Entrepreneurship, Leadership, and Global Strategy

Entrepreneurship and Resource Management

Entrepreneurship is the process of discovering new ways of combining resources. When the market value generated by this new combination of resources is greater than the market value these resources can generate elsewhere individually or in some other combination, the entrepreneur makes a profit.

To develop a new project, there are some essential key elements:

• Focus
• Money as a source of resources and capabilities
• The right people with the right initiative

In a startup, you have the possibility to focus on one single idea, and usually, teams have great initiative. However, startups need significant funding to be able to develop such projects. On the opposite side, corporations, which have great amounts of money at their disposal, usually cannot focus as well as a startup on a single project because they have different interests and activities occurring simultaneously.

Strategic Leadership: Lessons from History

An example of strategic leadership is Alexander the Great versus King Darius III of Persia during the Battle of Gaugamela. Alexander the Great defeated the Persian Empire. Darius’ troops were double the size of those of Alexander, but they comprised many mercenaries. On the other hand, Alexander had developed a working-together culture with his troops, who fought with the aim to establish the greatest empire on earth and were not motivated solely by money.

Alexander's strategy was to kill Darius because if he died, he would not have been able to pay his mercenaries, and the soldiers would have stopped fighting for him. Alexander managed to uncover Darius’ flanks, and once the Persian King found himself standing alone, he ran away—and his soldiers did not follow him.

Internationalization and Global Growth

Another way to grow is selling in foreign markets through the internationalization process. Today, barriers to international commerce are weaker, and worldwide trade is considered essential for growth, even though it is increasingly competitive.

There are different strategies for internationalization; we consider two of them:

I. Global Strategy

The product is standardized and not adapted to the new market, with small exceptions allowed. For example, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and McDonald’s offer the same products all over the world, with limited regional offers.

II. Transnational Strategy

The offer is adapted to the market; this means that either a new, different product or the old product could be offered to the new market, depending on customer demand, local laws, and other factors. For example, Zara gives some initiative to local store managers who can decide to change the products offered after testing the market directly. On the other hand, companies that adopt a global strategy take this kind of decision at the corporate level.