If you nurture your mind, body, and spirit, your time will expand. You will gain a new perspective that will allow you to accomplish much more.”
- Brian Koslow
MARK ZUCKERBERG CO-FOUNDER OF FACEBOOK MAY BE AN FORTUNITOUS BILLIONAIRE, BUT MANY OF HIS GENERATION ARE WILLING TO TAKE CALCULATED RISKS TO OPT A CAREER IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP.
The film, The Social Network, based on the life of American entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of the social networking site Facebook, has struck a harmony with many a youngster. Not simply because of the popularity of Facebook, but also because of his entrepreneurial skills, as more of Next Generation are taking the risk to launch their own ventures. In fact, post-recession entrepreneurship has become a fashionable and popular career option. This is because entrepreneurs are seldom motivated by necessity and opportunity. Candida G Brush, professor and chair-Entrepreneurship Division, Babson College, US, defines entrepreneurship as a mindset. An approach to solving problems, a way of creating, launching or growing a venture it can take place in any context (corporate, government, family, non-profit or a de novo startup ).It involves identifying or creating opportunities, acquiring the resources and providing the leadership to create something of value (either social or economic).
CONNECTING PEOPLE
If it’s a mindset, then can entrepreneurship be taught Twenty-six-year-old Zuckerberg? A dropout from Harvard University, his invention of Facebook has revolutionised how people interact and what they know of each other. The social networking platform he invented is closing in on 600 million users. Time magazine voted Zuckerberg as 2010 Person of the Year for connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them (something that has never been done before).
Research in entrepreneurship has come a long way past trait psychology popular in the 1960s that suggested entrepreneurs were risk-taking, achievement-oriented heroic individuals. Instead, more than 30 years of research shows that it is behavioural and cognitive psychology that predicts success, not traits. It involves teaching students techniques and approaches for identifying, creating, and evaluating opportunities; approaches to acquire, and transform resources money, people, social, organisational, technological, and physical) and processes for building a capable team to do so, says Brush. Brush further ads, Entrepreneurial thought and action is the core strategy of Babson College. We believe that traditional disciplines (marketing, finance, operations) can be strongly enhanced by the inclusion of entrepreneurial thought and action. In other words, standard business skills and current management approaches are based on the assumption that the organisation exists. What happens if it doesn’t this is where entrepreneurial thinking is required. And this is where a business school plays an important role. Krishna Tanuku, executive director, Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development, ISB-Hyderabad, observes there are several aspects that make for a successful entrepreneur. Some of these, such as principles of business management associated with entrepreneurship, can be taught. However, there are other aspects such as judgment, passion and intuition which are inherent in a successful entrepreneur but are not easily taught. In many ways it is akin to teaching art. While an artist can acquire some basic skills through formal training, his/her success as an artist requires much more than the basic principles and techniques. This can, however, over time, be complemented through practice, experimentation, observation and mentoring, explains Tanuku. Passion and spirit can potentially take an entrepreneur far but managerial skills are always critical, asserts Rakesh Basant, professor of economics and chairperson of the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-Ahmedabad. The broad sales and marketing skills are possibly the most important in the early stages of the entrepreneurial life cycle. An entrepreneur needs to sell and market beyond just the company’s solution at times it is selling the idea to an investor to raise money, sometimes it is sales to a potential employee to join a cash-starved organisation, adds Basant. Vishwas Gupta, who was running a successful business in Lucknow,decided to enrol in the International MBA programme (IMBA),with a strong focus on entrepreneurship, at EMLYON Business School, France. Commenting on his decision, Gupta says, I sold my share of the business and decided to pursue an academic programme to make me more proficient. The crux of the business may remain the same, but you learn important strategic skills to find and evaluate new business opportunities. Above all an MBA like this gives you the confidence to take risks because you feel well informed.
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPARK
Hairstylist Sumit Israni, who started with one salon seven years ago, is now opening his seventh salon in Delhi and aspires for his brand to have a global presence. An MBA graduate, Israni says it his passion for hairdressing that keeps him going and growing. Entrepreneurship is a risky business, but if you have a clear vision, believe in yourself and willing to work hard, then it is a risk worth taking, says Israni.
Ecuador-born Carlos Moncayo, a student of CEIBS, was voted by BusinessWeek Asias Best Young Entrepreneur in 2009 for his start-up ASIAM, an offshore manufacturing management company that specialises in the garment industry. Based in Shanghai, ASIAM provides a competitive edge to private clothing brands in Latin America,which compete with big corporations in their respective local markets. Echoing similar views as Israni, Moncayo adds, Dont be afraid to take risks. Regardless of what happens, you have tried. Not being afraid of failure is every famous entrepreneurs success mantra.
On the difference between management and entrepreneurship education, Brush reiterates management education assumes that the organisation exists, that there are limits to resources and, therefore, teaches how to manage within resource and organisational constraints, while entrepreneurship education embraces obstacles and surprises; it favours action rather than analysis. To develop an entrepreneurial approach to doing business, the Global Entrepreneurship Programme (GEP) was developed by three business schools across the globe EMLYON (France), Babson College (US), and Zhejiang University (China).GEP is a 12-month,fulltime programme and fully taught in English. Participants start the year in France, continue in China and finish the year in the US. Each location offers five modules, each of which is focused on key elements of successful entrepreneurship.
Elaborating on the reasons why GEP is unique, Frederic Delmar, professor in entrepreneurship at EMLYON Business School, says: It is a joint educational platform shared by three leading schools in entrepreneurship. It is the first and not yet copied common platform to educate entrepreneurs for a globalised economy while recognising and celebrating each cultures uniqueness. He further adds that not only do students have access to three leading schools in entrepreneurship in three continents, but they will be living as students in the respective countries and, thereby, getting a close experience of the host countries culture and living standards.