Section A
Introduction
Entrepreneur is generally considered as someone who organizes or
manages a venture to gain benefit or opportunity. Entrepreneurs also known
as the people who have the initiative to provide solution to a problem,
produce good or provide services in order to enhance the living standards.
In this globalization world, the world economics are getting more advance
due to the great efforts of the entrepreneurs. They create their own market,
build their own brand, company, platform and etc. They work harder than
anyone to do what they desire and to prove themselves, they always have
positive mindset to cheer themselves up. In addition, the essential elements
that can decide one’s success are the entrepreneurial traits. The
entrepreneurial traits are highly needed and must be applied in order to
achieve success in a business. Entrepreneurial traits such as networked,
open risk taker, observant, visionary, failure is an option, open culture,
outcome oriented, team oriented and proactive are the important elements
that assist the entrepreneurs to succeed. In this task, the entrepreneurial
traits as mentioned above will be analyzed and also discussed. Meanwhile,
the related examples of the successful entrepreneur will be attached in each
traits to make further explanation.
1. Networked
One of the most important key in a business is entrepreneur
need to know the way to win and keep his or her customers, and at
the same time, strengthen the relationships between the clients and
the company. Relationship is an important element that need to be
formed in a business’s network. To be a successful entrepreneurs,
he or she have to co-operate with different parties. Business partners,
financial partners, peers and contacts are the source of network for
an entrepreneur to succeed. Success business people will foster
these relationships and keep the people who can help them to be
more effective.
Picture 1: Earl Tupper
The entrepreneur related with networked is Earl S.Tupper, the
founder of Tupperware Corporation. He is one of the entrepreneurs
that brings out the networked traits successfully. Earl S.Tupper had
cooperate with Brownie Wise, a single mother with no formal
business training. To keep a good relationship with the Tupperware’s
user and promote the Tupperware product to the customer, Brownie
Wise started a home parties, where in this home parties, product of
Tupperware is promoted. Brownie Wise, vice president of
Tupperware Company, or partner of Earl S.Tupper had successfully selling a lot of Tupperware product at home parties, where she keep
a good relationship and network with her customers.
2. Open Risk Taker
Risk Taker can be defined as someone who is willing to
behave in a way that might bring harm or loss to himself or herself,
however, this action might bring opportunity or financial reward.
Almost all of the businesses has its own risk so to make the business
a successful one, entrepreneur should dare to take risk if they want
to expand their business and earn more money. All of the
entrepreneurs are open risk taker.
Picture 2: Robert Kuok
The best example for open risk taker is Robert Kuok Hock
Nian. Robert Kuok is known as a Malaysian billionaire and business
tycoon who is now considered as the richest man in both Malaysia
and Southeast Asia. He had an estimated wealth of 17 billion dollars.
Besides, he has multiple companies in many fields of business such
as sugar mills, food products, plantation, hotels and resorts. He is
well-known for owning the world-class Shangri-La Hotels which is a
chain of hotel resorts that run over 60 hotels worldwide in cities like Tokyo, Dubai, Manila, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong,
Vancouver and Paris.
In May and June 1963, Robert Kuok make a risky decision,
he took 100,000–200,000 tons of sugar as preparation for the future
market. He thought he would make big money as the market would
grow. However, in July and August, the market fell dramatically. He
claimed that the company might gone bankrupt if they had not been
able to put in enough money. Then, at the end of August, a huge
typhoon hit Cuba and caused major damage to the sugarcane
plantation and also granulated sugar output. Thus, international
sugar price kept rising. This show that Robert Kuok is willing to take
risk in his business to success. Robert Kuok claim that, there are
risks in every business; if you are brave enough to grab on the first
or next opportunities, then you will never be a poor person forever.
This proved that he is an open risk taker.
3. Observant
Observant is a special entrepreneurial trait that needed by a
successful entrepreneur. Observant people diligent in noticing what
is going on around the people or environment. They are good at
listening and watching and they perceive things easily because they
are attentive to details. A particularly observant entrepreneur able to
notice the problems or the current trend easily, then they provide a
solution or create something to solve the problems. They see what
people need and they create what people need.
Picture 3: Pua Khein Seng
Example of entrepreneur, who showed this trait is Pua Khein
Seng. Pua was born in 1974 and at Pin Hwa High School he
completed his schooling. He began his degree at the age of 19 in
electrical and control engineering at Chiao Tung University, Taiwan.
In November 2000, after the founding of Phison Electronics, Pua
made his mark by creating the pendrive in the Information
Technology industry.
Pua is totally a good observant that quick to notice things. He
came up with the first single chip USB flash storage device which an
great improvement over the earlier multi-chip-design that had been
researched earlier. He focus on the pendrive invention where he
sees the world need a better technology to replace the data storage
devices that are impractical due to the limited storage capacity. He
successfully created a storage device which is smaller, faster, high
capacity, more durable and reliable to store the information and also
cheaper to produce at the age of 27 in 2001. His invention was
definitely groundbreaking and even regarded as “father of pendrive”
in Malaysia.
Pua’s story can be considered as an excellent lesson on how
to succeed with the ability to spot and grab on the opportunities in the current competing marketplace. To conclude, Pua is a role model
of successful entrepreneur and investor that Malaysian can identify
with and learn from.
4. Visionary
Visionary is one of the defining entrepreneurial traits which
has the strategic ability to spot on opportunity and able to view things
with a long-term perspective. Visionary leaders are also common
with the qualities such as openness, persistence, conviction and
imagination. The visionary leaders always build a future’s conceptual
model based on their present keen understanding. A successful
visionary leaders bring a modal into reality to create the future. They
always found their way to success with their ability to determine and
exploit on an requirement or demand for a product or service.
Picture 4: Walter Elias Disney
Great leaders with vision are people like Walter Elias Disney
or better known as Walt Disney, create animation was his first vision.
Walt Disney paid a lot of effort on the vision for Mickey Mouse to get
the cartoon published. Then, he envisioned Disneyland which was
inspired by the bigger picture to be a place where will brings
happiness to everyone. It took Walt Disney a whopping 7 years to draft and plan out a Disneyland whereas most of the people would
have probably already given up after a year. Meanwhile, he did not
stop after creating the “happiest place on earth”, he further on to
produce and create more, water parks, motion pictures, hotel room
and even more.
This is what visionaries do, they see what things could be
instead of what things are. People like them always have a great
talents to see the potential in every situation. They have great
imagination and dreams, they will never give up easily in finding ways
to express their vision.
5. Failure is an option
Failure and rejection are the most inevitable part of business,
the way to handle and deal with failures will eventually affect one’s
success. Those who are able to cope and to learn from the failure
and rejection have the fearless attitude to risk. They try over and over
again and they will not hold their idea sacred, they accept the
feedback from the people who determine what works and what
doesn’t. Entrepreneurs who have the characteristic failure is an
option have positive attitude to failure and not afraid to fail, these
bring them great success.
Picture 5: Howard Schultz
Howard Schultz was the Chairman and CEO of Starbucks
Corporation and he is considered as a classic entrepreneur. He was
born in 1953 and being raised in the rough and tumble Bay View
housing project in Brooklyn, New York. Schultz was the first to attend
a college in his family. And now, he is worth over $2.2 billion and the
company he owned is in the list of top 100 brands in America. His
company valued at over $60 billion. Schultz expanded his company
in Seattle from a single coffee shop to over 20,000 across the world
in 1986. However, in 2007, the early runaway success of Starbucks
almost led to a devastation. The journey of Schultz from success to
failure and back again is an interesting story.
After graduating with a communications degree from Northern
Michigan University, Schultz works at a company called Starbucks
Coffee Company. After a trip to Milan, Schultz had tried to persuade
the ownership to open cafés to sell beverages within the stores but
being rejected. Schultz then raised $400,000 to open his own coffee
shop named it as Il Giornale. A couple of years later, Schultz spent
$3.8 million to buy the Starbucks retail stores and brand name and
turned the Starbucks stores into coffee cafes and rebranded Il
Giornale to Starbucks.
In 2000, Schultz became the Chairman of the board after
stepped down from the position of CEO and focus particularly on
international growth. There were soon 13,000 Starbucks across the
globe and about two stores were opening every two day in 2007. But,
soon trouble was brewing for Starbucks. However, Schultz failed to
oversee and retain the key features that made Starbucks succeed.
After realized the problems, Schultz decided to return to his job as
CEO to save the haemorrhaging company. On February of 2008,
7,100 stores were closed to retrain the baristas. The company lost $6 million but Schultz knew the important to prepare the perfect
coffee. The company then finally got some positive press in year
2008.
The journal of Schultz to achieve success is full of obstacle. It
wasn’t easy for the turnaround effort to bring back the new Starbucks
which had became stronger after the rebuilding. Schultz is not a
stranger to failure anymore and he always have positive mindset, he
faced failures but he never give up yet always learn from failures,
and keep trying to achieve what he wants. Schulz will always
internalized the failures, learned from lessons to be better, stronger
and ultimately even more successful.
6. Open Culture
Open Culture is an idea that knowledge should be
disseminate openly. The knowledge growth should come from
enriching, altering and developing on the existing works with the
basis of collaboration and sharing but it must not being restricted by
the rules that linked to the intellectual property legal protection.
Picture 6: Dr. John E. Warnock & Charles M. Geschke
The entrepreneurs of Open Culture are Dr. John E. Warnock
and Charles M. Geschke. Adobe System was founded by Dr. John
E. Warnock and Charles M. Geschke in 1982. They were part of the
Research team at Xerox Corporation which they left and start a new
company. The first product of them was the “PostScript” software
which was a very powerful computer language that described to the
printer layout of the electronic page. They always provide challenge
to their employees and they also trust and support the employees to
overcome those challenges well.
For instance, Dr. John E. Warnock and Charles M. Geschke
are never measure the employee's capabilities by rating them
because they think that rating will inhibits creativity and harms the
team work. So that the managers play the role of a coach, they let
the employees set the goals and determine how they should be
evaluated.
In 2013, Adobe has more than 11 000 employees and the
sales revenue in the excess of $4.30 billion. This is the success of
Dr. John E. Warnock and Charles M. Geschke because they believe
that “putting trust in your employees goes a long way towards
positive company culture, because trust leads to independent
employees who help your company grow”.
7. Outcome Oriented
Outcome orientation is working for a goal but it is not simply
set a goal and go for it. Likewise, it is a dynamic or flexible approach
that can keep client’s desired outcome (demand of the client)
resolutely in the therapist's mind when guiding their behaviour choice.
In the other words, outcome orientation can also be defined as focus
on the actual result or outcome and then work towards to achieve it.
Picture 7: Pierre Omidyar
The entrepreneur for outcome oriented is Pierre Omidyar. He
is the founder of eBay (electronic Bay) in 1995. He didn’t expect to
become a billionaire as he just wanted to impress his girlfriend by
setting up a very small online auction in his website. However, this
had become a $3 billion empire with what had just started out as his
hobby. He had more than 2 million subscribers and he found his
name at the most profitable and popular Web-based in Internet
history.
Omidyar was born in 1967 in Paris. He was interested in
computers and sneak out of physical-education classes in his youth
time. In 1995, eBay was founded by Omidyar. He developed a place
for users where they could go online and bid for the items. By this the early success of the eBay, he quit his day job and he invest his
time to building eBay’s community and technology with Skoll. They
believe that they system work and it would grow. And, they did it!
eBay has become one of the highest visited sites on the Web in mid-
1997.
Today, eBay has become the popular and hottest sites in the
Internet and it has changed e-commerce. Pierre Omidyar just
amazed by the eBay’s unbelievable growth. Therefore, as Pierre
Omidyar said “I never had it in mind that I would start a company one
day and it would really be successful. I have just been motivated by
working on interesting technology”, work hard on the goal that set to
achieve it.
8. Team Oriented
Team oriented is a crucial entrepreneurial trait for an
entrepreneur to run a business successfully. Most of the
entrepreneurs acknowledge that effort alone isn’t enough to build
neither a company nor a business. Team oriented is important in a
business operation and by delegating the responsibilities regard to
the professional of every members, efficiency and operations of a
company will be improved, meanwhile, allow the company to focus
on its core competencies moderately.
Picture 8: Bill Gates
Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft is one of the example
who has the team oriented trait. He recognized that everyone has a
contributing factors in the operation so he assigned the position
regards to everyone’s professional, ability and capability, meanwhile,
he also provide a comfort workplace for his team, and trust on his
team members.
For an example, in 1995 Bill Gates was so persuaded that the
Internet will be the Microsoft’s future and he wrote a long memo to
his company because he felt necessitate. He stated that Internet will
be a tidal wave that change the rules and it is an unimaginable
opportunity and unimaginable challenge ahead. Bill Gates is looking
forward on how his team can improve their strategy to continue their
track record and achieve greater success.
Bill Gates realized it is important for his whole team with
Microsoft’s mission to be on board, he not just think for himself but
the whole team. At last, Windows 95 was launched and came
bundled with Internet Explorer. This was the result he achieved with
the efforts of his team.
In conclusion, Bill Gates is a role model we can see team
oriented trait in him. He trust on his team and back up his team all
the time. He believes that great organizations demand a higher level
of commitment with the people involved. Business will not be well
organized with only effort alone, it is about a group of people or a
team.
9. Proactive
Proactive is a unique entrepreneurial trait which considered
as an action or result oriented behaviour. Proactive entrepreneurs
are those who have the ability to control over a circumstance and
able make adjustment in a sudden condition. They do not wait for
things to happen. Besides, proactive trait also aims at the
identification and exploitation of opportunities and focuses on action
taken against the potential problems or threats. Most of the
successful entrepreneurs applied this entrepreneur trait to their
business. This trait assist them to make a move and continue in
testing circumstances, especially when they see opportunity. A
successful entrepreneur is great at finding opportunity and will
constantly seek for more.
Picture 9: Li Ka-shing
Hence, Li Ka-shing is a role model who applying this trait to
his business. Li Ka-shing is one of the top 20 world millionaire that
listed in Forbes millionaire list. He recognized that plastics would turn
into a blasting industry and he was right. He properties the
accomplishment of Cheung Kong, which he began with just $50,000
to a readiness to take in the most recent industry pattern. "The
relationship in the middle of knowledges and business as the way to
achievement is nearer than any time in recent memory," he said.
Besides, he knows that internet is getting more popular in the
future so he became one of the main enormous speculators in
Facebook. Recently, everyone is concerning about healthy food so
he starts to put resources into a startup that intends to supplant eggs
with plant substitute.
A proactive entrepreneur is the one who can sees opportunity
and able to react quickly in an expected situation, they are the one
making something happen. In addition, they are also able to create
or lead the trend and increase their profit at the same time. This is
the reason why their company able to sustain for a long period and
always leading the trend.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, most of the entrepreneurs often faced many obstacles
or failures along their way to build their own company. Before they success,
they might be the unemployed that had experienced thousands times of
being rejected or being treated as ridiculous human beings that think of silly
ideas. They work harder than anyone to do what they desire and to prove
themselves, they always have positive mindset to cheer themselves up. In
addition, the entrepreneurial traits are the important elements in leading a
business to success. They applied those entrepreneurial traits to build their
company, market, own brand, platform, presence and etc. As the saying,
Rome wasn’t built in one day, but they were laying bricks every hour, which
means that someone need to be patient and it take times to complete or
create something great. So, the entrepreneur that had success in their
business or career fully prove to us that they take a lot of times and had
been go through a lot of failure in order to success. C.S. Lewis said that
hardship often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny. There
is no success without hardship, those successful entrepreneur had paid
their hardship and at the end they success.
Section B
Picture 10: Jack Ma (Ma Yun)
Jack Ma was born in Hangzhou, China on 15 October 1964. Jack Ma
is a successful role model of entrepreneur. He was the founder of China’s
first Internet-based company in 1995 and he had been considered as Steve
jobs of China. He is the founder of Alibaba Group that well known of the
methodology he used in business and his leadership quality. He is one of
the billionaires in China who having net worth of $8.4 billion. Jack Ma’s
success is an interesting story. He was an English teacher at Electronic
Industry University in his hometown, Hangzhou before he achieve the
success today.
He decided to make a change after he had been an English teacher
for six years. Jack worked part-time for local government to create website
and he found that working for government isn’t easy. He is a good
observant and recognized that he could create more opportunity by
collaborating with the small and medium newly established companies that
accounted 85% of the China's Enterprises. Jack begun to build his own new
online model rather than using the B2C or C2C model because from his
observation, models are important to gear towards big enterprises with its
own channels of distribution and the huge advertising expertise.
In early 1995, his friend introduced about internet when he was first
visited to U.S. Then, “beer” was Jack Ma’s first online search. Then, he was
wondered when the results did not show any information about Chinese
beers. As Jack Ma is a visionary entrepreneur and his vision start when he
decided to create an internet company for China. In order to start his own
online company named “Alibaba”, he persuade his friends to invest in his
plan as he is inspired by the internet he heard. Soon, his company attract
members from different places to invest in his company. Goldman Sachs
had invest 5 million, SoftBank has invest 20 million and so on. In October
1999 and January 2000, Alibaba received international investment of 25
million. Then, he continue to improve global e-commerce system, and he
founded Taobao Marketplace.
The third entrepreneurial trait that applied by Jack Ma is failure is
an option. Here are the stories of massive failure that lead Jack Ma to
success. Jack Ma failed three times for the college entrance exam. After
that, he applied 30 times to get a job but he was rejected. He didn’t give up,
he approached to apply the job of police and still didn’t get it. Then, when
KFC first time came to China, he went to get a job. There were 24 people
went for it and 23 people were accepted while he was the only one who
dismissed. Not only that, he tried 10 times to apply to return to the Harvard
University USA but at the end he failed. After years, he founded Alibaba
and he was met a lot of challenges. At the first 3 years, he didn’t get profit
in this brand. However, he didn’t give up and find solution to solve it. Today,
there are 800 million people use Alipay and Alibaba is worth more than $200
billion. As Jack says, do not be afraid to fail, try to learn from mistakes and
failures.
Moreover, Jack Ma is also known as an open risk taker. For
example, he decided to give to be an English teach and started to create and Internet company in China after he couldn’t search any Chinese beer
from the internet. He take risk on developing internet business when he has
a stable job. Thereby, he was given a nickname, “Crazy Ma” because of his
unusual management philosophy. There are four elements of his
management style which are be like Forrest Gump, innovate on the
shoulders of giants, soar with eagles and take your business but not
yourself seriously. He believes that there is nothing impossible if he remains
committed to his principles and works hard. After he founded Alibaba
Company, he proposed his own payment program which is Alipay. This idea
was rejected but he believed that this could work and he take the risk on
investing this payment program. Lastly, this program was globalized.
Last but not least, Jack Ma also apply outcome oriented trait into
his business. He had a goal which was built a China’s first Internet-based
company after he found that Chinese beer was not found in Yahoo. He
dreams to set up his own e-commerce company so he decided to launch
and register a China page. He had no money and technology when he
decided to build a company. To start his business, he borrowed $2000 to
set up the company and he used every dollar very carefully. At that time, he
knew nothing about the computer but he still worked hard to achieve his
dream. Throughout his great effort, he achieved his goal and built his
company, Alibaba which is a successful internet company in China now.
Jack Ma is a role model of a successful entrepreneur which we can
see so many entrepreneurial traits in him. He observes what others don’t,
he sees opportunity, dare to take risk, is a quick decision maker and never
fears of failures. He overcomes all the obstacles he faced and put in a lot of
efforts to build his company, the success he achieved today was a great
return we can see. As he said, “Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will
be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.”
References
Chua, J. (2015). Pendrive: A Spot-On Invention.
Retrieved from http://leaderonomics.com/business/pendrive-a-spot-on-invention
Faers, M. (n.d.). Culture change to nurture Innovation.
Retrieved from http://www.foodinnovationsolutions.com/culture-change-to-nurture-innovation/
Danner, C. (2015). Here's how Li Ka-shing became the
richest man in Hong Kong - Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.my/heres-how-li-ka-shing-became-the-richest-man-in-hong-kong-2015-6/?r=US
Dr. Charles M. Geschke & John E. Warnock. (2008).
Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/197630
Fannin, R. (2008). How I Did It: Jack Ma, Alibaba.com
The unlikely rise of China's hottest internet tycoon. Retrieved from http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080101/how-i-did-it-jack-ma-alibaba.html
Harris, E. (2014). 4 traits leading to Jack Ma’s
success. Retrieved from http://affairstoday.co.uk/4-traits-jack-ma-success/
Hillis, K. (2014). How to Be a Proactive Entrepreneur.
Retrieved http://www.careeraddict.com/be-a-proactive-entrepreneur
Klich,
T. (2015). How Jack Ma and Robert Herjavec Confront Failure. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/video/248709
Jack Ma: English teacher turned Internet visionary.
(2014). Retrieved from https://m.thestar.com.my/story.aspx?hl=Jack Ma English
teacher turned Internet visionary
Jeffery, J. (2016). Overcoming failure and
disappointment to achieve greatness from Jack Ma of Alibaba. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/overcoming-failure-disappointment-achieve-greatness-from-jeffery
Lawley, J. (2007). Outcome Orientation. Retrieved,
from http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles/articles/295/1/Outcome-Orientation/Page1.html
Locke, M. (2009). How to Be Successful While Working
in a Team Oriented Environment. Retrieved from http://www.mlwebco.com/2009/02/01/how-to-be-successful-while-working-in-a-team-oriented-environment/
Lua, D. (2012). Lessons from Robert Kuok 郭鶴年. Retrieved from http://luaz.blogspot.my/2012/07/review-lessons-from-robert-kuok.html
Pierre Omidyar. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/profile/pierre-omidyar/
Pierre Omidyar. (2008). Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/197554
Scheidies, N. (2011). Top 10 Business Lessons from
Bill Gates. Retrieved from http://www.incomediary.com/top-10-business-lessons-from-bill-gates
Sornapudi, M. (2012). Leadership & Management.
Retrieved from http://olytor.blogspot.my/2012/09/v-behaviorurldefaultvmlo.html
Steenbarger, B. (2014). The Proactive Personalities of
Traders and Entrepreneurs. Retrieved from http://traderfeed.blogspot.my/2014/07/the-proactive-personalities-of-traders.html
Stibel, J. (2015). Howard Schultz: A Profile in
Failure. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/howard-schultz-profile-failure-jeff-stibel?trkSplashRedir=true&forceNoSplash=true
Stone, M. (2014). The Inspiring Life Story Of Alibaba
Founder Jack Ma, Now The Richest Man In China - Business Insider. Retrieved
from http://www.businessinsider.my/the-inspiring-life-story-of-alibaba-founder-jack-ma-2014-10/#imteAkBO7UmISjUa.97
Walt Disney: 3 Inspirational Lessons | FeelingSuccess.
(2014). Retrieved from http://www.feelingsuccess.com/walt-disney/
What is risk
taker? definition and meaning. (2016). BusinessDictionary.com. Retrieved from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/risk-taker.html
WGBH American
Experience . Tupperware! | PBS. (2016). American Experience. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/tupperware-introduction/
5 Stories of Massive Failures that Lead to Success.
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ceolifestyle.io/blog/2015/9/6/5-stories-of-massive-failures-that-lead-to-success
Discussion Process
No comments:
Post a Comment