Yes, starting up a business venture in not a walk in the park. It requires immense dedication, risk taking ability and even luck at times. Yet possessing all these attributes, failures are bound to happen. General business researches show that around 80% of innovative ideas die out during the introduction stage of the product/service life cycle. Besides, a hefty capital investment and effective managerial expertise required to operate a successful enterprise add challenges for young prospective business minds.
The issue here is not about youths’ lacking interest in 9 to 5 clerical work but it’s about our market, its saturation and the environmental forces that influence it. The enduring transitional period of our nation has impacted most sectors. Amidst such turbulent tides and uncertainty, can potential attempters be guaranteed conducive atmospheres to run their businesses? Affirmative answers are hard to come by. So let’s wait and watch.
Meanwhile, we can focus ourselves on things that are relevant and within our control. With businesses mushrooming rapidly in the market, we need to be spot-on while selecting the right industry to enter as young entrepreneurs. The current trend shows that sectors like hotel/restaurant, departmental stores and entertainment businesses are the most sought-after fields for youths to invest in. Perhaps hundreds of these possible business concepts run through our minds everyday. All of those raw ideas have to come under scrutiny before reaching the best solutions. Rational and intuition-free thinking process will assist us to evaluate these alternatives.
The next big thing is to develop distinctiveness. Every new business saturates the market to some extent. People seldom try new products/services that have unique offerings. With such narrow margins of error, new ventures must adopt appropriate methods to differentiate them from the existing ones.
The uniqueness can be created through product features, ways of delivering services, or even by maintaining favorable relationship with customers. Apart from these vital ingredients, business plans, pricing and promotion strategies, location and workforce are key factors that determine the fate of any business in a competitive marketplace.
A couple of terms into my MBA program and some fruitful lectures from my mentors has inspired me to starting up a business. I believe this to be the same with many individuals standing on the same career junction as I am. Hence, considering these pivotal prerequisites and exploring more pragmatic concepts on our own will help us reconstruct our dreams into reality.
The writer is currently pursuing his Master’s in Business Administration at Ace Institute of Management,
Sinamangal.
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