Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 14 sep 2014

Entrepreneurship is critical for economic progress. At individual human level, it converts ideas into workable innovations. At organizational level, it is an engine of business growth and survival. At societal level, it balances demand and supply, creates job opportunities and provides innovative solutions to real-world problems. The spirit of entrepreneurship is valued even by big corporations. But how to build an entrepreneurial organization? The answer is provided by Dr. Thomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a business psychology professor at University College London, who suggests four essential steps - (1) Hire Entrepreneurial People (naturally more inquisitive & critical of status quo; highly proactive) (2) Learn How To Manage Them (tolerance to erratic, demanding & moody behaviors; provide new and meaningful projects; avoid engaging them in routine, well-defined, tactical projects) (3) Build Entrepreneurial Teams (look for congruent beliefs & values but complementary skills & styles while selecting members; align them towards clear goal or mission with a strong leadership) (4) Create An Entrepreneurial Culture (mutual trust & understanding between leader & team members; provide support & autonomy; individuals should feel incentivized to take risk, make their own decisions & experiment; assure culture that provides exploration, learning & play). Read on...

Fast Company: 4 UNAVOIDABLE STEPS TO BUILDING AN ENTREPRENEURIAL ORGANIZATION
Author: Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 08 sep 2014

Donor support is the single most critical component that makes or breaks nonprofits. Most nonprofits spend a substantial part of their efforts to attract and nurture donors. Fear of failure often add to the worry of losing donor support. Main aim of social enterprises is to solve societal and community problems and they can do better if they embrace failure and learn from it. Epaminondas Farmakis, president and CEO of Elpis Philanthropy Advisors, suggests most common fear of failures - (1) Failure to Profit (Social entrepreneurs focus on providing sustainable social solutions to the communities they serve and also balance it with offering attractive returns to their investors. They need to have a right fit between investor values, community requirements & return on investments. Shareholders must understand that the primary goal of a social enterprise is to serve the community. (2) Failure to Measure (Since there are no clear methods of measuring nonprofit's success, there is always some ambiquity. So there has to be an understanding among the stakeholders regarding this. Researching on direct impact of donations for improvement of society can be one of the measure of their success. (3) Failure to Innovate (Social innovations go through a similar process of iterations and experimentations as for-profit innovations. And failure is part of the process. Learning from mistakes should happen all the time). Read on...

Devex Impact: 'Failing up' for social enterprise success
Author: Epaminondas Farmakis

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 23 aug 2014

As companies grow in size and become big corporations they tend to loose their appetite for risk taking and the dynamic spirit of game changing entrepreneurship and innovation. And the bigger the company gets the more risk averse it becomes. George Deeb, Managing Partner at Red Rocket Ventures, provides reasons for this phenomenon - Shift in Ownership; Shift in Leadership; Shift in Human Resources; Managing Towards the Middle; Promotion from Within, Feat of Unknown. Moreover his suggestions for big companies include - constantly innovate; build an entrepreneurial culture where risk-taking is encouraged; hire diverse team of smart people who are entrepreneurs at their core. Read on...

The Next Web: Why big companies struggle with innovation
Author: George Deeb

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 05 aug 2014

Uri Neren of Innovation International extensively researched on the best practices that companies implement to succeed at innovation. According to him, 'organizations have to structure themselves to allow innovation to flow through them.' Execution is the key for the innovation to succeed and originator of the idea need to be involved at every stage of the innovation process to make it happen. The top five business practices that resulted from the Neren's research and help make innovation repeatable and reliable are: (1) Belief Systems - Bring everyone at the same page; Specifically define innovation and how it fits organization's mission & goals; Imbibe in the team that innovation can be managed (2) Structure Equals Commitment - Commit to the percentage of growth that the business expects from innovation and stick to it; Obsolete your processes and products & and reward those who help achieve this; Create a set of agreed to metrics & decision process to fund or kill particular products and services; Incorporate CEO ownership & innovation teams should report to CEO or COO (3) Process that Leans on Research - Spend substantial time in the discovery phase, at the front end, understanding the behavior and drivers of your intended audience and the problem thats being solved; Design a really solid consumer research phase as a foundation to better understand the problem (4) Talent Encouraged and Rewarded - Put the right people with the right skills in the right spots with the right team and get out of the way; Assign innovation to the employee scorecard and then recognize and reward it (5) Connected Culture - It matters most that the culture is connected, so that people have access to one another and their ideas, and all the contributing parties are recognized and rewarded. Read on...

Forbes: Innovation Ready - The 5 Traits Innovative Companies Share
Author: Mary Meehan

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 24 jul 2014

Innovation has been considered as a critical component of the strategies of most companies and to achieve it they have tried to transform and eliminate activities from their product development process (PDP). Is this is the better approach? Probably not. Bradford Goldense, an expert in product management & development, suggests ways to improve and build innovativeness into the PDP itself - (1) Companies should add innovation activities at appropriate places in their PDP. (2) Companies should emphasize existing activities that spur appreciable innovative thinking. Moreover there are a variety of soft, quantitative and algorithmic tools, that are available in the market to boost innovation. He suggests selection of three tools spanning incremental to breakthrough innovation, reguired to be used at key points in the concept, definition and design phases, chosen by the nature of the product being developed. It is also found that some deterministic tools spur more innovative thinking than others. Research of 200 companies provides insights into which PDP activities out of the total 20, scored the highest innovation benefits. These were - Requirements definition; Product specifications; Technical feasibility analysis. Some other activities that were closely behind were - Concepting/Concept engineering; Voice of the customer; Market definition. Read on...

machine design: Making Product Development More Innovative
Author: Bradford Goldense

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 23 jul 2014

Although most innovation in technology-driven companies is achieved and accomplished by experts in R&D, but marketers at General Electric (GE) have found ways to facilitate and contribute to the innovation mechanism. Beth Comstock, Chief Marketing Officer of GE, explains their method that can be utilized by other marketers who are seeking to create value and drive innovation in their businesses - (1) Go to new places: Be explorers and seek out new places and better the understanding of what people need and require around the world. It can help them give insights for better product development. (2) Shape the market early: Great innovations need to be explained before they are accepted. Marketers can explain, define and communicate effectively and set the stage for the innovation before it hits the market. Mantra at GE is 'Mindshare before Marketshare'. (3) Incubate new businesses and models: To promote ongoing innovation, marketers seek to find ways that have not been thought before. Integrate startup culture into the marketing DNA. It simplifies development and gets products to the market faster. (4) Invite others in: Partnerships are the path to speed and scale. Develop collaborations outside the organization to increase the creative territory. Marketers are generally facilitators for these relationships. Read on...

HBR Blog Network: Innovation Is Marketing's Job, Too
Author: Beth Comstock

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 may 2014

Nobel laureate, Professor Muhammad Yunus, build the idea of microcredit and developed the concept of social business to solve social problems and created a substantial number of social entrepreneurs. According to him, 'application of social business concept in overcoming unemployment can produce a sustainable solution.' He is now embarking upon next level of social business concept, where loan or microcredit borrowing is displaced by equity investment in prospective social businesses, to tackle the problem of large number of youth unemployment. Social business funds are created for this purpose and the New Entrepreneur initiative was launched alongwith the Design Lab platform to bring entrepreneurs and investor funds together. (Social Business Funds -> Equity Investments -> Entrepreneurs -> Employment). This concept will be further expanded into self sustainable, unemployment and social problem free, autonomous Social Business Villages. Read on...

Huffington Post: "We Are Not Job-Seekers, We Are Job-Creators"-- Turning Unemployment into Entrepreneurship
Author: Muhammad Yunus

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 21 apr 2014

Online marketing is evolving with variety of latest technologies available to marketers to seek attention of the consumers. Startups with limited budgets have to get the best out of their advertising campaigns. Technologies provide them tools to economize their advertising and also use it in the most effective and attractive way. But most still apply the broadcast standards to these new technology platforms. It is still the 'one-way approach' to advertising. Banner ads and resulting one-way impressions are often the popular online advertising methods and measures. But to involve and engage consumers, it has to become more intuitive and interactive, keeping in mind the user experience and content on the website. Read on...

ventureburn: Catching the eye - online marketing is about starting a conversation
Author: David Ross

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 06 apr 2014

'Early adopters' are critical to fuel demand for technological innovations. They experiment and use technologies and often help in their improvement before they become part of the mainstream society. Moreover they also enable continued development of innovative products and services. But better rules, regulations and policies also play a very important role to drive innovations and consistent technological developments. Policies and regulations that demand continued maintenance of obsolete and legacy systems divert investments that otherwise would have been used for building new technologies. Article explores the implications of regulatory framework in the development of next-generation broadband networks in US. It mentions the recent decision of FCC to allow beta testing of 21st century broadband-enabled network in select areas as the step in right direction. Moreover the upcoming spectrum incentive auction that is expected to have fair and open bidding rules would ensure competition, continued innovation and convenience to consumers and benefit to communities. Broadband connectivity has potential and capability to provide effective and efficient healthcare and enable nationwide, interoperable public safety network. Other areas that would benefit from better regulatory mechanism that leads to investment in broadband technologies, both wire and wireless, include education, communication, professional development and entertainment. Read on...

GeekWire: Commentary - Smart rules needed to spark next-generation broadband in U.S.
Author: Tom Gurr

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 06 apr 2014

Innovation can become the part of the organizational culture when it permeates into organization's rank and file and doesn't just remain with the top leaders. Effective leaders develop innovation culture by encouraging and involving employees at all levels. Managers play an important role in bringing and building creativity and innovation into every aspect and section of the organization. Article suggests steps for managers that can bring valuable change in their company - Get everyone involved; Get rid of red tape; Free up the brainstorming experience; Build innovation into culture (Promote collaboration; Make innovation part of the performance review; Eliminate blame; Empower team members to make decisions); Act now; Get ambitious; Reward innovative thinking. Read on...

Business Management Daily: How to Be an Innovation Manager
Author: Lee Polevoi

Latest             ⊲ Newer Posts             Entrepreneurship & Innovation             Older Posts ⊳             Last