The
talk allows delegates to empathise with, understand and ‘feel’
the world of the Asian entrepreneur. It prepares students to think
about the risky, uncertain and challenging environment for new business
ventures through exploring:
The
Entrepreneurial Mindset
• Insight into the ways entrepreneurs behave and why. Learn
from these skilled negotiators.
Entrepreneurial
Behaviours, Skills and Attributes
• Explore the behaviours, attributes and skills associated
with being entrepreneurial
Opportunity
Recognition and the importance of family and networking
• Learn from the Asian entrepreneurs in applying these skills
and using their family and community networks
Rewards
of Entrepreneurship
• Understand the dynamics and richness of diversity and its
rewards for entrepreneurship.
Making
It Happen
• The relevance of these to the future careers of many in
the widest sense and to promote entrepreneurship as a career path.
For
two decades, entrepreneurs have been eulogised in the popular press.
At a time when real heroes are hard to find, it is the entrepreneur,
the dynamic go-getting risk taker, who has become the hero of free
enterprise. At the cutting edge of the British entrepreneurial community
are the Asian businesses featured in this new book by Dr Spinder
Dhaliwal Making a Fortune: Learning from the Asian Phenomenon.
The
book takes in businesses from manufacturing to finance, from food
to hotels, from pharmaceuticals to fashion. It includes first-,
second- and third-generation achievers. It provides the definitive
guide to ‘who’s who’ in the Asian business world.
At
the end of The Producers, Mel Brooks asks ‘where did we go
right?’ Spinder Dhaliwal asked herself the same question at
the start of this book. If the results of these entrepreneurs were
achieved in decades full of challenge and controversy, the past
few years have been no different: sluggish economic growth, stock
market uncertainty and question marks about the housing market provide
the starkest of economic backdrops to this compendium of Asian success.
Through
illustrations and examples of both personal and business issues,
Spinder illustrates the triumphs and challenges facing these individuals,
how disasters were overcome and how they fought against the odds
to be outstanding role models for anyone interested in business
or making money. She tells a story of grit and determination to
succeed, and draws out the lessons so anyone, whether budding or
existing entrepreneurs, Asian or not, can learn from these amazing
individuals.
If
nothing else, this workshop is testament to the diversity of Asian
talent in the UK. As well as diversity there is also change. Perhaps
the era of the privately owned Asian business is coming to an end.
These businesses have raised millions in new capital despite the
harshest of climates and some, like Cobra Beer, continue to work
towards the aim of floating on the stock market.
Spinder
wrote the influential study 'Silent Contributors –
Asian Female Entrepreneurs and Women in Business”
which highlighted this important, yet often neglected, issue. Her
report for Barclays Bank entitled, ‘Asian entrepreneurs
in the UK’ received global attention.
Spinder
knows all about the challenges of the Asian entrepreneur from first
hand experience. Her parents, who came to the UK from the Punjab
in the 1960s, ran a corner shop in which Spinder balanced the demands
of a busy family business with high academic achievement.
She has been a regular contributor to the Asian media and, in the
past few years, has become an increasingly influential figure in
more mainstream circles. She was the founder and director of the
Centre for Asian Entrepreneurial Research and is a Board Member
of the Institute of Small Business and Enterprise. Spinder is also
invited to address audiences as a speaker, is a freelance writer
and helps major organisations target and understand the Asian community. |