Introduction
In managing or starting a business, there are a lot of things that must be considered. If an owner fails to address at least one aspect of managing a business, there is a good chance that a chain reaction will occur and most of the time; it will correspond to the degree of failure previously made.
This paper will be a compilation of results from an interview conducted with an entrepreneur from Morocco who is an owner of a profitable firm manufacturing diaper as well. Certain areas like his reasons for starting his business, his motivations, the strategies he used and the approaches he utilized to achieve the current state of his business today will be focused on.
Management Summary
Novatis Group is a leading company in Morocco that manufactures modern diapers. Currently, it is owned by only one owner; therefore it can be classified as a sole proprietorship type of business. The president basically oversees the overall processes of the business together with his chosen advisors and managers. The president sees the process of manufacturing diapers as a highly technical one and therefore he perceives it as a huge gap to fill in terms of employees and quality assurance.
Company and Interviewee Background
The subject on the interview that we conducted was an owner of a firm in Morocco. The firm operates and makes profits by manufacturing modern diapers and then selling it to retailers. The name of the company is the “Novatis Group” and it is based in Meknes, Morocco. Because probably the most suitable interviewee to ask questions from to gather as much and as quality information as we can is the head of the firm (Tyburski, 2008), the one we interviewed was the president of the Novatis Group.
Reasons why most entrepreneurs start their businesses
There could be a lot of reasons for an individual to start a business. Surprisingly, the reasons why entrepreneurs start to form their own businesses can became one of the foundations of a stable and profitable firm. This is basically true because according to a Jerry Glen (n.d.), the reasons for starting a business can also function as a motivation. It takes a lot of motivation to start and manage a business whether it is owned solely by you or if you have partners that could help you manage it. However, it is better to be clear that the reasons why an entrepreneur starts a business and the things that motivate him to continue and build up for a larger market share are two different things.
During an interview with the subject, he stated his experiences prior to starting his business. From that, we have discovered that events and occurrences in an individual’s life could indeed be a good source of ideas to start a business. Experiences could serve as triggers that could initiate more ideas until you decided that you want to start a business.
Of course, everyone knows that before starting a business, he has to realize a certain level of business potential first (Anonymous, 2006). This has been important for the president of the Novatis Group because one of the most significant reasons why he started his modern diaper manufacturing business was the way he quickly sold a container full of baby diapers in Morocco. His story started when he was travelling around Europe back in 2002.
Out of nowhere, he came across a container full of baby diapers. He can’t find any reason to buy it but he was quite sure he bought it because of the very low price. On his way home, he tried to make some money out of the container full of diapers he bought from Europe and to his surprise; they were sold quickly. That’s when he realized that there could possibly be some gold hidden in those diapers.
Fortunately, his realization coincided with that of Richer in 2005. It was stated that the diaper industry in the next 25 years could be a promising one for investors and businessmen to plunge in. The president of the Novatis Group was keen enough to see that there is a great need for modern diapers in Morocco and so he decided to take the risk to start his own business and then a new Morocco company was born.
Oftentimes, entrepreneurs may also start their own businesses because of economic and personal reasons. For example, one may happen to manage a business because his deceased father entrusted it to him (personal) or it could also happen that one manages a business because he only sees doing so the only option to fall into the poverty line (socioeconomic) (Smith, 2011) . Using the interview as a basis, we could classify the reason of the Novatis Group president for starting a business somewhere between socioeconomic and personal.
What Motivates an Entrepreneur?
For a business to substantially grow, it has to be controlled by a motivated set of leaders that would be willing to do sacrifices for the sake of the business. There are many things that could possibly fire up an individual to do something or to simply motivate him but most of the time; it has something to do with success (Widener, 2009). The more success an individual encounters, the more it usually gets encouraged to pursue and accomplish more. This is what we have actually seen from the subject’s situation. He saw a promising opportunity that he could seize from selling diapers and so he decided to test it himself and he initially obtained very positive results. Thus, he became more motivated to establish his own firm. Such behavior is only normal because it actually happens to a significant number of individuals according to the ten principles of motivation (NidoQubein, 2008).
In reality, all individuals are motivated and the only thing that one could do is to determine what motivates them and then use those to channel their energy and resources to achieve their goals.
Also, one principle of motivation according to NidoQubein (2008) states that some “people are like water in a faucet”. This is, in reality, true. We can use this analogy to have a clearer understanding about such principle. The president of the Novatis group will be the water and the faucet and the pipeline would be the opportunities. He has the motivation and all that he requires to succeed would be the opportunities. In the analogy, it would really be impossible for the water to flow out of the faucet if there are no pipelines. In short, what motivates the president of the Novatis group are both opportunities and success although other personal motivations could also be present but in a less significant scale.
Characteristics of a would be entrepreneur
Being an entrepreneur could actually be considered as an abstract feeling because everyone could be an entrepreneur. The question now when it comes to being an entrepreneur would be how to become an effective entrepreneur so that goals and objectives will be met and accomplished. Also, there are a variety of definitions of success and it would be very odd and awkward to use only one definition as your reference point because surely some time, your definitions of success will change. The key now would be to have a good background about the characteristics of an entrepreneur.
Enjoy what you do.
For an individual to be a successful businessman or entrepreneur, he has to find enjoyment in what he usually does or will do in his business. Perhaps the reason why the business of the Novatis Group President thrived in such way is this; he enjoys what he does and he never sees every task as an assignment but a stepping stone to success (Stephenson, 2011). Unfortunately, it takes more than doing enjoying what you do to achieve ultimate success but incorporating such habit would be a great addition to your skills and characteristics list.
Have the Experience.
Being an owner of a business could take up a lot of time and money. For this, one has to possess excellent time and money management skills prior to starting a business so that when fiscal and administrative problems arise, the owner will look into the problem as a challenge and not a problem at all.
We are going to use the President of the Novatis Group as a good example. Before he ventured into the realm of business management, he first worked as an Associate General Manager for a manufacturing company. This became important later on because of course; he was able to use his experience in managing other people’s firm for the betterment of his own business. This is one of his greatest advantages actually because having an experience and even just a good background in a similar field will be equivalent to having a better understanding about how the market in that field behaves and other relevant things (Smarta, 2010).
This is one of the important things that a start-up business administrator has to consider because not having enough experience could really put him at a disadvantage.
Grab every single opportunity.
In business, the more opportunity you have, the better. Also, looking to get the right opportunity could be a great key to success. For example, if you are planning to start a home business, then you should look for the right home business opportunities (Anonymous, 2011). Looking for the wrong set of opportunities could even be worse than aiming to take advantage of no opportunities at all. It would also be important to note that a business cannot really grow without enough opportunities.
Use your Connections.
Now, let us try to look again on the interview process as a basis. Prior to starting his own business, the President of the Novatis Group already had a good network of individuals that could aide him whenever he needs something for his business (partners, advertisers, advisors, managers, etc.). Because he previously worked as an Associate General Manager, it would be logical to assume that along the process, he had developed a strong network of individuals with expertise in raising a business like marketing skills, management skills, human resource management, etc. Besides, it is theoretically impossible to run a business without relying on other businesses for assistance so do some steps to improve your relationship with other firms and most importantly, know how to value the importance of diplomacy.
Similarities and Differences between Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship really has a very broad meaning and this is why it can be classified in many ways. Generally, we perceive an entrepreneur as someone who owns a business or heads a business venture while assuming the risks for it. So, whether an individual owns a small or a large business, he can still be classified as an entrepreneur because he assumes responsibility for all there is to it.
Let us begin dwelling on the similarities first. It is quite obvious that one of the most important goals of entrepreneurs is to make money. One way or the other, making money is the dictating factor that could tell whether they can continue what they are currently doing or not. Of course, without money, they cannot really move and make any outputs. Money is what fuels a business and without it, how could a company survive?
The difference part comes when we talk about the ways each entrepreneur makes money. For example, there are entrepreneurs who make money working at home through online marketing and there are also entrepreneurs who earn money by doing offline advertising. They are both in the field of advertising but the difference is the mechanism that they use to make money. Entrepreneurs could also be differentiated by categorizing them depending on their target markets.
Importance of having a unique business strategy
For businesses to have a competitive advantage against other businesses there has to be a certain level of uniqueness that customers or clients can notice. This is one of the primary advantages of implementing a unique business strategy. The more unique the methods of marketing a business uses, the higher probability that consumers will flock on its side.
One of the most common goals of businessmen is to get close to their customers and make them more responsive in terms of changes on their products. These are nothing but good indicators that a business is doing well in the field it is currently in (Plan Ware, 2011).
The president of the Novatis Group used a kind of unique strategy in achieving his company’s goals. He was able to introduce a product to prospective consumers at the right time. He also focused on the quality of their products because he believed this is where the company will be best known for. Because of this, and other factors like few competition and unbelievable high demands for modern diapers (their product), they were able to nail the deals out and earn respect in just a span of 8 months.
Realizations about having a business
Learning is a pre-requisite for success. For a businessman to experience success, he has encounter situations where learning could be acquired first. These are some of the important realizations and insights about being an entrepreneur and running a self-owned business.
Choose the right person.
No one could really argue about the fact that for a business to thrive, it has to have trained and hardworking employees because they could be considered the backbone of a business. Without the right people, a would-be successful business could actually stumble into bankruptcy. It is usually hard to find the right person to work with especially in an industry that is kind of new for job-seeking populations to encounter but it would really be worth it in the long run.
Know the most critical concepts and skills.
Discipline, business flair and leadership are some of the most critical skills that an entrepreneur should learn how to apply in the field. These are the skills that made the president of the Novatis Group become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Morocco up to this day and it would really be worth it for small-time entrepreneurs to employ the same concepts and skill in their current practices too.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Overall, the Novatis group can be seen as a company with a very bright future in the field of diaper manufacturing and that is because of several factors like it has been one of the pioneering companies that were able to provide quality modern diapers to Morocco residents. One of the business concepts that mattered for the President was the one that illustrates about the importance of opportunities, team and resources (with emphasis on a working capital). It was discussed in this paper how a company could exponentially grow given the right opportunities. However, it would also depend on the company’s team capability and amount of working resources whether they could use a certain opportunity to help them grow or not. Another important concept that could help someone have a better look about the Novatis Group would be the Sigmund Curve. The president describes managing the company as a not-so-hard task because he said he is quite able to predict the future problems to come like the different fluctuations and the behavior of the market, therefore it could be concluded that the Novatis Groups is on the A part on the Sigmund curve. Now normally, a company that did well on a certain field will want to progress in doing business with another field. In Novatis Group’s case, they should consider moving into a new business venture if and only if that new business line would offer them the same extent of opportunity, just like their diaper manufacturing firm such as huge demands and good market compliance.
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