My questionnaire, which is Appendix 3, with the answers shown in Appendix 4, consists of ten questions which I have personally asked to the entrepreneur of the newsagent. I created my questionnaire in an attempt to find out the most important enterprise skill the entrepreneur needs. This questionnaire and its results are vital in this report as it will play a key role in helping me decide which enterprise skill is the most important for the entrepreneur. The results from this questionnaire will heavily influence what I think the most important enterprise skill needed by the entrepreneur is. The first question is an entirely straightforward question which proves that the entrepreneur does indeed run a newsagent.
Map Of Newsagent And Surrounding Competitors (Appendix 5)
The second question identifies three of the newsagent’s competitors, which are all quite close to the newsagent itself. This will help me understand the reason behind the entrepreneur needing a certain enterprise skill. It will also help me understand the importance of the enterprise skill needed. The first competitor identified was the Özdiller Supermarket. After visiting the Özdiller Supermarket myself, I can conclude that the shop is only across the road from the newsagent and is much bigger internally. It makes sense that this has been identified as a very close and dangerous competitor. The second competitor is the Emek Supermarket which is not far away from the newsagent. This shop is slightly smaller than the Özdiller Supermarket but also further away. However, it sells items at a cheaper price than the newsagent. The reason for it being able to do this is probably because it can buy items in bulk due to being bigger. The final competitor identified is Somerfield. Somerfield is a two minute walk away from the newsagent. To make it easier to see how far the businesses are from each other, I have included a map which is Appendix 5. I personally think that Somerfield is the most dangerous competitor out of all three identified. Mostly because Somerfield has lower prices than its competitors and has a much larger product range. Despite Somerfield’s size, someone that isn’t familiar with the area may just find the newsagent and the Özdiller Supermarket. This increases the newsagent’s chance of survival massively but it would just be pure luck.
The third question identifies the enterprise skills necessary to survive against the entrepreneur’s powerful competitors. The skills identified were commitment and problem solving. This is a vital question as it helps me narrow down the answers to the main question of this report. Commitment being necessary makes sense in my opinion. In the newsagent’s first few years of starting up, it would have made a loss to its other competitors, but commitment has kept this newsagent surviving for a good fifteen years. Problem solving skills would have been crucial at this stage too. An example would be that the entrepreneur needed a certain amount of revenue per month in order to pay back debts, but it has a lack of customers. The entrepreneur would have to decide between lowering the prices and gaining more customers, or raising the prices and losing customers but at the same time earning more revenue from the current customers. Raising the prices will have an effect on the month after though, because the customers that left may not return to the shop. Both enterprise skills are necessary for survival, but this isn’t enough to single out on enterprise skill as important yet.
Successful Entrepreneur Skills, Internet Article (Appendix 6)
The fourth question helps me identify the enterprise skills that the entrepreneur actually has. From the selection, the entrepreneur had persistence, single-mindedness, commitment, problem solving and organisation as skills. This question allows me to further identify the skills the entrepreneur has, but may not be required to survive. The results also allow me to gauge how successful the entrepreneur should theoretically be in terms of survival. The skills selected help me get a better understanding of the skills required to run a newsagent successfully. This can also be referred to Appendix 6 which states the most common enterprise skills required to be a successful entrepreneur. The entrepreneur I interviewed has at least half of the skills required. Appendix 6 was acquired from the very reliable website “business link”. It is a website run by the government and many entrepreneurs use it to help them start up a new business. This is the reason why I took an article from this particular website and used it to influence the questions on my questionnaire.
Questionnaire, Question 5 Results Table (Appendix 7)
The fifth question allows me to further investigate the skills that the entrepreneur actually thinks are important from his fifteen years of experience. Commitment and problem solving were ranked first and second respectively, which narrows down the answers to the main question of this report further as it links back to the answers of question three. As a result, it seems likely that commitment and problem solving are the most important skills needed by the entrepreneur. However, I can’t be sure which skill is more important out of commitment and problem solving. Hopefully further analysis of the next five questions will yield a useful conclusion. Appendix 7 shows the results of question 5 in a more organised form. This appendix helped me analyse the results of this question easier as I don’t have to search for which enterprise skill is ranked first for example. It also allowed me to analyse the results of question five more easily as the results of question 5 was already organised in table form.
Question six asks a very simple question that asks the entrepreneur which enterprise skill has helped him the most. The answer was problem solving skills. As a result of this answer, it seems like problem solving skills has helped the entrepreneur the most from the whole fifteen years of running the newsagent but he considers commitment to be the most important skill. There isn’t much to analyse from this question’s result, but its result is as vital as all the other question’s results.
Question seven, eight and nine are linked and are straightforward tick box questions. Question seven asks whether the entrepreneur’s enterprise skills helped him survive with an answer of yes. The same answer was selected for question eight and nine which asked about the entrepreneur’s competitors. Question eight asked whether or not he thinks his competitors are currently better in terms of surviving with question nine asking if he personally thought that his competitors had better enterprise skills. From question seven, eight and nine, I can conclude that enterprise skills are necessary for all entrepreneurs that run a competitive business and that the better the enterprise skills you have over your competitors, the better you will survive as a result of the extra revenue over your competitors. However, the results of this question haven’t helped me decide between commitment and problem solving skills, but have helped me understand the standards that you need to meet to compete against other businesses and the significance of either commitment or problem solving for the survival and success of the entrepreneur’s newsagent business.
The final question was question ten and is a very open question that can yield many different results. This question required the entrepreneur to give his opinion on 9 different enterprise skills. His opinions on the commitment and problem solving enterprise skills are the ones that I will be analysing here, simply because his opinions on the other skills aren’t important since his answers to questions three, five and six have suggested that commitment and problem solving skills are the most important. His opinion on the commitment enterprise skill was that it is one of the most important skills needed to survive. His opinion on problem solving is that problem solving skills are necessary to survive when there is a scarcity of profit. From these opinions, it seems that problem solving is the most important enterprise skill needed by the entrepreneur of the newsagent.
The reason behind my conclusion is that the entrepreneur gave a much more in depth opinion for problem solving compared to commitment. For commitment, he just stated that he thought that it was one of the most important skills but for problem solving he stated why it was important. It makes more sense that more effort is put into problem solving skills if he thought that was more important and it is natural to have more to say on something that you think is important. He also stated in question eight that his competitors are better than him in terms of surviving. I can guess that because his competitors are better, he may have experienced a scarcity of profit at times. This makes more sense when you consider his answer to question six where he says that problem solving has helped him the most. So it seems that he often experiences profit scarcity. Commitment is important to avoid just giving up, but problem solving is more important here to survive as commitment just requires will power. So from this questionnaire I can conclude that problem solving is the most important skill required by the entrepreneur of my newsagent.
Conclusion
This is the ending of this report, which means that I know have to answer the question of this report: “What is the most important enterprise skill needed by the owner of the business you have chosen?”
To aid me in answering this question, I carried out a range of research including primary research and secondary research. These pieces of research have all been important in the process of coming to a conclusion.
So, considering all the research that I have done, I have come to the conclusion that problem solving is the most important enterprise skill required by the entrepreneur of the newsagent. What caused me to come to this conclusion was profoundly influenced by the results of the questionnaire. The question this report is based on required me to find out the answer from the entrepreneur himself, so I’m unable to say whether the entrepreneur is right or wrong in choosing problem solving skills. However, I agree with his choice as there are many problems in general life, so there would be more problems if you’re running a business for example. There’s more stress when running a business as it may be your only source of income making problem solving all the more important, and maybe even more important than commitment which I have analysed as ranking second to problem solving skills over the whole results of the questionnaire.
To conclude this report, the entrepreneur of the local newsagent in Tottenham who I know quite well has answered my questionnaire in such a way that I have analysed problem solving skills as the most important enterprise skill essential to run a newsagent in Tottenham. Especially when the newsagent has competitors which are much more powerful, problem solving becomes even more of an indispensable skill.
Christopher Nguyen 11I
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