Introduction
Pursuit of entrepreneurship is a decision people attempt to achieve. However, ability to achieve ones aims as a successful entrepreneur depends on several factors. The attributes of a successful entrepreneur depend on the personal traits, motivation, behaviours, needs, and decision process and entrepreneurship essence.
Stanworth, at al (1989) argued that personality traits could be used to identify the behaviour, feelings, and individual thinking of a successful entrepreneur. Typically, few people have been able to accomplish the personal accomplishment because of their personal trait, which influence their desire to do well. Shane, Locke, Collins (2003) argued that it is impossible to win if a person does not enter the game. The authors argued that success depends on the willingness of a person to become an entrepreneur, and the ability to pursue entrepreneurship depends on the willingness of the people to play the game. The author argued that motivation plays an important role in achieving the role of entrepreneurship and people who undertake the position of entrepreneurship are the people well motivated to pursue resources, and are motivated to assemble and implement these resources. It should be noted that the attributes of achieving entrepreneurship depends on the decision to achieve the process. ( Pech, 2009).
However, some of group of scholars believed the environmental factors influence an individual to achieve the position of entrepreneurship. For example, Aldrich, (2000) argued that the characteristics of an entrepreneur is largely depend on the environment, and this greatly enhanced entrepreneurial phenomenon. (Shanea et al 2000).
Despite the importance of entrepreneurship in bringing about the technical changes, and economic growth. Few studies have explored the similarity and differences between two well-known entrepreneurs. The objective of this paper is to compare and contrast entrepreneurs Bill gates and Carlo Slim Helu.
Bill Gates, based in United States, is founding father of Microsoft Corporation. However, Carlo Slim based in Mexico, is the owner of Telmex. A company he bought in 1970s when the company was at the edge of liquidation. With the entrepreneurship skills of Carlo Slim, Temex has become the leading wireless telecommunication company in Latin America. (Economist, 2004).
The rest of the paper is organised as follows:
- First, the paper explores the theoretical framework that influences the entrepreneurship.
- Next, the paper compares and contrasts the characteristics of Bill Gates, and Carlo Slim with two Australian entrepreneurs, Max Muir – E.E. & Sons, and McPhersons.
- Finally, the paper provides recommendations to help non-entrepreneur to achieve the entrepreneurship abilities in order to achieve transformational qualities.
- To enhance greater understanding of behaviours, needs and motivations, personalities and decision processes of entrepreneur, the paper formulates theory related to the study.
Theoretical framework
Multiple schools have contributed to the understanding of theory of entrepreneurship in order to understand the behaviour of entrepreneurs. Ray, Ramachandran, (1996) argued the economic school focuses on entrepreneur as a person who identifies the market opportunities, and combine innovation with resources to alter the market economy. However, since 1960, other group of scholars started to explore the psychological characterises of entrepreneur. For example, Collins, Moore, Unwalla (1961) argued that demography background, and personality’s variables contribute to the achievement of an entrepreneur.
However, sociological school argued that the development of entrepreneur depends on the environment that an individual lives. Added to this, the motivation, beliefs, goals, and values also contribute to the entrepreneurship development.
Despite the contribution of the economic, sociological and psychological paradigms on the study of entrepreneurship, some group of scholars has argued that the existing body of literatures was insufficient to establish the theoretical concepts of entrepreneurship. (Collins, Moore, Unwalla, 1961).
Cole (1968) argued, although the combination of resources with innovation, environment, and individual background might play the role in the development of entrepreneurship, however there was no substantial evidences that only environment and personality background contribute to the entrepreneurship. The author argued that the combination of several factors such as skills, personality background, and combination of innovation with resources, personality traits, and environment are very crucial to the development of entrepreneurship.
This paper will use theory of entrepreneurship to compare and contrast Bill Gates, a founder of Microsoft Corporation and Carlo Slim Helu, owner of Telmex.
Background of Bill Gates
Bill Gates was an American entrepreneur born in 1955. Bill Gates’ love for computer started when he was at the tender age where he loved to play with computer. During his school days, his love for computer grew till he entered the university. Bill Gates was admitted to study in Harvard University, however due to his love for computer; Bill Gates abandoned his study at Harvard University in 1975 to form Microsoft Corporation with Paul Allen. Bill Gates used his innovative and creative thinking to upgrade versions of Windows, which made the company to realise sales of six million copies. In 1986, Bill Gates became the first youngest billionaire in the world. (Catherine, 2008).
Background of Carlo Slim Helú
Carlo Slim Helú was born by immigrant parent in 1940. His father being an immigrant from Lebanon had identified his aptitude traits in Slim’s behaviours since he was very young. To improve the aptitude capabilities of Slim, his farther started a business lesson for him to develop his skill on how to manage and increase his financial resources. To develop his education skills, Carlo Slim enrolled at University of Mexico (UNAM) School of Engineering where he learned Algebra and Linear Programming. In 1966, Carlo Slim established Group Carso, and with his visionary skills, Carlo Slim invested aggressively. (Carlos Slim Helú, 2007, Academic of Achievement 2008).
However, Carlo Slim became a billionaire when he acquired Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex) in 1990. The time Carlo Slim bought Telmex, the company was operating with obsolete equipments. The success of Telmex has made Carlo Slim to become the richest man in the world with $67.8 billons net. (Winter, 2007).
However, the paper compares and contrasts Bill gates and Carlo Slim Helú to analyse their entrepreneurship initiatives.
Compare and contrast of Bill gates and Carlo Slim Helú
This paper uses several criteria to compare and contrast Bill gates and Carlo Slim Helú. Essentially, these two well-known entrepreneurs have several similarity and differences in term of behaviours, needs, motivation, decision process and entrepreneurial essence.
Table 1: Bill Gates and Carlo Slim Helú
Motivator
The similarity between Bill gates and Carlo Slim Helú is that both entrepreneurs have the strongest motivation to build wealth. Typically, both Bill gates and Carlo Slim Helú are motivated to capitalise on their instinct and initiatives to launch their business ventures. (Wadhwa et al 2009).
Analysis of Bill Gates reveals that he was motivated from his instinct that he could build his wealth from computer. The decision of Bill Gates to leave his study at prestigious Harvard University was because of his realisation that he could develop his wealth from computer and computer software. During the time Bill Gates founded his Microsoft Corporation, only few companies had dominated the computer and computer software business. The realisation of this motivated Bill Gates to exploit the computer and computer software market to build his wealth. (Catherine, 2008).
Carlo Slim has similar motivation with Bill Gates. Essential Carlo Slim has a strong desire to build wealth right from his tender age. At the age of 12, Carlo Slim has started buying shares to develop his wealth. Typically, the motivation of becoming entrepreneur had manifested in Carlo Slim when at the age of 25 when he laid foundation for his own company, which he called Group Carso. (Carlos Slim Helú, 2007).
While both Carlo Slim and Bill Gates were motivated to build wealth, the difference between the two is that Bill Gates was motivated to build his wealth in computer and computer software business. Carlo Slim was motivated to exploit the weakness of the other companies to build his wealth. For example, Carlo Slim would buy underperformed company and run it intelligently to increase his fortune. (Winter, 2007). For instance,
“Slim buys up companies on the cheap, manages them intelligently and turns them into cash cows; his operating philosophy is less Bill Gates than Warren Buffet (now likely the world’s third richest person). Indeed, at this advanced, almost incomprehensible stage, it would seem that Slim is accumulating wealth not out of greed but just to make the numbers dance in his head”.( Winter, 2007, p36).
Decision process
Both Carlo Slim and Bill Gates have strong decision to monopolise the market and exploit the weakness of other businesses. Typically, their decision processes have enhanced them to monopolise the market in their area of business. Winter, (2007) pointed out that Bill Gates monopolises the American market by having 95% market share in the United States. Similar to Bill Gates, Carlo Slim monopolises market Share with 92% market share in Mexico. However, Carlo Slim and Bill Gates use different strategies to implement their decision process. While Bill Gates uses sophisticated and technological initiatives to excel in American market. Carlo Slim is exploiting the underdevelopment of telecommunication industry to suffocate their competitors in order to build his company empire. (Winter, 2007).
Behaviours
The behaviours of both Bill Gates, and Carlo Slim revealed they have early interest to become entrepreneur, and both of them do not have interest to work for others or work for any other company. The major difference between them is that Bill Gates did not believe that building educational skills is a passport success. However, Carlo Slim believed that it is essential for one to build his educational skills before venturing into entrepreneurship. It should be noted that Bill Gates abandoned his study at Harvard University to build his business empire. However, Carlo Slim improved his education by attending University of Mexico (UNAM) School of Engineering to improve his aptitude skills to build his entrepreneurship. These behaviours influence both Bill Gates and Carlo Slim in running their business. Carlo Slim use his aptitudes skill to buy majority of shares of many underperformed companies, and take of hold of control of these companies. With his aptitude skills, he will turn these companies into money making machines few years later.(Wadhwa, et al, 2009).
Needs
Both the needs of Carlo Slim and Bill Gates are the desire to become the richest man in the world. These aims, both of them have achieved. For example, in 1990s till 2007, Bill Gates was the richest man in the world. However, Carlo Slim has overtaken Bill Gates to become the richest man in the world in July 2007 with $67.8 billons net worth. (BBC News, 2007). However, their needs are different. While Bill Gates promotes his name with his wealth by implementing corporate responsibility. This is by founding the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the initiatives in education, population and world health. (Bill& Melinda Gates Foundation, 2009). However, commentators have described Carlo Slim as austere. For example, Winter (2007) pointed out that there are many occasion where Carlo Slim accused of Bill Gates of giving out too much money.
Entrepreneurial Essence
Both Carlo Slim and Bill Gates use the combination of market opportunity, traits, behaviours, needs and motivations, personalities and decision process to build their entrepreneurship. The major difference between Carlo Slim and Bill Gates is that Carlo Slim is monopolising the market because of the inability of other to provide services his company is offering. For example, Slim focuses on quality to increase the market advantages. (Carlos Slim Helú, 2007).
However, Bill Gates believes in using innovation with latest technology to achieve Market advantages in the United States. It should be noted that United States has most sophisticated economy in the world. The economy of United States is far more sophisticated than economy of Mexico where Carlo Slim is operating. Thus, Bill Gates uses sophisticated innovative techniques to build its products in order to achieve market advantages in the United States.
The paper will compare and contrast entrepreneurship styles of Bill Gates and Carlo Slim with two Australian Entrepreneurs Max Muir – E.E. & Sons, and, McPhersons.
Table 2: Compare and contrast Bill Gates and Carlo Slim with Max Muir – E.E. & Sons and McPhersons.
Compare and contrast Bill Gates and Carlo Slim with Max Muir – E.E. & Sons and McPhersons
By comparing Bill Gates and Carlo Slim with Australian entrepreneurs, Max Muir – E.E. & Sons, and McPhersons, it is revealed all these entrepreneurs use combination of resources combination innovation, and traits quality, to develop their entrepreneurship. The fundamental difference between is that Bill Gates and Carlo Slim did not inherit their entrepreneurship from family wealth. Both Carlo Slim and Bill Gates did not inherit their business from family. However, Max Muir – E.E. & Sons is a family business. This has been in existence since 1927. This business has been passed to the family from one generation to the other. In addition, McPhersons is also a family business, which has been passed from one generation to another generation from 1860. (E.E. Muir & Sons, Pech, 2009).
Recommendations
This paper provides recommendations in order to provide greater understanding for the non-entrepreneurs. To become an entrepreneur, it is essential to have desired ambition to become an entrepreneur and work towards being an entrepreneur. A person should have focus on what type of business he wants to develop, and he should study the market environment in order to achieve his competitive business advantages to increase his business forces.
Moreover, education is very important to build one’s ones skill in order to develop analytic thinking to become successful entrepreneur.
References
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