Innovation and Why Entrepreneurship Matters

Just over a decade and a half ago, an amazing new term took centre stage. It was used in almost every meeting, it became the key to strategies, marketing campaigns and if you could somehow weave it into your job title, then it gave you almost supernatural-like powers and started opening up new and exciting doors. The term was “innovation”.

Those of us who were fortunate enough at the time to realise the supernatural nature of innovation began working together, collaborating, sharing thoughts and strategies, and for the first time linkages started to emerge across industry sectors, age groups, the multi helix and indeed, wonderful, magical futures were imagined.

Innovation fuels economies, and in a developing country like South Africa, it becomes the driving force of success and long-term sustainability. As groups and teams in our own little offices, we quickly began to realise that if it was easy everyone would do it. So, what was the key ingredient to driving innovation? The answer was entrepreneurship. The output of entrepreneurialism was innovation, and just like that the code was cracked or, so we thought.

Many of us were in large corporates at the time, further away from entrepreneurial thinking than any of us wanted to admit. But in order to drive innovation, we had to start by driving entrepreneurial thinking; we had to embrace entrepreneurs, understand their world and bring them closer into ours, creating eco-systems and platforms that could add value. In doing so, we hoped it would somehow rub off onto the corporate culture we were in.

It’s no wonder a decade or so later the term “entrepreneurship” has made its way to corporate strategies, marketing campaigns and even presidential addresses. Like innovation, entrepreneurship is not new, but it is novel enough for the smart consultants and agencies to latch onto, in order to make their clients look even more appealing to society.

In my previous life as a corporate custodian of changing lives (my interpretation of my roles), I had the privilege within a couple of organisations to work with both innovation and entrepreneurship functions. During the many public addresses that I had to give as part of my role, my favourite was to quote a line from Spiderman: “With great power, comes great responsibility”.

The relevance of this line was addressed to large corporates. They indeed have great power, in terms of their size, scale, reach, resources and funding. With that power comes the responsibility to do more, be more and give more. Even though I love being an entrepreneur myself, I have to admit, being able to use a corporate’s cheque book to change lives and make an impact, has been my second favourite role.

I’ve spent almost two decades working for corporates. I am fully aware that the responsibility we are seeking from corporates is not always easy to extract, or for them to volunteer, especially when the bottom line is what drives most corporate strategies and decisions, despite what the marketing campaigns would have us believe.

However, there are organisations all around the globe that have invested in great initiatives that support entrepreneurs, and this support has translated into bottom line benefit. Imagine that: being able to do good and make money while growing the support systems required for entrepreneurs and ultimately improving the innovation stack, not just of the corporate but of the country.

Some of these initiatives include departments that drive a focus on developing entrepreneurs. They act as incubators, providing spaces for growth and development or simply access to infrastructure that encourages open innovation and working spaces that entrepreneurs and clients can use. All of these provide opportunities to leverage the resources of the corporate for the benefit of the entrepreneur.

“ SOUTH AFRICA IS ONE OF THE FEW COUNTRIES THAT HAS GREAT FUNDING INSTRUMENTS AND CODES THAT ARE DESIGNED TO SPECIFICALLY FOCUS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENTREPRENEURS.”

More recently, we have seen the emergence of several platform businesses that are designed to rapidly increase the impact on creating access to market opportunities, showcase products and services more broadly and even out the playing fields so that the township entrepreneurs have the same level of access to an opportunity as an established business.

This is not some futuristic plan of action, all the above examples can and have been done. They have contributed positively to job creation figures, access to markets and showcasing opportunities and have assisted entrepreneurs positively with their growth and advancement. There have been discussions and debates around incubators and entrepreneurial programmes not having the desired benefit or not making an impact, but I have witnessed first-hand the real impact that these initiatives can have if run properly with adequate funding and a long term runway, strategic intent and the right level of support and funding for the entrepreneur from the organisations that run them.

In addition to physical infrastructure and face-tofaceengagements, corporates have also partnered with global recognition organisations that provide platforms for innovative entrepreneurs to showcase their products and services both locally and abroad. These have opened up new opportunities for raising much-needed funds, collaboration linkages and new market access.

The use of e-commerce platforms and opportunity marketplaces by corporates has meant that entrepreneurs that have benefited from high-touch initiatives can now also access further opportunities by being visible on online platforms. The common thread and major success factor across all of these approaches is access to markets.

Entrepreneurs need clients and those clients are either the corporate that has created a touch point through any or all the above initiatives and approaches or through the vast ecosystem that surrounds the corporate. Very often these ecosystem players include other corporates, industry bodies, academic institutions and international organisations and regulatory, government or state departments.

South Africa is one of the few countries that has great funding instruments and codes that are designed to specifically focus on the development of entrepreneurs and additional and increased benefits for those that open supply chain opportunities and provide funding to entrepreneurs.

With all of the positive benefits and the associated impact that these can have on the economy, it’s actually quite surprising that only a fraction of corporate South Africa has embraced and leveraged this opportunity. So maybe it’s time to change my favourite Spiderman quote to: “With great power comes great opportunities”.

These opportunities will ensure we build the thriving ecosystem for entrepreneurs to produce more innovations – innovations that will continue to fuel our economy.

By: Jayshree Naidoo