Dr David Bozward

Category: Blog

  • 2014 is the year to try your plans for failure

    As we start 2014 everyone has a lot of optimism for what it brings. This is a great time of year to lay down plans and create ideas for activities and events for the up coming year. Each year we do this, knowing that not all of these will occur, however our understanding is that we could do these resolutions if we so wished.

    The same is true for entrepreneurs, when we create busineses we know that not all of them will be sucessful and failure will provide us with the opportunity to learn. We know that this puts back into a new “year” enterprise start whereby we can move forward again. Each start-up is like a new year, we set down plans, work them through, knowing that not all of these plan are right, will happen and we will have the time to succeed.

    Our traditions provide us with the stability of knowing something is right, having been done for many years. Businesses have been formed for hundreds of years, each year some have failed, so allow these failures to create better understanding of business, starting an enterprise and also your skills in entrepreneurship.

    The holiday period is a time for reflection and this time is important in many ways. Its a chance to socialize with new and old friends, meet the family and grow as people. The important thing about failure is the learning it provides, without which we can not tune our skills and refine our plans and processes.

    So as we start 2014, just remember its ok to fail as log as you can learn from it.

     

     

  • The European Single Market for Entrepreneurs

    The European Single Market for Entrepreneurs

    I had the privilege to meet a number of youth groups this week from around Europe and was amazed at the problems that they face in just starting a business.

    In the UK, if you want to start a business, you have a number of options. The first and easiest is to be self employed by just registering with HMRC (government revenue, http://www.hmrc.gov.uk) which takes about 10 minutes online. Then you just keep them updated using the same online portal.

    The second way is by starting a business, which again takes 10 minutes but you have to pay to register the company, this is through Companies House, http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/ and costs around £15. Again you keep up to date online using the interface provided.

    In both cases you provide final year accounts using a PDF submission process.

    Across the EU, the average time to start a business is 13.3 days (2012 Figures). However, when you look at countries like Spain the average time in 2003 was 114 days and has now come down to 28 days. So things are changing fast. Poland currently takes 32 days, but it’s not about the time taken but the bureaucracy involved. (Take a look at this amazing comparison website http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploretopics/starting-a-business ) For young Entrepreneurs this is a major issue as a mistake at this stage may lead to major costs later on.

    So what is the best practice?

    Singapore has one of the best business setup environments in the world and its provides “A modernized business registration system should have all procedures online, requiring that permits applications should be online and transparent, allowing for general collateral when getting credit, requiring detailed disclosure for investors, taking all tax management and payments online, creating a single window for trade across borders, and creating a specialized court division to enforce contracts.”

    Given that Entrepreneurs within Europe can move where they want to start, maintain or grow their business, we should be creating a system which allows clustering to occur to build these businesses. If you see that its best to be in Romania for bio-tech then “go and be part of this”, should be the moto.

    Also given that the high growth high technology business can transfer assets within minutes from one business to another, most of which are virtual, the only thing stopping them moving to the best location is the bureaucracy involved in closing that business. Living in a global economy means we can move around, its better that way for large and small businesses. I must give credit to Francesco Maurelli for this.

    So maybe we need a way to allow businesses to move around Europe just like our people, as we all know business is about people.

  • Leadership of Enterprising Groups

    Leadership of Enterprising Groups

    A large number of the attributes of a Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) can be directly applied and are applicable to the Peer Led Student Enterprise Groups (PLEG). Organizational theory review also shows a higher degree of complexity for non-profit organisations when compared to profit oriented businesses.

    As for Mizell (2005) and Lubar (2005) emphasize the quality of management as key to volunteer retention as well as volunteer support. This is nonetheless emphasizing the fact that one of the key responsibility of the non-profit organisation is to factor in volunteers’ potential constraints and be proactive about them. Through this research they found that most of the volunteers expected the manager to practice participating leadership. It was highlighted that the management team of non-profits organizations should think about their leadership style, in order to have the volunteers feel more productive and that they belong to the organization.

    According to Trachtenberg (2006), the key importance of values and belief for non-profit organisation is attracting quality volunteers is one of the most important objectives of the NPO; however, it is a task that is often overlooked or performed poorly by NPO managers and administrators Farmer & Fedor (1999). Volunteerism cannot be separated from the motives, values, and beliefs of the volunteer (Wilson, 2000). The three most important strategies that can be drawn from the research include (1) recruiting volunteers based on their interests, qualifications, and how well they fit with the organization; (2) offering training to support the learning and skills development of volunteers, and; (3) acknowledging directly to volunteers the vital role they play in the success of the organization as well as the contributions that they make in generating the capital needed to meet its mission and its goals.

    Despite the growing contribution of the nonprofits to global economies, nonprofits operate in an increasingly competitive environment. Along the same line, Jay (2010) highlights non-profit sustainability necessity but throw an interesting light on the changing non-profit environment and the related risk associated. Nonprofit literature over the last few decades reflects attempts to examine the competitive environment in which NPOs operate and impact their functioning. Several researchers have used the Porter’s five forces model to capture the competitive intensity in the immediate environment. Whilst the parallels to Porter are striking, the system of relationships proposed for NPOs has not been subjected to empirical testing.

    They observe that this trend towards marketization may pose risks for civil society because nonprofits may lose sight of their social Mission. Also, governments and entrepreneurial business initiatives nested within the NPO have provided other important sources of finance for NPOs. Substantial volatility across all these diverse revenue streams forces NPOs to become adept at multiple stakeholder management.

    A NPO must ensure a flow of resources in order to sustain itself which is typically through earned income, governmental support and private donations. Researchers contributing to this stream of literature have suggested several strategies that can be adopted by NPOs to gain financial substantiality: commercially generated revenues (Lundström et al 1997); application of business principles to fundraising ; employing relationship marketing ; identity-based donations (focusing on the salience of the donors’ identity within the relationship) ; and within and cross sector strategic alliances . In addition to revenue enhancing strategies, researchers have suggested a number of strategies to reduce costs: increased volunteerism and its productivity and soliciting in-kind donations.

  • Institutional & Education Enterprise Requirements for Peer-Led Team Learning

    There are numerous studies (Astin (1999) and Terenzini (1996) ) who highlight the advances of peer led learning within the educational institution, creating a strong evidence base for peer led student enterprise groups.

    Astin, (1999) Proposes a student involvement theory whereby the High Education institution could use to measure ‘student involvement’ using a metric which refers to the quantity and quality of the physical and psychological energy that students invest in their experience whilst at the institution. This involvement may take many forms, such as absorption in academic work, participation in extracurricular activities, and interaction with faculty and other institutional personnel. According to the theory, the greater the student’s involvement in college, the greater will be the amount of student learning and personal development.

    Terenzini (1996) states that, students’ out-of-class experiences appear to be far more influential in students’ academic and intellectual development than many faculty members and academic and student affairs administrators think

    Slavin (1996) notes that the motivationalist critique of traditional classroom organization holds that the competitive grading and informal reward system of the classroom creates peer norms opposing academic efforts. Since one student’s success decreases the chances that others will succeed, students are likely to express norms that high achievement is for “nerds” or teachers’ pets. Such work restriction norms are familiar in industry, where the “rate buster” is scorned by his or her fellow workers Vroom (1969). However, by having students work together toward a common goal, they may be motivated to express norms favoring academic achievement, to reinforce one another for academic efforts.

    As a learning pedagogical, Peer-Led Team Learning, whether project-based learning (PBL), game-based learning (GBL), Understanding by Design (UbD), or authentic literacy. Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) is a specific form of small group learning recognized by Project Kaleidoscope as best practice pedagogy (Varma Nelson et al 2004). PLTL was first developed by Woodward, Gosser,and Weiner (1993) as an integrated method that promoted discourse and creative problem solving Evaluation of the successful implementations of PLTL have suggested six critical components which fits well within our student led enterprise groups, especially within the further education sector:

    • Peer-Led Team Learning in integral to the course.
    • Peer-leaders are trained in leadership skills.
    • Faculty or Subject areas are involved.
    • Materials for workshops are challenging and promote collaborative effort.
    • Space and noise level acceptable for group discussion and work.
    • Peer-Led Team Learning is integrated into the institutional structure.

    The institutional enterprise strategy will determine the characteristics of the Peer-Led group and the empowerment student are provided.

  • Finding a Social Entrepreneur

    Finding a Social Entrepreneur

    The development of social enterprise over the last few years has lead to a wider appeal and also an increase in students looking at enterprise as a career option. These students are looking at the problems within their society and developing innovative solutions to the problems of today. This will be one of the core legacies of this recession as the young have seen how corporate greed can and does lead to a range of social and ethical issues.

    We can not rely on bankers to mess up the economy so we can create greater social entrepreneurs.

    So what are the core characteristics and triggers for social enterprise and entrepreneurs ?

    Social enterprise is not new, so there is much evidence into its impact and development.  (Zahra et al). So reviewing some of the literature we essential have three types of social entrepreneur.

    1. Social Bricoleur : who is focused on small scale local social needs
    2. Social Constructionist : who exploits opportunities and market failures in order to introduce reforms in “broader” social system
    3. Social Engineer : who recognizes systemic failures and addresses them by introducing revolutionary change

    Once we understand these three types, the development of the civic, social system and revolutionary change means we can identify a number of personal characteristics or attributes which the social entrepreneurs should hold, (Brooks pp12)

    • Innovativeness
    • Achievement Orientation
    • Independence
    • Sense of control over destiny
    • Low risk-aversion
    • Tolerance for ambiguity
    • Community awareness and social concerns

    The first six are standard entrepreneurial attributes which you can find in the majority of literature and also entrepreneur tests, with the the seven being the community  aspect which introduces the social aspect of the entrepreneur.

    These characteristics allow a level of entrepreneurship to exists when triggered. These trigger points are important (e.g. Banking Crisis). There are five entrepreneur trigger points which (Brooks, pp9).

    • Environment
    • Resources
    • Perturbation / Displacement
    • Personal Traits
    • Preparation

    The majority of universities now have greater support for social enterprise, through partnerships with UnLtd and charitable organizations. These help create the right environment and provide the much needed resources to develop the idea. The education preparation for social entrepreneurship has been embedded into our education system for many years. Within the HE sector, we can see great examples from RAG, ENACTUS to formal Volunteering.

    The social entrepreneur provides an opportunity to work with a real local issue and develop an eco system which ensures  real role models and local engagement for a wider set of students throughout their degrees. This is important in developing and maintaining our local economies.

    By understanding the trigger points for social enterprise, we can help develop the skills and personal characteristics within our education system for successful social entrepreneurs.

  • New term, New version of Enterprise

    For the student entrepreneur there is a great amount of support out there. However, this support is not well co-ordinated by the suppliers or by the university or college. Of course if you google “enterprise support” you get (Enterprise Support Services UK Ltd are a cleaning company based in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire)

    However is a great list all students should take a look at:

  • Entrepreneurship – In Context

    Enterprise and entrepreneurship is a key driver in economic growth and can be a huge part of the solution to unemployment. Its impact also affects the whole of civilization because of the advancement in innovation technology as well as the creation of jobs that in consequence reduce poverty, according to Ernst and Young’s (2011).

    “Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with less than 250 employees make up two-thirds of total employment in OECD countries. The European Commission showed in its SME Performance Review that the number of jobs in SMEs had increased at an average annual rate of 1.9%, while the number of jobs in larger enterprises increased by only 0.8% between 2002 and 2008” Ernst and Young (2011).

    Ideally, governments should take an all-inclusive approach, which promotes the strengthening of the entire entrepreneurship environment. However, doing this first requires accurately measuring the multi-layered phenomenon that is entrepreneurship, as well as understanding the impact of a host of different factors on the level of entrepreneurship in a country. “These include the quality of the physical infrastructure, the health of the population, the level of education, the pace of adoption of new technologies and many other macro and micro factors” Ernst and Young (2011).

    Therefore, is it essential that a ‘framework’ that can measure entrepreneurship accurately whilst analysing KPI’s (key performance indicators).

    Among the key findings in Ernst and Young’s (2011) report:

    1. Self-confidence is key
    Our overall analysis provides a clear overview of where the G20 member countries stand with respect to fostering entrepreneurship. Combining two of our key findings — entrepreneurs’ confidence in their own country, and new business density

    2. Entrepreneurship culture
    The culture of a country can affect entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship on many levels. Our perceptions survey was central to our analysis of whether the culture of a country is conducive to Entrepreneurship.

    3. Education and training
    We go beyond looking at the overall performance of the educational system, to take a closer look at entrepreneurship specific education and assess how important this is for encouraging entrepreneurship.

    4. Access to funding
    Securing access to funding, both at the start-up phase and at later stages of enterprise development, is one of the biggest challenges for young entrepreneurs. We analyze the experiences of entrepreneurs in accessing funding across the G20 countries, and find some dramatic differences and valuable lessons.

    5. Regulation and taxation
    The regulatory and taxation environment is one of the areas in which governments have a key role in providing an enabling environment for entrepreneurial growth.

    6. Coordinated support
    There are typically a number of different agencies involved in facilitating and supporting entrepreneurship within a country. The level of support these agencies provide — and the extent to which they coordinate with one another — can make a crucial difference to the entrepreneurship Environment.

    This increasing entrepreneurship and recognition of small enterprises in the health of the economy is also highlighted in recent reports.

    According to the UK National Statistics (Nation. Stats 2012), the actual increase in the total business population between the start of 2011 and the start of 2012 will lie between 200,000 (4.4 per cent) and 253,000 (5.6 per cent).

    The 4.8 million private sector businesses employed an estimated 23.9 million people, and had an estimated combined annual turnover of £3,100 billion.

    The majority (62.7 per cent) of private sector businesses were sole proprietorships, 28.0 per cent were companies and 9.3 per cent were partnerships. At the start of 2012, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)3 accounted for 99.9 per cent of all private sector businesses, representing no change since 2011 and almost unchanged since 2000. SMEs also accounted for 59.1 per cent of private sector employment and 48.8 per cent of private sector turnover at the start of 2012.

    For (Heseltine 2012), the prize is potentially huge. There are about 3.6 million self-employed people and sole traders in the UK, and 1.2 million businesses with at least one employee. That is 4.8 million in total. It is a fact, often noted, that if just one in 10 of these businesses took on an employee, or an additional employee, that would increase employment by 480,000.

    In (Young 2012), it is estimated that if the UK had the same rate of entrepreneurship as the US, there would be approximately 900,000 additional businesses in the UK and that’s the real context for our stakeholders.

  • The real question is, IS the probability of failure is greater than the probability of success?

    Having studied statistics and quantum mechanics back in the late 80s at university (It has changed a little bit since then). I understand this life dimension runs between a number of statistic probabilities which in general provide a limited set of outcomes that on average can be determined. Thus having been born in the rural West Midlands(UK), living in a  village for the last 15 years, I will live until I’m 82 years old, as most of the street which I live on have. Job done!!

    I don’t believe in enterprise because I want to keep the status quo!! Everything must change, change is the only option,change is good, so how do I change the probability in the favor of enterprise?

    So should I even think about this?

    I was walking in the forest with my wife, its was during the snow fall last February on a Saturday afternoon. A big forest which leads no where and goes no where, its just a big forest. So what is the probability that we three sets of people meet at the same time(yes same time, same place, all within one metre of each other) these people…

    One man warring a three piece suite with two children, also carrying a pink bike
    One man caring two plastic shopping bags full of shopping
    A woman with two dogs talking on her mobile phone

    OK, I think its about 170 million to one.

    But if I could bottle it and give this to entrepreneurs who are starting a business, they would pay, being able to fix a 170 million one chance, just pure gold. Every day in my life I see these amazingly high probability opportunities come forward. I am sure I should say serendipity but  …

    The real question is, IS the probability of failure is greater than the probability of success?

    Given tomorrow, I will sit in a train carriage with a three other random people, who will never have meet, never meet again and spend a brief moment in time which will change the complete history of our galaxy.

    Those who fail are not recorded in history. Thus the probability of success is just equal to 1. (Which means the probability of failure is just zero which is why we where we are, right now)

    Given we will succeed, what path will you take in this?

  • Experience , Employability, Enterprise

    Having worked with a number of universities over the last five years, the motivation for providing any sort of entrepreneurial development is coming down to three core KPIs.

    When we consider the student within a university, they seek these three important indicators.

    Experience

    This aspect some years ago was the key reputation of the university. Now its about the enjoyment provided by the student’s union and the quality of the lecturing staff in providing an educational service. When you analysis the recent survey, the clear winners are those regional city universities which have professional on campus student services. The bottom of the table are those in major cities whose can not compete with the volume of other activities which the city offers.

    However, the table shows interesting deviations which when you compare with enterprise support at that university. For an increasing number of students the size of the student bar or the availability of a 24/7 hockey pitch are not on their radar.

    Employability

    The curriculum and the offered courses are sliding against the sledge hammer of change to accommodate the holy grail of employability and the consequential Destination of Leavers survey. Promoting and recruiting students which have less than a 50% chance of employability is an impossible task for the majority of universities.

    So embedding the opportunities to engage with business, gain valued experience and create a dialogue with employers which seek your students has to start, as always at fresher week and progress to the milk round and end with the much valued but of of reach alumni.

    Enterprise

    Everyone who goes to university should work in an enterprise. It may be government, social, charity, self employment, startup, SME or even a FTSE 250. In every case our students should know where they provide the value, which pays them their wages. Around this concept we develop our students with enterprise awareness and skills.

    I was listening to BIS minster who stated when Warwick University started their business school and student and staff tried to stop this, stating that universities and business should be separate.

    • Education and Business should always be aligned.
    • Research and Business should not always be aligned.

    Enterprise in education should accommodate the student requirements to service their desire to fulfill their career ambitions.This may be to work in business, government, freelancing or starting a business. Every single one of them should be entrepreneurial in their outlook to ensure they seek the opportunities available to them and the country.

  • Business plan competitions , the benefits for all

    Business plan competitions , the benefits for all

    The Business Plan Competition is one of the major tools for those institutions starting out with entrepreneurship as it provide a promotional platform for creating student awareness, real role models and institutional engagement. A large number of universities and colleges create an enterprise delivery strategy around this linchpin.  From this they can hang workshops such ideas creation, business skills and also more personalized services such as mentoring and accelerators.  

     

    If it is done correctly it can generate a significant interest in the student population, local business and senior management, growing at an annual rate to ensure competitors from all facility or schools within the institution. A true win win!

     

    So why should your institution run a business plan competition? 

    Enterprise Ethos

    There are very few projects within the university which develops the enterprise ethos of the institution. The business plan competition can be made to work with all academic departments, staff and students to ensure that the benefits of enterprise are understood in the context of the institution. This management tool requires careful development but will product results which will be lasting in changing the ethos.

     

    The development of students out of the class room is important in ensuring they understand that a continual approach to learning in the work place should be adopted at every stage of their life. The process of learning, developing new skills and applying them to real world problems in a creative way is one every degree student has to learn. 

    Celebration of enterprise

    The awards event should be a celebration of enterprise whereby everyone associated with university enterprise, staff, researchers, students, businesses, By engaging the Vice Chancellor to deliver prizes and keynote speech you can ensure some level of support from others within the university. 

    Skills Development 

    Students will develop new skills through a competitive behavior and engaging in a number of pre-submission sessions. This ensures that a wider number of students gain experience whilst also increasing the competitions’  finalist ability. This is especially important when dealing with the expectations of sponsors and also ensuring that a sufficient story can be provided to the press. These role models are especially important when developing a sustainable competition. When we look at shell live wire, the press and PR exposure provided to the finalist has always been exceptional, ensuring the further development of the finalists businesses.

    Student Role Models

    Student peer development is an important learning pedagogy which ensures wide spread appeal when embedding enterprise  into the student mindset. A diversity of business types and annual growth of this growth is an important factor for a student when seeking reassurance for their entrepreneurial thinking and endeavors. 

     

    It is important these role models are seen on event marketing collateral, made available during events and speak about their real life experiences. These experiences, should include The good, the bad and the ugly and should be demonstrated to the students that what ever life experiences come forward, its the learning from these that enables the entrepreneur to grow and succeed.

    Business & Alumni Collaboration

    It also brings in sponsors from businesses and more importantly alumni. These groups thrive on engaging students, their ideas and being part of the university culture. Once they get involved, they start to recruit students into their businesses, develop knowledge transfer partnership and take an active interest in the students and staff of the institution.

     

    The competition will also create and should involve the institutions alumni of key role models for our student entrepreneurs. These groups of people make great judges, mentors, business coaches, sponsors and advisory board members which are so important in ensuring staff and students understand the needs of business and entrepreneurs.

    Internal Collaboration

    Opportunities for collaboration on a single project with a large number of internal stakeholders such as the student union, the incubator, university departments and external businesses is very rare at universities. One case study is from the Liverpool university which bases the competition out of the student union ensures the highest student engagement and also attendance at the finals. This engagement then ensures wider student perception of the competition and also from the widest demographics of students, from social sciences to biology. 

    Staff Development

    The process of running the competition provides a good opportunity for staff development, providing opportunities to run a project from start to completion within one academic year which brings in the skills of marketing, student engagement, mentoring and skills development. The metrics can be easily obtained and understood by all parties and thus ensures a great opportunity for staff.

    Student & Enterprise Society Engagement

    Using enterprise society for promotion and student engagement is one of the best ways to ensure student involvement and ownership, This ensures you develop a student led approach to the marketing and earlier stages engagement of the competitors which allows them to forms founder groups. There are numerous statistics which show that a team is more likely to win a business plan competition.

     

    The vast majority, even the most success one will admit they would like to Increased business engagement, with students, with research, with course development, with CPD. The business plan competition is the first step in getting businesses on campus and meeting students, from here we can sell in all the other aspects of the university. So getting them to sponsor, attend or engage with a competitor is one the most critical parts of the universities business engagement strategy.

     

    The key KPIs for a business plan competition should be:

     

    • The total number of student and graduate entries
    • The total number of students engaged on social media
    • The number of schools which enter
    • The total prize money available 
    • The business categories
    • The total hours of skills development
    • The total number of students having skills development
    • The number of businesses sponsoring
    • The total number of businesses attending the presentations
    • Increased student perception in enterprise