The Sunday Mail
Entrepreneurship Matters
Dr Kudzanai Vere
There is resounding evidence of a number of individuals everywhere who are manipulating resources, organising them in the form of a business with the aim of starting formidable entities. This is commendable for it has ripple effect on economies. Businesses consume the unemployed and contribute to the Gross Domestic Product of a nation.
The biggest challenge that most of them have is sustainability and growth. Studies carried out worldwide pointed on a pack of the necessary skill set to tie all the entrepreneurship and business ends together.
As you all know, entrepreneurship is a higher order form of doing business that requires certain acquired skills. It is good for one to have the entrepreneurship will power, but if you do not go ahead and acquire the necessary skills needed to support and sustain your entrepreneurship will and ultimately your entrepreneurship endeavour, you will be yet another statistic.
This article will explore essential business and entrepreneurship skills that most successful entrepreneurs confirmed are a necessity in order to successfully manage and run your business.
Analytical and
problem-solving skills
Truly speaking, the major driving force behind starting a business is making money for a living. What then sustains that bigger objective is the incumbent ability to continuously solve people’s problems.
An analytical skill entails the ability to scan through, collect and de-construct information into smaller and manageable pieces in order to derive meaning with the intention of coming up with a solution to problems at hand. This is a critical skill in entrepreneurship for it forms the basis of the entrepreneurship agenda.
To get into an entrepreneurship venture or any business, the first thing is to analyse opportunities through the challenges that people are facing, then coin a solution in the form of a product or a service that appeals to your target market or the group concerned.
You’ll find out that business is your ability to identify and sustainably solve people’s problems for a fee in a professional way, bearing all the risks associated with that. Just think of any business that you have done or that you know, its existence and survival is hinged upon its relevance in solving current and emergent problems.
Critical thinking is an integral part of the analytical skills and is not for the lazy minded. Facione defined critical thinking as ‘‘Purposeful, self-regulatory judgement which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgement is based’’.
From Facione’s definition, it is clear that for any business process to take place, there is every need for critical thinking as you interpret analytical results and make informed judgement and decisions upon which your work-flow and systems are premised. To survive on the entrepreneurship terrain, apart from the will to start and be in business, you need analytical and problem solving skills to bolster your resolve.
Communication skills
Without communication, there could not be any business to talk about. It starts at individual level when one is talking to self on the feasibility of starting that business venture, analysing the merits and demerits of that business up to organisation level.
Communication is an important fabric that connects minds, systems and points in a natural or artificial set up. Once this thread is tampered with or barricaded, there will be toxic distortion and will lead to undesirable results. In business and life in general, you will see unintended things happening.
Communication is a skill that sets the tone of any entrepreneurship and business endeavour, for without which nothing moves. This makes it an important skill to acquire. George Bernard Show once said, ‘‘The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
George’s statement brings about the need for effective communication. There is every need to understand the type of audience you’re dealing with, their level of assimilation and conceptualisation and encode a message that is palatable to them through a medium that they understand to avoid distortion. So as you convey your marketing and promotional messages to your intended audience, take heed.
In business, all the three forms are communication are crucial, the verbal, non-verbal and visual. Verbal communication is the most obvious way of communication but sometimes the three can be used at once. You have seen the increase in virtual conferences and home workstations necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Such kind of platforms facilitate communication and one has to learn how to effectively communicate on these, be it on Zoom, Google, Skype or WhatsApp.
So, entrepreneurs are continuously coming up with ways of facilitating smooth and effective communication using advanced technological systems especially now when face to face is restricted as a result of the pandemic.
Strategic thinking skills
Entrepreneurship needs a game plan and as such the need for strategic thinking skills. Strategic thinking skills are skills that enable one to use critical thinking to solve complex problems and plan for the future. These skills are needed to accomplish business objectives, overcome obstacles, and address challenges and plan for the future. Strategic thinking unlocks business and operational doors as it has the ability to pierce through seemingly difficult and insurmountable challenges.
This skill helps you anticipate future challenges and be in a position to interpret them in current terms in order to decide on the best route forward. Strategic thinkers operate in the present but with a futuristic and anticipatory view of impending opportunities and challenges.
Technical skills
Entrepreneurs capitalising on their technical skills stands a better chance of succeeding in their business than those without. I browsed through Jerry More Nyazungu’s book, The Chartered Vendor and found out that, what made him start his M&J Consultants company was the accounting skills he had learnt at CIS and experienced during his working life. M&J Consultants is one of the fastest growing local accounting and business advisory firm that will soon be among the big five.
You can look at our own Strive Masiyiwa, he had the telecoms technical know how. It doesn’t necessarily mean without technical skills one cannot effectively start and run a business but the one endowed with these stands a better chance of succeeding. Once you start a business, it is advisable that you invest in learning and advancing your knowledge in that industry and business.
Business Management Skills
We can all start businesses but very few will be able to effectively manage and sustain them due to lack of these business management skills. Simply put management entails planning, organising, leading and controlling resources, people or otherwise in order to achieve an organisation’s goals and objectives.
Often times we have heard of companies firing their entire management for failure to deliver results. It is incumbent upon the management of an organisation to deliver results. Such skills include the ability to hire competent staff, control expenses, strategise, lead others towards the company’s vision and organise resourses in an effective and efficient manner.
The ability to adapt to change is a very important management skill that have led many companies down especially when the pandemic struck. There was every need to urgently shift gears, flex, adapt and adopt the new working conditions that the situation demanded.
Time management skills
In life and business in particular, time is money. Time wasted or lost can never be recollected, packaged or dried for future use. Once it’s gone it’s gone. You would have lost. Time is the most important factor in the success equation. Success means achieving your set goals within the stated time frame.
When we set our organisation’s goals, they need to be SMART. The time element is visible in this criteria, the Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time bound. Without timing our goals, achieving them will be difficult and at times it might take forever to do so. So managing time becomes an important factor. There are various ways in which people can effectively manage their time which include the Eisenhower Matrix. This is a productivity, prioritization, and time-management framework designed to help you prioritize a list of tasks or agenda items by first categorizing those items according to their urgency and importance.
Customer service skills
All businesses revolves around customers. Customers are the reason why businesses are started. Seeing their position on the business and entrepreneurship priority hierarchy, there is every need to learn skills of attracting, managing and retaining them. Without customers there is no business to talk about and business is generally other people’s money.
There are numerous customer service skills that one need to learn as they venture into their business which include professionalism, empathy, urgency, product knowledge, positive attitude, positive and persuasive language, listening and communication skills, attentiveness, adaptability and problem solving skills among others.
Though there are many other business and entrepreneurship skills that are necessary in making your business a success, these seven stood out as the most important and every entrepreneur living must have such salient skills. Besides the will power, these skills are necessary in the making of a successful entrepreneur and business.
The writer Dr Kudzanai Vere, the founder of Kudfort, Tengesa Online, Premium Business Network International and the Institute of Entrepreneurs Zimbabwe is an entrepreneur, author and transformational speaker in the areas of entrepreneurship and personal development. Dr Vere has trained more than 5 000 entrepreneurs globally in the areas of innovation, organisation development, practical business management and ideation. You can contact him on +263719592232. or email [email protected]
