On paper, this proverb is easy to analyze when looked at from the business point of view. But what about when the entire industry is recessed? While consumers are still waiting for economic indicators like energy commodities to reflect an upwards swing in the economy, entrepreneurship is at its height. For example, when oil reached its price of $147/barrel in 2008, national enthusiasm over companies with renewable energy plans ensued. Jean Baptiste Say first coined the term “entrepreneur” in the 19th century, explaining the entrepreneur is someone who shifts an enterprise or economic resources out of lower efficiency and into higher productivity and greater yield. Today’s less eloquent, yet still entirely accurate, words on entrepreneurs is that they are: creative, extroverted, risk taking, and innovative. Since the significant dip the recession caused on the global level, the competitive landscape is fueled and shaped by risk, innovativeness and cost efficiency. Several companies in the energy industry that possess this “opportunity recognition”, this ability to change business norms, are exploring not only new avenues of service but also their managerial staff and current technologies, something Socrates would be a supporting fan of. This equation of “Risk +Innovation+ Opportunity = Achievement” has been taken on by leading entrepreneurs in the energy industry, and has resulted in an interesting shift in the competitive landscape. The most generous government subsidies by far, which companies compete for, are received by creative companies in the wind energy field. Cue Joe Jacobs.
Joe Jacobs dropped out of high school his first year to work on their families’ Montana ranch full time. They were faced with the problem of local electricity bills climbing much higher than their town’s “cost of living” could afford. As a response they spent three months in their barn building, what at first was dubbed, “eccentric and irresponsible” by their family and peers in 1926. What they had designed was the first wind energy turbine. Now producing on all five major continents, they are the leading company in supporting high current local electricity. Working “locally” on five continents is quite an achievement, along with contributing to a 50% increase in United States wind power plants since 2007. After five decades in the energy industry, Jacobs hadn’t lost his touch at all. He recognized the environmental issue of offshore drilling and the lack of movement in the field. Now working alongside Dong Energy, Jacobs Wind Energy Co, Inc. has pioneered the renewable field of offshore wind farming. Of the approximate 150,000,000 households and 27,500,000 businesses in the United States, these two companies supply 800,000 of each with energy farm from lakes, rivers, and oceans. Responding to the concerns over deforestation and large tracts of land being torn up for wind farms, companies like these two have found a creative way around it. The ripple effect throughout the energy industry is a managerial shift and search for creative employees who will change the industry like Joe Jacobs has.
The following web-pages and organizations were used in this post and can provide more information on the topic:
Although the green energy industry seems to be less competitive than the oil and natural gas industry, I think the green energy companies would definitely gain long term profits.
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