ENTERPRISE & ENTREPRENEURIAL MANAGEMENT

WEEK 3
ENTREPRENEURIAL IDEA: CREATIVITY
AND IDEA GENERATION

Learning Outcomes
Further explanation of the business plan.
To explain the concept and processes of
building entrepreneurial idea
To analyse the relationship between creativity
and entrepreneurship
To critically appraise the concepts of ideas and
opportunities

The Business Plan

A business plan outlines the companys expected
course of action. This should be in the context of
the industry, market, products, policies, capacity
and resources. It should not be a one-off
exercise, but a document which is regularly used
and revised. Its purpose is to help the business:

meet
the
expected
and
unexpected
opportunities and obstacles the future holds a
guide to navigate successfully through its unique
competitive environment.
Harvard ManageMentor, 2006

Alternative view of
The Business Plan
A mechanism or tool to explore and
systemise the building of relationships with
stakeholders
- Funders
- Suppliers
- Sources of market demand (customers/
clients)
This process is based on the principle of
trust

Founding Team for a Start-Up

Entrepreneur
Technical Innovator
Delivery Specialist
Sales
Finance

Some Key Tasks

Define Products and Services
Define the Market
Define Main Competitors
Define Resources

Define Products and Services

Every business relies on selling something. That
something can be product or service. Until now
you have an idea that obtains some type of
product or service for your future or current
business. The next thing that you must to do is
define accurately and clearly those products or
services. Questions that you as an entrepreneur
will need to answer are:
What product or service you will offer?
What are the features of that product or
service?
What are the benefits for potential users of that
product or service?
What will be additional services offered by that
product or service?

Define the Market

You already have an idea, and you already have
defined the product or service that will be offered to
the market. The next thing that you must to do is
clearly, precisely and unambiguous define a market
that will be served with these products or services.
Here are some questions that you as an entrepreneur
must answer:

In which market you will offer that products and

services (city, region, country, continent, )?
What will be the consumers of these products or
services?
What are the features of those consumers that will
consume your products or services (sex, age, income,
ethnicity )?

Define Main Competitors

Next important element after the products, services and
market are competitors. Do not make the mistake of
underestimation of the competitors, because the success of
your business in large part will depend on their
performance. It is necessary precisely to define the main
competitors who are already on the market that you
previously defined. Here are some questions that you as an
entrepreneur must answer:
What are the 5 largest market players in the industry in
which your business idea is categorized?
What, where and how that 5 major market players offer
their products and services?
What are the features of their products or services?
What are the benefits that they provide to the market with
their products or services?
What is the resistance of the market about entry of new
competitors and how difficult it can be accomplished?

Define Resources
You already have an idea, have defined your products and
services, have defined market where you will offer those
products and services and have defined the major
competitors, and what they do. Now it is time to define the
necessary resources if you want your idea to become a
reality. You will need to define a minimum the following:
How many human resources will be needed?
What kind of intellectual capital you will need for your
business?
How much financial resources is needed?
Where you will find that financial resources?
What material resources will be needed?
Where you will find that material resources?
What information resources will be needed?
What will be the sources of that information resources?

Creativity
The creative act is placing two
unrelated items togethersomething
that disrupts the conventional view
A Koestler The Act of Creation 1964

Attributes of the Creative Person

Openness to experience
Observance seeing things differently
Curiosity/ an interest
Personal freedom
Willingness to take calculated risks
Self reliance
Persistence
Freedom from fear of failure
Desire for recognition

Ken Kutaragi (Sony PlayStation)

Creativity and CultureInhibition

Bureaucracy
Tradition
Fear/Penalties for failure
Tight deadlines
Values which inhibit (e.g. immediate
payback; post it took 5ys to develop)

Fostering a Culture of Creativity

Open organisational structures
Freedom to fail
Culture of new ideas: encouragement to mess
things up
Feed on success stories
Empowerment

Creative Organisation

Sharing a vision
Praising achievement
Coaching/mentoring
Accepting and learning from failure

Where to Look for Ideas?

- a problem that the entrepreneur
faced him or herself, for which he or
she didn't find a solution;
- an unmet need of customers
discovered by an entrepreneur at a
previous place of employment;
- changes in the environment.

Where to Look for Ideas?

Macro-level changes are a great source of
ideas and opportunities - new players don't
have to necessarily deal with large
entrenched companies.

Three types of change that throw up

opportunities include:
- changes in consumer taste or spending
- regulatory change
- changes in technology, including inventions
or improvements.

Assessing a Good Idea Questions to

Think about for Next Weeks Tutorial?

Why is it a good idea?

What are the assumptions?
What type of customer will buy it?
Why?
List four ideas why it will work.
List four ideas why the idea will NOT
work

References
http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/43/04712
715/0471271543.pdf
http://www.hbs.edu/entrepreneurship/resources/findide
a.html

www.seedinit.org/en/.../12-seed-insight-start-up-thepartnership-cycle.html (http://www.seedinit.org/en/)
http://www.entrepreneurshipinabox.com/1257/opportun
ity-recognition-idea-generation-part-1/
On types of planning
Planning and Forecasting Topic Gateway Series
No. 17 CIMA 2008
http://www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/ImportedDocum
ents/cid_tg_planning_and_forecasting_jun08.pdf.pdf

References
Books
The Idea Generator Hudson K 2007
Obliquity J Kay 2010
Journal
http://www.hbs.edu/entrepreneurship/
Published literature
Entrepreneurship The engine for growth M Minniti (Ed) 2007
Matthews, Judith H. (2007) Creativity and Entrepreneurship: Potential
Partners or Distant Cousins?. In Chapman, Ross, Eds. Proceedings
Managing Our Intellectual and Social Capital: 21st ANZAM 2007

Conference, pages pp. 1-17, Sydney, Australia.

http://eprints.qut.edu.au
The history of the Post It
http://www.venturenavigator.co.uk/content/74

THANK YOU!