Background Information of Katie Page

In today’s competitive business environment, innovative and entrepreneurial leaders are essential for a company for its survival, growth and success. Entrepreneurship is nothing but it is the way of thinking creatively and acting that is highly affected by the opportunities and leadership balanced for creating value for organization and customers as well (Drucker, 2014). For this discussion, the selected entrepreneur is Katie Page who has been the chief executive officer of electronics retailer Harvey Norman. The report is totally focused on evaluating the personality and main leadership attributes of the chosen entrepreneur. There is the discussion about the products and services which are offered by Katie Page. Furthermore, it includes the process involved in the opportunity identification to commercialization. At the end, challenges faced by Katie Page are identified.

Katie Page is an Australian female entrepreneur that is working as CEO of a leading retailer i.e. Harvey Norman. Page was born in the year 1956 in Australia. Harvey Norman was established in the year 1982 by Harve. Katie Page joined the organization in 1983 as assistant and she became the CEO of firm. Under the stewardship of Page, the firm expanded business into different nations like Singapore, Malaysia, Ireland and Slovenia (Koehn, Powell & Dias, 2017). In 2001, it started to offer its products online. Since 1999, Katie Page has been serving as chief executive officer of retailer Harvey Norman that includes Harvey’s stores and two furniture brands i.e. Joyce Myane and Domayne. In year 2015, she was positioned on fourth rank in the list of The Australian Business Review’s “50 most powerful women entrepreneurs”.  Along with business, Page is the supporter of many sports and active sponsor of females in sports. With her husband Gerry Harvey (Executive Chairman of Harvey), Page maintains network of more than 280 stores of company in addition to its two furniture brands. Also, she is a director of The Retail Council and candidate in NSW Public Advisory Board. Katie Page is one of the longest serving CEO of Australian Company (Koehn, Powell & Dias, 2017).

It is true about the entrepreneurs that they should not expect to operate a successful business if they have not put time in learning the valuable lessons about mistakes, growth and failure. Successful business people have various traits and attributes which are common with one another (Muñoz-Bullón, Sánchez-Bueno & Vos-Saz, 2015). These attributes support them in running the business effectively and getting success even in the competitive environment. Katie Page is a successful entrepreneur and she is the major contributor to the growth of Harvey Norman Organization. There are some specific attributes which contributed to the success of chosen entrepreneur. These attributes are discussed below:

Entrepreneurial Attributes of Katie Page

Katie Page is one of the longest serving CEO among Australian entrepreneurs. It is because of her effective leadership style and approach. One of the best leadership attribute in Katie Page is to stay focused towards company’s mission and vision. Since 1999, Page is operating Harvey Norman by adopting dynamic leadership style. It showcases that she always be ready to respond to changes by becoming proactive. She employs a fluid leadership approach under which she adjusts on the basis of different situations.

Commitment and determination are two important attributes which help Katie Page in her success. Katie Page is very determined and committed towards her work and overall objectives of Harvey Norman’s business. It was her determination and dedication that encouraged Garry Harvey to appoint as CEO of the company. She is very courageous and she always shows positive attitude in any situation (Korporaal, 2015). This attitude of Page led her towards success at Harvey Norman Company.

Generally, entrepreneurs realize that each situation is an opportunity for their business. Ideas are continuously being produced about the efficiency and workflows. About Katie Page, it can be stated that she is very open minded to welcome new business opportunities and use them innovatively. Her innovative skills supported Harvey Norman to expand business in different countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Ireland and Slovenia. Additionally, Katie Page is passionate to develop the creative design for brands such as high-end space and poliform Furniture Company (Henderson, 2018).

One of the best attributes which a business entrepreneur can learn from the duration of Katie Page is to stay disciplined towards work and responsibilities. She is very much motivated to work that has created a good atmosphere in the organization. From this quality, it can be learned that a good environment can lead positive results for business and its employees.

In this way, the above are the major attributes which make Katie Page a perfect entrepreneur. These qualities of this entrepreneur play a significant role in her career growth and success.

A personal skill is responsible for the growth and success of an organization. A research study states that there is link between an individual’s personality and his/her entrepreneurial actions. For effective entrepreneurs, it is very important to work on their personality and develop it very well. They have a set of objectives that assists them in growth of their business. Katie Page is the spokesperson of Harvey Norman Company who generally communicates with the media and public (Ewen & Ewen, 2014).

Personality Approach of Katie Page

The personal approach of Katie Page states that it is necessary to connect with the people so that they can attain the trust and loyalty of stakeholders. She always believes that a visionary leaders needs to adapt all the changes as per the existing situations. Considering the changes in environment and significance of sustainability, Page is always ready to accept and implement new changes in her business. Her personal approach is that it is very essential for a leader to become flexible with his/her approach. The business expansion of the company depends on its work environment. Additionally, Page is using ethical business practices in Harvey’s business. These characteristics of Page are exhibited in conducting the business of her company. Having the above personal skills and characteristics, Katie Page is one of the longest serving CEO in Australia.  

In context of personality approach, Katie Page has adopted trait theory of personality. The personality trait theory approach is one of the most noticeable areas (Ewen & Ewen, 2014). As per this approach, personality of an individual is made of various traits. A trait is a stable characteristic which causes a person to react and behave in certain ways. As mentioned above, Katie page has played a critical role in the growth and success of Harvey Norman’s business (Allen, 2015). By using this type of personality approach, Page is showcasing different personality traits such as

• Strong Woman
• Creativity
• Persuasiveness
• Straight Talker
• Tech Freak
• Passionate towards work and predetermined goals
• Energetic

Katie Page holds a great personality that influences the people who are working with Harvey Norman. She always says that it is one of the biggest secrets to operate a successful business is to have good people and surroundings around you. She gives his staff all the resources to blossom under changing situations. Additionally, she welcomes the ideas and suggestions from them that have assisted the staff to work in the benefits of organization. To enhance her personality traits, Page travels and tries to spend time with the leaders of largest firms of the world like Fuji, Samsung, Lenovo, General Electric and Electrolux. She discusses with them about long term planning for their business (Muñoz-Bullón, Sánchez-Bueno & Vos-Saz, 2015). Thus, Katie is adopting an effective personality and personal approach that assists the company to increase its businesses all over the world.

Katie Page is operating a successful retail business along with her husband Garry Harvey. The organization is named as Harvey Norman. Harvey Norman is one of the leading retail organizations in Australia that offers a variety of products to their potential customers. It has started its operations in the 1987 and then it has purchases more stores with different names. Major products offered by Katie’s business are furniture, consumer electronics, electric products, entertainment products, appliances etc. Harvey Norman is a publicly listed firm that runs its operations under Harvey Norman Holdings Limited (Henderson, 2018). As of 2016, the organization owns total 280 stores in different nations like Australian, Singapore, New Zealand, Europe, Ireland etc. The primary factor for the success of this brand in Australia is the retail savvy attitude of Katie Page and her husband Garry Harvey. They understand the market environment and trends and tool that are necessary for business to attain a significant growth under diverse situations. It is only because of their approach that their business has showcased excellent results over the previous years.

Products and Services Offered by Harvey Norman

For an entrepreneur, it is very important to identify the opportunities and commercialize them so that the business can earn the revenues and profits in competitive business environment. Research conducted in opportunity identification has been strong and emphasizes on describing the procedures included in opportunity identification. There are some factors like prior knowledge and creative abilities, which influence this process in entrepreneurs. This knowledge may be related to customer issues and expectations, ways to serve customers and market and technology advancement (Schaltegger, Lüdeke-Freund & Hansen, 2016). The business of Harvey Norman was started in the year 1987. The entrepreneur had gone through a systematic process while developing the process:

Under this process, the first step is very important i.e. generation of ideas and identification of opportunities. Under this step, the entrepreneur generates the ideas by looking at the market trends and customer expectations. At Harvey Norman, the idea of retail business is generated in the mind of entrepreneur because that time, there was no any leading retailer.  

It is the most significant step in this process as it supports the entrepreneurs to identify the competitiveness of their business idea in the market where they want to establish their new business venture. When Harvey Norman was going to establish its business, there are a few numbers of retailers in Australian market.

Market Research is the process that can assist the entrepreneur to analyze the needs and demands of customers towards respective industry. For example, Harvey Norman is operating the business in retail industry so it had researched customer needs and expectations towards retail products.

At this step, the entrepreneurs need to prepare an action plan that will assist them in implementing and commercializing the business idea in process. In the year 1987, the business of Harvey Norman was established. Currently, it has more than 200 stores which are running successfully.

In this way, an entrepreneur can identify the business opportunities and commercialize them in order to earn profits and revenues (Muñoz-Bullón, Sánchez-Bueno & Vos-Saz, 2015).

There may be some challenges which can be confronted by any entrepreneur in above process. Katie Page faced various challenges in operating the business of Harvey Norman.  She has faced the challenges related to lack of adequate infrastructure, lack of planning, lack of knowledge about e-commerce and technology, financial challenges, lack of effective communication etc. These challenges threatened the entrepreneur to run business in Australia but she has implemented effective and innovative strategies to grow the business. At that time, it was an old fashioned business so people were not that much interested. Now, the company has started to offer its products and services online (Schaltegger, Lüdeke-Freund & Hansen, 2016). Considering the changes in global environment, the leader needs to introduce changes in business processes and systems. It will help the Harvey Norman to survive and grow in today’s competitive retail market in Australia.

Conclusion 

Thus, the above report concludes that each and every entrepreneur has to develop some traits and attributes which can support him/her in operating a successful business. Katie Page is a strong woman entrepreneur in Australia who is selected for the above discussion. The report includes her personality traits and attributes which support her to get success. It can be stated that she is the major contributor to the growth and success of Harvey Norman Organization in Australia. Furthermore, it would be right to state that every entrepreneur should implement his/her ideas after an effective or adequate planning. 

References 

Allen, B. P. (2015). Personality theories: Development, growth, and diversity. UK:Psychology Press.

Drucker, P. (2014). Innovation and entrepreneurship. UK: Routledge.

Ewen, R., & Ewen, R. B. (2014). An introduction to theories of personality. UK:Psychology Press.

Henderson, J. (2018). Katie Page and Space Asia Hub. Retrieved from https://architectureau.com/articles/space-asia-hub-opens/ 

Koehn, E., Powell, D. & Dias, D. (2017). Top 30 Australian female entrepreneurs 2017. Retrieved from https://www.smartcompany.com.au/lists/australias-top-30-female-entrepreneurs-2017/

Korporaal, G. (2015). 50 most powerful women in business: 4. Katie Page. Retrieved from https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-deal-magazine/50-most-powerful-women-in-business-4-katie-page/news-story/286278802b1e16c3b2a71a0b260513d1

Muñoz-Bullón, F., Sánchez-Bueno, M. J., & Vos-Saz, A. (2015). Nascent entrepreneurs’ personality attributes and the international dimension of new ventures. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 11(3), 473-492.

Schaltegger, S., Lüdeke-Freund, F., & Hansen, E. G. (2016). Business models for sustainability: A co-evolutionary analysis of sustainable entrepreneurship, innovation, and transformation. Organization & Environment, 29(3), 264-289.