Enterprise in Action E-Book

Peter A. Lawrence

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 415

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

An authoritative guide to understanding and mastering the core issues and competencies involved in entrepreneurial success

Where do entrepreneurial opportunities arise? How do successful entrepreneurs exploit trends? What is the role of innovation in entrepreneurship? How do companies get started and become self-sustaining? Based on studies of 80 companies, including 30 Sunday Times Fast Track Companies, and 20 highly successful US entrepreneurial firms, this book answers these and many other key questions about entrepreneurship. This authoritative guide to the world of entrepreneurship offers valuable lessons for MBA students and established entrepreneurs alike.

• Shows practitioners how success is influenced by factors such as industry dynamics, entry barriers, reconfiguration, and core competencies
• Delivers practical coverage of an array of key issues, including how to exploit trends, how to foster innovation, how to get additional funding for expansion, and much more
• Provides expert guidance on how to successfully address each of the factors or core competencies covered
• An excellent supplement to standard graduate texts on the subject, it breathes new life into standard curriculum topics by presenting them within the context of real-world success stories

Leseprobe

Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Change and Opportunity

School days

One Alfred Place

CRIME

Trucking across the prairie

Bottoms up

The flick of a switch

Summary

Chapter 2: Destination: Core Competence

Les trentes glorieuses

Démarche or legitimation

The chrysanthemum effect

Manufacturing: the world we have lost?

Taking up the slack

You shall not own them

Going Dutch

The whole truth

Summary

Chapter 3: A Natural History of Innovation

Relativising the product

Wrapping the product

Developments in services

Configuration and beyond

The next game

Summary

Postscript

Chapter 4: Shades of Originality

Originality in action

Configuration

Reconfiguration

Review

Chapter 5: Biography and Capability

To have and have not

The voyage of the turnip

School and work

A feast for life

Fashioning and developing

Lift-off

The whole truth

Summary

Chapter 6: Niche Markets and Entry Barriers

A royal ride

The geography of the niche

Geography and competition

Taking stock

Niche companies never die . . . !

The gunslinger as dude

The industrial niche

Le Marron Sculpté

Entry barriers

The whole truth

Oh what a wonderful niche

Summary

Chapter 7: Cruising Altitude

Organic growth or acquisition

Revenue growth

React Fast

British and American ways of doing

Execution and development

Execution and reputation

Caravan to boardroom

Summary

The whole truth

Chapter 8: The Challenge of Inheritance

Figgjo

The big putsch

The long game

Summary

A very short story

Chapter 9: Opening the Box

Everything in the garden

The garden centre as a competitive business

Taxi, taxi!

Summary

Chapter 10: Beyond the Box

CEO: a new twist

A vintner’s tale

More than a name

CEO in action

Postscript

The end of the runway

References

Index

“Enterprise in Action is a rarity among business and management texts, being genuinely interesting and practically useful. Written in Peter Lawrence’s unique, clear and concise style (and enlivened by examples of his sly humour) the book provides the academic, the student – and the practising manager – with superb examples of how small and medium enterprises really cope with change. The international case study based approach used in the book demonstrates that managers have a difficult job, but that they can ensure their businesses survive and prosper if they are willing to make key decisions at the right times. I thoroughly recommend Enterprise in Action to anybody currently running a business or interested in how businesses really work.”

Professor Simon Denny, University of Northampton, Holder of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion

“A perceptive, thought provoking and lively book, which follows a ‘hands on’ approach, drawing valuable lessons from face to face interviews carried out with the founders or current owners of almost 100 owner-managed companies and SMEs. It offers valuable insights on the changing nature of enterprise and the consequent challenges and opportunities for contemporary entrepreneurs and business organisations.”

Dr Grahame Fallon, Senior Lecturer in International Business, Brunel Business School, Brunel University

“I must admit it, I like to read management books, and a new book by Professor Lawrence feeds this guilty pleasure. He presents a literate and highly original tour of strategic changes within representative organizations. Whether he takes us into the inner workings of an English school, a Dutch consulting firm, or a Midwest American waste management company, he always makes insightful comments on the changes the organization made to make itself relevant and successful.”

Dr Dwight Tanner, Vancouver, BC, Canada

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ISBN 978–1–119–94528–4 (paperback) ISBN 978–1–118–64425–6 (ebk)

ISBN 978–1–118–66171–0 (ebk) ISBN 978–1–118–66172–7 (ebk)

Cover design: Dan Patching Creative Design

To the Magnificent Seven

Acknowledgements

Most of all I would like to thank the owners and managers of the many companies which I researched and visited – to thank them for receiving me and indulging me, and for sharing insight and experience with me. This gave me the resolve to write this book, and nothing else could have done so.

Like most floundering writers I have been helped by my friends – helped in various ways, by encouragement, discussion, testimonies, contacts, introductions and more. In this connection I would like to thank Hans Heerkens, Rehan ul Haq, John Mansfield, Michael Lear, Libby Robotham, Andrew Phillips, Andrew Lear, David Buchanan and Vincent Edwards.

Chapter 1

Change and Opportunity

Most entrepreneurial opportunity is triggered by change. External change unfreezes existing industries and the context in which they operate, making new things possible. Changes in society in the broadest sense, embracing technical change, new legislation and regulation, changed political priorities, changes in the needs of business and personal customers, new forces impacting on these processes, even changes in social integration – all this may have an effect on existing industries and create opportunities for new or adapted ones.

The joke that change is the worst of all six letter words has some relevance in business, notwithstanding its creative potential that is the theme of this chapter. Everyone in business recognises disruptive change, that is to say, change which undermines a company’s operations, dislocates its business model, raises its costs or thins its profit margins.

There is also a tactical advantage to starting with disruptive change, which is that one can trace its effect on existing companies, as a prelude to more creative consequences.

Before introducing an example of disruptive change and showing its repercussions for one particular organisation, it may be helpful to say something about the provenance of the business cases cited in this book.

I mean to develop the ideas in this book with reference to real life examples. I have built up a research sample of getting on for 100 owner-managed companies or SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) that I know something about, have visited, and have talked with their founders or present owners. That is to say, what I know of these companies comes from face-to-face contact not from the remote interrogation of databases.

Most of these companies are British, located in the UK, but I also make use of some company examples taken from other European countries – Holland, Scandinavia, and so on. And I am also drawing on a group of American companies, variously drawn from Chicago, Nashville, Dallas and west Texas, and North and South Dakota, particularly this last, again all of which I have visited.

Among the companies in the UK there is a subset of 30 SMEs that have appeared on the annual lists published by the Sunday Times of the fastest growing one hundred companies in any given year. A particular interest attaches to these companies since they have been externally validated by a credible criterion of success. These companies are of course still in the hands of their founders, who are generally keen to talk about the early days as well as present successes.

This group of Sunday Times companies are referred to throughout as Fast Track companies, and I almost always name them. It might be helpful to add that it is common for these Fast Track companies to be bought, or to merge, with a resulting loss of the original name (I have not so far found any that have disappeared for negative reasons). Unless there is a footnote to the contrary, companies mentioned will be given the name by which I first encountered them.