12 Wednesday Jan 2011
Posted in Employee Engagement, Employee Productivity
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It was way back in Feb 2008 that I wrote what turned out to become one of my most read posts. It was about ineffective team members. Isn’t it scary that oodles of cash, the best of technology or the hottest product idea get you nowhere if you are not backed by an effective team? A recent conversation with an old friend who is running his own business now highlighted that some things, like ineffective team members, simply don’t change!
21 Monday Sep 2009
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You must have heard this question a million times before: Are leaders born or made? Here comes another: “Are entrepreneurs born or made? ” asks Scott A. Shane, Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western. What do you think?
04 Sunday Jan 2009
Posted in Entrepreneurs, People
Two enterprising ladies in their 70s are doing something very worthwhile most admirably. Padma Srinivasan, aged 73 and her friend and business partner, Jayalakshmi Sreenivasan, aged 75 run a pizza parlour called Pizza Haven. Continue reading
16 Tuesday Sep 2008
Posted in A Step A Day
With connectivity being so easily available today, an explosive trend worldwide is that of setting up shop for yourself as an independent consultant/freelancer. This is not restricted to the more developed countries but is seen increasingly in developing countries as well. The percentage of those who are self-employed as consultants is shooting up across the globe. They engage in fields ranging from law, medicine, human resources or accounting. What attracts people to becoming consultants in the first place?
03 Thursday Apr 2008
Posted in A Step A Day
When I set out on my own as an independent consultant in 2000, one message was writ largely in all that I did. Profitability is the name of the game.
Let me explain for the benefit of budding consultants. There is no point in having a high top line of revenue if your actual income falls sharply because of the weight of expenses required to conduct business. I would prefer, as an independent consultant, to have a lower top line but with higher profitability.
25 Tuesday Mar 2008
Posted in A Step A Day
“I have worked for a long time…for others” said a friend. “I now want to set up shop on my own.” It is interesting to find that increasingly people wish to start off on their own.
My advice to those who have such a dream is:
First, clearly establish the reason d’etre for the decision. What’s the prime driver?
29 Monday Oct 2007
Posted in Entrepreneurs
The word ‘entrepreneur” originates from the French “entreprendre” which means “to undertake”. In today’s context, it has come to mean to start and run a business. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the entrepreneur as one who organises, manages and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.
“Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?” asks an article in “Fortune”. Although many Universities and B-Schools have started courses in entrepreneurship, it appears certain that certain traits like risk taking or passion for what one is doing cannot be taught. What can be taught are ground rules for sound business.
Here is some insight from research at the University of Arizona in 2002. The average annual income for entrepreneurship majors and MBAs who concentrated in entrepreneurship, 5 years after graduation, was almost $72,000, or 27 percent higher than for other business majors and students with standard MBAs.
Moreover, entrepreneurship graduates were 3 times more likely to form new companies. And these were not mom-and-pop shops. On average the businesses had annual sales of $50 million and employed 200.
Even those entrepreneurship graduates who took jobs within large companies earned bigger paychecks: $23,500 more a year on average than for other business graduates. Of course, students ambitious enough to enroll in entrepreneurship classes in the first place are likely to be more driven and confident than their peers. Even so, the gap in numbers is striking.
Ultimately, I guess the entrepreneur must have business smarts.
People at Work & Play 