Entrepreneur - Mark Constantine and Their Company Strategy - Lush Company - Assignment Example

Historical Background of Lush Company LUSH was started in the year 1994 by Mark Constantine as a skin care firm and organic cosmetic. Though the founders have been working on the company for over 30 years now in various way. Mark Constantine prior to the establishment of the company was working in a hair and beauty salon. Specifically he was a trichologist (science of healthy scalp and hair), while his co-founder Liz Weir was a beauty therapist. When Mark decided to start the business Liz was reluctant to join him but eventually she joined him and they started a business called ‘Herbal Hair and Beauty clinic.’ The big for the two founders of Lush was in the early 80s when they got a deal from Anita Roddick worth £1200. They established a strong business relationship with Anita, which enabled them to supply most of their products to Anita’s shop. The business developed very first and other founders were incorporated to the business such as Rowena Bird, Helen Ambrosen, Paul Greaves and Karl Bygrave joined the team to make the company a success. The headquarters of the company are locate in Poole, England. There were various beliefs and values that inspired the start of the company, they believed in the manufacture of fresh handmade products from natural ingredients and vital oils for personal care. Today the company has more than 650 stores across the globe with mail order services in 12 countries. The products in the company are made by hand and does its own distribution to its own retail stores. Products and Mission of Lush cosmetic Company The company is associated withthe sale of cosmetic products and other innovative related product such as shampoo bars, bath ballistics and bubble bar slices. The main products though include, shower products, face and beauty products, bath products, hair products, body lotion and perfume. Innovation standards are very high in Lush Company and aspects such as differentiation, environmentally-friendly packaging and use of fresh ingredient are used to enhance their theme of innovation. Vegetables and fresh fruits are used in the manufacture of these products, which depending with the producer artisanal look and color are impeded to the product. They encourage that packaging is done with recyclable materials as a form of ethic (Marketline 2008). Lush company can be described as a company that deals with introduction of improved or new goods or services (Paul Burns 2011). Mission of the of the company can be described as the core strategy of the company, other core strategies include the scope of the products, which in Lush company are personal care products and foundation for differentiation, which lush uses fresh ingredients and handmade products. The business mission of lush is inspired by aspect of ‘believe,’ they believe in various things that drive their entrepreneurial quest. Lush’s mission is to make useful products out of fresh fruits and vegetables, the finest essential oils and safe synthetics, free of animal ingredient. Lush’s aim is to make the freshest personal care products the history of cosmetics have ever made. The following excerpt is the mission statements of Lush Company: WE BELIVE We believe in making effective products from fresh, organic* fruit and vegetables, the finest essential oils and safe synthetics. We invent our own products and fragrances. We make them fresh by hand using little or no preservative or packaging, using only vegetarian ingredients, and tell you when they were made. We believe in buying ingredients only from companies that do not commission tests on animals and in testing our products on humans. We believe in happy people making happy soap, putting our faces on our products and making our mums proud. We believe in long candlelit baths, sharing showers, massage, filling the world with perfume and in the right to make mistakes, lose everything and start again. We believe our products are good value, that we should make a profit and that the customer is always right. * We also believe words like fresh and organic have honest meaning beyond marketing. (Lush website) Those beliefs that are included in the mission of Lush are followed to the latter. This mission statement ensures that they follow their core business objectives and ethics. It is also through the mission statement that what is dealt in the company is conveyed to any potential customer or interested party. Almost all the line of products that is produced by lush is communicated in the mission statement. Inspiration of Lush’s founders in their entrepreneurship quest Entrepreneurship can be inspired by various factors depending on the entrepreneur, sources of business idea can be gathered from magazines, televisions, hobbies, market niche, shows and exhibition or experience and vocational training. The background of Mark Constantine can be described as the major source of inspiration towards the foundation of Lush Company. His experience and vocational training can be said to be the source of his business idea, he was a trichologist. His fellow co-founder, Liz was also an experienced beauty therapist. The founders were experienced in cosmetic and beauty industry, which made them have a rich experience in this industry. They became friends which saw mark do Liz’s hair from time to time, an epitome of passion in cosmetic and beauty paraphernalia. Mark was a charming person with great convincing skills, these are the same skills that he used to convince Liz to join him as well as maintain a large portion of his customers. Persistent and patience can also be demonstrated by the two founders, they waited patiently for the company to break even without giving up. The fact that the company deals with fresh ingredients can be traced back when the founders had an herb farm in Cambridge, this has influenced the company to stick with fresh handmade product till today. The Big Five Personality Trait that are associated with entrepreneurial behavior of Lush Company The big five personality trait behavior that are associated with entrepreneurial behavior are: conscientiousness, Agreeableness, openness to Experience, Extraversion and Neuroticism. Among the five traits some are more prominent in in entrepreneurs than in managers (Zhao and Siebert 2006). These traits can be linked to the founders of Lush Company and how the manifestation of these traits helped Lush to be a Success. Extraversion is a personality attribute that is deliberated by sociability, assertiveness, talkativeness and ambition (Barrick and mount 1991). This is a very important personal trait since the entrepreneur will spend most of his time with customers. This personality trait can be traced to Mark the main founder of Lush, he was a very social person and ambitious. Aspect of ambition can be attributed to when mark left his job to start his own business. He was also a social person, the manner in which he socialized with Liz can attest to that. His score in regard to extraversion can be said to be very high, thus ensuring he became an entrepreneur (Shane 2003). Openness to experience is another personality trait than culminates a person to be a successful entrepreneur. Openness to experience describes a person who is open to innovative experiences, imaginative, original and reflective (McCrae 1987; Costa and McCrae 1992). This trait is well manifested in Mark, offering fresh ingredients without adding any preservatives was an innovative idea that had not been explored in the cosmetic industry.it can also be said that this the personal trait that enabled Mark to organize his business and develop products (Zhao and seibert 2006). Agreeable describes someone who is trusting, forgiving, cooperative, tolerant, soft-hearted and courteous (Barrick and Mount 1991). If a person is less agreeable he is likely to be more skeptical (Costa and McCrae 1992) which makes them to be critical about any business information (Shane 2003). Mark Constantine can be described as an agreeable person since he didn’t fall out with Liz Conscientiousness, this trait is mostly associated with hard work, perseverance and dependability (Barrick and mount 1991). Conscientiousness is also a trait that is closely related to heritability of entrepreneurship (Nicolaou et al. 2008). Lush’s success can be attributed to the conscientiousness of Mark Constantine, he was hardworking and he had the zeal to achieve his the business’s goal. Neuroticism is a trait that can describe emotional stability, a successful entrepreneur should be capable to stabilize and control his emotions. Neuroticism is characterized by people who don’t have a high score in anxiety, insecure, worried and emotional (Barrick and Mount 1991). This trait is all about handling risk, Mark took the risk to start cosmetic business by use of fresh ingredient. A person who is anxious or insecure is not capable of starting a business since he can’t manage stress when things turn sore. Ways in which founders of Lush demonstrate the classic 'DNA' of an entrepreneur There are various ways that entrepreneurs of Lush (Mark and Liz) demonstrated the classic ‘DNA’ of an entrepreneur. One of the ‘DNA’ of an entrepreneurship that entrepreneurs of lush had is tenacity, this is because they never gave up from the time they incepted the business idea. They also had the ability to pivot as another aspect, they were social with customers and took time understand what their customers wanted. Resilient is very evident in Lush’s case, the entrepreneurs refused to “die” literary, even in the hardest of time. Integrity is also part of the company’s mission, the business believes in honesty as a marketing tool, this have been enhanced by making sure that the products are fresh as claimed. Entrepreneurial management behaviors that are employed by Mark in order to achieve the corporate mission of Lush Entrepreneurship can be described as opportunity-based management behavior (Stevenson and Jarillo 1990). One of the entrepreneurial management behavior that has been employed by Mark as an entrepreneur of Lush to realize the company’s mission is strategic orientation, they have strategized the business to use the available and recyclable resources in their business. Expansion is also a management behavior, this can be associated with lush’s entrepreneur since from the time of inception the business has expanded in many countries around the globe. Leaderships is a key management behavior, Mark had all the required leadership skills. There was a time he was offered directorship, however he refused the offer to pursue his own business. Leadership has enabled Mark to control and make sure that the company sticks to the ideologies that it believes in in regard to the corporate mission statement. Resources Barrick, M. R., Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44, 1–26. Costa, P. T., Jr., McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five Factor Inventory NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: PAR McCrae, R. R. (1987). Creativity, divergent thinking, and openness to experience. Journal Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 1258–1265 Paul B. (2011). Entrepreneurship and Small Business: Start-up, Growth and Maturity, (3rd ed.) rave Macmillan. Shane, S. (2003). A General Theory of Entrepreneurship: The Individual-Opportunity Nexus, Aldershot, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Stevenson, H.H. and J. C. Jarillo (1990). "A Paradigm of Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial Management." Strategic Management Journal 11:17‐27 Zhao, H.,Seibert, S. (2006). The big five personality dimensions and entrepreneurial status: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(2): 259-271. Read More