Entrepreneurship is a spirit; leadership is its soul while society is its body. Without the spirit, the body is dead! Also, without the soul, the spirit is empty! The entrepreneurial spirit which is otherwise known as the spirit of creativity and innovation is the building block of the economy. Without creativity, society will be lifeless, and without the force of innovation, our economy will be stagnated. When we look around, we see the problems that exist in our immediate community, but when we look within, we imagine solutions to these problems. Problems are ubiquitous, so are solutions. As there are no ends to problems, solutions have no end as well. It therefore takes the efforts of a special breed of individuals whose imaginations through critical and analytical thinking create a better world! These people are called entrepreneurs!
Entrepreneurs through creativity and innovation make the world a better place. While some create economic values through the instrumentality of creativity and innovation, some create social values through empathy and vision. It therefore takes an entrepreneur with a foresight to solve relevant social problems, thereby making impact as well as exploiting a business opportunity, thereby making profit. An entrepreneurial leader is one who is able to see and seize opportunity where problems are perceived, proffer solutions to the problems and make a fortune from his entrepreneurial undertakings.
Creativity is the backbone of innovation, which is the bedrock of entrepreneurship. The spirit of creativity is the spirit of imagination that potentially births an invention or innovation. Creative thinkers are not necessarily innovators or entrepreneurial leaders. It takes an entrepreneurial leader to create an economic value and aggregate resources (human and non human) to bring about a transformation through innovation. What vision is to leadership is what innovation is to entrepreneurship. Taking creativity from conceptualization to commercialization is the essence of entrepreneurship and this requires a strong foundation of vision. Solving critical social problems and creating relevant, useful and necessary products and services require not just creativity; perpetual productivity and sustainable developments are products of visionary leadership coupled with entrepreneurial creativity.
ENTREPRENEURIAL ECONOMY
Entrepreneurship is essentially about the practice of problem-solving, innovation, value-creation, opportunity-finding and technology application (PIVOT). It is also the passion to create value and the capacity to follow through to see that value is commercialized for impact or profit, or both. The entrepreneurial spirit is the passion to create value. When value is created, business is potentially established and wealth is ultimately created. Entrepreneurship therefore, is an important and a critical factor of production, job creation and poverty eradication. It is amazing how entrepreneurs tend to create something of value out of seemingly limited or insignificant resources. It was the former President of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan who challenged the African nations to move from being consumers to being producers and becoming globally competitive, transforming raw materials into finished products.
Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity as opined by Michael Porter. Transforming raw materials into finished products and creating an avalanche of innovative products are the features of qualitative entrepreneurship. A mono economy is no economy; an entrepreneur is one who is able to create value out of something, and more value out of one thing. Creativity is about inspiration, while capacity is about perspiration. Without inspiration, there is no productivity and without perspiration, there is no production. Production is not the same as productivity, so are their factors. The four traditionally known factors of production are land, labour, capital and enterprise. These resources because of their finite nature do not guarantee perpetual and sustainable productivity and development respectively. The primary factor for perpetual productivity is knowledge which is infinite in nature and drives innovation and, by extension, economic growth.
Innovation is created when creativity is aided by technology. Creativity is the foundation of innovation. Investment of capital and technology in research and development (R&D) has led to rapid advancement in innovation, perpetual productivity and economic prosperity in the developed nations of the world. For instance, the discovery of the Photovoltaic cell is rapidly changing the narrative of energy poverty in our world today, as well as the attendant pollution the burning of fossil fuels brings into the environment. Solar energy and its technology is one of the greatest revolutions in the 21st century industrial development.
Entrepreneurship is basically moving from ideation to industrialization, and conceptualization to commercialisation. Innovation is the linkage between idea and industry, and concept and commerce. Innovation to Market (I2M) is the major issue in business entrepreneurship.
Business opportunities, not business ideas, create economic productivity and national prosperity. Many business ideas, but few business opportunities exist in the Nigerian business environment due to the following problems:
- There is no strong linkage between entrepreneurial creativity and conceptualization in Nigeria.
- The linkage between conceptualization and productisation in Nigeria is poor.
- Productisation to innovation is weak in Nigeria.
Overall, moving from conceptualisation to commercialisation (innovation to market –I2M) is a critical problem and challenge for entrepreneurs/innovators in Nigeria and some developing countries of the world. The innovation index of these countries actually reflects their economic potential.
The following, when practiced religiously, will make transitioning from concept to commerce and from idea to industry possible:
- Ideation
- Innovation
- Internationalisation
Ideation (idea incubation and implementation) is the formation of ideas or concepts. It is the process of constructing through ideas and communicating them.
Innovation (product development) is the creative application of solution to problem or opportunity to enhance or to enrich lives.
Internationalisation (product improvement) is the practice of designing products, services and internal operations to facilitate expansion into international markets.
Knowledge drives economic growth; hence nations, organisations and entrepreneurs must do the following to facilitate perpetual productivity and national prosperity via investment in innovation (entrepreneurial creativity) and human capital development (executive education):
- design its knowledge-based economy
- develop its knowledge-based economy
- deepen its knowledge-based economy
- invest in ICT
- invest in Energy
- invest in Education
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