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An Entrepreneurial concept can only succeed in a window ofopportunity,or more properly,when a series of windows coincide. Theentrepreneur must be able to access an appropriate level of technology, andthe market must be capable of absorbing a sufficient quantity ofproduct.These two factors are not entirely independent : the marketscapacity to absorb product will be affected by the price , which will in turn be

affected by the state of the available technology .

Even when the technology works and the market wants it,there may besocial or physical barriers to its widespread adoption.Above all,invention isnot innovation .just because something can be made doesnt mean thatpeople are prepared to pay for it.

PROFILE

Sir Reginald Myles Ansett KBE

SEIZING THE TIME

R.M. Ansett was born in 1909 in northern Victoria. His father run a smallbicycle repair business until he enlisted in the first AIF for service in france.On his return from the war, Ansetts father used his resettlement bonus tobuy a small knitting mill in Melbourne, and R.M. Ansett left school at 14 andbecame an apprentice mechanic in the factory. Young R.M. Ansett decidedto do some relocating of his own. Ansett liked machinery at least as well ashe liked people, and had a particular fascination with aircraft and flying. in1929 he gained a civil pilots licence. Ansett had some money in his pocketfrom his work in the Northern territory. then offered a hybrid taxi/busservice, based on Hamilton , taking graziers and other affluent men and their

families between their homes and the main railway centres of Hamilton andBallarat.Ansetts business grew, and he bought more vehicles, engaged moredrivers, and opened a maintenance workshop in Hamilton. In 1935 Ansettextended his services through ballarat to Melbourne,paralleling one of therailway systems busiest and most lucrative passenger routes, and thegovernment acted to preserve this revenue, effectively banning theoperation of private buses or taxis between Melbourne and ballarat.Ansettdid continue to develop his bus routes, and his pioneer coach lineseventually became australias largest long-distance road operator.

Ansetts airline network could, by the expedient of incorporating interstate

towns,enjoy protection against state regulation . Ansetts network expanded, after a successful stock market float in 1936 enabled him to buy three twin-engine, ten-passanger Lockheed 10B aircraft , and by the outbreak of theSecond World War Ansett services were linking Narrandera ,Mildura andBroken hill to Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. When the war ended ,Ansettowned world-class airframe ,engine,and instrument maintenance and testingfacilities,but no aircraft and no route licences. the first post-war prime

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minister was Ben chifley, a former engine driver on the NSW governmentrailways, and no admirer oflaissez faire.

The chifley government bought out te private shareholders n Qantas,Australias Overseas airline,and when the holyman family refused to sellAustralian National Airways (ANA), Australias major domestic airline, thegovernment started Trans Australia Airways in competition with ANA. After1949 elections the Menzies Liberal government replace Chiifley,and Ansettapproached Menzies, offering to buy TAA and free the government from thetaint of socialism.

Ansett remarked to his friend F.W. Haig that he would like to replace ANA asthe official non-government carrier under the two-airline policy,but thatraising the capital needed looked like a problem.

In 1969 Mr R.M. Ansett became Sir Reginald. He continued to buy up regionalairlines. Ansett himself was ambushed in 1979, when a joint bid from TNTand News Limited succeeded in a contested takeover. He was promoted to

non-Voting chairman, and allowed to retain 0.5 per cent of the commonshares during his lifetime. He died in 1982, an essentially private man, butAnsett Airlines continued to thrive.