Business Tips For Young Entrepreneurs

The first thing that could come to your mind, if you were asked to define a business, is a physical set-up, an imagined organization or a visible enterprise. There are two perspectives of business; we have the enterprise perspective and activity perspective.

The Enterprise Perspective defines business as that organization that makes, distributes or provides any goods or services which the society needs and are willing and able to pay the price such as Google, Amazon, Coca-Cola, Unilever, etc.

The Activity Perspective defines business as the human activities that engage the person using his or her skills and capacities to add value to a process in return for which he or she gets a reward e.g. Painting, Teaching, Farming, Trading, etc.

Before you start up your business, you have to consider the following factors;

(1)      Market Consideration: Every business is expected to serve its customers by providing goods and services at the time needed and at reasonable prices. Entrepreneurs must, therefore, evaluate the current and future market potentials of the product/service to be offered to the market.

(2)     Human resources: The entrepreneur must consider the availability of the necessary human resource that will drive the enterprise. The entrepreneur should ask the following questions:

(i)      Can we get the required skills to drive the enterprise from the labour market when needed?

(ii)     What is the likely labour cost of these required skills?

(iii)    Can the skills be easily acquired through training if not available?

The answer should be provided to these questions by the entrepreneur.

(3)     Locational Consideration: The entrepreneur must review the locational factors when planning to set up a small scale venture. He must consider, among other things, infrastructural facilities availability of supporting industries and services, community and labour attitudes, transport facilities state government policy and incentive considerations, etc.

(4)     Machinery and other technical facilities: The entrepreneur must establish the sources(s) of the required machinery and other technical facilities, either locally or abroad. Consideration must also be given to the maintenance of these facilities with reference to the required skills. The entrepreneur should consider the availability of spares and tools for the machinery.

(5)     Raw materials: For an entrepreneur going into manufacturing, he should critically consider the continuous availability of raw materials.

(6)     The entrepreneur should consider his lifestyle personality, attitude to life generally and sense of his responsibility: The entrepreneur needs to evaluate all the above human variables that enhance successful entrepreneurial endeavors against his person as objectively as possible. This involves self-examination and assessment.

(7)     Financial Consideration: Above all, an entrepreneur must consider the total financial requirement of kick-starting and growing the business. He should equally consider how to mobilize this amount.

(8)     Opportunities Identification and evaluation: to identify opportunity by entrepreneur demand strong alertness to possibilities or in some cases, establishment of mechanism that identify potential opportunities. Some entrepreneurs continuously design mechanisms of scanning the environment n order to identify emerging opportunities.

(9)     Ideas Generation: Establishing oneself as a successful entrepreneur depends to a great extent, on choosing a good idea. An idea must not only be good for the market but good for the project and good for the entrepreneur.

(10)     Ideas Evaluation: All the ideas generated should be collated and well listed. Each of these ideas should be committed to critical evaluation.

(11)   Selection of the most viable/ feasible idea(s): after the evaluation of various ideas on the above three criteria, the idea that has the highest point should be selected.

(12)     Development of business plan: Once an entrepreneur selects an idea for anew business venture, the next critical step is to prepare a business plan, which is a blueprint that maps out the business