The Different Forms and Types of Enterprise in Business

People in a community have many interests and different needs and wants in their lives. It is the role of enterprising men and women to identify these interests, needs, and wants and establish specific enterprises through which these interests, needs, and wants can be satisfied. All enterprises provide satisfying rewards for those who successfully establish them.

Terms used to classify enterprises include private, public, formal, informal, individual, community, local, foreign, small, large, business, social, manufacturing, and service, casual or industrial.

Enterprises that succeed, irrespective of their nature, come up with irresistible and valued approaches that contribute to providing solutions to problems, as well as satisfying the desired needs and wants.

The key difference between all types of business enterprise lies in the rewards they provide. Business ventures provide profits as rewards, while non-business ventures provide other types of rewards which could be either physical or psychological.

Enterprising men and women will, therefore, engage in enterprises depending on what kind of rewards they expect from them.

Specific enterprises in a community have the potential to benefit from the existence of all the others. The output from one enterprise normally becomes the input for other enterprises, and this helps money circulation among the enterprises and within the community.

The more money that circulates in the community, the more prosperous the community becomes. The synergistic nature of all enterprises in a community creates an environment where there are lots of opportunities to be exploited by enterprising men and women.

It is therefore up to these men and women to identify the opportunities available and exploit them. Almost all communities have lots of unexploited opportunities that can increase this synergy if properly harnessed, to create even more opportunities for everyone.

In the course of training and education, men and women acquire different skills that lead to different careers. They are applied in trade, services, manufacturing, food processing, recreation, information and communication, and other forms of enterprises in business.

Acquired skills are great assets that men and women should be proud of. The existence of many types of enterprise in your community affords you opportunities to apply the skills you have acquired in the course of your training. All types of skills learned have a chance to be applied if opportunities are sought in all types of enterprise.

It is normal for men and women to consider the compatibility of personal values, interests, and expectations with the type of enterprise they would wish to associate with. This, however, if taken too far, could limit the opportunities for individual men and women.

The essence or key message is to appreciate what you have started in the right way by acquiring the skills. The next step is to be alert and evaluate the many enterprises in your community and note their potential synergistic nature. The final step is the enterprises. You can, therefore, do what you can, with what you have, where you are, and still succeed.

Top 10 Roles of Entrepreneurs in Business

1. Promoters

Entrepreneurs are promoters because they can scan the environment, identify opportunities, marshal resources, and implement the business idea.

2. Partners

Entrepreneurs solicit the participation of other persons in a business project because of the following:

• The degree of success or failure factor involved,
• The complexity of a business idea may require more than one person to run it,
• The influence, experience, and capacity of others may be useful, and
• Friendships or acquaintanceships may be consolidated through a joint business association.

3. Shareholders

Potential entrepreneurs would participate as shareholders under the following circumstances:

• When the enterprise requires too much investment,
• When they do not want to commit their full time to the enterprise,
• When risks may be reduced by spreading their investment portfolio, and
• When they do not have the capacity to manage such as enterprise.

4. Directors

Entrepreneurs participate as directors by contributing positive ideas to advance the enterprise’s objectives.

• Ensuring compliance with all legal requirements,
• Safeguarding the interests of employees especially women, particularly in the context of decent work,
• Safeguarding the interests of shareholders in the context of return on investment,
• Ensuring that business is conducted honestly and diligently, and is devoid of fraud and deceit,
• Ensuring social responsibilities and expectations are met.

5. Organizers

For an entrepreneur to effectively control or monitor operations and facilitate communication with workers, it is advisable to have an organizational structure for the enterprise. Organization structures can be formal or informal, for instance:

• Various members of a family are assigned various positions,
• Various employed assistants are assigned administrative positions in the running of a small business.

6. Initiating ideas

Entrepreneurs come up with new ideas. This is an important area for an entrepreneur as it determines his/her rate of expansion in business, e.g. new designs and use of products.

7. Taking risks

Entrepreneurs are aware of the importance of planning and of the limitations of planning in the context of the above roles.

8. Planning

Entrepreneurs are leaders rather than followers; they make the final decisions and control all aspects of business operations

9. Controlling

Entrepreneurs are leaders rather than followers; they make the final decisions and control all aspects of business operations.

10. Coordinating

Entrepreneurs must coordinate all the production factors needed in the business, i.e. capital, labor, and land.