Henry Ford is widely regarded as one of the greatest innovators and industrialists of all time.

He "ignited" the industrial revolution with his ingenious assembly line, made "inroads" in aviation, developed school systems, published a controversial newspaper, and even made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 1918. Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 April 7, 1947) was a prominent American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry. As owner of the Ford Motor Company, he became one of the richest and best-known people in the world. He is credited with "Fordism": mass production of inexpensive goods coupled with high wages for workers. Ford left most of his vast wealth to the Ford Foundation. In 1891, Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company. His personal experiments with gasoline engines culminated in 1896 with the completion of a self-propelled vehicle which he named the Ford Quadricycle. Ford designed and built a second vehicle, completing it in 1898. Backed by the capital of Detroit lumber baron William H. Murphy, Ford resigned from Edison and founded the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. However, the automobiles produced were of a lower quality and higher price than Ford liked. Ultimately, the company was not successful and was dissolved in 1901. Ford designed, built, and successfully raced a 26-horsepower automobile in 1901. With this success, Murphy and other stockholders in the Detroit Automobile Company formed the Henry Ford Company in November 1901, with Ford as chief engineer. This company was also short lived due to diverging opinions of the stockholders on the target market for automobiles. Later, Ford received the backing of an old acquaintance, Alexander Y. Malcomson, a Detroit-area coal dealer. They formed a partnership, "Ford & Malcomson, Ltd." to manufacture automobiles. Ford went to work designing an inexpensive automobile. Ford would go on to build cars assigned with a letter code such as the Model A, Model B and so on up to Model T. The Model T was a clunky, unattractive, efficient and dependable car that sold over a half million cars over a 5 year period. This success led to the rapid growth of the Ford Motor Company which at that point employed 4,000 people. Today the company employs several hundred thousand people around the globe. Ford was a pioneer of "welfare capitalism", designed to improve the lot of his workers and especially to reduce the heavy turnover. Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering a $5 per day wage ($110 today), which more than doubled the rate of most of his workers. Ford, like other automobile companies, entered the aviation business during World War I, building Liberty engines. After the war, it returned to auto manufacturing until 1925, when Ford acquired the Stout Metal Airplane Company. Ford has been honored by the Smithsonian Institution for changing the aviation industry. In 1933, the Ford Airplane Division shut down because of poor sales during the Great Depression.

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin againthis time more intelligently Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievementHenry Ford

What Makes Ford a Great Entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea and is accountable for the inherent risks and the outcome of a product. Entrepreneur is a term applied to a person who is willing to help launch a new venture or enterprise and accept full responsibility for the outcome. But being an entrepreneur is about more than just starting a business or two, it is about having attitude and the drive to succeed in business. All successful Entrepreneurs have a similar way of thinking and possess several key personal qualities that make them so successful in business. Henry Ford was nearly 40 when he founded Ford Motor Co. in 1903. At the time, "horseless carriages" were expensive toys available only to a wealthy few. Yet in just four decades, Ford's innovative vision of mass production would not only produce the first reliable, affordable "automobile for the masses," but would also spark a modern industrial revolution. Desire is one keyword which typifies great entrepreneurs. Successful entrepreneurs all had intense desire within themselves to pursue their dreams. Entrepreneurs are self-confident and have immense belief on themselves that they can succeed no matter what. They dont fear failure, refuse to stop at the sight of obstacles. Rather they try to work their way out of difficulties. Henry Ford was not an exception to this as well. Ford fought many battles. In the early years, he had a near fatal legal bout with George Selden. Selden and his group held a patent for "road locomotives". Ford fought in court and won the right to build and sell automobiles without royalty payments. Fords first company, The Detroit Automobile Co. went bankrupt within two years of starting. His second company, The Henry Ford Co. fell due to a dispute among its investors. Even after these two failures, Ford refused to stop pursuing his dream. He set up his third company, Ford Motor Co. Successful entrepreneurs have the nick of taking calculated risks. They have the intuition about to what extent a certain venture is plausible in producing positive outcomes or if a risk is worth taking. Despite the initial two significant drawbacks, Ford did not stop; he took the risk of setting up his third

venture. Ford Motor Corporation at an early stage had a bank balance of only $223.65. Later, Ford's estate was valued at over $200 million and became one of the largest public trusts in the U.S. Successful entrepreneurs have great negotiating and interpersonal communication skills. Ford had these too. In spite of the fact that, his two initial ventures were failures, he still managed to convince investors to invest in his third venture. Ford successfully found investors for each of his business as they bought in to his passion, skill, and instinct. This talks of his outstanding communication and persuasive skills. Entrepreneurs focus on meeting the needs of consumers and fine-tuning the existing models to fit different markets. As has been proven, it is just as important as creating something groundbreaking. While most other automakers were building luxury-laden automobiles for the wealthy, Ford had a different vision. His dream was to create an automobile that everyone could afford. The Model T made this dream a reality. Simpler, more reliable and cheaper, the Model T-nicknamed the "Tin Lizzie"-went on sale in 1908 and was so successful within just a few months that Ford had to announce that the company couldn't accept any more orders-the factory was already swamped. Ford had succeeded in making an automobile for the masses. But only to create a new challenge- how to build up production to satisfy demand. Innovativeness is another key trait of great entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs always try to innovate. They dont get bogged down due to problems. Rather they try to connect the dots and come up with out of the box strategies. Such creative thinking often opens new windows of opportunity for them. Successful entrepreneurs know how to innovate and get out of unfavourable situations. Fords innovativeness and creative thinking solved the problem of the rapidly increasing demand. He introduced the assembly line model. Ford reasoned that if each worker remained in one assigned place and performed one specific task, they could build automobiles more quickly and efficiently. At peak efficiency, the old system had spit out a finished Model T in 12 and a half working hours. The new system cut that time by more than half. Ford refined and perfected the system, and within a year it took just 93 minutes to make a car. Because of the more efficient production, Ford was able to cut hundreds of dollars off the price of his car. Cutting the price enabled Ford to achieve his two aims in life-to bring the pleasures of the automobile to as many people as possible, and to provide a large number of high-paying jobs. But there was one problem Ford hadn't foreseen. Doing the same task hour after hour, day after day quickly burned out his work force. The turnover rate became such a problem that the company had to hire close to 1,000 workers for every 100 jobs it hoped to fill. However, Ford was a very driven man. He had a solution to this problem as well. He believed highly in the quality of life for employees. He was a pioneer offering profit-sharing to employees salaries at $5 and then $6 per day which were well above usual wages. As a result, workers flocked to the company, his labor problems were solved. The move proved extremely profitable; instead of constant turnover of employees, the best mechanics in Detroit flocked to Ford, bringing their human capital and expertise, raising productivity, and lowering training costs.

Passion is one of the most important traits of the successful entrepreneur. They genuinely love their work. They are willing to put in those extra hours to make the business succeed because there is a joy their business gives which goes beyond the money. The successful entrepreneur will always be reading and researching ways to make the business better. There are stories of engineers telling Ford that adding additional cylinders simply weren't possible. Ford would tell them that it was possible and refuse to stop trying as if he knew sooner or later it will be possible and ask the engineers just to keep trying to find the way without questioning its viability. This passion of his contributed largely in his becoming one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time. All these traits and characteristics discussed above can be attributed to Henry Fords emergence as a great entrepreneur. His achievements talk about his success as an entrepreneur. Ford was the winner of the award of Car Entrepreneur of the Century in 1999. In December 1999, Ford was among 18 included in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th Century, from a poll conducted of the American people. In 1928, Ford was awarded the Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal. The United States Postal Service honored Ford with a Prominent Americans series (19651978) 12 postage stamp.

Bibliography
Entrepreneur's Hall of Fame: Henry Ford . (n.d.). Retrieved from Let's Talk Business Network: http://www.ltbn.com/hall_of_fame/Ford.html Henry Ford. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_ford Henry Ford Biography. (n.d.). Retrieved from Woopidoo! Biographies: http://www.woopidoo.com/biography/henry-ford/index.htm