A competency is an attribute, knowledge, skill, ability or other characteristic that contributes to successful job performance to a given task.
Yes, it is a set of defined behaviours as it can be observable and measurable, it also includes knowledge, skills, abilities, teamwork, cooperation and communication contribute to individual success in the organization. It provides a structured guide enabling the identification, evaluation and development of behaviours in an individual. Entrepreneur should also acquire and follow certain basic competencies. They are as follows:
1. Initiative:
This is one of the basic competency that every entrepreneur should possess. Taking initiative in the starting point in an entrepreneurial process. The entrepreneur should be vigilant of the consumer behaviour, market dynamics, launch of new products to spot an opportunity. Once the opportunity or idea is spotted they should take the initiative to start the entrepreneurial process. Once the entrepreneurial process is started they should increase the pace to establish an enterprise.
2. Creativity and Innovation:
Innovation and creativity are the the most important core values of entrepreneurs. While creativity guide an entrepreneur to dream about creative ideas to improve an existing product or service or solve a problem, innovation guides them to put their ideas into practical use.
An entrepreneur exhibits innovation by:
(a) Being unique and original in their solution.
(b) Contributing critical inputs for a new idea
(c) Develop or Improve the existing products or services
(d) Evaluating the new ideas
(e) Focusing on the solution even when failure occurs
(f) Go for a continuous search for problems in the society (so that they can resolve them)
3. Risk taking
As the area into which the entrepreneur is venturing is new, there lot of uncertainty associated at various levels. This poses risk at various stages of entrepreneurial process. The entrepreneur should be risk taking to move ahead. At the same time, after they’ve started the enterprise and the risk surfaces, they should be capable of managing the risk.
4. Leadership:
Many of the entrepreneurial ventures are unique and new. From the start of the enterprise to the stage where the product or service is introduced into the market, there is lot of uncertainty associated and the entire enterprise has to go through many hurdles and roadblocks. During this, it is essential to guide and motivate the team towards the goal. To achieve this the entrepreneur should possess effective leadership qualities to keep the team focused on the goal of the enterprise.
5. Persistence: Many of the entrepreneurial ventures are unique and new. So, they need a very close watch. Once the product or service is in place, it should be marketed. If the market for the new product does not exist, the entrepreneur should find new ways to create the market, for selling their product or service. During this process, they encounter many hurdles. The entrepreneur should be highly persistent in their efforts and should not give up. Thus persistence is a vital entrepreneurial competency that the entrepreneur should possess.
6. Systematic Planning:
Every enterprise requires the availability of resources like
(a) Time
(b) Funds
(c) Labour
The entrepreneurs gather funds majorly from their personal savings. They put all their efforts and time to establish their enterprise. Any deviation in the planning of the enterprise’s activities will be disastrous and result in the collapse of their dream. In order to put all of these resources to the optimum use, and to spend them in the right direction, they should prepare a detailed systematic planning. They should strictly implement this systematic planning to drive all of their resources towards the goal.
7. Quality Performance: They should have a tendency to maintain quality standards in their products or services. They can achieve this by establishing their own standards or adopt the standards set by others. Maintaining high quality standards will help them to win the consumer loyalty.
8. Problem solving:
The entrepreneurs start their enterprise to commercialize a new product or service. As the product or service is new and the enterprise is just started, there will be lot of obstacles they would come across in the path of their goal. They should be capable of coming up with a number of different solutions to the problem at hand. They should seek alternate strategies and solutions. They should possess strong problem solving skills to achieve this.
