Q.Explain any four functions of an entrepreneur.

Beyond simply having a business idea, an entrepreneur is expected to actually carry out a fixed set of functions to turn that idea into a running enterprise.

An entrepreneur performs a distinct set of functions in building and running an enterprise, of which any four may be explained:

1. Idea generation / innovation -- conceiving a new product, process, or market, or a more efficient way of doing something that already exists.
2. Determination of business objectives -- deciding in clear terms what the enterprise is meant to achieve, and for which market.
3. Raising and assembling resources -- mobilising finance, land, machinery, and manpower, and combining them into a coordinated working unit.
4. Risk-bearing -- committing capital and effort to an outcome that is never certain, and personally absorbing the loss if the venture does not succeed.

(Other valid functions a student may substitute: decision-making, performing managerial/supervisory functions especially in the enterprise's early stages, and providing employment once the enterprise succeeds.)

Students often confuse the entrepreneur's function of "assembling resources" with the manager's routine function of "supervising" them day to day -- the entrepreneur's role is to build the organisation in the first place, which is a distinct, one-time (or renewed at each expansion) function.