CCEA GCSE Business Studies

## Enterprise and entrepreneurs To be **enterprising** is to spot an opportunity, take the initiative to act on it and accept that the idea may not work. An **entrepreneur** is a person who does this by setting up and running a business, bringing together the resources it needs and taking on the risk of the venture. The entrepreneur might be a single person starting a mobile hairdressing service, or someone who builds a company that employs hundreds. ### Characteristics of successful entrepreneurs Most successful business people show a similar set of qualities, though few have all of them in equal measure. - Risk taking: putting money, time and reputation into an idea without knowing that it will pay off. - Innovation: coming up with a new product, a better way of making something or a different way of reaching customers, so that the business stands out. - Decision making: choosing between options quickly enough to keep the business moving, often with incomplete information, and living with the result. - Determination: carrying on after a setback, such as a refused loan or a slow first year. - Leadership: persuading and directing other people so that a team works towards the same goal. - Planning: setting out what the business will do, what it will cost and how the money will be found, so that resources are not wasted. - Persuasiveness: convincing customers to buy, suppliers to offer credit and investors to put in money. ### Why the government encourages enterprise New and…