Solved Assignment on Entrepreneurship

Running head: ENTREPRENEURSHIP
ENNTREPRENUERSHIP
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The importance of entrepreneurs in an organization cannot be undermined. Entrepreneurs can
play an important role in the economy, thereby contributing to its development. The given report
throws light on the life story and journey of one such entrepreneur named Katie Page. Katie Page
is a popular Australian Entrepreneur who is the CEO of Harvey Norman. The report follows a
structured format whereby the different components of the life and journey of Page has been
analyzed with reference to relevant data and theory.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Background of the entrepreneur......................................................................................................3
Entrepreneurial traits/characteristics...............................................................................................4
Opportunity recognition and idea development process.................................................................5
Competitive advantages...................................................................................................................6
Recommendations............................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
An entrepreneur can be described as an individual who goes a long way in converting a
given problem to an opportunity. An entrepreneur may also be described as an individual who
engages in effective practices to solve a current gap which exists in an organization and converts
the given gap to an opportunity or an idea. Entrepreneurs can be described as an essential
component of the development of the economy. The given report discusses upon the life of one
such entrepreneur in Australia named Katie Page who turned the way consumers shopped
electronics online (Gani 2014). She is one of the finest female entrepreneurs in the globe and the
current CEO of Harvey Norman. The report will be discussing the background of the
entrepreneur with hints on their development process.
Background of the entrepreneur
Page was born in Queensland, Australia. Her family background was very humble and
Page grew up with three sisters. Her father was a bank manger who was relocated every four
years, Due to this, Katie and her sisters grew up in different locations like St. George,
Rockhampton and Brisbane. Katie Page graduated from the High school in Brisbane in the year
1973, with an aim to become a surveyor; however this had a low pay package for woman at that
time. She was enthusiastic and engaged in an intelligence test which aimed to raise funds for the
underprivileged in the country at that time. When she was competing in the intelligence test,
Grey Harvey was one of the judges in this competition. Fate was in her favor and around six
years later she was appointed as an employee in the Harvey Norman store. She was engaged in
the buying, marketing and selling of goods of the firm. She went a long way in helping Harvey to
establish his business and grow it in size (Drucker 2014). Later on, Harvey and Page got married
and she become his second wife. Page joined the store in 1983 during its second year and
become the CEO of the company 15 years later.
Under her leadership and guidance, the company engaged and expanded its operations in
various other countries like Slovenia, Malaysia, Ireland and Singapore. The Harvey Norman
country operates 277 stores countries with a net profit of more than 165$ million (Kuratko 2016).

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The entrepreneur has two children and she is an avid player of badminton.
Hence, applying the Economic theory of entrepreneurship, it can be stated that although
the external factors were in the favor of the given entrepreneur however, there were certain
internal forces which guided her as well. These skills included intelligence, hard work and
experience which guided her and helped her to achieve success to meet the given goals.
Entrepreneurial traits/characteristics
An entrepreneur can be described as an individual who is endowed and blessed with an
idea which employs a variety of skills which go a long way in helping the organization to
achieve success (Chief Executive Women. 2018). The skills of an entrepreneur are generally
more than the normal individuals. Furthermore, by making use of the external capabilities the
given individual is successfully able to ensure that the given organization is able to achieve new
heights (Parker 2018). The entrepreneur is required to be a leader who will foresee a problem in
the organization and convert this to an opportunity present in an organization. The trait theory
plays a key role in seeing to it that the leadership and entrepreneurial skills are well defined.
Given below are certain traits that maybe applied to Katie Page`s personality
- Innovative- Katie Page was quite innovative. This can be represented with the fact that
she was successfully able to engage in investment of an opportunity which would
successfully enable the firm to achieve success in the long run of the business (Baum,
Frese and Baron 2014). Her innovative skills went a long way in making Harvey a
successful firm in the long run of the business enterprise by engaging in expansion and
online trading as well.
- Hardworking- Katie Page shares another skill which is very essential in becoming a
successful entrepreneur. These skills are skills related to hard work. Being an
entrepreneurship is not an easy task and requires hard work as well as persistence (Storey
2016). Therefore, for this reason, it is important for the entrepreneur to see to it that he or
she engages in hard work and engagement from the very beginning of the enterprise.
- Analytical Skills- The entrepreneur is also required to be strong in analyzing the
analytical aspects of the organization and opportunities that are present in the external

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environment of the business. If an entrepreneur is able to successfully analyze and make
analytical concerns, then he or she can be successful in the long term management of the
organization (Schaper et al. 2018).
- Confidence- Confidence is another factor which needs to be present. Katie Page has
shown immense confidence and a charming personality which went a long way in
helping her to maintain the position of the organization. The manner in which she
engages in various interviews and tech talks helps in analysis that she is a strong woman
and is confident about her activities.
- Risk taking- According to the entrepreneurship traits theories, an entrepreneur will be
incomplete without engaging in proper risk taking. Risks are an important aspect of any
organization and it is essentially important for the entrepreneur to possess such skills for
success (Baum, Frese and Baron 2014). Kate Paige took a huge risk by expanding the
business into other countries, but ultimately her risks were calculated and it helped her to
achieve success in the business environment.
Opportunity recognition and idea development process
Katie went through the given stages before developing the idea for the given business
domain.
1. Opportunity recognition- When the e-commerce industry boomed back in the 1990s, it
was then when Katie realized that the given opportunity could be harnessed easily and
that the company Harvey Norman could be easily capturing the online domain. It was due
to this that the company realized, that they should be engaging in the following risk
taking venture and invests in this. They would have been the only online venture which
would have explored the online market and therefore, they planned the idea and initiated
the move.
2. Strengthening of present resources-The second step taken by them involved considering
the different resources that they have within their realm. Katie Page along with her

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husband, decided to invest in the opportunity and then see to it whether they had adequate
resources or not. Along with making certain considerations, the organization decided to
take into consideration their existing resources and invest them in the online portal
(Brenkert 2017).
3. Development of the idea- A test with respect to the given idea was run and it was
checked whether, the different ideas which were coming up which were chosen for
implementation were viable or not. It was found that it was a good plans and this lead to
the further development of the concept.
4. Discussion- The given idea was presented in front of the different stakeholders in order to
take in their views with respect to the same. After this was done, the preparation for the
implementation of the idea began to take place.
5. Implementation- The implementation can be described as the process where the actual
expansion plan with respect to the given idea took place. The idea was an instant hit as it
was successful in engaging the users who found online shopping from the trustworthy
brand an entirely new experience.
Competitive advantages
The kind of business which has been developed by Katie and her husband is based on
selling various electronic products such as consumer goods, home products, communication
along with bedding and furniture’s. The business developed in the year 1982, which was
ultimately followed by its online expansion in the year 1990s which was the beginning of the
online era of the business. Katie decided to take the given risk and expand the online base of the
business in order to ensure that the market opportunity was analyzed effectively. Amazon was at
a rise at that given time and that is the reason, Katie decided to take a risk and expand online into
the given domain (Burns 2016). The competitive advantage of the given business was that it was
developed at a time when online business was not dominant and thus, this caused an instant
opportunity for the organization to see to it that the given firm would be successful in its
activities as it was the only one dealing in the electronic domain (Dees 2017).

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Recommendations
Therefore, after analyzing the various life instances and career aspects of the Katie Page
it can be stated the entrepreneur holds unlimited capacity with respect to the development of
various opportunities which will be present in the business environment. She has been
performing very well in the given business domain and it is expected that she will continue doing
so in future as well. If the entrepreneur enters into the business domain of opening the given
stores in the emerging markets which are the developing countries of South East Asian region, it
will be able to successfully perform well and expand the business even further than its existing
base. However, it is suggested that the entrepreneur needs to follow a systematized manner in
which they will be able to carry out the opportunities as there are a presence of various factors
which may have an impact on the effective functioning of the business organization.

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References
Baum, J.R., Frese, M. and Baron, R.A. eds., 2014. The psychology of entrepreneurship.
Psychology Press.
Baum, J.R., Frese, M. and Baron, R.A., 2014. Born to be an entrepreneur? Revisiting the
personality approach to entrepreneurship. (pp. 73-98). Psychology Press.
Brenkert, G.G., 2017. Entrepreneurship, ethics, and the good society. In Entrepreneurship (pp.
85-128). Routledge.
Burns, P., 2016. Entrepreneurship and small business. Palgrave Macmillan Limited.
Chief Executive Women. ,2018. Katie Page - Chief Executive Women. [online] Available at:
https://cew.org.au/members/katie-page/ [Accessed 30 Apr. 2018].
Dees, J.G., 2017. 1 The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship. In Case Studies in Social
Entrepreneurship and Sustainability(pp. 34-42). Routledge.
Drucker, P., 2014. Innovation and entrepreneurship. Routledge.
Gani, A., 2014. Understand Entrereneurship.
Kuratko, D.F., 2016. Entrepreneurship: Theory, process, and practice. Cengage Learning.
Parker, S.C., 2018. The economics of entrepreneurship. Cambridge University Press.
Schaper, M.T., Volery, T., Weber, P.C. and Gibson, B., 2014. Entrepreneurship and small
business.
Storey, D.J. ed., 2016. Entrepreneurship and new firm. Routledge.