In my last two articles, I advocated for the establishment of a form of quality management system in any nascent business venture. Further, I outlined the various types of business structures that are possible to establish in Nigeria and their structures. In the article, it was emphasized that the structure must fit the vision and mission of the business venture to offer the intended services and product effectively, and thereafter grow to sustainable levels. Following my 37 years of experience in Geological and Environmental Data collection and interpretation for various businesses in different industries, I have come to understand the importance of having a sound system and structure. A business system is an organized way of carrying out business activities, through the interdependence of processes, each with a step-by-step procedure for achieving the ultimate goal of the process. I have seen companies with huge potential struggle because of the failure in their structure and systems design. The budding entrepreneur needs to establish a business venture that incorporates a system and structure from beginning to end, that can consistently drive predictable outcomes.
Business or Commercial is a branch of civil law that involves the study of business organizations, their legal rights and duties, and their relations with each other, stakeholders and with the government. Understanding and applying business law concepts keeps a business venture safe and efficient. Entrepreneurs must understand the legal aspect of the business venture before even opening their doors for business, otherwise, they end up spending a lot more money than necessary.
Understanding and applying business law precepts and principles early, helps the entrepreneur keep the laws of the government, avoid lawsuits and set up a sound foundation for the venture. As a young entrepreneur, one of the most significant benefits of understanding business law is the ability to comply with legal and other requirements. Business law governs a range of legal obligations that entrepreneurs must follow, such as registering their business, getting necessary licenses and permits, and paying taxes. Another benefit of understanding business law is the ability to mitigate risks.
Entrepreneurs who understand business law identify potential legal issues and take proactive steps to prevent them. This can help avoid legal disputes, lawsuits, and other legal problems that can damage the business’s reputation and financial health. Entrepreneurs need to negotiate contracts with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. Understanding business law helps entrepreneurs understand the terms and conditions of these contracts and ensure that they are legally binding and enforceable. Intellectual property is a crucial asset for many businesses, and protecting it is essential for their success. Understanding business law helps entrepreneurs identify and protect their intellectual property, such as trademarks, patents, and copyrights.
Finally, understanding business law can help young entrepreneurs make better decisions. Knowledge of business law provides entrepreneurs with the tools to assess legal risks, evaluate legal options, and make informed decisions that align with their business goals.
Overall, understanding business law is crucial for young entrepreneurs as it helps them comply with legal requirements, mitigate risks, negotiate contracts, protect their intellectual property, and make better decisions.
Industry knowledge is crucial for any business venture because it provides a foundation for making informed decisions, understanding market trends, identifying opportunities, and managing risks. It’s important to have industry knowledge because it allows the entrepreneur to stay updated and informed of constant trends and changes that might occur in their industrial sector. Some entrepreneurs prefer to hire knowledgeable employees with advanced industry experience. This is often because they can typically apply their industry knowledge to develop and submit quality tasks that improve the company’s performance, increase revenue and make them stand out from competitors.
Industry knowledge allows entrepreneurs to gain a deeper understanding of the market they plan to enter, including the target customers, competitors, and key trends. With this understanding, entrepreneurs can identify gaps in the market and tailor their product or service offerings to meet the needs of their target customers. Similarly, Industry knowledge helps entrepreneurs spot opportunities for growth and expansion, such as new markets or emerging trends. By staying up-to-date with industry news and developments, entrepreneurs can stay ahead of the curve and capitalise on new opportunities.
In addition, every industry has its own unique set of risks and challenges. By having industry knowledge, entrepreneurs can identify potential risks and develop strategies to mitigate them. This can minimize losses and protect the business from failure. Moreso, investors, customers, and partners are more likely to trust entrepreneurs who have a deep understanding of their industry. By demonstrating industry knowledge, entrepreneurs can build credibility and establish themselves as experts in their field.
Modern clients expect entrepreneurs to have a strong understanding of updates in the industry so that they can offer guidance, support and project ideas that improve their client’s businesses. Professionals who work in marketing can also use this advanced industry knowledge to publish content that educates current and potential customers. This can make the company stand out from its competitors and establish it as a trusted source and thought leader in the industry.
Overall, industry knowledge is an essential ingredient for any business venture. Without it, entrepreneurs risk making uninformed decisions that can lead to missed opportunities and increased risk. With industry knowledge, entrepreneurs can make more informed decisions, identify growth opportunities, and mitigate risks, ultimately increasing their chances of success.
Financial and accounting knowledge refers to the understanding and awareness of financial concepts, principles, tools, and strategies that help individuals and entrepreneurs make informed decisions about their financial affairs.
Financial and accounting knowledge covers knowledge about personal finance, investment, budgeting, risk management, taxes, and other related areas.
Entrepreneurs need to have the financial knowledge to effectively manage their finances, achieve their financial goals, and make sound financial decisions. Financial and accounting knowledge can be gained through education, experience, and professional advice from financial experts.
Entrepreneurs need financial and accounting knowledge for several reasons:
Financial management: Accounting and financial knowledge help entrepreneurs manage their finances effectively. They can keep track of their income, expenses, profits, and losses. This allows them to make informed decisions about their business, such as when to invest in new equipment, hire new employees, or expand their operations.
Budgeting: Entrepreneurs need to create budgets to plan their spending and ensure that they are not overspending. Financial and accounting knowledge can help entrepreneurs to create accurate and realistic budgets based on their income and expenses.
Tax compliance: Entrepreneurs must comply with tax regulations to avoid penalties and legal issues. Financial and accounting knowledge can help entrepreneurs to keep accurate financial records, calculate their taxes correctly, and file their tax returns on time.
Access to funding: Entrepreneurs often need to raise funds to start or grow their businesses. Investors and lenders require financial information to assess the viability of the company. Financial and accounting knowledge can help entrepreneurs to prepare financial statements and reports that demonstrate the financial health of their business and its potential for growth.
Business planning: Entrepreneurs need to plan for the future and set goals for their businesses. Accounting and financial knowledge can help entrepreneurs to create financial projections based on historical data and market trends. This allows entrepreneurs to make informed decisions about the future of their businesses.
In conclusion, financial and accounting skills are essential for entrepreneurs because they provide the information they need to manage their finances effectively and make informed decisions about their business ventures.
Accounting is the process of recording, summarizing, and analyzing the financial transactions of a business. It involves tracking the money that flows in and out of a business and creating reports that show the financial health of the business.
Businessmen need to know to account because it helps them to make informed decisions about their business. Accounting provides them with the information they need to manage their finances, create budgets, and plan for the future. It helps them to understand how much money is coming in and going out of the business, where the money is being spent, and how much profit the business is making.
Accounting also helps businessmen to comply with tax regulations and other legal requirements. By keeping accurate financial records, businessmen can ensure that they are paying the right amount of taxes and avoiding penalties and legal issues.
Overall, accounting is essential for businessmen because it provides them with the information they need to manage their finances effectively and make informed decisions about their businesses.
A leader functions to set policies and goals, organize a team or company and define standard operating procedures that follow company objectives and policies to attain continual improvement in the business venture. Being a leader is not simple, it involves the knowledge and understanding of the legal and social aspects of the subject, and the practical wisdom in every aspect of life. So, learning and developing leadership qualities is an important attribute that an entrepreneur must possess to be successful in their business venture.
Leadership as a practical skill encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations to attain a set goal. Entrepreneurs are not managers, they are leaders. They visualize ideas and conceive the ideas, through understanding into information that with wisdom, they can convert into a real business venture.
The following are the important traits that are reliably associated with leaders and these are; assertiveness, authenticity, birth order, character strengths, dominance, emotional intelligence, gender identity, intelligence, narcissism, self-efficacy for leadership, self-monitoring and social motivation. A critical correlation of these quality traits shows that leaders emerge and that people born with specific characteristics become leaders, and those without these characteristics do not become leaders. However, there is no known research showing that there is a “leadership gene”, instead people inherit certain traits that might influence their decision to seek leadership. For budding entrepreneurs to develop these skills, they must know, understand and imbibe the core personality characteristics of a leader in a business venture.
The key functions of leaders drive their motivation to cause others to follow them in the course of achieving set goals. The key functions of business leaders are setting policies and goals, organization of work systems and procedures, starting actions, coordinating approved steps in a procedure, directing and motivating a team, and management of work process review and corrective actions. To achieve the set goal with the continual improvement of the system, a leadership style of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people are very crucial. It results from the philosophy, personality, and experience of the leader.
Years of experience have shown me that the willingness of team members to take part in a group can show a person’s interest and willingness to take responsibility for how the group performs. Similarly, those who say little during a group meeting are less likely to emerge as a leader than those who speak up. There is however some debate among experts over whether the quality of participation in a group matters more than the quantity. Different situations call for different leadership styles. My 38 years in entrepreneurship have shown that in an emergency when there is little time to converge on an agreement and where a designated authority has significantly more experience or expertise than the rest of the team, an autocratic leadership style may be most effective. However, in a highly motivated and aligned team with a homogeneous level of expertise, a more democratic or laissez-faire style may be more effective. The style adopted should be the one that most effectively achieves the objectives of the group while balancing the interests of its members.
An entrepreneurial field in which leadership style has gained strong attention is that of science and technical data collection for infrastructural risk management. When such data is collected in the integrated form, the survey and metocean team, the environmental studies team, the geophysical survey team, the geotechnical investigation team and the testing team work together under one contract to collect a holistic set of data for interpretative design report for risk, liability and complexity management in infrastructure design. In situations like this expressing an integrated view of leadership, includes how a leader’s physical presence in the field determines how others perceive that leader.
The factors of physical presence are integrated science knowledge, physical observation capacity, confidence, and resilience in dealing with fieldwork challenges. The leader’s intellectual capacity helps to conceptualize solutions and gain knowledge to do the job. A leader’s conceptual abilities apply agility, judgment, innovation and creativity, interpersonal tact, and local and domain knowledge. Domain knowledge for leaders encompasses tactical and technical knowledge and cultural and geopolitical awareness. Without these factors, integrated data collection and interpretation studies for risk management are impossible to achieve as a business venture.
A person that feels comfortable with the responsibility of starting a business venture has a unique understanding of their purpose on earth and their relationship with service to humanity. True entrepreneurship is not about money but service to humanity. This short content explains in simple terms the make-up of these persons and that it is alongside these qualities that money comes as a by-product.
Always logical and calculated
The ideal entrepreneurs depend on knowledge, understanding and wisdom to make informed decisions. The true entrepreneur seeks knowledge and understanding like a lion panting after water, and knowing what it takes to make an idea a reality is wisdom. All decisions are made with data, information and logic to reach the right people at the right time. True entrepreneurs evaluate and iterate their choices to ensure that their approach to problem-solving yields significant results.
They Stay Motivated and focused
Staying motivated and focused arises from the entrepreneurs having a genuine interest in what they are doing and finding meaning in them. This process will involve regular goal-setting that is SMART(Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound), with targets to meet that are time-bound. The team working on the project is motivated by the leadership of the entrepreneur, through their consuming vision and passion for the interest.
Stay confident and outgoing
True entrepreneurs stay confident and outgoing because they believe in the power and benefit to humanity of their motivation and interest. Even death threats cannot derail their conviction, faith and hope in their interest. So, the capitalisation of their idea into a business venture changes the course of humanity and becomes their confident hope and joy. Once the entrepreneur has been well informed about the product or service, they run along with the self-confidence to execute their ideas with a proper schedule of operation, and nothing can stop them.
Stay courageous with risks
Courage demands bravery in the presence of risk and failure. Being comfortable with taking risks is a vital aspect of a business venture. In order to grow and succeed with the business venture, it is important to understand what risks are worthwhile and not be impulsive. Courage with logic, conviction and hope ensures that a true entrepreneur obeys their spiritual intuitions that predicts the future vision of the business venture. The vision and mission of any business venture is resident with the entrepreneur and leader of the company.
Maintain strong work ethics
Work ethics is a belief that there is dignity in labor. This implies that work and diligence have a moral benefit and inherent ability, virtue or value to strengthen character and the abilities of the entrepreneur. Strong work ethic comprises a set of values centered on the importance of hard work and service to humanity. Most famous entrepreneurs in history typically possess intense, go-getter personalities. They possess diligent and resilient attributes that distinguish them from business managers. A true entrepreneur knows that nothing just comes to you, it has to be earned, so quality and good operating procedures are essential elements of continual improvement..
Always creative and Innovative
Creativity and innovation are typically centered around original ideas and knowledge, which unleashes potential for conversion into a business venture. Innovation and creativity are integral parts of business idea generation. These two attributes make a business stand out as a viable solution to society’s problems. Being creative with products, services and operations appeals to both consumers and employees alike as it helps develop new ways of improving an existing product or service to optimize the business. These traits allow the entrepreneur to think outside the box beyond traditional solutions. Through these traits, the true entrepreneur develops new, interesting, potential and yet versatile ideas that come to light to give a competitive edge to their business.
Stay patient and persevering
A true entrepreneur must have the ability to accept or tolerate delay, problems or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious. In addition, the entrepreneur must continue in steadfast effort, belief and hope, in spite of the discouragement or difficulty associated with transforming the ideas into a business venture. Most business people understand that success does not happen overnight. The most successful businesses are formed over long periods of sustained hard work in the face of constant problems, stresses and setbacks. Therefore patience and perseverance are the strength of will that the entrepreneur requires to navigate the obstacles and challenges that may occur in the process of business transformation and growth. These traits keep the true entrepreneur focused on their goal and purpose.
Always Passionate and determined
Entrepreneurs that are enthusiastic and passionate are resilient when they face challenges in business. They remain passionate about what they do without counting the cost, but remain focused through a positive outlook to overcome the challenges through the technical problem solving process. So, when an entrepreneur passionately believes in their business venture and refuses to give up, success is bound to follow. For entrepreneurs, there is never enough time in a day as perseverance helps them remain committed to the goal pursuit, and passion provides the focus necessary to achieve the set goal.
Continually building Network
A true entrepreneur must find ways to connect with other professionals on a regular basis. Iron sharpens iron and two are stronger than one. Networking should be done in such a way that it is always beneficial to both parties.Charisma in networking with influencers and customers helps lead to valuable and long-lasting relationships, which are crucial for a business to excel.
Always Versatile and Agile
A true entrepreneur must be capable of building a quality culture into their business venture by example. They must be versatile to such an extent that they are capable of doing many things with competence. When this is accompanied by agility and a quick understanding of the environment, the entrepreneur is ready for unforeseen difficulties and adapts to changes in the process of business venture building and development. Adapting to change is a vital skill when keeping up with consumer needs, competitors and an ever-changing marketplace. Being agile allows the entrepreneur to maintain momentum and keep progressing the business venture to maturity.
Any successful modern business venture in Africa is significantly invested in digital technology because this is the new direction for entrepreneurship. Bolt taxi services, Whatassp communication media, and Jumia retailers have strong digital systems that drive them. These businesses generate significant revenues annually through their ability to leverage the growing digital technology in the African continent. It is difficult to understand how these changes in the business models will change the youth employment profile in Africa in the coming years. There is strong anticipation that there will be a disruption, in traditional business and employment models.
Globally the emerging Gig economy-based businesses have built the road to a new paradigm for businesses to operate by attracting freelance workers and entrepreneurs. The increased incorporation of digital business technologies into modern business ventures has changed the atmosphere of offices and the way business activities are conducted worldwide.
Entrepreneurial activities and personnel recruitment models in some African companies have transitioned from a static, long-term employment-focused strategy to a newer short-term, contract-based model. This economic model offers the entrepreneur an independent worker status that enables them to partake in contractual work instead of a traditional contract and work structure.
In the Gig economy, entrepreneurs and independent workers are hired through work-for-hire digital platforms, where they create profiles, to market their services for a rate-based contract, or a lump-sum fee. Apparently, as the world transitions to a Gig economy, these digital marketplaces grow, and more professionals and entrepreneurs are attracted to freelancing models.
As a result, these non-traditional workforces must rely on ongoing digital transformations to determine how goods and services are delivered to customers in the future without depleting quality. This strategic model is trending upwards and is expected to move to an agile workforce, at the lower and management levels in the next decade.
At the leadership cadre, senior executives are expected to be hired into smaller businesses for short-time work to share their experience and help provide wisdom to entrepreneurs and founders seeking to grow their businesses. Increasingly these types of short-term business leaders have become attractive to experienced founders, entrepreneurs, and recruiters who market high-level talents to startups. The Gig economy encourages new technological innovations that help to connect businesses to key specialists that support them at key stages in their business development. With the help of new digital applications, buyers, sellers, and service providers are connected to online marketplaces.
At present in Africa, independent contractors and contingent workers dominate the Tech or creative businesses because of the need for high-level specialisations among their labour force. Independents comprise those who consider themselves to be their boss, while contingents are contractually obligated to work for a company, similar to regular full-time employees, but without the security and benefits that accompany full-time employment. Both types of the workforce are becoming common forms of employment in the emerging Gig economy of the African continent.
Today, Gig workers are mostly independent and an explanation is a trending global recession, resulting in the loss of jobs, therefore more people became motivated to seek the benefits of self-employment. This trend is currently growing and is common among youths in Africa. The rise of smartphones and more advanced mobile applications, is creating the climate for Gig economy-based businesses that are rapidly taking root in many countries in Africa.
Fostering creativity and innovation entails coming up with unique ideas, that bring out all aspects of creative thinking, such as analysis, open-mindedness, problem-solving, organizing, and communication. These types of ideas or behaviours, also allow entrepreneurs to be daring and beyond traditional solutions. Also, through this opportunity new, interesting, potential yet versatile ideas come up. Creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship are important in the launch of each innovative product and service that come with advanced technology, just as they help develop new ways of improving an existing product or service to optimize the business. Entrepreneurship is considered a key factor in economic development and I intend to analyse and elaborate on the roles of creativity and innovation in entrepreneurship.
The value of entrepreneurship is being enhanced by creativity and innovation. Creativity helps us how to improve existing business practices. Creativity is typically centred around original thought and knowledge, which unleashes potential and is an integral part of idea generation. It is possible to turn creative ideas into viable solutions. Innovation is about making a process that can convert inventions or gain ideas to become more marketable products or services. Innovation enhances the nature, creativity, and design thinking process of a brand. A new business can attain the height of success by learning the steps of creativity, and by allowing innovation in entrepreneurship to open the doors to various opportunities by helping the business to keep up with the current trends.
Entrepreneurs are important to market economies because they can act as the wheels of the economic growth of the country. By creating new products and services, they stimulate alternative employment, which ultimately results in the acceleration of economic development. Creativity also encourages entrepreneurs to grow in divergent thinking or exploration of many unconventional potential solutions to a problem. Conversely, convergent thinkers are those who excel at analysis and reaching accurate solutions to problems. When divergent thinking with convergent thinking is combined, problem-solving becomes the ‘best of both worlds experiences. Convergent, conventional thought keeps the project focused and grounded, while divergent thought provides novel and unexpected solutions. These unexpected solutions directly translate into new and exciting products and services to become an organizational success. This happens through the process of innovation, which is a graduation point of the creative process to help keep the entrepreneur ahead of the competition to reach new markets. Finally, here are some things the entrepreneur does to encourage creativity and innovation:
Regular brainstorming sessions with mentors.
Encouraging ideas from associates and related sources.
Adopting continual improvement processes in the business systems.
Delegating personnel to research online.
Encouraging fact-finding discussions with business associates.
Encouraging the learning of new skills
Mystery shopping of opposition for ideas or gaps.
Thinking about joint ventures with other businesses.
Working on new ways to improve the business systems.
Exploring the use of digital platforms.
Exploring new marketing promotion methods.
Fostering the creative and innovation culture in the entrepreneur makes the business more receptive to novel ideas and provides the right environment to unlock the full potential of entrepreneurship that changes the earth.
Highly successful entrepreneurs are a Lion breed of people, seeing the earth as their kingdom and doing everything to dominate it, change it for the better and ensure the continuity of the ecosystem. Their vision of the world defines their thoughts and their mission and therefore brings out some sterling qualities that differentiate them from the ordinary person.
Entrepreneurs live out their lives in confidence that they have a purpose on earth and then exercise that authority over every aspect of life. As discussed in my earlier postings, some of these traits are inherited and some are learned to support and stress the inherited traits. The attributes and qualities of entrepreneurs are the ideal nature of man in search of their purpose on earth.
Entrepreneurs seek to create an ideal world on earth by always searching for better ways of doing things that serve humanity. Every generation of entrepreneurs is searching for the lost hope and ideal life on earth through innovation and creativity. Deep in the crevices of the secret chamber of the subconscious mind of the entrepreneur is the memory of a lost utopia, and their deepest passion is to recreate the ideal world that was lost long ago. This has led them to believe that somewhere, somehow, there are solutions to the problems of the earth and they can solve them through creativity and innovation.
One significant quality of successful entrepreneurs is that they worship problems when they see them. In their thoughts and subconscious mind, they are problem-oriented, seeing the problems mainly as opportunities to recreate the earth and make it better than they met it. To achieve their goals and purposes they identify a niche issue that will affect society and change the world. The endurance, persistence, resilience and diligence of the entrepreneur, are motivated by the passion to change the world, so they keep working on the problem as a team until a solution that applies and is pragmatic is found.
Their teamwork is solidified in their friendly and humorous nature and motivating feedback to team members, by always saying thank you strongly. Great entrepreneurs focus on quality and good product design until they get an excellent investment. Their drive is never to make money but to create a better world and move the life system to the lost ideal world of peace, joy, and justice.
Goodwill Ofunne 