Reflection on Mike Lazaridis: Uncovering the Journey of an Entrepreneur

In this document we will discuss about Reflection on Mike Lazaridis and below are the summary points of this document:- Research on renowned entrepreneur Mike Lazaridis, exploring his background and life. Analysis of the entrepreneurial skills and traits that made Lazaridis a successful entrepreneur. Examination of Lazaridis' competitive advantages and recommendations for future prospects.

Running head: REFLECTION ON MIKE LAZARIDIS-THE ENTREPRENEUR
Reflection on Mike Lazaridis-The Entrepreneur
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1REFLECTION ON MIKE LAZARIDIS-THE ENTREPRENEUR
Executive Summary
The report aims to research about the renowned entrepreneur Mike Lazaridis and reflect on
his background and life. The report also focuses on analysing the Entrepreneurial skills and
traits the entrepreneur had which turned him into a creative and successful entrepreneur he
became. Further, the report examines the competitive advantage Mike Lazaridis had, and in
the connection, the report finally tends to recommend a few points that would help the
entrepreneur in their prospects.

2REFLECTION ON MIKE LAZARIDIS-THE ENTREPRENEUR
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Background of the Entrepreneur:...............................................................................................3
Entrepreneurial Traits of Mike Lazaridis:..................................................................................6
Recognition of the Opportunity:................................................................................................8
Analysis of Competitive Advantages:........................................................................................9
Recommendations:...................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12

3REFLECTION ON MIKE LAZARIDIS-THE ENTREPRENEUR
Introduction
The report precariously focuses on reflecting a renowned entrepreneur named Mike
Lazaridis (Ensign and Farlow 2016). The report is focused on studying the background of the
entrepreneur which determined him to be the entrepreneur he is at present. Further, the study
identifies the entrepreneurial characteristics of Mike Lazaridis that reflected him as a
successful business entrepreneur. Furthermore, the study determines the opportunities
recognition done by Mike Lazaridis which made him develop the idea that he can be
successful in the particular business idea he had thought of. Finally, the study researches the
type of business Mike had developed and its competitive advantages in the market and tends
to recommend a few prospects for the entrepreneur which would help him grow differently.
Background of the Entrepreneur:
Mike Lazaridis also named as Mihal (Mike) Lazaridis, was born in Istanbul a city in
Turkey dated 14th March 1961. He was taken to Pontic Greek parents whose original lineage
was in the island of Chios. Researches show that his age was of five when he and his family
had moved to Canada in the year 1966. They were claimed to settle in Windsor, Ontario after
moving to Canada (Ensign and Farlow 2016). Mike as a child had a fascinating love for
science and was always eager to examine how the scientific things around the world work.
Mike along with his friends had a habit of spending in numerous hours in the basement of
their homes building and analysing scientific ideas such as radio, rockets and several other
things which were related to scientific underpinning. At a smaller age of just 12 years,
Lazaridis won a prize at the Windsor Public Library in the connection that he had read every
single science book that was available in the library. His interest and respect for science made
him pursue science courses while approaching his high school studies. He opted for this in
the viewpoint that he would be eligible for better universities to study for his distant future

4REFLECTION ON MIKE LAZARIDIS-THE ENTREPRENEUR
and with this, he also chose for workshop courses that would allow him to be suitable for
tinker. After the completion of his higher studies, he enrolled himself at the University of
Waterloo, in the year 1979 (Bramwell and Wolfe 2008). This propensity of Mike into
learning and exploring science and scientific things indulged him into creating the idea of
establishing his own business and turn into an entrepreneur. This particular thought process
of his can be explained with the help of a theory named Innovative Value Chain which is
described in the following section (Zott and Amit 2013).
Innovative Value Chain:
The Innovative Value Chain includes three stages which help an individual to
generate idea about the opportunity and skills the person has. The three phases are
determined as:
 Idea Generation: An individual has to understand that inventing new scientific
innovations demands proper ideas. In this view an individual needs to analyse the
closest of their skills, learning and interest through which they can generate ideas
about how to establish a business and work on it. The individual also needs to assess
the views outside their keen and interest. They need to study the market structure and
competitiveness to make their innovation a successful one. In this connection, Mike
had his best new idea generated to establish a revolutionary wireless smartphone.
 Idea Conversion: Generating several ideas, on the one hand, is a good thing but on
the other side, being able to implement, handle and mishandle the same is a matter of
complete different fact. New ideas and concepts will not prosper unless and until there
is strong funding of mechanisms. An individual need to have strong mechanical and
commercial skills on the field they are to innovate. Along with strong ideas, there is a
strong need for converting those ideas into innovative products and services that may

5REFLECTION ON MIKE LAZARIDIS-THE ENTREPRENEUR
generate revenue. As per the study suggests, Mike since his childhood kept on
underpinning scientific things and this made it easy for him to convert his idea into a
business.
 Idea Diffusion: The third and the last stage of the value chain is claimed to be the
diffusion of the ideas that were generated and converted in the earlier stages. The
concepts and ideas that have been developed need a buy-in phenomenon not just from
the end consumers and the market the firm would focus on. It also needs to receive
the relevant teams and constituencies that would make the idea a whole business
organisation. The new products and services will have a prior need of being spread in
the market so that the ordinary people get aware about the same. Necessary
employment needs to be recruited to fulfil the requirements and functioning of the
business firm. The locations, channel group and the customer group, are to be
analysed.
Depending on the above theory Mike had it all within him. He had a great interest and
idea about science and its technologies, and he was backed up by his fellow friend Doug
Fregin, and together they founded and established the company Research in Motion
(RIM) in 1984 which was focused on computer science as well as electronics consulting
business (Tomory 2014). Mike and his friend were supported by a small venture from
General Motors, and a loan amount from his parents and they sparked up with an
experiment on smartphone resolution. As a result of this, RIM was established as a
wireless technology firm that changed the industry of communication with the
development of its smartphone- Blackberry (Finkelstein et al. 2017).

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Figure 1: Modern Innovative Value Chain
Source: (Based on Hatch 2018)
Entrepreneurial Traits of Mike Lazaridis:
Entrepreneurs are initially the ordinary individual who is driven to turn into
successful, renowned entrepreneurs by the boost to the passion they obtain. The individuals
do not turn to become an entrepreneur overnight. The process of starting up with a business
involves a motive of earning some merits through doing the same. When an individual thinks
of starting up with a firm the particular person has to have the capability of taking risks that
would occur and handle the complete business. It is not only enough to have ideas and bring
up a firm into existence. To continue sustaining the firm, in the long run, takes a lot of
responsibility and hard work. An entrepreneur needs to acquire many essential traits to make
their business a successful one (Mathieu and St-Jean 2013). In this connection, the traits of
Mike as an entrepreneur can be determined as below:

7REFLECTION ON MIKE LAZARIDIS-THE ENTREPRENEUR
 Passionate: Perhaps to be considered as one of the essential characteristics, being
passionate is crucial for every entrepreneur to turn the business into a successful and
renowned one. In this connection, Mike Lazaridis was claimed to be highly excited
about technology and science. As the study suggested, his keen interest lied on
scientific things (Dyer, Gregersen and Christensen 2008).
 Creative: A successful entrepreneur has to be someone who owns special skills
about the goods and services the individual is running the business. The entrepreneur
should frequently focus on innovating new and creative ideas about the company. In
this connection, Mike was analysed to be majorly creative since it was learned from
the study that Mike since his childhood used to creatively work with developing
things like radio and rockets along with his friend (Calamai 2004).
 Risk-Takers: An entrepreneurial risk is termed to be a complex risk, and in this
term, the entrepreneur should be active and able enough to make necessary changes
in the strategic plan made before-hand if certain risks pop up into the working
environment. In this connection, Lazaridis was examined to be a significant risk
handler. The studies stated the amount of risk Mike had taken to establish his
wireless business connection. It was a new convention Mike was to put forward into
the world of communication. Not only this, but Mike was also successful in making
necessary changes required in the business accordingly with the difference in the
market conditions (Mason and Brown 2014).
 Self- Starter: Every single entrepreneur should have parameters set for themselves
and should work first on their own than to command. An entrepreneur should be
responsible enough to start the work on their own if they don't find people around
them to allocate the work. In this connection, studies revealed that Mike never waited

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for someone to perform the tasks required to fulfill the need of his business. He
focused on working with his best zeal to achieve the desired goals (Christensen 2003).
Figure 2: Basic Entrepreneurial Traits
Source: (Based on Carayannis, Samara and Bakouros 2015)
Recognition of the Opportunity:
The identification of the opportunity to start up with the new concepts and ideas is
considered to be the first aspect before taking the idea generated for the business into
consideration. Entrepreneurial Recognition of Opportunities is a complex as well as a
cognitive process and depends solely on the individual who is into developing new ideas and
concepts for establishing a business (Zali et al. 2013). This analysis of opportunity is what
determines the later of the business procedure. The Opportunity Recognition process includes
stages of upbringing the idea, incubating and respectively in sighting the same, evaluating the

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concept in regards of the market structure and finally sourcing and elaborating the business
firm (Osiyevskyy and Dewald 2015).
Figure 3: Creative model basis of Opportunity Recognition
Source: (Based on Zikmund et al. 2014)
In this connection, Lazaridis had proved to be excellent in terms of the studies done.
The opportunity of business he was to bring up into existence was an entirely new one which
would bring a revolutionary change in the field of communication. He had designed a fresh
idea of putting up the wireless connection of smartphone into existence, and he did the same
by creating the first owned smartphone –Blackberry (Muthukumar, Ramakrishnan and
Krishnamacharyulu 2017).
Analysis of Competitive Advantages:
Competitive advantage is the condition in the market structure that determines the
position of a business organisation. It helps in the appraisal of the company into superior or
inferior categories. In this connection, with the help of the study done, it was critically
analysed that in the initial of the innovation of RIM, Lazaridis was the first one to innovate a
wireless communication smartphone (Melady 2013). He had determined the best of the new
opportunity he could and derived massive profit out of it. In the initial of the business, RIM

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was awarded a contract of $600,000 by General Motors. Mike and his team worked so hard
that the company expanded from a small one to a vast international corporation. RIM started
with only around ten employees in 1992 and turned into an excess of $68 billion in the year
2007 (thecanadianencyclopedia.ca 2013). This success of RIM took place because of the
innovation of its wireless phone Blackberry (Finkelstein et al. 2017).
However, by the end of the year 2007, new competitors were emerging in the market.
The potential competitors were Apple, and iPhone introduced in the market in 2007 (Lopes
and Lopes 2013). RIM, however, continued to grow in the market till 2011 because of its
features of camera and MP3 player. The disruption occurred by the end of 2007 when Apple
and iPhone became famous in the market of Canada and other international countries. RIM
had to undergo a downfall of around 55% in the year 2012 (Youssef and Haj Youssef 2013).
Lazaridis tried to change the innovation and CEO team but that did not count to be of great
help, and he finally decides to resign from RIM on 28th March 2013 (Budd et al. 2015). After
this downfall, Mike is still a renowned entrepreneur who had brought a great discovery into
existence, and at present, he is involved with the computing industry, the Quantum Valley
Investments Fund (Srivastava et al. 2016). This industry is focused on supporting quantum
computing ventures. Lazaridis was also named as an Officer of the Order of Canada in the
year 2006 and re-established himself as a Fellow of the Royal Society in London in the year
2014.
Recommendations:
Although Mike Lazaridis had been a revolutionary entrepreneur and in his initial of
business he succeeded at a large extent, he somehow failed to do the same when potential
competitor emerged into the market. Being into the monopoly of wireless smartphones Mike
and Blackberry had a tremendous competitive advantage, but the emergence of similar

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market potential led to its downfall. In this connection, according to the study, some
recommendations would be provided to get over and succeed with the danger of new entrants
into the market and expand the business in the prospects to avoid the downfall and loss of the
company.
 To keep pace with the innovations not just initially but daily of the business.
 To upgrade the technologies in the products and services.
 Never ignore the potential competitors or the new entrants even if the business is a
monopoly.
 To take immediate actions and not wait too long to take actions thinking of the
competitors to be weak.
 Leadership and Management of the business should be kept as secure as possible
throughout.
 Not to distract oneself from the core business concept. Expanding into other business
sectors is helpful for the individual but keeping the business viewpoint in point, the
core business should never be left unattended even after it has become successful.

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entrepreneurial University of Waterloo. Research policy, 37(8), pp.1175-1187.
Budd, N., Breakwell, A., Liu, M.X. and Schleper, C., 2015. The RIM BlackBerry PlayBook
Disaster: B2B or B2C?. Journal of Business Cases and Applications, 13, p.1.
Calamai, P., 2004. Raising the value of research: Mike Lazaridis wants to educate
Canadians about the importance of science so, he's pledged millions on an institute for pure
research (No. PRESSCUT-U-2005-528, p. H05).
Carayannis, E.G., Samara, E.T. and Bakouros, Y.L., 2015. Innovation and entrepreneurship:
theory, policy and practice. Springer.
Christensen, C.M., 2003. The Innovator’s. Harvard Business School Press, Massachusetts.
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Mason, C. and Brown, R., 2014. Entrepreneurial ecosystems and growth-oriented
entrepreneurship. Final Report to OECD, Paris, 30(1), pp.77-102.
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Melady, J., 2013. Breakthrough!: Canada's Greatest Inventions and Innovations. Dundurn.
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