Innovation propels growth and economies thrive when innovative minds strive to transform their vision and goals into reality. With many young entrepreneurs fearlessly carving out niche solutions for modern India, a new wave of entrepreneurship is taking shape– one with innovation at its core.
This type of innovation is one that flourishes in a competitive ecosystem, improving the core competencies within an industry while also providing impetus to economic growth. As of 2022, there are 107 unicorns in India, and this number is only set to grow, considering the gazelles and the cheetahs. This entrepreneurial spirit drives the growth of new job markets and innovation, ultimately building a stronger and more resilient economy.
Citing one of the most recent examples of the COVID era was the development of COVID-19 vaccines. From launching delivery apps to digitising financial landscapes, entrepreneurship and innovation have brought on India’s economic growth. These advancements had a revolutionary impact and were born out of the relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation in India. In fact, India is currently 40th in the Global Innovation Index 2022, climbing 41 places among 132 countries since 2015.
Delving deeper, here are some insights into innovation and entrepreneurship in India:
Innovation and Entrepreneurship: A Winning Combination
In its simplest form, entrepreneurship is a problem-solving approach to business. When one strives to create new business by finding the right solution to a problem, entrepreneurship shines brightest. While entrepreneurship is considered a focal point in the economic development of a nation, innovation is its backbone that enables businesses.
Innovation is the propelling force of entrepreneurship and fuels the development of an economy. Thanks to innovative entrepreneurs like Ratan Tata and Sanjiv Bajaj, their disruptive vision to solve a problem helped grease the wheels of our economic progress and instilled confidence in many.
Innovative Entrepreneurs: Enablers of Growth To a degree, all entrepreneurs have dabbled with innovation in some form or the other. Be it a winning business model, a product or service, or a process, there’s no denying that some amount of innovation is needed to be a successful entrepreneur. But the new breed of innovative entrepreneurs takes it a few steps further, honing the required skills to illicit wide-scale impact.
CEO and Co-Founder, FIBE
These professionals are masters of communication, capable of positioning brands for value creation across the board. That’s not all, many possess the required financial acumen and creative prowess to be pioneers that usher in a new age of advancement. As such, their success often meets the changing demands of consumers, creates opportunities and enables growth over the long term.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Impact on the Indian economy
The increase in the number of startups from 471 in 2016 to 72,993 and more in 2022 is a testament to the impact of both innovation and entrepreneurship. In fact, in 2022 alone, around 14,000 new startups found their footing in the market. If the past is any indicator, it won’t be long before these new entrants enter the ‘cheetah’, ‘gazelle’ or even the ‘unicorn’ club.
These transitions have a massive impact, from the POV of economic growth all the way to employment. A report in 2022 found that 100 unicorns in India are responsible for employing a whopping 2.72 Lakh individuals, formally, while the informal sector is said to have had a much larger impact. The opportunities that innovative entrepreneurship creates have wide-scale impact, even working towards propagating financial inclusion in the nation.
In a vacuum, entrepreneurship and innovation are the lifeblood of any economy. Naturally, innovative entrepreneurs are then the supercharged catalysts of growth, capable of scaling and redefining industries completely, and many already have.
