Assignment

Creativity and Finance are very important factors among others in entrepreneurship and business
development. Between those two factors, which of them do you think is more difficult for an
entrepreneur to have or get to enhance his or her business growth? With clear details and
reasons, speak for or against. Base on your argument, suggest various ways that can enable an
entrepreneur like you come about either of the two in order to accelerate his/her business growth.

Solution

Based on the above question, I am writing and support the Creativity as most challenge facing
the growth of entrepreneur. Below are the supporting reasons;

Creativity is the most challenging factor for an entrepreneur. It principally implies the ability to
spearhead the innovation of new ideas by observation and study of the current business
environment. If innovative ideas are viable, there will be no difficulty in getting finances from a
financier or investor. An entrepreneur should come up with an innovative product that can help
in satisfying consumer needs by studying the current business environment. Another method that
can be used by an entrepreneur is he or she can check out the competitor's product and find ways
of providing a better and more advanced product.

In today's competitive world, creativity is essential for a business for many reasons, such as:

It creates new and better opportunities for companies and firms.

It is one of the most critical factors that contribute towards the growth of the company.

It makes the products of the firm more competitive, which enables the firms to increase their sale
and earn profits.

It also increases the market share of the business and also creates goodwill for the company.

It makes a firm different from other firms and helps to increase the sale.

Innovation is a facilitator of entrepreneurship and a way of empowering people to take charge of

their lives and economic prosperity. At the same time, entrepreneurship is the answer
to innovation both at individual business-level. It also stimulates general business sector growth
of a nation.

Entrepreneurship is the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which is
often initially a small business. The people who create these businesses are called entrepreneurs

Why Innovation Is Increasingly Becoming Critical to Entrepreneurship

Innovation is a facilitator of entrepreneurship and a way of empowering people to take charge of
their lives and economic prosperity. At the same time, entrepreneurship is the answer to
innovation both at individual business-level. It also stimulates general business sector growth of
a nation. Flourish in entrepreneurship entails a focus on ingenuity, amalgamating innovation and
strategic business practices.

It is important to understand that innovation doesn’t happen overnight and requires time and
endeavor to generate something actually innovative that will make a difference.

Innovation and creativity walk hand-in-hand when it comes to entrepreneurship. Here are six
great ways to look at innovation in order to understand its importance in entrepreneurship.

INNOVATION ONLY TOOL TO SOLVE PROBLEMS

The world is fraught with issues that are hard to solve, but at the same time will continue to
demand a solution. And going by Albert Einstein, we cannot solve problems with the same
thinking we used when we created them. Far-sighted, creative ideas and innovative solutions are
required to solve them, but at the same time, such solutions will not emerge from simple and
linear planning and problem-solving processes.

However, what one needs to understand is that innovation quintessentially is about seeing,
perceiving and solving problems in creative ways. A deep sense of passionate purpose and
futurist thinking are required to deal with solving stubborn issues and come up with effective
entrepreneurship based solutions.

 Innovation is Driving the Global Entrepreneurship Movement

Considered as a global movement, entrepreneurship is presently embryonic in emerging markets

like China and India. Social, women, and youth sectors are the sectors that demand innovative
solutions, and entrepreneurs have a large playground to cater to, with out-of-the-box ideas that
will impact the quality of lives and contribute towards making the world a better and more
sustainable place.

Both central and state governments across the country are now realizing that entrepreneurship is
a vehicle of economic success and prosperity that can be instrumental in promoting
entrepreneurial endeavors through different schemes and programmes. Finally, the rise of new
impact investors is a big step forward for new enterprises that thrive on innovation.

 Advances in Technology is Propelling Innovation

The Internet of Things has already created a big buzz as it has enabled connection and sharing of
data between all digital devices. This is crafting out wholly new business models and revenue
streams, for start-ups as well as large and old organizations that leverage existing assets in
exciting, profitable new ways. It also is altering the foundation of the contest as companies can
now participate as elements of ecosystems.

The growing access to free and low-cost online education is encouraging and enabling a yearning
for learning and building an appetite for knowledge to become subject matter experts in
respective fields. Armed with knowledge innovative entrepreneurs and start-ups are flourishing
through the internet of things.

 Adapting to Changing Workplace Dynamics and Trends

Millennials now swap jobs at an escalating rate as they look for more gainful engagement,
independence, and egalitarianism. This has deeply impacted the hiring process, which is now
changing as recruiters have started relying on Internet-based routes. ‘Reputation’ is becoming
more important to organizations. Freelancing and flexi-timing are fast emerging as a way of life
and a significant section of the workforce are working from home, taking responsibility for
generating their own income and wealth. The young professionals are also opting for co-working
and collaborative work environments, thus networking and teaming to share and develop
knowledge, skills, and experience.

These trends are propelling organizations to look at innovative approaches for enhancing staff
experience at workplace as well as with the acquisition and retention of the best resources.

 Responding to Increasing Customer Expectations

Major changes are necessary to understand customer’s need, want and expectation as they are
now empowered by the increasingly connected and digitized world. Customer focus has rapidly
shifted to receiving the value that reveals that companies understand and support their lifestyle
preferences.

Customers now have total control over who they are, what they do, and what, how and where
they purchase and procure products. This growing consumer expectations and choices have made
organizations become more customer-centric through innovative amendments. Adopting human-
centered devices to perk up the experience has provided increased value and created new ways to
invent products and services.

 Making the Most of Globalization Connectivity

Globalization has opened economies nationally and internationally and as a result governments
are espousing free-market economy. This is vastly increasing their productive potential and
creating new opportunities for trade and investment internationally. The hurdles to global trade
and negotiations for promoting trade, in goods and services as well as in investments have also
greatly reduced.
This has endorsed proper connectivity and partnership. Today anyone, anyplace at any time can
develop an internet based business that builds scale through the application of lean
methodologies thus creating more value for customers with fewer resources. This apart, the
increasing availability of private funding and easing of government red-tapes and compliance
factors make it easier for people to kick off low cost, internet-based global businesses.

In today’s economic world, entrepreneurship is considered the key factor toward economic
development. Entrepreneurs strive to create more opportunities in industry, providing more
employment options and ultimately having a positive impact on per capital income, revenue
generation, lifestyle, etc.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ENTREPRENEURIAL PROCESS

Entrepreneurship is like doing any other business, but there are some characteristics, which
distinguish it from traditional business techniques.

Innovation

An entrepreneur’s mind revolves around new ideas and opportunities for innovation. There is a

continuous and conscious effort required to look for niches and undertake the risks in entering
them. Entrepreneurship involves the continuous examination of existing business workflows and
devising ways in order to carry them out in a more efficient and effective way, in terms of both
time and cost. In simple words, entrepreneurship works toward the optimization of business.

 Economic Importance

Entrepreneurship works toward optimizing resources and taking full use of them to create
efficient processes. It increases an enterprise’s wealth and adds value by increasing the economic
activity that comes with optimizing the whole process.

 More Profit

The process of entrepreneurship rewards the individual by increasing the profit potential of the
enterprise. This is the result of undertaking new ideas and providing an innovative product or
service.

 Risk-Taking

The whole essence of entrepreneurship revolves around the courage and ability to take new risks.
Patience is needed to observe the fruitful outcome of an idea, and it takes time and effort to go
from conceptualization to implementation of ideas. This time and effort is the risk that the
entrepreneur is willing to take.
  Job Opportunities

Entrepreneurship creates new niches and enterprises, which requires a work force. This provides
exciting job opportunities for young adults. Hence, with the innovation and profit,
entrepreneurship has immense potential for creating jobs.

WHY CREATIVITY IS SO CRUCIAL FOR ENTREPRENEURS?

A thorough observation of the entrepreneurial process shows that creative thinking is the must
have “skill” of an entrepreneur for the creation of new ideas. Creativity allows a person to devise
interesting processes, which gives so many advantages to entrepreneurs.

But what exactly makes creativity so crucial and important in an entrepreneur’s work life?

Creativity leads to success by:

Creating new ideas for competitive advantage. The whole process of entrepreneurship is

rooted in creation and exploration of new ideas. When an entrepreneur is able to generate a new
idea that is feasible as well as efficient, it gives him an edge over the competition. The ability to
explore different niches is just like a learned skill or a resource that is possessed by an individual.

Thinking of novel ways to develop your product and improve the business. Creativity helps
develop new ways of improving an existing product or service and optimizing a business. There
is always a room for improvement in the deliverables of an enterprise; it is the creative
entrepreneur who can assess how to do it.

Thinking the unthinkable. Creativity requires imagination to produce the most obscure ideas.
Imagination is needed to cross the boundary of “usual” and “normal” or to think outside the box.
This allows entrepreneurs to think beyond the traditional solutions, come up with something
new, interesting, versatile, and yet have success potential.

Finding similar patterns in different areas. Sometimes, due to following a routine or a habit,

the thinking process also goes along the line of those established processes. Creativity enables
people to connect dissimilar and unrelated subjects and make successful entrepreneurial ideas.
Merging different fields creates interesting intersections that creates new niches. Most people are
afraid of bringing different disciplines together, but most interesting ideas come from colliding
different fields.

Developing new niches through creativity and entrepreneurship. In entrepreneurship, it is

important that new aspects of traditional business are explored. This can be in the form of
changing the method of manufacturing the product or delivering the service or how are they
supplied to the user. All these areas can create a niche that has great potential in business.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND CREATIVITY – HOW ARE THEY LINKED?

We have now assessed that entrepreneurs can attribute their success to creativity. But what
exactly links entrepreneurship and creativity?

Entrepreneurs link the creative mind and the business mind.

In today’s world, due to globalization and excessive industrialization, products are manufactured
and exported to international markets. As a result, there is easier access to every product,
everywhere. The consumer has access to various kinds of products ranging in type and quality.
So what does a businessperson do in a market flooded with products? How can someone think of
manufacturing and supplying a product in markets where consumers already have their trusted
preferences and so many choices to choose from? How can we make a product stand out from
the rest?

A creative mind answers all those questions. Creativity helps us think of how to improve existing
business practices. A brand might be very established and popular among the consumers, but
there is always something that can be done differently from them and in a better way. A creative
mind is like an artist who creates new and exciting patterns on canvas. Creativity can come up
with the most unthinkable ideas and bring innovation into existing practices.

Creativity is simply the ability of imagination. Imagination leads someone to reach never before
explored areas. In business terms, imagination alone is what is known as “thinking outside the
box”. Using imagination, an entrepreneur can put aside the practical norms and think of
something creative and innovative.

However, a creative mind has to have entrepreneurial skills to bring those creative ideas to life in
a business setting. An entrepreneur assesses the requirements of how to execute an idea by
analyzing available vs. required resources, how to establish a new enterprise and how to manage
it. An entrepreneur designs business models that can support and execute innovative ideas in the
first place. An entrepreneur provides the ‘science’ aspect about how to bring the artistic
creativity to life. Therefore, an entrepreneur bridges the gap between the creative genius and a
traditional business approach.

There are indicators that signify the creative thinking of a successful entrepreneur.

Creativity does give an entrepreneur a competitive advantage, but how does one assess whether
they are creative enough or not?

Following are characteristic features indicative of a creative entrepreneur:

An entrepreneur adheres to rules and principles only when they add value to the organization and
have a potential to attract more customers.
An entrepreneur experiments with his ideas as the first step. The second step is learning from the
experience and the third step is implementation of what they have learned.

An entrepreneur is less afraid to lose and is always keen to experiment in new ventures.

The entrepreneur is not afraid of creativity and believes that creative ideas will only help their
enterprise.

A creative thinker will take inspiration from new ideas in every area directly or indirectly related
to the enterprise.

An entrepreneur is not afraid to go beyond the industry and enter new markets. This opens a
wide range of opportunities to formulate new niches.

Every product and service is not good enough and has room for improvement. An entrepreneur
realizes that very well.

A creative thinker is interested in bringing totally opposite things together to create new products
or services.

An entrepreneur creates new products for existing services and new services for existing
products.

Creative ideas come more quickly when someone is not afraid to appreciate new ideas
irrespective of who comes up with them.

An entrepreneur shares an idea and is open to feedback that improves and refines the idea.

Creativity comes from learning different things, whether they are related to the industry or not.

These indicators show that entrepreneurship and creativity go hand in hand with each other.
Entrepreneurs are more flexible and seek improvement more than they seek perfection.

Creativity needs to be structured.

Despite all the flexibility to undertake new ventures, creativity does require a bit of structure for
successful execution. However, too much structure robs the whole essence of the process. The
key lies in having a rigorous approach toward work without being too stiff. Researchers say that
creativity works best with two separate approaches: convergent and divergent. A convergent
approach is focused and seeks a single solution using available information. However, divergent
thinking works to create many creative ideas in different directions.

BASIC ELEMENTS OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS

The process of creating interesting ventures is inherently dynamic and versatile. There are many
aspects to the approach and the stages of the creative process. Some insight into the process is
given below:

Step 1: Preparation

The first stage, of course, is the preparation of some basic ideas to hold onto. There has to be
some inspiration that “forces” or “prepares” the entrepreneur to move forward. The creative
process starts with identifying a problem and then researching for related information. This is
done in an effort to start looking for a viable solution. An entrepreneur looks in every direction to
solve the problem, be it inside the industry or outside.

Step 2: Thinking outside the box – going beyond the comfort zone

Can we achieve anything if we are not willing to go beyond our comfort zone? One has to leave
the comfortable arena, go beyond and take a risk. Rewards come with efforts.

“Thinking outside the box” is an expression that has been used in marketing, business and
psychology since the 1970s. It owes its origin to a “nine dot” game that was once used as a test
of creativity. The puzzle was designed such that the person had to go beyond the dots to find the
solution. However, psychologists say that this “external” factor is not really external, it is simply
the existing solution to the problem. “External” is only how our brain tends to perceive it.

Step 3: Creativity isn’t magic

Despite the immensely amazing things creativity can achieve, it is definitely not magical.
Creativity is simply approaching things with a different perspective. The simplest approach to
creative thinking can be copying different elements, transforming them, combining them
and eureka! There is a new idea. This essentially makes use of existing elements. As Kirby
Ferguson says, “It happens by applying ordinary tools of thought to existing materials. And the
soil from which we grow our creations is something we scorn and misunderstand even though it
gives us so much — and that’s… copying.”

Step 4: Incubation

During the incubation stage, ideas that have the potential to solve a problem tend to flourish.
This stage is characterized by the unconscious thought process of refining an idea. Apparently,
there are many activities at work during this stage, but the overall goal is to find a solution.
Evaluating existing projects can help to generate viable ideas. Some researchers even refer to the
creativity process as re-creativity since it takes inspiration from existing ideas and molds them in
an innovative way.

Step 5: Illumination
Incubation leads to clarity of ideas. This is the “solution finding” stage. Now the creativity
process leads to the knowledge of some practical ideas that can be put to work. It is like a “light
bulb” moment, hence it’s called illumination.

Step 6: Verification

This stage determines whether the “found” solution even has the potential to work or not. The
idea can either be accepted as such, modified with minor or major changes, or rejected
altogether, requiring that the whole process be done again.

Step 7: Critical thinking

Generating innovative ideas is a comparatively easy task. The major success of an

entrepreneurial endeavor lies in critically examining the viability of an idea. Critical thinking
enables an entrepreneur to self-judge in order to evaluate the idea. It is defined as a self-directed,
self-disciplined, self-monitored and self-corrective process of evaluating an idea.

No one else is aware of the aspects of the problem as well as the proposed solution like the
entrepreneur is. Therefore, a very honest opinion about the viability of the idea can come from
the entrepreneur himself.

Critical thinking offers many competitive advantages to the entrepreneur, such as:

It helps formulate the best possible idea.

It allows for exploring new horizons and seeing the big picture.

It enables the entrepreneur to evaluate and ask questions that have not been considered
previously.

It helps in taking decisive actions; the result of creativity.

Therefore, the process of creative thinking that starts with brainstorming “ends” at the critical
analysis of the idea’s viability. The resulting potentially viable ideas can lead to the creation of
actual entrepreneurial enterprises or improvement of the existing ones.

HOW TO BE CREATIVE AND THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

In business, if one aspires to achieve more, then it requires doing more. Everyone is comfortable
with the norms as they are pretty established with few chances of risks. However,
entrepreneurship cannot thrive on the “norms”, rather it requires building something innovative
from those norms.

Creativity leads to innovation, which in turn leads to improvement in the business one way or the
other. Creative thinking leads to new products and services, increasing market competition.
Creativity being a very important factor of the whole endeavor can sometime not be that easy to
achieve. An entrepreneur cannot rely upon occasional “light bulb” moments to achieve
professional greatness. However, there are certain ways that can “train” the entrepreneur to be
able to think creatively on a frequent basis, boost the process and make it more efficient.

Think freely, but focus on the major question you want answered, the product you want
developed, or the area you want improved.

Free thinking is primary to creating more contemporary and profitable business practices.
Likewise, a creative mind is expected to come up with innovative ideas; something not thought
of before. However, the basic focus of the creative process should revolve around a problem and
building a solution for it. Putting up some restrictions and establishing some parameters is
important in the creative process. Endless opportunities interfere with the generation of viable
ideas. Focused thinking helps in detailed idea generation that has the potential to be
implemented.

Brainstorm.

Choosing a successful idea requires that there are enough viable ideas on the table in the first
place. Creative thinkers need to churn out every possible alternative they have in mind. In fact,
the collection of ideas or brainstorming is so important that there should be regular brainstorming
sessions. This helps in compiling every idea starting with the most absurd ones. One should
know that a very weird idea could be made wonderful later on.

Encourage and reward creative ideas of your team.

The team can be the greatest asset an enterprise can have. Conscious efforts should be made to
encourage the employees to think creatively. There could be small trips arranged for employees
to get inspiration and effectively engage in creative thinking. At the end, there should be rewards
for employees who help in increasing the company’s value. There could be certificates,
vacations, awards or another motivational strategy to inspire employees.

Share ideas and solicit feedback.

We learn a lot from our experiences. Nevertheless, in entrepreneurial endeavors, it is better that
an idea is refined and theoretically foolproof before it is taken to the step of execution. One
person could be ignoring some very important aspects of a problem, however, sharing ideas and
soliciting feedback can give a multidimensional perspective.
REFRENCES

https://www.intechopen.com/books/entrepreneurship-practice-oriented-
perspectives/entrepreneurial-creativity-and-growth

https://www.infoentrepreneurs.org/en/guides/the-challenges-of-growing-a-business---and-how-
to-meet-them/

https://hbr.org/2008/10/creativity-and-the-role-of-the-leaderCrucial for Entrepreneurs

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/143150.htm

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University College

Dublin, 7-10 September 2005