Personal Reflection on Becoming a Innovative Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurial skills are not necessarily genetic and can be achieved by any driven individual (Jones, Macpherson and Jayawarna, 2014). In addition to class lectures and independent study, effective entrepreneurship learning involves developing crucial self-reflection, innovative and cognitive awareness skills; and possessing generic competencies which can be further enhanced by social elements (Jones, Macpherson and Jayawarna, 2014). Nevertheless, it is important to note that entrepreneurship is no easy task. Being an innovative entrepreneur requires having the ability to convince others about a venture’s feasibility, competing for limited resources to fund those ventures, and dealing with possible opposition towards the project (Bessant and Tidd, 2015). This reflection looks at key learning points to take away from ULMS704.

Experiential learning is important for developing entrepreneurial skills and includes a series of transactions to gain experience. The practical group assignment for ULMS704 involved application of key innovative entrepreneurial and social skills by encouraging team members to engage in activities such as knowledge-sharing and understanding. In my case, the entire process involved progressing through the logical sequence of Kolb’s four-stage experiential learning cycle and creating knowledge by transforming experience into action (Stice, 1987; Kolb, 2015).

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For me, personally, the cycle started at the concrete experience stage whereby my team was assigned the task to apply ideas introduced in the lectures to identify an underexploited area within a selected organization and develop an innovative solution that would generate future value for the company. During this stage, I was actively involved in intense discussions and brainstorming sessions with my team about our chosen company, Sega Sammy. To gain a better understanding, I downloaded and used Sega’s current gaming apps and those of potential competitors to gather as much information about the company through experience (Kolb, 2015).

The second stage involved reflective observation on the experience from the previous stage to identify any inconsistencies between my experiences and understanding. In this stage, I observed, reviewed and helped gather our findings from the previous stage into a draft report (Kolb, 2015). Next, I and my team members pulled together our reflections, interpreted our knowledge and findings from the previous stages and drew upon innovation theories and frameworks such as the innovation process model (Appendix A), the business components model and VARIM analysis covered in class to come up with an abstract concept of developing an innovative smartphone fitness-game app (Afuah, 2014; Bessant and Tidd, 2015; Stice, 1987)

This acquired concept was then considered for potential application to a real-world simulation setting in the active experimentation stage whereby I and my team members considered practical uses of the app and theories to plan and prepare a presentation to launch the idea. The venture was presented in class as if it were in front of senior managers within Sega. At this stage, we also planned actions that should be taken to refine or revise the way the venture is developed and launched for the final group report (Stice, 1987).

To conceptualize an idea and turn it into reality, it is important to have certain competencies that are necessary to manage the innovation process (Appendix A). Reflecting on my experience from the group assignment, I have come to realise that while I may possess the entrepreneurial competency of recognising an opportunity and coming up with ideas, I lack the ability to feasibly manage, structure and/or exploit the prospect (Jones, Macpherson and Jayawarna, 2014; Sadler-Smith et al., 2003; Mitchelmore and Rowley, 2010). Additionally, my weakness in conceptual skills represents my inability to fully absorb and interpret complex information to develop a venture which could make it difficult for me to actually launch a project in reality. Further weakening my entrepreneurial capability is the fact that I am risk-averse and lack the ability to anticipate unforeseen events or plan for the long-term which is a task that I left to the others in the group.

Since lacking these competencies may pose real world future challenges for me in the implementation phase of the innovation process; and hence prevent me from turning a venture concept into reality, I aim to overcome these weakness by using the entrepreneurial and innovation development and management skills taught in ULMS704 to continually improve these capabilities by combining them with strategic thinking concepts covered in this other MBA modules to fill gaps in my knowledge and understanding of the innovation process. To further develop these competencies, I also need to constantly stay current with potential market changes regarding a conceived venture to beneficially exploit market opportunities.

Moreover, while I possess some aspects of the relational competency of engaging and building a strong network of ties which I initially used to form my group for the assignment, I lack the necessary softer persuasion skills (Jones, Macpherson and Jayawarna, 2014). Being more of a follower, I was unable to convince my team members about incorporating certain ideas into our venture that I strongly believed in.

As a follower, I also lack the functional competency of taking control and running a business as I struggled with managing my team, and allocating tasks to conceptualize the venture (Sadler-Smith et al., 2003; Mitchelmore and Rowley, 2010; Jones, Macpherson and Jayawarna, 2014). I have come to realize during the course of this assignment that I struggle with being resourceful as I do not have the drive to work out the complexities of developing and running a venture due to my weakness in strategic thinking skills (Mitchelmore and Rowley, 2010). My inability to deal with complexities made it difficult for me to come up with creative solutions to problem-solving with limited resources such as time for the group assignment.

While being an innovative entrepreneur is a difficult task, it is not impossible nor genetic. Through education, experience, formal and informal training, and social learning processes, any inspired individual can overcome the challenges associated with innovation and entrepreneurship to successfully conceptualize, develop and launch a venture or idea.

References     

Afuah, A. (2014). Business model innovation. 1st ed. New York, N.Y.: Routledge.

Bessant, J. and Tidd, J. (2015). Innovation and entrepreneurship. 3rd ed. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Jones, O., Macpherson, A. and Jayawarna, D. (2014). Resourcing the start-up business. 1st ed. Abingdon: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Kolb, D. (2015). Experiential Learning:  Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. 1st ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Mitchelmore, S. and Rowley, J. (2010). Entrepreneurial competencies: a literature review and development agenda. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 16(2), pp.92-111.

Sadler-Smith, E., Hampson, Y., Chaston, I. and Badger, B. (2003). Managerial Behavior, Entrepreneurial Style, and Small Firm Performance. Journal of Small Business Management, 41(1), pp.47-67.

Stice, J. (1987). Using Kolb’s Learning Cycle to Improve Student Learning. Engineering Education, 77(5), pp.291-96.

Appendix A: Innovation Process Model

The group assignment for ULMS704 and the innovation process model covered in the module (Bessant and Tidd, 2015) enabled me to understand that managing innovation efficiently involves a sequential process of four key steps of recognising the opportunity, finding resources, developing the idea and capturing value. The first step involves extensive searching and scanning to find an opportunity for innovation and the ability to recognise its future potential. Next an entrepreneur needs to look into possible resources to fund, begin and develop the innovative venture and take it forward by conducting market studies and competitor analysis, and by investing time and money. In the implementation phase, a concrete development of the idea is needed so that it can be turned into reality by drawing on knowledge about technologies, markets, competitor behaviour etc., innovation frameworks and the experiences of different people. The last stage of capturing value requires consideration about maximizing the commercial potential of the innovation by working out the financial returns. This stage also requires reflection on the knowledge and experience gained in the previous stages for future improvement.