Entrepreneurship: Business Plan and Commercial Functions

Entrepreneurial Functions

• Preparation of a business plan or project report is a crucial step in entrepreneurship, serving as an operating document.
• The entrepreneur must determine the financial requirement, classified into short-term and long-term needs.

Commercial Functions

• Production/Manufacturing involves decisions on factory site selection, design, layout, product types, research, and development.
• Marketing is the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer, with the customer at its core.
• Accounting involves recording, classifying, summarizing, and interpreting transactions to achieve business objectives.

Managerial Functions

• Planning involves predetermining a course of action to accomplish set objectives, considering what, how, when, where, and by whom tasks are to be done.
• Organizing involves bringing together resources (men, material, machine, money, etc.) to execute plans.
• Staffing involves human resource planning, recruitment, selection, training, development, and appraisal.
• Directing involves guiding, teaching, and stimulating employees to work efficiently and accomplish objectives.
• Controlling involves comparing actual performance with target performance and taking corrective measures.

Promotional Functions

• Identification and selection of a business idea involves generating and evaluating ideas based on knowledge, experience, and information gathered from others.

Characteristics of an Entrepreneur

• Creativity
• Professionalism
• Risk-taking
• Passion
• Planning
• Knowledge
• Social Skills
• Empathy
• Customer-centricity
• Open-mindedness towards learning, people, and failure

Functions of an Entrepreneur

• Innovation: driving innovation and value in the marketplace
• Risk-taking: responsible for paying factors of production in advance, with potential for profit or loss
• Organizing: bringing together resources to execute plans