Week 6 Opportunity Recognition and Idea Generation - 014716

Week 7 Opportunity Recognition and Idea Generation
 General approaches used to identify opportunities

 Qualities of a viable entrepreneurial opportunity
 Idea and techniques of generating business ideas
Opportunity Recognition
 Importantly, entrepreneurs recognize an opportunity and turn it
into a successful business.
 An opportunity is a favorable set of circumstances that creates
a need for a new product, service or business
 Entrepreneurial opportunity exists wherever there is a need or want,

problem or challenge that can be addressed, solved, or satisfied in
an innovative way
Qualities of a viable Entrepreneurial Opportunity
 Attractive- fulfilling a need, adding value or solving a customer
problem
 Durable- Long lasting
 Timely-coincides with customer demand or needs
 Anchored in a product/service-Creates/adds value for buyer/user
 Compatible with the goals and talents of the entrepreneur and
enterprise management team
For an entrepreneur to capitalize on this opportunity, the window of
opportunity must be open and remain open long enough.
The term window of opportunity is a metaphor describing the
time period in which a firm can realistically enter a new market.
Once the market for a new product is established, its window of
opportunity opens. As the market grows, firms enter and try to
establish a profitable position. At some point, the market matures,
and the window of opportunity closes.
In other words, the term window of opportunity is the length of
time available to get the business idea to market before the market
either diminishes due to lessening demand or is dominated by a
competitor.
General Approaches Used to Identify Opportunities

There are three general approaches entrepreneurs use to identify an
opportunity:
1) Observing trends
- The first approach to identifying opportunities is to observe
trends and study how they create opportunities for entrepreneurs
to pursue. The most important trends to follow are economic
trends, social trends, technological advances, and political action
and regulatory changes. As an entrepreneur or potential
entrepreneur, it’s important to remain aware of changes in these
areas
- keen observation skills and a willingness to stay on top of
changing environmental trends are key attributes of successful
entrepreneurs
2) Solving a Problem
- The second approach to identifying opportunities is to recognize
problems and find ways to solve them. Problems can be
recognized by observing the challenges that people encounter in
their daily lives and through more simple means, such as
intuition, serendipity, or chance. There are many problems that
have yet to be solved.
- Consistent with the above observation, many companies have
been started by people who have experienced a problem in their
own lives, and then realized that the solution to the problem
represented a business opportunity.
3) Finding Gaps in The Market
- Gaps in the marketplace are the third source of business
opportunities. There are many examples of products that
consumers need or want that are not available in a particular
location or are not available at all.
- Product gaps in the marketplace thus represent potentially viable
business opportunities.
- Another common way that gaps in the marketplace are
recognized is when people become frustrated because they
cannot find a product or service that they need and recognize
that other people feel the same way.
Idea and Techniques of Generating Business Ideas

- An idea is a thought, an impression, or a notion.
- Ideas are an entrepreneur’s raw material. This implies that not all
ideas that do not materialize are necessarily worthless.
Idea generation
- is the creative process of generating, developing and
communicating new ideas
- involves coming up with many ideas, selecting the best idea or
ideas, working to create a plan to implement the idea, and then
actually taking that idea and putting it into practice
Sources of Ideas
• Reading books, newspapers, magazines
• Media- radio, TV
• Networks, Friends, colleagues
• Observation, Hobbies
• Creative thinking seminars
• Active listening
• Industry newsletters
• Competitors, Suppliers, distributors, customers
• Personal research and development
• Universities and other research organizations
• Consultants
Techniques For Generating Ideas
1. Brainstorming
- Is a technique used to generate a large number of ideas and solutions to
problems quickly.
- A brainstorming “session” typically involves a group of people, and
should be targeted to a specific topic.
- Rules for a brainstorming session:
No criticism.
Freewheeling is encouraged.
The session should move quickly.
Leap-frogging is encouraged.
2. Focus group Discussion
- A focus group is a gathering of five to ten people, who have been
selected based on their common characteristics relative to the issues
being discussed.
- These groups are led by a trained moderator, who uses the internal
dynamics of the group environment to gain insight into why people feel
they way they do about a particular issue.
- Although focus groups are used for a variety of purposes, they can be
used to help generate new business ideas
The strength of focus groups is that they help to uncover what’s on their
customers’ minds through the give‐and‐take nature of a group discussion
3. Library and internet search
- Libraries are an often-underutilized source of information for generating
new business ideas.
- The best approach is to talk to a reference librarian, who can point out
useful resources, such as industry-specific magazines, trade journals, and
industry reports.
Simply browsing through several issues of a trade journal or an industry
report on a topic can spark new ideas.
- Large public and university libraries typically have access to search
engines and industry reports
4. Conducting Surveys
- A survey is a method of gathering information from a sample of people.
The sample is usually just a fraction of the population to be studied.
Surveys generate new product, service, and business ideas because they
ask specific questions and get specific answers
5. Customer advisory boards.
Some companies set up customer advisory boards that meet regularly to
discuss needs, wants, and problems that may lead to new ideas
6.Day‐in‐the‐life research.
Other companies conduct varying forms of anthropological research, such
as day‐in‐the‐life research
Steps to generating creative ideas:
1.Preparation: is the background, experience, and knowledge that an

entrepreneur
brings to the opportunity’s recognition process.
2.Incubation: is the stage during which a person considers an idea or

things about
problem; it is the mulling thing over phase.
3.Insight: is the flash of recognition_ when a solution to a problem is

seen or any idea is born
4.Evaluation: is a particular challenging stage of the creative process
because it
require an entrepreneur to take a candid look at the variability of an idea
5.Elaboration: is the stage during which the creative idea is put into a
final form

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Week 7 Opportunity Recognition and Idea Generation

 General approaches used to identify opportunities

a need for a new product, service or business

 Entrepreneurial opportunity exists wherever there is a need or want,

General Approaches Used to Identify Opportunities

Idea and Techniques of Generating Business Ideas

1.Preparation: is the background, experience, and knowledge that an

brings to the opportunity’s recognition process.

2.Incubation: is the stage during which a person considers an idea or

problem; it is the mulling thing over phase.

3.Insight: is the flash of recognition_ when a solution to a problem is

require an entrepreneur to take a candid look at the variability of an idea

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