Innovative entrepreneurship: Crucial to ensure continuing success

By Dr B K Mukhopadhyay

It is now well known that Tata Motors has earned the global distinction of being most innovative [vide BCG Survey on top 50 innovative Companies]. Side by side, it remains a fact that most organizations want to achieve growth through innovation but fail because their processes, culture and approaches trap them into incremental innovation. The question now arises: can large enterprises be faster at engaging with innovative technologies? It would be a powerful competitive advantage for those that figure it out. Who’ll be first? Let us search for the answers.

Creating more business and more jobs through fast-growing, innovative firms is one of the key objectives of any economy. As things stand now the crucial need is there to support innovation in existing companies, while at the same time creating new business opportunities. The vital ingredients in fostering entrepreneurial activities are to be located which could accelerate resource flow - fince and magement in particular- targeting at enhancing business skills.

It has been a well known fact today that innovation and entrepreneurship are strong vectors to overcome global societal challenges. The need is there for placing a strong emphasis on developing the next generation of young entrepreneurs, encouraging and supporting individuals and companies to develop innovative ideas and take them to the market, thus contributing to a more innovative and competitive environment.

The crucial need is there to alyze and provide entrepreneurs with information on the ongoing facts and circumstances, experiences gained over time and preparing a road map in creating high quality and successful entrepreneurs.  The very task is to foster innovative entrepreneurship, to help overcome the PEST [Political, Economic, Social and Technological] impediments and mindset restrictions in this are and to share experience with the successful ventures participating in the process and thus help them to scale up their businesses – and thus fostering the development of new businesses, widening specialized business support that is committed to reinforcing the young ventures especially.

In addition the techniques of resource generation/principles for funding, monitoring and evaluating projects are required to be scanned and detailed information must be shared as to how to forge ahead encompassing risk magement strategies/aspects. Creating a wider opportunity to interact with real magement experts could help share the knowledge.

In such a process the very steps required for decreasing the average time to market innovations emerge to be very crucial - accelerating time to market innovations through demonstration actions, facilitating experience labs and demand-side measures.

In order to tackle this gap in entrepreneurial mindset, the knowledge bank has to contribute to the task of creating a more favourable environment in an economy for talent and entrepreneurship driven innovation to flourish. One of the major challenges on this score is to achieve a shift in the perception and recognition of entrepreneurs in this fast changing global environment.

This necessarily calls for exchanging views and experiences by encompassing individuals with an outstanding record of excellence in entrepreneurial, innovative and fincial enterprises – based on mutual inspiration and dialogue in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation between the academicians, top level entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs-to-be and other stakeholders, industry and Government institutions.

Thus, the very mission has to be : contributing to the process of enhancing sustaible growth and competitiveness; reinforcing the innovation capacity; and to create the entrepreneurs of tomorrow and prepare for the next innovative breakthroughs - the aim targeting boosting the innovation process: from idea to product; from product to market; from student to entrepreneur and from minnows to biggies.

This is why boosting and encouraging individuals, academicians and companies to embrace innovation and take it to the market have to remain as the top priorities now - especially so far as the developing world is concerned.

Side by side, considering the state of mediocre knowledge prevailing with a section of so called trainers - sharing the ongoing facts and circumstances with the present day entrepreneurs will help the former to acquire a firsthand knowledge about the reality, the hurdles and locate the future growth areas. In turn, from the real experts in the related field the entrepreneurs will be able to boost their knowledge level as to the latest magement principles and thoughts which will help them to handle the problem areas, to get further motivated and look forward to a rosy picture under a globalized environment.

By connecting business and academic research, businesses stand to gain as they seek for fresh opportunities to commercialize the most up-to-date and relevant research findings, with the aim of giving the economy comparative advantage in the latest technological and non-technological fields as well as in open innovation. In return, academic institutions will benefit from additiol resources, an enhanced networking capacity, and new research perspectives stressing interdiscipliry approaches in areas with strong societal and economic importance.

So, such initiatives will try to integrate all three sides of the Knowledge Triangle              (updated education, research and business). The integration of all three sides and the effective transmission and sharing of knowledge, information and skills for joint exploration will be crucial for delivering the good and open further growth opportunities that economies like India, Bangladesh, Vietm, among others, have been desperately seeking for, in as much as the academicians, and present and future entrepreneurs, if go on working in isolation, would be much less effective in delivering the results needed as demanded by the global markets and forward-looking consumers in the days to come.

By adding higher magerial inputs into the mix, businesses will be able to take advantage of a workforce with skills tailored to their needs so as to be able to drive their market share ahead. Side by side, learners will benefit from an education that will make them more attractive to future employers and also more apt at contributing to the development of those employers’ businesses.

This, in turn, will help entrepreneurs translate their ideas into successful businesses; getting support for technology, market assessment, access to human resources, mentoring and fince, while at the same time develop a clear strategy towards the penetration of the overseas markets, breaking the existing fragmentation around tiol markets and overcoming the entrepreneurs latent fear in moving abroad.

It has rightly been assessed that without the dogged persistence and patient work of all these people, nothing innovative would ever penetrate into large corporations, and there have been an astounding number of barriers to adopting anything new. Still, big businesses in particular have the most to win because they can scale productivity gains across their global platforms. Getting through the many corporate barriers to innovation is a feat, obvious enough!!

The upshot: explore excellence in business, education, entrepreneurship and research for world class innovation. In view of making this operatiol, an integrated partnerships composing of businesses, entrepreneurs, universities, research institutes and technology centres will produce new innovation models and inspire others to emulate them.

(The writer, a noted Magement Economist and an Intertiol Commentator on Business and Economic Affairs, Director, Netaji Subhas Institute of Business Magement, Jharkhand, can be reached at m.bibhas@gmail.com)