Understanding the Challenges Faced by Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship is highly used in current business times. There are different innovation are made and executed by the entrepreneurs. The responsibility of an entrepreneur is not only accomplishing their needs but also, need to contribute towards the economies that help to solve different issues in the society. This reflection report assesses the challenges typically faced by an entrepreneur. It also defines entrepreneurial opportunities and articulates key processes towards successful new-venture creation. This reflection report presents the concept of entrepreneurship.

1. I have developed my understanding regarding the different challenges faced by entrepreneurs. In this way, I have learned that industry boundary, the threat of substitutes and new entrants, bargaining power of buyer and suppliers, and rivalry among competitors. With the interview of Jane Beddoes, it is assessed that there is a large number of macro-environmental factors that have affected their business such as political and legal forces, demographic forces, economic forces, socio-cultural forces, and competitive environment forces (Galindo, and Méndez, 2014). This learning was beneficial for me to deal with the challenges in the future. Through the module, I have gained my understanding of the social-cultural forces. In this way, I have learned that socio-cultural demonstrates what people think is in the right way. Moreover, I have gained my understanding that technology advancement is used to evolve the innovations and technologies that may offer opportunities for the entrepreneurs. This understanding would be beneficial for me to identify the technological factor in future. I have increased my comprehension that there are different forms of technological advances like emerging technologies, innovation and new technologies. I have also enhanced my comprehension that fully merging technologies are those technologies that evolve but have not fully been acknowledged in their final format. Throughout this module, I have gained my comprehension of technological innovation. This could be considered by me in the path of addressing advanced technologies for old technologies (Sahut, and Peris-Ortiz, 2014). This module has increased my knowledge about the economic forces. I have also learned that economic forces serve as a macro-environmental force that could affect Jane Beddoes. I have also gained my understanding regarding 3 economic factors that Jane Beddoes should be aware such as the state of the overall economy that may influence the wider trends in demand. Another economic factor that I have learned is the recent real estate crash in the US that may lead to transforming the preferences for housing options. Moreover, I have improved my understanding of the level of disposable income. In this way, it is evaluated that excess spending of money might influence the interpretation of the individual, and wants and needs (Pitt, et. al., 2015). Along with this, I have pointed out that the consumer spending pattern is one of the key economic factors that is considered by Jane Beddoes. In this way, I have learned that teenage consumption markets are inconsistent. Through the analysis of the interview, I have gained my understanding that there is 5 forces model with macro-environmental consideration demonstrates a holistic approach of industry where Jane Beddoes will potentially deal (McDaniel, 2014). I have also increased my knowledge that analyzing opportunity regarding each of these considerations will enable Jane Beddoes to conceptually validate the opportunity that she is reflecting.

Sources of Ideas for Opportunities

2. I have developed my understanding regarding different sources of ideas for opportunities. In this way, I have learned that these sources could be macroeconomic environmental changes, strong demand of the market, different ideas originated from macro environment, industry alteration such as technology modification, and knowledge breakthrough, demographic changes, legal changes and societal changes. From the interview, I have gained my understanding that Jane Beddoes has grabbed the opportunity by certain sources of ideas such as relationships in the industry and with networks, careful planning and Partnering with the right referrers (Drucker, 2014).   

I have also developed my knowledge regarding essential factors lead to discover the opportunity such as alertness, creativity, social networks, active search, and prior knowledge.  From the interview, I have noticed that Jane Beddoes can discover the opportunity by developing a royal commission into Financial Services.  During this module, I have gained my experience about the creative mind tools. These techniques could be brainstorming, brainwriting, and Gordon method. These tools could be beneficial for me to become good entrepreneurs in the future and making good decisions (Thébaud, 2015). Throughout the interview, I have observed that Jane Beddoes uses brainstorming technique where she acquires new ideas by emphasizing on the parameters. This module was beneficial for me to gain new insight about the social network. In this way, I have learned that social network plays a vital role in the identification of opportunity. I have increased my knowledge regarding opportunity recognition framework from the module 3. In this way, I have observed that opportunity recognition framework may aid entrepreneurs to organize the different sources of opportunity (Eftekhari, and Bogers, 2015). From the assessment of interview, it is identified that Jane Beddoes expects to leverage the growth via referral relationships, high amount of Australian population underinsured, high amount of un-serviced or under-serviced clients along with diversifying the revenue streams by branching out to different advice sectors. I would like to use this framework to get more opportunity for my business. This could be beneficial for my professional development (Garud, Gehman, and Tharchen, 2018).   

Throughout the module 3, I have developed my understanding that after the identification of a new venture, there is a need to conduct depth assessment of the market. I have observed that there are different key processes used by entrepreneurs towards successful new-venture creation. These processes are research, development, production, marketing, and use. Through the assessment of the interview, I have observed that Jane Beddoes has used this innovation process to start their new venture (Piperopoulos, 2016). This learning experience could be beneficial for me to create a new venture in the future. 

Key Processes for Successful New-Venture Creation

I have developed my understanding regarding the concept of entrepreneurship. In this way, I have learned that the procedure by which a person grabs the opportunities with respect to resources they presently control. This helped me to conduct the interview in terms of identifying the best entrepreneur. Throughout this module, I have analyzed that entrepreneurship entails creating and building something of value, addressing an opportunity, acceptance of risk with uncertainty, and planning for and pulling together the required resources to pursue the opportunity. I have selected Jane Beddoes as an entrepreneur to conduct the interview. This module was beneficial for me to understand the different types of entrepreneurship such as technology-driven, business model driven, lifestyle driven, value-driven, income replacement drivee, and underserved market. From the interview, it is observed that Jane Beddoes is a business model driven venture because she depends on her strength rather than the invention of technology (Modrego, et. al., 2015). But, at the same time, as a business model driven venture, she has focused on the business process in order to get competitive benefits.

This module has also developed my understanding about the corporate entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship.  Through the interview, it is observed that Jane Beddoes comes in the category of intrapreneurship because she has entrepreneurial behavior.  Through the module, I have increased my understanding of the causes of becoming entrepreneurs. These causes are being your own boss, financial rewards, and pursuing independent ideas. Throughout the interview, I have learned that Jane Beddoes wanted to generate comprehensible ideas to customers to make it easy and affordable for obtaining financial advice (Dekker, et. al., 2015).

Throughout the module 1, I have gained my experience regarding the characteristics of entrepreneurs. These characteristics are a passion for business, tenacity in the face of failure, product/customer focus, and execution intelligence. At the same time, I have observed that Jane Beddoes focuses on providing a feasible result with outstanding facilities. It shows the customer focus characteristics of Jane Beddoes. Customers focus characteristic means overarching the commitment to comprehend the customers and build the services as per the customer’s expectations (Chell, et. al., 2016).      

During the module, I have learned that an entrepreneur could be born or made. In this way, I have gained my experience that when an individual born with a multitude of natural traits and features, then the pursuit of experiential learning and education of entrepreneurship can improve set of skills individual posses. From the interview, I have pointed out that Jane Beddoes provides different services such as financial advice, and referral to other professionals due to having different skills. Moreover, I have observed that she was inspired by different financial advisers to start her business (Dekker, et. al., 2015).

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be concluded that I have gained my entrepreneurial skills through different modules and analysis of an interview with Jane Beddoes. From the assessment, it is observed that entrepreneurship would be practiced by me in the future in terms of getting the competitive benefits. It would make competent to me to execute the business ideas of my interested field.

References

Chell, E., Spence, L.J., Perrini, F. and Harris, J.D., 2016. Social entrepreneurship, social innovation and business ethics(Vol. 133). USA: Springer.

Dekker, J., Lybaert, N., Steijvers, T. and Depaire, B., 2015. The effect of family business professionalization as a multidimensional construct on firm performance. Journal of Small Business Management, 53(2), pp.516-538.

Drucker, P., 2014. Innovation and entrepreneurship. UK: Routledge.

Eftekhari, N. and Bogers, M., 2015. Open for entrepreneurship: how open innovation can foster new venture creation. Creativity and Innovation Management, 24(4), pp.574-584.

Galindo, M.Á. and Méndez, M.T., 2014. Entrepreneurship, economic growth, and innovation: Are feedback effects at work?. Journal of Business Research, 67(5), pp.825-829.

Garud, R., Gehman, J. and Tharchen, T., 2018. Performativity as ongoing journeys: Implications for strategy, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Long Range Planning, 51(3), pp.500-509.

McDaniel, B.A., 2014. Entrepreneurship and Innovation: An Economic Approach: An Economic Approach. UK: Routledge.

Modrego, F., McCann, P., Foster, W.E. and Olfert, M.R., 2015. Regional entrepreneurship and innovation in Chile: A knowledge matching approach. Small Business Economics, 44(3), pp.685-703.

Piperopoulos, P.G., 2016. Entrepreneurship, innovation, and business clusters. UK: UK: Routledge.

Pitt, L., Berthon, P., Robson, M. and Prendegast, G., 2015. Does Corporate Entrepreneurship Influence Innovation in Service Firms?. In Proceedings of the 1997 World Marketing Congress (pp. 639-645). USA: Springer, Cham.

Sahut, J.M., and Peris-Ortiz, M., 2014. Small business, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Small Business Economics, 42(4), pp.663-668.

Thébaud, S., 2015. Status beliefs and the spirit of capitalism: Accounting for gender biases in entrepreneurship and innovation. Social Forces, 94(1), pp.61-86.