I continue to ponder enterprise and entrepreneurism and have recently settled down into three broad themes. To me, and it really is only my opinion, the challenges of business are creative, operational and service level. With that in mind I feel syllabus can be more easily defined and delivered.
Beginning with creativity, not every business will be that creative, in fact this is perhaps where we can begin to separate out ‘business person’ from entrepreneur. Although each business faces challenges that need overcoming, and a creative mind can assist here, not every
business has this central to its purpose or to its founder’s key strengths. For example many businesses simply reproduce another business model but in a different location or with a slight twist. These businesses are low on creativity but nevertheless successful. We need to explore whether or not we want a specific educational and training element of our delivery focused on this requirement. I personally feel we do, but also that we need to separate it and then reintroduce it to be sure that it has
been adopted. When it is buried within a business plan lesson it is perhaps lost forever.
The operational perspective is the one I seem to be most often asked about, though the conversation normally begins with the request to deliver enterprise to the students or cohort. Without some sort of operational efficiency no business is going to survive. This is the core business studies stuff, available from introductory level right through to post-graduate. It is the bread and butter of business schools, and let’s stop knocking them while we are the subject, and allows any business to flourish. An understanding of systems, of HR or marketing all allows a business to prosper. It has become trendy of late to criticise business schools but in truth we are often missing the point there. The purpose of business schools is to produce efficient effective managers. The sort you want running your business. If you run your business you want, or at least need, to be that too!
The last of our trio is customer service. My goodness this seems to be lacking these days in all walks of life. You see
when you set up a business it is there to serve your customers, not you. You and ‘it’ need to ensure you are providing what the customers want in the way they want it and at a price they want. This does not mean running around and trying to please everyone, what is does mean is looking after those you have set out to please. Cancelations should not happen, lateness should not happen, service outage should not happen. We need to work with people to develop the mind-set of service. If you left your last job because the customers annoyed you and now you want to set up your own business think again!
Beginning with creativity, not every business will be that creative, in fact this is perhaps where we can begin to separate out ‘business person’ from entrepreneur. Although each business faces challenges that need overcoming, and a creative mind can assist here, not every
business has this central to its purpose or to its founder’s key strengths. For example many businesses simply reproduce another business model but in a different location or with a slight twist. These businesses are low on creativity but nevertheless successful. We need to explore whether or not we want a specific educational and training element of our delivery focused on this requirement. I personally feel we do, but also that we need to separate it and then reintroduce it to be sure that it has
been adopted. When it is buried within a business plan lesson it is perhaps lost forever.
The operational perspective is the one I seem to be most often asked about, though the conversation normally begins with the request to deliver enterprise to the students or cohort. Without some sort of operational efficiency no business is going to survive. This is the core business studies stuff, available from introductory level right through to post-graduate. It is the bread and butter of business schools, and let’s stop knocking them while we are the subject, and allows any business to flourish. An understanding of systems, of HR or marketing all allows a business to prosper. It has become trendy of late to criticise business schools but in truth we are often missing the point there. The purpose of business schools is to produce efficient effective managers. The sort you want running your business. If you run your business you want, or at least need, to be that too!
The last of our trio is customer service. My goodness this seems to be lacking these days in all walks of life. You see
when you set up a business it is there to serve your customers, not you. You and ‘it’ need to ensure you are providing what the customers want in the way they want it and at a price they want. This does not mean running around and trying to please everyone, what is does mean is looking after those you have set out to please. Cancelations should not happen, lateness should not happen, service outage should not happen. We need to work with people to develop the mind-set of service. If you left your last job because the customers annoyed you and now you want to set up your own business think again!
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