Part 6: Company Interview

Introduction

For this part of coursework, I would like to interview any successful entrepreneurial company. Interviewing an entrepreneurial company would support my professional development, as I intend to start my own business at small scale, right after the completion of this program.

I have included questions from different categories in my interview, as these would help in understanding the business strategies of a successful and running company. I mainly focused on the business areas such as overview of the business and its strategies, marketing, accounting and human resources functions, leadership strategies, international business management, and use of technology. This paper will discuss some important questions that I would like to ask the entrepreneur. In addition, I have also included a brief description that why would I like to ask these questions.

Questions to Ask

What were the factors on which the owner decided to start the current business? How she started? When she started?

How did the owner manage the finance required for starting up the business?

What is the ownership style utilized by company? Is it a corporation, proprietary, or partnership?

Has the company set any mission/vision statement? How these are set?

What major products or service does the company provide? How did the company decide for launching specific products?

How does the company achieve competitive advantage? What are the most important strategies in this regard?

Are the goals and objectives of the company clearly defined to the employees?

What is the (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) SWOT statement of the company? How often does the company conduct this analysis?

How does the company manage the basic business functions, such as Human Resource Management, and customer Service Management?

What is the leadership style of the company? Is it transformational, autocratic, democratic, distributed or any other? What was the reason of selecting the specific leadership style?

What is the recruitment and selection process of the company? What criteria make an employee selected?

How does the company promote employee's learning and development? Are there some personal development

What are the most common complaints the company has to face from employees/customers?

How does the company motivate the employees to work?

In what cases, does the company fire an employee?

What are the marketing and promotion methodologies of the company? Are these methodologies similar or different for different products? If different, then on what basis does the company decide about these strategies?

What are the pricing strategies of the company? What does the company do to achieve competitive advantage in pricing?

What are the technologies used by company? How do these technologies support the business functions/operations of the company?

Who is responsible for managing the accounting function of the company? How does the company decide who should be given responsibility of accounting and finance?

What is the profit/loss trend of the company, since its establishment?

What are the international business management and global expansion strategies of the company?

On what factors, does the company decide whether or not to invest in a particular country?

Please furnish some examples for illustrating the concepts of global suppliers, vendors and customers?

Discussion

First part of my interview would focus ...