Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 26 mar 2014

Although large and established organizations have best talent and process execution abilities but they are less inclined to incorporate startup culture as they try to maintain status quo, stability, size and reduced appetite for risk taking. Justin Ferrell of Stanford d.School suggests the following for individuals that have expertise, restlessness and irrationality to catalyze startup culture in established organizations - Encourage the uncomfortable, in yourself and in others; Bypass authority early; Get horizontal; Talk to each other (a lot); Lead from the bottom. He also cites the central thesis of the paper 'How do committees invent?' by computer programmer Melvin Conway, which is often termed as Conway's Law - "organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." - to enforce the value of communication in organizational change and how, what and with whom this communication happens. Read on...

The Wall Street Journal: Justin Ferrell - Bringing Startup Culture to an Established Company
Author: Justin Ferrell

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 26 mar 2014

Different stages of the startup and new venture formation have different needs and requirements. Some startups, due to the very nature of their formation and development have sufficient resources and expertise to grow and succeed independently. But others may not have what all is required to build a successful business. For this incubators and accelerators play an important and critical role within the entrepreneurial and startup ecosystem to fund, support and mentor these fledgling ventures. Incubators and accelerators have different approaches and dynamics to lead startups towards their common goal of achieving success during initial stages. According to Phil Morle, founder and CEO of an Australian incubator - incubators get things started from scratch and build business as a solution to a problem; acts as co-founders and generate ideas and find problems internally and through their networks; it's outsourced innovation. While for accelerators the core idea is investment and investing capital in a good idea in return for a small amount of equity, says Niki Scevak, founder of an Australian accelerator. According to him, accelerators - are geared for competition; they aim to drive faster growth in innovative companies within a stipulated time frame; accelerators are a platform that provide resources and assistance to founders and entrepreneurial teams who themselve drive their concepts and ideas, build and develop them and make decisions. Read on...

Business Spectator: Incubators vs Accelerators: Choosing the right start-up path
Author: Name

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 19 mar 2014

Professor Edgar Schein of MIT defines culture in his book 'Organizational Culture and Leadership', as pattern of basic assumptions and beliefs, the learned behaviors, shared values and norms that define the work in an organization. Culture plays an important role in building and developing relationship of organization with its stakeholders. In large organizations culture generally gets evolved and established over a period of time through multiple iterations. But in case of smaller entrepreneurial companies with fast paced environment, culture can have critical impact on the success or failure of the venture during its formative stages. Article explains with examples the importance of culture in new companies and how it can be consciously and deliberately created by entrepreneurial teams. According to the author, culture can be intentionally designed but it has to be 'lived', thus helping the company to overcome ups and downs of the start-up environment. Moreover it is also a strategic resource similar to technology, brand or people that can be central to the success of the company. Read on...

Forbes: Building Culture In A Tech Start-Up
Author: Name

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 05 mar 2014

Joseph Shumpeter defined 'economic innovation' as - bringing a new product, a better or new process or method of production, developing a new market, exploring a new source of raw material or creating a new and better form of organization of industry. In the article Michael Scholl proposes 'commercial innovation' as an approach to bring new products and services into the market by identifying existing customer needs and willingness to pay (WTP) in areas where available products and services don't fulfil customer needs. Thus expanding the existing market with speed and market-oriented focus. He argues that commercial innovation should not be confused with 'product re-launch', that companies often use to bring existing products into market with different name and market strategies to enhance product life-cycles. He provides recommendations to implement commercial innovation - keep the idea secret as it may affect organization; designate separate task force to work on this initiative; shift R&D budget to this task force; be quick to implement and act on the plan. Read on...

Real Business: The key advantages of commercial innovation
Author: Name

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 08 feb 2014

Proper geriatric or elderly care is a critical component of the healthcare ecosystem. Due to physical and mental conditions of the old age and related disorders and diseases, focused planning and management to provide better lifestyle to the elders is a necessity. Technology can also play an important role by assisting the seniors while they spend their life in the comfort of their homes. Large number of companies are participating to develop devices and applications for this segment of the aging population. According to Laurie M. Orlov, a geriatric care specialist, the market is expected to grow from US$ 2 billion (2013) to US$ 20 billion by 2020 and most of this growth will be in areas such as remote health monitoring. Entrepreneurs, Geof Auchinleck designed a health monitoring tablet device specifically for seniors living at home, and Robert Herzog developed a healthcare management system that can be used by caregivers, health professionals and family members. Read on...

The Age: Want to grow old at home? Technology to the rescue
Author: Mark Miller

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 23 jan 2014

Diversity in entrepreneurial and product development teams is capable of bringing not only valuable inputs and perspectives but can also make firms enhance and expand to markets they haven't actually planned to target. In case of most mobile apps that are currently been developed, the founders are young and educated and most of them are trying to serve the market that they themselves belong. But there is lack of apps development for the other segments like elderly, rural population, less effluent etc. Although there are some efforts in healthcare focused mobile apps development for senior population. According to an expert there is also a visible divide between tech-sector startups - big data and biotech firm's leadership tend to skew older, while consumer focused tech firm leadership skews younger. When products from large corporations are considered it is observed that they seem to be more prepared in handling diverse set of market segments in their product delivery. Skype and FaceTime, by Microsoft and Apple respectively, are the two apps that have been well adopted by seniors. Moreover such corporations are also the ones that have implemented workforce diversity and inclusion programs. While startups are just beginning to consider inclusiveness in their workforce. Read on...

Fast Company: STARTUP CULTURE'S LACK OF DIVERSITY STIFLES INNOVATION
Author: Neal Ungerleider

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 07 nov 2013

There are diverse opinions regarding the whys and hows of entrepreneurship education. But one thing that can be considered by those who value entrepreneruship is to provide a creative ecosystem that cultivates entrepreneurial mindset and facilitates new venture development. This could also be possible outside the walls of the classroom with participation from both academia and industry. According to enrepreneurial researcher, Norris Krueger, there are three ingredients to train and develop entrepreneurial thinking - supportive network, outstanding mentors and personal reflection. Global entrepreneurial events, forums, conferences etc that bring entrepreneurs, industry experts and academics together can be a good tool to initiate entrepreneurial thinking among students and would be entrepreneurs. Hands-on learning can be considered as an essential element of entrepreneurship education and business schools should provide support services for planning, creation and development of new ventures. Read on...

Businessweek: To Teach Entrepreneurship, Get Out of the Classroom
Author: Matt Symonds

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 19 oct 2013

The recent study conducted on 40 hospitals with innovative strategies in India by Prof. Vijay Govindarajan and Prof. Ravi Ramamurti of Harvard University, advocates emulation of low-costs and technology innovations happening in Indian hospitals. Considering that the global economic slowdown is affecting the healthcare delivery it is valuable to understand and apply these cost saving methods that are a result of constant experimentation, adaptation and necessity. Some of these methods include - shortening length of sutures to reduce waste by doctors; low cost manual small incision cataract surgery; reducing heal-time by performing angioplasties through the wrist rather than the groin; use of technology that allows a single cornea to be sliced and used for more than one transplant patient; mix of low-cost healthcare workers and highly focused specialists; surgeons performing more procedures annually as compared to US; use of beating-heart method of surgery without shutting down patient's heart during operation. Read on...

The Times of India: Emulate India's innovation in healthcare: Harvard study
Author: NA

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 19 oct 2013

Innovation is a catalyst for growth of organizations. They face business challenges while moving in a monotonous and business-as-usual mode. The article mentions 10 business challenges and innovative solutions to overcome them - (1) Turn customer insights into user-centered innovation (2) Validate ideas through design process (3) Monetize the interaction between user and technology (4) Anticipate emerging trends and create the future (5) Create innovative roadmap and orchestrate strategy (6) Turn brand promise into experiential innovation (7) Create implementation plan through innovation strategy (8) Prototype to identify sustainable business models around value offerings (9) Diversify and filling gaps in portfolio. (10) Expand existing and enter new markets through innovation. Read on...

Innovation Excellence: 10 Business Challenges in which Innovation is the Answer
Author: Jeffrey Tjendra

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 12 oct 2013

Students have natural entrepreneurial instincts and traits. While pursuing education they explore and participate in mini entrepreneurial activities. University education and environment can create an entrepreneurial ecosystem that hones and further these traits and skills and provide them with tools and opportunities to self-direct their education and experiment with their ideas. Educational institutions can become entrepreneurship facilitators by providing early stage services to entrepreneurial ideas of students and ensure that these ideas are prototyped and tested for commercial viability and business potential before letting student entrepreneurs fully venture into the market. Read on...

The Globe and Mail: Why students are natural entrepreneurs
Author: Zachary Strong

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