Background
I had an interview with a businessman and current mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, Lenny Curry. He was elected in 2015. In addition to being a co-founder of ICX Group, Curry used to be a chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. He got an accounting degree from the University of Florida. After graduation, in 1994, Curry started to work as a certified public accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he worked until 2002 when he co-founded a company called ICX Group (Monroe, 2017). His wish to run for the mayor's seat originates from his opinion that the former mayor was incompetent and could not improve the city. His company offers business consultations and a wide range of services in different fields ("ICX Group - Homepage", 2017). ICX Group provides other businesses with skilled professional services such as accounting and other consultancy services. The areas of interest in which the ICX Group operates include Finance and Accounting, Tax, Information Technology, Internal Audit Risk and Compliance, and Human Resources.
Interview Transcript
Me:
Good afternoon Mr. Mayor.Curry:
Good afternoon to you.Me:
Thanks for finding time in your busy schedule to meet with me on short notice. I hope you can recall I had informed you in the letter that I would be coming to talk with about business and not politics.Curry:
(Nodding his head with a light smile) Yes, I do remember very well, and the reason I decided to give you an appointment is that I thought you might learn from this interview for your academics as well as for your future life if you want to be a businessman in the future.Me:
I am grateful for your time and optimistic of learning a lot. To begin with, I would like you to tell me about your overall experience in the business. How has it been running a company for more than a decade?Curry:
I can't say the journey has been easy, but it has been full of ups and downs and I am grateful that every step I have gone through has been a chance for me to learn new dynamics in business.Me:
How did you learn the lessons from operating your company and what were the lessons?Curry:
Business success and failures have always been the center of operating a business. I have always been keen to establish the cause of the success and failure. The next step from such analysis has been working hard to improve the success factors and avoid the factors that had caused failure in the past.Me:
What has been your greatest lesson from those failures and success in business?Curry:
I have learned that competition is the biggest determinant in business and your ability to cope with it determines your success.Me:
What are some of the opportunities and risks in business?Curry:
Operating your own business comes with several advantages, and risks are never exempted from the equation. The opportunities include the ability to grow your business depending on services provided to customers. If the customers get the satisfaction they need from a service or product, then you can grow your business based on referrals, and this helps a lot in cutting down the business expenditures in promoting your business. The major risk in business is that new entrants into the industry are non-stop and if you fail to keep up with the trends in the industry then I can assure you that your business is headed for doom.Me:
As we wind up our interview, what is your opinion about the impact of technology on business?Curry:
Technology is the center of all businesses in the world today. Some businesses run entirely on technology. For most businesses, technology has helped so much in reducing business costs such as labor costs because technology has replaced human labor. Technology is also a key instrument in communications whether it is within the organization or between the business and the customers.Summary
The survival and growth of a business depend on how the owners view the success and failure of the business. The success and failures of the business give a clue on what should be done to improve the business performance. The ability of the business to cope with competition determines its growth as well as its survival. Customer referrals due to satisfactory services can significantly reduce the promotional expenditures. Technology has contributed a lot to today's business, and it's the center upon which businesses thrive.
References
ICX Group - Homepage. (2017). Retrieved on March 15, 2017 from http://icxgroup.com/
Monroe, N. (2016). Mayor Lenny Curry is confident, but unknowns abound in pension-reform efforts. Retrieved on March 15, 2017 from http://jacksonville.com/news/2016-12-11/mayor-lenny-curry-confident-unknowns-abound-pension-reform-efforts
