教员与领导博客/Faculty in the News

Small Business: Lessons of the Recession – Women vs.Men

最近的研究,Small Business: Lessons of the Recession,通过追逐Card Services,NFIB(全国独立企业联合会)和妇女商业研究中心(cwbr)关于企业主在过去几年“大衰退”中对其企业做出的回应类型的报告。我们的兴趣之一是看看男性企业主和女性企业主在方法上是否存在差异。我在其他地方写过关于一般调查结果的文章(链接到福布斯博客)。我还想思考一下这项研究对创业教育的影响,下面我们来谈谈,一步一步地:

注重成本控制:Forty-five percent of WOBs focused on controlling costs in response to economic challenges,而31%的人集中在销售增长上。回想起来,近60%的女性对自己的商业决策充满信心。她们认为自己在正确的时间做出了正确的决定。

关于成本控制,我们在创业中教什么?创业融资课程很多,however,其中绝大多数是关于获得外部融资,而太多的是关于获得股权融资。很好知道–但不会帮助您了解成本结构以及如何根据成本做出决策。这种帮助通常也不是来自传统的会计课程使用公司现有信息构建报告。如果必须首先创建成本信息,您该怎么做?不同等级。

针对正确的客户:Although more than half of WOBs (55 percent) focused on new business among their existing customer base,one in four say they are marketing to a customer base today that is different from their pre-recession targets.

“正确的”客户的问题总是很有趣,并且与企业家如何看待世界寻找机会以及此人如何理解,发展现有客户比获得新客户成本更低有关。我还建议我们不要教企业主如何努力扩大其地域水平。区域。“全球”似乎总是在一个不同的过程中,而不是对大多数产品和许多服务至少进行审查的一条线。

Social media as a business tool:Half of WOBs owners now use social media compared to four percent before the recession.  Of those surveyed,56%的受访者表示,社交媒体对他们的业务“非常重要”或“重要”。

There is an intimidation factor around social media for many business owners.  It looks like it would take a giant amount of effort to even enter into a very steep and daunting learning curve.  Many business owners also dismiss it as not relevant to their type of business.  Some kind of social media is now a necessary part of most types of businesses.  We need to teach it as part of an integrated marketing program,不是一个人。和往常一样,the entrepreneurs will ultimately decide if it is for them or not.

Promoting the business through community activities: Thirty-nine percent of WOBs increased their involvement in civic,social or school activities to increase their exposure during the recession and create value for their communities.Although these efforts may seem like they don't involve money,不要忘记你的时间的实际价值。毕竟,企业主的时间是他们最宝贵的资源。

My outcome of the definition of entrepreneurship that I use is the creation of value and while that value should include financial value for the entrepreneur,if it doesn't also include creating value for the community (defined in many ways),something is missing.  We do teach this as an integrated part of the entrepreneurship courses that every student takes at beplay官网体育Babson.  I'm not talking about the separate entity of social entrepreneurship,但每一个企业家应该如何看待他们以多种方式创造的价值,以支持他们的愿景。

And so,as we look at the latest date from the Chase/NFIB/CWBR study,作为教育者,我们可以学习这些课程,并帮助他人学习它们。

教授帕特丽夏格林尼
Paul T.beplay官网体育Babson Chair in Entrepreneurship