The Sunday Mail
Entrepreneurship Matters
Dr Kudzanai Vere
Entrepreneurship is the exploitation of market opportunities in a planned and structured manner through the unique configuration of resources in a way that gives birth to new products and services for the market within a business set up bearing all the risks and rewards inherent in such a venture in anticipation of profit. Only those who will come up with and maintain quality in the entrepreneurship arena ultimately survives and sustains their operations.
This article seeks to dissect three important factors in entrepreneurship, that is opportunities, planning and quality.
OPPORTUNITIES
Entrepreneurship is all about exploiting market opportunities. The ability to identify opportunities as they arise in the marketplace bolsters one’s entrepreneurship stance. Even in times when there are no any opportunities in the market, real entrepreneurs disrupt the status quo and make the existing irrelevant in order to introduce the new. This idea of disruptive innovation was first brought into the entrepreneurship domain by Joseph Schumpeter.
Opportunities are challenges people face in life which are never in short supply. They come in different shades and colours. You just need to develop a mental disposition that quickly identifies opportunities and convert them into viable unique business ventures.
Even the Covid-19 pandemic was and still is an opportunity for some, to chemical engineers it’s an opportunity to invent and innovate around finding the panacea for this pandemic and build businesses around that area.
Have you asked yourself this question, “Why is Africa continuously being on number 1 in terms of importing Japanese used or second-hand cars’’? The answer to such a question should stimulate a strong debate and discussion towards realising our shortfalls and see the vast opportunity that lies in having such cars manufactured locally. The market is already there.
PLANNING
Planning is foundational and basic in entrepreneurship as it is in management as a function. It involves deciding beforehand what is to be done, when and by whom. It also speaks of the resources to be used and the quality and type of products and services to be produced.
Planning is futuristic and when done and followed to the letter, will help minimise risks and facilitate coordination of activities.
Without a plan, anyone can do anything anyhow. It is very difficult to control the entrepreneurship effort and at most take stock of your progress. Plans are crafted in order to achieve set goals and objectives and as such, without planning, effort may be misdirected.
In my first article on the A-Z of entrepreneurship, I covered an important factor of designing which goes hand in glove with planning. In entrepreneurship, planning precedes action.
Entrepreneurship has within it utilisation of resources which comes at a cost. Failing to plan jeopardises resources and it’s a sheer waste of time.
I have always told people that if you don’t have a plan, please stay in bed, lest you confuse others in the marketplace. Entrepreneurship and business are just like great mansions whose construction requires a well certified plan lest they will sooner or later disintegrate or result in an unwanted and useless structure.
Planning without executional follow up is a waste of time. The world doesn’t benefit from plans but from goods and services which are a direct result of execution of plans. Entrepreneurship is a process that includes a number of interrelated factors whose relationship should never be underestimated thus the need to master the entire A-Z of entrepreneurship.
Ok, a plan is just like a road that gets you to your destination. If you decide and choose not to use the road, you will not reach your destination. The same goes with a plan, if you don’t use the plan, you will go nowhere and achieve nothing in turn.
QUALITY
The word quality means different things to different people but to entrepreneurs it’s the standard of excellence that should be embedded in any activity that they perform. To be outstanding you just need to plan and execute in an extraordinary manner, a way that draws the eyes of the market to your products and services.
Most organisations start very well on the quality issues and eventually lose out.
The major reason for this is that they did not inculcate it as their values, not on paper but right in their mental and operational fabrics.
Have you ever looked at how Econet executes its mandate? It’s one example out of the few that has quality at its nerves and as a standard of performance. To be outstanding in the entrepreneurship domain, quality should just be one of the virtues you espouse.
How many food outlets you know fell prey to this quality syndrome? Quality of products and processes has to be continuously monitored and corrective action taken when there are deviations.
Quality determines the value that you will ultimately charge for your products and services. Missing on quality is missing on value which ultimately drives the business.
Ladies and gentlemen, entrepreneurship is a total package.
You need to make sure that you tape into the opportunities that comes your way, plan accordingly as you execute your entrepreneurial endeavours embedding in every process quality as a standard of excellence.
The writer, Dr. Kudzanai Vere is an entrepreneur, author and transformational speaker. He’s the author of Becoming a person of impact: The Six Pack Approach, Exceed beyond the ordinary: A step by step guide to becoming a high voltage entrepreneur and Soul Food Volume One & Two. Dr. Vere is the entrepreneurship coach of the year 2020, Transformational coach of the year 2020 and 1st Runner Up Overall Coach of the year 2020. He can be contacted for business and personal development coaching sessions on +263 719 592232 or [email protected]
