Entrepreneurship

Posted: November 28th, 2013

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Entrepreneurship

The global corporate sector is experiencing significant changes in history. The financial crisis and rising inflation have led to most of the companies taking drastic measures to ensure profitability. Some of these measures include the halting of extra employment activities and the forced retrenchment of some of the existing employees. With this aspect, many are now looking forward to entrepreneurs as employment is now being shunned.

This raises the need to impart people and especially students with the relevant entrepreneurial skills to survive in the harsh corporate sector since the employment opportunities are not in the offing as evidenced in the past. However, imparting of the relevant skills and knowledge is plagued with the inherent issue of conforming reality into theory. There are some aspects of the practical world that are easy to incorporate in the classroom set up, while there are others than one has to experience in order to grasp the underlying knowledge and develop the relevant skills.

One definition to entrepreneurship is the activity involving the detection, analysis and exploitation of opportunities to avail new products or services, new ways of product delivery, markets, processes and raw materials through systematization effort that had been previously non-existent. With this regard, existence of the opportunities is independent of the entrepreneur’s detection and the prevailing activities in the exploitation of these opportunities.

The opportunities existence is based on factors such as dynamics in demography, state of technology or social status. Although the theoretical aspect of this can be clearly taught in the classroom set up, the development of skills that one needs to identify or discover the underlying market inadequacies or opportunities can only be achieved if the student experiences real life corporate environment.

Although many students enroll and graduate through universities all over the world, very few get to be successful entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates; Mark Elliot Zuckerberg et al have proved to be successful entrepreneurs in the corporate sector. This is a strong indicator of the lack the relevant skills in identifying inherent opportunities available for exploitation. Although most of the students are taught on the basic concepts of entrepreneurial opportunities, few develop the skills relevant to the discovery and exploitation of these opportunities.

            The underlying environment behind any industry is different from each other. There are those industries that favor start-ups as opposed to existing companies, while there are those industries where there are significant challenges bedeviling any start up business. The survival rates and challenges are different for new business ventures across different sectors of the economy. Information from the bureau of labor statistics indicates varying failure rates in the various industries comprising the industrial sector.

On the other hand, the odds of high growth differ from the various facets making up the industrial sector. Statistics indicate that restaurants depict a very high rate of failure in comparison to other start-ups. On the other hand, in comparison to already existing ventures, restaurants have a much higher success rate as opposed to existing ventures such as bars, taxi and limousine services. It is easy to teach on the statistical part of the various industries that favor start up as opposed to existing ventures, but there lies the inherent limitation of not being able to conclusively depict the various aspects of the business that favor or limit the success or failure of start-ups in comparison to already existing ventures. This is a broad environment because although the world is now a global village, every region depicts a different business environment in comparison to the other. With this regard, what could possibly work for one industry in one region could end up being a limitation to the same industry in another region and vice versa.

            The source of funds for start-ups is limited in comparison to already existing business ventures. Existing ventures are endowed with collateral that can be used to source for more funds. However, very few financial institutions are wiling to fund start-ups. This means that the sources of funds for any entrepreneur are limited. Compounding the situation are the extra legal obligations required in sourcing funds for start-ups. Although it is possible to teach on the various obligations relating to the process of preparing for and engaging in fundraising, it is not possible to teach the student the most effective ways of approaching potential sponsors since each may vary in terms of preferences.

The issues that an entrepreneur must address in starting business begins operations in establishing milestones can effectively be taught in a classroom set up. Aspects such as organizational and interpersonal concerns can be clearly addressed in the classroom set up. There has been intense and conclusive research on the various interpersonal concerns such as attitudes and communications in the various business and corporate environments. With this regard, a review of the literature can be effective in imparting the students with the relevant knowledge and skills required in talking the various organizational and interpersonal concerns. However, the students need to be inducted through internship to have a better grasp of the realistic work environment.