Entrepreneurial Finance: Fundamentals of Financial Planning and Management for Small Business

CHAPTER 15 BASIC ENTREPRENEURIAL MANAGEMENT

IT HAS BEEN KNOWN that most of the new business failures can be ultimately attributed to the lack of vision and planning and to unfit management, even if it comes as a direct result of a specific factor such as inadequate capital or lack of professional skills. A significant part of the problem may go back to the paradox of doing versus thinking. Entrepreneurs are usually doers. They are enthusiastic, hardworking, and energetic people who can make a reality out of an idea and have a project up and running. They most often do not have the time, nor the ability, to sit and engage in any sort of strategic planning. Most of the time they do what they know; they try one way and see if it works and they learn as they go. However, that way is, most often, not the road to efficiency, especially in the midst of dramatic political, economic, and technological changes. In an environment of frequent and significant changes as we have been witnessing in the last few decades, it becomes imperative that an entrepreneur-owner has or obtains the ability to anticipate any changes, come up with creative remedies, initiate action, and follow up the results of the adaptation. In other words, there is a pressing need for a blueprint which a firm can follow toward achieving its vision and accomplishing its mission. That would be a need for strategic management.

For that reason, and unlike the common belief, the need of a small business to a clear strategy ...