New Entrepreneurial Venture

Creating a successful new entrepreneurial venture in today’s domestic market is a tough task to accomplish. However, globalizing the business and expanding its services overseas is a challenge that not too many businesses are successful at accomplishing. Therefore, to take a new entrepreneurial project, such as a Movie Theater Child Care Service venture, to the next level, leaders with strategic skills must be hired, problems with taking the venture overseas must be identified, the level of entrepreneurial activities in the United States must be assessed, and a strategic plan for expansion of the venture must be formulated.

The new entrepreneurial venture that was selected for this paper is a Movie Theater Child Care Service venture. Entrepreneurs are people who are excited by doing something new. Therefore, they invest energy and capital into innovative endeavors (Marcus, 2011). This innovative venture provides child care services to those clients who would like to attend the movies but need child care for their children for the duration of the movie. Furthermore, this venture is also an asset to parents who have one or more children who are not of age to see a movie due to age restrictions of the film.

Due to the success of the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture, the venture is posed to expand domestically and globally. However, strategic leadership skills are needed to take this endeavor to the next growth level. Leadership style in an organization includes the types of motivation systems used, patterns of communication in an organization, and interpersonal interactions and relations (Marcus, 2011, p. 57). For the Movie Theater Child Care Service to be successful, three strategic leadership skills are necessary. First, the leader of this venture must possess strategic thinking skills. Beatty (2010) explained that strategic thinking “requires taking a broad view, involving the right people with important information and perspectives, asking probing questions, and facilitating conversations.” Strategic thinking is a necessary skill for this venture since the leader will need to identify challenges in the organization and create solutions for these challenges.

Additionally, a strategic leadership skill that will be needed to take the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture to the next level is strategic acting. “Strategic acting involves taking decisive action that is consistent with the strategic direction of the organization despite all ambiguity, complexity, and chaos” (Beatty, 2010). Strategic acting is an important skill in leaders, as the leaders must act on the strategic plan of the business and ensure that management is making the correct decisions and choices for the organization. Further, a third strategic leadership skill that is needed is intuitiveness. Intuitiveness is an essential strategic skill for leaders to hold since many quick decisions need to be made in this rapidly changing world, and reasoning and logic cannot get a leader through every situation (SBA, 2013). Therefore, this leadership skill will be essential when making prompt strategic moves for the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture.

There are two measures that can be taken to evaluate the leaders in the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture to determine if they have the three aforementioned strategic leadership skills needed to take this venture to the next level. The first measure that can be taken is to give leaders a survey. The survey will ask the individual questions about their personal characteristics and experience with leading organizations. Then, the data can be compared to the scores of other leaders in the organization and against the results of standard leadership surveys (Maginn, 2008). In addition, a second measure that can be taken to evaluate leaders of the strategic leadership qualities is a group consensus. Upper management can rate individuals who they feel possess the necessary leadership skills to take the new venture to the next level (Maginn, 2008). After the data is collected, the organization can then appoint leaders or search for leaders who possess the desired strategic leadership skills that are needed to expand the business domestically or internationally.

When a business venture plans to take its services to another country, there are three challenges and problems that the business may face. First, a challenge that will be encountered when globalizing the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture is a lack of access to key business and local contacts in the country (Marcus, 2011). For example, in the United States, many businesses have local partners and contacts that help them sell a product or service. Therefore, if the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture is taken to another country, extensive research will be needed to find movie theaters that are interested in utilizing the venture’s new services. Next, a second challenge that will be faced when expanding the new venture internationally is the expense and time required to learn the country’s cultures and language (Marcus, 2011). Many cultures have unique ways of raising children, and staff must be trained to learn these cultural norms so they can apply it when caring for the children and when communicating with the client’s families. Finally, a third problem that will be encountered when expanding this new venture is recruiting and training staff under the country’s child care rules and regulations. For example, when workers in the United States are employed at a daycare, they must undergo extensive background checks and complete numerous training sessions to be eligible to work with children. Therefore, a lot of time and money will be needed to efficiently recruit, train, and certify staff at an overseas Movie Theater Child Care Service venture.

There are two guidelines that will be provided to managers to deal with the problems that are faced when expanding a Movie Theater Child Care Service venture to another country. First, managers will be instructed to recruit employees that are already employed in child care facilities in the country of choice. If managers follow this guideline, the business will save on costs of having to train staff to learn the country’s language and customs. Further, hiring staff members that are already employed in the industry will help the business to ensure that staff members are eligible to work with children in that country under the country’s rules and regulations.

Additionally, a second guideline that will be provided to managers for dealing with the challenges that the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture faces when expanding overseas is to begin to solidify relationships with other businesses in the area. This step will help the company avoid making culturally insensitive decisions and taking awkward actions (Marcus, 2011). Further, forming relationships with businesses in the area will also give the organization insight into an understanding of the country’s market and business conditions. Therefore, managers will be instructed to stay in the country of choice to collect data for the venture and to seek out new relationships with others businesses in the area.

Before a new venture can decide to take their services overseas, leaders and managers should start with determining whether they should expand the venture domestically. To help with this decision, leaders and managers should first consult the Kauffman Index to determine the current level of entrepreneurial activity in the United States. According to Gangemi (2007), the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity is an annual study that measures business startup activity for the entire United States adult population at the individual owner level. Therefore, when deciding whether to expand a business domestically, leaders can consult the Kauffman Index and retrieve data on how many individuals started similar businesses each month.

After consulting with the Kauffman Index, it has been determined that the current level of entrepreneurial activities in the United States is currently falling from 2012. Specifically, entrepreneurial activities in the United States increased in 2011 after the recession, but have been falling ever since (Bell-Materson, 2013). However, a slow business creation rate is actually a side of an improving economic health since the unemployment rate is down and the markets have had historical highs (Bell-Materson, 2013). Therefore, based on this data, strategic moves can be implemented to expand the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture domestically since all signs point to an improving climate for entrepreneurship within the United States. Further, slow business creation creates less competition for our services in the market, and it may actually help the venture thrive domestically.

After deciding to expand the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture domestically, an expansion business plan must be configured in order to make the expansion of the venture a success. The expansion model that will be utilized to further the growth of the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture will be mergers. According to Hantzi and Alexander-Stamatios (2012), mergers are a great expansion plan to utilize when one partner is more economically successful or of a greater size. For this venture, the plan is to merge the business with an already established movie theater company, such as IMAX. IMAX is an organization that has hundred of movie theaters throughout the United States and overseas. If the Movie Theater Child Care Service can be merged with a successful movie theater chain, such as IMAX, the venture will have the potential to be expanded both domestically and globally.

There are four circumstances that influenced this decision to merge the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture with an already established and successful movie theater company, such as IMAX. First, this expansion plan was chosen since merging companies will enable the business venture to expand (Marcus, 2011). Since IMAX is already a successful company within the United States and overseas, merging the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture will help the business expand its services both domestically and internationally. Next, merging the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture with a successful movie theater organization was selected due to the fact that it will help to cut costs (Marcus, 2011). For example, if a Movie Theater Child Care Service venture relocates into already established movie theaters both domestically and globally, then the business will save on costs of searching for contacts and partners in foreign territories and marketing the business independently. Then, it was decided to merge the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture with a well known movie chain to avoid or halt decline of the company (Marcus, 2011). The Movie Theater Child Care Service is a brand new entrepreneurial venture, and luckily, the business has been a success. However, merging and expanding the company is now necessary in order to avoid a decline in the company’s profits if the business takes a turn for the worse in today’s shaky economy. Finally, the last circumstance that led to the decision to merge the Movie Theater Child Care Service venture is due to the technological advancements in today’s movie theaters. Marcus (2011) explained that some businesses decide to merge to gain access to specific products and technologies. Some movie theater companies, such as IMAX, have created innovative technologies for their consumers. By merging the company, it is of hope that these technologies can be implemented and utilized in the Movie Theater Child Care Service to attract and retain new customers and clients.

Overall, to take a Movie Theater Child Care Service venture to the next level, leaders with strategic skills must be hired, problems with taking the venture overseas must be identified, the level of entrepreneurial activities in the United States must be assessed, and a strategic plan for expansion of the venture must be formulated. Leaders must possess strategic thinking and acting skills, along with intuitiveness, to successfully overcome the challenges that will be faced when expanding the business globally. Although the current the level of entrepreneurial activities in the United States is promising, to ensure future success of the company, the venture must merge with an already established movie theater organization.

References

Beatty, K. (2010). Three strengths of a true strategic leader. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/2010/10/27/three-strengths-strategy-leadership-managing-ccl.html

Bell-Materson, J. Z. (2013). U.S. entrepreneurial activity: Why the falling startup rate can be a good sign. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/kauffman/2013/04/17/why-the-falling-startup-rate-could-be-a-good-sign/

Gangemi, J. (2007). Startups across America. Business Week, 28.

Hantzi, A., & Alexander-Stamatios, A. (2012). Merger integration patterns, status of pre-mergerorganizations, stress, and employee health post-combination. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 4(2), 113-127.

Maginn, M. (2008). Who’s next: Succession planning. Management Quarterly, 49(2), 40-46.

Marcus, A. (2011). Management strategy: Achieving sustained competitive advantage (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

SBA.Gov. (2013). Being a leader. Retrieved from http://www.sba.gov/content/being-leader