Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 01 apr 2015

For long-term success and continuous growth of their businesses, corporate leaders focus on innovation, performance excellence and risk management as their priority agenda. Their innovation strategy includes 10 types of innovation - product, service, platform, structure, process, business model, network, channel, customer engagement and brand. According to Andy Boynton, Bill Fischer and William Bole, co-authors of 'The Idea Hunter', as a long-term success mantra, corporate innovators need to cultivate habits of curiosity, deliberate observation, diverse information seeking and engagement with other creative people. Peter Sims, author and entrepreneur, explains 'In addition to idea flow, enterprise innovators need to nurture habits of taking 'little bets' via creative play, prototyping, learning and pivoting.' Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen and Clayton M. Christensen, co-authors of 'The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators', suggest 'At an individual and organisational level, corporate innovation calls for skills in questioning, observing, networking, experimenting and making associations. Gerald Tellis, Director of the Centre for Global Innovation at University of Southern California, says 'In an increasingly competitive and globalised economy, it is only 'unrelenting innovation' that can help companies sustain a long term advantage.' According to Madanmohan Rao, research director at YourStory Media, large corporations can seek innovative ideas and creative solutions by partnering and collaborating with entrepreneurial startups in variety of ways. This will help them save time, money and effort that goes into in-house innovation. He provides 15 tips and suggestions for big organizations to tap startup innovation - (1) Acquisition (2) Accelerators (3) Calls to Collaboration (4) Hackathons and Hackdays (5) Startup Competitions (6) Conferences and Local Meetups (7) Startup Hotspot Visits (8) Customer Engagement Models (9) Thought Leadership Via Startup Media (10) Special Interest Groups (11) Startup Networks (12) Entrepreneurship Networks (13) Incubators (14) R&D Grants to Entrepreneur-focused Universities (15) Entrepreneurs in Residence. Read on...

YourStory: 15 innovation tips - how large corporations can successfully engage with startups
Author: Madanmohan Rao

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 23 mar 2015

'Synthetic Biology' is an interdisciplinary and emerging area of research in biology. SyntheticBiology.org defines it as - (a) the design and construction of new biological parts, devices and systems and (b) the re-design of existing natural biological systems for useful purposes. 'Synbio' as it is often termed as, involves writing genetic code and inserting it into simple organisms to change their function. Boston-based Ginkgo Bioworks sells custom-crafted organisms - mostly yeasts, baceteria and algae and they make synthetic scents that might be used in sprays and perfumes in future. Ginkgo was mostly funded initially by US government agencies. Jason Kelly, co-founder of Ginkgo, says 'Their belief was that the United States should be on the leading edge of creating tools to program cells - sort of like creating the base elements of the early Internet.' According to Professor Pamela Silver of Harvard Medical School, 'Synbio industry is going to grow quickly, especially in Boston.' Tom Knight, another founder of Ginkgo, explains 'Engineering biology has been an artisanal craft. You did things at a small scale, manually. We're moving into an age when we can start automating a lot of the processes and take advantage of economies of scale.' Read on...

The Boston Globe: Manufacturing's cutting edge - custom organisms
Author: Scott Kirsner

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 20 mar 2015

According to Project Management Institute (PMI), 'Project management is a temporary endeavor designed to produce a unique product, service or result.' There is a distinction between 'business processes' and project management. Every task is not a project but project is composed of tasks. Online businesses can benefit from the effective implementation of project management as it can help to streamline the process, saving time, leveraging resources, maximizing profit, and meeting the client's and business's needs. The three key constraints that are balanced within project management are - (1) Schedule: Managing time factor or schedule, ensures that least amount of time is spend on a project. (2) Cost: Managing the cost factor can track what the client is paying and ensures that ROI (Return On Investment) is intact. (3) Scope: Managing the client's need or scope ensures that the needs are met effectively. Even if clients are not serviced by an organization, and its a product development entity, then project management processes can assist in increasing the profit margins, improve cost efficiencies and maximize earnings. Small businesses with limited budgets can utilize numerous online resources and services that can assist them in implementing project management. If they have somewhat more to spend they can also hire a project manager or even a project management consultant to guide and work through the project management implementation process. Read on...

Business 2 Community: Why Small Businesses Need Project Management
Author: Deborah Anderson

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 17 mar 2015

Successful entrepreneurs have diverse traits and skills, belong to different geographies, social and income groups, have different level of educational qualifications and expertise in different fields. But according to Thomas Smale, co-founder of FE International, inspite of all these differences all successful entrepreneurs possess the following common traits - (1) Full of determination (2) Not afraid to take risks (3) High level of confidence (4) Craves learning (5) Understands failure is part of the game (6) Passionate about his or her business (7) Highly adaptable (8) Good understanding of money management (9) Expert at networking (10) Ability to sell and promote. Read on...

Entrepreneur: 10 Traits All Successful Entrepreneurs Share
Author: Thomas Smale

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 07 mar 2015

Entrepreneurs and customers are important components of the business ecosystem. Entrepreneurs create innovative products and services for the customers. A strong exchange and partnership between the two will assure that the activity of product and process innovation and improvement never stops. The efficient integration of what customers need and what entrepreneurs develop will lead to growth of businesses and markets. Read on...

ilmeps/read: Relationship Between Entrepreneurs and Customers to Drive Innovation
Author: Mohammad Anas Wahaj

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 02 mar 2015

To create a business from an idea and managing it successfully, requires not only technical and managerial skills but also 'intangible' competencies that are essential for start-up's survival. Carla Young, founder and publisher of MOMeo Magazine, suggest skills that entrepreneurs should have particularly at the early stages of the venture's development - (1) Talking Money (2) Public Speaking (3) Selling (4) Managing (and Protecting) Your Time (5) Dealing with Criticism (6) Communicating with Crazy & Irrational People (7) Learning New Skills. Read on...

MOMeo Magazine: Essential Entrepreneurial Skills- The 7 Skills Every Entrepreneur Must Master
Author: Carla Young

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 26 feb 2015

Designing for Internet of Things (IoT) is pushing the boundaries for designers and engineers to experiment and evolve out of their specific roles. Martin Charlier, design consultant and co-founder of Rain Cloud, provides his perspective on the future of interfaces and how to design for IoT. According to him, 'Products in today's world, especially, need to be thought about from variety of angles. A designer has to consider both the looks and working of the product while designing.' He stresses the importance of symbiotic nature of interaction design and service design. On working of cross-disciplinary teams, he says, 'Every field needs to know a little bit, have a basic understanding, of the other side... The key, though, is that they started working as one team together, before splitting up into their respective domain areas, so that there was a joined vision.' While discussing the role of human values in IoT design, he suggests, 'Designers need to start thinking about how they change people's behaviors and affect their lives.' Read on...

O'Reilly Radar: Design to reflect human values
Author: Jenn Webb

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 22 jan 2015

Although pharmaceutical industry comprises of well entrenched big corporations with strong R&D investments and there hardly seem to be any room for entrepreneurs with the 'fail fast, fail often' philosophy of startup culture. But Kevin Xu, CEO of MEBO International & Skingenics, argues otherwise and suggests entrepreneurs to still seek opportunities in the drug development industry by looking at right places within the various components of the pharma ecosystem. They should observe and anticipate innovations and emerging technologies. Mr. Xu provides following four specific suggestions for entrepreneurs to find their niche in the drug development world by understanding & developing a relationship within R&D - (1) Look at the supply chain and search for gaps in what's available and what's needed for maximum accuracy and efficiency. (2) Figure out what's in demand and develop the right expertise to develop a niche as an expert consultant. (3) Go to trade shows as they are invaluable resources for both networking and information-gathering. (4) Look at the periphery and find out what is needed in the inside. They can develop specialized tools outside the industry which can be utilized by those working in drug development. Read on...

Entrepreneur: 4 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Break Into the Drug Industry
Author: Kevin Xu

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 15 jan 2015

In the ever changing and evolving world of technology, it is challenging to predict with certainty what will succeed and fail in the coming times. But researchers and experts apply variety of methods to analyze and understand what technologies will become trends and survive, and keeping businesses and public aware of their usefulness and impact. Amy Webb, founder and CEO of Webbmedia Group, at the end of each year applies a framework to bring out the most important emerging trends in digital media and emerging technology for the year ahead. The framework analyzes consumer behavior, microeconomic trends, government policies, market forces, and emerging research within the context of our continually-evolving tech and digital media ecosystem. Her team uses a core set of five attributes to look for emerging patterns: contradictions, inflections, oddities, coincidences, and inversions. These attributes help to identify a set of likely trends on horizon. Each trend is then put through five questions - (1) Where/how are people wasting their time? (2) Where/how are people having difficulty with technology? (3) Where/how are people looking for information? (4) Where/how are people stuck? (5) How do people want to be perceived? These five questions help in qualitatively and quantitatively assess whether or not that pattern is actually a trend that will stick in the future. Based on this methodology Ms. Webb suggests six tech trends of importance for managers in all industries - (1) Deep learning (2) Smart virtual personal assistants (3) More Uber-type businesses in other industries (4) Oversight for algorithms (5) Data privacy (6) Block chain technology. Read on...

Harvard Business Review: The Tech Trends You Can't Ignore in 2015
Author: Amy Webb

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 12 jan 2015

Technology plays an important role in bringing efficiency to the financial markets. Emerging technologies, public's desire for financial transparency and government regulations that started to favor financial market alternatives after the financial crisis, provided the necessary momentum for the FinTech sector which saw billions of dollars invested and couple of successful IPOs (LendingClub, OnDeck) in 2014. Following are important FinTech trends to keep an eye on in 2015 as they provide both opportunities and risks - (1) Service-based Investing: Term for 'low-cost service-based investing', the upcoming sector of paid services around low cost investing. Example is RobinHood, mobile based commission-free trading brokerage. The combination of paid apps with commission-free investing could result in a combination of sophisticated trading products in an environment that costs less than what one or two trades would cost at a competing online broker. The downside of this business model can be learned from forex industry, where most services are free and getting clients to pay for premium services is challenging. (2) Robo Investing: It is anti-social trading, an opposite of social trading which tends to be democratization of trading where anybody can develop a track record and become trade leaders. With robo investing, users enter information such as their age, risk tolerance, years until retirement and expected savings amount. The platforms then automatically invest funds in ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) that track indexes. This is all done for fees at a fraction of those charged at actively managed mutual funds and professional financial advisors. The fear here is that incumbents like Charles Schwab, Fidelity and Vanguard will enter the market and commoditize robo investing. If this happens smaller players and new firms may find it too tough to scale large enough to become profitable. (3) Digital-based Equity Investing: Combining blockchain technology and equity crowdfunding, decentralized exchanges are being used to create digital stock offerings. Equity crowdfunding itself is an emerging market. The appeal of digital-based equity crowdfunding is that it is easier to create an aftermarket once a sale takes place, as well as marketing the offering around the globe. Regulation is one of the biggest challenge for this model. Another issue is the bitcoin-based buying process for digital shares which presents a stumbling block for someone that doesn't have bitcoins. Read on...

Forex Magnates: Fintech Trends for 2015: Investing Services, Anti-Social Trading, and Digital Crowdfunding
Author: Ron Finberg

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