SHOULD I START A NEW BUSINESS?

Should I Start A New Business?



Should I Start A New Business?

Introduction

I do think that I should start a new business. Starting a new business needs lots of attention and cautions at the same time. I will consider the following aspects while starting a new business.

As part of a strategy to expand the small and medium-size enterprise (SME) sector, during the 1980s, the UK Government launched the Enterprise Allowance Scheme (EAS). This offered unemployed persons the opportunity to qualify for an allowance of L40 per week for a year if they decided to start their own business. Administered by the Manpower Services Commission (MSC), later retitled the Training Agency, the scheme initially made no assumptions about the ability of participants to become effective owner/managers.

In recognition of this problem, therefore, the MSC funded the provision of a Business Enterprise Programme (BEP), which people considering self-employment could attend. Once this provision was established, the MSC also created the Business Enterprise Scheme (BES), which consisted of free-standing one-day modules covering various aspects of small business operations, such as accounting, personal selling and advertising. These training programmes were also complemented by the availability of one-to-one counselling, through organizations such as the local Enterprise Agencies (LEAs), the Small Firms Service and the Rural Development Commission.

At the end of the 1980s, the UK Government decided that nationally administered schemes ran the risk of not creating training support appropriate to specific local economic development needs. In an attempt to overcome this problem, and the criticism that industry was not given sufficient influence over the use of public expenditure on training schemes, the Government initiated the establishment of Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs). The TEC boards were drawn from the local community, and initial staffing of the operations was achieved mainly by the secondment of civil servants from the Training Agency.

One of the early TECs was that created for Devon and Cornwall. In the preparation of a business plan, this new organization recognized that, as the SME sector provides an above average proportion of employment in the two counties, then provision of an effective support scheme for new business start-ups should receive very careful consideration. To achieve this goal, the Devon and Cornwall TEC established a working party, comprising industrialists and Training Agency staff, who then directed the Plymouth Business School to advise on the creation of an appropriate training model for the new scheme. The purpose of the article is to describe the methodology, development process and final outcome of the scheme.

Selection of an Appropriate Training Model

Standard models for the design and development of training provision follow the process, as typified by that suggested by Goldstein 1!, which is a sequential activity involving:

(1) Definition of training needs in terms of the task and the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA) required of the trainee.

(2) Specification of training objectives.

(3) Development of an appropriate training programme.

(4) Determination of criteria to be utilized to assess the impact of the training ...