Current Issues Report, Research Paper Example

Introduction

One of Britain’s leading entrepreneurs is Richard Branson  the founder and CEO of the Virgin Group. .He is now estimated to be worth over 4 billion $ and has led Virgin to becoming a brand leading international business corporation.  The empire covers such famous names as Virgin Airlines, Virgin Cola, Virgin Music and Entertainment, Virgin Rail and Virgin Mobile etc.  A hugely diverse business portfolio that has been speared by the innovative genius and entrepreneurial spirit of Branson.

Branson was born from a middle class family in England and in his early days suffered from dyslexia.  He started from humble beginnings opening a record shop in London.  He made a success of this venture and raised some capital in order to open a studio and start producing Virgin Records.  He sponsored some famous musicians like Mike Oldfield that helped increase his fame in this business arena. His entrepreneurial spirit came with taking on lucrative business ventures that were struggling.  His management style rapidly turned these around and formed new successful companies like Virgin Rail and Virgin Airlines.  Richard Branson has gained iconic status amongst the young people in England who see him as an exciting role model and an inspiration to succeed in business.

Branson has always been a charismatic but controversial figure.  He has publicly smoked marijuana and stated that he would sell it across the Virgin stores if it ever became a legal product.  It is however, the huge success of Virgin Atlantic Airlines that has paved the way for his more extravagant ventures of space travel and competing in international sporting events.

Branson stated “the challenge is to follow through on a great idea” (Vinnedge).  His many exploits certainly endorse this philosophy.

Literature Review

There have been a great many books written on Virgin and Sir Richard Branson.  Perhaps some of the most stimulating reads come from Branson himself.  Equally, as you would expect he has his own publishing Company i.e. Virgin Publishing.  In the book ‘Richard Branson: The Virgin King’ (Branson).  The author looks at the range of entrepreneural business dealings and the building of the Virgin empire.  Branson tells more of a personal sory in his book ‘ Losing my virginity: How I survived, had fun and made a fortune doing business my way’ (Branson).  A favourite book amongst the MBA business schools is the book ‘ Like a Virgin: Secrets they wont teach you at business school’ (Branson).

Analysis

Branson the Innovator

Virgin was conceived by Branson in 1970.  He piloted this to one of the most successful leading international investment brands.  The firm now employs over 50,000 people, operates in 34 countries world-wide and has global revenues in excess of $21 billion.  The mission behind Virgin aligns to that of its charismatic leader Richard Branson.  This focuses on such items as quality, innovation and competitive challenge, all hallmarks of Branson’s entrepreneurial style..(Virgin Group).  You might be best describing the personality of Branson himself here.  He has certainly been extremely innovative in his business operations. This can be particularly seen in his flair for marketing and promotion of the Virgin brand across the spectrum of business.  Branson continuously re-examines the Virgin group in the light of its customers’ needs and comes up with exciting new ideas in order to stimulate increased sales and growth of the business.  Virgin continuously reinvent themselves and keep their customers interested by offering more new and exciting ideas and concepts within each strand of their business operations.  Branson equally uses his passion of competitive sports to promote Virgin as being a young dynamic, exciting, fresh and fin company to do business with.  His exhilarating personality draws in young people who have become highly supportive of his products and ideals.  His exploits in Ballooning and more recently have captured the imagination of a new generation. (Branson).

Branson the entrepreneur

It’s pretty amazing that an average educated English man described as a long haired, bare footed hippie became a multi billionaire.  Now at age 59 Branson is listed in Forbes as being worth $4.4 billion.  He has been knighted in the UK for his services to business and entrepreneurship.  He was not inspired by a business school education but more of a rigged determinsation to succeed in the face of adversity. Branson has always liked a challenge and has never been afraid of stepping up to the line.  He has completed a lot of his big deals based upon personal instinct and where others have waivered he has siezed the moment and created numerous business success stories.

He understood the importance of dealing with customers and he illustrated this by taking on British Airways on their transatlantic routes.  He felt British Airways had lost touch with their customer base and as such this represented an opportunity.  He looked atva number of concepts to draw these customers to Virgin: (i) A more affordable Airline (ii) More fun and improved enjoyment (iii) Quality over service, schedules and customer service.  British Airways tried to squeeze Branson out of the market by applying their huge financial clout.  This forced Branson to sell off Virgin music to raise capital in order to protect the Airline. He paid off the debts on Virgin Atlantic in order to become the outright owner.  He continued to build upon this experience and created a business empire of more than 200 Companies.

His latest venture of space tourism geared to start operations this year will see tickets being sold at $200,000 each and he already has a list of celebrity passengers that will pay the price to view the earth from a space orbit.  The venture is designed to showcase the 25^th Birthday of Virgin Atlantic and its remarkable achievements. (Vinnedge).

Entrepreneurshiptraits of Branson

Branson has demonstrated considerable business acumen in identifying opportunities, often where there is a weakness that can be exploited.  This is followed up with decisive action and a strategic plan to convert the failing business into a successful business venture.  This corporate acumen is the ability to take calculated risks in order to pursue growth opportunities and strategic renewal of the business. (Lumpkin).   Although Branson was not provided with a superb education he demonstrated other skills that supported his entrepreneurial abilities. This gift included sound common sense, tenacity and a determination to succeed in the face of adversity and the willingness to accept a challenge with a fierce determination to win through. He was not really influenced by the micro social factors like family and school but was more of an individualist that was prepared to take on risks and try new ideas and concepts. (Shabinina). This has made Branson somewhat of an iconic status in the UK and many young working boys see Branson as someone who they can emulate and acknowledge the limitations of the University business schools are concerned relative to achieving fame and fortune (Robertson).   Another strength of Branson was his ability to control the media in successful marketing campaigns and spearhead Virgin groups business initiatives.  Essentially becoming a ‘champion’ of the business and putting forward an acceptable human face to his customers.  People saw him as an ordinary person that still cared and was concerned about the welfare of people despite his accumulated wealth. (Magor).

Innovation and Creativity in Virgin

Virgin is not like  Apple Corporation that historically, through the creative genius of Steve Jobs, used new and innovative products to capture market space.  Instead the company has looked at ways of improving existing products in terms of service, quality and delivery.  This is not a new concept and originally adopted by the Japanese automobile industry.  The Japanese however learned from the process in order to create innovative and new concepts that would allow them to penetrate existing market space.  Virgin became more closely focused in on customer need and satisfaction.

Conclusion

With the backing and entrepreneurial skills of Branson it is difficult to write them off as not being innovative.  The Company is still relatively young in evolutionary terms and has time to grow and acquire these skills.  Perhaps both its strength and weakness is the amount of pure diversity the Company offers.  With over 200 companies in very different lines of business there are bound to be winners and losers.  The difficulty will be pulling these all together under a single business strategic direction for the Virgin Group.   There has already been some dilution of the brand that has exposed weaknesses in the organization.

Branson put together a good management team that understood strategic planning and how to build a global business. Branson has committed Virgin to becoming a leader in the deployment of green technology and pumping back millions of $ from company profits in order to make the Company have an improved carbon neutral footprint.  Taking the lead in this area makes Virgin Atlantic more ecofriendly to its customer base.  Once again he has seen the opportunity to push Virgin at the head of the good guys in the climate control initiatives.

Works Cited

Branson, Richard. Richard Branson the Virgin King. London: Random House, 2009.

Lumpkin, G.C. Dess G.T. “The role of entrepreneural orientation in stimulating effective Corporate entrepreneurship.” Academy of Management Executive Vol 19(1) (2005): 147-156.

M.Robertson, R. Henderson. “Wwho wants to be an entrepreneur? Young adults attitudes to entrepreneurship as a career.” Education & Training Vol41(5) (1999): 236-245.

Magor, R. Boyle M. “A nation of entrepreneurs? Television, social change and the rise of the entrepreneur.” International journal of media and cultural politics Vol 4 (2) (2008): 125-144.

Shabinina, L.V. “Micro social factors in the development of entrepreneural giftedness: the case of Richard Branson.” High Ability Studies Vol 17 (2) (2006): 225-235.

Vinnedge, Mary. Richard Branson: Virgin Entrepreneur. 1 6 2009. http://www.success.com/artiocles/pribt/712. 24 9 2012.

Virgin Group. Virgin – About the Virgin Group. 2012. http://www.virgin.com/about-us. 25 9 2012.