Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development Essay

Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development - Essay Example 'Innovation' has always been a word synonymous with Bill Gates. Even as a child, he would fiddle with software, improving on existing ones and writing his own. Before exploring his history of innovation, however, it would be more prudent to discuss what innovation is first. As already mentioned above, innovation is the one characteristic no entrepreneur would get very far without. Sticking to what works and what is known may allow one to get by and make some money, but the ones who truly make it big are those who are unafraid of challenging conventions and taking risks, and who manage to breathe new life into supposedly exhausted industries. In short, while a conservative approach to entrepreneurship may bring security, it is a more innovative approach that one would be more likely to experience success. That being said, it would be well worth defining exactly what innovation is supposed to be. It is said to be a way of encouraging customer value, which can be done either through meeting new needs or through meeting old, existing needs in new and different ways. From an entrepreneur's perspective, this is most often attained through the introduction of unique products, services, technologies or ideas to the market. What sets innovation apart from mere improvement is that it is more concerned with taking a new, unique and different approach to something, rather than just building on the usual approach. The current environment has evolved such that innovation has become a major, major catalyst for growth, as the greater ease of transportation and communication has made factor endowments and comparative advantage less important in the long run. Instead, argues Schumpeter (1943), companies such as Microsoft need to constantly revolutionize the economic structure, as can be seen from the constant innovation of their products and services. Heyne et al (2010) lend further credence to this statement, describing a pattern among entrepreneurs in which they constantly aim to satisfy customers by continually improving on the quality, durability, service and price of their products, using a combination of technology and organizational strategy