Innovation & Entrepreneurship Professor Peter Sheldrake, professor of Business Entrepreneurship from RMIT, Australia was on MMU campus this Thursday. I will start referring to Prof. Peter as just Peter now less he gets the impression that I am trying to get money from him. He mentioned twice, once to a group and once to me personally that people that call him Professor tend to want money from him. Peter gave a very good presentation. He is very experience, intelligent and emphatic at the same time. Peter’s presentation is on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and touched the core. After the presentation, he answered some interesting question.

Change – The Challenge of Today

I like any entrepreneurship/management talk that starts and focuses on Change - especially someone who truly understands it, someone that walks the talk. There are two main themes of change – strategic and fundamental change. Strategic change: Amazon taking bookstores online. Fundamental Change: Automobile industry. Change happens and is here to stay. The world changes so rapidly; if you do not understand how it is changing, you will not be able to do anything in today’s world.

Three themes of Innovation

1. Resilience
2. Renewal
3. Revolution

Companies need to be resilience in order to stay in business today. That means companies that do know how to change will not be able to stay in business in the new world. This applies to both startups and big corporate firms.

Companies need to undergo renewal in order to make money today. Companies that take a look at how they are doing things and then improve certain key functions have higher chances of making money today. A startup that does the same thing as people in the past will not succeed.

Companies need to revolutionize the way they think about their business if they want to be at the top of their game. Today we live in the idea age. Innovators, those who have the knowledge, experience and courage to create and lead will win.

Three questions to ask as a startup

1. What need does this product/service meet?
2. Why is this solution better than any other solution to fulfill this need in your market?
3. How competitive is my way to meet this need?

  ¶ 7:02 PM