Mastering Entrepreneurship

From Creativity & Innovation to Business Strategy

Introduction

“Mastering Entrepreneurship: From Creativity and Innovation to Business Strategy” is aimed at taking entrepreneurs, corporate venturing executives, and others involved in entrepreneurial environments to the next level of their professional development. The emphasis of this course is on leveraging creativity, innovation & strategy to optimize the results in the marketplace.

The purpose of this comprehensive training seminar is to assist you in developing or enhancing your ability to lead and manage new developments while sustaining excellent results. It provides practical skills to take back to your areas of responsibility, along with insights needed to adapt the principles to every industry.

Successful entrepreneurs combine and leverage innovation, creativity, strategy, leadership, operations, marketing and finance to optimize potential opportunities. This includes:

• Designing a strategic planning process to achieve lasting change
• Implementing a culture of “continuous improvement”
• Understanding creativity and using specific tools to gain the best results
• Harnessing innovation so that the outputs deliver impact
• Applying best practice principles to develop high-value activities

Objectives

The concepts, tools, and frameworks covered in the training seminar will enable participants to:

• Create, identify, and evaluate new venture opportunities
• Start and build a successful company
• Leverage new science and technologies from corporate or university laboratories
• Create and build high-value companies to be globally successful
• Balance innovation and risk to optimize results

Training Methodology

The training seminar leader will deploy a full range of dynamic and interactive training methods. This will comprise a carefully balanced mix of conventional teaching, supported by real examples and case experience of individual issues. In addition, delegates will be given the chance to work in groups on case studies to apply new skills in the key aspects of this subject.  Above all the training seminar leader will illustrate the main learning points with examples of real-life situations in which he has been personally involved.

Organizational Impact

The organization will benefit by:

• Having experts in-house to develop entrepreneurial opportunities
• Achieving higher productivity of personnel involved in these ventures
• Improved performance of corporate partners
• Better ways to plan and measure results of entrepreneurial decisions
• Realizing how to optimize options when facing opportunities and choice
• Better integration between functional areas leading to better decisions

Personal Impact

The delegate will benefit by:

• Developing an improved understanding of the risks and rewards of entrepreneurship
• Knowing how to evaluate the risks and rewards of innovation
• Being able to calculate the strategic and financial value of an investment
• Understanding to cost/benefit of a decision
• Enhancing their knowledge with the use of business models and case studies
• Understanding the link between operations, marketing and finance to entrepreneurial success

Who Should Attend?

This training seminar is designed for all those who want to enhance, update, and refine their entrepreneurial skills. It is also very applicable to aspiring entrepreneurs, corporate “intrapreneurs”, corporate venture officers, and those who would like to develop or strengthen the skills and enhance the climate of innovation and/or entrepreneurship in their organizations.

• Corporate finance officers
• Strategic planners
• Accounting
• Lenders
• Investors
• Merger and acquisition specialists
• Corporate officers
• Commercial and investment bankers
• Securities analysts
• Private equity specialists
• Asset managers
• And other individuals whose professional future may be enhanced by an understanding of development through innovative entrepreneurial activity

Seminar Outline

DAY 1

Assessing the Current Performance and Potential of Your Organisation

• What is the potential of your business for sustained profitable growth?
• How strong is your current competitive position?
• What are the factors that will influence future performance?
• Leading-edge tools and techniques in strategic planning
• The strategic requirement for product and process innovation

Strategic Planning for Competitive Success

• Developing your unique corporate strategy
• Communicating your unique corporate strategy
• Implementing your unique corporate strategy
• Measuring your unique corporate strategy
• Adjusting your unique corporate strategy

DAY 2

Leadership Development

• What is the job of leadership and how is it distinct from management?
• The special characteristics of leadership in an entrepreneurial culture
• Why would anyone wish to be led by you?
• The concept of leadership in different business cultures
• What is “transformational leadership”?

Risk Management

• Identification and assessment of risk
• The first decision – accept or avoid
• Tools and techniques of risk management
• Tools and techniques of risk mitigation
• Tools and techniques of risk transfer

DAY 3

Planning for Innovation and Using Innovation Effectively

• Innovation versus invention
• Various types of innovation
• The economic impact of innovation and its cost-benefit analysis
• Selecting and applying the best innovation tools and techniques
• Developing and sustaining an innovation culture

Marketing & Branding

• The critical difference between marketing and branding
• The most effective marketing strategy in an entrepreneurial business
• Calculating your marketing ROI
• How to develop and leverage a brand
• Branding products versus companies

DAY 4

Forecasting & Budgeting

• Forecasting demand is the most critical element
• Forecasting options to improve your operating results
• The different roles of forecasting and budgeting
• Budgeting options and choosing between alternatives
• The master budget components

Entrepreneurial Finance

• How investors evaluate a proposal
• Financial structure options: start-up/mezzanine/second and third phase
• The balance of cash flow/debt/equity financing
• The different approaches of banks, venture capital, private equity, other
• Z-score & other analysis tools

DAY 5

Operational Excellence and Continuous Process Improvement

• How to measure success and potential
• The need for alignment between strategic and operational leadership
• How to develop best practice in business processes
• 6-S audit and analysis
• World class process improvement techniques
• The “Kaizen” concept and its application across the organisation