Do not give up innovation for fear of failure

[Naveed Yaseen]

Entrepreneurs suggest organisations to absorb failures sometimes so that they can move ahead in search of success

Saturday, November 14, 2009
By Salman Siddiqui

KARACHI: Every project in the businesses cannot be a success story, while failure of a few of them is not the end of the corporate world. Therefore, organizations have to have an appetite to absorb failures sometimes so that they can move ahead in search of success.

Notable entrepreneurs from different business sectors deliberated upon this at a one-day conference on Corporate Innovation & Entrepreneurship 2009, which the MiT Enterprises Forum Pakistan organized in collaboration with the Organization of Pakistan Entrepreneurs of North America (OPEN) and TerraBiz here on Friday.

Lewtan Technologies (USA), EVP, Usman Ismail made the point of accepting failures if they encounter sometimes in the businesses and life.

The other panellists including Unilever Pakistan, Director-HR, Haroon Waheed and Naseeb Networks, CEO, Monis Rehman elaborated that entrepreneurs should take a failure as an opportunity to learn more and do the different instead of a taking it as a challenge and go into the isolation.

Engro Foods, CEO, Sarfaraz A Rahman called for encouragement and appreciation at offices will not hurt employees if one of them fails to achieve goals.

“The environment of fear from bosses to work hard can bring employees under psychological pressure, minimise working capabilities of employees, so the fear-factor should not prevail at offices,” said a panellist while other added, “In the US, (some) CEOs attend office wearing T-shirts and jeans and make their colleagues fell-free to interact with them while in Pakistan (some) bosses want their subordinates to stand-up when they enter in office in the morning.”

There was a 100 per cent consensus among speakers to dedicate a significant portion of time to be spent on thinking and imaging the vision and to drive ideas out of box to stand out in the crowd.

Siemens Pakistan, CEO, Sohail Wajahat said that innovation in corporate world was the recipe for growth and progress in the businesses. He added that there are so many people in the country who were shy and did not want to be the first to do something different although they have to ability to do it. They wanted some others to kick off the change and invite them to play their part.

Another speaker added that people should not wait for the best time but commence the project and let time, opportunity and practice come their ways.

MIT Entrepreneurship Center (USA), Founding Managing Director, Kenneth P. Morse said big companies move slowly, which is not good for their financial health. Speed is the key factor in the world of innovations, he further said and added, slow-moving businesses should open some new avenues to grow faster.

He said entrepreneurs should think globally to take their product in the world markets. He further said that innovation is about innovation and commercialisation it.

Other panellists were of the view that the lack of financing in launching of some new and creative ideas was the biggest hurdle in the expansion of corporate world. “Investment companies may fund expansion for a successful running business but would be shy to give seed money for new projects,” they observed.

Proper paper work regarding business plans, transparency, skilled and trained management behind new projects can make the process of raising funds for new business easy, said Maleeha Bangash, Member Research of Competition Commission of Pakistan.

Azhar Rizvi, CEO, Tan American Fund, said people can go abroad for fund rising and citied the example of Naseeb Networks, which raised its seed money from Silicon Valley.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=208369