Reflection Report on Entrepreneurial Growth-Samples for Students

Question: Write a reflection report on Entrepreneurial Growth. Answer: Entrepreneurial Growth Entrepreneurship is the process of creating something innovative with the value of devoting time and effort, detecting the financial, social and the psychic risk and receiving the resultant awards (Wright Stigliani, 2013). It can be challenging for a person to start up a new thing and manage its growth. It is the entrepreneur in us that sees opportunities in every where we look. Although growth is a risk but certainly is an essential procedure for the survival of the startups. Growth can be assessed in the context of liquidities, profits, employees, customers, profits and geographical locations (Wright Stigliani, 2013). Regardless of the type of growth there are hurdles. I have understood that there are several growth risks. Periods of growth are like turbulent in any companies as they are unstable. It is both the will and the ability to overcome the barriers enabling a firm to grow. Reflecting upon the business growth, there are 4 types of business growth, the organic business gro wth, the strategic business growth, the merger acquisition and the internal business growth. The organic growth model is generally used by most of the companies and is generally assumed to be less costly. Planning of a unique business model is extremely important for the growth of a startup company. If we take the example of the Boston Beer Company of US, this company has employed the organic growth strategy over the past few years by focusing on the development of the specialty beer. In the emerging countries the organic model of growth can act as a robust growth platform (Demir et al., 2017). Wiklund, (1998) has compared the growth of a company with that of an organism. Reflecting on this comparison, I can say that there are certain parameters that actually facilitate that growth of an organism. Factors such as oxygen, water, suitable temperature and other environmental factors are needed for the growth of living organisms. In the same way certain resources are required for the growth of an organization (Demir et al., 2017). It has to be remembered that growth comes on creation, cultivation and curation (Achtenhagen et al., 2017). On the contrary, the growth of an organism can be measured by the height or size of a plant or the organism, its ability to bear fruits and more. Similarly the growth of a company can be measure by its turnover, the number of employees, the amount of the capital employed and the market share (Wiklund, 1998). For example BP, which is a UK, based Oil Company having a turnover of about $3601 billion. Again for example Ford, the giant car from US ha s employed over 280,000 people in 2008. Similarly a business having about 43% market share can be considered as a successfully growing company (Achtenhagen et al., 2017). Several models are there to capture the richness of the organizational effectiveness. The goal model: It relies on the vision of an organization as set of arrangements for the achievement of the goal. The strategic constituencies model says that the owners, customers and the government represent the interest groups that should be satisfied for ensuring the effectiveness and the survival of the organization (Achtenhagen et al., 2017). Geoffrey West who is a physicist has discovered that just like organisms companies learn evolves and eventually dies. Just if we have to be alive we need to take care of our health the same goes for an organization. Another alternative and faster form of growth than organic expansion is through integration with another firm by the help of merger and acquisition. As an entrepreneur our survey activity should include the spotting of the new investment opportunities and alternative means to finance the firm (Kuivalainen et al., 2012). In order to grow the business like a plant it is better to plant the business in the right spot than to plant the siblings in the regrettable locations. There are four phases of growth in a business. The incubation phase: This period of business is the capacity building phase, which depends upon the macro environment, strength and the idea of the organization and the compatibility with the target buyers (Demir et al., 2017). This phase is similar to the st age where the plant remains in the dormant stage inside the seed and waits for the favorable conditions of germination. The growth phase is when the organization expands its sales channels. A company is often hit by the complexity and bureaucracy or by the increasing competition (Kreutzer, 2012). Now the challenge lies in the fact, how fast a company can be moved from a stationary phase to an exponential phase. After the initiative has visited the growth phase it is important to maximize our investments for driving the awareness and the availability (Delmar et al., 2003). An a+2 mindset at this phase can be useful in outperforming the company's potential. Awareness can be driven by both communication and through the contents to be 'WOM worthy'. Social networking can be the key elements at this level (Kreutzer, 2012). As per the theories of evolution, that organisms having favorable traits can survive in nature and others do not having the favorable traits perish. This trait is carried over from generation to generation. The same theory also applies for the growth of an organization. A new company starts by mastering the operational know- how technology (Tam Gray, 2016). At this stage the core skill that is needed is to master the handling of the equipments. At the later stage more complicated skills needs to be 'adapted' followed by the modification of the products, learning of the product design, new process and development of product. The movement shifts from know-how to know-why. According to the Evolutionary theory of the neo-classical perspective, technology always changes with time (Tam Gray, 2016). Changes include new varieties and "species" and there is a continuous modification (Young et al., 2014). Furthermore technological changes mainly establish on the previous knowledge. Hence thu s theory can be easily related to the 'theories of evolution of organisms'. Reflecting on the continuous economic growth, the last couple of hundred years have seen an incredible rise in the standards of living. This increasing standard of living has paved the way of increasing economic growth (Delmar et al., 2003). Earth is a finite planet hence it is theoretically possible to have a limitless economic growth. But as long as things come into the use of earth's natural resources, we cannot continue to consume more water or burn more fuel or spew out excess carbon dioxide. We are definitely at a point where economic growth has started to reduce the well being of the people. References Achtenhagen, L., Brunninge, O., Melin, L. (2017). Patterns of dynamic growth in medium-sized companies: Beyond the dichotomy of organic versus acquired growth.Long Range Planning,50(4), 457-471. Delmar, F., Davidsson, P., Gartner, W. B. (2003). Arriving at the high-growth firm.Journal of business venturing,18(2), 189-216. Demir, R., Wennberg, K., McKelvie, A. (2017). The strategic management of high-growth firms: a review and theoretical conceptualization.Long Range Planning,50(4), 431-456. Kreutzer, M. (2012). Selecting the right growth mechanism: The choice between internal development, strategic alliances, and mergers acquisitions. InBalanced Growth(pp. 77-94). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. Kuivalainen, O., Saarenketo, S., Puumalainen, K. (2012). Start-up patterns of internationalization: A framework and its application in the context of knowledge-intensive SMEs.European Management Journal,30(4), 372-385. Tam, S., Gray, D. E. (2016). What can we learn from the organizational life cycle theory? A conceptualization for the practice of workplace learning.Journal of Management Research,8(2), 18-30. Wiklund, J. (1998).Small firm growth and performance: Entrepreneurship and beyond(Doctoral dissertation, Internationella Handelshgskolan). Wright, M., Stigliani, I. (2013). Entrepreneurship and growth.International Small Business Journal,31(1), 3-22. Young, M. N., Tsai, T., Wang, X., Liu, S., Ahlstrom, D. (2014). Strategy in emerging economies and the theory of the firm.Asia Pacific Journal of Management,31(2), 331-354.