Entrepreneurs are opportunity seekers. They are curious and always on the look-out for these opportunities and finding out whether they could do something out of this opportunity. This is the very characteristic that separates the entrepreneur from the ordinary business man who simply wants to makes a profit by producing, buying and selling goods. Entrepreneurs contribute to the economy by raising productivity and creating value by introducing new products and services or finding better ways of making it.
Entrepreneurs contribute to the economy by raising productivity and creating value by introducing new products and services or finding better ways of making it.
Essential to an entrepreneur's opportunity seeking are the Entrepreneurial Mind Frame, Heart Flame and Gut Game. The Entrepreneurial Mind Frame allows the entrepreneur to see things in a very positive and optimistic light in the midst of crisis or difficult situations. Instead of being discouraged, the entrepreneur is able to use these problematic situations as inspiration for creating something innovative. If there is one commonality between an inventor and an entrepreneur, it would be their surging passion or the Entrepreneurial Heart Flame. Despite several setbacks or disappointments, the entrepreneur is not easily disheartened but, rather, is driven to persevere even more.
The Heart Flame is also about emotional intelligence or EQ, which is often manifested in the entrepreneur's efforts to nurture relationships with customers, employees, and suppliers. The entrepreneur also looks after the interests of his or her people by motivating and encouraging them to be the best they can become. The final ingredient is the Entrepreneurial Gut Game. This refers to the ability of the entrepreneur to sense without using the five senses. This is also known as intuition. Somehow, the entrepreneur just knows whether something will work or not without necessitating logical, systematic, and sequential thinking.
Social Entrepreneur Ryan Gersava with beneficiaries of Virtualahan, 2016 BPI Sinag Awardee
Using the entrepreneurial mind frame, heart flame and gut game, opportunity seeking for entrepreneurs prove to be a second nature. They can always see opportunities whereas others see crises or threats. There are many sources from which we can possibly cull out these opportunities. One of these sources is the macro environment. By using the SPEET (Social, Political, Economic, Ecological, and Technological) framework, the entrepreneur will be able to search through the different opportunities present in these dimensions.
Other sources of opportunities also include consumer preferences, piques and perceptions; industry and market; unexpected events; unique set of skills or expertise that you may have; cutting-edge scientific advancement and technologies; and even crisis.
Opportunity Screening is perhaps the most rigorous and yet, most important part of an opportunity-driven entrepreneurship. It takes a lot of time, effort and knowledge to discern which among the potential opportunities uncovered would be the one worth investing on or at least narrowing down the list to the few promising ones.
It also discusses the different opportunity screens ranging from personal to the highly technical screening process, which includes the preparation of a feasibility study. The personal screen is more on a self-assessment of the entrepreneur that would hopefully lead him/her to answering whether the selected opportunity is worthy of serious consideration. At the other end of the spectrum is the rigorous process of using the 12 Rs of Opportunity Screening. Each of the Rs indicates a measurable output which helps the entrepreneur to sift through the opportunity. The 12 Rs, when put into a matrix known as the Opportunity Screening Matrix makes even more sense because this is where the entrepreneur keeps a score of these 12 Rs weighing across all potential opportunities.
If done correctly, the 12 Rs could now be the key to preparing the pre-feasibility study. By this time, the entrepreneur should have at least one or two "surviving" options. The preparation of a pre-feasibility study hopefully leads the entrepreneur to focus on a few key items that could make or break the business concept.
Next to pre-feasibility study is the determination of the market potential or the estimated number of possible customers who might avail of the product or service. It likewise discusses the details of determining the operational requirement of the selected opportunity. This includes the operational and technical viability, the investment requirement and production/servicing costs, and most importantly, the financial prospects of the venture.
The entrepreneur should be able to read and interpret basic financial statement such as the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. These three financial statements would give the entrepreneur a glimpse of how would the enterprise be during its first year of operation up projecting up to at least five years. Will it be able to recuperate investments? From the account items enumerated in these financial statements, the entrepreneur would be able to compute for the financial ratios and other measurements in order to determine the growth potential of the venture.
Ultimately, all of the above are technical skilling for the entrepreneur. These tools would enable him or her to eventually prepare a feasibility study. The feasibility study is prepared in order to have a more in-depth study of market potential of the business opportunity and at the same time, have a thorough assessment of the entrepreneur's capability to venture into it.
After screening several opportunities according to well defined criteria, the next big step for the entrepreneur is to seize that opportunity. It involves determining the different critical factors for the success (and failure) that could affect the outcome of the opportunity chosen. These critical factors vary from one industry or business to another.
The easiest way to look for these critical factors is by merely observing what other players are doing. The entrepreneur could start by closely observing what its potential competitors are doing, which includes not only observing the very successful ones, but also those that are doing fairly well and those that are struggling. At the other end of the spectrum are those enterprises that closed down or the ones who failed. Therefore, the entrepreneur's assignment is to look for these causative factors for the success as well as the failures of the enterprise.
The entrepreneur’s assignment is to look for these causative factors for the success as well as the failures of the enterprise.
The critical factors would change depending on what market segment the enterprise is addressing. If the market segment wants very high-quality products and can tolerate higher prices, the critical success or failure factors here would be different from a market segment that is very price conscious but is not too demanding on quality. Thus, it is important for the entrepreneur to establish the positioning of the business enterprise in the marketplace. What market segment would be best for the enterprise to enter into?
By crafting a positioning statement, the entrepreneur may want to determine the Main Value Proposition (MVP) of its competitors' products or services. Once known, the entrepreneur could finally determine which segment of the market he or she should cater to. This is using the relative positioning, which can be illustrated via two types of grid: Grid 1) Analysis of Competitors' Product and Grid 2) Quality versus Price Positioning of Competitors. By merely preparing these grids, the entrepreneur would be able to determine the product or service positioning.
Once the entrepreneur determined the product or service positioning, it would be best to look deeper into the conceptualization of the product or service offering. This includes, again, making an assessment of competing products. The opportunity seizer has several options to choose from. He or she could create an original concept; find a market niche; come up with a product where competitors are weak; or conceptualize a product or service that would change the way customers think, behave and buy.
It also introduces the concept of designing, prototyping and testing the product as well as the implementing, organizing and financing aspects of the business venture. While it may not be an exhaustive discussion of the steps involved, it should give the entrepreneur a complete picture of the whole process of opportunity seizing.
Beneficiaries of Subida crafting products, 2019 BPI Sinag Awardee
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