Ecomic

Individual Weekly Tasks

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Individual Weekly Tasks

Task 1: Entrepreneurs are fundamental part of business success in today’s society. Discuss using real world examples of successful business entrepreneurs to illustrate your points.

An entrepreneur is a person who identifies a business idea and nurtures it into a business venture with an aim of making profits. Entrepreneurs get business ideas from magazines, hobbies, interests, vocational training, research, events and experiences. Not everyone can be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are risk takers. This is because they come up with business ideas and start a business not knowing whether it will make a profit or not. Entrepreneurs do not give up as others give up, meaning they are persistent. They are passionate about their ideas and business ventures and always have a vision for it. Shane and Baron (2007) argue that entrepreneurs know what they want and know where they want to see their company at. Entrepreneurs are also goal oriented and more often than not, they have goals for profit making, business and sales growth. Brown (2010) also adds that good entrepreneurs are good in communication. They should be able to pass and receive communication. They are also flexible; in that they can adapt to change.

There are many successful entrepreneurs in the world including the founders of Google, Microsoft, fashion lines like Versace and Dolce and Gabana, Apple Inc., Facebook and many others. I will discuss Google, founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1997. Eric Schmidt is also considered a founder of Google but he was an employee before being named the Chairman of the board of directors of Google in 2000. The Sergey and Larry met in school while doing their PhDs at Stanford University. Google deals with internet related activities. It is the world’s largest search engine. The company has also made softwares and applications that are used on phones by people.

Both founders have, since the beginning of Google, been involved in the running of Google. They have been in management of Google as well as in the creation of new products. This is what good entrepreneurs do. They do not abandon their businesses even when they are big. They had a vision for Google when it was just a start up. Their vision was to organize the world’s information in such a way that it easily accessible universally. They have managed to do this and more. The two founders as well as Eric Schmidt were passionate about technology in their school years. What has made them successful is taking small experimental steps according to Peter Sims as written by Robert (2011). Through the time when Google was a small idea, they never gave up on it. Today they have acquired many other businesses while they are still young and they are now budding businesses. They have created employment to millions of people and make the lives of people easier since they have added utility. They also bring in revenue to the government of USA.

Task 2: Strategic Management is only a function of top management. Other layers of management are not involved. State whether you agree or disagree with the statement, explaining your reasons.

Strategic management is a process that consists of analyses, decision making and actions that an organization embarks on so as to create and endure competitive advantage. According to Gregory et.al (2005) analyses involves conducting a thorough analysis of the external and internal environments of the business as well as the strategic goals. It also involves evaluating strengths and weaknesses of the organization as well as the external opportunities.

Strategic management has been known to be the function of top-level management. Fred (2011) says that top managers are best suited for strategic management for the fact that they best understand the results of strategy-formulation decisions and have the power to use the resources required in the implementation. Appa et al (2009) also supports this by saying that it is the function of top level management to carry out strategic management while the frontline manager undertakes operational decision making and the middle manager’s function is to make tactical decisions. One may argue it that way, but in my opinion, it should be done by managers at all levels. Just like Alan and Abbass (2013) argue it out that since the actions of strategic management impact on the whole organization, then all level managers should be involved. This is because the low-level managers will help guide in the implementation since they are involve in the day-to-day operations of the organization. Low-level managers determine what is necessary to achieve proper implementation.

If an organization is large and operates in different geographical areas, it will be necessary for low level manager to be involved in strategic management. This is because they will feed top level management with information on the branches and will help as well in implementation in their different branches in different places. The low-level managers determine success or failure in their areas of work. Thus it would be best to involve them. The low-level management should however be answerable to top-level management and should be constantly watched over to ensure that they work efficiently and effectively.

From these tasks, I would gladly conclude that entrepreneurs play a big part in business success. They not only bring in revenue to the government but also create employment to people thus raising their living standards. In the second assignment, I conclude that during strategic management process, it is really necessary to involve all level managers.

References

Abbass, A. and Alan, R. (2013). Strategic management: Formulation, implementation and control in a dynamic environment. London: Routledge

Appa, R., Rao, B., P. and Sivaramakrishna. (2009). Strategic management and business policy. India: Excel Books

Brown, J. (2010). So you want to be an entrepreneur: how to decide if starting a business is really for you. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Gregory G., G.T. Lumpkin and Marilyn L. Taylor. (2005). Strategic Management. 2 Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Fred, D. (2011). Strategic management concepts: A competitive advantage approach. 14th Ed. New Jersey: Pearson

Robert, P. (2011). How “little bets” lead to extraordinary outcomes. Retrieved from: http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/jobs/ct-tribu-pagliarini-google-success-20110912,0,7260735.column

Shane, S. and Baron, R. (2007). Entrepreneurship: A process perspective. 2nd Ed. Stamford: Cengage Publishers