There has been a lot of emphasis on entrepreneurship and the need for more and more entrepreneurs in the region to help create jobs for the future of the region. There is also a lot of enthusiasm and encouragement for new entrepreneurs, but are we missing something? It’s great to have the “spirit”, but is the spirit enough? Do our future entrepreneurs know how to take their dreams from the idea to the effective operation? Is business planning overemphasized or is it enough? This article will offer an opinion and try to answer these questions and offer a suggestion as to what is missing. In the author’s opinion, project management is the missing link that could make the crucial difference between success, challenge, and even failure.
The need for entrepreneurs
Various sources and global studies show that small and medium-sized organizations/enterprises (SMOs/SMEs) have enormous contributions to economies around the world in terms of gross national product and employment. Studies in the Middle East show that the contributions of SMEs in our region are lower than in developed countries. However, many government and private sector leaders recognize the need to change this to meet the tremendous challenge of job creation needs across the Arab world.
All private or government initiatives share a role in promoting “entrepreneurship”, but is spirit all we need? What is missing? Let’s say someone quits their job to become an entrepreneur, and then what?
There are too many challenges facing an entrepreneur today, some of them are the legal structure and regulations. Other challenges are related to the fear of failure and the stigma associated with it. Even if we overcome the fear of failure, we will still be challenged by the availability of capital. With the capital figured out or at least somewhat figured out, do we have the right infrastructure to help the entrepreneur launch the business? Do we have the necessary support? How about beyond launch? The support that is available (commercial/cash/logistics/administration/etc.) is available to someone chasing a dream, but only to realize that realizing the dream is much more challenging than expected. How do we help the entrepreneur or small business owner sustain and grow?
business planning
Most, if not all, venture capital, foundation, and other funding sources, besides business schools and MBA programs, focus on a business plan as an essential requirement/performance to seek funding or startup. a business. Here we ask ourselves once again: Is the business plan enough? In our opinion, a ‘traditional’ business plan is not enough. Quite a few business plans, which we call ‘traditional’, focus on the business aspects with a greater focus on running the business. The question is: Do these traditional business plans provide proper focus on the business (most call it a “blueprint”) from idea to business launch?
the missing link
It is interesting to note that many call a new venture a “project”, as we mentioned in the previous section. We like the word “project,” but most definitions of the word “project” mean something temporary. So, is the company temporary? We hope not! So is the word ‘project’ the wrong one? Yes and No. The business is not a project; It is a business, an undertaking. So, to be an academic, the word “project” is not the right word to use in the new business. Let’s call it company or business. However, launching the business is exactly what we call a project: the launch project is taking the company from idea to operations. Our goal here is not to get into an English lesson; rather, our goal is to define the proper usage of the words in order to have the proper context and fully understand the missing link. So what is this missing link? Well, if launching the business is a project, how do we manage it? Where is Project Management in release management? The next section will provide a methodology to follow when launching the business.
A proposed sequence
Our proposed model will focus on launching the company from idea to initial operation, using the missing link: project management. Future articles could focus on using organizational project management to help build, maintain, and grow a small business.
The proposed model, which is derived from the Customizable and Adaptive Methodology for Project Management™, is a project life model that divides the project life into three distinct phases; which we explain here.
business concept
The business concept is a crucial phase of the project that spans a period from the business idea to the initial decision to go ahead and encompass a feasibility study. The idea owner is likely the entrepreneur who has an idea for a business that could be a passion, an income opportunity, fill a need, solve a problem, among other business drivers.
This is the time to dream, but care must be taken that the dream is realistic and achievable. It is very risky for someone to launch a new company without a proper understanding of the challenges and opportunities, although it could be argued in rare cases that spontaneous action could also generate good profits.
Therefore, the entrepreneur (to be a small business owner) has to study the feasibility of his idea, and for this we think that existing business planning techniques are very important to use at this stage. However, in addition to focusing on finance, competition, market demand, operation, and other factors, the entrepreneur must also think about project management, including proper project management planning. suitable project
Management planning includes understanding stakeholders and their expectations and requirements, setting realistic time and cost targets, having a fair understanding of the project and business risks (threats and opportunities), in addition to other factors. .
Business Concept Development
The previous phase emphasizes the feasibility study and the requirement for business planning. Once the business foundations are established, project management will become more important and the entrepreneur will become a project manager.
So what do we do now? The project manager/entrepreneur needs to think and act in two aspects, two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, he needs to think about the project from idea to initial operations, but he cannot ignore the subsequent completion of the project, which would be leading and sustaining the business (operations).
For the project aspect, the project manager must establish all the requirements in detail to launch the business, including the definition of success factors, schedule, necessary resources, licences, legal, financial/funding requirements and alternatives, regulations, launch budget, timeline, stakeholder communication, procurement strategy, as well as risk identification, assessment, and management. All these activities are focused on planning to take us from the idea to the completion of the project, but mainly to produce a detailed plan that gives us the necessary information to make the final decision on whether we should continue with the company or not. This detailed plan is used extensively in the next phase.
For the business aspects, the project manager should start planning the readiness for the operation; which means identifying all the things needed once the business is up and running; such as financial control, human resources, policies, operational processes, as well as marketing and business development. If the business is not for profit, it will still require most of these activities, but the need for volunteers and volunteer management or the need for sponsors can be added.
Project Delivery (Business Launch)
With a plan for the project and a plan for readiness for operation, it is time to start implementing the project leading up to initial operations. In this phase we implement the activities that we identified in the detailed plan. For example, in the plan we specified we need a permit, so it’s time to do the necessary activities to get the permit. In the plan we define the need for a marketing plan, it’s time to define the marketing plan and develop the necessary collateral, either in print or online.
Therefore, the main purpose of Project Delivery is to perform all the activities necessary to produce the required deliverables that would be critical to the successful launch of the new business and start of initial operations.
Throughout this document we discuss “initial operations” and “operations” as two separate terms and this is intentional. We use initial operations to define the time period that begins with the opening of our doors as a business or non-profit organization. We call it initial operations because as we begin to offer services we can recognize that forms need to be adjusted, some documents may be missing something, among other things that may not go as smoothly as we planned.
Therefore, initial trading will allow us to make any necessary refinements before entering stable, normal trading. In some situations, we can remove the initial operations and go directly to the normal operations. In other scenarios, we might have a “soft start” as an initial period of operations, which we might also call a pilot period/trial period. Which approach to take all depends on the nature of the business and whether or not it allows for a trial period/initial operations.