Entrepreneurship in Europe

A few years ago I was participating in an online discussion (remember the online forums with the "threads" of topics?) about business and entrepreneurship.

I was arguing that the world, at least the western one, was from into a Services based economy (and intangible goods and knowledge, etc) and that unlike the manufacturing world, one did not need much money to start a company/business that dealt in either Services or intangible (aka intellectual or grey matter) goods/products.

Still, finding the money to get started in such a business is a problem argued one of other participants. I think he was from the UK but in any case from Europe.

Why don't you ask for family and friends to each either lend you some or become shareholders in your company, I proposed. I was not expecting the reaction I received, which I thought and still think is indicative of the problems of entrepreneurship and business culture in Europe.

"What, put my family's and friends' money at risk? You got to be joking, man!" was the fellow participant's reaction.

Analyse this.

For real growth and real jobs (in the UK and EUrope)

IMO business entrepreneurship in the UK + rest of EU needs to spend less time dealing with red tape and more in new ideas and Marketing

Ask yourself:

How many people in the UK and EU have ideas and dreams related to new products and services?

How many people in the UK and the EU try to detect new needs and wants of a niche of the 0.5 bn EUropean consumers?

Consider this:

The EU has 0.5 bn people: consumers, workers, job seekers, entrepreneurs stuck in an incomplete (theoretical) EU Single Market

How many small and micro firms in the EU think of the EUropean Single #Market as "their" market (instead of the local - national one)?

How many EUropeans grow up in one EU member state, go to uni in another and get a job or start a business in a third?


What is the way to a real EU, a real EU Single Market and real growth and real jobs?

Who is really afraid of an EU Single Market for Services?

IMO, in a Services era - economy, micro firms need market access and vital space (ie min red tape) more than they need capital.

Thus:

Consider the key role of competition law in the EU Single Market in opening up the EUropean market for micro and small firms

Empower the 0.5 bn EUropeans to turn their hobby into a job without red tape killing their joy and you get real growth + real jobs

Present day heroes

People who start and run micro companies (0-9 employees) are IMO "heroes"

Innovation, R&D and entrepreneurship

IMO, innovation is not necessarily correlated to Research + Development (R&D), it has other, non tech - scientific, sources pr drivers too.

Entrepreneurship is mainly about an idea and a dream, unleashing the creative mind

some thoughts on HR, healthcare, entrepreneuship and the value of human capital

Here are some thoughts based on recent events in the US and Europe/EU:


Firstly, IMO the US needs a public NHS type universal health service as badly as Europe needs entrepreneurship!


Now, related to healthcare:
IMO the private sector can do most things better than the public sector, BUT healthcare + health insurance among them!

How can one make private sector offered health insurance mandatory? Defies policy and social logic IMO!!

Based on the evolution of BHO's health reform, the question is inevitable: Would Hillary as President have been more effective in real healthcare reform? IMO her proposals were fuller!


On HR and the real value corporations attach to human capital:

IMO it's high time employers in the US + Europe abandon the carrot + the stick approach in employee motivation, it's so 1900s (or even, 1800s)!

IMO they got it right in sports, when the team is doing badly it's the manager that goes, not the players, in business, it's usually the opposite

Pre-economic crisis, there was loads of corporate lipservice - rhetoric on Human Resources Management and the value of Human Capital, then came the crisis and .....


And lastly:

Why is there so much work related stress in recent years France?

Bureaucracy in Europe/the EU and the USA

At the end of the day, is bureaucracy - red tape really less in the USA compared with Europe - the EU?

IMO bureaucracy rules supreme on both sides of the Atlantic and suffocates #citizens and small business

growth = mini and small companies

Policy: making it easier to start and operate a mini or small company (all countries) is IMO crucial for growth out of the recession.

working vs entrepreneurship

What is harder nowadays? to find a job or to start a mini company?

on jobs and creating jobs: If you cannot find a job, create your own company?

The stimulus for these thoughts came from the survey results released on Monday (May 25, 2009) by the UK's Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
According to it, 45% of the 500 companies surveyed said they do not aim to recruit 16 year olds who leave school or university graduates this year!

That happens on the backdrop of an unemployment situation in the UK that has risen above 2 million (2.03) in the three months to January, adding 165,000 to 2.03 million and some predictions that number may reach and surpass 3 million in 2010!

Jobs! Oh what a wonderful concept, so much is written or said about jobs, jobs creation, so much time, money and grey matter is spent by people and their parents so that they can have a job or even better, a "career".

And what lovely words and notions are often uttered by the politicians regarding the need as well as their "ability", via public policies and laws etc to "create jobs". Whereas reality says that in market economies at least, jobs are created not by politicians or any of their actions, but by companies (aka "employers"). At best, what politicians and policy makers can do is create an "environment" that fosters the creation of new jobs by private companies.

So, what can a young person, with or without a university degree, can do in such in environment? On of course is to be more 'competitive' in "beating the competition" from others and still "land" one of those much fewer new jobs that will become available this year, in the UK and around the world. But that does not solve the bigger issue/problem/"picture": what happens to those who will not manage to beat the competition of finding an employer? What can they do other than collect unemployment benefits (in those countries/job markets where these are available) and hope that they will not stay "out of the market" long enough to be "branded", by the market and its market makers, "un-employable", for life!

Which reminds me of what a well known, internationally, management "guru" told me, privately, during a business dinner some 10 years ago. That when talking to a well known President of a large corporation, he had been told by him that he did not understand why young people are willing to work for "his" corporation and that if he was in their shoes he would start his own one (rather than work in a large and "bureaucratic" (and "boring") large corporation).

Which brings me to the core of this analysis: Job creation via new business/company creation! Aka "entrepreneurship". Creating a small or even mini (or micro) company, even one that only "employs" one person (aka "self-employment").

Do young people these days, in the UK, in Germany, in France, in the US, in China, in Japan, etc, have an appetite or even better, a "drive", to do that? And if not, why not?

Do they think that they are entitled, via an unwritten "social contract" or the fact that they got a degree, even from the best of schools, to a job in "someone else's" company? Or even, the public sector? Is it that they need to pay off loans that they got in order to study or that they want the job security (or perception of it) that will allow them to have an active (or glamorous) social life (after-work) or even better, start a family?

Well, these are merely some thoughts, or some food for thought (comments welcome), on why should young people "waste" their acumen in competing with others to "win" a job instead of competing with other others to "win" a client or consumer for the products or services that their own (mini) company could "gain". Why waste good competitive energy to lure a recruiter instead of luring a client? Why not view Corporation X as a potential client rather than an employer? Is (real or at least more) security to be found nowadays in having a job or clientele?

PS. Some countries actively recognise the fact that medium, small and mini/micro companies are more "sensitive" (exposed) to over-regulation and red tape/bureaucracy. Others think that by simply offering people who start their own small business some start up funds is (kind of) enough to get them started! Very few do both, too few. Most politicians, IMO, do not really know what it really takes to start a company. Actually, no one really knows, even people who have started their own or advised others on how to, because, IMO/IME, every new "start up" is a different "endeavour" with its own characteristics and risks, yes risks, and its own "magic". But who turns into company creation for "magic", it seems most people these days think that "magic" is to be found in sports or other more "imaginative" things than "starting a company". IMO that is the core problem.