East Africa College

Graduate Studies Program

Course outline on the Course Entrepreneurship and
Business Management (Mgt 721-2CHr.)

Instructor:Hagerbigegn Hailemeskel (PhD)

 Senior Staff Member of Oromia State University
 Certified Business Development Advisor @ UNDP-UNCTAD
 Certified Management Consultant @ Ethiopian Management
Institute-EMI
 Associate trainer at Ethiopian Management Institute (EMI)
 E-mail: [email protected]
 Mob: 0911021484 / 0937021448
Aug 2024
 COURSE INTRODUCTION

Dear student! Welcome to the courseEntrepreneurship & business Management; a

course that is quite related with your day-to-day life. Entrepreneurship &Business education
stimulates people to think about entrepreneurship and the role of the business community in
economic and social development. Students of this course can also get an opportunity to analyze
the changes taking place in their countries and are encouraged to consider self-employment,
enterprise creation and successful managing them as a career choice. Starting your own
business gives you independence, more income and job satisfaction. The course
mainly deals with small businesses which are considered to be the integral part of every human
being in terms of facilitating an easier life. It does not matter where you live – urban or rural –
this way or the other- you involve yourself in a continuous transaction with small businesses.
Life would have been unthinkable without the existence of these small businesses. Hence, this
course intends to acquaint you these vital segments of the economy. It is about these important
segments of the economy the course deals with.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
After completing your study of this course, you will be able to:
 Examine entrepreneurship within the context of society, organizations and individuals.
 Explain traits/ characteristics of entrepreneurs as exhibited in behavior.
 Analyze more about the specific management issues involved in setting up and running
small enterprises.
 Demonstrate the impact of entrepreneurship on the national economy.
 Distinguish between an entrepreneurial and a conventional approach to management.
 Recognize and overcome obstacles to creative problem solving!
 Develop a concept for an innovative product or service in his or her own area ofinterest
 Recognize that the entrepreneurial success in the 21st century depends on teamwork and
diversity.
 Develop a personal framework for managing the ethical dilemmas and social
responsibilities facing entrepreneurs.
 Describe the leadership studies of entrepreneurs who have been successful in different
sectors.
  Start and operate a business (or even become owner-managers) of these firms.
 Analyze elements in the entrepreneurial mind set and discuss the implications for
functioning as a successful entrepreneur.
 Demonstrate the element of an effective business model/plan and prepare a workable
business plan.

COURSE CONTENT

Chapter One:Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise

Chapter Two:Small Business
Chapter Three:Business Planning
Chapter Four: Product and Service Concept
ChapterFive: Marketing and New Venture Development
Chapter Six: Organizing and Financing New Venture
Chapter Seven: Time Management

REFERENCES
 David H. Holt,Entrepreneurship; New \venture Creation, New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 1992.

 Donald F. Kuratko & Richard M. Hodgets, Entrepreneurship: A

ContemporaryApproach, New York, The Dryden Press, 1998

 Vasant Desai,Dynamics of Entrepreneurial Development Management, Mumbai, Himalaya

Publishing, 1999.

 Nicholas Siropolis, Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management, Boston

Houghton, Mifflin Co., 6th ed. 1998.

 Kotler Philip, Principles of Marketing

Individual Assignment: Business Plan Preparation (50 %)

General Direction -I:Business Plan Preparation Submission

 Page size: 15-21 pages without the cover page, Font size:12, Writing formastyle: Times
New Roman,Spacing:1.5
 Assignment submission format: Assignment must be submitted in soft copy. The soft copy
should be emailed to [email protected].
 You are expected to use standard referencing styles (both in-text citations and
bibliography), if any.
 Assignment submission due date will be the 7th and 8th class contact date.

Instruction-II: Business Plan Writing

For this assignment, you first identify as many Business ideas as possible and then write a formal
Business Planfor one best selected idea using this guideline. This guide is a tool to assist you to
prepare a Business Plan. A suggested page length is indicated for each section. In total, the
Business Plan should be no more than 21 pages in length (not including the cover page and
annexes). The first page of your Business Plan should begin with a Cover Page using the
standard format shown below:

General Outline (Contents) of the business plan

Cover Page Format
Business Plan
Business Plan Title: XXXXX
Business Plan Budget: XXXXX (LOCAL CURRENCY) XXXXX (USD)

Key sections of the Business Plan should include:

1. Executive summary(½ - 1 Page)

2. Business description(1 - 2 pages)
3. Marketing plan(3-4 pages)
4. Operation/Production plan(1-2 Pages)
 5. Management plan(1-2 Pages)
6. Competitive analysis(1-2 Pages)
7. Financial plan(2–3 Pages)
8. Business development (exit) strategies (1-2 Pages)
9. References and appendices, if any used.

1 Planning Process
Planning is the first primary function of management that precedes all
other functions. The planning function involves the decision of what to
do and how it is to be done? So managers focus a lot of their attention
on planning and the planning process. Let us take a look at the eight
important steps of the planning process.

1.1.1 Suggested Videos

Classification of business

Basics of starting a business

Classification of business

Basics of starting a business

1.2 Planning Process
The planning function of management is one of the most crucial ones. It
involves setting the goals of the company and then managing
the resources to achieve such goals. As you can imagine it is a
systematic process involving eight well thought out steps. Let us take a
look at the planning process.

1.2.1 1] Recognizing Need for Action

An important part of the planning process is to be aware of the business

opportunities in the firm’s external environment as well as within the
firm. Once such opportunities get recognized the managers can
recognize the actions that need to be taken to realize them. A realistic
look must be taken at the prospect of these new opportunities
and SWOT analysis should be done.

Say for example the government plans on promoting

cottage industries in semi-urban areas. A firm can look to explore this
opportunity.
 What are the Types of Plan?

1.2.2 2] Setting Objectives

This is the second and perhaps the most important step of the planning
process. Here we establish the objectives for the whole organization and
also individual departments. Organizational objectives provide a
general direction, objectives of departments will be more planned and
detailed.

Objectives can be long term and short term as well. They indicate the
end result the company wishes to achieve. So objectives will percolate
down from the managers and will also guide and push the employees in
the correct direction.

Importance, Features, and Limitation of Planning here in detail.

1.2.3 3] Developing Premises

Planning is always done keeping the future in mind, however, the future
is always uncertain. So in the function of management certain
assumptions will have to be made. These assumptions are the premises.
Such assumptions are made in the form of forecasts, existing plans, past
policies, etc.

These planning premises are also of two types – internal and external.
External assumptions deal with factors such as political
environment, social environment, the advancement of technology,
competition, government policies, etc. Internal assumptions deal with
policies, availability of resources, quality of management, etc.
These assumptions being made should be uniform across the
organization. All managers should be aware of these premises and
should agree with them.

1.2.4 4] Identifying Alternatives

The fourth step of the planning process is to identify the alternatives

available to the managers. There is no one way to achieve the objectives
of the firm, there is a multitude of choices. All of these alternative
courses should be identified. There must be options available to the
manager.

Maybe he chooses an innovative alternative hoping for more efficient

results. If he does not want to experiment he will stick to the more
routine course of action. The problem with this step is not finding the
alternatives but narrowing them down to a reasonable amount of
choices so all of them can be thoroughly evaluated.

1.2.5 5] Examining Alternate Course of Action

The next step of the planning process is to evaluate and closely examine
each of the alternative plans. Every option will go through an
examination where all there pros and cons will be weighed. The
alternative plans need to be evaluated in light of the organizational
objectives.

For example, if it is a financial plan. Then it that case its risk-

return evaluation will be done. Detailed calculation and analysis are
done to ensure that the plan is capable of achieving the objectives in the
best and most efficient manner possible.
 1.2.6 6] Selecting the Alternative

Finally, we reach the decision making stage of the planning process.

Now the best and most feasible plan will be chosen to be implemented.
The ideal plan is the most profitable one with the least amount of
negative consequences and is also adaptable to dynamic situations.

The choice is obviously based on scientific analysis and mathematical

equations. But a managers intuition and experience should also play a
big part in this decision. Sometimes a few different aspects of different
plans are combined to come up with the one ideal plan.

1.2.7 7] Formulating Supporting Plan

Once you have chosen the plan to be implemented, managers will have
to come up with one or more supporting plans. These secondary plans
help with the implementation of the main plan. For example plans to
hire more people, train personnel, expand the office etc are supporting
plans for the main plan of launching a new product. So all these
secondary plans are in fact part of the main plan.

1.2.8 8] Implementation of the Plan

And finally, we come to the last step of the planning process,

implementation of the plan. This is when all the other functions of
management come into play and the plan is put into action to achieve
the objectives of the organization. The tools required for such
implementation involve the types of plans- procedures, policies,
budgets, rules, standards etc.

1.3 Solved Question for You

Q: _______ involves scientific analysis of the decision process
a. Linear Programming
b. Risk Analysis
c. Operations Research
d. None of the above
Ans: The correct option is C. Operation research is the application of
scientific and mathematical methods to study and analyse problems
involving complex systems. It is a powerful tool for decision making.