FROM LAUNCHPAD TO GROWTHPAD

FROM LAUNCHPAD TO GROWTHPAD

Inspiring organic growth in new business ventures

By Nelson KORKOR

Legendary entrepreneurs like David Packard, Bill Gates, and Henry Ford are definite examples of the excitement and glory of starting something from scratch and watching it grow to outstanding proportions. But the joy and the excitement of initiating new business ventures is not enough. There is the need to put the business on a growth spurt. Growth is great, and in business, it doesn’t always have to start in a garage. Larger corporations do also need growth.

Growth in corporate organizations

One of the ways to achieving growth is by starting something new. In corporate organizations for instance, growth can occur by introducing a new product or service or through merger or acquisition. There is a lot of investment that has to go into
new businesses in order for them to ever succeed.

The natural cycle of life is to progress from small to big, from little to great. From little to plenty and so on. Everything has the capacity to grow and expand when the right conditions are in place. To further drive home this point; let us take the analogy of a company that seeks to pursue growth. In this case, there are two ways that the growth goal will be realized. First, the company must cut down on its expenditure. The other way is for the company to expand its cash flow pie or sources of revenue.

New business ventures in larger corporations

Yes, start up ventures does exist in larger corporations. When a company introduces a new product of service that becomes a new venture on its own. It is very significant that management sees it as such and run it as a new venture. Many larger corporations often face the danger of not getting their products and services to do well in the market. The failure of most of these products or services often has to do with the way the initiative is managed by the leadership of the corporation. New business ventures must be seen as such and treated with the principles that undergird them or else they may not do well in the market place.

What are the mistakes associated with launching new business ventures within the larger corporation?

The first mistake is that managers of the corporation often do not commit the needed resources into the new venture. They don’t flood start up ventures with adequate recourses especially on the people who run the venture. Need venture creations may not necessarily do well in the market place simply because it has been launched by a reputable larger corporation. Effort must be put into making it work. Every new product or service places a new demand on management.

The second mistake has to do with marketing and promotions. Business mogul and former CEO of General Electric likes to put it this way: “Managers [often} make too little fun fare about the promise of the new business venture”.

The last issue has to do with autonomy. People in charge of new venture creations within larger corporations need some level of freedom to run things on their own. They must be empowered by managers to enable them run the new business to ensure its success.

DRIVING ORGANIC GROWTH IN NEW VENTURE CREATIONS

Growth and expansion is the ultimate aim of every enterprise that begins in a small way. But not many really do experience growth. What are the missing links? What factors are responsible for growth and how do these translates into experiencing organic growth? What are the pointers to organic growth?

Here are nine tips on promoting the growth of a business new venture.

»INVEST IN YOUR PEOPLE

The greatest asset of any enterprise is its people. The future of every business really depends on the quality of its people. To add value to your enterprise, you need to attract and invest in the best talent. Leadership needs to do assessment of the team and organize customized training for the team members.

»GET YOUR STRATEGY RIGHT

Strategy development and implementation is an ongoing activity within every organization. The kind of business model you have determines your competitiveness. To experience continuous growth in new venture, your strategy must apply to every detail of the business including customer service and pricing policies.

»FOCUS ON YOUR CORE BUSINESS

Many an entrepreneur, never get to experience organic growth because, they tend to trade in all kinds of businesses without really focusing on any one of them. People are more likely to follow the latest craze of seem to be popular. But as a new venture creator, you can only make impact by developing your staying power on a specific area of business.

» INSTITUTIONALISE CLEAR SYSTEMS & STRUCTURES

One of the biggest obstacles to growth in many new venture creations I have observed is the lack of clear systems and structures. There are no clearly defined positions and job descriptions for team members. There is lack of proper planning on the level of management and this translates into all kinds of haziness on what to do at a point in time. Instead of running the enterprise of value-based systems the venture becomes a play ground for all kinds of trial and errors. This is inimical to organic growth.

»DON’T RUN THE BUSINESS ON EMOTIONS

Emotions are deceptive and they can fail. The only thing that can stand the test of time is values and principles. Leaders need to determine and clarify values that undergird their business operations and stick to it. Whether the decision has to do with finance, marketing or HR policies or any other thing, leaders need to ensure that they are in line with the strategic plans of the enterprise.

»RESPECT YOUR TEAM

Lack of respect for team members and appreciation can be demotivating. Business leaders need to understand that they cannot make significant progress with the enterprise without their teams. When a leader shows respect to the team members, it even goes to affect how the team members relate to each other and even external clients.

»KEEP THE RECORDS RIGHT

Cash flow management and lack of a proper understanding of key financial issues in business has crippled any potentially profitable new venture creations.

Very often, new venture creators are tempted to diverting company’s finances. When the profits that accrues from the business is invested in houses, clothes, funerals, friends, just to name a few, organic growth and business expansion will hopefully become a mirage. Instead of spending the profits on these things, the leader should focus on reinvesting the profits back into the business. This is how company reserves are built. Without a clear cut strategy on building strong financial reserves for the venture it will continue to wallow in abject backwardness.

»CONTINOUSLY GENERATE CREATIVE IDEAS

Every enterprise was started by ideas and can only be sustained by generating consistent creative concepts to keep it going. When the team running an enterprise loses their senses of creativity and innovation, the demise of the business begins.

You will need ideas to continuously enhance the value of your enterprise, gain access to emerging markets and to also enhance your competitiveness to compete and lead the competition.

»BE LEADERSHIP MINDED

You need to think like a leader and act as such. That is the beginning of greatness. No matter how small the enterprise is, if you can resolve to always do things in the bests professional way, you will definitely attract attention of major stakeholders and attract the finest of clients. As a new venture creator, you need to get things done right and set the pace for others to follow. Your focus must be achieving competitive advantage.

CONCLUSIONS

It is great to launch a new enterprise but that is not enough. We must seek to grow it to become big. Growth is great experience but does not just happen. Conditions need to be met and the right systems have to be in place. New venture creations within larger corporations as well as new venture creations by individuals can all do well when the leadership drives the growth process with a principled-centered approach. Growth is not optional; it is a necessity in building a thriving enterprise!

Enjoy the rest of the week

Nelson Korkor speaks to university students, churches and other groups on new business ventures, entrepreneurship and leadership development skills. He can be contacted on korkornelson@gmail.com ; +233 201 32 15 31. For more articles visit www.nelsonbusiness.blogspot.com

Can Everyone Become an Entrepreneur?

Can Everyone Become an Entrepreneur?

By Nelson KORKOR

Chief Executive, Nelson Institute of Entrepreneurship Science

“A doctor and a teacher, who is more important?” asked a man who deals in children’s books at my local bus terminal. One middle-aged woman who sat by me in the vehicle I had boarded for my trip responded vehemently: “if the teacher does not teach the doctor, how will he ever end up as a doctor?” The bookseller then responded, “Oh, it’s just an argumentative essay. The number of points you raise and the quality of your arguments determine your pass mark.” I shuddered to think how many of us have had to write such an argumentative essay in school.

In case you also feel the urge to ask, “if everyone were to run their own businesses, who would work for them?, let me quickly point out that this topic is also highly argumentative. The quality of your argument and the points you raise determine whether you are right or wrong. But my motive is to make an argument that everyone can become an entrepreneur. Not everyone may become, but everyone can. Let’s move on.

Can everybody succeed?

Anyone who has the burning desire to succeed in life can do anything including entrepreneuring. Contrary to common opinion, neither entrepreneurs nor intrapreneurs are motivated by money; instead, they are driven by a personal need to achieve. And this is the reason why everybody has what it takes to become an entrepreneur. If the answer to the question, “can everyone succeed?” is yes, then really, everybody can become an entrepreneur!

Let us take a look at a few cases of success chalked by some individuals who were not naturally inclined to areas where they achieved outstanding success. Let’s begin with sports.

Sports

Do you know that majority of footballers in the world today and in history were not the typically talented ones? They were folks who decided to play and were simply determined to do so. And we know them: David Beckham, who learnt the art of the game from childhood; and Wayne Rooney, who started out as a boxer.

Ministry

Even though there are exceptional ministers of the gospel who have impacted the world with their healing, teaching and preaching ministries, a lot of these ministers did not have all the gifts they needed to excel. Many of them just went out with the ‘little’ they had and trusted God for the rest of the other gifts. Their strong desire to excel moved God to release those gifts to them.

Music

Most of the musicians making the waves are not the most talented. They simply wanted to sing. All they had was a desire and the rest they say is history. But please do not misunderstand me. I agree that there are the exceptionally gifted ones, but those who challenged themselves to learn to sing have probably made more impact than the gifted ones.

You don’t always have to follow your passion!

One of the commandments that motivational speakers and life coaches often give to emerging entrepreneurs is for them to follow their passion. They argue that you can hardly succeed at something that is outside your area of strength. But entrepreneurs like Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic have defied those rules. All that is needed is the desire to succeed and the willingness to learn the success attributes. You can excel in whatever you want to do if and only if you feel led and are ready to pay the price.

The transition: from an intrapreneur to an entrepreneur

Many people who happen to work in corporate organisations often find themselves running their own business later. How does this happen? It may not necessarily be their intention to run their own enterprise but the privilege of working with these organisations ‘fires’ their own entrepreneurial potential. The creative environment that exists in large corporations often awakens and ignites the drive in a person to be entrepreneurial. The point is this: every human can become entrepreneurial once the environment is created. All that is needed is to unravel the hidden entrepreneurial potential found in every man.

John Forbat was an immigrant to London from Hungary, at the age of seven. After qualification as an aeronautic engineer, his professional life started with companies in the aircraft and aviation industries and in the electronics industry.

Those years involved highly capital- and development-oriented business, giving him the experience of how large companies are managed and mismanaged. It also enabled him to experience the extent to which entrepreneurship can be stifled by excessive corporatist attitudes in business.

He then moved to a number of highly entrepreneurial businesses encompassing product-creation, product innovation, and services worldwide, where it became necessary to achieve the impossible – at least according to the text books. His success – and few failures – taught him the essentials of entrepreneurship and what the defining characteristics of entrepreneurs are. This he chronicled in his bestselling book, “Entrepreneurship: Seeds of success.”

Apprenticeship before entrepreneurship?

I have heard some people argue that everyone who aspires to become an entrepreneur must necessarily undergo apprenticeship. This argument is premised on the issue of risk-management – which assumes the position that the apprenticeship period will afford the would-be entrepreneur the privilege to appreciate the challenges inherent in new business ventures. That may be a good dose but it is not a necessity. You can always start from scratch, make your mistakes, learn quickly and move on. But I don’t discount the fact that entrepreneurs who have some level of experience from working in larger corporations may have some advantage over those who do not. But in the case of the former, while networks and customer-service experience may be beneficial to them as business owners, they may also harbour certain attitudes of employees that stifle entrepreneurship and innovation.

Behold the corporate entrepreneurs!

Gifford Pinchot III is a consultant on intrapreneuring and founder of the School for Intrapreneurs at the Tarrytown Conference Centre in New York. His bestselling book, Intrapreneurship: Why You Don’t Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur, which he authored over two decades ago introduced the concept of an intrapreneur ¾defined as a person in a large corporation empowered to create new products without being constrained by standard procedures. He argued that large corporate structures dominate in business, and the ability to compete in a global marketplace is crucial to success. Intrapreneuring shows business leaders how large organisations can develop innovative talent from within their ranks with the speed and productivity that the coming years will demand.

According to Pinchot, “corporations must innovate to survive; the best method is to encourage creative people to become entrepreneurs within the company structure ("intrapreneurs") by allowing them to earn the freedom and resources ("intracapital") with which to pursue their visions (establish "intraprises")”.

Pinchot contends that innovation is stagnating in large organisations as a result of entrenched analysis and control systems—just at the time when new competition is making innovation necessary for survival. The problem is compounded by venture capitalists bidding away the most creative people in the organisation and thus freeing them to become entrepreneurs.

Corporations can thus retain their innovative people and reap the benefits of their innovations by providing the freedom and resources intrapreneurs require to pursue their goals. Firms must learn how to manage the process of intrapreneuring and establish a system by which intrapreneurs can earn funds to back their projects - what Pinchot calls "intracapital."

"Intrapreneurs," Pinchot explains, "introduce and produce new products, processes, and services, which in turn enable the company as a whole to grow and profit."

The success factors can be learnt

Let us revisit our question: can everyone become an entrepreneur? As stated earlier, some entrepreneurs do possess outstanding qualities that account for their accomplishments. But that notwithstanding, these qualities are learnable by everyone who is willing to tread that road to wealth-creation and societal transformation. You can learn to be creative and innovative. You can improve on your leadership ability. It can be done!

You too can become an entrepreneur!

Yes, you can! Entrepreneurs are not superhumans. They are not individuals with special genetic codes. They are just ordinary folks who have attempted the extraordinary. If you can work for people to produce outstanding results, then you can also excel in running your own enterprise. You don’t have to stay “hungry and foolish.”

May you excel in whatever you lay your hands on as you seek to unleash your entrepreneurial potential.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

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