GOING GLOBAL

The Critical Success Factors of Entrepreneurship

Last week was Global Entrepreneurship Week and it got me thinking, what makes a successful entrepreneur and who are these people anyway? According to Wikipedia ‘entrepreneurship is a process of identifying and starting a business venture, sourcing and organizing the required resources and taking both the risks and rewards associated with the venture’.

This makes it sound as if it is purely the domain of the business owner. However, in this day and age you can actually be a self-employed or employed entrepreneur. The latter is often referred to as intra-preneurship. This comes from someone with the flair and skills to identify and develop new ventures within a business. A growing number of businesses are now looking for entrepreneurial skills within their employees. Why? Because it is the skills of the entrepreneur that create success and business growth in this highly competitive global marketplace.

What is needed more and more is the development of entrepreneurial skills within our education system from an early age right through to higher education. Where more educationalists facilitate the development of an environment where creativity, individualism, risk taking and personal ongoing development are managed and encouraged.

For the self-employed entrepreneur it is their ability to identify a new idea, product or market and take the risk to start their own business, which sets them apart. However, I have seen from my own experience of mentoring managers in the workplace that buried within most people are entrepreneurial skills just waiting to burst out.

For the successful development of entrepreneurial skills an environment needs to exist that nurtures this. Whether it is from friends and family or from managers and leaders, without the right nurturing, positive and thought challenging environment entrepreneurship will never blossom.

I remember once mentoring a young man with a brilliant business idea. He had the passion required of entrepreneurial success, he was willing to take a risk, he had the skills and knowledge of the industry, he had done the research and knew his market and he had the personality and flair to be able to develop the business and sell the product. So what held him back from becoming an entrepreneur? His family! Their fears were so great that they surrounded him with negativity to the point that he lost all confidence in his idea and own abilities.

So the first critical success factor for any global entrepreneur or intra-preneur is the environment. It needs to support and encourage risk whilst at the same time managing it. The second is the ability and encouragement to look for and seek out new opportunities – keeping an eye on the changing market is vital here.  Thirdly you need to have the flexibility and desire to embrace change. The digital revolution is upon us and if we do not embrace it then we lose an essential component for today’s entrepreneurial success. Finally, the personal desire to constantly learn and grow and the environment in which to do this is vital to entrepreneurial success.

For the UK to compete successfully in this rapidly changing global market we need to embrace and encourage the blossoming of these entrepreneurial skills buried deep within so many people. Unlock this potential and success is inevitable.