BEC ASSIGNMENT: ENTREPRENEURSHIP

EYETHU MACAULEY

JUNE 7, 2021
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
BEC111L

202101101 [Type here] [Type here]

INTRODUCTION.
The essay is based on entrepreneurship, who originated the term and what are the
characteristics that build a successful entrepreneur, the good and bad side of
entrepreneur as it is recognised as one of the developing industries in every
economy in the world, lastly, how they impact the economy and benefits they provide
for the society.
WHAT IS ENTREPRENEURSHIP, its ROLE, AND IMPORTANCE IN THE
ECONOMY.

Entrepreneurship is the process of creating something from Raw material (from

scratch) to something valuable by undertaking risks and opportunities to satisfy the
needs and wants of the society and economy to gain profit. Entrepreneurship is all
about innovation, strategies, risk-taking, act and makes a profit. The word
Entrepreneur is a French word that was forged in 1800 by a French economist Jean-
Baptiste Say, which simply means “to do something” or “to undertake” (R. S. Sobel,
2019, para. 5). Every entrepreneur has its characteristics, but the main trait is of an
entrepreneur include passion, dedication, innovation, motivation, decision making,
and confidence. By passion I mean you must be passionate about what you produce
in the market or provide for society in general, dedication means that you must be
dedicated to your goal and make sure that you succeed, by that you gain profit on
your product. Motivation must come from some or something that encouraged you to
start your business venture, for example, the scarcity of water in semi-rural areas like
Makhanda (Grahamstown), the spaza shop sell clean water to the community
cheaper and that is an example of satisfying the needs of the society. Be confident in
your decision making, even if it is risky because on a business venture it is all about
risk and makes them count be confident so that you can be a motivation of the future
entrepreneurs and be motivated to make more money by marketing your product
and give more clarity on your product on how to use it, make it affordable to the
society and make it beneficiary to the economy.

Entrepreneurs are regarded as the leaders as they play an important role in the
economy, as they are the main controllers of the economy, success that the
economy does is led by the encouragement and entrepreneurial instincts of a
dedicated entrepreneur. For an economy to grow, the must be an entrepreneur to
supply the products and services to the society to satisfy as yet unsatisfied needs,
remember, the economy grows when the is an improvement in the standard of living,

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opportunities being available to the people, productions of the country being efficient,
all of these depend on the risk that an entrepreneur takes which are the money they
use to invest in their goals of converting other factors of production which are Land,
Labour, and Capital(B, Tracy, 2005). Entrepreneurs also improve peoples’ lives
employing job opportunities to give them wages and salaries in return for profit,
provide educational skills through proving learner ship, scholarships and contracts to
give the social experience they need to produce the desired product or service by
the producer(entrepreneur). As entrepreneurs provide goods and services in the
economy, they also play the role to each other as they compete to make a better
product for the economy to increase the productivity of the economy as they are new
uprising entrepreneurs to compete with well-established firms which may find
struggle to adapt to the market, they eventually boost the small businesses by
providing new technology and guidance to make them succeed. For example, to
show the role and importance of an entrepreneur let’s take the University of Fort
Hare, it provides jobs to society through hiring lectures to educate students, provides
bursaries and student loans to the society to give better education, improve its
productions through improving syllabus or curriculum to produce better and well-
educated students for the market and gain its profit from the bursaries such as
NSFAS, Fundza Lushaka, Mercedes-Benz, etc., that is how the entrepreneur
operates and its role in the economy

IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON ENTREPRENEURS.

As we all know covid-19, is a virus that originated in China in December 2019, since
then, it has crucially affected the world’s economy and other sectors of life,
especially entrepreneurs. Due to the lockdowns that were enforced by governments
in the world to reduce the transmission of covid-19, businesses struggled to keep
their businesses efficient as there was a limitation of customers in shops, that limited
the amount of profit 8they generate which forced most businesses (SMMEs) to
retrench most of their employees to keep the books positive which led to a high
figure of unemployment in the economies, a decrease on the output of products in
firms due to lack of labour and that led to the downfall of economic productivity. It
also affected the import and export market of entrepreneurs through closing their
borders to other countries to protect their peoples which also caused a loss in
business and not just business but the government itself as it is regarded as one of

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the biggest entrepreneurs in an economy, (Inshan & Prakash, 2020). As the
pandemic not only affected the entrepreneurs but their businesses and the business
world, IPSOS South Africa conducted an online survey in September 2020 in the
business market of South Africa which was participated by 724 in a total of Owners,
CEO’s, MD, and Directors of different SMME enterprises. 55% of business owners
confirmed that they are struggling to balance their business books as the customer
spending was limited due to the safety of customers, governments decided to
lockdown the economy for at least 2 months, as the economy is still adjusting to the
pandemic, business suppliers increased their prices, some businesses experienced
an increase in crime especially the large SMME business which also caused
disadvantage to business owners (IPSOS, 2020). The pandemic did not just cause
the entrepreneurs to struggle but also motived them to be innovative to boom or
boost their business by transitioning from flyers, posters to social media, television
advertisements, YouTube channels, etc. It elevated their business statuses, as a
result nowadays people prefer online stores for instance KFC also has apps for
customers, websites to order online, you can also call the nearest KFC restaurant to
show that even on the pandemic you can still also get their delicious meals. In the
beauty industry, hairdressers attended their customers to their houses, to prove that
businesses became innovative, the Peppergrove Mall Pick’n’Pay located in
Grahamstown provided an online link to order all your grocery and a staff member
will make your trolley and will come and pay for it, encouraged businesses to be
more hygiene and sanitised, this shows the commitment of entrepreneurs to improve
their business from the impact of Covid_19.

A WELL-KNOWN SUCCESSFUL SOUTH AFRICAN ENTREPRENEUR.

One of the iconic entrepreneurs that I look up to is Allan William Buchanan Gray
(1938-2019), who was born on the 8th of April 1938, East London. Studied accounting
at Rhodes University and went to Harvard Business School to reward himself with
Master of Business Administration in 1965. Stayed in Boston for 8 years working for
an asset management firm was known as Fidelity Management and Research
which now is referred Fidelity Investment Inc. (Fidelity). During that 8 years, he
established himself as one of the successful contrarian investors in the economic
crash of 1962(The Kennedy Slide of 1962, also known as the Flash Crash of 1962)
(Planting; 2019). In 1973 he came back to South Africa and established a new

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company known as the Allan Gray Limited in Cape Town which focuses on
investment counseling, later on, included institutional clients which nowadays is one
of the leading investment companies in the continent, he then on 1989 he starts and
managed Orbis Investment Management, that is what made him to be one of the
wealthiest entrepreneurs and one of the top 10 richest men in South Africa, He was
giving back to the nation by creating an organisation in 2007 named Allan Gray
Foundation and invested US$130 million(which was equivalent to R887,900,000 that
time) for scholarships and bursaries that are offered to South African high school
learners that are unable to pay fees for tertiary studies. Before he died, in 2016 he
donated his stake in his company to the Allan and Gill Gray Charitable which was a
charity of him and his wife that was for philanthropic purposes (Garcia, 2019). He
was seen as one of the top entrepreneurs of all time because he had ways of
connecting to society for instance, he helped children in South Africa by giving them
better benefits of education, dedicated himself in everything he did, and lastly, he
was the smartest person in the entrepreneurial industry.

ANALYSIS OF MY ENTREPRENEURIAL QUALITIES

What I have learned about Allan W.B Gray is that you must be consistent on what
you set as a goal and dedicate yourself to make it come true. Teamwork is one of
the main keys to entrepreneurship and he mastered that by networking and by
asking guidance from those who were or still on the path you are taking. Integrity,
respect, and humanity are part of an entrepreneur, as one, you must support those
who helped you to claim your rewards and by that, I mean, not only you have to
dedicate your energy to making your product recognised but also give back to the
community that made you who you are. Courage is my weakness and that will cost
me on the entrepreneurial route because it involves risk-taking and sacrificing a lot
for my success will cost me psychological stability, which is one of many qualities
that make a successful entrepreneur succeed.

CONCLUSION

An entrepreneur is one of the key elements that make the economy operate to its full
potential, meaning, it is one of the factors that play a role in satisfying our daily
needs and unlimited wants, it improves people’s lives by giving them skills,
knowledge, and improve their standards of living in general. To be successful you

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must be dedicated, committed, innovative, creative and be entrepreneurial-minded
and have the heart to give back to society to make people believe in you. Without
entrepreneurs in our economies or societies, our lives would have still been stuck in
traditional ways, traditional markets, and traditional standard of living which is a
disadvantage in our present lives as the world becomes more technologically
advanced e.g., online stores like Takealot, etc.

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REFERENCE PAGE

1. Brian Tracy, (2005), Entrepreneur South Africa. Role of Entrepreneurship.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/78478
2. Sobel, S Russell. (2019), Entrepreneurship. Featured Encyclopaedia Entry:
Basic Concepts, The Economics of Special Markets, The Marketplace.
https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Entrepreneurship.html#...
3. Meahjohn, Inshan & Persad, Prakash, (2020), The Impact of Covid-19 on
Entrepreneurship Globally. Journal of Economics and Business. 3. 1165-
1173. 10.31014/aior.1992.03 03.272.
4. Planting, Sasha (2019), Business Maverick: Obituary: Allan Gray: Death of a
gentleman. Daily Maverick
5. Gracia Zindzy (2019), List of well known South African Entrepreneurs, Briefly.
https://www.briefly.co.za/18759-list-south-african-entrepreneurs.html