2.

Sources of Generating New Ideas

Entrepreneurs can generate new ideas from the many sources. They are as follows:

Situation Survey
Present Work Environment
Outside Sources
Research and Development

Figure 6.2: Sources of Generating New Ideas

Situation Survey
Sources of Generating
New Ideas

Present Work Environment

Outside Sources
Research and Development

1. Situation Survey
Situation survey is the analysis of external environmental factors. Under this, changes in the
external environmental factors are surveyed. The factors are as follows:
a. Technological Changes
Technological changes can be taken as basic sources of generating new ideas. Technology
includes inventions and innovations. Invention means discovering new ideas, methods or new product
whereas an invention, when applied for the first time, is called innovation. These both can be taken as
the sources of generating new ideas.
Technology is changing very fast. It has made possible to develop new goods and provide
service. Technological development has been rapidly keeping on. Technological change leads to the
introduction of new products, changes in the methods and organization of production, changes in the
quality of resources and products, new ways of distributing the product, and new way of storing and
disseminating information. The technological changes such as advances in radio, television, printing
process, digital revolution, and invention of computers, internet and other electronic data processing
have great influence in business world. Similarly, automation, computerization, robotics, informatics,
biotechnology, new materials and artificial intelligence have all substantially influenced today's
business world1.
Technological change can change the way society behaves and what society expects. The
internet, hand-hold computers, direct satellite systems and cellular telephones are technological
innovations that have experienced extraordinary growth in recent years, creating new industries and
influencing the way many people approach work and leisure. Thus, entrepreneurs must grasp a proper
understanding of these aspects of technological context.
Business activities and technology should move in parallel line to satisfy the customer needs
otherwise customer will not be satisfied. Today technological change affects the business directly. Old
technology is totally replaced by new technology. For example, the pagers are totally replaced by
mobile cells. It can be shown in the following figure: