The Development of Gregs Corporate Venture - Assignment Example

Business report Name Course Institution Professor Date Table of contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………3 The development of Greg’s corporate venture……………………………………………………3 The need for Greg to separate his corporate venturing efforts from his larger traditional organization……………………………………………………………………………………….5 The major obstacles and problems Greg Stambolidis faced in creating successful corporate venturing,………………………………………………………………………………..………...6 The key success factors and the failure components of Greg Stambolidis’ corporate venturing efforts…………………………………………………………………………………………….6 A comment on what Greg hoped to gain from the corporate venturing effort…………………..7 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………..8 Reference…………………………………………………………………………………….…...9 1. INTRODUCTION Entrepreneurship is an activity that involves the processes of undertaking innovations by an individual otherwise known as an entrepreneur. Majorly entrepreneurs aim at transforming the innovations into products and services that are capable of generating profits. New opportunities as business ventures are being started usually require to be keenly evaluated in the process of assessing the risks involved. This paper seeks to give various perspectives in relation to Greg Stambolidis corporate venture. 2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF GREG’S CORPORATE VENTURE Through focusing on the business activities that begin from the production process to the final consumers of goods and services otherwise known as the value chain Greg Stamboulidis came up with his business venture (Pech 2009, 16). To begin with Greg began his entrepreneurial venture by selling foods staffs in a canteen in school as well as fish in a certain shop in the region of Melbourne. Each and day in the morning Greg sourced his fish from Melbourne market where his supplier was situated. At the time it was on small scale basis and there were very low profits accruing from the business. He had not started thinking about improving the value chain until he figured out that if only he got supply of fish from overseas it would be much better since there supplier of fish in the southern region of Australia was very limited and the strict regulation from the government to a much greater extent did not make the supply processes any easy. Additionally Greg desired to source fish from overseas due to the fact that costs of labor, the prices of shark and the levels of competition were very high. Greg made the first step in his venture by identifying South Africa as the new source of his fish. The reason behind such a decision was that south Africa was at the time experiencing some problems domestically such as the apartheid regime which meant that there was a likelihood of the prices of fish being quite low than they were in Australia. At that point in time Greg experienced an increased profit margin by 100% different form the 11% to 16% profit margins that he used to gain when he had sourced his fish from the Melbourne market. It is the desire of any given business venture to become competitive and gain a competitive edge in the market where it operates. In this case competitive advantage implies to the various activities that are reflect that a business is doing better than other similar business that may be in existence. The idea of Competitive advantage emanates from what consumers think about a business as they compare it with another. In connection to this Greg identified new suppliers who were cheaper and reliable as compared to those of his competitors. Greg went a step further by entering into a joint venture with the suppliers from South Africa which resulted to greater product reliability and better system of networking. Besides having South Africa as the source of his fish Greg identified other sources such as Chile, Mexico as well as Brazil. It is quite important to not that the management of vale chain would aid his business to gain a competitive edge (Grant 2005, p.65). In addition Greg came up with new business ventures through a strategy known product differentiation. In line with this Greg produced new products for instance frozen fish, calamari ring and hotdogs. Through making his products different and unique from what his competitors provided he increased the value for those products. It is required that firms should put into consideration the suppliers ability as well as consumers demand before going ahead with the implementation process of the differentiation strategy. The sole aim is to come up with products that are of the best vale in the face of customers. Therefore both differentiation as well as the value placed upon the supply could be used in creating a new business venture. 3. THE NEEDED FOR GREG TO SEPARATE HIS CORPORATE VENTURING EFFORTS FROM HIS LARGER TRADITIONAL ORGANIZATION Need arose for Greg to ensure that he separated his corporate venturing efforts from his larger traditional organization due to the fact that the fish prices was increasing in a rapid manner as well as the costs of labor and competition was too much. Separating his venture could assist his business in finding other new opportunities to be assessed instead of dealing with only a single venture. This is would aid in countering the increased completion including reducing risks associated with entering new ventures (Block and MacMillan 2003 p. 68). Further more Greg made a decision to venture into other businesses since customers have quite a wide range of needs in line with products not only fish. This step would enable him to serve the different needs of customers. it is presented that majority of companies are usually successful due to the fact they obtain knowledge as well as skills of knowing how best to satisfy customer needs (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson 2010, p. 49). In a bid to gain economies Greg decided to expand his business by venturing into mining activities. In this case need arises for a business person to determine their core competencies in regards to the production of new commodities to new buyers. Greg understands that there are quite a wide range of opportunities at his disposal from those who supply him with fish that would enable him in creating different products in relation to sea food such as filleted fish and seafood that has been frozen which suit customer preferences and needs. Additionally Greg would go on with the idea of separating new ventures due to the impact that occurs on products in the product life stages which include; birth, growth, maturity and decline stage. Basically the knowledge of product life cycle could aid the business in knowing certain limitations of their products and hence carry on the development and launching of new products in the market. 4. THE MAJOR OBSTACLES AND PROBLEMS GREG STAMBOLIDIS FACED IN CREATING SUCCESSFUL CORPORATE VENTURING In the process of corporate venturing Greg faced many obstacles and problems. To begin with the problem of experiencing low profits margins, fish from the market where he sourced from being highly priced, increased competitors and costs of labor contributed in his process of identifying new suppliers form other countries. The success of corporate venture by Greg is attributed to the fact he learns from past failures as well as experiences which he uses in improving his business operations. for an entrepreneur to be termed as good they have to learn from their past mistakes holding onto the belief that their innovation as well creativity aids in adding new vale for buyers of goods and services as this is part of the entire objective of venturing (Wickham 2001, p. 37). From the wide range of obstacles that Greg faced deductions can be made that the management of supply is quite vital due to the fact that all process that are needed by a firm from the productions stage to the final user should aim at making the firm gain a competitive edge. The successfulness of management of the chain of suppliers’ enhances the generation of cheaper purchasing as well as reduced costs of inventory. Additionally there would be better products characterized by good quality which in the long run would result in increased sales as well as services of customers (Clow and Baack 2011, p.12). 5. THE KEY SUCCESS FACTORS AND THE FAILURE COMPONENTS OF GREG STAMBOLIDIS’ CORPORATE VENTURING EFFORTS Greg had quite some major successes that resulted from his corporate venture. The advantage that a person has in business involves moving at a much greater pace in doing things in comparison to their competitors (Bygrave and Zacharakis 2011, p. 25). This could result in the creation of costs of switching to customers since Greg understood that he could experience profits if he identified new suppliers which were more realizable as compared to those from Melbourne. In connection to this Greg identified new suppliers from overseas who were to a very high degree offered fish at a much cheaper price. Fast movers have the ability of creating loyalty to a brand due to the fact that buyers are able to remember the name of the product even if the competitors offer similar products (Hill and Jones 2009, p. 42). Additionally as Greg continues to do his business he has created good networks which assure him of better marketing of his products. Networking has the ability of extending one’s business venture through additional information, support as well as resources (Blundel and Lockett 2011, p. 56). The ultimate impact of this is that it could result to the expansion of a business venture as well as market for goods and services. Greg developed a good and sustainable relationship with the suppliers which greatly aids in ensuring that he does not experience any shortages as far as the supply and delivery of products is concerned. Another major success is the idea of team work which resulted from Greg linking his business with his family. On the other hand a component of failure in Greg’s business venture is the fact that he at some point was not able to assess and evaluate properly the ability of suppliers to increase as well as provide low quality products. As much as this was the case he was able to learn from his mistakes and failures thus turning his ventures into a success. 6. A Comment on what Greg Stambolidis hoped to gain from the corporate venturing effort Through product differentiation Greg expects to experience profit margin as well as gaining a competitive against his competitors. The reason behind this is that customers would become more diversified thus leading to the business improving and creating products that give space for the existence of a competitive advantage. Additionally Greg offers his products that are of high quality at very affordable prices ensuring that he maintains a customer’s base focusing on quality rather than quantity. In this connection for any given business venture the strategy of differentiation results to the creation of high customer value for products 7. Conclusion People who venture into the world of business by starting their own enterprises do so with the desire of achieving success as well as business sustainability. It has demonstrated that there is greater need for an entrepreneur to develop an open mind as well as creative and innovative skills that will enable them realize the success they so desire. The idea of Gaining competitive advantage by a business has been demonstrated quite clearly through the entire evaluation of Greg’s business venture. In connection to this focus is placed upon the identification of new opportunities whose exploitation which drives a business towards gaining a competitive edge against the competitors. Greg’s business venture is therefore a clear illustration of how any given business venture should be handled if it is to survival in the market in future. 8. References Block, Z & MacMillan, I 2003, Corporate Venturing: Creating new business within the firm, New York, Beard Book. Blundel, R & Lockett, N 2011, Exploring Entrepreneurship: practices and perspective, New York, Oxford University. Bygrave, W & Zacharakis, A 2011, Entrepreneurship, New York, John Wiley & Sons. Clow, K & Baack, D 2011, Cases in Marketing Management, London, Sage. Grant, R 2005, Contemporary strategy analysis, London, Wiley-Blackwell. Hill, C & Jones, G 2009, Strategic Management Theory: An Integrate Approach, Sydney, Cengage Learning. Hitt, M., Ireland, R & Hoskisson, R 2010, Strategic Management: Competitiveness & Globalization, Concepts, Sydney, Cengage Learning. Pech, R 2009, Entrepreneurial courage, audacity and genius, Australia, Pearson Education. Pech, R 2002, making waves: Innovation in business, Auckland, NZ, Prentice Hall. Wickham, P 2001, Strategic Entrepreneurship: A decision making approach to new venture creation and management, London, Pearson Education. Read More