Thinking Differently: The Start
Entrepreneurs should never forget their role to innovate society forward. Since businesses contribute to the standard of living, society should assess the impact that its entrepreneurs are making. Solving society’s challenges is a task that falls largely to entrepreneurs.
In that light, we must link business ideas to local challenges with the aim of innovating our society forward. New business ideas will help society think differently about the economy and the Caribbean’s role in a globalised world. The critical discourse becomes how to make the next generation of business ideas successful. Such discussion should start with thinking differently about our economy and technology’s influence on the world.
We need to think differently about our economy. Economic discussions are oversimplified by focusing on growth metrics. Heavy emphasis on growth can lead to a disregard of other questions: such as whether our economic activities are sustainable, what should be the new areas of growth and are we doing enough to encourage innovation. Changing how we think starts with an honest analysis of what we produce and how we generate revenue in Trinidad and Tobago. The quality of our economy must be as much a talking point as its size. Our current recessionary standard is evidence that the quality of our economy has remained relatively stagnant since independence.
Two contrasting examples that require us to think differently are infrastructure investment and domestic consumption. Government has traditionally driven infrastructure investment because of their control over a large share of resources and capacity in each area. The construction industry is heavily dependent on government-based contracts and exporters are assisted by statutory companies. The global environment of favourable commodity prices allowing for high government spending is ending. Therefore, it is unsustainable to depend on government to drive all infrastructure investments. We need an entrepreneurial solution that will spread the cost of infrastructure investment and allow more participation by private citizens.
Domestic consumption is always better managed by private actors. Directly or indirectly entrepreneurs and business-owners provide the options that society purchases from. The large expansion of international trade creates the illusion that all goods are tradable and that the origin of goods is irrelevant. High levels of tradability means even locally processed products are made from internationally traded ingredients. This lends to the paradox that the availability of goods is not the same as accessibility of goods. Locally, therefore we have to ask what options would be available to us if we were to lose access to foreign goods and services. This dilemma is most prevalent in the food industry where the answer is likely to be very limited. However addressing this challenge brings an opportunity to encourage local entrepreneurs into new growth areas.
We need to think differently about how technology is influencing the world. Steve Case, the Co-Founder and former Chairman of America Online (AOL) defines technology’s current influence as the third wave. When the internet started, it was largely driven by strategies designed to connect human beings online. Then we focused on integrating things in our lives to the internet i.e. selling online, digitizing physical products and services. Modern technology is characterised by connecting everything we use to the internet. Innovation develops a relationship with connecting the internet to everything. The third wave is how the internet will influence mature industries such as healthcare and finance. The internet becomes intertwined to our lives not by devices but by lifestyle.
These developments have positive and negative considerations for Trinidad and Tobago. On one hand, we have the opportunity to innovate in bureaucratically burdensome industries in a manner that improves entrepreneurship. On the other hand, technological inertia hinders the entrepreneurial ways in which these technologies can be used. Regardless of the outcome, local entrepreneurs are now forced to create new technologies as opposed to merely distributing them.
To encourage that creation we must improve access to investment. Notably, the internet is changing how we invest by giving more persons the opportunity to participate in entrepreneurship. Investment platforms connect investors to entrepreneurs in a manner that makes the investing easy to the everyday person. This influence is part of a global change that recognises that is challenging traditional business models to become more inclusive.
From these two topics, namely the economy and technology’s influence, we can see there is a regional need to think differently. Entrepreneurship has a role to play in changing society and it is long overdue that we recognise it.
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Joshua Hamlet is an evangelist for the importance of collaboration. His company Inspire Consulting focuses on education and mentoring for Caribbean entrepreneurs and start-ups. He holds a LLB and Msc in International Relations.