USA is no longer the top entrepreneurship hub worldwide. Denmark is . That’s according to the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI) which measures 71 countries from different aspects. It evaluates variables such as entrepreneurs- attitudes, activity ..etc. The variables are both for individuals and institutions. The classification takes into account both qualitative and quantitative.I’m not sure why they don’t rank more countries; such as Kuwait- my country for example or other countries. Maybe they could not get enough data out of them; who knows. OECD & European union are also considered rankers. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is also another source that does the ranking.We can learn a lot from these indices:such as basic factors that can make us understand entrepreneurship, measures it, analyse & it improve it, etc. There is a good article that explains why USA is no longer the leader in entrepreneurship : Best country for entrepreneurs? Hint: Not the US. Enjoy !
Risk management is a process or a collection of strategies and techniques utilised to benefit businesses and companies in many ways: it helps businesses to protect assets by managing and controlling resources; and thus enabling companies improve performance and efficiency by proper planning and tuning that will lead to better decisions. There are many risk solutions in the real world depending on the size and type of industry (case studies).
What are the risk management solutions ?
Many of risk management companies offer some or all of the following solutions;
Enterprise risk management (ERM).
Financial risk management.
Operational risk management.
IT risk management.
Compliance risk management.
Market risk management.
Credit risk management.
Strategic risk management.
There are many tools/software that can be used in risk management. They are designed by many companies. You should be careful not to use any tool though, make sure its compatible with your business model and needs. If you are not sure, you should consider consulting a risk management firm.That’s the advantage of industry specialisation. Many worldwide companies started to pay attention to risk management after the financial crisis that hit the world lately. So relatively speaking , risk management is somehow a new profession/speciality. Insurance used to be the only solution to avoid risk, but its not the case any more. Businesses and insurance companies started to realise that it is vital and necessary also to take risk management into consideration. Otherwise premium will be high and risk is too high. Risk does not have to be physical only, there are many risks and most importantly accounting/money risk that many contemporary companies are falling under ( Credit crunch) and Enron in the past.
Risk management is not a cut-off solution and it does not mean that it will prevent risk entirely. There is no such thing as risk-free. Its just a control and a measure that hopefully will minimize risk, or at least is considered a roadmap (benchmark) which is adjustable and changeable.
There are many risk management companies in the west. I’m just not sure about the Middle East. I think big companies in Middle East depend mostly on Western companies to give them solutions and support, which I do not agree with entirely. Its fine to get help from outsiders if they have good solutions, but there are regional factors that the Western countries can not solve or understand and that is considered as a chief reason. There should be regional business that understands the area. I only spotted few companies such as : Diligence and Sophis , the later is the main sponsor of Risk Middle East conference .There is also a Kuwaiti company: Global Consultants. Please let me know if you have a list of names of other companies.
The reason I’m talking about risk management in this post is because I think risk management is linked with my blog speciality- that is entrepreneurial tools. RM is an important tool for entrepreneurs and companies for any time or any industry. RM is a process that goes hand-to-hand with the business cycle not just emergencies. The technology has provided us many tools that can be used in the risk management business, and we shall take advantage of it. That does not indicate that we should be pessimistic, quite the opposite optimism is healthy and vital, for the sake of innovation and going forward. RM is just a sort of planning for success, and like the saying: failing to plan is planning to fail.
“he who is afraid of asking, is afraid of learning”
I found a helpful online website that can be used to ask or find business questions. Its called Startups ! Its really a good spot for entrepreneurs, business students and whoever interested to know about tips, tools, HOWOTs, advice, .. etc. Its like a free consultation. It saves you time and effort and it allows you to share experiences with people all over the world. Just throw your question in their website, by email or using Twitter. It also has a cool feature- a dictionary. So for example if you don’t understand a jargon or a business term just type it in the dictionary and you will get the meaning. The world now is making life easy and simple for learners and entrepreneurs. Everything is being linked and shared via social media that allows many minds to participate. I remember years ago when such information were hard to find or costly. However, I’m not saying that you should follow or accept every advice you get, because everyone has the freedom to say and express whatever they think its right. This can be risky for beginners or learners as they can not distinguish between right or wrong. But its still valuable for some one who is seeking different opinions, brainstorming new ideas or getting familiar with a new field or industry. The voting system up there can give you a hint of the hottest topics and probably somehow reliable answers. Startups also provides a service that allows you to choose who you want to answer your questions. So in that way you can overcome the fear of getting bad advice. I’m not sure whether or not they have experts in there, but you never know. Its a nice spot to meet like-minded entrepreneurs and possibly building a team and connections. Posting there can also help experts and bloggers who write about business increase their website traffic, improve marketing and building a brand and a name.
P.S. Please note that I choose tools randomly that I believe they have value to entrepreneurs and small business owners. However those websites belong to organizations that I don’t have any contact or contract with them. That does not mean that they are perfect or bad , It depends on readers to judge and choose. The technology is always evolving and improving, so some of these tools is, can or will be obsolete. I welcome advice, comment or criticism. We are all learning.
How well can entrepreneurs do if they take or don’t take risk? What can affect their decision making? Is it their experience ?Is it emotions? what about the quality of decision making ? do they always make the right decisions? How can an entrepreneurs improve their decision making ? Is it ok to make mistakes ? In this post I will focus on risk taking and status quo bias. The rest of questions posed earlier regarding the quality and improvement of decision making will be discussed in another post.
What does status quo mean ?
In marketing and economic psychology researchers use the term “status quo bias”. What does it mean anyway? It means (for entrepreneurs) to accept,do or follow the same choices that have been done or chosen before without changing anything. Entrepreneurs have been studied in research whether they fall under this phenomenon (status quo bias) or not. Well it appears that there are all types. Some small business owners prefer the status quo and don’t like to take risk (risk averse), while others take risk. The degree of risk also varies.Studies showed that small business entrepreneurs take more risk than big business owners or bankers. Entrepreneurs are also known of their use of heuristics and rely on their experience which researchers consider a type of status quo because they rely on their past experience. So in order for the entrepreneur to be status quo-free he/she must always be opened to new ideas and be willing to share with fresh minds.
What makes entrepreneurs take risk ?
Entrepreneurs are always optimists and enthusiastic to explore and discover new opportunities, find new technologies, to expand and grow & to be creative and build innovation. Sometime entrepreneurs appear to be over confident in their decision making , but confidence can be useful in some occasions.
Is it ok to make mistakes ?
“ A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new ” Albert Einstein.
The entrepreneurial tip of the day: Learn to take risk but above all, master the craft of managing risk.
Q: Can you become an entrepreneur if you are an academic ?
A: Yes
I have read some academic articles that focus on the role of academic brains in commercial enterprises. The level of academic varies starting from undergraduate to PhDs and professors. They gave many examples of different industries such as IT, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, etc. There were many questions raised by those researchers such as the skill of academic entrepreneurs, the motive behind joining the business world and my question would be how well did they do ? because being entrepreneur requires different skills and mental framework than being an academic. How did they manage to spin-off from the scientific world to entrepreneurial world?.
In this article I’m focusing on the skills part only, by showing that academics can posses high talents when it comes to problem solving and analyzing. Most of entrepreneurs in the street got the spirit but lack the analytical skills. Academics on the other hand, do not have that problem due to their experience in research.
Obviously Katalin Balázs the author of “Academic Entrepreneurs and their Role in ‘Knowledge’ Transfer“ argues that the main skill they posses is the transfer of knowledge to the small business they establish or participate in. The sample that she covered was Eastern and central Europe such as Hungary, so we can not be certain about the rest of academics in the world. However, we can learn something from it when it comes to understanding common skills that academics can offer for the business community.The author also classified knowledge into subsets and skills :
“
. knowledge of knowledge
· knowledge of people (informal contacts)
· organisational knowledge
· market, partners, firms (who’s who)
· technical knowledge (history of particular pieces of equipment)
”
The above categories according to the author are the type of knowledge that can be transferred from entrepreneurial academics to the business. However , I’m not sure about the people and the market knowledge, because these information are acquired mostly by some one who is deep in the street-market and not just by being at the university only.
As a student at Bangor business school , I like the ‘entrepreneurship’ program that Bangor University offers for young students to prepare them take a future ‘entrepreneur’ job rather than prepare them mentally to pursue a job like what most universities do.
The entrepreneurial tool of the day is : Education. Whether you get an academic degree, read books or attend seminars. They are all important for you if you seek success and improvement in life and business. That does not mean that if you are an academic you are done. There are many types of skills that have to be learned that you do not find at universities. Life is a big school and we shall all continuously be life-long students.
I did not know that there is an “Entrepreneurship Day” or such a day exists until I found “WED”-World Entrepreneurship Day. I find the name very creative. WED was founded in April 17th 2009. So this year is year two- happy birthday and I missed it. WED is simply an idea to gather creative entrepreneurial minds around the world to meet yearly. The aim as WED puts it : Inspiration, connection & enlightenment. Well to be honest the number of companies and entrepreneurs who attended this year was astonishing. The quality of speeches and programs that they offer is really good. I also like what WED does. They offer a variety of entrepreneurial tools and videos that are beneficial which you can find them in the resources section. I am also impressed of the sessions they provide for “ideas brainstorming” and their use of creative techniques. I will talk about some of the techniques in the near future.
I have seen many similar ideas or concepts to WED (with different look) every where in the world. Most of them share the same objectives. Any one who wants to establish a business whether small, big or home based should have a look and try to participate in similar events. The experience that will be gained is priceless. I myself have attended few in the past in other countries and I’m looking forward to attend more in the future. It’s always good to mix with like-mind people. Knowledge is very essential especially in the business world. The more knowledgeable you are in the field that interests you, the bigger the chances that you will succeed and you will add more value to your customers. I wish you all happy birthday .
InteractiveME.com : A blog that covers interactive media, internet start-ups, and social media in the Middle East .
StartupArabia.com : A blog that profiles and reviews Arab start-ups .
Yallastartup.org: Q&A platform for start-ups and a blog too, you can read frequent asked questions by your industry peers and specially in your region.
Intheloop.me : A social network for entrepreneurs in the Middle East.
ArabCrunch.com : is a professional Blog, that is dedicated to profiling and reviewing Arab originated tech startups.
Salambc.com: Salam Business Club is One of the fastest growing online business networks for professionals in the MENA region.
This site is dedicated to help entrepreneurs around the world. It doesn’t matter if you are young or old entrepreneur, its never too late. Talking about old entrepreneurs who are older than 50 years old, I came across a new terminology to describe them : Olderpreneurs ! I first heard the term while I was driving back from the computer labs at Bangor University at midnight few days ago. I was working on an essay “Are German banks riskiers than European competitors ?” with my friends, gladly We finished it today and submitted it. That day I was listening to BBC radio , and I heard a couple of English people talking about olderpreneurs and olderpreneurship, that gave me a wake-up call trigger. They were talking about success stories for olderpreneurs, and funding programs that they can use. I guess the term “olderpreneurs” is only used in UK, thats what google said. The British papers also highlighted that, according to the Guardian. I also found an interesting wiki website calledWikipreneurshipthat specilizes in Entrepreneurship which also highlighted olderpreneurship. The amazing fact that I discovered according to the Guardian : is that success rate at establishing start ups at older age seems to be better than youngsters. They justified that by experience- older people have more experience and better skills. I totally agree with that, experience is an important factor, but what matter most is MOTIVATION. I have seen successful people from all ages, and they are all motivated leaders. The trend according to a UK research shows that the number of olderpreneurs are increasing in UK, interesting and I hopefully see it around the world.
