Entrepreneurial Functions

Entrepreneurial Functions

I. Promotional Functions

(1) Discovery of Idea

The first and foremost function of entrepreneur is idea generation. A person may conceive his own ideas or develop the ideas contributed by others. Ideas can be generated through several ways like own experience and exposure of entrepreneur, keen observation of environment, education, training, market survey, environmental scanning and so on. After the ideas were collected, entrepreneur has to weigh objectively each and every idea and finally select an idea which is worth pursuing commercially.

(2) Determining the business objectives

Entrepreneur has to develop business objectives in the backdrop of nature of business and type of business activity i.e. nature of business, manufacturing or trading, type of business organisation chosen so that he/she can organise the venture in accordance with the objectives determined by him/her.

(3) Detailed Investigation

Entrepreneur has to analyse in detail the product proposes to produce. In other words, Entrepreneur should investigate commercial feasibility of the product proposed to be produced and conduct market study to ascertain the potential demand for the product. Besides, Entrepreneur has to probe the sources of supply of various inputs required for manufacturing the proposed product, their respective prices and other terms and conditions

(4) Choice of form of enterprise

Entrepreneur has to choose the appropriate form of organisation suited to implement the venture. There are various forms of organisation namely sole proprietor, partnership, company and co-operatives etc. which are in existence. The selection of appropriate form of organisation is made after considering the factors like nature of product to be produced, size of investment, nature of activities, size of organisation, nature of liability of owners, retention of control, degree of risk involved, scale of operations, stability and so on.

(5) Fulfilment of the formalities

Having chosen the appropriate type of organisation, entrepreneur has to take necessary steps to establish the form of organisation chosen. As regards sole trader, the formalities are barest minimum. In the case of partnership firm, entrepreneur has to arrange for partnership deed and he has to get the deed registered. There are lot of formalities to be fulfilled in the case of registration of company and co-operative form of organisation. Promoter has to take all necessary steps for establishing the form of organisation.

(6) Preparation of Business Plan

Entrepreneur has to prepare a business plan or project report of the venture that he is proposing to take up. This plan helps entrepreneur to achieve various objectives formulated within a specified period of time.

(7) Mobilisation of funds

Entrepreneur has to take steps to mobilise capital needed to implement the venture. Entrepreneur has to estimate the fixed capital and working capital required for running the project. Then the entrepreneur has to initiate steps to build funds from various channels like own funds, borrowing from close circles, banks, financial institutions, venture capitalists, issue of shares and debentures, term loans and so on to finance his fixed capital requirement.

(8) Procurement of Machines and Materials

Entrepreneur has to locate the various sources of supply of machineries and equipments and materials. Entrepreneur has to collect details from the various sources of supply and screen them for selecting the best source of supply.

II. Managerial Functions

(i) Planning

Under planning, entrepreneur has to lay down the objectives, goals, vision, mission, policies, procedures, programmes, budget, schedules etc., for enabling the venture to proceed towards established destinations.

(ii) Organising

Entrepreneur puts in place suitable organisational structure to perform various managerial functions namely choosing the type of organisation, creating department, fitting the human resources to appropriate organisation slots, defining and delegating authority, distributing responsibility and creating accountability for efficient performance of activities.

(iii) Directing

In the realm of directing, entrepreneur has to motivate, lead, guide and communicate with subordinates on an ongoing basis in order to accomplish pre-set goals. The process of directing involves issuing orders and instructions, guiding, counselling and mentoring of employees, supervising employees, maintaining discipline, motivating employees and providing leadership.

(iv) Controlling

Entrepreneur has to put in mechanism to evaluate the performance of employees across the organisation. The various steps involved in control function includes fixing performance standards, measuring the actual performance, comparing actual performance with standards, finding out causes for deviation if any, undertaking corrective measures to bring actual performance to standards set. He/she may use various control techniques like account, auditing, management information system, network analysis, cost control, financial tools etc.,

(v) Coordination

Entrepreneur has to evolve mechanism to pull together the diverse functions performed by various departments or teams and direct them towards the established goals of the organisation for accomplishment.

III. Commercial Functions

(i) Production or Manufacturing

Under production function, entrepreneur has to take decision relating to selection of factory site, design and layout, type of products to be manufactured, research and development, product design etc., The efficient and effective performance of production function depends on the proper production planning and control to a major extent.

(ii) Marketing

Entrepreneur has to carry out following functions pertaining to marketing aspect namely consumer research, product planning and development, standardisation, packaging, pricing, warehousing, distribution, promotion etc., The very success of marketing function is very much linked with selection of appropriate marketing mix. The term marketing mix denotes the combination of four components namely product, price, promotion and physical distribution in the case of physical products and three more components are included in the case of service products namely people, process and physical evidence.

(iii) Accounting

Entrepreneur has to arrange to prepare trading and profit and loss account in order to know the profit or loss incurred out of operation of the business and prepare balance sheet to know the financial status of business at a particular day. Besides, cash flow and fund flow statements are prepared to ensure the adequacy of funds and cash for meeting various working capital needs of the business.

(iv) Finance

In the sphere of financial function, an entrepreneur has to take decisions like choosing the right type of financing, framing the best dividend policy, acquiring of funds, efficiently managing fixed and current assets, maximising shareholders wealth and investing of funds efficiently and effectively.

(v) Human Resource Management

Entrepreneur has to estimate the manpower needs of the enterprise and accordingly decide the size of manpower required for various slots of organisational structure. After determining the required man power the entrepreneur has to organise the performance of following functions pertaining to human resources namely arranging for recruitment, selecting manpower, induction and training, determining compensation structure and incentives, designing motivation programmes, structuring well being measures for employees, putting in place safety mechanism at work place, performance evaluation and career advancement and structuring social security programmes.

For Own Thinking

After the completion of the academic career, which engagement would you like to opt for after considering the following factors:

Case Study 1

GoliVadaPav 1 (Indian Street-food Vendor

Challenge: Handmade patties are not uniform inquality and have a short span of shell life. Decreasein the profit margin due to acute increase in theprice of ingredients. Bankwhich rendered loans to Mr. Venkatesh insisted tothe losses which arose dueto these problems or repay the bank loans

Inception: VenkateshIyer co-founded GoliVAdaPav with Shiv Menonto 2004 in Kalyan, near Mumbai for selling affordable, clean,ethnic fast good to lower income customers in India.

Product - Vadapav:

A typical Mumbai street-fooddish of a spicy vegetable patty in a bun. The goal was to sellhygienically prepared food withan authentic touch.

Strategy:

Outsourcing th supply chainand operations from VistaProcessing foods, a US company to supply frozen vegetables andpattiesto GoliVAdaPav whichensures consistency in qualityand short shell life. Installation ofautomated fryer machines in their outlets improved their business.

Decision to penetrate the second-tier cities in western and southerncities for their marketing.

Success Story:

i. GoliVadaPav has 300 stores in 100 cities across 20 states of India.

ii. Goli fast food chain products are prepared in fully automated ‘HACCP’ certified hands free plant frozen at -18 degree Celsius.

iii. GoliVadaPav was set up in over 40 cities with 150 outlets with a success rate of sale of 75,000-100,000 vadapavs per day.

Key words

Entrepreneurship, Investigation, Innovator, Mobilisation, Leadership, GDP, Intrapreneur, Manager