Demonstrate how a ‘start-up’ company might use personal contact networking to help achieve sales growth and the acquisition of necessary resources, including knowledge resources, during the first five years of its growth plan. Pay particular attention to the use of digital and mobile technologies in helping you to achieve your personal contact networking aims. Use examples in your work as a vehicle for discussion?
Personal contact network means the active intercommunication between various parties and customers that can help in the growth of the start-up business. Various literature reviews and practical experiences have showed light to the fact that in today’s contemporary world, personal contract network plays a significant role in establishing a business. The impact of the personal network is more prominent in a small start up Entrepreneur Company than the already established company. In the first five years of business, personal networks play a critical role in the initiation of the company.
This particular report deals with the advantages of personal contact network, but there is no denying the fact that it may have a negative impact on the company’s development. The primary purpose of this report is to scrutinize the crucial role played by the personal contacts in the development and existence of the company. Furthermore, in this report the consideration of the most critical phase that is the initial first year is evaluated and analyzed. Furthermore, with the advancement of technology and communications devices has assisted in developing the business in a smoother way. The recent rapid use of mobile and digital technology has helped in developing and maintaining such network.
Entrepreneurial Theory and Practices that used for new ventures
Entrepreneurship means the discovery, exploitation and assessment of new opportunities, new products and services that are completely new to the market and different from existing products. Gregson, and Harrison (2013), cited that entrepreneurial theory exists because various people have several ideas for putting the same input into different output products that have high market values. According to Glackin (2013), the entrepreneurial theory mainly focuses on a diverse belief about the worth of available resources. According to Syed and Shaikh (2013) there is no existence for ‘new opportunities’ in existing market, an entrepreneur must exploit his available resources in order to develop his business. For developing the start-up business, the entrepreneur must take advantage of the contract network for establishing the business. Osterwalder and Pigneur (2013) defined networking in the business as the contact between different people for the growth, development and mutual support in the market. Meeting people, becoming part of a group helps in developing the mutual interest in the particular subject. The main purpose of developing a communication and contact network is to obtain information for expanding the start up business. Moreover, it also helps in spreading the word about the product and uniqueness of the services obtained from the startup. The structure and quality of the network structure alter the flow of resources and subsequently affect the business growth in the initial years of business. The network structure is defined by the density of the contact network formed while the quality of the network means the strength of relationship formed during the communication.
One of the significant competencies of being a successful entrepreneur especially in the initial stage business formation is the creating and maintaining an effective personal contact network. The chief purpose of any start-up an organization is to provide services and good that meets the client’s requirements. The main objective is to gather information and spread the news about the newly launched products. Various entrepreneurs used the formal written and structured information source and several uses verbal, the non-formal source of information (Mitchelmore and Rowley 2013). Many researchers have argued about the later source to be more beneficial and effective. Glackin (2013) stated that personal contact network is the most valuable means used by the entrepreneur to gather important information. Furthermore, Cassar (2014) described entrepreneurs as someone who rarely takes any rational decision and usually make action oriented actions depending upon the situations. Thus, creating a strong and efficient personal contact network helps then in being updated with any new information. Moreover, networking emphasis on the opportunism and informality; that proves to be ideal for the varying environmental conditions.
Creating and maintaining a proper personal contract network is not the only factor for the success of the startup business. The accomplishment of an entrepreneur startup business lies upon various factors and managerial capability of the entrepreneur himself. Although, the innovative idea and services play a significant role in the business, the interactions of the individual people are the central key to an establishment. Casson and Casson (2013) identified the importance of personal contact network between the buying and selling parties is essential for stabilizing the business. The vital resource required for a start-up company is the strong financial backbone. There is no denying the fact that without the sufficient financial resource, the company will fail to thrive. But, the importances of crucial factors like effective transportation, equipment and guidance cannot be ignored. The ability to manage with the available resources effectively and efficiently in a way that it normally would not be possible is the key ingredient to success.
Apart from managerial skills, an entrepreneur must have the ability to identify and analyse the existing ideas and successfully recognize the innovation opportunity within them. The personal contact network does not only emphasize on the customer and client relations, but it also helps in understanding various opportunities regarding the growth of the enterprise. Many entrepreneurs utilize the personal contract network as a master plan to identify the technical opportunities, customer needs and market scope of the product. Furthermore, many entrepreneurs use the personal network to secure the cumulative wisdom, synergistic and intelligence to create new opportunities for the product and services (Jayawarna, Rouse and Kitching 2013). Moreover, a successful and experienced entrepreneur usually creates the opportunity. Different personality behavior and traits reflect the salient features required to establish a successful business. Moreover, according to various findings and research many entrepreneurs use the personal contact network for survival, operation, and commercial prosperity of the newly formed startup company.
With the rapid growth of technology, the communication trends have changed its course from face to face communication to mobile communications. In the contemporary world, mobile and digital technology has become the inevitable part of human life (Palo and Tahtinen 2013). With the increase in the use of several advanced mobile devices, business trends have also taken a rapid change. The most common medium used by a contemporary entrepreneur for building a strong contact network is the mobile phone. The mobile phones have allowed to seamlessly connecting with the different individual with minimum effort. These technologies include instant messaging; voice chatting and video conferencing allow the business entrepreneurs get beneficial advantages in forming or effective personal network.
The businesses today deploy the mobile and digital technology to expand their business. Moreover, in startup entrepreneurship business, personal context enhances the client business relationships (Manolova, Manev and Gyoshev 2014). The entrepreneur usually takes the initiatives on the various business ventures and processes in order to perform the intelligence functions regarding business development.
With the fast moving mobile and digital technology, deploying mobile network to access emails, information from the internet became easier than ever. The mobile technology has proficiently increased the productivity and efficiency of the business. The various smartphones, technologically advanced devices like tablet along with different useful applications made the collaboration with different business staffs, employees, and customers easy and efficient. Deploying the mobile technology, the entrepreneur can access information about different products and useful resources from the open sources (Bosma et al. 2012). Mobile and digital technology allow any person to stay in contact with other without being in the same place. In the case of the startup entrepreneur business venture, the use of laptops, smartphones, and computers makes it easier to manage the business procedure and processes along with keeping in touch with different vendors and customers.
Mobile technology further allows the start-up entrepreneur to manage and use the business’s data and resources while they are travelling or working for a particular client. Moreover, the mobile technology can provide an innovative solution to the start of business. Deploying a web based application will help the business to make their services and presence felt by the customers from practically anywhere. It will furthermore allow the business to be in contact with its client and provide individual services to everyone (Nakara, Benmoussa and Jaouen 2012). Moreover, this will help in strengthening the business customer relationship that will lead to increase in profitability and productivity.
The advanced mobile and digital technology furthermore allows the effective link between the customers, vendors, and employees. The startup business can effectively employ the social media with the help of social communication media like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others. These will offer real-time communication and active personal network that delivers benefits regarding delivering customer satisfaction (Halinen, Medlin and Tornroos 2012). Because of the very interactive characteristic of the mobile and digital technology, entrepreneur receives instant feedback about the services and products. This helps them in identifying the gap in the business strategy to lead the market. Thus, this helps in an instant up gradation of the business activities. Additionally, the mobile technology provides a completely new dimension for marketing and advertising of the newly launched venture.
The construction of the personal contact network is highly favourable to the advancement of mobile and digital technology. The forming of the efficient and dense personal network has an impact on the business growth and survival. The efficient network helps in accessing the vital information and resources from leveraging the good interaction between different customers, employees (Lu et al. 2014). Furthermore, the personal contact network helps in analysing the business requirements with the help of instant customer feedback. Understanding and utilization of the contact network help the start-up firm to survive and gain success in the initial days of formation. Whereas, the lack of importance of the given to personal contact network will fail the business venture from the initial stage.
Many small start-up firms use the personal contact network as a master mind instrument to thrive for success and growth in the initial five years of formation. In spite of having a robust personal contact network, the entrepreneur must possess the ability to change the resources into the fruitful outcome (Azim and Hassan 2013). The entrepreneur must analyse the embedded technological and market opportunities for the business. Understanding these key requirements through the personal networks helps in securing the cumulative wisdom, synergistic and overall business intelligence in order to produce new business ventures or business activity. Understanding and utilizing these business opportunities helps in having a successful business on the market. Furthermore, in the initial stage of business the most vital and crucial factors that affect the survival of the business are the operational and commercial prosperity of the newly formed start-up company (Eastman et al. 2014).
Many businesses provide innovative services to its customers. Many startup businesses stay in the market for few years; some stays for many decades while many fail to survive the market for a year. Most of the failed cases occur due to lack of personal contact network of the entrepreneur. After studying the various past experiences and entrepreneur business, it is evident that the success of a startup venture is largely impacted by the efficiency and effectiveness of personal contact network. The personal network assists in achieving sales growth, advertising and marketing of the product in the initial five years of business launch. Particularly the uses of mobile and digital technology have enhanced the communication and strengthen the personal contact network of the business in the first five years. Thus, the mobile technology also offers the entrepreneur in securing their cumulative wisdom, synergistic and intelligence in a totally new way. Furthermore, it can be concluded that the mobile and digital technology in the formation and managing the personal contact network is an efficient, effective and inevitable procedure.
References
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Cassar, G., 2014. Industry and startup experience on entrepreneur forecast performance in new firms. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(1), pp.137-151.
Casson, M. and Casson, C., 2013. The entrepreneur in history: From medieval merchant to modern business leader. Palgrave Pivot.
Eastman, J.K., Iyer, R., Liao-Troth, S., Williams, D.F. and Griffin, M., 2014. The role of involvement on millennials’ mobile technology behaviors: The moderating impact of status consumption, innovation, and opinion leadership. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 22(4), pp.455-470.
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Jayawarna, D., Rouse, J. and Kitching, J., 2013. Entrepreneur motivations and life course. International Small Business Journal, 31(1), pp.34-56.
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Manolova, T.S., Manev, I.M. and Gyoshev, B.S., 2014. Friends with money? Owner’s financial network and new venture internationalization in a transition economy. International Small Business Journal, 32(8), pp.944-966.
Mitchelmore, S. and Rowley, J., 2013. Entrepreneurial competencies of women entrepreneurs pursuing business growth. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 20(1), pp.125-142.
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