 Dr.
J Vasanthakumari is an executive director of a public limited company. Her
various duties include motivating the employees, conducting orientation and
awareness programmes and imparting self-development training amongst various
other things.
She
has further responsibilities as a Managing Trustee of an NGO. She is a member
of various entrepreneurial organisations and plays an active part in helping
women set up their own business units.
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Business
Opportunities Identification Skill
After the generation of various business ideas, the next step
would be to screen them for identifying the business opportunities. An
entrepreneur should have the ability to spot a business opportunity among the
various business ideas. He/She should have the capacity to see what others do
not. Before we proceed further, let us understand the difference between a
business idea and a business opportunity.
Difference
between business idea and business opportunity
All business ideas generated may not be business opportunities. Finding a good
idea is nothing more than a tool in the hands of an entrepreneur. It is the
first step in the task of converting an entrepreneur's creativity into an
opportunity.
Good ideas are not necessarily good opportunities. If an idea is not an
opportunity, then what is an opportunity? An opportunity has the qualities of
being attractive, durable, timely and is anchored in a product or service,
which creates or adds value for its buyer or end user. Opportunities are
created or built, using ideas and entrepreneurial creativity. They are
situational.
Various Sources of Opportunity Identification in a Business
At this stage the enterprise must select one idea or two from a larger set of
proposals. In these situations, usually, the decision is not taken in order to
reject or eliminate alternatives, but to establish priorities instead. The
enterprise may have several good business opportunities, but they must give
priority to only one or two because of the limited amount of resources.
Any enterprise has limited resources to develop in detail emerging ideas.
Therefore they need to evaluate and select which ideas is going to be based on,
focusing and addressing resources such as capital, people, and time for a
deeper analysis.
It is obvious that the way enterprises use capital for investments determinate
its future. It is therefore very important to be sure they have decided to
invest consciously.
The objective of this tool is thus to allow the enterprise (through the team
involved in the process) to obtain a consensus about which idea (or ideas) must
be given priority.
There are 3 other sources through which we can identify a business opportunity;
they are through (1) Innovation (2) Trade fairs and exhibitions (3) Positioning
1.
Innovation
Innovation can be monitored by the various sources given below.
Internal
Sources Of Innovative Opportunities
No other
area offers rich opportunities for successful innovation than an unexpected
success. Yet, unexpected successes are almost totally neglected. Unexpected
success forces us to ask "What basic changes are now appropriate for this
organization in the way it defines in business? Its technology? Its market?" If
these questions are forced, then an unexpected success is likely to open up
most rewarding and least risky of all innovative opportunities.
Failures, unlike success, cannot be rejected and rarely go unnoticed, but they
are seldom seen as symptoms of opportunities. Faced with unexpected failure,
executives, especially in large organizations tend to call for more study and
more analysis. Failures should always be considered as symptoms of an
innovative opportunity and taken seriously as such. A competitor's unexpected
success or failure is equally important. In either case, one takes the event
seriously as a possible symptom of innovative opportunity. One does not just
'analyze'. One goes out to investigate. It is precisely because the unexpected
jolts us out of our preconceived notions, our assumptions and our certainties.
Hence, unexpected success or failure should be regarded as a fertile source of
innovation.
External
Sources Of Innovative Opportunities
§ Change
in Perception
Changes in perception create substantial innovative opportunities. When a
change in perception takes place, the facts do not change, their meaning does.
A critical problem in perception-based innovation is timing. In fact, timing is
the essence of exploiting changes in perception.
§
Demography
Demography refers to the study of population. Of all the external changes,
changes noticed in population - in its size, structure, composition,
employment, educational status and income are the clearest. They are
unambiguous. They have the most predictable consequences. A population study
will bring out many facts such as what will be bought, by whom, and in what
quantities etc. So, a changing demography offers a highly productive and
dependable innovative opportunity.
§ New
Knowledge
The basic characteristics of knowledge-based innovation are that they have the
longest lead-time of all innovations. They are based on the convergence of
different kind of knowledge. Knowledge-based innovation requires careful
analysis of all the necessary factors, whether knowledge itself, or social,
economic or perceptual factors.
Trade
Fairs and Exhibitions
Trade fairs and exhibitions are used both, as a tool for generation of new
business ideas as well as for domestic and overseas marketing. Trade fairs and
exhibitions offer opportunities for meeting buyers from different countries at
one place, and exchanging views on business environment. They help to acquire
the latest processes, production technology and machines. Entrepreneurs may
pick up some new business ideas by visiting these fairs exhibitions, Over 2,000
trade fairs and exhibitions are held annually all over the world. There are
different types of trade fairs and exhibitions. Horizontal fairs and vertical
fairs. The former are multi-product fairs of a general nature. The objective of
these fairs is to publicize the economic achievements of a country and expand
exports. They attract both business firms and household buyers. International
vertical trade fairs are specialized fairs, devoted to a single industry,
product or a product group.
Positioning
Positioning is a tool which helps in identification of the business
opportunities. Positioning is the position of the product / brand in the minds
of the consumers. With the help of market research, it is possible to quantify
and see the perceptual map which shows the gaps in the market.
Conclusion:
A SWOT is conducted for the project/product identified. During this process the
Strength and Weaknesses of the entrepreneur (which are internal) are identified
and matched with the Opportunities and Threats (which are external) in the
market. The match between the internal and external environment is done. The
most suitable idea based on the SWOT analysis is finally selected to convert it
into an enterprise. |