The Technopreneurship chessboard: Powering Business and Economy with disruptive Technologies

Have we ever pondered that when a game of chess start, only half the space on chessboard is initially available? As the game progresses, transactional exchange frees up space for initiating game-changing moves by the players. In the context of Technopreneurship too, the initial amalgamation of Technology and Entrepreneurship is much like the initial layout of a chessboard. Is this true with CEOs?

However, when people of different calibres interact dynamically like technology creative, tech-savvy, innovative and when they dare to make moves for exploring the unexplored, new spaces open. Technology and Entrepreneurship share a common perspective of innovation and opportunity recognition. CEOs as Technopreneurs demonstrate a high degree of passion and belief for their idea.

The success is attributed to how effectively with myriad skill sets and resources, they bind together in creating successful venture. But it is the foresight component of strategic thinking that often creates that differential edge to carve out a niche amidst the competition. In an uncertain business environ, deploying foresight provides navigation through the turbulence.

While making money is on the proponent’s mind but the affirmation that the ‘idea’ is a worthy one and it works for a greater common good is more prevalent. 

CEOs cum Technopreneurs pursue an organic process of continual improvement for powering their ventures and they try to capitalise on the dynamic nature of digital economy by experimenting with new technologies. They think forward but start small with tactics, testing prototype, implement, sprint with success and finally scale by working backward with new technologies to provide differential customer experience in the economy. This ultimately gives them extraordinary and exponential returns as opposed to linear profitable growth. 

In the current economic context of India, the students, young entrepreneurs, accelerators and industry incubators need to decode emerging economies like India, leverage on their competitive advantage as the digitally enabled population can be a key asset for fostering a technopreneurship based ecosystem. This will bring in innovation while disrupting the routine for people, organizations and economy.

Learning from ssuccess stories and experiences of technopreneurs from varied fields will enthuse students and other participants to chalk out fruitful career paths. The endgame is always that technology should not control an individual, but it should be vice versa. Foresight calls for crafting readiness where individual can use technology in an appropriate manner for creating a network of actor-player-stakeholders which contributes to the net worth in business and entrepreneurship. These are the new age CEOs cum Technopreneurs, engaged in creative destruction.

Smart moves 

Globally in a VUCA world, it has witnessed several technopreneurs pushing the frontiers of innovation, taking the less trodden path, doing radically different things that changed and is still changing the course of economies and countries. Foresight deployment has been an integral part of such moves. The intent was on creation of demand for technology driven platforms where there was none, and this continuing trend is not buckling anytime soon.

What type of innovative products/services we will see in the future including game changing technologies? How will they disrupt the ways of doing things? What will be the benefits to society and nation as a whole? These are worthy questions to be explored. The futures are multiple and thus the foresight component will assist smart moves to reach those points.  Some of the sectors where smart moves have experienced technopreneurship successes are relevant to discuss for better understanding and knowledge sharing.  

Education – Digital knowledge networks have empowered the education field which was otherwise a routine segment until COVID-19 brought in a massive disruption in the entire learning process. Suddenly the demand online education platforms surged, requirement of a different set of skill programmes at the school/ college levels emerged.

What came to rescue was Technology, it was subtly used by creative and tech savvy minds as an enabler and prop it as an assistive setup for human intelligence for seeking maximum benefit. The massive volume of educational institutions starting from schools to colleges and universities provided an opportunity to create a valuable network for interaction amongst the cohorts to evolve common understanding and making strategic decisions for furthering one of the basic constitutional rights of the citizens. Technology, layered with powerful communication and branding coupled with a strong network of participants is a key to unlock hidden potential and create  success stories.

Online Retailing – Traditional shop-based sales saw a huge disruption during the pandemic scenario. Also, within the ambit of heavily restricted transportation and other forms of infrastructural paralysis the need to do something different was imperative for factory-based manufacturing businesses to survive. The answer came in form of moving to available online platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart,  Swiggy etc. to make their products reach to the end consumer.

The adaptation to a technology driven platform to interpret demand , maintain  inventory requirements was quite different from a routine kind of process. The changed scenario required infusion of flexibility. The unlimited market and its patterns could be seen on technology driven dashboards for those entrepreneurs who were willing to capitalise on the opportunity. Releasing consumer tutorials and videos online brought in customer confidence and assisted their decision-making process which was not possible physically at the times. The ease of access to reach large audiences through e- word of mouth became more relevant than the traditional word of mouth publicity. 

The above discussions are just an indicative scope where technopreneurship ably bridged the pandemic fostered disruption to create new niches of expectations and business opportunities. Many other sectors are open spaces still, awaiting right strategic moves from the players. Diversifying into associated fields is one area which many creative minds are exploring , as an example interior design intertwined with concepts of Vaastu, astrology, numerology and even energy flow practices like Reiki. Sounds exceptional? 

Health care services, content creation, blogging, product review writing, microfinancing and other such area are continuously evolving to provide technopreneurs leverage on the dormant opportunities by pitching their best moves. Forward thinking through foresight deployment is necessitated in such a vibrant business scenario.

One smart move in the game of chess often decides the endgame on the board, same goes for technology-driven entrepreneurial moves for creating technopreneurship. It is high time to Tech-up, deploy foresight to make that decisive move for capturing the open spaces of futures!

Written by Prof. (Dr.) Manoj Joshi.
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