The Entrepreneurial Journey Part 4 – Do You Have the Right Brand?

Aug 25, 2021 | Gazette, The Latest

The Entrepreneurial Journey Part 4 – Do You Have the Right Brand?

Wednesday, August 25, 2021, by Dr. Frederick Crane

I have argued for more than 20 years that building and sustaining a powerful entrepreneurial brand is critical if a venture is to survive, grow, and endure in a complex and competitive marketplace. Moreover, a new venture has a relatively short time frame in which to establish its brand. If it misses this critical window of opportunity, it is very likely to fail. Entrepreneurs must focus on creating brands that clearly communicate the value desired by the customer as well as reinforce the intended position the entrepreneurial firm wishes to occupy in the market. Importantly, the brand must be consistent and sustained over time.

One of the most basic definitions of a brand is that it is something of “value” for both the customer and the company. At a practical level, a brand embodies your offer of value—your promise—to the customer. Ultimately, a brand is a blend of what you say it is, what others say it is, and how well you deliver on your promise—from the customer’s perspective. Finally, a brand is a powerful asset that must be carefully developed and managed.

For you and your venture, the brand you select is important because it can set you apart and truly differentiate your venture (and its products/services) from your competitors. But branding brings other benefits to your venture. First, branding can be an integrative tool for the entire venture. For example, the branding process, even the simple naming of your business, forces you to consider very carefully the core “value” you will create and deliver to your key customers. In addition, branding also helps you sharpen your business model (how you will make money and from whom you will make it). Second, branding increases the chances of acquiring your initial set of customers in the early stages of your venture. And, of course, branding will help solidify customer loyalty to your venture in the later stages. Third, branding can increase your access to suppliers and improve your chances of channel support. Fourth, branding can increase access to new venture capital.

While a brand is extremely important to you and your venture, it might be argued that customers, in fact, may benefit most from branding. Recognizing competing products by distinctive branding allows customers to be more efficient shoppers. Consumers can recognize and avoid products with which they are dissatisfied while becoming loyal to other, more satisfying brands. Strong brands reduce customers’ perceived risk when purchasing and can increase their trust with the brand. Finally, strong brands also help the customer visualize and better understand the product or service.

A good brand will possess a number of important characteristics. Keep these characteristics in mind as you begin the branding process. For example, a good brand has the following qualities:

Effectively communicates the distinctive value you wish to offer the customer
Is “relevant” to the customer
Reinforces the company’s intended positioning in the marketplace
Is consistent and unifying
Is easily understood by your customers and your employees
Can be sustained over time

You should consider these characteristics as you begin to ponder your possible brand(s) for your venture. It is clear that brands lacking the above characteristics are likely to be weaker brands that may not survive in a crowded and competitive marketing environment. My advice: test your brand with your potential customers – find out what they think and how they feel about your brand concept.

Author

Frederick Crane serves as a Senior Project Manager for the International Council for Small Business (ICSB).

Dr. Crane is an Executive Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the College of Business at Northeastern University; Former Editor of the Journal of the Academy of Business Education; and co-founder of Ceilidh Insights LLC – an innovation management training, intellectual property consulting
and consumer insight company. He was formerly a professor of marketing and entrepreneurship at the University of New Hampshire and a Chair and Full professor at Dalhousie University.

At Northeastern, he developed the graduate new venture creation course; the undergraduate innovation course – which is now taught campus-wide; and developed the online MBA course on innovation and enterprise growth. He also serves as the Faculty Advisor for the Private Equity and Venture Capital Club. Every semester at least one of his teams from his new venture creation course goes on to commercialize a business.

Citation of Article:

Crane, F. (2021, August 25). The Entrepreneurial Journey Part 4 – Do You Have the Right Brand? The International Council for Small Business, Small Business Gazette. https://icsb.org/the-entrepreneurial-journey-part-4-do-you-have-the-right-brand/

Humane, Sustainable, and Harmonious Entrepreneurship: Shifting to a More Holistic Perspective of Entrepreneurship

Aug 21, 2021 | The Latest

Humane, Sustainable, and Harmonious Entrepreneurship: Shifting to a More Holistic Perspective of Entrepreneurship

Saturday, August 21, 2021, by Dr. Ayman El Tarabishy

Entrepreneurship can be sorted into various sectors of disciplines, each impacting our lives and the world around us in different ways. Alone, each of these practices possesses the power to make long-term, positive change, both in the corporate world and in our communities. However, we must challenge ourselves to push humane entrepreneurship one step further. By integrating these practices and their ideologies, we gain the ability to improve our society in entirely new ways. Intersectionality is vital to humane entrepreneurship, as we cannot practice human-centered entrepreneurship without also taking action to protect our environment and human rights. While we work to combat global issues such as COVID-19, climate change, and inequity, entrepreneurs exist at the forefront of ensuring the health and wellbeing of our communities. By understanding the interconnectedness of these issues, we can adopt a more holistic view of entrepreneurship and actively improve the world with newfound strength in unity.

One of the main objectives of humane entrepreneurship is to produce engaged employees through High-Performance Work Systems (HPWS), which empowers and enables employees to embrace creativity and take innovative risks. Building upon this framework, Dr. Jeff Hornsby, Director of the Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship Innovation, argues that integrating HPWS with Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) can “generate human and social capital and produce an innovative workplace culture based on such elements as enablement, empowerment, equity, and empathy.” In addition, Human Resource Management (HRM) greatly impacts the human and social capital within a firm, which is the primary source of innovation in a humane company; therefore, HPWS, EO, and HRM combined ultimately build the foundation for a successful humane enterprise. The result is engaged employees working towards a better society for a company they believe in.

As the fundamental goal for humane entrepreneurship is prosperity for our companies and communities on a human level, we must also consider the state of the environment in which we are building these enterprises. Particularly in our post-pandemic society, we are now being afforded the unique opportunity to reconsider what kind of cities, jobs, and entrepreneurship we genuinely need. Sustainable entrepreneurship uses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 12 as a concrete guideline for tackling interconnected carbon emission footprints, gender equality, and quality education. To uphold these intentions, Professor Analia Pastran, founder and CEO of Smartly Social Entrepreneurship on the SDGs, asserts that we must boost sustainable options, create effective green agendas for the younger generations, and support legislation to provide entrepreneurs the legal framework to implement SDGs. Analyzing SDG 12 in this way, it becomes clear that humane and sustainable entrepreneurship are inherently connected and must work together to create a healthier society.

Considering entrepreneurship and the environment, we need to consider the effects of corporations and MSMEs alike on our planet and communities. Although entrepreneurship can be a strong tool for creating jobs, wealth, and innovation, it can also contribute to environmental pollution and unsafe work environments. The reason for this lies in leaders valuing profit over people and the planet, which points to the importance of educating entrepreneurs on the triple-bottom line. According to Professor David Kirby, co-founder of Harmonious Entrepreneurship Society (HES), “We were put on this planet to look after it. Therefore, we must take care of the human environment, as well as the physical environment.” From this standpoint of compassion, an evident means of protecting both people and the planet is converging economic, sustainable, humane, and social entrepreneurship underneath the umbrella of harmonious entrepreneurship, which is based on the understanding of the planet as one extensive system with many interconnected subsystems.

This intersectionality in entrepreneurship serves as the key for unlocking solutions to the universal issues facing us. By adopting a more holistic view of entrepreneurship, we conclude that no human issue stands alone. In solving problems like climate change and inequity, and advocating for human rights, integrating different entrepreneurial sectors allows us to stand together, stronger and more capable than ever before.

Watch the session below for more on humane entrepreneurship, SDGs, and the benefits of integrating different entrepreneurial approaches.

Alternative Investments and Pink Diamonds

Aug 17, 2021 | Gazette, The Latest

Alternative Investments and Pink Diamonds

Tuesday, August 17, 2021, by Dr. Mariya Yesseleva-Pionka, PhD

There has always been a great allure to owning diamonds among investors worldwide. Investments in precious stones and gems fall under the category of alternative investments and collectables with a high-risk factor. Argyle mine has been well-known for supplying natural-coloured diamonds, including white, champagne, cognac, blue, violet, and extremely rare and highly-priced Argyle pink and red diamonds.

The Argyle Diamond Mine was established in 1983 in the East Kimberley region in Western Australia. Argyle mine quickly took leading positions and was classified as the largest diamond producer based on the volume in the world. Last year, in November 2020, the Argyle mine announced its closure after 37 years of production and delivering a staggering 865 million carats of rough diamonds. This announcement has made a significant impact on the world diamond market due to the fact that Argyle mine was supplying up to 90% of all pink diamonds. Due to the drastic reduction in supply, the anticipated increase in prices is expected to affect the world diamond market. The 2021 Argyle Pink Diamonds Tender is set to present to the world a final collection of extraordinary diamonds, and all the closing bids must be submitted by the 1^st of September 2021.

There are many layers of certifications that have to be done to assess the precious stones. The price of each stone depends on many factors such as cut, clarity, shape and colour. Typically, darker shades of pink, which are close to purple, are very rare and, as such, have a much higher value. Once you have decided to purchase precious stones from an auction house or dealer, you have the right to insist on independent assessment. Generally, it is common that two different evaluations of stones will provide different prices. Precious stones and gems trading is typically conducted in illiquid markets with quite high sales commissions. There is a drastic difference in the retail and wholesale gemstones prices and quality. It is essential to follow the strategy of buying at a low wholesale price and selling at a higher retail price.

Trading in precious stones presents many challenges due to the lack of stringent taxonomy in the quality standards. For any new investor, it is difficult to distinguish between different types of diamonds and, as a result, they try to seek an expert opinion of value based on the quality of the stone. There are many cases when inexperienced investors become involved in a scam and end up losing their money. Thus, it is vital for any investor to understand, research, and educate yourself about the potential risks associated with precious stones investing choices. For investment portfolio diversification, it is essential to keep in mind not to overexpose their investment position to high-risk investments and keep it to a lower level. Always have proper insurance in place for precious stones and keep in mind that the long-term strategy of owning your investment position might not work to your advantage, should the supply of rare stones, such as pink diamonds, increase due to the findings of new pink diamonds deposits.

Author

Dr Mariya Yesseleva-Pionka is Global Certificates Manager at ICSB, a Higher Degree by Research Supervisor at Excelsia College and Adjunct Academic at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Dr Yesseleva-Pionka held teaching and senior academic management positions in Central Asia (Kazakhstan) and Australia. She specialised in general investments, personal and corporate superannuation investments while working for Westpac Banking Corporation and BT Financial Group in Australia. She was invited to join The Housing Connection, a not-for-profit organisation in Sydney, Australia as Treasurer and Board Member from November 2019. Her research interests include entrepreneurial finance, traditional and alternative ways to finance small and medium enterprises (SMEs), corporate finance, policies for the small business sector, innovation and SMEs, FinTechs and Blockchain. Dr Yesseleva-Pionka is the Associate Editor for the Journal of the International Council for Small Business (JICSB).

Humane Entrepreneurship and MSMEs in a Dynamic World

Aug 1, 2021 | News | 1, The Latest

Humane Entrepreneurship and MSMEs in a Dynamic World

Sunday, August 1, 2021, by Dr. Ayman El Tarabishy

In championing people first, humane entrepreneurship inhabits a unique role in the business world as inherently human-centered. In light of the pandemic, the necessity of humane entrepreneurial practices has become more apparent than ever before. As we contended with COVID-19 head-on, many MSMEs saw governments responding swiftly in support. However, while we seek prosperity in our post-pandemic society, we must ask ourselves three essential questions: Will this government support continue? How can MSMEs recover in the aftermath of COVID-19? Finally, how can we actively support MSMEs, not only from a business standpoint but on a human level? With values of empathy, equity, and environmental protection, humane entrepreneurship provides the answers.

The journey towards humane entrepreneurship was initiated five years ago by Drs. Ayman El Tarabishy, President & CEO, ICSB, and Ki-Chan Kim, Professor of Management at The Catholic University of Korea and former ICSB president. On the opening day of ICSB’s second annual Human Entrepreneurship Conference, Professor Kim presented research that examined how humane companies retain happier employees, customers, and environmentally healthy communities than traditional business models. These “Firms of Endearment” outperformed the overall market by a nine-to-one ratio over ten years in terms of profitability and performance. This is because companies that invest in human capital as the chief source of innovation create High-Performance Work Systems (HPWS). As a result, employees experience elevated levels of engagement and creative empowerment.

Humane entrepreneurship has a simple recipe, wherein each element activates the next: 1) empathy, 2) empowerment, 3) enablement, 4) proactiveness for an opportunity, 5) risk-taking, 6) innovativeness, and 7) performance. Professor Kim argues that the first element of a successful company is a CEO with a clear mission. When a CEO works not only for profit but also for a philosophical goal, they attract like-minded employees who feel inspired to strive for positive change. As stated by author and motivational speaker Simon Sinek, “Humane entrepreneurship is to hire people who believe what you believe.” This shared philosophy in improving society serves as the backbone of any successful enterprise.

Building upon this mission, the CEO must also be empathetic, positive, and considerate. When a CEO opens discussions, encourages involvement, and supports employees in their responsibilities, they create a culture where employees arrive at work engaged both physically and mentally, motivated to accomplish their communal goal. Essentially, integrating these pillars of humane entrepreneurship creates a HPWS that produces engaged employees who are enabled to take innovative, creative risks and achieve higher excellence. Creativity is the key to a successful company and is achieved with the humane entrepreneur’s superpower: empowerment.

Ultimately, we arrive at three factors for a successful company: 1) a visionary CEO, 2) empathy and 3) empowerment and enablement. When entrepreneurs manage their employees’ experience in light of their mission, they directly affect their sales and performance to achieve the best possible outcome for their company, employees, and community. In his presentation, Professor Kim posed this question: “What is an enterprise?” Citing Colin Mayer, the former dean of Said Business School at Oxford University, we understand that “the purpose of a business is not to produce profits” and that an enterprise is “the most productive place to solve problems on the planet.” In essence, a humane company is a place that challenges the corporate status quo, and a humane entrepreneur is a person who takes action to make their vision for a better world a reality.

To learn more about the humane entrepreneurship model, watch the session below.

Author

Dr. Ayman El Tarabishy is the deputy chair and a teaching professor in the Department of Management at the George Washing University School of Business. His expertise involves entrepreneurship and the creative, innovative, and humane-focused practices existing within the field. Dr. El Tarabishy now sits as the President & CEO of the International Council for Small Business (ICSB), the oldest and largest non-profit organization across the globe devoted to advancing small business research and practices. The Council stands as a coalition of over a dozen national organizations, being represented in over eighty countries.

Dr. El Tarabishy is an award-winning author and teacher. In 2019, the George Washington University New Venture Competition awarded Dr. El Tarabishy the kind honor of being named the ‘Most Influential Faculty.’ Having developed the first Social Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Creativity courses offered to MBA and undergraduate students, El Tarabishy is constantly striving to find the perfect balance between tradition and modernization in his teaching pedagogy. Currently, Dr. El Tarabishy is the sole faculty member in the GW School of Business to teach in two nationally-ranked programs.

The Entrepreneurial Journey Part 2 – Do You Have the Right Opportunity?

Jun 29, 2021 | Gazette, News | 2, The Latest

The Entrepreneurial Journey Part 2 – Do You Have the Right Opportunity?

Tuesday, June 29, 2021, by Dr. Frederick Crane

The entrepreneurial highway is riddled with the fractured bones and broken dreams of aspiring entrepreneurs who failed to mine the right opportunity. Why? Because some opportunities are simply better than others. Ultimately, you need the right opportunity and exploit it effectively or you will not achieve entrepreneurial success.

There are actually three views regarding entrepreneurial opportunities. That is, opportunities can be recognized, discovered, or created. With opportunity recognition, the entrepreneur recognizes (deduces) that supply and demand are known to exist. The entrepreneur simply matches up supply and demand through an existing firm or a new firm (e.g., a franchise). When the COVID-19 pandemic hit us, you didn’t have to be a genius to recognize that there was going to be demand for facemasks given government mandates to protect the population! So many entrepreneurs jumped on that opportunity to supply masks.

With opportunity discovery, the entrepreneur inductively determines that either supply or demand exists (not both), and the other side has to be discovered. For example, there is demand for cures for certain illnesses but no supply, and there was a supply of personal computers (when first invented), but demand had to be discovered. Again, with the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmaceutical firms rushed to be the first to supply vaccines given that there was and is plenty of pent-up demand for such. Finally, with opportunity creation, the process used by the entrepreneur is abductive (inference), and neither supply nor demand exists in any obvious manner, and one or both may have to be created (e.g., new social media platforms). This is the concept of market creation – real newness.

I suggest that the right opportunity should possess the following characteristics:

It creates significant value for customers by solving a significant problem or filling a significant unmet need for which the customer is willing to pay a premium price.
It offers significant profit potential to the entrepreneur and his or her investors—enough to meet their risk/reward expectations.
It represents a good fit with the capabilities of the entrepreneur and the management team—that is, you have the experience and skills to pursue it.
It offers sustainability over time.
It can obtain financing.

Also, the right opportunity will have validation from the intended customer. In short, the true litmus test for the right opportunity is whether or not the customer thinks it is a good idea, finds it valuable and distinctive, and would be willing and able to pay for it. Therefore, voice of customer (VOC) plays a major role in determining whether or not you are mining the right opportunity. You might think you have the right opportunity, but it is confirmation from the customer that is most important. So, you cannot sit in your room crafting a business plan. You have to get out there, in the marketplace, immerse yourself with the intended customers – and listen! Then, you will know if it is the right opportunity. And, if is it then the hard stuff begins; constructing the right business model; crafting the right brand, and executing the right go-to-market strategy. These are opics we will cover in the next parts of the entrepreneurial journey.

Author

Frederick Crane serves as a Senior Project Manager for the International Council for Small Business (ICSB).

Dr. Crane is an Executive Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the College of Business at Northeastern University; Former Editor of the Journal of the Academy of Business Education; and co-founder of Ceilidh Insights LLC – an innovation management training, intellectual property consulting
and consumer insight company. He was formerly a professor of marketing and entrepreneurship at the University of New Hampshire and a Chair and Full professor at Dalhousie University.

At Northeastern, he developed the graduate new venture creation course; the undergraduate innovation course – which is now taught campus-wide; and developed the online MBA course on innovation and enterprise growth. He also serves as the Faculty Advisor for the Private Equity and Venture Capital Club. Every semester at least one of his teams from his new venture creation course goes on to commercialize a business.

Crane, F. (2021, June 29). The Entrepreneurial Journey Part 2 –Do You Have the Right Opportunity?. The International Council for Small Business, Small Business Gazette. https://icsb.org/the-entrepreneurial-mindset/

AACSB and Entrepreneurship: How An Accreditation Association is Paving a New Path Forward

Apr 30, 2021 | The Latest

AACSB and Entrepreneurship: How An Accreditation Association is Paving a New Path Forward

By: Ayman El Tarabishy, President & CEO, ICSB

Leonardo da Vinci once famously wrote, “To develop a complete mind: Study the science of art; study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” The polymath innovator was able to see in the 16th century what many in the 21st are just now learning: nothing in this world exists in a vacuum. We are all a part of a larger community with a duty to lean on each other in times of need. Where one of us fails, we all fail. Where one of us succeeds, we all succeed. If we want to drive forward progress, we have to all work together towards a common goal.

It is precisely this concept of a common goal and the interconnectedness of everything that led the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) to rethink, reinvent, and redesign their Business Accreditation Standards in 2020. Inspired by the motto to be a force for good in society, the team at AACSB––led by president and CEO Caryn Beck-Dudley––pulled inspiration from the world around them through this process. Amidst the coronavirus pandemic that turned the world as we knew it into something blurred and distorted, there was ample opportunity to construct new standards that would create a more precise, stronger future filled with a new generation of leaders encouraged to be the change they wish to see in the world.

At the 7th Annual California Entrepreneur Educators Conference (CEEC), Beck-Dudley opened the conference on da Vinci’s birthday with a keynote address that laid out exactly how the new standards were devised, signifying a change in how business schools would move into the future. Thinking about everything on a global scale, AACSB has accepted the responsibility of preparing the next generation of leaders to help societies grow around the globe. Whereas the old standards emphasized “hard” skills, including learning theory behind business practices, analyzing case studies, and researching data, the new standards are principles-based and outcomes-focused. In other words, they have been led by the concept of being proactive rather than reactive, finding upstream solutions to address a problem at its source, and pivoting to where a situation warrants through agility.

Keeping in the spirit of lifelong learning, AACSB redesigned the guidelines to let each business school shine in the light of their mission, visions, and values. Beck-Dudley emphasized that they needed to change the perception that the former standards were highly prescriptive. The team tackled this challenge by creating guidelines that empower entrepreneurship educators to have maximum impact on the greater good of society through creative means unique to their available resources. While deviations from the AACSB standards were discouraged in the past, that is not the case anymore. Today, ingenuity and agility are highly encouraged. Essentially, by leading with new guidelines, as opposed to strict standards, the schools have more room for creativity, innovation, and a pioneering spirit in hopes that new generations of entrepreneurs can feel supported as they learn through experience and not through theory alone. With these new standards, business schools will have more creative freedom within their programs, act with integrity based on guidelines rather than strict rules, and see the potential in and encourage entrepreneurial thinking that could change the world.

In addition to sharing the updated guidelines in her keynote, Beck-Dudley emphasized two significant behavioral changes needed for how the universities and their faculty operate. First, tying into the concept of everything in the world is inextricably linked. Business schools need to partner with other departments to solve the issues that lie before them. Suppose everyone stays solely in their respective lanes and forgets to communicate with one another. In that case, we will miss out on the essential collaboration and idea-generating results from considering a wide array of perspectives. Not only is it imperative that we share resources and ideas, but we also need to share our failures so that we can all learn from our mistakes, Beck-Dudley noted.

Furthermore, Beck-Dudley highlighted the importance of the older generations being open to change, as well. She discussed how the younger scholars in entrepreneurship are open to innovation and creative solutions. Still, it can sometimes be difficult for more established professors and researchers to do the same. In her own life, Beck-Dudley had to confront how she was resistant to change, as well. Hence, she empathizes with the reticence even while serving as proof that you can be an expert in your field and not only be open to new ways of thinking but eventually pave the way forward for future generations.

In many ways, the new AACSB Business Accreditation Standards embody the spirit of all that Humane Entrepreneurship represents. By seeing the new generation of business students and future entrepreneurs as whole human beings, by leading with empathy and other “soft” skills, we can change the way the world operates by focusing on the community as a whole. To complement this, Beck-Dudley shared feedback from test schools that first received the new standards. By being caring and genuine, with the best intentions in mind, the schools felt supported and optimistic about their futures, not to mention energized to find solutions to the challenges they faced.

By seeing the value in the entire business program, made up of unique and multifaceted beings with enormous potential, AACSB has demonstrated how important it is to give entrepreneurs the skills they need to flourish and not act as yet another limitation greatness that is human innovation. Meanwhile, the pandemic has proven that everything is connected, more than we ever thought possible before. We need to honor that and move into the future together, developing our business schools and our newest entrepreneurs and leaders accordingly.

After all, Beck-Dudley posed the question in her keynote address, “If we’re not making a positive impact, what are we doing with our time?”