What is Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies

How is Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies being acquired and develop

PERSONAL ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPETENCIES (PEC’S)

ACROSS MARKET AND ENVIRONMENT

Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies (PECs)

Content Standards	Performance Standards
The learner demonstrates understanding of one’s PECs in Agricultural-Crop Production	The learner independently creates a plan of action that strengthens/ further develops his/her PECs in Agricultural-Crop Production.

Time Allotment 4 hours

Quarter I

Module 1

Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies

Introduction

In this module you will learn more about entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial competencies related to Agricultural-Crop Production. You will have a first-hand experience in educational activities leading to personal assessment of your entrepreneurial competencies of a successful crop producer/agri-entrepreneur within your province. There are some activities below that will help you align your competencies with the competencies of successful practitioners. Moreover, this module is designed to stimulate your mind to think about entrepreneurship, its role in the business community in particular and to the economic and social development in general.

Now, to start with this module, let us first learn what is the difference between entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurs are people with skills and capabilities to build, organize and evaluate business opportunities. They are individuals who can strategically identify products or services needed by the community and deliver these at the right time and the right place.

Entrepreneurs are agents of economic change; they organize, manage and assume risks of a business. Some of the good qualities of an entrepreneur are opportunity seeker, risk taker, goal setter, excellent planner, confident problem solver, hardworking, persistent and committed worker.

Entrepreneurship on the other hand is not just a simple business activity. It is a strategic process of innovation and new venture creation. Basically, entrepreneurship is both an art and a science of converting business ideas into marketable products or services to improve the quality of living.

Now that you have a little background knowledge about entrepreneur and entrepreneurship, can you now walk through in assessing your Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies (PECs)? Always remember that “Successful entrepreneurs continuously develop and improve their PECs.”

To begin with, let us first try to find out the competencies you will master after finishing this module.

Objectives

At the end of this module, you are expected to:

- identify areas for improvement, development and growth;

- align your PECs according to your business/career choice; and

- create a plan of action that ensures success in your business/career choice

Now that you have an idea about the enabling knowledge and skill that you will develop/achieve and master, try to take the first challenge in this module the pre-assessment.

Pre-assessment

As part of your initial activity, you will be challenged to test your knowledge on the topic. To diagnose/assess what you already know about personal entrepreneurial competencies. Answer the tasks below.

Task 1: Matching Type

Direction: Match the entrepreneurial competencies in column A with their meaning in column B. Write the letter of the correct answers in your test notebook /test paper.

A	B
____1. Creative	a. makes a wise decision towards the attainment of the set objectives
____2. Profit Oriented	b. strategic thinking and setting of goals
____3. Discipline	c. trusts in one’s ability
____4. Decision Making	d. adaptable to change
____5. People Skill	e. innovative, have edge over other competitors
____6. Planner	f. solid dedication
____7. Self-confidence	g. skillful in record keeping
____8. Hardworking	h. always sticks to the plan
____9. Ability to accept change	i. works diligently
____10. Committed	j effective and efficient communication skills and relationship with people
	k. always looks for income

Task 2: Guide Questions

Direction: The following are guide questions which encapsulate the entire module. Write your answers on your assignment notebook, then share these in class.

A. Explain why entrepreneurial activities are important to social development and progress of the economy.

B. What entrepreneurial activities do you know and are capable of doing which are related to agri-business?

C. Given the opportunity to own a business that relates with agricultural crop-production, are you confident to manage it? Explain your answer.

D. What do you think are the most important competencies you must possess in order to become successful in your chosen business?

E. Name successful entrepreneurs from your province whose business is related to agricultural-crop production. Be able to share with the class their PECs that made them successful.

After all the guide questions have been answered to the best of your knowledge and skills, share these with your classmates. You, too, may compare your insights, personal knowledge, and relevant experiences on the topic to make it more exciting and engaging.

Learning Goals and Target

After reading and understanding the objectives of this module and having gone through pre-assessment and answering the guide questions, you will be asked to set your own personal goals. These goals will inspire you to further achieve the ultimate objective of this module. In the end, these goals would motivate you to learn more about PECs.

Goals and Targets

Learning Activities

Ultimate Goal

Figure 1: Strategic process to achieve the objectives of this module.

Reading Resources and Instructional Activities

After setting your own personal goals and targets to achieve the objectives of this module, check first your inherent knowledge of PECs. Try to answer the following guide questions with the help of your classmates.

Task 3: Group Activity

Direction: Answer the following guide questions on a separate sheet of paper. Share your answer with the class.

1. Explain the importance of assessing one’s PECs before engaging in a particular entrepreneurial activity.

2. Are there other strategies or approaches where you can assess your PECs? Explain how these would become more useful in selecting a viable business venture. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

3. What are the desirable personal characteristics, attributes, lifestyles, skills, and traits of a prospective entrepreneur? Why do you think these are important?

4. Why is there a need to assess one’s PECs in terms of characteristics, attributes, lifestyles, skills, and traits before starting a particular business?

5. What is the significance of evaluating PECs of a successful entrepreneur? What helpful insights can you draw from this activity? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

How was your experience in answering the guide questions together with your classmates? Were you able to benefit from them? What insights have you realized?

This time you’re going to study the lessons that will enrich your knowledge about PECs. Read carefully all the important details about the succeeding topic.

Know

Assessment of Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies (PECs) and skills vis-à-vis a practicing entrepreneur/employee in a province.

Here is an example of how a successful practitioner behaves. You can evaluate her attitude towards agricultural crop production and the business opportunity that lies ahead.

Rebecca C. Tubongbanua: Woman Farmer-Scientist

September 26, 2010 filipino achievers

Woman-Farmer-Scientist

Rebecca Tubongbanua is a successful agri-entrepreneur from San Isidro,Buenavista, Guimaras. She entered the world of business in 2003, with a measly capital amounting seven thousand pesos.

She toiled for several years experimenting and perfecting her sulfite-free and low-sugar technology in processing indigenous fruits, primarily the Guimaras mangoes.

She put up an agri-business firm-the McNester, which caters to consumers in the national and global market as well. Her processed commodities include mango jam, mango-calamansi concentrate, dried mango, mango chutney, calamansi juice, mango with calamansi juice, mango sauce, mango ketchup-regular, pineapple ketchup-hot and spicy, Indian mango pickles, and pineapple marmalade.

Tagbanua was elected as President of the Guimaras, Producers and Processors Association. In 2007, she was chosen as Magsasakang Siyentista (Farmers Scientist), and elected as Secretary General of the National Scientists Association. In addition, she was nominated as Gawad Saka Awardee, and because of her numerous achievements, she was cited by former Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap in 2010 as one of the top 200 agri-entrepreneur of the country.

The entrepreneurial competencies refer to the important characteristics that should be possessed by an individual in order to perform entrepreneurial functions effectively. In this module, you will learn some of the most important characteristics, attributes, lifestyle, skills, and traits of a successful entrepreneur in order to be successful in a chosen career.

Below are few important characteristics/traits/attributes of a good entrepreneur:

· Hardworking: One of the important characteristics of a good entrepreneur is being a hard worker. This means habitually working diligently for hours. Hardworking people keep on improving their performance to produce good products and/or provide good services.

· Self-confident: Entrepreneurs have confidence in their own ability and judgment. They exhibit self-confidence which enables them to cope with all the risks in operating their own business.

· Discipline: Successful entrepreneurs always stick to the plan and fight the temptation to do what is unimportant.

· Committed: A good entrepreneur accepts full responsibility in all aspects of his/her business. He/she gives full commitment and solid dedication to make the business succeed.

· Ability to accept change: Nothing is permanent but change. Change occurs frequently. When one owns a business, he/she should cope with and thrive on changes. He capitalizes on positive changes to make his business grow.

· Creative: An entrepreneur should be creative and innovative to stay in business and in order to have an edge over other competitors.

· Has the Initiative: An entrepreneur takes the initiative. He assumes responsibility in the failure or success of his business.

· Profit-Oriented: A person enters the world of business to generate profit or additional income. Therefore, he must see to it that the business would prosper.

Listed below are the important skills of a successful entrepreneur.

· Planner: Planning is a strategic thinking and setting of goals to achieve objectives and carefully maximizing all the available resources. A good entrepreneur develops and applies step-by-step plans to realize goals. He knows that planning is effective only when combined with diligent action.

· People Skills: are skills which are very important in order to be successful in any kind of business. People skills refer to an effective and efficient communication and relationship with people working in and out of the business. In day-to-day business transactions, one needs to deal with people. Well- developed people skills can spell out the difference between success and failure of the business.

· Decision Making: Successful entrepreneurs have the ability to think quickly and make a wise decision towards the pre-determined set of objectives. No one can deny that the ability to make decision is an important skill that an entrepreneur should possess. Sound decision should spring out from given facts/information and should be directed towards the pre-determined objectives.

Process

In order to firm up what you have learned and to have a better appreciation of the different entrepreneurial competencies, try to read the PECs checklist presented below, then answer the same.

Task 4: PECs Checklist

Directions: Using the PECs Checklist, assess yourself by indicating a check (/) mark in either strengths and/or development areas column. Interpret the results by counting the total number of check marks in each of the columns. After accomplishing the checklist, form a group and share your insights and experiences why you have come up with that personal assessment.

Table 1: PECs Checklist

Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies of an Entrepreneur	Personal Assessment in terms of:
Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies of an Entrepreneur	Strength	Development Areas
Hardworking - Works diligently
Self-confident - Confidence in one’s ability
Discipline - Sticks to the plan
Committed - Solid dedication
Ability to accept change - Adaptable to change
Creative - Innovative to have an edge over other competitors
Profit-oriented - Always looks for income
Planner - Strategically thinks and sets goals
People Skills - Has effective and efficient communication skills and relationship with people
Decision Making - Makes a wise decision towards the set objectives
TOTAL

Interpretation/Insights:

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Reflect and Understand

How was your experience in discovering your strengths and the areas to be developed? Did you gain valuable experience in exchanging insights with your classmates? To learn more and deepen your understanding of PECs, do Task 5 below.

Task 5: Interview

Interview successful agri-business owners or entrepreneurs in your province whose type of business is related with agricultural-crop production. Focus your interview on PECs and other business-related attributes that help them become successful. Analyze the result of the interview and reflect on the similarities and/or differences. Write your answer on a separate sheet of paper.

Sample Interview Guide

Name of Proprietor/Practitioner: _____________________________________

Age: _______________________ Number of Years in Business: ___________

Business Name: _________________________________________________

Business Address: _______________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

1. What are your preparations before you engaged in this type of business/job?

2. What are your special skills/characteristics that are related to your business/job?

3. How did you solve business-related problems during the early years of your business operation?

4. Did you follow the tips from a successful businessman/practitioner before you engaged in your business?

5. What are your best business practices that you can share with aspiring students?

6. What are your salient characteristics, attributes, lifestyle, skills, and traits that made you successful in your business/job?

Note: Ask the needed information from the interview to supply answer/s to Row 1 in the table below. Meanwhile, fill out the second row with your PECs.

Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies	Characteristics	Attributes	Lifestyles	Skills	Traits
Successful Entrepreneur in the province
My PECs

Using the information from the table above, analyze, and reflect on the similarities and differences in your answers. Put your reflection on the table below. Write your conclusion on the space provided on the next page.

Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies	Similarities	Differences
Characteristics Attributes Lifestyles Skills Traits

Conclusion:

Transfer

After performing the activities on the importance of PECs, let us determine how much you have learned. Perform Task 6 to determine how well you have understood the lesson.

Task 6: Preparation of a Plan of Action

Directions: Using the table below and the information generated from Task 5 (Interview), prepare an action plan that indicates how you would align your PECs to the PECs of the successful agri-business owners in your province.

Objective	Area	Activities	Strategies	Time Frame	Expected Outcome
To align my PECs with the PECs of a successful entrepreneur in *agri-buisness/agri-crop.*.	Characteristics
	Skills
	Attributes
	Traits

Task 7: Essential Questions

Direction: Read and study the following questions below. You may use a separate sheet of paper or your notebook to write your answers.

1. Why is there a need to compare and align your PECs with the PECs of a successful entrepreneur?

2. How does your action plan help sustain your strong PECs and/or address your development areas?

3. What plan of action would you do to address your development areas?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

ENVIRONMENT AND MARKET (EM)

Content Standards	Performance Standards
The learner demonstrates understanding of environment and market in agricultural-crop production in one’s province.	The learner independently creates a business vicinity map reflective of potential market in agri-business in a province.

Time Allotment: 4 hours

Quarter I

Module 2

Environment and Market

Introduction

People who aspire to start a business need to explore the economic, cultural and social conditions prevailing in the area. Needs and wants of the people around the vicinity that are not met may be considered as business opportunities. Identifying the needs of the community, its resources, available raw materials, skills, and appropriate technology can help a new entrepreneur in seizing a business opportunity.

To be successful in any kind of business venture, potential entrepreneurs should always look closely at the environment and market. They should always be watchful of the existing opportunities and constraints. The opportunities in the business environment are those factors that provide possibilities for a business to expand and make more profits. Constraints, on the other hand, are those factors that limit the ability to grow, hence reducing the chance of generating profit. One of the best ways to evaluate the opportunities and constraints is to conduct SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis.

SWOT analysis is a managerial tool to assess the environment. It gathers important information, which in turn is used in crafting a strategic plan. Strengths and weaknesses are internal in an organization. Basically they relate to resources owned by the organization, things that one has control over, as- well as the extent of its marketing capability.

Opportunities and Threats exist in the external environment. Opportunities relate to the market, development of new technologies, and external factors such as government policies, climate, and trends. Threats relate to what the competition is doing as well as legal and other constraints.

Now that you have read some of the important things to consider to succeed in any business, you are now ready to explore more about the environment and market.

To begin with, let’s first try to find out the competencies that you will master after finishing this module.

Objectives

At the end of this module, you are expected to:

- identify what is of “Value” to the customer;

- identify the customer to sell to;

- explain what makes a product unique and competitive;

- apply creativity and innovative techniques to develop marketable product; and

- employ a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) to the product/service.

Now that you have an idea about the things you will learn, try to take the first challenge in this module-- the pre-assessment.

Pre-assessment

Task I: Multiple Choice

Direction: Choose the letter of the best answer. Write your answer on a separate

sheet of paper.

1. This is generated by examining what goods and services are sold outside the community.

A. Business Creation C. Business Concept

B. Business Pricing D. Business Idea

2. A process of making a new product to be sold to the customers.

A. Product Analysis C. Product Development

B. Product Conceptualization D. Product Implementation

3. These are luxuries, advantages, and desires that every individual considers beyond necessary.

A. Wants C. Requirements

B. Desires D. Needs

4. This is the factor or consideration presented by a seller as the reason that one product or service is better and different from that of the competitors.

A. Unique Selling Plan C. Unique Pricing Policy

B. Unique Selling Proposition D. Finding Value-Added

5. In this stage, the needs of the target market are identified, reviewed, and evaluated.

A. Concept Development C. Project Development

B. Economic Analysis D. Refine Specification

6. This is the introduction of a new idea to make the product and services more attractive and saleable to prospective customers.

A. New Idea C. Product Development

B. Creativity D. Innovation

7. A managerial tool used to assess the environment in gathering important information used for strategic planning.

A. Environmental Scanning C. WOTS Analysis

B. SWOT Analysis D. Survey Analysis

8. A marketing practice of creating name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiate a product from others.

A. Product Naming C. Branding

B. Unique Selling Proposition D. Tagline

9. This is a meaningful and unforgettable statement that captures the essence of your brand.

A. Product Naming C. Branding

B. Unique Selling Proposition D. Tagline

10. These are the things that people cannot live without.

A. Wants C. Requirements

B. Desires D. Needs

Task 2: Guide Questions:

Directions: Read and study the guide questions below. You may use a separate sheet of paper to write your responses to the guide questions.

1. How does one determine the product or service to be offered/delivered to the target customers?

2. How does one select an entrepreneurial activity?

3. When can one say that a certain product has a “value”?

4. Are innovation and creativity to your product/service important? Explain.

5. How can one effectively respond to the needs of the target customer?

6. What is the importance of scanning the environment and market in generating business idea?

7. What is your level of confidence in formulating a business idea after your self assessment? Explain.

After all the guide questions have been answered and skills have been mastered, share them with your classmates. Discuss your insights, personal knowledge of, and relevant experiences on the topic to make it more exciting and engaging.

Learning Goals and Target

Goals and Targets

Learning Activities

Ultimate Goal

Figure 2: Strategic process to reach the objectives of this module

Reading Resources and Instructional Activities

After setting your own personal goals and targets to achieve the objectives of this module, you will have the opportunity to read and learn more about environment and market. You, too, will also be given a chance to do practical exercises and activities to deepen your understanding of the topic.

Know

Product Development

When we talk of product development, we are referring to a process of making a new product to be sold by a business or enterprise to its customers. Product development may involve modification of an existing product or its presentation, or formulation of an entirely new product that satisfies a newly defined customer’s needs and/or want and/or a market place.

The term development in this module refers collectively to the entire process of identifying a market opportunity, creating a product to appeal to the identified market, and finally, testing, modifying and refining the product until this will be ready for production. This product can be any item to be sold to the consumers.

There are basic, yet vital questions that you can ask yourself. When you shall find acceptable answers to these, you can say that you are ready to develop a product and/or render service.

1. For whom are the product/service aimed?

2. What benefit will the customers expect from it?

3. How will the product differ from the existing brand? Or from their competitor?

Likewise, needs and wants of the people within the area should also be taken into consideration. Everyone has his or her own needs and wants. However, people have different concepts of needs and wants. Needs in business are important things that every individual do without in a society. These include:

1. Basic commodities for consumption

2. Clothing and other personal belongings

3. Shelter, sanitation and health

4. Education

Basic needs are essential to every individual so he/she may be able to live with dignity and pride in the community of people. These needs can obviously help you generate business ideas and subsequently to develop a marketable product.

Wants are desires, luxury, and extravagance that signify wealth and an expensive way of living. Wants or desires are considered above all the basic necessities of life. Some examples are the eagerness or the passion of every individual which are non- basic needs like fashion accessories, shoes, clothes, travelling around the world, eating in an exclusive restaurant, watching movies, concerts, plays, having luxurious cars, wearing expensive jewelry, perfume, living in impressive homes, and others.

Needs and wants of people are the basic indicators of the kind of business that you may engage into because they can serve as the measure of your success. Some other good points that you might consider in business undertakings are the people, their needs, wants, lifestyle, culture, and tradition, and social orientation.

To summarize, product development entirely depends on the needs and wants of the customers. Another important issue to deal with are the key concept of developing a product. The succeeding topic shall enlighten you about the procedure in coming up with a product concept.

Concepts of Developing a Product

Identify Customer Needs

Plan Remaining Development Project

Establish Target Specifications

Generate Product Concepts

Select a Product Concept

Refine Specifications

Perform Economic Analysis

Analyze Competitive Products

Concept Development

Concept development is a very critical phase in developing of a product. From this stage, the needs of the target market are identified and competitive products are reviewed before the product specifications are defined. The product concept is selected along with an economic analysis to come up with an outline of how a product is being developed. Below is a figure that shows the stages of concept development of a product.

Figure 3: Concept Development

The process of product development follows these steps:

A. Identify Customer Needs - Using survey forms, interviews, researches, focused group discussions, and observations an entrepreneur can easily identify customers’ needs and wants. In this stage, the information that can possibly be gathered here are product specifications (performance, taste, size, color, shape, life span of the product, etc.). This stage is very important because this would determine the product to be produced or provided.

B. Establish Target Specifications - Based on customers' needs and reviews of competitive products, you may now establish target specifications of the prospective new product and/or service. Target specifications are essentially a wish-list.

C. Analyze Competitive Products - It is imperative to analyze existing competitive products to provide important information on establishing product/service specifications. Other products may exhibit successful design attributes that should be emulated or improved upon in the new product/service.

D. Generate Product Concepts - After having gone through with the previous processes, you may now develop a number of product concepts to illustrate what types of product/service are both technically feasible and would best meet the requirements of the target consumers/market.

E. Select a Product Concept - Through the process of evaluation between attributes, a final concept is selected. After the final selection, additional market research can be applied to obtain feedbacks from certain key customers.

F. Refine Product Specifications - In this stage, product/service specifications are refined on the basis of input from the foregoing activities. Final specifications are the results of extensive study. Expected service life and projected selling price are being considered in this stage.

G. Perform Economic Analysis - Throughout the process of product development, it is very important to always review and estimate the economic implications regarding development expenses, manufacturing costs, and selling price of the product/service to be offered/provided.

H. Plan the Remaining Development Project - In this final stage of concept development, you may prepare a detailed development plan which includes a list of activities, the necessary resources and expenses, and a development schedule with milestones for tracking progress.

Finding Value

People buy for a reason, there should be something in your product/service that would give consumers a good reason to go back and buy for more. There must be something that has to make you the best option for your target customers; otherwise they have no reason to buy what you are selling. This implies further, that you offer something to your customers which they will value or treasure.

The value that you incorporate to your product is called value proposition. Value proposition is “a believable collection of the most persuasive reasons people should notice you and take the action you are asking for.” Value is created by fulfilling deep desires and solving deep problems. This is what gets the people moving, and keep them spending for your product/service.

Innovation

Innovation is the introduction of something new in your product/service. This may be a new idea, a new method or a device. If you want to increase your sales and profit you must innovate. Some of the possible innovations in your products are change in packaging, improved taste, color, size, shape, and perhaps price. Some of the possible innovations in providing services are application of new improved methods, additional feature of product/ services, and possibly, freebies.

Let us go back to what Mrs.Tubongbanua did with the Guimaras mangoes aside from its known qualities. She made mango jam, mango calamansi concentrate, mango sauce, mango ketchup-regular to make a difference from other existing products in the market.

Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Unique Selling Proposition is the factor or consideration presented by a seller as the reason that the product or service being offered is different from and better than that of other key players or competitors. Before you can begin to sell your product or service to your target customers, you have to sell yourself into it. This is especially important when your product or service is similar to those around you.

USP would require careful analysis of other businesses' ads and marketing messages. If you analyze what they say or what they sell, apart from the qualities of their product or service, you can learn a great deal about how companies distinguished themselves from competitors.

Here's how to discover your USP and use it to increase your sales and profit:

Use empathy: Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Always focus on the needs of the target customers and forget falling in love with your own product or service. Always remember, you are making this product or providing for the target customers to eventually increase sales and earn high profit. You are not making this product or service for yourself. Essential questions such as what could make them come back again and again and ignore your competitors? Most possible answers will be focused on the quality, availability, convenience, cleanliness, reliability, and friendliness. Agriculture products are not that hard to sell because they form part of our basic needs of everyone.

Identify what motivates your customers. It is very important for you to understand and find out what drives and motivates your customers to buy your product/service. Make some efforts to find out, analyze, and utilize the information that motivates the customers in their decisions to purchase your product/service.

Discover the actual and genuine reasons why customers buy your product instead of that of your competitor's. Information is very important in decision making. Competitive entrepreneur always endeavor to improve his/her products/services and constantly provide satisfaction and sustain patronage of customers. As your business grows, you should always consider the process of asking your customers some important information and feedback that you can use to improve your product/services.

Process

In order to firm up your understanding of the topic previously presented, you will be tasked to form a group and conduct an interview with a successful agri-entrepreneur/practitioner. You have to document this interview and present this to the whole class for reflection and appreciation.

Task 3: Interview

Directions: Select a successful entrepreneur/practitioner. Conduct an interview by utilizing the sets of questions below. Document the interview and present this to the class.

1. How did you identify your customers?

2. What were your considerations in selecting your customers?

3. Explain how your product/service become unique from other product/s.

4. Did you consult somebody before you engage in this business? Cite sample insights that you gained from the consultation.

5. What were your preparations before you started the actual business?

6. What creative and innovative techniques did you adapt to your product/service? What was the effect of the innovative techniques on the sales and profits of your business?

7. What strategies did you consider to have a unique selling proposition for your product/service?

Reflect and Understand

Task 4: Video Viewing

In order to deepen your understanding of the lesson, perform the following tasks:

1. Browse the internet on topics related to:

a. customers’ needs and wants particularly on agricultural crops;

b. techniques in identifying customers’ needs and wants;

c. creativity/innovations in products and services in the market, agricultural crops in particular;

d. unique selling proposition; and

e. product development.

2. Prepare a short narrative report about the aforementioned topics. You may highlight the “aspect” that intensifies your knowledge of product development.

Transfer

Task 5: Product Conceptualization

Directions: Using the figures below develop your own concept for your product/services.

1. Identify Customers Need

2. Target Specifications

3. Analyze a Competitive Product

4. Generate Product Concept

5. Select a Product Concept

6. Refine Product Specification

7. Prepare a Development Plan

Know

Generating Ideas for Business

The process of developing/generating business idea is not a simple process. Some people come up with a bunch of business ideas, while some are without ideas. There are two problems that arise; first is the excessive generation of ideas that makes one remain in the dreaming stage, and second, when one fails to generate.

The most optimal way is to have a systematic approach in generating and selecting ideas that will be translated into a viable business. Here are some basic yet very important considerations that you may use to generate possible ideas for business:

1. Examine the existing goods and services. Are you satisfied with the product? What do other people who use the product say about it? How can it be improved? There are many ways of improving a product from the way it is crafted up to the time it is packed and sold. You can also improve the materials used in crafting the product. In addition, you introduce new ways of using the product, making it more useful and adaptable to the customers’ many needs. When you are improving the product or enhancing it, you are doing an innovation. You can also do an invention by introducing an entirely new product to replace the old one.

Business ideas may also be generated by examining what goods and services are sold outside the community. Very often, these products are sold in a form that can still be enhanced or improved.

2. Examine the present and future needs. Look and listen to what the customers, institution, and communities are missing in terms of goods and services. Sometimes, these needs are already obvious and felt at the moment. Other needs are not that obvious because they can only be felt in the future, in the event of certain developments in the community. For example, a province will have its electrification facility in the next six months. Only by that time will the entrepreneur could think of agricultural products which are made using electrically-powered tools or equipment.

3. Examine how the needs are being satisfied. Needs for the products and services are referred to as market demand. To satisfy these needs is to supply the products and services that meet the demands of the market. The term market refers to whoever will use or buy the product or services, and these include people or institutions such as other businesses, establishments, organizations, or government agencies.

There is a very good business opportunity when there is absolute lack of supply of a pressing market demand.

Businesses or industries in the locality also have needs for goods and services. Their needs for raw materials, maintenance, and other services such as selling and distribution are good sources of ideas for business.

4. Examine the available resources around you. Observe what materials or skills are available in abundance in your area. A business can be started out of available raw materials by selling them in raw form and by processing and manufacturing them into finished products. For example, in a copra-producing town, there will be many coconut husks and shells available as “waste” products. These can be collected and made into coco rags/doormat and charcoal bricks; then sold profitably outside the community.

A group of people in your neighborhood may have some special skills that can be harnessed for business. For example, women in the Mountain Province possess loom weaving skills that have been passed on from one generation to the next. Some communities there set up weaving businesses to produce blankets, decorative items, and various souvenir items for sale to tourists and lowland communities.

Business ideas can come from your own skills. The work and experience you may have in agricultural arts, industrial arts, home economics, and ICT classes will provide you with business opportunities to acquire the needed skills which will earn for you extra income, should you decide to engage in income-generating activities. With your skills, you may also try on doing things during your spare time. Many products were invented this way.

5. Read magazines, news articles, and other publications on new products and techniques or advances in technology. You can pick up new business ideas from Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, Business Magazines, “Go Negosyo”, KAB materials or Small-Industry Journal. The Internet serves as a library where you may browse and surf on possible businesses. It will also guide you on how to put the right product in the right place, at the right price and at the right time.

Listings of possible businesses to set up in an area may also be available from banks or local non-government organizations.

Key Concepts of Selecting a Business Idea

Once you have embarked on identifying the business opportunities, you will eventually see that there are many possibilities available for you. It is very unlikely that you will have enough resources to pursue all of them at once. Which one will you choose?

You have to select the most promising one from among a hundred and one ideas. It will be good to do this in stages. In the first stage, screen your ideas to narrow them down to about five choices. In the next stage, trim down the five choices to two options. In the final stage, choose between the two and decide which business idea is worth pursuing.

In screening your ideas, examine each one in terms of the following factors:

1. How much capital is needed to put up the business?

2. How big is the demand for the product? Do many people need this product and will continue to need it for a long time?

3. How is the demand met? Who are processing the products to meet the need (competition or demand)? How much of the need is now being met (supply)?

4. Do you have the background and experience needed to run this particular business?

5. Will the business be legal, not going against any existing or foreseeable government regulation?

6. Is the business in line with your interest and expertise?

Your answers to these questions will be helpful in screening which ones from among your many ideas are worth examining further and worth pursuing.

Branding

Branding is a marketing practice of creating name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates product/service from that of the competitors. It is also a promise to your customers. It tells them what they can expect from your product/ service and it differentiates your offerings from other competitors. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be, and who people perceive you to be.

Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business. An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets.

The features of a good product brand are as follows:

- delivers the message clearly

- confirms your credibility

- connects your target prospects emotionally

- motivates the buyer

- concretizes user loyalty

Here are some simple tips to publicize your brand.

· Develop a tagline. Write a meaningful, unforgettable, and easy-to- remember statement that captures the essence of your brand.

· Design a great logo. Create a logo suitable to your business and consistent with your tagline and advertise it.

· Write down your brand messaging. Select key messages you want to communicate about your brand.

· Be true to your brand. Deliver your brand promise.

· Be consistent. Be reliable and consistent every time.

Process

In generating a business idea, you should first identify what type of business is suited to your business idea. You should analyze and scan the potential environment, study the marketing practices and strategies of your competitors, analyze the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and the Threats in your environment to ensure that the products/goods and service you are planning to offer will be patronized within the easy reach by your target markets/consumers.

Bear in mind these simple rules for successful SWOT analysis.

· Be realistic about the strengths and weaknesses of your business when conducting SWOT analysis.

· SWOT analysis should distinguish between where your business is today, and where it could be in the future.

· SWOT should always be specific. Avoid any grey areas.

· Always apply SWOT in relation to your competition i.e. better than or worse than your competition.

· Keep your SWOT short and simple. Avoid complexity and over analysis

· SWOT is subjective.

Task 6: SWOT Analysis

Directions: In generating a business idea, environmental scanning is very important. Utilize the SWOT analysis table below to list all your observations. Consider the strategies below to select the best business idea.

Strength (S)	Weaknesses (W)
- - - - -	- - - - - -
Opportunities (O)	Threats (T)
- - - -	- - - - - -

Strategize:

· SW – Utilize the strengths to overcome the weakness

· OS - Capitalize on the opportunities to eliminate the weakness

· ST – Maximize on your strengths to eliminate the external threats

· OT – Take advantage of the available opportunities to eliminate the external threats.

Strategies/Activities:

Analysis:

My Best Business Idea:

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Reflect and Understand

In order to deepen your understanding of the topics previously discussed, you will be asked to perform the following activities:

Task 7: Extra Readings and Video Viewing

Reading books and watching videos have been considered two of the most effective educational activities that help learners deepen their understanding of a certain topic. In this particular circumstance, you will be asked to conduct extra readings and video viewings on the following topics:

A. Steps in selecting a business idea

B. Criteria of a viable business idea

C. Benefits of a good brand

D. Ways of developing a product

After successfully performing the assigned task, make a narrative report about this and share it with the class.