The entrepreneurial structures

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“Life is like a video game. Everybody is trying to get the highest score, and the only way to do so is through entrepreneurship. Not everybody is able to become an entrepreneur, so the system created schools to at least raise the people with lower scores”. —Entrepreneur Hub.

At a point in time, during my entrepreneurial undertakings, I stopped parading myself as an entrepreneur due to the reality that I was apparently not moving any close to the break-even point talk more of affluence. Sometimes, I encourage myself with words like “good things take time”. However, I am smart enough to balance the motivation with the words of Albert Einstein which goes thus: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”. Personally, as an aspiring entrepreneur, I learnt early the concept of self-reinvention in order to stay productively relevant. If necessity is the mother of invention, it is also the mother of self-reinvention. I have also learnt the importance of structure in entrepreneurial undertakings, for without it, things rupture!

The entrepreneurial spirit which is also called the spirit of creativity is the bedrock of innovation. Innovation is the ability to apply creative solutions to problems and opportunities to enhance or to enrich people’s lives. Entrepreneurship is the passion to create value and the capacity (leadership) to follow through to see that value is commercialised for both impact and profit. The passion to create is nothing compared to the capacity to plan and implement. Structure determines function. Business works when the right structures are put in place. Entrepreneurship is the foundation of business. The entrepreneurial structures which are necessary for business success are encapsulated in the acronym ‘SAFE’ as follows:

‘Spiritual’ structure – Idea generation

Administrative structure – Process management

Financial structure – Investments (opportunity finding)

Economic structure – Product development

Every enterprise or business is as safe as ‘SAFE’!

‘Spiritual’ structure – Ideas rule the world. Generating great ideas is the hardest work there is. The process of creating, developing and communicating ideas which are abstract, concrete, or visual is key for organisations in creating successful products, services, businesses, and solutions. It also includes the process of constructing the idea, innovating the concept, developing the process, and bringing the concept to reality. Thoughts, imaginations and ideas are forces (spirits) which govern the world. Creativity is the spirit of entrepreneurship. Creativity is thinking outside of the prescribed formulas. Just like knowledge, creativity is infinite; it can’t be depleted or exhausted. Creativity can’t be taught, it can only be inspired. Inspiration fuels creative imaginations! Creativity, not skills, kills impossibility! The reason organisations create a special department for research and development (R&D) is to bring thinkers together (think tank) for the purpose of brainstorming on creative solutions, which are not necessarily generated through books, but through unprecedented business ideas generated during brainstorming sessions. It is actually called brainstorming, but in the real sense, it should be called ‘spirit storming’ because ideas are spiritual entities which when ignited and given expression through the investment of capital and technology, become innovations. Without ignition, there is no recognition!

Administrative structure – Administration is the process or activity of running a business, organisation, etc. Administration is everything about management. Leadership which is the essence of administration is the ability to create rules and to set goals. It is the capacity to follow through to see that rules are followed and goals are accomplished. The administrative structure is very critical for business operations. It determines the policies and legacies of organisations as well as their trajectories. It also spells out the vision of labour (what is to be done and how), as well as division of labour (who is to do what).

Financial structure – The process of making, managing and multiplying money through the investment of capital is an essential part of entrepreneurship. Even if it is a social enterprise, it is important to put up a system for perpetual income generation to sustain the social enterprise. A social enterprise that makes nothing but impact is potentially a poor business because profit making is essential in sustaining any social mission through the traditional business model which operates on return on investment (ROI) – It is believed that social entrepreneurship must equally be financially stable, sustainable, profitable and more importantly, just. Likewise, a business enterprise that makes nothing but profit is perpetually a poor business because impact making is equally essential in attaining the social goals of business, through corporate social responsibility (CSR). Entrepreneurs exploit business opportunities by investing in them. They don’t just look for creative (business) ideas, they invest in the lucrative ones (business opportunities).

Economic structure – Knowledge, Innovation and Vision (KIV) are the drivers of perpetual economic productivity and growth. The economic structure is everything about diversification and transforming raw materials into finished products. A mono economy is no economy. The economic structure has to do with the plan to practise a multi-product economy, having the vision and requisite knowledge to diversify the economy in order to create more useful economic goods. Knowledge is the first factor of production and perpetual productivity; it is the primary driver of the economy. Unlike the traditionally known four factors of production, namely land, labour, capital and enterprise which are finite and exhaustible, knowledge is infinite and cannot be exhausted. “Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity”. – Michael Porter. “The calculus of innovation is quite simple: knowledge drives innovation, innovation drives productivity, productivity drives economic growth”. – William Brody. The lack of technical know-how and relevant technologies for instance, is the reason behind the routine gas flaring in Nigeria. The lack of political will to chart a new economic path by diversifying the economy is one of the reasons Nigeria still relies mainly on oil as her mainstay. We focus on the extractive industries, prospecting for oil and other natural resources, whereas there are huge economic prospects in other sectors like agriculture, education, manufacturing, etc.

In the developed societies, there is much focus on the development of intellectual resources which are non-material and non-physical such as Research and Development (R&D), patents, trademarks, copyrights, brands, employee skills, discoveries of new products or processes, software programmes, new ideas and new processes employed in the organisations, rather than the natural endowment factors. The former is perceived and believed to be the major driver of perpetual and sustainable economic growth. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly evident that we are already in the fourth industrial revolution and the knowledge-based economy. The former is characterised by a fusion of the digital, physical and biological spheres, while the latter is characterised by knowledge, information, training and education (KITE). Entrepreneurship is the practice of problem solving, innovation, value-creation, opportunity finding and technology application (PIVOT), for the purpose of impact and profit. Knowledge economy is mainly based on innovative economic growth. Knowledge economy can be described as an economic system in which the production of goods and services is based principally on knowledge-intensive activities that enhance accelerated advancement in technical and scientific innovation. An entrepreneurial leader, through knowledge, shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.

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