N4 Entrepreneurship & Business Management Reminder:


Important skills of the entrepreneur 1. Technical skills, e.g. plumbing, driving. computer literacy. 2. Business skills • Inter-personal skills, e.g. excellent selling skills. • Accounting and bookkeeping skills, i.e. understanding financial statements. 3. Management skills, i.e. giving tasks (delegating) and motivating employees.


Characteristics of successful entrepreneurs The characteristics of an entrepreneur are only guidelines and pointers towards being successful. If you don’t possess all these characteristics, don’t despair. Businesses differ and that which might be required in terms of specific characteristic in one business might not be that important in another business.


Earlier we mentioned Elon Musk, the entrepreneur and his business successes. Consider the following:


Characteristics Elon Musk


Confidence in your ability to succeed He believed in his new idea in a big way. Preference for moderate risk


He took it on, albeit a brand new Internet concept.


Desire for responsibility Energetic


Identifying opportunities Organising skills


Need to achieve Desire for immediate feedback


The sheer size of his endeavour. Started Tesla.


Saw the need to transfer money safely on the Internet.


A person in charge of so many different companies must have good organisational skills.


He does not need to work ever again, yet he continues to do so.


Always in the public eye where he gets lots of immediate feedback i.e. being on the cover of a magazine.


1.4.3 Values of an entrepreneur


South Africa’s economy is essentially a market economy, forming an integral part of a global economy. We cannot ignore the global economy or go without it. We need trade and investment to grow our own economy.


What we do not need is the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Too many people around the world live on less than a dollar a day. In South Africa the gap between the rich and poor is also growing. Our country needs entrepreneurs, but clearly not at any cost. Entrepreneurs need a value system (business values) to guide them while building their businesses and earning profits. More and more voices within the South African political, business and union movements are starting to look at a different set of business values to address the way in which we do business. The key word is Ubuntu.


10


PAUSE FOR THOUGHT


“We must change our value system and put humanity, ubuntu, at the centre of our society.”


Thabo Mbeki


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