Entrepreneurs Play an Important Role in Society - Essay Example

? Entrepreneurial characteristics Introduction Entrepreneurs play an important role in the society through developing innovative ideas; an aspect that improves the living conditions of the people in a society. Nevertheless, not all entrepreneurs are successful. Successful entrepreneurs must possess such characteristics as; Risk taking, Response to change, Egotism and Thoroughness. These ensure that they are able to overcome challenges faced during identification, developing and analysis of an idea (Gerber, 2009). Risk taking Risk taking is defined as a factor thing or element which exposes a person to a certain danger or which has negative impact on the person. Risk taking in business entails venturing into an idea or activity that might have negative impact on entrepreneur yet the same idea can bring positive outcome to the entrepreneur. Successful entrepreneurs need to have the ability to take risks in order to gain maximum benefits in case the idea succeeds. In many condition, opportunities are full of uncertainties as there are no ways to confirm if the move will be beneficial or not. As a result, many entrepreneurs are unable to venture in such ideas an aspect that makes them lose the ability to succeed. This enables an entrepreneur with this characteristic to fully own the idea and reap its benefits without intense competition (Gerber, 2009). If the idea succeeds, other business people utilize the idea but the entrepreneur who invented it will have created customer trust and barriers for the competitors to make use of the idea. This helps him in succeeding in the markets through gaining the largest market share and creating loyalty of the target customers towards the idea or product. One of the entrepreneurs who had taken risks in venturing in business is Michelle Moan. Despite her age she took a risk of investing in making bras that were more comfortable. As a result of going against all odds, she became successful and established MJM international which is one of the leading businesses in the world. The success of Moan was as a result of risk taking in an area that looked unpromising for many entrepreneurs. In 2000 she was awarded a world business achiever award which is a prestigious award given to entrepreneurs who has shown outstanding performance and innovation. This puts a challenge to entrepreneurs to be innovative and create ideas out of a challenge that they might be experiencing or a challenge facing the society. For a successful entrepreneur, an idea despite how challenging it looks must be analyzed to look at its potential. Response to change Response to change is the act of reacting as a result of a certain change that has occurred in the sector, government or country at large. The world has become dynamic with many changes being experienced each day. For an entrepreneur to be successful he must monitor these changes as they might create an opportunity. New government policies are some of the changes that might create an opportunity for an entrepreneur. When an opportunity unveils an entrepreneur must be quick to respond to it through investing. This provides the entrepreneur with the opportunity to retrieve maximum benefits from the opportunity (Gerber, 2009). Response to change in case of an opportunity is determined by the flexibility of an entrepreneur. A flexible entrepreneur is one who is ready to shift from one way of doing things to another in order to fit in the new procedures that might be of great benefit. The best strategy for an entrepreneur to become flexible is through setting aside capital that could be used to invest in a new opportunity. Such an act creates a difference between successful entrepreneurs and those who are not successful. In an example, changes in technological levels in the world created an opportunity for Steve Jobs to start Apple Inc which deal with various electronics such as iPod, iTunes, Mac laptops, desktop etc. His reaction was first despite the risks that faced investing in a sector that recorded major failures from previous entrepreneurs. After Steve Jobs realized that there was a gap that existed in the market, he responded quickly by establishing apple company whose main aim was to fill the gap that was not filled by computers. People were also shifting from office business to online business which needed portable computers and electronics. The company concentrated at portability electronics that were to replace desktops (Mansueto Ventures LLC, 2012) Egotism Egotism is the drive to enhance and maintain ones views. An egotist entrepreneur has a centrality of himself and work towards individual pride. It helps an entrepreneur to place himself/herself in a world that has no concern over other people’s welfare. This enables the entrepreneur to work hard in order to attain public recognition (Mohanty, 2005). The urge to attain positive views has made various entrepreneurs to work tirelessly in order to satisfy this interest. As a result they are able to persevere the challenges that they might come across in their quest to gain returns from their investments (Kuratko & Hodgetts, 2008). Many great entrepreneurs work tirelessly in order to leave a legacy. This has been a breakthrough towards major discoveries that has been made in the world. Egotism thereby, enables the entrepreneur to spend much time in the field looking for untapped ideas in order to earn societal recognition (Bolton, 2004). One such entrepreneur is Alan Sugar who was the founder of Amstrad in 1968. His main aim was to earn public recognition. This virtue made him work hard to be rated 89th richest personality in the world by Sunday time rich list of year 2011. In addition to business, Alan went ahead to invest in Tottenham Hotspur football club as the sector would earn him public recognition. As a result, a successful entrepreneur must have this skill as this will make them to work hard towards realization of their long term dreams (McMillan, 2003). Thoroughness Thoroughness is the aspect of being in a position to complete the whole task without a mistake. For an opportunity to be effectively implemented, an entrepreneur must go through a process of identifying, analyzing, planning implementation and evaluating. Any mistake that is committed during these stages might have major effect to the success of the idea. An opportunity is pursued by many individuals with the successful entrepreneur being determined by how effective he/she made use of the idea (Mohanty, 2005). Thoroughness is achieved thorough planning on the procedures to follow, budget to allocate and the expected risks and uncertainties. A successful entrepreneur must be efficient in his/her planning and implementation of the available opportunity. An example of an entrepreneur who implemented the process of nurturing the opportunity thoroughly is Richard Branson (Branson, 2011). Branson became successful as he ensured that any activity he undertakes was completed thoroughly and within the shortest time possible. This made him to outdo other entrepreneurs who spent much of their time in an idea giving an opportunity to other interested parties to take away the opportunity from them. Despite many challenges that he went through in his quest to establish a sustainable business the main strategy that he used was to ensure that all the procedures that he set were well refined to eradicate errors. This enable the business to thrive under his management as he thoroughly edited all work that was undertaken by his subordinates. Therefore, for an entrepreneur to be successful he/she must be able to complete a task quickly and thoroughly in order to take advantage of a new opportunity (Branson, 2011, P.5). Negative characteristics of entrepreneurs Some entrepreneurs lack creativity. They mainly depend on others to come up with ideas and try to take away their ideas. As a result, they are unable to own their ideas and are at risk of being eliminated in the market. Entrepreneurs who are unable to create idea out of nothing also lacks the urge to implement the idea an aspect that may lead to failure of the idea to penetrate in the market (Mqw, 2008). Procrastination is another aspect that unsuccessful entrepreneurs possess. This is a behavior of postponing activities (Forbat, 2007), p.37). When a entrepreneur have such characteristic, it becomes very hard to act on an opportunity as he /she will take time before making a decision to invest capital in the idea. Such entrepreneur keeps on quitting from taking action as he/she lacks the ability to persevere the competition. Many entrepreneurs are stubborn. This is a character that makes it hard for an entrepreneur to deal with resistance. These entrepreneurs get angry when they do not succeed making them to quit. As a result they are unable to keep up with intimidation from other people thereby, making them to lose focus (Chasen, 2002, P.19). Some entrepreneurs have characteristics of putting blame on others (Swedberg, 2000). In this case, entrepreneurs with this characteristic fail as they never accept their failures. It becomes hard for them to learn from previous mistakes which might enable them to overcome risks and uncertainties in the future. This increases the possibility of committing the same mistakes in the future. When such mistakes are analyzed, they enable an entrepreneur to plan for the future strategies. References Bolton B., 2004.Thompson, J. Entrepreneurs: Talent, Temperament, and Technique. Elsevier Mohanty, S. Branson R. 2011. Losing My Virginity. Ebury Publishing. 2005. Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. Chasen M. 2002. Entrepreneurship: Made E-Z. Made E-Z Products. Forbat J. 2007. Entrepreneurship: The Seeds of Success. Harriman House Limited. Gerber M. 2009. Awakening the Entrepreneur Within: How Ordinary People Can Create Extraordinary Companies. HarperCollins. Kuratko, D .F. Hodgetts, R M. 2008. Entrepreneurship: Theory, Process, Practice. Mason: Cengage Learning. Mqw. 2008. Entrepreneur. Outskirts Press. McMillan A. 2003. Entrepreneur: Be Your Best . . . and Beyond. Hodder & Stoughton. Butterworth-Heinemann. Swedberg R.2000. Entrepreneurship: The Social Science View. 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