Entrepreneurship & possesses
An entrepreneur is a person who possesses an enterprise. This person accepts the financial and other risks associated with the formation of this enterprise and exploits the opportunities in order to form this enterprise. The word ‘entrepreneur’ is derived from two French words ‘entre’ meaning to enter and ‘prendre’ meaning ‘to take’. The combination of this word means to take in a new opportunity and accept the financial risks associated with that opportunity and start a new enterprise. (Steven, 6, 2003).
An entrepreneur has to be an ambitious person in order to make use of the land, labor, raw materials and capital to create new goods and services for its target market. An entrepreneur is a leader and has to be ambitious in order to deal with the difficulties of the entrepreneurship. According to a French Economist, “An entrepreneur is one who undertakes an enterprise, especially a contractor, acting as intermediary between capital and labor” (Hindle, 77, n. d) An entrepreneur has to seek ad opportunity and carve a niche for himself in the market which might not be presently noticeable.
These people are leaders who accept high level of not only financial but personal and professional risk associated with that opportunity. The main aim of this paper is to identify an entrepreneur in Pakistan who started a new business and has been successful in it. The paper aims to defines what an entrepreneur actually is and how these entrepreneurs serve as leaders and icons for other people, as they take up huge risks associated with a certain business, but most importantly these people identify a business opportunity which is present in the market but has not been identified yet.
These people create a niche for themselves in the market and hence form an enterprise. The paper will take an example of a current entrepreneur who started small in Pakistan and has come a long way. This example will be studies in detail giving how this person started and what problems he had to face when he got in the business world. Tee Jays Tee Jays is a highly respected name in the fashion industry. It was formed some thirty years ago and has been popular since. The entrepreneur of Tee Jays is Tanveer Jamshed whose initials have formed the name of this company.
Tanveer Jamshed is the person who has brought a revolution in the fashion industry and has made this fashion accessible to the masses. Earlier it was the top people in upper class who were able to use some fashion sense in their clothing. The rest of the population either could not afford or feared being labeled as ‘fashionable’. When Tee Jays came in market it was the time when there was a differentiation between good girls, who wore plain shalwar kameez and had no sense of fashion at all, and then there were fashionable girls.
These fashionable girls used some kind of fashion sense in their clothing and therefore never got married. This reflects how fashion was considered a taboo at that time. (Sartaj, n. p, 2007). Tanveer Jamshed has brought a revolution in the fashion industry. It remains as a fashion brand accessible to the upper class and the masses both. Even today, there is no label which is available to all the classes and is affordable too. Tee Jays has won Life Time achievement award in Fashion. This is a high honor and Tee Jays won it back in 1993 when fashion was still not acceptable in our society. (Sartaj, n. p, 2007).
According to Tanveer Jamshed, when he started everybody criticized him and even his family members did not support him telling that he will not succeed. He thought women can wear different sorts of shalwar suit designs (which were only a very few), why do men have to wear the same design always with a plain colored cloth to make the entire suit. He started with only two sewing machines and created a new trend in the fashion industry. He brought in new styles and designs in shalwar suits for men. Shalwar suit being the national dress of Pakistan was worn a lot and hence needed a bit fashion and designing.
According to Tanveer Jamshed, his upbringing was the main reason behind his innovative ideas. Creativity is the key word for him and he still believes that either a person has creativity or he does not. Creativity cannot be forced upon any one and has no degrees and boundaries. Tanveer Jamshed’s forefathers were gentile army personnel. Tanveer Jamshed had studies in Karachi Grammar which was and still is the elitist school of Karachi. His evenings were spent in Sindh Club therefore; he had some creativity in him which he calls as his “Genetic disorder”.
Tanveer Jamshed has always been progressive and so were his ideas. Even though he started aiming to change men’s shalwar suit, he also entered the female shalwar kameez zone and started to show his creativity there too. (Isani, n. p, 2007) It was in 1973, when Tee Jays designed his first wardrobe for a TV play on PTV. It was Roohi Bano’s wardrobe which he designed for the classic Drama Kiran Kahani. After the hit wardrobe of Roohi Bano in this drama, he then designed for Uncle Urfi and Zer Zabar Pesh. According to him it was not as easy as it seems.
It was firstly difficult to get people to understand what he had in mind and what changes he would like to bring it. People thought that these changes would no get accepted and that his designs would be a clear flop. Later he also organized a fashion show in his college and to him everything was an invention. Another difficulty he faced was of advertising. At that time there were no fashion advertisers present therefore it was difficult for him to get his ideas across to the people. No advertisements on television about fashion or large billboards which could reflect what he was trying to bring in.
The only form of marketing for him was through television dramas. He designed wardrobes for almost 147 dramas and this is how he advertised. Later he also opened various shops with psychedelic posters of his. People started to call him the crazy man as he was the only one with these ideas and designs which were totally new and a bit unacceptable to the people. (Isani, n. p, 2007) At that time people in the high class considered shalwar kameez as a taboo. They would rather wear their nigh suits while going for shopping then wear shalwar kameez.
Shalwar kameez, at that time was for the masses and the middle class people. The British had left the Pakistani society with a shame of their national dress. People were and still are every impressed with the western culture and hence there was a need to bring in some change which would help these people accept their own national dress. Tee Jays has revolutionized the way people think about shalwar kameez. Suddenly, shalwar kameez became acceptable to the upper class. It now became exciting and people started to seek new designs in shalwar kameez. Later when Gen.
Zia ul Haq came he imposed shalwar kameez on everyone. According to Tanveer Jamshed when something is imposed on people, even if it is good people tend to throw it away the first chance they get. This over killed the excitement of the shalwar kameez which Tanveer Jamshed had managed to create slowly and steadily in a few years. As soon as Zia ul Haq went the shalwar kameez culture died and people started to wear pant shirts and now they had the liberty to do so. (Isani, n. p, 2007) At that time, tee Jays went in the background and sales dropped as now less people wore shalwar suits.
They now had the liberty of wearing pant shirts as Gen Zia had gone. According to Tanveer Jamshed, Shalwar Kameez is not a uniform it is our national dress and we should be proud to wear it. It took a lot of years for Tee Jays to get Shalwar Kameez acceptable to the upper class and also make it available for the masses. Like said earlier, an entrepreneur is not just a person who comes up with a new idea and makes a new organization. An entrepreneur is a leader, who brings innovative changes which are not only for the betterment of the society but also provide the society with something good.
Tee Jays provided the society with a sense of being a Pakistani. He provided the society the acceptance and love of their national dress. Tee Jays has brought a drastic change in the society, people who were not willing to wear shalwar kameez at all, were now readily buying various designs of shalwar suits depending on their needs and the number of occasion they have to go to. (Isani, n. p, 2007) When Tee Jays came up he had only two sewing machines, Very little money, unsupportive people around him who thought he was a crazy person to come up with such idea and almost no playing field in the fashion industry.
People thought that how will he ever manage to bring in different designs in a thing which people do not wear at all. At that time there were no services which could provide marketing for his designs. He had to do that on his own too. Tanveer Jamshed opened various shops all around the city and put up various posters of tee Jays. People started to call him the crazy man to do such things, as at that time there was no advertising for the fashion industry. (Isani, n. p, 2007).
