Thursday, November 24, 2016

Leading the NorthCapians to the World of Creativity, Innovation, Leadership and Entrepreneurship

Dr Sushmita Biswal Waraich
School of Management,
The NorthCap University, Gurugram

We all know that the world around us is moving faster than ever before. The world of business is galloping too and competition is the buzz word today. If it was rightly said by Plato, the great Greek Philosopher, “Necessity is the mother of invention”, I wouldn’t be mistaken saying that competition is the mother of innovation. Innovation hasalways played a very crucial role in contributing to our existence. But today innovation is no more a luxury. It has become a necessity for survival or to surge ahead of competition while fulfilling the unmet needs of the society. Innovation is no more a privilege of the developed countries. Rather, in India, we have creative minds to work on frugal innovation and of late, the trend of “reverse innovation” has been catching on. Here, we, as academicians, play an active role in moulding the young minds to think that each one of them play an important role when it comes to innovation and not to be left to only a few countries or for that matter to a few people. Big business houses no more can be complacent about being innovative, being challenged by companies of the start-ups. Every business/sector, small or big, is desperate about coming up with new ideas. When the heat is felt by businesses, how can employees escape? The millennials who are going to either join businesses or work for their own business need to have an innovative and entrepreneurial bent of mind.

Keeping abreast with the time, the School of Management (SOM) at The NorthCap University, one of the leading management institutions in Delhi NCR, has been floating, of late, anelective course titled “Creativity, Innovation, Leadership and Entrepreneurship” (CILE). The class comprises students from different branches from the School of Engineering and Technology. Right from the beginning, the diversity factor is being taken care of which is an essential contributor to environment of creativity. At a time when India is featuring in top three countries of the world in terms of tech start-up hub, next to US and UK, offering such a course is an USP for School of Management.

When the course commences, the initial classes are dedicated to making the students understand creativity. Here the students are exposed to a number of exercises in order to identify their own uniqueness in thinking. Even if there would be a handful of students who are able to come out with unique solutions the rest are at least stimulated/motivated to think on those lines. Many come to know, at that moment about their unique talent, never realized before. Then they get to learn about the world of innovation through different projects.

They realise that coming up with innovative idea(s) is not enough.Just an innovative idea is not enough to sustain.Business is all about implementation.This is where they are exposed to the process of entrepreneurship. Knowledge of business, management, operations, etc.are equally important! Moving on to the world of entrepreneurship they get to learn about the challenges faced, business models etc. Here they get insight into the entrepreneurial process. At the same time they are made to realize that everything said and done, the leader plays a key role in fostering innovation as well as taking the business ahead.

In order to impart the course, the different teaching methods include lectures, case studies, assignments, live projects, classroom exercises, group discussions and seminars. The course equips the students with a conceptual base to understand importance of creativity and innovation and application of the same in business/enterprise and to be taken forward by a dynamic leader – be it as an employer or as an employee. Throughout the course, students are evaluated on their ability to understand concepts, keeping abreast of the happenings across the world and applying the concepts and techniques learnt in the class to real world problems.