Why Entrepreneur Is Regarded as Innovator?

Every entrepreneur has been considered as an agent of the economic growth of a nation irrespective of his or her skill sets and enterprising abilities. Read to find how the Entrepreneur characteristics make the entrepreneur play the role of innovator.

A large section of people among us prefer to choose 9-5 jobs as we always have the fear of risks and challenges that come along with becoming a business owner or entrepreneur.  According to industry experts, Entrepreneur characteristics are embedded in everyone at different degrees. The aspect of entrepreneurialism is witnessed when the level of entrepreneurship comes out from an individual when such characteristics are shown into the personality of the concerned individual. It is here the aspects like creativity, innovation step in and makes the entrepreneur become an innovator in some specific industry or even some profession.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

As said by many industry experts and innovators of all kinds, the concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation are truly interlinked and interrelated as well. Innovation is one of the prerequisite tools for every entrepreneur. In most cases, entrepreneurs always exploit every change into an opportunity while doing the business of selling, making products, or involving in service activities. Experienced entrepreneurs will always look for sources of innovation to increase their performances. They never hesitate to explore the principles of innovation in all their attempts while creating new products or services. 

Products like Microsoft, Apple devices are the best examples of modern times which proved to the world that innovation and entrepreneurship always go together. What more is needed than quoting these two examples wherein the Entrepreneur characteristics of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are globally acknowledged. So don’t you believe that the entrepreneur is commonly seen as an innovator?

Creative Destructors

As defined by Joseph A. Schumpeter during 1934, an entrepreneur is known to be a ‘creative destructor’ as he or she is creating a dynamic imbalance in the economy by way of pushing the aspect of innovation into commercialization. According to him, the aspect of innovation comes in various forms such as the production of a new product, finding a new way of production, the discovery of raw materials creating a new market for the product, and so on. 

More importantly, Schumpeter defines the inventor and innovator of the term. The former is the one who discovers new methods and materials whereas the latter uses the inventions and discoveries to make new formulations. When it comes to Entrepreneur characteristics, an entrepreneur may or may not be an inventor or the supplier of capital. In today’s scenario of the IT revolution, one can say without hesitation that an entrepreneur is not only an inventor but also be an innovator.

Competencies and Core Competence

Aspects like competencies and core competence play a major role in bringing true entrepreneurship to the individual. Competencies form an integral part of entrepreneurial competence. To go further, factors like individual competencies and collective competencies operate coordinated in bringing business success. The core competence of the individuals includes knowledge, skill, and will innovate or bring value to every action. 

Successful entrepreneurs use their abilities to fill the competency gaps and make a perfect balance between individual competency and collective competencies. Such a balance cannot be achieved without creative or innovative ideas executed by these experienced entrepreneurs. So we have to accept the fact that an entrepreneur is regarded as an innovator.

Innovation Degrees

Entrepreneurs of modern times are engaged in manoeuvring innovation degrees by the business needs as well as the market trends. As per experts, there are three types of innovations that are to be followed in business as Incremental innovation, evolutionary innovation, and revolutionary innovations. These innovations are to be used in varying degrees according to the business trends and demands in the market. Standards like Six Sigma fall in the category of incremental innovation to differentiate products or services from the competitors. 

Evolutionary innovation focuses on exploring new markets and product offerings to attract new clients. Making an entirely new product or service comes under the category of revolutionary innovation and this type has a greater impact than the other two types of innovations. 

Risks and innovations

Undoubtedly, every business carries some risk elements which are determined by various factors such as quality of the product or service, market, location, and many more. Smart business owners never hesitate to carry such risks as they feel confident in their skills and abilities. More importantly, these entrepreneurs find innovative methods to minimize those risks and move forward in implementing their business strategies. Over some time, these business owners learn from their mistakes and take corrective steps to prevent such mistakes. 

They are not only known for handling the risks but also known for their abilities to overcome such risks. Smart business owners make use of such risks in different opportunities to expand their operations in a different direction. 

Why an entrepreneur plays the role of innovator?

This is a nice question that is relevant to the subject of our discussion in this article. For the benefit of the readers, a brief description is shared here as every entrepreneur has a role of an innovator:

• To create novelty in the community
• Use the right resources for the production activities
• Setting up a system and utilize the human or machine power 
• Contribute to the country’s economy.

Hence an entrepreneur always plays the role of an inventor in any economy.

Bottom Line

About the traits of every entrepreneur, we can conclude here by saying that every successful entrepreneur is a good innovator as he or she is using the creative skills in making new business opportunities in addition to the core skills possessed by him or her. There is no doubt that Entrepreneur characteristics of modern entrepreneurs should contain some key elements such as creativity, innovation, common sense, and so on. 

Undoubtedly, every entrepreneur (regarded as an innovator) carries a vision and work according to achieve the expected goal through a clear vision sets in the mind. As suggested by many management gurus, entrepreneurship and innovation are the two sides of a coin as each complements the other to get success in this highly competitive world. – Reza Abbaszadeh