Global Entrepreneurship & New Venture
Task:
In developing a new business venture, the process begins with recognising an opportunity from a business problem and creating a business concept that articulates it. For the first steps, the entrepreneur (1) builds a concept to solve the business challenge; (2) presents a story that conveys the meaning of the new venture, and (3) and be able to explain the concept to potential customers, investors and partners. After testing the concept with stakeholders, the entrepreneur may go on to develop a complete business plan. To help you build these skills you will be required to undertake the entrepreneurial process of opportunity recognition and concept development. You will be asked to identify possible commercial opportunities for an innovation and then articulate the opportunities into a
100% NEW business concept. You will submit a 2,800 – 3,000 words business concept report that identifies and describes your innovative business idea. You must research and select one of the cities/ countries from the list for your targeted market: France, Sweden, Italy, Turkey, Brazil, Costa Rica, Peru, South Africa, Dubai, Japan, Malaysia,
Vietnam, Taiwan and Singapore.
Global Entrepreneurship & New Venture
Some of the issues that will help you in developing and evaluating your business idea are:
1. the problem or need and identification of the customers and market
2. the proposed solution and the uniqueness of the solution
3. why the customer will pay for the solution
4. feasibility, marketing, finance, and operational issues
Report:
In your business concept report you should:
• Identify the problem and recognise a business opportunity to solve it.
• Assess the business opportunity (undertake a feasibility analysis).
• Identify and explain the business model/strategy, based on the assessment of the
business opportunity.
References: Chapter 3 Creativity and Innovation, Chapter 4 Feasibility Analysis and
Chapter 5 Strategic Plan
Global Entrepreneurship & New Venture
Your business concept report may be structured around all three elements above or you can devise your own approach. See below for a suggested approach:
1. The business opportunity: The problem and solution (Identify the ‘problem’ and discuss the business opportunity that may address it, showing an understanding of the particular market and potential customers.)
2. Business opportunity assessment
(This is your feasibility analysis. In this section, assess the feasibility of the business idea in relation to the following: industry/market, product/service, and the organization and its management.)
3. Business model/strategy
(Based on your assessment of the business opportunity, explain the business model/strategy that you will use to realize the opportunity.)
Here are some questions to help GUIDE you in developing your business concept (and later when expanding it into a full business plan for the final group project in week 11).
Global Entrepreneurship & New Venture
• What are the key factors in determining if your idea is a viable business opportunity? Is this just an idea or a real business opportunity? Can the new product or service work?
• What contextual (economic, regulatory, industry) factors should you be aware of? What markets and market drivers should you focus on? What are the specific competitive advantages will the product or service offer? Who are the customers likely to be?
• Who would make up the team? In your opinion, what is the greatest risk? Why and how should this risk be mitigated? What resources you will need? Who is going to finance it?
• What would be the business strategy? Briefly describe your business strategy. What partners and alliances (important stakeholders) will you need in order to be successful in production, distribution, marketing, and overall? What distribution channels will be used?
Please note you must ensure that to correctly cite any information you use from other sources and provide a reference list at the end of your report. There is no requirement for minimum number of the sources that you should use but you should utilise correct referencing techniques and do not plagiarise (use the APA Intext Citations
and Referencing System). If you fail to provide appropriate referencing, students will be penalised.