Recognizing Opportunities and generating Ideas.

Chapter 2
Recognizing
Opportunities and
Generating Ideas
Bruce R. Barringer
R. Duane Ireland
Copyright ©2016 Pearson Education, Inc. 2-1

Chapter Objectives
1 of 2
1. Explain the difference between opportunities and
ideas.
2. Describe the three general approaches entrepreneurs
use to identify opportunities.
3. Discuss the personal characteristics of entrepreneurs
that contribute to their ability to recognize business
opportunities.
4. Identify and describe techniques entrepreneurs use to
generate ideas.

Chapter Objectives
1 of 2
5. Discuss actions to take to encourage continuous
development of new ideas in entrepreneurial firms.

What is an Opportunity?
1 of 2
Opportunity Defined
An opportunity is a favorable
set of circumstances that
creates a need for a new
product, service, or business.

What is an Opportunity?
2 of 2
Four Essential Qualities of an Opportunity

Three Ways to Identify an Opportunity

First Approach: Observing Trends
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• Observing Trends
– Trends create opportunities for entrepreneurs to pursue.
– The most important trends are:
• Economic forces
• Social forces
• Technological advances
• Political and regulatory change
– It’s important to be aware of changes in these areas.

First Approach: Observing Trends
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Environmental Trends Suggesting Business
or Product Opportunity Gaps

Second Approach: Solving a Problem
1 of 2
• Solving a Problem
– Sometimes identifying opportunities simply involves
noticing a problem and finding a way to solve it.
– These problems can be pinpointed through observing
trends and through more simple means, such as intuition,
serendipity, or change.
– Many companies have been started by people who have
experienced a problem in their own lives, and then realized
that the solution to the problem represented a business
opportunity.

Second Approach: Solving a Problem
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• A problem facing the U.S. and
other countries is finding
alternatives to fossil fuels.
• A large number of
entrepreneurial firms, like
this wind farm, are being
launched to solve this problem.

Third Approach: Finding Gaps in the
Marketplace
1 of 2
• Gaps in the Marketplace
– A third approach to identifying opportunities is to find a
gap in the marketplace.
– A gap in the marketplace is often created when a product or
service is needed by a specific group of people but doesn’t
represent a large enough market to be of interest to
mainstream retailers or manufacturers.

Third Approach: Finding Gaps in the
Marketplace
2 of 2
Product gaps in the
marketplace represent
potentially viable
business opportunities.
Specific Example
Tish Cirovolv realized there
were no guitars on the market
made specifically for females.
To fill this gap, she started
Daisy Rock Guitars, a
company that makes guitars
just for women and girls.

Personal Characteristics of the Entrepreneur
Characteristics that tend to make some people better
at recognizing opportunities than others
Prior Experience Cognitive Factors
Social Networks Creativity

Prior Experience
• Prior Industry Experience
– Several studies have shown that prior experience in an
industry helps an entrepreneur recognize business
opportunities.
• By working in an industry, an individual may spot a market niche
that is underserved.
• It is also possible that by working in an industry, an individual
builds a network of social contacts who provide insights that lead
to recognizing new opportunities.

Cognitive Factors
• Cognitive Factors
– Studies have shown that opportunity recognition may be an
innate skill or cognitive process.
– Some people believe that entrepreneurs have a “sixth
sense” that allows them to see opportunities that others
miss.
– This “sixth sense” is called entrepreneurial alertness, which
is formally defined as the ability to notice things without
engaging in deliberate search.

Social Networks
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• Social Networks
– The extent and depth of an individual’s social network
affects opportunity recognition.
– People who build a substantial network of social and
professional contacts will be exposed to more opportunities
and ideas than people with sparse networks.
– Research results suggest that between 40% and 50% of
people who start a business got their idea via a social
contact.
• Strong Tie Vs. Weak Tie Relationships
– All of us have relationships with other people that are
called “ties.” (See next slide.)

Social Networks
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• Nature of Strong-Tie Vs. Weak-Tie Relationships
– Strong-tie relationships are characterized by frequent
interaction and form between coworkers, friends, and
spouses.
– Weak-tie relationships are characterized by infrequent
interaction and form between casual acquaintances.
• Result
– It is more likely that an entrepreneur will get new business
ideas through weak-tie rather than strong-tie relationships.
(See next slide.)

Social Networks
3 of 3
Strong-Tie Relationships Weak-Tie
Relationships
These relationships, which
typically form between like-
minded individuals, tend to
reinforce insights and ideas
that people already have.
These relationships, which
form between casual
acquaintances, are not as
apt to be between like-
minded individuals, so one
person may say something
to another that sparks a
completely new idea.
Why weak-tie relationships lead to more new business ideas
than strong-tie relationships

Creativity
1 of 2
• Creativity
– Creativity is the process of generating a novel or useful
idea.
– Opportunity recognition may be, at least in part, a creative
process.
– For an individual, the creative process can be broken down
into five stages, as shown on the next slide.

Creativity
2 of 2
Five Steps to Generating Creative Ideas

Full View of the Opportunity Recognition
Process
Depicts the connection between an awareness of emerging trends
and the personal characteristics of the entrepreneur

Techniques for Generating Ideas
Brainstorming Focus Groups
Library and
Internet Research

Brainstorming
• Brainstorming
– Is a technique used to generate a large number of ideas and
solutions to problems quickly.
– A brainstorming “session” typically involves a group of
people, and should be targeted to a specific topic.
– Rules for a brainstorming session:
• No criticism.
• Freewheeling is encouraged.
• The session should move quickly.
• Leap-frogging is encouraged.

Focus Groups
• Focus Group
– A focus group is a gathering of five to ten people, who
have been selected based on their common characteristics
relative to the issues being discussed.
– These groups are led by a trained moderator, who uses the
internal dynamics of the group environment to gain insight
into why people feel the way they do about a particular
issue.
– Although focus groups are used for a variety of purposes,
they can be used to help generate new business ideas.

Library and Internet Research
1 of 3
• Library Research
– Libraries are an often underutilized source of information
for generating new business ideas.
– The best approach is to talk to a reference librarian, who
can point out useful resources, such as industry-specific
magazines, trade journals, and industry reports.
– Simply browsing through several issues of a trade journal
or an industry report on a topic can spark new ideas.

2 of 3
Large public and
university libraries
typically have access to
search engines and
industry reports that would
cost thousands of dollars
to access on your own.
Examples of Useful Search
Engines and Industry Reports
• BizMiner
• ProQuest
• IBISWorld
• Mintel
• LexisNexis Academic

3 of 3
• Internet Research
– If you are starting from scratch, simply typing “new
business ideas” into a search engine will produce links to
newspapers and magazine articles about the “hottest” new
business ideas.
– If you have a specific topic in mind, setting up Google mail
alerts will provide you with links to a constant stream of
newspaper articles, blog posts, and news releases about the
topic.
– Targeted searches are also useful.

Other Techniques
• Customer Advisory Boards
– Some companies set up customer advisory boards that meet
regularly to discuss needs, wants, and problems that may
lead to new ideas.
• Day-In-The-Life Research
– A type of anthropological research, where the employees of
a company spend a day with a customer.

Recognizing Opportunities and generating Ideas.

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