- For entrepreneurs to be successful, there needs to be a large enough pool of potential customers who have
an unsatisfied need or are willing to consider that they may benefit from the entrepreneur’s products or service.
Entrepreneurial startups tend to be small and have little available cash. One would think that larger firms with
numerous employees, proven suppliers and distributors, and much more working capital would be able to
outperform the startups. Time and again, however, this is not the case. What do you believe are the key factors
that give the advantage to the entrepreneur? - Imagine you are a successful and well-respected, mid-level professional in a large corporation that is
concerned about losing business to an ever-growing number of competitors, many of which are far smaller.
You have been asked to create a “skunkworks unit” within the firm to develop new strategic insights and
products to help your firm survive. Drawing on your personal experiences, as well as insights from the text and
the Internet, produce a prioritized list of five to seven key attributes at the heart of the design of your new unit. - Consider two firms: one that has the very best people but an ineffective and frustrating work environment
and one that has average workers but an excellent environment. All else being equal, which is likely to be more
successful over time, and why? - It has been said that many high-tech firms outsourced too many of their core competencies to off-shore firms
and, as a result, “hollowed themselves out.” If your firm asked you to propose how it could become more
profitable and agile through off shoring but not hollowing out, what would you recommend be outsourced, what
would you keep, and why?
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