Richard Beresford was born in California in 1949 and has established himself as a successful business personality in the context of the production of mobile phones. However, it is essential to identify him as an able entrepreneur.
What do you think is the fundamental attitude of an entrepreneur?
I feel it is more about innovation than anything else in Entrepreneurship.
How do you explain this Entrepreneurship?
Entrepreneurship is essential for the organization to innovate. Mc Clelland (1987) points out three sections in an entrepreneurial role: Pro-activity, Achievement orientation, and commitment to others. The entrepreneur should be proactive and must take the initiative and make his assertiveness felt. He should have the ability to identify and act on opportunities, be efficiency-oriented, plan systematically, and constantly monitor progress. The commitment to others provides a trustworthy image of the firm in the market. Thus honoring work contracts and maintaining business relationships are essential to the growth of the company.
What do you think about honoring work?
This is actually motivation. The motivation of people is also essential in innovation. Motivation concerns the forces either within or external to a person that stimulates fervor and persistence to follow a particular line of action. It is a challenge for managers as it arises from within a person and also differs for each of them. Organizational behavior needs to be studied carefully in order to motivate the people of the organization. This is the fundamental of developing a business model, and as you know, the business model is a very important factor in organizational management.
When is the difference between business model and strategy?
It can be stated that a business model can develop at any stage of history but strategy, specifically in business and marketing, arises only when this opportunity can be motioned in a direction that would be instrumental in yielding a profit for the company. In other words, a need should be created in the market so that this idea can become sellable. From a personal point of view, it should be mentioned interest in selling refrigerators to Eskimos is an idea, but to create the need of the product within the customers by making them believe that this product helps the food to conserve from extreme cold is the strategy.
How important is an invention in this context?
The invention is the development of a strategy or product that has never been developed or known before. This is a completely new element in the parameter of the business, and the success of the business depends on the proper execution of this invention. It can well be stated that inventions are elements that become instrumental in creating Entrepreneurial opportunities. I believe that invention is important, and with adequate talent and prospects, it is possible to invent a certain business strategy or product.
Then how would you rate innovation from your personal experience?
Innovation is the improvement of a prototype product or service, or strategy that becomes helpful for the business to gather extra mileage or competitive advantage over its competitors in a given market segment. Innovation is a very important aspect of business and management, and thus, any proper innovative idea can be regarded as an asset for the company. It can be stated that my experience with innovation is not new. This is because I occasionally use innovation in terms of economic statements to make a better understanding of a market structure.
What are your personal entrepreneurial characteristics or traits?
I would rater state that as an entrepreneur, it is important to visualize the Common personal entrepreneurial characteristics beforehand and evaluate its opportunity in accordance with the business model and strategy implemented. Common personal entrepreneurial characteristics or traits are the qualities that make an entrepreneur successful as a business person. These Common personal entrepreneurial characteristics or traits can be enumerated as strategic ability, resourcefulness, proper HR capacities, and understanding a situation clearly. I believe that these are the common personal entrepreneurial characteristics or traits for business success and all the successful entrepreneurs that I have met possess all these qualities.
How do you describe your Entrepreneurship model in business model and strategy?
My approach to Entrepreneurship is the method or ability to build a constructive framework of business opportunities and execute in accordance with the situation. It is important for the aspects of Entrepreneurship to maintain the momentum in the long run and change a process of innovation into a process or procedure of regular formulated practice. I believe that Entrepreneurship is also about the essence of successful negotiations and can be treated as a blend of an opportunity-seeking mind and the ability to execute that opportunity.
An explanation of my business would clarify the entire situation. Initially, the company aims to function as a service provider and broker both wherein the aim of the company is to simplify the lives of consumers by helping them concentrate more time on family life by saving the time they would have spent otherwise in making a trip to a client or associates. Telecommunication can ease that. Making people aware of this advantage is one of my important business ideas.
Apart from the basic service, the company also aims to provide consultancy services to consumers wherein they can get help from our call center executives on matters relating to both product details and quality of product available from various stores. This is the winning idea I was talking about that is based on a proper business model. In short, we can advise people as to what the perfect lifestyle would be, keeping in mind the necessities of the consumer. Later as the business develops, the company aims to provide event management services to consumers where the duty of handling big or small clients would be entirely the companies.
Consumers may contact the company over the 24-hour hotline or contact by logging on to the company’s website. Membership options are also to be made available whereby a consumer or a household may advance a certain amount of money, which would be utilized by the company during the orders, thereby ensuring that enough money is available at all times. Additionally, the consumers are spared continuous cash transactions. Special bonus and surprise packages are also to be introduced in the first three months in order to build a good, solid consumer base. Points, which would be redeemable as cash later, would be awarded based on the amount of cash transaction a consumer undertakes. This is my business model based on my business idea, and it is successful all the way.
What are your Business angels?
My business angles can be defined as points of view that enable business personnel to analyze and evaluate a given situation from the perspective of profit and loss scenarios. Under such a perspective, only the market segments are taken into consideration in general. However, political or environmental issues are also evaluated if those aspects are directly or indirectly associated with the profit and loss consciousness of the business. I believe that business angles are extremely relevant for concern, but there are times when social issues should also be taken into consideration.
What is your relationship with individual awareness and team effectiveness?
My relationship with individual awareness and team effectiveness is a bond that is interlinked and an effective aspect of the success formula under the parameters of HR and Team Management principles. It is obvious that an individual is a part of a team, and if that individual’s level of awareness is good enough, then the overall team would benefit from the individual. I believe, as per my experience, that such a relationship, when effectively put into use, is extremely helpful for any team. Thus it is essential to maintain a lucid relationship within a team. I feel this is a real winning strategy for me as it has given me huge mileage in my business. My business idea is depended on the success of this approach.
What are the other winning business ideas of your organization?
I should mention that proper identification of the ideal business idea is half the battle won. However, this identification is not very easy. I needed to create exceptional utility based on the buyer utility map and work on the aspects of Uncovering the Buyer Experience Cycle. Then comes the problem of Setting a Strategic Price where Identifying the price corridor of the mass becomes of prime importance. This was followed by Building a Profitable Business Model. I must say that I did all these essential factors with success, and that is why you are here for this interview.
What is your Entrepreneurial exit strategy?
My Entrepreneurial exit strategy is the strategy that enumerates the marketing plan to quit the business in terms of sell-off, merger, or complete acquisition. It is important to know the time to exit, and if used properly, it would enable a company to reestablish again in the long run. As far as my personal experience is concerned, it could be stated that there are several companies that ended up in mergers and acquisitions and thus resulted in a survival strategy in the long run.
How would you explain your success in the mobile phone industry?
The basic feature of my success is understanding opportunity. Most of the consumers use their mobile phones and fixed landlines as opposite services. The fixed landline is used at home and while making long phone calls while the mobile is carried outside the house.
However, many of them are more than willing to replace their existing fixed landlines with mobiles. Because of this, many phone companies offer both mobile phone and fixed landline services to cope up with the change in trends of phone use. This trend is more apparent among the younger generation than the older ones. Nowadays the mobile phone services are cost not only efficient but also provide other innovative services which are not available on fixed landlines, like SMS, Wi-Fi connection, and surfing.
In this context, I feel that the opening of new markets and the continuous destruction of the older ones to create the new ones have revolutionized the economic structure of a nation. Thus, this process of creative destruction is important in capitalism. In a capitalistic environment, the kind of competition is not what matters, but the competition faced from a new product, technology, organization, or resource is what is significant. This understanding is the chief trait of an able entrepreneur, and you can call me an able entrepreneur because I am able to understand this basic fundamental under the present capitalistic economic format.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you too. It was a pleasure sharing my ideas with you.
Conclusion
The interview with RICHARD BERESFORD was an eye-opener in the sense that he showed the importance of a business model and creating the fundamentals of business ideas that would be a winner all the way. In accordance with him, the basic aspects of an entrepreneurial business plan are the features that incorporate the different variables of the market segments and evaluates its own strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats under the parameters of a given market segment.
The key objective of an effective entrepreneurial business plan is to formulate an able strategy that would help the company to sustain itself in the market and occupy market segments. From a personal notion, it can be stated that I understood the importance of business model and winning ideas and realized that without a proper business plan, it is impossible to survive in the market.