Enhancing Competitiveness Training Coordinator for SME Project, KADIN Batam

An entrepreneur is someone who creates a new busines by taking a risk (with no guarentee) in hope to achieve profitability and growth by identifying opportunities and expending the resources required to realise his business goal. From the above definition, we can identify the profile of an entrepreneur:

1. Strong Sense of Responsibility and Accountability

   An entrepreneur feels personally responsible for the performance of the companies he is involved in.

2. Inclination Toward Moderate Risks

   An entrepreneur is not a wild risk taker, but a man who takes calculated risks.An entrepreneur sees a business venture and understand the possible personal risk he is taking.

3. Weak Financial Management

   In this case there are two fundamental weaknesses that need to outlined, namely: lack of capital and weakness in financial management.

   Many entrepreneurs make a comon mistake at the beginning of their business journey: they are very optimistic and often misjudge the capital that will be needed to sustain and grow the business. As a result, they usuallly started out with too little capital and then realise later on that theu need more money to fund the growth of the company adequate capitalization seems will never be achieved considering the company they need more money to fund its growth.

   In addition, pressure to stay price competitive (viz-a vis his competitors) may lead the company to offer credit payments to his clients, creating downstream cash flow issues. Offering client credit payment terms should be onsidered carefully as it could destroy the financial health of the company.

4. Failure to Develop Strategic Planning

   Too many entrepreneurs ignore the need to develop a strategic plan for their companies. It is often perceived that strategic planning is only for large enterprises. However, the failure of plan ahead , often results the demise of the company, and this applies to companies big or small. Without a clearly defined strategy, a business does not have a clear view of how it will go about creating and maintaining sustainable competitive advantage in the market.