In the present assignment we are to choose a company and to dwell on the entrepreneurial activity of it. As it is known, entrepreneurship has become popular in the world of today and at the same time entrepreneurship should not be regarded as an easy way of making money. This work demands certain effort both on the part of the leading manager and its personnel. The premise for the paper is that entrepreneurship presupposes, above all, close collaboration between the two. (Chinitz, 1961)
Best Buy was formerly named as Sound of Music and the year of its foundation is 1966. A talented American businessman, Richard M. Schulze, was the one who created the company whose purpose initially was to sell audio equipment. It is of particular interest to note that Richard M. Schulze having dropped from the high school was not successful in his early life. The business was, actually, started at the owner’s garage until it was expanded to the nine stores!
What made the budding company attractive to customers? First off, it could offer quite competitive low prices. Despite this fact the equipment sold by the company was of high quality and so price conscious clients were eager to buy the goods at Sound of Music until it was finally renamed in Best Buy. This name corresponded to the company’s initial and subsequent success.
However, our thesis is that it was not only well-thought price policy that made the company prosper - there were several steps in the process of the company’s raise. Thus, it is true to say that entrepreneurial activity of the company included many aspects. These will be shed some light onto in our paper.
Let us start by defining what entrepreneurship is: in the broader sense of the word entrepreneurship involves not only running but also designing, launching and developing a business. The main element of entrepreneurial activity is the individual entrepreneur, also commonly referred to as the businessman. What are the other elements of entrepreneurship?
These include organizations and institutions. Indeed, any company more often than not ought to be regarded as an organization or institution. It comes into contact with its competitors – other companies. Indeed, the company’s interrelationships with other companies should be paid some attention to. It is believed that successful and prosperous companies, as a rule, tend to work in tandem or symbiosis with other companies in the market. This does not necessarily exclude rivalry between the competitors, however.
Yet there exists in the market what some authors refer to as the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The latter often embraces a number of companies among which start-up companies may be distinguished. So it can be said that a network of organizations establishes the entrepreneurial ecosystem. (Glaeser et al., 2009)
Beyond this, political and economic institutions must not be ruled out from the research since any company whether voluntarily or involuntarily has to communicate with them. The institution can be conducive to the company’s prosperity or not. Thus, the strategy that the company adopts in regard to different institutions’ pre-determines its success. In this respect the role and activity of the company’s leader cannot be overlooked or underestimated.
The most success is achieved if a certain leader’s talent can correspond to the responsible and conscientious work of the company’s personnel or, in other words, every individual working in the company. So the term ‘individual’ still holds very much sway in regard to entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship even can be looked at as the individual activity.
If we look at the Brest Buy closely, we will see that many of the above mentioned factors come to the foreplay with it. Firstly, it was set up by a talented enterprising personality who despite the fact that he had failed to graduate from the university had enough knowledge, experience as well as intuition and luck to guide the company in the right direction.
The owner of the company, for example, managed to establish friendly and trustworthy relationships with the personnel but, above all, he managed to pick the personnel in such a way that it fitted the purposes and goals of the company. The right strategy was adopted. The principle of low pricing having worked well helped the company start expanding.
At this stage the company, no doubt, came into contact with other organizations and institutions. It is a very important stage in business since the strategy needs to be rethought and new relationships worked out. The Best Buy managed to do so and the fact that there eventually came to be nine offices of the company may testify to the close collaboration of the company with other institutions at which point it also became an institution and an organization in the full sense of the word. (Kincaid, 2009)
The next step in the success of the Best Buy was the ability of the company to exert its impact on the market. For example, quite recently the company’s team has managed to pull off an impressive task: it reversed the declines in sales and profits of electronics. This has had a positive effect on other companies as well.
Furthermore, the company has been adopting new strategies, including the wide use of the cutting-edge technologies in the pursuit of its goals. As an example, ELearning strategies have been introduced for the company’s employees. This has given the company the new field of work: eLearning software applications at a cost of approximately $10,000 each have been developed and distributed.
References
Chinitz, Benjamin. 1961. Contrasts in Agglomeration: New York and Pittsburgh. The American Economic Review, Vol. 51: 279-289.
Glaeser, Edward L, William R. Kerr, and Giacomo A.M. Ponzetto. 2009. Clusters of Entrepreneurship, Cambridge.
Kincaid, Susan O. 2009. Defining human services: A discourse analysis. Human service education 29 (1): 14–23.
