1.D Sources Of Business Opportunity Flashcards
Define business opportunity.
A set of circumstances that presents itself as an avenue to success.
What can you take advantage of in order for a business opportunity to present itself?
Business opportunities can arise from taking advantage of:
- Innovation
- Entrepreneurship
- Changing customer needs
- Research and development
- Technological development
- Global markets
Define Innovation.
The process of creating a new or significantly improved good, service or process.
- Ideas for new products
- Development/improvements to existing products
- Establishment of a new business.
Define entrepreneurship.
To be willing to take the risk of starting up and operating a business requires qualities of entrepreneurship.
- Entrepreneurs often display flair and creativity, as well as dedication and drive.
- They will regularly upgrade and adapt their business objectives and recognise new opportunities to expand or diversify their business operations.
Briefly explain Bill Gates’s connection to entrepreneurship.
Co-founder of the world’s most successful computer software company, Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates is a classic example of an entrepreneur. While a teenager, he decided to take the risk of establishing his own business to market a computer operating system that he and a friend had developed. Today he is one of the world’s wealthiest individuals.
Explain market opportunities.
Market opportunities refer to a person’s ability to observe a need within a business market and capitalize on that need.
A person may notice a good or service that is being consumed in one market, possibly overseas, and realise that the product is not available locally.
This presents an opportunity to import that good or service and start a business in their own country if the product meets a need in their local area.
A person may identify an opportunity for a new business because of inefficiency in a market. They may feel that they can provide a good or service in a better or different manner from the way in which it is already provided.
A business opportunity may present itself as a ‘gap’ in a market that is not already being satisfied by existing businesses.
- Local availability
- Inefficiency in a market
- Gap in the market
Explain changing customer needs.
Markets are constantly changing, as are the needs of customers. Any person considering starting a new business might find opportunities by focusing on meeting any of these changing needs. The needs of customers in the market for any product can change due to many factors.
Changing
- Incomes.
- Tastes/fashions
- Prices of similar goods/services.
- Population.
Explain research and development.
Individuals and businesses undertake R&D in order to expand their knowledge of products and processes.
R&D can also lead to technological developments, such as robotics and information technology, that improve the way the product is produced or the way it is delivered to customers and thereby result in a new business becoming very competitive.
Define technological development.
Technological development refers to applications of knowledge that have changed people’s lives and changed the way in which businesses operate.
Define the global markets.
This means that goods and services are exchanged between businesses and customers across the world. This provides opportunities for people seeking ideas for new businesses because it means that the potential business owner can have access to more customers and more sales.
Identify the advantages afforded by global markets.
- The opportunity to grow and further expand a business
- Reduced dependence on local markets
- Extended life cycle of new and -
existing products through the discovery of new markets to sell them in - Reduced effects of fluctuations in markets caused by changes in season or demand by moving into markets with different patterns.
