hinder it, or
prevent progress.

Second: although many entrepreneurs recognize that professional services can help to start
up new ventures properly, young people with dreams, ideas, and determinations often
cannot afford the fees that many professionals charge.

Thus, many entrepreneurs find that they are better off doing things for themselves,
following their own instincts .when they truly require professional services and assistance,
they often look for a provider who will offer the service for relatively low fees.

The No-Track-Record Syndrome

Society does not expect success from an unproven person.I cant lend you money /give you
credit because you have no track record. Very few seem to remember that if we had always
stayed with the safe, tried and true ways, we would still be living in caves and hunting our
food with flint-tipped spears.

Reinforcing the Entrepreneurial Spirit

Too many people lose their entrepreneurial spirit because of the negative attitudes they
encounter at home, in the community, in the educational system, and in their social milieu.

Create your own favourable environment by adapting some of entrepreneurial attitudes:

Adopt the mentality of uninformed Optimism

Be confident
Be determined and persevere
Be flexible
Do some planning
The need for Flexibility
Large corporations are able to use financial and other resources to alter the environment to
suit their needs. Small enterprise should find some way to change himself to fit into the
environment.

Effectiveness Often More Important than Efficiency

Without effective operations to keep the venture alive it will die before it can reach the
promised land of profit. If a company generates a large volume of sales it may be effective
in using its capital investment the measure is sales/capital investment but if it is profit,
measured by profit/sales, that gives an indication of efficiency. It is important, however, for
new ventures to generate sales first for without sales, there is no chance of earning any
profit. Entrepreneurial thinkers concentrate on getting things done.

Starting Simple
The idea of starting simple is applicable to all aspects of small business startup and
operation. Consider the product mix. Since most new ventures have very few resources,
the entrepreneur can use them most effectively by concentrating on a few products or
services rather than spreading them thinly over a variety of offerings.

Lastly, Entrepreneurship is more than a wordit is a mission. We must perceive

opportunities inherent in change; we must create a desire for pursuing the opportunities that
arise; and we must create an environment in which success is possible and the consequences
of failure are tolerable. (Prof. Hirsh)

On the other hand, according to Professor Nathaniel Left: Entrepreneurship is the capacity
for innovation, investment and expansion in new markets, products and techniques. This
definition implies that an enterprise is at work whenever an individual takes the risks and
invest resources to make something unique or something new, designs a new way of making
something that already exists, or creates new markets.