Background of the Entrepreneur

Discuss about the Entreprenuership for Palgrave Macmillan Limited.

An entrepreneur can be described as an individual who goes a long way in converting a given problem to an opportunity. An entrepreneur may also be described as an individual who engages in effective practices to solve a current gap which exists in an organization and converts the given gap to an opportunity or an idea. Entrepreneurs can be described as an essential component of the development of the economy. The given report discusses upon the life of one such entrepreneur in Australia named Katie Page who turned the way consumers shopped electronics online (Gani 2014). She is one of the finest female entrepreneurs in the globe and the current CEO of Harvey Norman. The report will be discussing the background of the entrepreneur with hints on their development process. 

Page was born in Queensland, Australia. Her family background was very humble and Page grew up with three sisters. Her father was a bank manger who was relocated every four years, Due to this, Katie and her sisters grew up in different locations like St. George, Rockhampton and Brisbane. Katie Page graduated from the High school in Brisbane in the year 1973, with an aim to become a surveyor; however this had a low pay package for woman at that time. She was enthusiastic and engaged in an intelligence test which aimed to raise funds for the underprivileged in the country at that time. When she was competing in the intelligence test, Grey Harvey was one of the judges in this competition. Fate was in her favor and around six years later she was appointed as an employee in the Harvey Norman store. She was engaged in the buying, marketing and selling of goods of the firm. She went a long way in helping Harvey to establish his business and grow it in size (Drucker 2014). Later on, Harvey and Page got married and she become his second wife. Page joined the store in 1983 during its second year and become the CEO of the company 15 years later.

Under her leadership and guidance, the company engaged and expanded its operations in various other countries like Slovenia, Malaysia, Ireland and Singapore. The Harvey Norman country operates 277 stores countries with a net profit of more than 165$ million (Kuratko 2016).

The entrepreneur has two children and she is an avid player of badminton.

Development Process of the Entrepreneur

Hence, applying the Economic theory of entrepreneurship, it can be stated that although the external factors were in the favor of the given entrepreneur however, there were certain internal forces which guided her as well. These skills included intelligence, hard work and experience which guided her and helped her to achieve success to meet the given goals. 

An entrepreneur can be described as an individual who is endowed and blessed with an idea which employs a variety of skills which go a long way in helping the organization to achieve success (Chief Executive Women. 2018). The skills of an entrepreneur are generally more than the normal individuals. Furthermore, by making use of the external capabilities the given individual is successfully able to ensure that the given organization is able to achieve new heights (Parker 2018). The entrepreneur is required to be a leader who will foresee a problem in the organization and convert this to an opportunity present in an organization. The trait theory plays a key role in seeing to it that the leadership and entrepreneurial skills are well defined.

Given below are certain traits that maybe applied to Katie Page`s personality 

• Innovative- Katie Page was quite innovative. This can be represented with the fact that she was successfully able to engage in investment of an opportunity which would successfully enable the firm to achieve success in the long run of the business (Baum, Frese and Baron 2014). Her innovative skills went a long way in making Harvey a successful firm in the long run of the business enterprise by engaging in expansion and online trading as well.
• Hardworking- Katie Page shares another skill which is very essential in becoming a successful entrepreneur. These skills are skills related to hard work. Being an entrepreneurship is not an easy task and requires hard work as well as persistence (Storey 2016). Therefore, for this reason, it is important for the entrepreneur to see to it that he or she engages in hard work and engagement from the very beginning of the enterprise.
• Analytical Skills- The entrepreneur is also required to be strong in analyzing the analytical aspects of the organization and opportunities that are present in the external environment of the business. If an entrepreneur is able to successfully analyze and make analytical concerns, then he or she can be successful in the long term management of the organization (Schaper et al. 2018).
• Confidence- Confidence is another factor which needs to be present. Katie Page has shown immense confidence and a charming personality which went a long way in helping her to maintain the position of the organization. The manner in which she engages in various interviews and tech talks helps in analysis that she is a strong woman and is confident about her activities.
• Risk taking- According to the entrepreneurship traits theories, an entrepreneur will be incomplete without engaging in proper risk taking. Risks are an important aspect of any organization and it is essentially important for the entrepreneur to possess such skills for success (Baum, Frese and Baron 2014). Kate Paige took a huge risk by expanding the business into other countries, but ultimately her risks were calculated and it helped her to achieve success in the business environment.

Katie went through the given stages before developing the idea for the given business domain.

1. Opportunity recognition- When the e-commerce industry boomed back in the 1990s, it was then when Katie realized that the given opportunity could be harnessed easily and that the company Harvey Norman could be easily capturing the online domain. It was due to this that the company realized, that they should be engaging in the following risk taking venture and invests in this. They would have been the only online venture which would have explored the online market and therefore, they planned the idea and initiated the move.
2. Strengthening of present resources-The second step taken by them involved considering the different resources that they have within their realm. Katie Page along with her husband, decided to invest in the opportunity and then see to it whether they had adequate resources or not. Along with making certain considerations, the organization decided to take into consideration their existing resources and invest them in the online portal (Brenkert 2017).
3. Development of the idea- A test with respect to the given idea was run and it was checked whether, the different ideas which were coming up which were chosen for implementation were viable or not. It was found that it was a good plans and this lead to the further development of the concept.
4. Discussion- The given idea was presented in front of the different stakeholders in order to take in their views with respect to the same. After this was done, the preparation for the implementation of the idea began to take place.
5. Implementation- The implementation can be described as the process where the actual expansion plan with respect to the given idea took place. The idea was an instant hit as it was successful in engaging the users who found online shopping from the trustworthy brand an entirely new experience.

The kind of business which has been developed by Katie and her husband is based on selling various electronic products such as consumer goods, home products, communication along with bedding and furniture’s. The business developed in the year 1982, which was ultimately followed by its online expansion in the year 1990s which was the beginning of the online era of the business.  Katie decided to take the given risk and expand the online base of the business in order to ensure that the market opportunity was analyzed effectively. Amazon was at a rise at that given time and that is the reason, Katie decided to take a risk and expand online into the given domain (Burns 2016). The competitive advantage of the given business was that it was developed at a time when online business was not dominant and thus, this caused an instant opportunity for the organization to see to it that the given firm would be successful in its activities as it was the only one dealing in the electronic domain (Dees 2017).

Therefore, after analyzing the various life instances and career aspects of the Katie Page it can be stated the entrepreneur holds unlimited capacity with respect to the development of various opportunities which will be present in the business environment.  She has been performing very well in the given business domain and it is expected that she will continue doing so in future as well.  If the entrepreneur enters into the business domain of opening the given stores in the emerging markets which are the developing countries of South East Asian region, it will be able to successfully perform well and expand the business even further than its existing base. However, it is suggested that the entrepreneur needs to follow a systematized manner in which they will be able to carry out the opportunities as there are a presence of various factors which may have an impact on the effective functioning of the business organization.

References

Baum, J.R., Frese, M. and Baron, R.A. eds., 2014. The psychology of entrepreneurship. Psychology Press.

Baum, J.R., Frese, M. and Baron, R.A., 2014. Born to be an entrepreneur? Revisiting the personality approach to entrepreneurship. (pp. 73-98). Psychology Press.

Brenkert, G.G., 2017. Entrepreneurship, ethics, and the good society. In Entrepreneurship (pp. 85-128). Routledge.

Burns, P., 2016. Entrepreneurship and small business. Palgrave Macmillan Limited.

Chief Executive Women. ,2018. Katie Page – Chief Executive Women. [online] Available at: https://cew.org.au/members/katie-page/ [Accessed 30 Apr. 2018].

Dees, J.G., 2017. 1 The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship. In Case Studies in Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability(pp. 34-42). Routledge.

Drucker, P., 2014. Innovation and entrepreneurship. Routledge.

Gani, A., 2014. Understand Entrereneurship.

Kuratko, D.F., 2016. Entrepreneurship: Theory, process, and practice. Cengage Learning.

Parker, S.C., 2018. The economics of entrepreneurship. Cambridge University Press.

Schaper, M.T., Volery, T., Weber, P.C. and Gibson, B., 2014. Entrepreneurship and small business.

Storey, D.J. ed., 2016. Entrepreneurship and new firm. Routledge.