Entrepreneurship has many facets. But did it ever come to your mind that every letter of the alphabet could stand for a specific trait of entrepreneurship? No? Well, check them out below!
Many words are associated with entrepreneurship. It is a veritable alphabet soup, “a metaphor for an abundance of abbreviations or acronyms, named for a common dish made from alphabet pasta” (Wikipedia).
If entrepreneurship is a dish, do you know some of its ‘A-B-C’s? If you are thinking of becoming an entrepreneur or working with the entrepreneurship concept, here are just some of the words you may need to familiarize yourself with. Check out this A to Z!
A is for ASSETS
Entrepreneurship is often described as the pursuit of opportunities to combine or deploy resources regardless of current ownership or control. The pure entrepreneur does not initially own any resources or assets. These assets can be financial, physical, human resources, organizational processes, technology, or intangibles such as brands. Sustainable entrepreneurial advantage depends on unique, difficult-to-imitate assets. Entrepreneurial strategy centers on acquiring, developing, and leveraging competitive advantage through resources, assets, or capabilities.
B is for BEHAVIOR
Entrepreneurship is a distinct feature of an individual or institution. It is not a trait but an aspect of behavior. Behavior is the central element in the entrepreneurial process. A person’s actions are what make them entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial behavior results from the successful development of an organization by a growth-oriented entrepreneur.
C is for CREATIVITY
Creativity involves coming up with ideas. Entrepreneurship captures ideas, converts them into products and services, and then builds a venture to take the product to market. “Whenever some firms in an industry do something else, something that is outside of the range of existing practice, we may speak of creative response. Accordingly, a study of creative response in business becomes coterminous with a study of entrepreneurship.”
D is for DIFFERENT
Entrepreneurs are motivated by doing something different rather than doing better what is already being done. Often, only one entrepreneur or a few entrepreneurs see “the new possibility and are able to cope with the resistances and difficulties which action always meets with outside of the ruts of established practice.” Entrepreneurs are individuals who create something different.
E is for EXECUTION
Profitable survival and growth require a combination of a creative idea and a superior capacity for execution. “It is not invention that matters, but its adoption and actual working. The inventor produces ideas; the entrepreneur gets things done.” Entrepreneurs share a commitment to engaging everyone in identifying and pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities, coupled with a disciplined and consistent focus on execution. They make execution a natural sequence in the strategy process.
F is for FUTURE
Entrepreneurs are concerned not with what is but with what can be. They envision the future, recognize emerging patterns, identify untapped opportunities, and come up with innovations to exploit these opportunities. Those who can expand their imaginations to see a wider range of possible futures are much better positioned to take advantage of the unexpected opportunities that will arise in the future. Industry foresight, which is the ability to synthesize the collective impact of a complex set of economic, political, regulatory, and social changes, is increasingly at a premium.
G is for GROWTH
The entrepreneurial mindset is a growth-oriented perspective. Growth is the dominant goal of the entrepreneurial organization. The entrepreneur establishes and manages a business for the primary purposes of profit and growth. Entrepreneurial activity does not cease once a new firm is fully operative or an innovation successfully launched. Entrepreneurship is the function by which growth is achieved, not only the act of starting new businesses.
H is for HARD
The entrepreneurial journey to success is notoriously hard. The start-up failure rate is very high. An entrepreneur has the persistence to see things through to the end even when faced with obstacles and difficulties. Niccolo Machiavelli in his seminal book ‘The Prince’ defined an entrepreneur as someone who sees no difference between obstacle and opportunity and can use both to his advantage.
I is for INNOVATION
Joseph Schumpeter considers entrepreneurship as something which essentially disrupts the market through innovation. Innovation is the creation, development, and implementation of new ideas and behaviors. It is through innovation that ideas are brought to life, and opportunities are translated to enduring value.
J is for JOBS
Entrepreneurship is often credited with causing economic growth and creating employment. Research shows that most jobs in an economy are created by small businesses. Indeed, start-ups and small businesses have emerged as the driving force of innovation, jobs, competitiveness, and growth.
K is for KNOWLEDGE
Learning is an essential part of the entrepreneurial process. At the heart of the modern corporation is the realization that a company’s prime assets are no longer plant, machinery, buildings, finance, etc., but the intellectual capabilities of its people. The knowledge and ideas flowing from it are a more important source of competitive advantage than a firm’s physical assets. The shift in competitiveness is to knowledge. A firm’s rate of growth can be limited or enhanced by the growth of knowledge within it. Effective entrepreneurship develops knowledge and uses it as a continuous source of innovation to outperform competitors.
L is for LEADERSHIP
Entrepreneurship aims at leadership and dominance of a new market or niche. Many companies have survived, prospered, and maintained their positions as leaders in their fields by actively stimulating a spirit and culture of enterprise. Entrepreneurship is a leadership phenomenon, which “creates visionary scenarios that are used to assemble and mobilize stakeholders who become committed by the vision towards the discovery and exploitation of strategic value creation.”
M is for MARKET
A good entrepreneur delivers answers to Peter Drucker’s longstanding questions: Who is the customer? What does the customer value? Drucker maintained that a business had two main functions – marketing and innovation. Ultimately, entrepreneurs seek to dominate or lead a broad market or niche by supplying products or services that satisfy a market’s unmet needs.
N is for NEW
Entrepreneurs are individuals who create something new. It is the ‘doing of new things’ or the ‘doing of things that are already being done in a new way’ that defines the entrepreneurial process.
O is for OPPORTUNITY
The classic definition of an entrepreneur is someone who develops an idea or perceives an opportunity that others have overlooked or chosen not to pursue, and creates an organization to pursue it. Entrepreneurial performance involves the ability to see new opportunities that cannot be proved at the moment at which action is taken. It is the recognition and exploitation of opportunities that result in obtaining value.
P is for PERFORMANCE
Entrepreneurship involves simultaneous opportunity-seeking and advantage-seeking behaviors which result in superior performance. Leading-edge firms see the effective use of entrepreneurship as a source of competitive advantage and as a path to higher levels of financial and non-financial performance.
Q is for QUALITY
Entrepreneurs need to be first with the best service, anticipating, meeting, or exceeding customer requirements and expectations. Only by delivering a quality service or product consistently can an entrepreneur build a sustainable business with repeat customers.
R is for RISK
Cantillon, who coined the term ‘entrepreneur’ in the 17th century, said that entrepreneurship entails bearing risk. It is the commitment of present resources to future expectations and that means uncertainty and risk. As organizations grow, there is continually a new form of constructive risk-taking happening. Thus, entrepreneurship is the process by which organizations renew themselves and their markets by pioneering, innovation, and risk-taking. But an entrepreneur also manages the risks attached to the process. A successful entrepreneur correctly interprets the risk and determines policies which will minimize that risk. An individual who can measure the risk situation but cannot minimize the risk is not an entrepreneur.
S is for STARTUP
Schumpeter argues that entrepreneurship means innovation by independently owned start-up firms. The entrepreneur is often one who starts his own new, small business. Entrepreneurship involves capturing ideas, converting them into products and services, and then building a venture to take the product to market.
T is for TRAIT
Much of the literature on entrepreneurship has focused on the characteristics that define entrepreneurs and the nature of entrepreneurial talent. Is entrepreneurship a trait or an aspect of behavior? Are entrepreneurs born or made? The nature vs. nurture argument is a recurring part of entrepreneurship discussions.
U is for UNDERTAKING
The French roots of the word ‘entrepreneur’ come from the term enterprise. The German equivalent term ‘unternehmer’, means to undertake. An entrepreneur is a person who undertakes the risk to begin and maintain a productive operation, usually in an independent capacity.
V is for VISION
Entrepreneurship is the ability to build from a vision, from practically nothing. Entrepreneurs are guided by that vision, have a sense of what they are and what they want to become.
W is for WEALTH
Successful entrepreneurship is associated with both the creation and loss of wealth, for themselves as well as their stakeholders. Entrepreneurial activity may result in wealth creation either individually or societally. Yet entrepreneurial intention is not always motivated by the desire to be wealthy. Wealth follows the creation of a successful business. It is important to recognize that entry into business does not necessarily guarantee remaining in business and that one could lose wealth in the process as well!
X is for X-FACTOR
There are many schools of thought around entrepreneurship, and widely divergent views regarding who an entrepreneur is, what an entrepreneurial venture looks like, and what activities constitute entrepreneurial behavior. Is there an entrepreneurial X-factor at play here, an intangible attribute that most entrepreneurs possess?
Y is for YIELD
“The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower, and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield”
