Understanding Entrepreneurship: The Key to Innovation and Job Creation in Nigeria

you all welcome to ENT 211 entrepreneurship and Innovation ENT 211 is one of

the general study courses that nuc expects every student to go

through and the purpose of bringing in entrepreneurship to the curriculum or fire institutions is to

encourage students to learn how to be dependent by the time they finish their program of

study irrespective of the course of study whether you are in the Arts and

Humanities Sciences social and management Sciences or anything you should be able to practice and be an

employer of Labor and take care of yourself rather than going about looking for white color job and you also be

helping in reducing the rate of unemployment in the country so you expected

to take this course very seriously not just for the purpose of passing examination but for for the purpose of

knowing and practicing afterwards series of uh topics have been lined up for this course and later on at

the 300 level we'll be having a followup course which is also uh to assist you to achieve this same purpose but for this

period I have some seasoned experts who will be joining me to take the course I'll be coordinating

the course and from next lesson other people will be joining me until we conclude at the end of the semester when

I also come back to round of the whole thing so today we want to look at the introductory aspect the concept of

Entrepreneurship historically the word entrepreneur was first used by

Richard canelon and and let entrepreneur the thing was point from two French

words an and PR an means between pront means to take so when you

join the two together you have something like between taker that is somebody in between two people who is taking a risk

a business risk this time around buying goods at certain prices to later sell at uncertain prices because

when you are buying a commodity you know how much you are buying it but by the time you be selling it you may not be

able to predict because that will depend on Market forces it's likely you sell at a price

higher than the amount you bought it or at a price lower or maybe at the same

price and that is what will determine whether you just breaking even or you making a profit or you are making a

loss but before we have the present connotation of Entrepreneurship if you go back

historically you discover that the way entrepreneurship was understood many many years

ago was different from what we have in mind today and along the line over the centuries different authors have come

around to Define entrepreneurship based on their own perception understanding of the word

entrepreneurship and in most cases some of them focused on uh different aspects of Entrepreneurship for instance

Joseph cheter looked at it as a sort of a activity that has to do with systematic

Innovation so his own way of looking at it is from the point of view of innovation that you

bring up a new idea commercialize it you're using it to help people and you're also using it to help yourself by

operating at a profit so entrepreneurs also do a Marge

from within the fence we have entrepreneurs that

are using their initiative bringing out new ideas to establish business enterprises and the

employed people to run the business they might also be directly involved by themselves that's the way we understand

entrepreneurs but there are similar Concepts that are from the world

entrepreneur depending on the focus for instance we also talk about

intrapreneurs the entrepreneur is somebody working for the entrepreneur he supposed

to be an employee but then because there's an enabling environment and the entrepreneur has made it possible for

this person to use his initiative and act as if he were an entrepreneur operating on his own outside the

organization but within this the organization this time around working for the

organization so because he's acting as an entrepreneur but is inside an organization owned by an entrepreneur we

refer to him as an [Music] intrapreneur so that should not confuse

us and even today we have so many preneurs and preneurs and preneurs depending on what's the point of

focus we can talk about Med preneur people in the medical field who operate as

entrepreneurs to give you a direct uh refle of what the purpose of the business is we rather use the word m

preneur so you know that it's an entrepreneur in the medical field we have entrepreneur

Educators those who are specialist who are educationist so they want to make you to realize that we entrepreneurs but

we are educationist so they refer to themselves as entrepreneurs you can also hear people talking about agripreneurs

those in the agricultural so you can have different types of preneurs like that those who are using their

initiatives taking risk and commercializing uh whatever they know how to do to benefit the Society and

also uh to benefit themselves but let's look

at an all inclusive definition by is because somebody is looking at entrepreneurship from the point of view

of innovation another one is considering it from the point of view of managerial process that is what managers normally

do that this is somebody who is starting a business and is also

supervising planning is organizing these are managerial activities and caring them out as an

entrepreneur but this rich just tried to bring all these perspective together to give us an all inclusive definition

although the definition is not for you to memorize so that you can recitate and point down no but just to give

us an idea of a summary of all the activities of an entrepreneur he says and uh he defined entrepreneurship

as the process of creating something new you know Innovation is coming in there now and when we say something it

may not be something entirely or completely new it may be addition to an existing idea or product or service or

process of doing things it may be doing the old thing in a new way it may be a completely new thing but you are

creating something new with value value is very important because if there's no value

there's no way you can Market the product or service although there may be a

difference between the way you as a buyer will value the product that is the value you place on it and the value the

entrepreneur will place on it that's why there has to be a point of intersection there be a point of agreement when there

is hling you go to the market and youle this one says no I'm going to take 20 naira say no I'm going to pay 10 NAA

know I cannot pay I cannot accept 10A I even it even cost me more than 10 and then you hle up and down and agre out 15

n that is where the transaction or the exchange takes place but then there must it shows that there is value for that

product that's why you are saying you want to collect so much money and say is able to pay is ready to pay so much

amount so the value is also important by devoting the necessary time and effort you have to put in resources your time

your talents your Treasures to make this thing work not only that you also assuming the

accompanying risks the risk may be Financial it may be psychological may be social

there's no business venture that doesn't involve risk and if you are a risk aor you may not be able to succeed as a

business person they always running away from risk in fact the greater or the higher

the risks if it succeed they have the profitability or the success of the Venture and the lower

the risk plus the lower the reward you get from it three two release you will have to be there and

then receiving the resulting rewards of monetary and personal satisfaction as well as

Independence you are on your own you employing others you can operate freely terms of taking decisions time of

operation without necessarily Consulting if you decide to consult anybody it's just your

personal you are not to do so so the satisfaction Joy of ownership is there and other rewards you

get from it and if the things succeed at the end of the day then you also have your monetary reward or again that is

the way uh history defined entrepreneurship we also

supposed to talk about some skills that entrepreneurs must process in order to seat but that will come up at a later

time before the end of this course somebody else will be coming to take you up on that so I'm not got to go into

that now but some of them have even mentioned in the course of defining explaining uh who an

entrepreneur uh is now another section we want to talk about has to do with the components of

Entrepreneurship so when we talk about entrepreneurship what and what are invol five major things and you discover that

the defition actually captured some of these there must be somebody entrepreneurship cannot operate

or exist in a vacuum there must be somebody is an entrepreneur that is at the center of this entrepreneurship

we're talking about so number one an individual then secondly an act the individual cannot be passive

there must be action he has to take some steps to know what and what to do to bring everything to FR what is inputting

or bringing in uh into the business then Innovation and opportunity he is aware of existing

ideas in terms of product or service but you want to bring in something new or

what has been existing what people are already familiar with in a new way might have discovered a gap and area not

properly handled by existing providers of such services or producers of such goods and now want to

call in to do it in a better way that feel will be acceptable or more acceptable to uh the

consumers and in doing that there must be an opportunity that

is a niche is about to satisfy and it's now using this particular product or service

to fill that Gap or to meet that need that's an opportunity for him because he's going to make a profitable business

out of it but at the same time is rendering a service meeting and satisfying needs of people around him

then we talk of an organization there must be an entity because this entrepreneur is

the organizer so to see the various resources or factors of production are there capital is there the land is there

bringing everything together to make sure that this succeeds well it may not be a very big

organization it may even start as an individual but eventually maybe he get one person two people three people to

join in to handle this or that that's already an organization until now becomes what is formally recognized as

an organization but there somebody organizing something resources organizing people and making things work

towards meeting certain needs Al do at some risks that's the f one risk there be one thing or the other that the

ordinary person who doesn't have the entrepreneurship spirit will be fearing that if I go into this thing suppose it

doesn't work this way suppose I didn't get my expectation that's the risk we talking

about cost you money you invest something invest your time and you sacrifice other things

but an entrepreneur will be optimistic that yes there's a risk but I weather it and at the end of the

day what I'm going the I'm going to get will uh be far more than the risk I seem to

have uh taken so the risk will be there you put all these things together then you have one to call

entrepreneurship then another aspect is the entrepreneurial process the process as you move from one author to

the other you discover different steps and stages that people talk about but we decide uh to put everything together

summarize them some have eight six seven but we collapsed everything and put them together

as four major steps or distinct faces in the entrepreneurial process so the first one

is identifying and evaluating the business opportunity that's where we start is there an opportunity existing

around me and when we talk about opportunity people think that maybe when you want to

have aned somebody or when you want to get something maybe

free somebody want to dash you something or something free that won't cost you anything that's not the opportunity we

are talking about the opportunity has to do with identifying a need need around you in fact somebody

has said identifying a problem what are the problems people

around me are going through or if not people around some some people elsewhere then that means you go to that

place to solve that problem or you provide a good from where you are and then you

find a way of transporting it to that place to meet those things or solve those problem but there must be a

business opportunity problem you are trying to solve that must be a way of commercializing it so

when you're able to identify it and evaluate it the evaluation may take the form of first of all carrying out a

visibility study writing a visibility report and then seeing how to uh execute the thing but one thing is essential

identify and then evaluate so your evaluation you now decide if it is worth pursuing or not

then developing the business plan from the information you are able to gather from your research that's the

possibility study you carried out you can prepare a business plan the business plan is like a a compass a road map

something that can guide you towards reaching your goal the goal you want to achieve

steps you will take in terms of maybe the resources you need to gather Financial Resources human resources and

others location all the other factors of production landed property and other things that you will be involved in

executing this uh entrepreneurial project so that's the second step you're able to successfully determine that and

from that you get the third one determining the resources required so resources you are going to

use to establish a business and make the goods or the services available to those who will patronize you and then finally

managing resulting business Enterprise dayto day running you employ some people you in charge of this the other one be

in charge of that and then how you now monitor the production is a manufacturing organization and then the

sales and marketing of the product ordinarily when we talk of Entrepreneurship is the entrepreneur

that comes to our mind that is a particular individual don't forget when I was talking about the components I

mentioned an individual that's what where I started from but then it's even possible for an organization itself to

be entrepreneurial so you can talk of an entrepreneurial Corporation an organization that is operating as if

it's an individual entrepreneur and then it's also giving bir to other corporations

subsidiaries meeting needs and then creating environment for all those within that organization to be

entrepreneurial so that term that concept also come come across is an entrepreneurial Corporation and that is

a corporation that that permits individuals and groups of people or teams within the organization to

recognize and capture opportunities then you can also look at the entrepreneural corporation as a the

one that is appropriately focusing on value creation you know that is uh definition we talked about

value so if the organization is focusing and focusing the attention of workers on value creation it is an

entrepreneurial Corporation then it will also uh provide opportunity to bring together

processes that will lead to Innovation and the use of initiatives by members of that organization so we have

an entrepreneurial Corporation day another related uh concept is the habitual entrepreneurs that is there

can be individuals an individual group of individuals

that we not just stop at establishing a single organization or business venture after that one is established

they go ahead to establish other ones so it has come part and Par of them those are the ones you refer to as a uh

habitual entrepreneurs they have more than one experience when it comes to of startups

then uh they also always seeking new opportunities to create value to meet needs these are habitual

entrepreneurs then we can also have entrepreneurial teams two people or three people the

same two or three people who are always establishing businesses together establish this one employ people hand it

over to managers then go ahead to establish another one maybe a related organization it might be diversifying to

another field entirely we have them especially in this ICT technological field do a lot of

that establish this go ahead and establish another one and we can also have them in other Industries too those

are entrepreneurial things by the time we started

I gave us a brief idea of how this isue of Entrepreneurship in high started the federal government has taken the issue

of entrepreneurial education as very important in order to assist individuals so that they also can assist

Society assist those around them in the process of helping themselves to survive so that's why we

have this various CES and even up to PhD level in any nigeran University today you must go to before you get your

certificates that degree but our own concern is what's the relationship with this this

entrepreneurship education and economic development in the nation the original idea is to make sure

that as entrepreneurship studies continues to improve in various

institutions start practicing what they learn then supposed to have positive effect on economic development

[Music] and I can tell you that since we started in this institution over the years

students those even before they graduated and some of those who have graduated that are still have contact

with they are practicing what they have pled producing they start in very small ways and then continue

producing uh sandals over sleepers clothing materials and different things that you

not be able to some of them are living by those things and you want to tell me that that is not an improvement on the

economic development of the nation so what is important is for you now because it's now your turn

to ready to practice what then start on small scale most entrepreneurs start on a small scale and that's why you says

one or two things about uh small scale businesses you might be fearing that many small scale businesses

I know they don't last long yes they we have a high rate of Morality In the small scale business

sector but why it is why we know the reason for the high rate of death or collapse that we can talk of solution to

uh these uh things we can talk of you see initially we start with declining sales a business

that has been getting high rate of pattering before say suddenly begins to decline then uh trade deps

increase when that one increase there a problem productivity itself will also begin to

fall there's increase in labor turnover that's also Sy the symptom of the problem Returns on investments

profitability eventually will also begin to fall when you see these symptoms then you know that there is danger at the

door and the reason for all these number one incompetence po management people feel that because I

have the money I can to start this business then I don't need any managerial knowledge that may be a

problem where they don't have enough experience to run or manage the business they

neglect some will know that they don't have the time just hand it over to somebody without adquate supervision

there's no way that individual can handle it and be committed to it way you the

originator of that business will do so there's need for monitoring supervision and when you don't do that then then

sometimes poor health of the owners eventually result in death of the business when you don't have good

accounting record record keeping not up to date there a problem and when you cannot separate between

personal assets and business assets and keep on dipping your hand into it then also a problem then some people want to

start very B so they keep on investing investing investing and without looking at the rate that they can adequately

accommodate and manage so when the thing become too big to handle eventually it will also

collapse when there's problem with the feasibility study that was done initially

that what the solution to all this just do the contract identify the problem then do

the Opposites there be solution to the problem so when we talk about incompetence get adequate

knowledge learn develop yourself as entrepreneur and make sure you proper Monitor and supervise what is going on

even if there are other people who are going to assist so that there W be any uh problem keep good accounting up toate

accounting uh record then avoid over borrowing excessive borrowing you may get to a point where you are not able to

handle it but some business organization that started on a small scale and they are really making it are distracted and

start investing in maybe Vehicles furniture and other fiscal asset that has nothing no bearing directly with the

uh purpose of the business when they cannot uh afford that that the business may eventually run into problem so you

avoid that then operate on the scale that you can cope with then you can begin to expand and expand and expand

gradually if you want to become a big business you eventually become a big business and at the onset where you are

starting make sure that the feasibility study is properly carried out the project identification is

properly done you have a good business plan before you take off that's where we are going to stop for today and

subsequently we go into other details concerning this entrepreneurship and Innovation thank you for your

listening attention goodbye