INTRODUCTION
In this globalization era,
entrepreneurship is one of the popular fields that many people venture into.
Entrepreneurship refers to the capacity and willingness to build, develop,
organize and manage a business by facing its risk in order to make profit.
Besides making profit, entrepreneurship includes the services to the society
and those who are in need. Thus, entrepreneur is the one who is willing to bear
the risk of venturing a new business. Entrepreneurs are always said to be an
innovator who always create new ideas and make changing to the existing
products.
There are numerous successful
entrepreneurs in the world like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Richard
Branson, Mark Zuckerberg and others. Their successful experiences and technique
skills made the people around this world take them as an example to start a
business. It is not easy to be successful as them. Each of them possesses
different kinds of entrepreneur traits that lead them to the successful path
such as visionary, proactive, networked, open risk taker, observant, failure is
an option, open culture, outcome oriented and team oriented. By implementing
these traits, they are able to achieve successful not only in their business
but also towards the society.
In conclusion, every
entrepreneur has their own traits that are able to make them success even
though they might face many problems and failure along their journey before
reaching the top goal.
1. NETWORKED
MARK ZUCKERBERG
Definition
of a "network" being a system of interconnected components and "entrepreneurial
network" is an association of entrepreneurs organized, formally or
informally, with the object of increasing the effectiveness of the member’s business
activities. Networking is a relationship based activities related to the
business. It is an association of entrepreneurs with external parties outside
organization. External parties involved are customers, suppliers, accountants,
banks, government and professional bodies.(Larson, 1992; Baker 1994; Holmlund
& Tornroos 1997). Holmlund &
Tornroos (1997) defines a business relationship in the context of the business
network of entrepreneurs is an interdependent process where interaction and
continuous exchange takes place between two people and these interactions will
be creating a chain of linkages between entrepreneurs and the outside.
An entrepreneurial
network is a social organization for new business owners. These organizations, which may be loose
associations or structured groups, attempt to assist entrepreneurs by providing
education, allowing for the development of industry contacts, and even offering
moral support. An entrepreneurial network may be a local organization, an
occupation-specific group, or even an Internet-based networking society.
Mark
Elliot Zuckerberg is co-founder and owner of the social networking website Facebook
as well as a successful networked entrepreneur in the world. He was born on May
14 May 1984,in White Plain, New York into a comfortable, well-educated family,
and raised in the nearby village of Dobbs Ferry. His father, Edward Zuckerberg,
ran a dental practice attached to the family's home. His mother, Karen, worked
as a psychiatrist before the birth of the couple's four
children Mark, Randi,
Donna and Arielle. Mark was developed his interest in computer at an early age when he was about
12 years old. He used Atari Basics to create a messaging program was named
“Zuck net”. His parent hired private computer tutor to burgeoning his interest
in computer.
After
graduating from Exeter in 2002, Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University. By
his sophomore year at the ivy league institution, he had developed a reputation
as the go-to software developer on campus. It was at that time that he built a
program called Course Match, which helped students choose their classes based
on the course selections of other users. Zuckerberg and his friends created a
site that allowed users to create their own profiles, upload photos, and
communicate with other users. The group ran the site first called the Facebook out
of a dorm room at Harvard until June 2004. After his sophomore year, Zuckerberg
dropped out of college to devote himself to Facebook full time, moving the
company to Palo Alto, California. By the end of 2004, Facebook had 1 million
users.
In
conclusion, every entrepreneur should have networked nature of the self. A successful entrepreneur must apply the
characteristic of entrepreneurs including networked.
1. OPEN RISK TAKER
TONY FERNANDES
Risk taker can be defined as an
individual or business that tends to behave in a way that can potentially cause
physical harm or financial loss, but might also prevent an opportunity for a
rewarding outcome. Most business types that thrive on innovation will encourage
a risk taker mentality among management to help support the creative process in
other staff members.(Business Dictionary,2015)
The instance of entrepreneur for the trait of open
risk taker is Tony Fernandes. As we know, the Air Asia Bhd Group chief
executive officer is led by a giant in its
own right, namely Tan Sri Tony Fernandes. His wisdom in taking a chance
and boldly risk has been given the good return that he never expected. In
addition, the slogan carried by him which ‘Everyone can fly’ also has become
synonym in the Malaysians because the company Air Asia flight was making low
cost flights for people to go anywhere they want.(AirAsia, 2015).
Anthony Francis Fernandes, also known as Tony
Fernandes , was born seven years after Merdeka on April 30, 1964, to an Indian
father from Goa and Portugese-Eurasian mother, Ena Dorothy Fernandes of
Malacca, Malaysia. Instead, Fernandes, left Malaysia at the age of 12 to study
at Epsom College in Surrey, England, and then graduated from London School of
Economics. Actually he had other plans because of that he do not footstep his
father as a doctor. He started his career with Warner then moved to Richard
Branson's Virgin Communications and move back to Malaysia in 1992, to try in a
career in the music industry. But his appetite for taking risks had him move into the uncertain world of airline
industry and that too, right after the 9/11 terror attacks. In October 2001,
Fernandes mortgaged his home to buy an airline for one ringgit (Rs 17 at
current exchange rates). It meant he bought two ageing Boeing 737 jets, 200
employees and $11 million in debt. After a year, the airline miraculously was
happen. There was no turning back and move forward. Because he like to try
something and willing to take the risk that make we can fly and as the people
in Malaysian we are proud that have person like him. His principle
is "Believe the unbelievable. Dream the impossible and Never take no for
an answer.(Air Asia,2015).
In conclusion, Tony Fernandes took risk and
accepted the challenges that came into his journey of operating his business.
He never refused to face the risk but deal it with the right solution to lead
him to be successful in the end.
1. OBSERVANT
TAN SRI SYED MOKHTAR AL-BUKHARY
As we know, every entrepreneurs has their own attitude
that are one of the factors that can make them be a very successful
entrepreneurs. One of the traits that every entrepreneurs should have is
observant. In general, observant can be defined when someone or the
entrepreneurs always looking for the next great idea. They always pay attention
to what’s going on, not only right around them but also around the world. They
often recognize potential opportunities long before others.
One of the entrepreneurs that always practice this
kind of traits is Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary. He is the one of the
entrepreneurs that had been list as one of the richest entrepreneurs in
Malaysia and popular with his generosity. He also not focused on one business
but always try hard to find any chance for him to develop more skill in running
a business. Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary was born in a middle-low class
family in Kedah. Because of that, he just continued his study till Form 5 and
started to help his mother in planting vegetables and selling them.
He started his first real business by selling and
distribute rice to Lembaga Kemajuan Tanah Persekutuan (FELDA), Majlis Amanah
Rakyat (MARA) and others. Because of his great attitude, at last he can
enlarged his business when he try to open a new company that called Bukhari Sdn.
Bhd that running a business in selling sugar and popular till now. His spirit
in business not just stop after that, he always try to observe more chance to
make more business. In the end, he established a new company named Bukhary (KL)
Sdn, Bhd that distributed rice, milk powder, tea and chocolate powder to
government and also in 1979 Tan Sri joint ventures with New Zealand Milk
Product to build Susu Mas Sdn. Bhd. But unfortunately, he had to sell his share
in that company because of the effect of economy crisis.
There are many more business that had been produced by
Tan Sri Mokhtar al-Bukhary. Every time he got chances to enlarged his business,
he will never lose it. Like when he went to China to join Canton Trade Expo, he
had changed his product with China’s tea. In 1980 to 1998, he suddenly join in
clothing and manufacturing industry when he conscientiously built up two new
company, Amtek Holdings for produced shoes and Oriental Garments Uniform Division
to distribute clothes. Tan Sri also established Bukhary Shipping and at the
same time he join a several housing project under Syarikat Bukhary Development.
His success did not stop there, but he continued to join in Johor Port Sdn. Bhd
and Johor Tenggara Oil Palm Sdn. Bhd privatization’s project. He also success
to build Equinventure Sdn. Bhd and buy MMC Corporation from Permodalan Nasional
Berhad (PNB).
His generosity can be seen when Tan Sri built a
foundation that help poor people and support the development of Islamic art and
culture that called Yayasan Bukhary. His work should be praised because he
always observe a chance to help people while doing businesses. Some of the
success from this foundation’s formation are Yayasan Bukhary had been handling
a project that is Kompleks Perniagaan (SOUQ) al-Bukhary construction in Alor
Setar and success to build Muzium Kesenian Islam in Kuala Lumpur. Other than
that, he also had been donated RM7.75 million to Oxford Centre for Islamic
Studies.
As we can see,
Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary not just be an entrepreneur, but he also always
share his wealth to others and being observant to become a good entrepreneur.
1. VISIONARY
BILL
GATES STEVE JOBS
To be
a successful entrepreneur, one of the entrepreneurial traits needed is visionary.
Visionary is defined as someone or something
that thinks about the future or advancements in a creative and imaginative way
(Your Dictionary, 2015). Besides, Cambridge English Dictionary defined the
meaning of visionary as a person who has the ability to imagine how a country,
society, industry and so on will develop in the future and to plan in a
suitable way. In other words, visionary refers to a person who has the unusual
or progressive ideas about the future or advancements.
As example of entrepreneurs, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are two of the
visionaries and successful entrepreneurs in the world.
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business
magnate, investor, computer programmer, and inventor. He is known as a
co-founder of Microsoft that became the world’s largest PC software. Like the other entrepreneurs, he acted as a
business leader with vision in the business world. Besides, he is also a leader in the realm of
serving and helping the world community. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation
concentrated its vision on the field of education and health for the advantage
for everyone. It’s believed that this vision is able to remind Microsoft’s peers, employees, customers, and
competitors that leadership can make a buck and also one of the visions to give
back to those in need. The vision, entrepreneurial ability and business
knowledge of Bill Gate help to build up an industry which leaded to the changes
of business and technology world. Meanwhile, he is also given chances to give
back to the global community. For example, The Bill and Melinda travelled to
few of developing countries to distribute therapies and practices in order to
stop dangerous illnesses like HIV, Malaria and Tuberculosis
(http://www.gatesfoundation.org/). Furthermore, Bill Gates isn’t always the
first who imagine and see how is the future going to be but what make him a
visionary is his combination of vision, conviction and stubborn tenacity. Paul
Allen, Bill Gates’s formal partner said that they weren’t the first who
discover and realize the potential of microprocessors to bring computing power
to the public. MITS was first with their Altair model
(Microsoft Timeline). Bill and Allen kept their attention to Altair Model when
it was displayed on the cover of Popular Mechanics magazine stating, “It’s
about to begin” (Microsoft Timeline)! Since that, Gate’s and Allen immediately
start inventing the software which made MITS Altair the functional personal
computer using Microsoft’s “BASIC” programming language (Microsoft Timeline). So, Bill Gate is said to be a visionary as he
saw the needs of people in education and health around the nation. Then, he
invented software to for the using of Microsoft timeline.
The other visionary, Steven Paul
Jobs, was an American businessman and best
known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer (CEO) of Apple Inc.; CEO and largest shareholder of Pixar Animation Studios; a
member of The Walt Disney Company's board of directors following its acquisition of
Pixar; and founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT Inc. Jobs
is widely recognized as a pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s, along with Apple
co-founder Steve Wozniak. He was described as the
"creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive
revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music,
phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing."
Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak
initiated Apple Computer in 1976. Both of them expert in hardware and started
with a vision on personal computer that was highly affordable and easy to be
used. Jobs was decisive and almost manacial at time as he quickly shrugged off
the idea to create his own version of BASIC when Microsoft offered BASIC to
Apple. Besides, Jobs as a visionary, he made a change in the computer world and
Apple dwarfed Microsoft. Using a new graphical user interface which was able
to introduce the world to the mouse and
on-screen icons, he changed the direction of Apply by developing the Macintosh
(Jim Wilson/The New York Times 2015). Other than that, Jobs
decided to introduce the radical change where he implemented his revolutionary
management philosophies. He put profit as secondary necessity and applied the
positive deviant philosophy in utilizing customer satisfaction, brand
management, quality of products, services, resources, and economic reserves He
encouraged a culture, motivated by vision to craft state-of-the-art products.
Investigating, risk exploring, and inventiveness were done by workers as
remuneration. Thus, Steve Jobs always known as a great visionary and innovator
through a strategic leadership viewpoint.
In conclusion, Bill Gate and
Steve Jobs are said to be visionary because both them have the ability to see
the future and take it as a great opportunity to build their business.
1. FAILURE
IS AN OPTION
Failure happens to everyone, and it happens to
entrepreneurs much, much more than most. Yet just as rain can lead to rainbows,
mistakes can pave the way for valuable lessons that foster improvements. In
fact, it is possible to rebound from a mistake and become stronger than ever.
Failure is not the alternative to success. It is
something to be avoided, but it is also only a temporary setback on a bigger,
more significant course. Everybody encounters failure at one point or another.
What truly matters is how people react to and learn from that failure.
The relevant examples of entrepreneur for the trait
failure is an option are Arianna Huffington and Milton Hershey.
ARIANNNA HUFFINGTON
Arianna Huffington, who are
the one of the successful entrepreneur who take failure is an option. Arianna
Huffington was a Greek-American author, syndicated columnist, and occasional
actress. She was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.
It is hard to believe that
one of the most recognizable names in online publications was once rejected by
three dozen major publishers. Huffington’s second book, which she tried to
publish long before she created the now ubiquitously recognizable Huffington
Post empire, was rejected 36 times before it was eventually accepted for
publication. (Demers, 2014).
Even Huffington Post itself
wasn’t a success right away. In fact, when it launched, there were dozens of
highly negative reviews about its quality and its potential. Obviously,
Huffington overcame those initial bouts of failure and has cemented her name as
one of the most successful outlets on the web. (Demers, 2014).
"Failure is not the opposite of success; it's
part of success," Arianna Huffington once famously said. She is one of the
perfect examples of why failure should never stop people from following their
vision.
MILTON HERSHEY
Milton Hershey was an American manufacturer and
philanthropist who founded the Hershey Chocolate Corporation and popularized
chocolate candy throughout much of the world.
Everyone knows Hershey’s chocolate, but when Milton
Hershey first started his candy production career, he was a nobody. After being
fired from an apprenticeship with a printer, Hershey started three separate
candy-related ventures, and was forced to watch all of them fail. In one last
attempt, Hershey founded the Lancaster Caramel Company, and started seeing
enormous results. Believing in his vision for milk chocolate for the masses, he
eventually founded the Hershey Company and became one of the most well-known
names in the industry. (Demers, 2014).
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not
realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” said by Thomas
Edison.
People have to draw inspiration from these stories the
next times people experience failure, no matter the scale. In the moment, some
failure might seem like the end of the road, but remember, there are countless
successful men and women in the world today who are only enjoying success
because they decided to push past the inevitable bleakness of failure. Learning
from our mistakes, reflect and accept the failure, but revisit our passion and
keep pursuing our goals no matter what.. (Demers, 2014).
1. OPEN
CULTURE
Open culture is a concept according to which knowledge
should be spread freely and its growth should come from developing, altering or
enriching already existing works on the basis of sharing and collaboration, without
being restricted by rules linked to the legal protection of intellectual
property.
Google Incorporation is the largest multinational
technology company in an American specializing in Internet-related services and
products. The founder of Google are Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Asa Chief
Executive Officer(CEO) of Google Incorporation, Larry Page never forget about
the welfare of its employees. For example, provide free meals for his staff, employee
trips and parties, financial bonuses, open presentations by high-level
executives, gyms, a dog-friendly environment and so on.
Despite a number of employees who are very great, Larry
still trying to make sure his workers are kept in the open and free of any
work-related problems .For Larry, the welfare of employees is very important so
that the company’s mission can be accomplished successfully.
2. OUTCOME ORIENTED
A
great demonstration of consistent and persistent use of outcome orientation.
The key is to notice how the therapists in the transcripts keep orientating
their clients towards, what they call “solutions” but I think a more
descriptive term is ‘positive change’. I recommend reading this book as a way
to model how they maintain an outcome orientation (rather than how they do
Solution Focus Therapy). In Neurolinguistic Psychotherapy we can apply the same
approach using “desired outcomes” as the dynamic reference point. (Words Were
Originally Magic by Steve De Shazer (2004).
Datuk Jimmy Choo is a
21st century luxury accessories brand, with shoes at its heart, offering an
empowered sense of glamour and a playfully daring spirit. He was born in
Penang, Malaysia in 1961, in a family where his father runs a business making
shoes. He attended primary and ended Shih Chung-olds in six. He helped his
father and successfully produced the first shoe at the age of 11 years. He
continued his studies in the manufacture of footwear and fashion in London.
He tried to open a shoe
store with hiring a former hospital that was abandoned. He endured four years
of disappointing sales of its shoes as very sad. After four years of hard work,
his designs coverage in Vogue, a fashion magazine in the UK. The name Jimmy
Choo became known. But he was disappointed that despite media coverage of its
sales continue to decline. Four years had passed when the late Princess Diana
was pleased with the design be.
Datuk Jimmy Choo shoes
is not only a designer but also a skilled craftsman making shoes and specialize
in producing his art. He was inspired and inspiring designs from nature like
trees and flowers and also from the environment such as interior decoration in
the places he visited. He was very thorough in mold shoes consisting of top,
base and heel shoe design balanced to ensure that the wearer feel comfortable
and safe even wearing high-heeled shoes.
Jimmy Choo practiced
the concept of results-oriented in his business. he was concerned about the
quality of the resulting shoe. For each earning his shoes, he was emphasize materials
used. He will ensure that the resulting shoe is comfortable to wear. This is
because, most of the shoes produced by him was the high-heeled shoes.
Therefore, comfort and balance the respective shoes are emphasized. Shoes
produced by him is luxury shoes sold for thousands of dollars.
Now, the Jimmy Choo
brand associated with style, luxury and authenticity, as well as the madness of
artists and celebrities around the world. A pair of women's shoes are sold,
reaching thousands of US dollars. Clients included Natalie Imbruglia and Katie
Holmes. Many famous people wear shoes and his book. Jimmy Choo shoes also began
to appear in films like The Devils Wear Prada (shoes worn by Meryl Streep) and
In Her Shoes (footwear worn by Cameron Diaz). Jimmy Choo shoes also began to
appear in famous Hollywood films like The Devils Wear Prada (Meryl Streep) and
In Her Shoes (Cameron Diaz).
3.
TEAM ORIENTED
JACK MA
Team orientation means that members work together on
projects and prefer to not work as individuals. There are five common standards
for team orientation:
works effectively with others.
actively contributes to the achievement of group and
organizational goals.
accepts, shared responsibility and ownership of
projects.
maintains open communication among team members.
utilizes strengths of individuals within group to the
benefit of the team.
Jack Ma or Ma Yun is a
Chinese business magnate and philanthropist. He is the founder and executive
chairman of Alibaba Group, a family of highly successful Internet-based
businesses. He is the first mainland Chinese entrepreneur to appear on the
cover of Forbes.
Ma is a successful team
oriented entrepreneur. For evidence, his company, Alibaba teams up with
companies to launch new ventures.According to Alibaba Group CEO, Daniel Zhang
said that Alibaba Sports Group aims to transform the China’s sports industry
through the use of Internet-based technologies to bring greater and better
products and services to consumers, sports participants and sports fans alike.
(Flannery, 2015)
Alibaba Group Holding set
up Alibaba Sports Group with Sina, a Chinese Web news site, and Yunfeng
Capital, a Ma-backed investment firm, to reshape China’s sports industry
through the Internet. In terms of sports, football clubs Bayern Munich and Real
Madrid, National Basketball Association (NBA) star Kobe Bryant and other
companies have entered into partnerships with Alibaba in the past six months.
(Flannery, 2015)
According to Lajoie and
Shearman (2014), Alibaba is the most popular destination for online shopping,
in the world's fastest growing e-commerce market. Transactions on its online
sites totaled $248 billion last year. Due to this, his company is able to
develop in other section of business without help from other companies.
However, Ma was insisted to team up with Sina and Yunfeng to launch China’s sport
industry. Hence, Ma is strongly viewed as team oriented entrepreneur.
4. PROACTIVE
Proactive refers the action of making things
happen or preparing for possible future problems to control a situation. A
proactive person or it can be said as an initiative person will try to react to
the problem instead of waiting things to happen. In other word, the definition
of proactive is someone who takes an active role in dealing with something
before it needs to be taken care of. Proactive can be
an adjective to describe a person who get things done. There are a few entrepreneurs who have the trait of proactive. For
example , Richard Branson, Sam Walton.
Sir
Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, Kt (born 18 July 1950) is an
English businessman and investor. He is best known as the founder of Virgin Group, which
comprises more than 400 companies. Virgin
Group Ltd. is a British multinational branded venture capital conglomerate which its core business areas are travel, entertainment and
lifestyle. It also manages ventures in financial services, transport,
healthcare, food and drink, media and telecommunications.
Richard Branson is said
to be a proactive person. In 1980, Richard Branson was stranded while
travelling with his wife because a local Puerto Rican flight was cancelled.
Instead of start demanding the airline to pay a refund for his inconvenience,
he thought the way of using the opportunity and make profit over it. Seeing
that there was no other flights operating on that day, he called a few aircraft
charter companies to make a reservation for a private plane. For his knowledge,
many passenger were stranded and needed to catch a flight badly, he wrote “
Virgin Airways $39, Single Flight to Puerto Rico “ on a borrowed blackboard and
walked into the airport terminal. By doing this, he managed to secure an
alternative flight for the stranded passengers. Within an hour, every seat was
sold out. Other than making a cool profit, he flew everyone back to Puerto Rico
successfully (Portfolio Trade 2012).
RICAHRD
BRANSON
When paying visit to Wal-mart stores, Sam Walton carried a
yellow pad for the purpose of taking notes. Then, he took a tape recorder to
interview his store employees about ways to improve his business. Over the
years, he gathered lessons from industry experts, associations and more into
his business plan.
By 1960, he wasn't seeing the profits that he expected even
he owned 15 stores. Then he made a decision
to adopt a new strategy on discounting dramatically and cutting prices, hoping
to undercut his competition making up the difference in price through a
higher volume of sales. His idea was
to discount everything they stocked in big stores and place them in small towns
which was Rogers, Arkansas. Rural customers hit Walton’s stores and sales rising up
quickly when big-city discounting reached to small town. By 1969, there were already
18 Wal-Marts throughout Arkansas and Missouri. Walton decided to open his
company’s share to the public even he had funded expansion from profits and
borrowing. The initial offering earned nearly $5 million. Being proactive made
Sam Walton managed to create profit even he operated Wal-Mart at rural places
which had a smaller market.
In conclusion, Richard
Branson and Sam Walton are proactive, who carry aggressive action to affect the
forces in the environment instead of react to it.
SAM WALTON
TASK 1B
HOWARD D.SCHULTZ
The chosen successful entrepreneur is an
American businessman, named as Howard D.Schultz. He is the chairman, president
and CEO of Starbucks Coffee Company. He was born on July 19, 1953 and grew up
in the rough and tumble Bay View housing project in Brooklyn, New York
(http://www.biography.com/). Schultz was managed to make himself one of the
wealthiest businessmen even though there was financial problem raised in his
family. When Schultz was 7, his father as a diaper-service delivery driver lost
his job due to his broken ankle. Being in the situation of jobless without any
source of income, sick pay was one of the problems they faced. They were even
too poor to put food on table. In his growing process, he did different kind of
jobs to live a better life while others may enjoying their childhood days. At the age of 12, he sold newspaper
and worked in a local café. Then, he worked at the fur store, dealing with
stretching the leather when he was16. He never stop striving to achieve better
life. He was an expert in the field of sports and had been offered an athletic
scholarship to Northern Michigan University with Bachelor’s degree in
Communication. After his studies, he started to work in the sales and marketing
division of Xerox Corp. Then, he worked at a housewares company named
Hammerplast in Swedish. His marketing skill in selling espresso machines to
Starbucks led him to be part of Starbucks as head of its marketing and retail
operations in 1982. In 1986, he operated his own business by opening an
espresso bar called Il Giornale (The Daily). In 2000, he announced resignation
as Starbucks’s CEO but then returned as CEO in 2008 amidst global downturn. He
managed to bring back the company’s profitability. Today, Starbucks owned more
than 21000 outlets around the world and a market cap of $60 billion in 2014.
Howard D.Schultz is one of the successful
entrepreneurs who had the traits of failure is an option. In the process of
running his business, there were few of failure in the past. Being autocratic
in his leadership style had led to the happening of some serious blunders
(https://leaderanalysis.wordpress.com). Schultz was failed to satisfy the
customers’ taste preferences and this caused the botched introduction and
abandonment of Sorbetto by tight-fisted consumers. During the 2008 recession,
Starbucks nearly drowned in its caramel macchiato. The company’s sales and share price sank so
low that insider worried Starbucks might become a takeover target. After that,
Schultz changed to more disciplined and a better listener instead of moving
things quickly and urging people to be decisive that make people hard to keep
up. He started to listen and involved others’ opinion and idea during the
decision making process. Hence, the workplace became more freely in exchanging
their ideas. The communication and exchanging idea helped the company to be
free from more mistakes. The failure also changed Starbucks’ marketing strategy
of Via before it reached to the wider audience. As a result, the egalitarian
spirit build a stronger sense of belonging within employee in the organization.
As the employees were motivated, it can be seen that there was an increase in
their satisfaction. Starbucks’ customer oriented framework allowed it to
compete better than its competitors and grab economic opportunities for itself.
For example, Starbucks has capitalized on the strong coffee drinking culture in
Europe by introducing bagged ground and roast coffee into grocery shops.
This indicated that Schultz was able to
become a successful entrepreneur because of his characteristic of willing to
learn from mistake and take failure as a way to be better. He might could not
get an improvement in his business’s strategy if he refused to fight against
the failure. Therefore, treating failure like an option makes him to be
successful.
Other than that, Schultz is viewed as a
visionary. The success of the Starbucks is mainly contributed by the vision and
ambition of Schultz, one person who decided that an atmosphere was so addicting
that it needed to be infiltrate through American Culture. His biggest
inspiration and vision for Starbucks’s future came during the year of 1983 when
he travelled to Milan, Italy. There he was impressed with the coffeehouse
services and decided to stay at Milan for a week to explore all coffee bars and
learned about the Italian passion for coffee drinks. He decided to serve fresh
brewed coffee, espresso and cappuccinos in his stores and try to create an
American version of Italian coffee bar culture. In April 1984, the first
espresso bar was opened and it was successful. After leaving Starbucks, Schultz
started the “II Giornale” coffee bar chain in 1985 and the coffeehouse was very
successful too. In 1987, Starbucks’s owner Jerry Baldwin and Bowker decided to
sell the whole Starbucks chain to Schultz’s II Giornale, which rebranded the II
Giornale outlets as Starbucks and quickly began to expand. Furthermore, Schultz
is said to be a visionary when he decided to differentiate his company’s
product and services from competitors. He realized that the success was
depended on the value of Starbucks brand and the reputation of their product
service. In order to attract more customers, he designed the stores using local
materials and special beans in limited supply. This strategy functioned well
and led to the total annual revenue of Starbucks which had been increased from
9.7 million in 2009 to 10.7 million in 2010. (http://www.slideshare.net).
Therefore, the ability of Schultz to look the future and plan according to his
imagination of his business lead him to be success in the field that he
ventured into.
In addition, Schultz
is an open risk taker. He dared to go against the grain and do something that
other companies aren't doing. For evidence, Schultz realizing that customers
wanted to spend more time at its locations, Starbucks began offering free Wi-Fi
in 2010.
Many coffee
shops try to discourage people from buying a cup of coffee and then lingering
for hours to use the free Internet access. However, Starbucks encourage
customers to stay as long as they want. Starbucks customers also get free
access to paid Web sites, like those of The Wall Street Journal and Zagat, free
iTunes downloads and previews of not-yet-released movies and albums. They will
see local content based on the coffee shop’s location, like news from Patch,
AOL’s local news site, check-ins on Foursquare and neighbourhood photos on
Flickr. Starbucks even allows customers to pay for products with an iPhone app
and was one of the first companies to go mobile. Digital initiatives have
become so important to the coffeehouse chain that its chief executive Howard
Schultz shifted his responsibilities to focus on Starbucks’ digital future,
which includes the direction of both its popular mobile payments app and
loyalty program. Within a year of the mobile app’s launch, Starbucks reported
it had processed 26 million transactions via the mobile payments app. Today
Starbucks processes six million mobile payments weekly, up from two million at
the end of 2012. The mobile app has 12 million users today. In fact, a third of
Starbucks’ North American sales are funded by one of the store’s pre-paid cards
with the mobile app itself processing 15% of all transactions at its 12,000 US
stores. Starbucks enjoyed immense success because it has an extremely loyal
smartphone-carrying customer base that visits repeatedly—often several times a
week. Its consumer base is known for its brand loyalty, its frequency of visits
and its affluent status. Starbucks was ahead of the m-commerce curve when it
came to market in early 2011. (Evans, 2014).
Hence, it is
also important to be adaptable and welcome change. Schultz dared to take risk,
but his decision was benefited the company Starbucks.
Schultz is also an observant
entrepreneur. He was always looking for the next great idea. He paid attention
to what is going on, not only right around them, but also around the world. On
a buying trip to Milan, Italy for Starbucks, Schultz noted that coffee bars
existed on practically every street. He learned that they not only served
excellent espresso, they also served as meeting places or public squares; they
were a big part of Italy's societal glue, and there were 200,000 of them in the
country. This helped Schultz learned that coffee was an essential part of
peoples social life. (Vereen, 2014).
While having
a consistent product is important, Starbucks also does a great job of fitting in
with the local environment. This means that while you can expect the same latte
from coast to coast, each location will vary depending on the region. For
example, a Starbucks at Disney California Adventure looks completely different
from one in San Francisco or Philadelphia. This is because Starbucks gives the
impression that it's more of a local or regional brand than a national
brand--which meshes perfectly with the brand's mission statement. (John R.,
2014). Nowadays, Starbucks is a tremendous success because it capitalized on a
concept that had not existed before —
the coffee house as a gathering place. It is not just a place to get a
cup of gourmet coffee, but it has become a centre for socializing and intellectual
discussion, particularly among students and young urban professionals.
Starbucks created a unique offering that was relevant and differentiated. It
turned an ordinary and humble product into an extraordinary experience that
customers are willing to embrace. (Isidro, 2015).
Last but not
least, team oriented is one of the entrepreneurial traits that highly needed
and applied by Schultz. “If you’re building an organization, you quickly
realize that you can’t do it alone. You’ll build a much stronger company if you
can find a colleague you trust absolutely, someone who brings different
strengths to the mix but who still shares your values.” and “Once you've
figured out what you want to do, find someone who has done it before. With the
right mentor, don't be afraid to expose your vulnerabilities. Admit you don't
know what you don't know. When you acknowledge your weaknesses and ask for
advice, you'll be surprised at how much others will help.” said by Schultz.
Schultz recognized his strengths and weaknesses, hence he recruited three
partners that could compensate for his weaknesses. His first partner was Dave
Olsen. Schultz was unfamiliar with coffee at the start. He recruited Dave Olsen
who had a strong knowledge of coffee and used to run Café Allegro, a coffee shop
in University District of Seattle. His second partner, Orrin Smith. Schultz was
not good in building processes. He recruited Orrin Smith who helped him
understood the importance of execution. His third partner, Howard Behar. He
recruited Howard Behar who also believes in the necessity of an enthusiastic
and hardworking workforce. (Celfine, 2013).
Today,
Starbucks was able to achieve its objectives, break new markets, and increase
its bottom line by entering into strategic alliances with the right companies
based on Schultz and his partners who are willing to work together in operating
the company Starbucks. For the small business to succeed, need to realize that
alone cannot fill the gap in serving the needs of target market. Small business
will need the help of another entrepreneur or another company who is willing to
work with and share financial risks. It may not be Hyatt Hotel or Pepsi, but
the partner may help small business enter new markets, and get products and
services to market faster. Strategic partnerships will be the way to enhance
competitiveness in the marketplace and keep pace with the rapid changes of
technological innovation, just like Starbucks.
In
conclusion, Schultz is one of the successful entrepreneurs who drove his business
around the world. His entrepreneur characteristics make him to succeed even
though there were some failures and problems that he had to face. Therefore, it
is wise to make him as a good example in our way to achieve successful.
TONY FERNANDES
TAN SRI SYED MOKHTAR AL-BUKHARY
STEVE
JOBS
BILL
GATES
ARIANNNA HUFFINGTON
MILTON HERSHEY
JACK MA
RICAHRD
BRANSON
SAM WALTON
MARK ZUCKERBERG
HOWARD D.SCHULTZ
