Innovation Europe > News > Innovation EU Vol2-1 > The world needs real entrepreneurs

Philippe Vanrie, CEO, European BIC Network (EBN)

The global recession affecting European economies requires macroeconomic reforms and drastic budget control efforts, together with policies that create conducive environments for wealth and job creation – without jeopardising the European social model, while developing sustainable and carbon-free territories, and adapting Europe to a multi-polar world. What a programme: it’s about searching new economic and social models, a core objective of the EU Spanish Presidency’s priorities for 2010.

Actually, these challenging economic times present extraordinary opportunities for enhancing the competitiveness of organisations through innovation. Innovation by all means, by all, for all. In short, it’s urgent deploying of new innovation models. Not rigid ones, but adaptive, evolutive and open models.

Only true innovators, real entrepreneurs will make it: people, companies and organisations that have the ability to be responsive to changes, question certainties, adjust their mindset and re-orientate activities, move physically, find new partnerships, outsource non-core businesses, and so on. It’s a people story of continuous adaptation, a story of human evolution, where new Darwinian real entrepreneurs are urgently needed.

Of course, it’s about DNA – entrepreneurship-orientated DNA – which, by the way, can be cultivated by genetic re-combinations, by associating various disciplines and competances, by increasing bio-diversity. But it’s also a question of skills acquisition, a battery of skills considered vital, such as the capacity to observe, question, discover, experiment, incubate, engage, accelerate and of course, to collaborate and network. Wanted: new true innovators, real entrepreneurs.

Even if spontaneous generation of entrepreneurial micro-organisms happens, the ecosystem should be favourable for birth and growth, and enablers can really and significantly improve the flows of ideas, projects and investments. Enabling intermediaries such as Business and Innovation Centres, and innovation-based Incubators – known as credible, engaged and pragmatic support mechanisms – should,however, evolve themselves, and adjust their strategy, positioning, competences and services. Innovation-support instruments should become smart(er) too.

Experts are confirming more and more the emergence of five models that could really revolutionise the innovation zone and small business management: business models, collaborative models, digital models, socially responsible models, and total services models.

The process of business model design being at the core of business strategy and so essential for early-stage economic simulation, Business Model Innovation is becoming as important as product or service innovation, and is reshaping – sometime reinventing – existing industries, as well as stimulating the emergence of new companies and real entrepreneurs, ready for capturing new market segments.

Standing alone is not an option, neither for real entrepreneurs nor for researchers. The open source software movement, the open innovation high-tech industry pioneers and, the explosion of online social networks have created a conviction and an operational architecture, enabling real entrepreneurs inside and outside companies to work together. Clusters, joint projects, common technology platforms and shared application facilities, Living Labs, developers’ communities, collaborative softwares: there is an incredible number of collaborative initiatives and tools, an incredible change in the real entrepreneurs behaviour, and a promising growth of open and collaboration-based new ventures.

The EU has recently adopted an ambitious action plan for the future of the digital economy placing consumers at the centre, and aiming at creating a genuine consumer-friendly single-market for online services. Good news for the simple reasons that boosting ICT and going digital will boost productivity and economic growth.

Nothing new really, but what is new is the rapid and massive growth of web-creative and digital class heroes! Web-entrepreneurs, media-tech masters, new e-commerce players, mobile apps serial developers, gaming young innovators, mobile telecom and satellite navigation and geo-localisation new usages, e-government and e-procurement systems, 3D imaging, and so on: the sky is the limit of this real entrepreneurs horizon.

Fostering innovation in the services sector seems an obvious strategy to follow to tackle recession because, services are fast, flexible, adaptable, user-centric, jobs generators, but services are also more and more knowledge intensive, technology adopters, standards accelerators, skills enhancers, productivity and quality enablers, new markets facilitators, and so on.

The services industry is probably the new playground for innovation-based real entrepreneurs, the “next big thing” as stated by Business Week magazine. Service innovation can be everywhere, in a new customer interaction channel, a new distribution system, a novel application of technology, in new forms of operation with the supply chain or in new ways to organise operations. A service innovation benefits the service producer and it improves its users’ competitive edge. But this will have a massive impact only if traditional non-services behaviours are attacked, creating a drastic change in people’s mindset.

Not just for profit! This concept summarises very clearly the current trends in Corporate Social Responsibility. Another concept, the triple bottom line “People, Planet and Profit” adds a climate and environmental dimension, which brings all this back to “sustainable development”. A quiet revolution is in progress here, bringing back ethics, integrity, respect, transparency, better governance, gender and racial equality, engagement in continuous education, investment in human capital, attention to social inclusion and equal opportunity, and so on.

This is not only good for people and for the planet, this is good for companies, innovators and real entrepreneurs because it improves human resources and team’s engagements; explores new sources of talents; reduces risks of losing reputation and of environmental accidents; helps to differentiate; helps building a favourable ecosystem and a network of well-connected stakeholders. Socially responsible leaders and real entrepreneurs are not only good for others, they are better for themselves and are better business developers and jobs and growth accelerators.

There are so many publications and books about this, and one could say all this is obvious. We have underestimated the importance of the “physical touch” with these models, which means the necessity for “doers”, not only to be in contact with “thinkers”, but also to be able to touch the stories, the models, the innovation, the success and failure stories, the passions, the case!

Meeting people and networking with real entrepreneurs is crucial for nice concepts to become operational realities.

For more information, contact:
PhilippeVanrie , CEO
European BIC Network (EBN)
Avenue de Tervuren 168,
B-1150 Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 2 7728900
Websites: www.ebn.be
www.esinet.eu
www.ebnburgos2010.com