Describe the Work of One Entrepreneur

Describe the work of one entrepreneur. What innovations did he/she bring to the world? What were the risks involved? What were the difficulties? What failures did he/she encounter? How did he/she react to the risks, difficulties, and failures? What are the major lessons to be learnt? Richard Branson is a very unique entrepreneur as he is known by his humorous characters and as he is the founder of the Virgin Group which has more than 400 companies underneath nowadays.Today, Branson is the fourth richest man in the Unites Kingdom with his billions of wealth. The road to success for him is extraordinary due to his own characteristics which makes him so much different from other entrepreneur. Branson started his business in the music industry as he set up Virgin Records which was a chain selling records at the very beginning. Later, he started to expand his business to different fields like airline, telecommunication, trains and even food industry.He as the founder and the chairman of t he Virgin Group has displayed a very bold character in making business decisions and what he had done may seem silly or unbelievable from the eyes of the public or other entrepreneur as he may have depart from ordinary routine. Back in the early days, the Virgin had done something bold and somehow rebellious – signing the Sex Pistols which was a controversial rock band in the UK at that time while other companies did not want to sign them. This act might seem foolish to people at that time.However, the Sex Pistols turned out to be an iconic band with huge impact to the world and the Virgin had helped the public to expose to such extraordinary music and culture. After his groups of companies became successful and on the track, he did not stop being creative and bold as he set up a space tourism company in 2004 aiming to offer space travel experience for customers. With his wealth and fame, he did not solely pursue profit maximization as he started to invest in research for env ironmentally friendly fuel and tried to offer cheaper and environmentally friendly fuel to the general public.As a successful entrepreneur, Branson had fulfilled his social responsibility by bringing changes to the society. One the other hand, Branson is good at promoting the whole Virgin Group brand image. He made himself like a star by having cameos on television show to increase his own fame. Moreover, he even had his own television reality show called The Rebel Billionaire: Branson's Quest for the Best to get himself more exposure to the public. His is very successful in making himself the soul of the Virgin Group as people equal Branson to the Virgin Group in their minds. He has started a brand-new and unique way of marketing strategy.Despite the huge success of the Virgin Group, there must be risk involved especially the Virgin Group involves hundreds of companies. Branson admitted that big and creative ideas also mean big risks. For example his business ventures in train indu stry and space travel industry includes huge risks. However, he is very bold and is willing to take risk because he believes that you can gain nothing if you don’t venture. With all these risks includes in his ventures which may bring him millions dollars of lost, he is still very bold in taking risk nowadays despite his failures in the past.Of course he has failed a lot in the past as the Virgin Group has attempted in entering almost every industry in the world, and some may not work out. In a sharing session, Branson recalled that his subordinates panicked after knowing that he wanted to enter the airline industry as the Virgin Group was only a record label at that time. However, ‘To be a true entrepreneur you’ve got to take bold risk throughout your life’ he said during the session which explains his frequent attempts in expanding his business in different fields.But, of course, he did not blindly take any risk and lost million dollars as he added †˜But you’ve got to make sure you protect the downside. ’ As a risk taker, Branson is also a risk manager as he has set 300 separated limited companies as firewalls between companies in the group to prevent catastrophic consequence if one of the companies has problem. Thus, he has sound system within the groups of companies to prevent a company with disaster to bring down other companies.He suggested that people have to prepare for failure before taking risk and also learn from mistakes made otherwise it will be insane to do the same thing over and over again and expect something different. He sees making mistakes as an important step leading to success as he can learn things from them. Thus, failures did not stop him from venturing but help him build up success instead. In addition, Branson may sometimes engage in some challenges that seems to be unachievable. This is because he believes that there may be a chance for achieving it if he strives to transcend his own li mit.He gives every risk he takes a meaning so that he said ‘Every risk is worth taking as long as it's for a good cause, and contributes to a good life. ’ In the early days of Virgin Airline, there was a hard time for Branson to keep this airline company to survive in the market as there were many obstacles and difficulties waiting for him to tackle. At the very beginning, he needed to fight against the British Airways which was already the market leader at that time which was a very keen, difficult, long and costly competition.Unfortunately, there was an incident happened during the government certification flight as there was a bird flying into an engine which led to explosion. This incident had got the airline into financial crisis as the repairing cost was very high. In the meantime, growing fuel price and economic downturn had made it even harsher for Virgin Airline to survive. As a result, Branson had to sell the Virgin Music Group in exchange for the survival of the Virgin Airline to get through the hard time.Branson as the chairman of the company had shown the conceptual in-sight of a successful entrepreneur to make the right decision in the face of difficulties and adversities. Not only did he face difficulties before being successful, but also after his success. In an interview, Branson mentioned that he tried to bring business leaders in the world to think of not just profit maximization but also social responsibilities. He thinks they can use their power to help solve different problems in the world other than the business field ones in order to make a better world.He is more and more concerned about problems happening in the world and is trying to help tackle them. He is especially concerned about global warming as he had even hosted a meeting concerning global warming at his own island. He gathered world leaders and celebrities including Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of the UK, together to discuss the matter. He tried to brin g the issue under spotlight to arouse people’s awareness on this matter. However, he has encountered some difficulties while doing this. He is criticized by people saying that he is insincere on his environmental awareness and care as he is running an irline business which is the most pollution-producing industry. Yet, he stated that the company is using every profit to invest in research of environmental-friendly and clean fuel and the research is in full swing. If the research is successful, more people would love to travel by Virgin Airline and the aviation industry can experience a revolutionary change by using clean fuel and emitting less and even no greenhouse gases. In this case, this would be a win-win solution for the company and the general public.Richard Branson as the legendary founder and chairman of the Virgin Group displays what is a good and successful entrepreneur. His success is not coincidence but his constant endeavor and learning over years. And he is wil ling to share his way to success and inspire many people. He advocates people to break the rules and think out of the box which make a person different by dare to think and do something different from others by using creativity. One of his beliefs that inspire me the most is that you have to be bold to take risk and get something done other than sitting there all day and just think due to the fear of failing.And his love of his work is also another great inspiration as people should be passionate about what they are doing to be successful which is applicable to works in all fields. At the end of the essay, I would like to end with one of his most inspiring quote of Branson – ‘You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over. ’ Reference: Richard Branson: Knight of Big Ideas – Disaster: Big Ideas Also Mean Big Risks http://www. inc. com/leigh-buchanan-and-andrew-maclean/richard-branson-risk. html James Thomson. Richard Bra nson on risk. Entrepreneur Watch. July 8, 2011. http://www. smartcompany. com. u/entrepreneur-watch/20110708-richard-branson-on-risk. html Jeremy Hobson. Sir Richard Branson on solving the world's tough problems. Marketplace Morning Report for Friday. April 27, 2012. http://www. marketplace. org/topics/business/sir-richard-branson-solving-worlds-tough-problems-0 Mary Vinnedge. Richard Branson: Virgin Entrepreneur. SUCCESS magazine. 2009. http://www. success. com/articles/712-richard-branson-virgin-entrepreneur | | The Chinese University of Hong Kong| | | | Academic Honesty Declaration Statement| | Submission Details| | | | Student Name| | NG, Yan Yee (s1155033748)| | | Year and Term| 2012-2013 Term 2| | |Course| GEYS-1010– Entrepreneurial| Spirit and Social Responsibility| | Assignment Marker| Professor KWONG Kai Sun Sunny| | Submitted File Name| Describe the work of one entrepreneur. docx| | Submission Type| Individual| | | Assignment Number| 1| Due Date (provided by student )| 2013-03-15| Submission Reference Number| 667298| Submission Time| 2013-03-14 17:39:06| Agreement and Declaration on Student's Work Submitted to VeriGuide VeriGuide is intended to help the University to assure that works submitted by students as part of course requirement are original, and that students receive the proper recognition and grades for doing so.The student, in submitting his/her work (â€Å"this Work†) to VeriGuide, warrants that he/she is the lawful owner of the copyright of this Work. The student hereby grants a worldwide irrevocable non-exclusive perpetual licence in respect of the copyright in this Work to the University. The University will use this Work for the following purposes. (a) Checking that this Work is original The University needs to establish with reasonable confidence that this Work is original, before this Work can be marked or graded.For this purpose, VeriGuide will produce comparison reports showing any apparent similarities between this Wo rk and other works, in order to provide data for teachers to decide, in the context of the particular subjects, course and assignment. However, any such reports that show the author’s identity will only be made available to teachers, administrators and relevant committees in the University with a legitimate responsibility for marking, grading, examining, degree and other awards, quality assurance, and where necessary, for student discipline. b) Anonymous archive for reference in checking that future works submitted by other students of the University are original The University will store this Work anonymously in an archive, to serve as one of the bases for comparison with future works submitted by other students of the University, in order to establish that the latter are original. For this purpose, every effort will be made to ensure this Work will be stored in a manner that would not reveal the author’s identity, and that in exhibiting any comparison with other work , only relevant sentences/ parts of this Work with apparent similarities will be cited.In order to help the University to achieve anonymity, this Work submitted should not contain any reference to the student’s name or identity except in designated places on the front page of this Work (which will allow this information to be removed before archival). (c) Research and statistical reports The University will also use the material for research on the methodology of textual comparisons and evaluations, on teaching and learning, and for the compilation of statistical reports.For this purpose, only the anonymously archived material will be used, so that student identity is not revealed. I confirm that the above submission details are correct. I am submitting the assignment for: [ X ] an individual project OR [ ] a group project. The submission is done on behalf of all members of the group, on the understanding that ALL group members are responsible should there be any plagiarized contents.I have read the above and in submitting this Work fully agree to all the terms. I declare that this Work here submitted is original except for source material explicitly acknowledged, the same or closely related material has not been previously submitted for same or different courses, and that the submitted soft copy with details listed in the ;Submission Details; above is identical to the hard copy(ies), if any, which has(have) been / is(are) going to be submitted.I also acknowledge that I am aware of University policy and regulations on honesty in academic work, and of the disciplinary guidelines and procedures applicable to breaches of such policy and regulations, as contained in the University website ;Honesty in Academic Work: A Guide for Students and Teachers;. ______________________________| ______________________________| Signature (NG, Yan Yee)| Date|Instruction for Submitting Hard Copy / Soft Copy of the Assignment| | This signed declaration statement should be at tached to the hard copy assignment or submission to the course teacher, according to the instructions as stipulated by the course teacher. If you are required to submit your assignment in soft copy only, please print out a copy of this signed declaration statement and hand it in separately to your course teacher.