Entrepreneur and Understanding a Market

Entrepreneur and Understanding a Market

 

1. Why does an entrepreneur need to know about the market?
An entrepreneur need to know about the market because of the following reasons:

1. A deep understanding of the market is a crucial requirement for venturing into an enterprise.
2. A feasibility plan, which includes an analysis of the market is required to be prepared by the entrepreneur.
3. It is important to study the various inputs that have designed the market and contributors to the market.
4. The data available in the text books may not be relevant for his requirement. So, he has to go into various sources that would facilitate him to understand the information with a reasonable amount of exactitude.

2. What are the sources from which entrepreneur can obtain information about the markets?
The following are the sources from which entrepreneur can obtain information about the markets.

1. Government sources and information Bureau.
2. Interaction with potential customers.
3. Existing entrepreneurs.
4. Business Magazines and publications.
5. Annual General Body reports of industries and reports.
6. Other sources including Research.

3. Name atleast five government agencies from which information regarding the opportunities for a new enterprise could be obtained?
The following are the government agencies from which information regarding the opportunities for a new enterprise could be obtained.

1. Government Gazettes
2. Offices of the Industrial Development councils
3. Export & Import promotion council
4. Small Scale Industries Development Corporations
5. Entrepreneurship Development Institutes
6. Chambers of Commerce and Industries
7. Nationalized & Scheduled Banks

4. What type of information could be obtained from potential customers?
The following information could be obtained from potential customers.

1. Customer response to the product feed.
2. Customer’s expectations regarding the quality and quantity of the product.
3. Pricing patterns conducive to the customers
4. Cutomers attitude to competitions in the market
5. Packaging patterns for the products
6. Timing and delivery patters to the market

5. How can we get an idea about the competition in the market?
We can get an idea about the competition in the market by doing a comprehensive study of the exising entrepreneurs in the market who would provide the competition to our product or service. Collecting the data pertaining to the following will help in the analysis.

1. Who are the existing competitors?
2. What is that they produce?
3. Where is the souce of their raw materials?
4. What is the quality consideration of their product?
5. What is the consumer’s response to their product?
6. How is their pricing pattern?
7. What is their distribution channel?

It study will be more fruitful if the entrepreneur himself conducts the role-play of a customer and shops the competitor product or service, use it and arrive at his own conclusion.
6. Identify at least three Newspapers and three magazines dealing with business trends. List what type of information you could obtain from them.
The Newspapers dealing with business trends are: (Write three or more)

1. Business Standard
2. Financial Express
3. The Economic Times
4. The Hindu Business Line
5. Mint
6. Financial Chronicle

The three magazines dealing with business trends are: (Write three or more)

1. Business Today
2. Forbes India
3. Outlook business
4. Business world
5. BusinessWeek

We can obtain the following information from these newspapers and magazines.

1. Business news about the entire spectrum of industries, services and markets.
2. Professional analysis about
   1. the markets
   2. the business houses
   3. their distribution
   4. the changing consumer needs
   5. the prospects of new consumer goods
   6. and several other things.
3. The analysis of the financial dynamics facilitating the entrepreneur to make his own calculations with regard to the investment.
4. Professional consultancy to the new entrepreneurs
5. The status of the stock exchange based on the fluctuations of the market to the global political and economical situations.

7. Listen to the Business news atleast on two channels for three days. Make a summary of the highlights. What type of information you could obtain from them.
(Students are required to prepare the latest summary of highlights after listening to the news channels. As this information will be varying, I’m leaving it for the students to prepare the answer to this part).
We can obtain the following information from the business news on these channels.

1. Business news about the entire spectrum of industries, services and markets.
2. Professional analysis about
   1. the markets
   2. the business houses
   3. their distribution
   4. the changing consumer needs
   5. the prospects of new consumer goods
   6. and several other things.
3. The analysis of the financial dynamics facilitating the entrepreneur to make his own calculations with regard to the investment.
4. Professional consultancy to the new entrepreneurs
5. The status of the stock exchange based on the fluctuations of the market to the global political and economical situations.