Tips for entrepreneurial business success
1. Managers must be entrepreneurial Entrepreneurial attitudes, abilities and behaviours are critically important characteristics of the modern manager—they add value to the organisation for which he or she works.
2. Entrepreneurs are made, not simply born
Managers can augment their entrepreneurial attitudes, abilities and behaviour by appropriate education, such as an MBA that includes the study of entrepreneurship, and by accumulating business experience.
3. All business models become obsolete eventually
The advance of technology and changing customer circumstances means that new products, new services, and ways of doing business are inevitable—thus business models experience a life cycle and are ultimately made obsolete by the next generation of business models.
4. Be the pioneer, rather than a follower
First-mover advantages put a high premium on being first with the new business model—thus it is important for your organisation to discover and implement successful new business models before others do so.
5. Harness your employees’ ideas
Ideas for new products, services and business models can be discovered by anyone who is familiar with your industry—your employees are a rich source of such ideas.
6. An entrepreneurial culture is imperative
To be able reliably to germinate and nurture creative new ideas from within your organisation requires the prior existence of an entrepreneurial culture that encourages and rewards the creation of new ideas that can be successfully commercialised.
7. Speed to market is critical
Speed to market with new products, services and business models is critical, so the organisation’s culture must also facilitate processes that rapidly screen for viability and support the implementation of the new technology.
8. Adopt the
Organisations can learn from the ‘
9. Manage the risks of innovation
The risk associated with new ventures can be minimised by staging investment in new ideas and adopting a portfolio of new projects without expecting each one to necessarily be successful.
10. Be an entrepreneurial leader
Leadership is critical to the creation and maintenance of an entrepreneurial business culture—managers must develop entrepreneurial leadership skills and create a workplace where employees put their ‘heart’ into their work.
