UNIT 2

Four ways to identify more business opportunities

To be successful entrepreneurs, we need to be continually innovating and looking for opportunities to

grow our start-ups.

But how do you find new opportunities to take your start-up to new markets and growth levels? Here
are four ways to identify more business opportunities.

1. Listen to your potential clients and past leads

When you’re targeting potential customers listen to their needs, wants, challenges and frustrations
with your industry. Have they used similar products and services before? What did they like and
dislike? Why did they come to you? What are their objections to your products or services?

This will help you to find opportunities to develop more tailored products and services, hone your
target market and identify and overcome common objections.

2. Listen to your customers

When you’re talking to your customers listen to what they saying about your industry, products and
services. What are their frequently asked questions? Experiences? Frustrations? Feedback and
complaints?

This valuable customer information will help you identify key business opportunities to expand and
develop your current products and services.

3. Look at your competitors

Do a little competitive analysis (don’t let it lead to competitive paralysis though) to see what other start-
ups are doing, and more importantly, not doing? Where are they falling down? What are they doing
right? What makes customers go to them over you?

Analysing your competitors will help you identify key business opportunities to expand your market
reach and develop your products and services.

4. Look at industry trends and insights

Subscribe to industry publications, join relevant associations, set Google alerts for key industry terms
and news and follow other industry experts on social media.

Absorb yourself in your industry and continually educate yourself on the latest techniques and trends.

What is idea generation and why it's important?

Idea generation is described as the process of creating, developing and communicating abstract,
concrete or visual ideas.

It’s the front end part of the idea management funnel and it focuses on coming up with possible
solutions to perceived or actual problems and opportunities.
As mentioned, ideas are the first step towards making improvement. Us making progress as
individual human beings depends on new ideas. From the perspective of an individual, new ideas can
help you to move forward if you feel stuck with a task or are unable to solve a certain problem.

Tools and techniques for generating ideas

There are, however, some other useful techniques that might be worth giving a shot to challenge
conventional thinking. Because you're going to need different ideas, it's good to have a few techniques
in mind for generating them. Most of these ideation methods can be used for more effective
brainstorming but also for other type of ideation.

1. Idea Challenge

Idea challenge is a focused form of innovation where you raise a problem or opportunity with the
hopes of coming up with creative solutions.

The point of idea challenge is to participate in ideation and generate ideas around a pre-defined
theme for a limited period of time.

It allows you to form a specific question and direct that question at a specific audience to receive new
ideas and unique insights.

Before setting up an idea challenge, it’s important to define what you want to accomplish with it.

Because there are two types of idea challenges, problem centric and solution centric approaches, you
should first clarify whether you’re looking to identify challenges or develop potential solutions for them.
When organizing an idea challenge, there are different parameters that you can choose to achieve
the outcomes you’re looking for, such as theme, audience, responsibilities, time, or channels.

Keep in mind that idea challenge is the best technique when you need to generate lots of new ideas.
It may not be the most effective way to generate ideas if you only involve a few experts in your ideation
process as it’s proven to be more useful for engaging large audiences.

Although idea challenge enables you to gather lots of ideas fast, careful planning takes time and might
not be worth the effort if there are no resources to execute it properly. Also, right timing is necessary
for it to succeed.

We've written a comprehensive guide to idea challenges you can read by clicking below.

2. SCAMPER Technique

The SCAMPER technique is created by Bob Eberle, and is a method used for problem-solving and
creative thinking. It’s a holistic way of applying critical thinking to modify ideas, concepts or processes
that already exist.

The purpose of the SCAMPER is to make adjustments to some parts of the existing idea or process
to reach the best solution. It consists of seven actions that can be used to replace parts in the process:

1. Substitute – Substitution technique refers to replacing a part of your product, concept or process
with another to achieve even better outcome.

2. Combine – The combine technique explores the possibility to combine two ideas into a single, more
effective solution.
 3. Adapt – Adaptation analyses the possibilities to make the process more flexible and focuses on
other similar incremental improvements to the idea, process, or concept.

4. Modify – Modifying the idea looks at the problem or opportunity from a bigger perspective and aims
for improving the overall results, not just the idea.

5. Put to another use – This approach focuses on finding ways to use the idea or existing solution for
another purpose and analyses the possible benefits if applied to other parts of the business.

6. Eliminate – The elimination technique is quite straightforward: it examines the possible outcomes if
one or more parts of the concept were eliminated.

7. Reverse – This action focuses on reversing the order of interchangeable elements of an idea.

Although the SCAMPER technique was originally designed for brainstorming sessions, it can be
applied to your own thought processes as well.

Often, people tend to focus on finding the next big idea. When generating new ideas, it is easy to
forget that the continuous incremental improvements are the ones that really make an impact in the
long run.

When you make ideation a constant practice, you’ll have a good chance to win that big idea through
a number of small ones. Sometimes, all it may take is to have look at what you’ve already got. Using
your existing ideas or processes as a starting point can reveal a lot about your current situation, which
is what the SCAMPER technique is about.

3. Opposite Thinking

Opposite/reverse thinking is a technique that can help you question long-held assumptions related to
your business. It’s a useful tool to consider if you feel your team is stuck with the conventional mindset
and coming up with those “out-of-the-box ideas” seems to be difficult.

Often, finding the best solutions aren’t found through a linear thought process. Although our brains
are wired that way, opposite thinking can help us question the norm.

With this type of thinking, you consider the exact opposite of what’s normal. You can even think
backwards to find unconventional solutions.

4. Brainstorm Cards

Brainstorm cards are a useful tool created by the Board of Innovation for coming up with dozens of
new ideas related to whatever challenge or problem you are currently working with. Brainstorm cards
help you consider external factors such as: societal trends, new technologies, and regulation in the
context of your business.
This approach allows you to generate a great number of ideas with little effort. Although many of the
ideas won’t make sense, this tool can still be very beneficial for getting you out of the rut if you’re
suffering from a creative block.

5. Analogy Thinking

Analogy thinking is a technique for using information from one source to solve a problem in another
context. Often one solution to a problem or opportunity can be used to solve another problem.

Analogy thinking can, for example, be used for analyzing a successful business, identifying what
makes it great, and then applying those same principles for your business. This is an effortless method
for coming up with new ideas that are pre-validated.

You’ve probably heard of the countless start-ups that are the “Uber for [insert industry here]“. This is
exactly the method every one of those companies has used. However, although this is such an easy
and intuitive tool to use, the obvious combinations are likely to be very competitive.

The aforementioned techniques are some of our favorites for generating ideas but definitely not the
only ones out there. The ones that work for you can be found by testing different options.

6. Managing ideas

Although generating ideas is often the easy part of innovation, collecting and managing them can be
challenging without a proper tool.

Because people often come up with new ideas then and there, they should be able collect these ideas
right when they arise.

Many people use digital or physical notebooks to write down their ideas on the go. This method works
well when you just want to make notes for your own use. However, when you want to share that
information with others and ask for feedback for further improvement, this isn’t the most effective way.

If you need to involve more people in your ideation process, you might want to consider a dedicated
idea management tool to make sure all of the potential ideas are collected in one place.
Idea Management Tool

As idea management is such a vast topic and larger companies are always going to have thousands
of ideas, using a dedicated idea management tool often makes sense for most companies.

An idea management tool serves as the backbone of your idea management process. It's where you’ll
collect the ideas, discuss them, evaluate and prioritize them, and keep track of their progress, as well
as the strategic direction of your ideation activities.

Management skills required to become an entrepreneur

Time Management

The most valuable asset for young entrepreneurs is their time. As an entrepreneur, you have to take
care of so many things together and time management is the key to keep everything on track. It is
vital to get more work done in less amount of time by eliminating interruptions, prioritising tasks and
increasing effectiveness as well as productivity. Effectual time management allows entrepreneurs to
assign specific time slots to the activities as per their importance. It also gives them the ability to
participate in economic forecasting and market research.

Business Planning

Every entrepreneur needs to develop a business plan or a blueprint of how will he develop his new
business. A good business plan consists of a single document divided into several sections including
the description of the organisation, market research, sales strategies, competitive analysis and
financial data. A well-planned blueprint or project outline acts as a strong foundation for the success
of the venture. It facilitates the entrepreneurs to make their business fit into the industry, identify their
target market and plan to capture them.

Employee Management

An entrepreneur must know how to manage the people. He should be a good judge of character and
abilities of an individual such as hiring the right employee is the foremost step for the success of a
company. Successful entrepreneurs should know how to motivate the employees in order to work
effectively and contribute to garner customer experience.

Customer Management

An entrepreneur must know how to manage his relationship with existing customers with a focus on
creating loyalty towards his business. This is the easiest and most effective method to increase
revenues. Entrepreneurs must have problem-solving skills, communication skills, attentiveness and
patience to manage customers effectively.
Sales Management

Selling or sale management is an essential skill every entrepreneur must master. You need to
completely understand the sale activities. This helps the entrepreneurs to tackle the challenges that
they may face in their sale management journey.

Financial Management

Even if your business’s finance is handled by an accountant or a finance professional, you must know
planning, organising, directing and controlling the financial activities such as procurement and
utilisation of funds. With a good financial management system, one can make decisions to improve
the business operations.

Business Management

Being a successful entrepreneur involves more than enthusiasm and a good eye for new opportunities.
A thorough understanding of the essential business functions is a prerequisite for entrepreneurs who
want to take their business to the next level. They must have the complete know-how of general
management, finance, marketing, operations management, purchasing, supply chain, human
resources and public relations.

So, these were the essential managerial skills that help the entrepreneurs to succeed and take their
business to the next level

Managing ideas via a dedicated tool is only as effective as the underlying process behind it. To make
ideation a continuous habit, you should build a process that makes generating and refining new ideas
easy. Too complex processes will only frustrate users, so don't try to make it too complicated.

If you’re interested in reading more about what to take into account when picking the right innovation
management tool for you, you can read our previous article about the topic.

Succeeding with Idea Generation

Before engaging more people to use these tools and techniques for generating more ideas, there are
a few more tips that can help you get more out of your ideation methods.

• Define the problem or opportunity

Although this seems obvious, the more accurately you’re able to describe your current or perceived
problem or opportunity, the better chances you have of actually generating useful ideas.

Before you start, try to gather as much information about the problem as possible to get to the heart
of the problem. Identify what you already know about it and what information is still needed.

• Involve the right people

For your ideation to be as productive as possible, it is important to involve the right people to the
process. Engage those people who know about the topic and are genuinely interested in making a
change in your organization.
If your plan is to engage a larger group of people to generate ideas, make sure your audience is
relevant and well informed on the subject.

• Set constraints

Communicating that any idea is a good idea may hinder creativity, so make sure your goals are
ambitious and specific enough. One way to get more of actually creative ideas from your audience is
to set constraints.

If your general goal was to reduce costs, it’s likely that people would suggest ideas such as spending
less on office equipment or buying cheaper coffee. However, the ideas you’ll get will be a lot different
if you’d ask: “What could we do to save 70% on costs?”.

Without constraints, people typically come up with small suggestions for improvement with little or no
creativity. But when describing the challenge in more detail and setting more ambitious goals, people
really need to use their imagination to achieve a desired outcome.

Conclusion

The purpose of generating new ideas is about improving what already exists as well as coming up
with something new.

Often when trying to solve a problem or approaching a new opportunity, people use existing solutions
or mental models instead of trying to come up with new ones. The problem with this approach is that
it doesn’t allow you to explore different opportunities and it narrows down the number of possible
solutions.

Coming up with completely new ideas can help you approach your problem or opportunity from a new
perspective. It enables you to expand the range of ideas beyond your current way of thinking which
eventually leads to more ideas.

There are several different methods and techniques that can be used to challenge that conventional
mindset and to get more of those high-quality ideas. The ones introduced in this post can be used as
a reference in your brainstorming sessions or when generating ideas on your own.

The next step towards generating more ideas would be to try some of these methods in practice. You
can download our idea generation toolkit that consists of some of our favorite tools for idea generation.

What management skills do entrepreneurs need?

The essential managerial skills to become a successful entrepreneur are stated below:
• Time Management. The most valuable asset for young entrepreneurs is their time. ...
• Business Planning. ...
• Employee Management. ...
• Customer Management. ...
• Sales Management. ...
• Financial Management. ...
• Business Management.
Enterprise model
Enterprise modelling is the process of building models of whole or part of an
enterprise with process models, data models, resource models and/or new
ontologies etc. It is based on knowledge about the enterprise,
previous models and/or reference models as well as domain ontologies
using model representation languages.
An enterprise model is a representation of the structure, activities, processes, information, resources,
people, behavior, goals, and constraints of a business, government, or other enterprises.[12] Thomas
Naylor (1970) defined a (simulation) model as "an attempt to describe the interrelationships among a
corporation's financial, marketing, and production activities in terms of a set of mathematical and
logical relationships which are programmed into the computer."[13] These interrelationships should
according to Gershefski (1971) represent in detail all aspects of the firm including "the physical
operations of the company, the accounting and financial practices followed, and the response to
investment in key areas"[14] Programming the modelled relationships into the computer is not always
necessary: enterprise models, under different names, have existed for centuries and were described,
for example, by Adam Smith, Walter Bagehot, and many others.

Enterprise modelling techniques

There are several techniques for modelling the enterprise such as

• Active Knowledge Modeling,

• Design & Engineering Methodology for Organizations (DEMO)
• Dynamic Enterprise Modeling
• Enterprise Modelling Methodology/Open Distributed Processing (EMM/ODP)
• Extended Enterprise Modeling Language
• Multi-Perspective Enterprise Modelling (MEMO),
• Process modelling such as BPMN, CIMOSA, DYA, IDEF3, LOVEM, PERA, etc.
• Integrated Enterprise Modeling (IEM),
• Modelling the enterprise with multi-agent systems
Organizational effectiveness
Organizational effectiveness is the concept of how effective an organization is in achieving
the outcomes the organization intends to produce.[1] Organizational Effectiveness groups in
organizations directly concern themselves with several key areas. They are talent
management, leadership development, organization design and structure, design of measurements
and scorecards, implementation of change and transformation, deploying smart processes and smart
technology to manage the firms' human capital and the formulation of the broader Human Resources
agenda.

Roles
If an organization has practices and programs in the areas above, the OE group does many or all of
the following roles:

• Examines alignment between the areas and improves them

• Improves trade-offs between reliability, speed and quality in the above areas
• Strategizes for higher adoption rates in these areas
• Facilitates/initiates/catalyses capability building : structure, process and people

Social science disciplines

Rapid advances in social sciences and technology aided by clever experimentation and observation
is bringing several truths to the light of society. There are several disciplines of social sciences that
help the OE Practitioner be successful.
Four of them are outlined below

• Decision Making - Ways in which real people make decisions, enabling them real time to
make good decisions, improving quality of decisions by leveraging adjacent disciplines (
for example- Behavioral economics) and replicating relevant experiments, creating new
ones and implementing their results to make organizations effective
• Change & Learning – Ways in which real people learn, change, adopt and align, get
“affected” by dynamics in the environment and leveraging this knowledge to create
effective organizations that are pioneers of change and learning
 • Group Effectiveness – Ways in which real people work well together, especially in bringing
new ideas and innovation, working of people to people protocols, impact of digitization and
virtualization in organizations on these protocols
• Self-Organizing & Adaptive Systems– Ways in which self-organizing systems and highly
networked systems work, learnings from them and the tangible ways by which they can be
put to play to make organizations more effective

Application
The broader idea of organizational effectiveness is applied for non-profit organizations towards
making funding decisions. Foundations and other sources of grants and other types of funds are
interested in organizational effectiveness of those people who seek funds from the foundations.
Foundations always have more requests for funds or funding proposals and treat funding as
an investment using the same care as a venture capitalist would in picking a company in which to
invest.
According to Richard et al. (2009) organizational effectiveness captures organizational
performance plus the myriad internal performance outcomes normally associated with more efficient
or effective operations and other external measures that relate to considerations that are broader than
those simply associated with economic valuation (either by shareholders, managers, or customers),
such as corporate social responsibility.[2]