IN
the post-World War II years, big business and the government used to
provide three of four jobs in many countries, according to business guru
Peter Drucker. No longer.
“Downsizing”
and “computerization” destroyed millions of jobs globally. The Asian
crisis in 1997 and the property and financial meltdowns in 2008 and 2011
added misery, as a recent vintage leading to more job losses. In
America alone, there are now 25 million people unemployed.
Circumstances,
therefore, drew people out of the corporate cubicles into a new
entrepreneurial class that create 12,000 businesses every week and a new
industry every three weeks. Many started in garages and basements like
Steve Jobs of Apple Computers at the age of 20 after dropping out of
Reed University.
The
economic miracles of Asian tiger economies like Korea and Taiwan came
from nurturing small entrepreneurial units which are now colossal
enterprises.
In
the 1990’s, these new businesses (75 percent) were relatively low-tech
(excepting some) like restaurant chains, food brands, cargo transport,
distribution (cloth and medicine) and health care.
Entrepreneurs
succeed because they have the vision to provide products and services
needed by a large segment of the population. Henry Sy may have seen the
future of 100 million people needing at least a pair of shoes when he
opened the first Shoemart. Manny Villar, the richest solon, built his
fortune by providing in the beginning lost-cost housing for the poorer
segment of society.
Millionaires
have been made out of supplying the lowly slippers, chopsticks and
bicycles to over a billion Chinese in the Mainland.
A
Morita (founder of Sony) was once assigned as a salesman in a rural
district. He cabled head office: “No one wears shoes here; send all
inventory stock and we will dominate it here.” Not discouraged by the
financial backwardness of the rustic environs.
Frank
Wichita needed tuition money and sold “pizza” across a small family
grocery. This was how Pizza Hut started. The pizza chain was eventually
sold to Pepsi Cola for $300 million.
In
1961 Scottish K. Wilson while vacationing in a hotel was annoyed that
each family member was charged $2 per head even if they stayed in one
room. He started the concept of an inn, initially called Holiday Inn
named after a Bing Crosby film. Thousands of inns now litter the
highways of America.
Desktop publishing, run by three men, can produce earnings up to S400,000 a year.
The modern “working household” gave rise to residential cleaning and the wet and dry laundry cleaning in many countries.
An obscure box found in malls called Mr. Payroll encashes checks and is now a S70-billion industry.
Samie
Lim is one of the pioneers who believed that franchises and franchising
one’s business is the way to go in the Philippines. The success rate,
he claimed then, is that 90 percent of franchises make money.
According to the Entrepreneur,
the most promising and fastest growing franchises (2010) in the country
are true to form.. The list is dominated by (food-related ones): Bread
and Butter, Aquabest, Pizza Pedrico’s, LotsAPizza, Bibingkita,
Goldilocks, and Waffle Time.
Others are (educational): Kumon and AMA
Computers Learning, (convenient stores) Ministop and 7-11; (beauty)
Ystilo Salon; (of Vina Morales) and Orange Blush Salon and (drugs) The
Generics Pharmacy.
The
franchise and small business industry has given financial freedom to
hundreds of heretofore merely employed individuals. The entrepreneur is
not driven primarily by the desire for wealth, power and fear of
failure, the way they plague the corporate animal. He is driven more by
the sense of achievement and of self worth; everything else is a bonus.
In
the corporate world, the ideal mold is the “team player” whose safety
lies in remaining silent, doing the wrong thing occassionally for the
corporation and perhaps planting a dagger on the back of a colleague on
the way up the ladder.
Today’s
entrepreneur wants to solve society’s needs by offering friendly goods
and services, avoiding the corporate handcuffs and advances personal
creativity. He is not out to gobble entire markets but creates a niche
market—that he can satisfy thoroughly. He sets up manageable shops where
people do not get lost; profits are directly shared and management
participatory.
So
before you despair over office politics, a brainless boss, unethical
company policies, sexual harassment or slow promotion, don’t plant that
bomb in the boardroom or sign that suicide note yet. There is life beyond the corporate jungle. Be an entrepreneur.
No comments:
Post a Comment