DISTANCE LEARNING CENTRE

AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY

ZARIA, NIGERIA

Being a
BUAD 832 – ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
GROUP ASSIGNMENT
Submitted by
TEAM D

 Moses SuleSule Olayinka - P18DLBA80054

 Obi Onyinye Gift - ABUMBA2017013805 (Captain)
 Ugwa-Brown Uche - ABUMBA2017013210
 TIJANI SAHEED OLADELE - ABUMBA2017014558
 Osere Prince Ramsey - ABUMBA02015002187
 OBAKPOLOR OSAYANDE DAVID - ABUMBA2017014103
 OnyungEyo Sandra - ABUMBA02015008248 - 08186406352
 Nwachukwu Aloysius Odinakachi - ABUMBA02015006560
 Okoro Chidiebere - ABUMBA02015007563
 Abubakar Haruna - P18DLBA80189

To

IDOWU D. VICTOR

QUESTION
CREATIVITY AND FINANCE ARE VERY IMPORTANT FACTORS AMONG OTHERS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP
AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT.BETWEEN THOSE TWO FACTORS, WHICH OF THEM DO YOU THINK IS
MORE DIFFICULT FOR AN ENTREPRENEUR TO HAVE OR GET TO ENHANCE HIS OR HER BUSINESS
GROWTH?WITH CLEAR DETAILS  AND REASONS, SPEAK FOR OR AGAINST.BASE ON YOUR
ARGUMENT,SUGGEST VARIOUS WAYS THAT CAN ENABLE AN ENTREPRENEUR LIKE YOU COME ABOUT
EITHER OF THE TWO IN ORDER TO ACCELERATE HIS/HER BUSINESS GROWTH

APRIL, 2020

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 NAME REGISTRATION NO GROUP GROUP
ASSIGNMENT PRESENTATION
PARTICIPATION PARTICIPATION
(5 MARKS) (5 MARKS)
YES NO

YES NO
Moses Sule Sule Olayinka P18DLBA80054 
Obi Onyinye Gift ABUMBA2017013805 
Ugwa-Brown Uche ABUMBA2017013210 
Tijani Saheed Oladele ABUMBA2017014558 
Osere Prince Ramsey ABUMBA02015002187 
Obakpolor Osayande David ABUMBA2017014103 
Onyung Eyo Sandra ABUMBA02015008248 
Nwachukwu AloysiusOdinakachi ABUMBA02015006560 
Okoro Chidiebere  ABUMBA02015007563 
Abubakar Haruna P18DLBA80189 

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INTRODUCTION
In today’s economic world, entrepreneurship is considered the key factor toward economic
development. Entrepreneurs strive to create more opportunities in industry, providing more
employment options and ultimately having a positive impact on per capital income, revenue
generation, lifestyle, etc.

The words “creativity” and “finance” no longer hint at questionable accounting practices. On the
contrary, as companies look to their finance teams to help drive strategy for the CEO and across
various Lines of Business, finance professionals need to meld the rigor of financial analysis with
the ability to see opportunities and risks from many different angles.

Finance” and “Creativity” in the same breath, and you’ll likely be greeted with a skeptical squint,
a doleful eye-roll or a blank stare. Let’s face itthe finance department does not typically carry a
reputation of innovation, daring or creativity. But for any business that wants to compete and
thrive in today’s economy. that must change.

Cloud finance solutions make it possible to capture, measure and analyze financial data like
never, offering targeted insights across your organization. Yet, to harness the full power of this
technology, finance professionals need to get comfortable thinking not just in shades of grey, but
in full technicolor. To this end: Organizations don’t just need data scientists, they now need data
artists.

Creativity can manifest in everything from how teams work together to how they collaborate
with other divisions. It helps boost productivity and can spark ideas that revolutionize an
organization. While there is no single playbook for sparking creativity, there are ways to
encourage original thinking and spur innovation among your finance team.

An entrepreneur’s mind revolves around new ideas and opportunities for innovation. There is a
continuous and conscious effort required to look for niches and undertake the risks in entering
them. Entrepreneurship involves the continuous examination of existing business workflows and
devising ways in order to carry them out in a more efficient and effective way, in terms of both
time and cost. In simple words, entrepreneurship works toward the optimization of business.

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What is Creativity

Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed. The
created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a
joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed literary work, or a painting). 

Scholarly interest in creativity is found in a number of disciplines, primarily psychology,

business studies, and cognitive science, but also education, technology, engineering, philosophy
(particularly philosophy of science), theology, sociology, linguistics, and economics, covering
the relations between creativity and general intelligence, personality type, mental and neural
processes, mental health, or artificial intelligence; the potential for fostering creativity through
education and training; the fostering of creativity for national economic benefit, and the
application of creative resources to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning. 

What is Financing 

Finance is the study of money and how it is used. Specifically, it deals with the questions of how
an individual, company or government acquires the money needed - called capital in the
company context - and how they then spend or invest that money.

CREATIVITY IS MORE DIFFICULT FOR AN ENTREPRENEUR TO HAVE OR GET

TO ENHANCE HIS OR HER BUSINESS GROWTH.

REASONS WHY CREATIVITY IS MORE DIFFICULT TO GET THAN FINANCE

A thorough observation of the entrepreneurial process shows that creative thinking is the must
have “skill” of an entrepreneur for the creation of new ideas. Creativity allows a person to devise
interesting processes, which gives so many advantages to entrepreneurs.

No man has ever been born with money in his hand and God has never fixed money into
anybody’s account before they were born. From the biographies of the successful businessmen in
our contemporary world, majority of them rose from zero to hero and their records showed that
they became successful in their businesses not because of their  initial financial motivation that
the business will be yielding to them but because of investment of creativity. So creativity is

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pathway to unlimited level of business boom and the reason why the like of Warret Buffet, Mack
Zuckerberg of Facebook have broken even still center on the creativity that put into their
business from the beginning and they keep expanding the horizon of creativity as those
businesses keep growing. 

The current richest man in the world, the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Beezos who own the largest
online retail outlet has his current financial worth to be estimated as $112billion. He did
not attain this worth from because he has the financial acumen, but he started a small
entrepreneur business that grow to it current net value as the number 1 online retail business
worldwide.

I can confidently say that no entrepreneur can be greater than the level of creativity he is willing
to adopt and implement on his business. An entrepreneur is stock and stranded at his own level
of creativity because creativity provides a channel through which finance will find its way into
business. An entrepreneur that lack creativity will fizzle out of business activities with not much
time as its just marking time and the reason for stagnation of many business organization is
mostly on the premises of lack of creativity.

A good example in Nigeria is the liquidation of Societal General Bank many years back. The
bank has the financial structure to sustain its continuousgrowth, but lack of business creativity
ruined the bank. Creativity is a enhance better business performance and give opportunities to
manage the business. A creative entrepreneur will know the place of planning in his business
space, he will do SWOT analysis to understand when opportunities for growth will come and
some treat that the business will encounter and  what to do to overcome such treat. 

Furthermore,  creativity will ever be superior to finance because creativity provides means
through which finances can be raised and it is the reason why many organization are committing
their financial resources on creative business ventures because they know that those businesses
will yield dividend to them in monumental time.

Many programse.g 2018 African Young Entrepreneurship Program are aimed at empowering

creative minds especially the youths by giving them grants, loan to start their Small and Medium
Entrepreneur (SME) because they understand that a creative mind is a wealthy mind. 

The following reasons will form the basis of my argument why creativity is difficult to get than
finance.

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 i. Creativity is the engine room of any business organization, it determines whether the
business will boom or not, and the kind of returns from the business can be forecasted through
creativity, so therefore it is not easy to come by. In a nutshell, it cannot be bought with money
because it is an intangible asset.
ii. Creativity work with innovation and innovation is a product of deep and creative
thinking. Productive thinking come from productive mind and the discoveries have revealed that
less than 3% of human being has productive mind which make creativity more difficult to get
than money.
iii. Creativity is difficult to get because it is not transferrable to individual unlike finances
that is transferrable. It easy for people to inherit the finances of their love ones and ownership of
business can also be transferred to another person but it extremely difficult to transfer creativity
from one person to other.
iv. Creativity requires patience and time to be harnessed into a transformative phase.

But what exactly makes creativity so crucial and important in an entrepreneur’s work life?

Creativity leads to success by:

Creating new ideas for competitive advantage. The whole process of entrepreneurship is

rooted in creation and exploration of new ideas. When an entrepreneur is able to generate a new
idea that is feasible as well as efficient, it gives him an edge over the competition. The ability to
explore different niches is just like a learned skill or a resource that is possessed by an individual.

Thinking of novel ways to develop your product and improve the business. Creativity helps
develop new ways of improving an existing product or service and optimizing a business. There
is always a room for improvement in the deliverables of an enterprise; it is the creative
entrepreneur who can assess how to do it.

Thinking the unthinkable. Creativity requires imagination to produce the most obscure ideas.
Imagination is needed to cross the boundary of “usual” and “normal” or to think outside the box.
This allows entrepreneurs to think beyond the traditional solutions, come up with something
new, interesting, versatile, and yet have success potential.

Finding similar patterns in different areas. Sometimes, due to following a routine or a habit,
the thinking process also goes along the line of those established processes. Creativity enables

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people to connect dissimilar and unrelated subjects and make successful entrepreneurial ideas.
Merging different fields creates interesting intersections that creates new niches. Most people are
afraid of bringing different disciplines together, but most interesting ideas come from colliding
different fields.

Developing new niches through creativity and entrepreneurship. In entrepreneurship, it is

important that new aspects of traditional business are explored. This can be in the form of
changing the method of manufacturing the product or delivering the service or how are they
supplied to the user. All these areas can create a niche that has great potential in business.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND CREATIVITY – HOW ARE THEY LINKED?

We have now assessed that entrepreneurs can attribute their success to creativity. But what
exactly links entrepreneurship and creativity?

Entrepreneurs link the creative mind and the business mind.

In today’s world, due to globalization and excessive industrialization, products are manufactured
and exported to international markets. As a result, there is easier access to every product,
everywhere. The consumer has access to various kinds of products ranging in type and quality.
So what does a businessperson do in a market flooded with products? How can someone think of
manufacturing and supplying a product in markets where consumers already have their trusted
preferences and so many choices to choose from? How can we make a product stand out from
the rest?

A creative mind answers all those questions. Creativity helps us think of how to improve existing
business practices. A brand might be very established and popular among the consumers, but
there is always something that can be done differently from them and in a better way. A creative
mind is like an artist who creates new and exciting patterns on canvas. Creativity can come up
with the most unthinkable ideas and bring innovation into existing practices.

Creativity is simply the ability of imagination. Imagination leads someone to reach never before
explored areas. In business terms, imagination alone is what is known as “thinking outside the
box”. Using imagination, an entrepreneur can put aside the practical norms and think of
something creative and innovative.

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However, a creative mind has to have entrepreneurial skills to bring those creative ideas to life in
a business setting. An entrepreneur assesses the requirements of how to execute an idea by
analyzing available vs. required resources, how to establish a new enterprise and how to manage
it. An entrepreneur designs business models that can support and execute innovative ideas in the
first place. An entrepreneur provides the ‘science’ aspect about how to bring the artistic
creativity to life. Therefore, an entrepreneur bridges the gap between the creative genius and a
traditional business approach.

There are indicators that signify the creative thinking of a successful entrepreneur.

Creativity does give an entrepreneur a competitive advantage, but how does one assess whether
they are creative enough or not?

Following are characteristic features indicative of a creative entrepreneur:

1. An entrepreneur adheres to rules and principles only when they add value to the
organization and have a potential to attract more customers.
2. An entrepreneur experiments with his ideas as the first step. The second step is learning
from the experience and the third step is implementation of what they have learned.
3. An entrepreneur is less afraid to lose and is always keen to experiment in new ventures.
4. The entrepreneur is not afraid of creativity and believes that creative ideas will only help
their enterprise.
5. A creative thinker will take inspiration from new ideas in every area directly or indirectly
related to the enterprise.
6. An entrepreneur is not afraid to go beyond the industry and enter new markets. This
opens a wide range of opportunities to formulate new niches.
7. Every product and service is not good enough and has room for improvement. An
entrepreneur realizes that very well.
8. A creative thinker is interested in bringing totally opposite things together to create new
products or services.
9. An entrepreneur creates new products for existing services and new services for existing
products.
10. Creative ideas come more quickly when someone is not afraid to appreciate new ideas
irrespective of who comes up with them.

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 11. An entrepreneur shares an idea and is open to feedback that improves and refines the
idea.
12. Creativity comes from learning different things, whether they are related to the industry
or not.

These indicators show that entrepreneurship and creativity go hand in hand with each other.
Entrepreneurs are more flexible and seek improvement more than they seek perfection.

Creativity needs to be structured.

Despite all the flexibility to undertake new ventures, creativity does require a bit of structure for
successful execution. However, too much structure robs the whole essence of the process. The
key lies in having a rigorous approach toward work without being too stiff. Researchers say that
creativity works best with two separate approaches: convergent and divergent. A convergent
approach is focused and seeks a single solution using available information. However, divergent
thinking works to create many creative ideas in different directions.

Creative thinking is not the only skill needed for entrepreneurship.

The discussion so far has led us to think that entrepreneurship is deeply rooted in certain basic
skills: creating new ideas and having the ability to take risk in executing them. However, one
should realize that this is not the only skill that is required for the successful execution of an
idea. Creating an idea might be easy; successfully executing it might be a difficult task. What
makes a person a successful entrepreneur? Why do some people recognize the opportunities that
exist around them and others do not? Are they genetically different? Or do they have a different
perspective to handle things?

There might not be conclusive answers to those questions, but researchers have pointed out some
areas for which an entrepreneur should have some expertise. These are:

1. Personal traits. Personal attributes help entrepreneurs in a variety of ways. Optimism;

vision, self-control; and having initiative, persistence, tolerance and resilience are all the
features that make an entrepreneur stand out and have the ability to maneuver projects.
2. Interpersonal skills. An entrepreneur has to interact with people at many levels. This
requires them to have excellent interpersonal skills. Communication, leadership,

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 motivation, personal relations, negotiation skills, and ethics are attributes that are a must
have in a very dynamic business environment.
3. Critical thinking. An entrepreneur must be his own critic. There should be a keen
observation of various aspects of an idea so it can be perfected before implementation. A
lot of future effort can be saved if an idea is critically analyzed, and no one else can do it
better than the entrepreneur himself.
4. Practical skills. These skills are required at the stage of idea implementation and
management of the enterprise. An entrepreneur must be able to plan and organize goals
and tasks. There should be effective decision-making and critical monitoring at various
stages of the process.

Business thinking vs. creative thinking: what comes first?

This question is similar to: which came first, the chicken or the egg? The debate involves which
aspect the entrepreneur chooses to handle first: the creative or the practical side of the process.

Some believe that creativity is the initial step of the process and it is followed by the building of
the model for its execution. However, it might not always be true. These two processes are so
interlinked with each other that it is rather difficult to mark their boundaries. Both aspects go
hand in hand with each other from start to finish. However, creativity might be dominant at the
preliminary stage and the business thinking might be at the helm during the execution, or vice
versa.

BASIC ELEMENTS OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS

The process of creating interesting ventures is inherently dynamic and versatile. There are many
aspects to the approach and the stages of the creative process. Some insight into the process is
given below:

Step 1: Preparation

The first stage, of course, is the preparation of some basic ideas to hold onto. There has to be
some inspiration that “forces” or “prepares” the entrepreneur to move forward. The creative
process starts with identifying a problem and then researching for related information. This is
done in an effort to start looking for a viable solution. An entrepreneur looks in every direction to
solve the problem, be it inside the industry or outside.

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Step 2: Thinking outside the box – going beyond the comfort zone

Can we achieve anything if we are not willing to go beyond our comfort zone? One has to leave
the comfortable arena, go beyond and take a risk. Rewards come with efforts.

“Thinking outside the box” is an expression that has been used in marketing, business and
psychology since the 1970s. It owes its origin to a “nine dot” game that was once used as a test
of creativity. The puzzle was designed such that the person had to go beyond the dots to find the
solution. However, psychologists say that this “external” factor is not really external, it is simply
the existing solution to the problem. “External” is only how our brain tends to perceive it.

Step 3: Creativity isn’t magic

Despite the immensely amazing things creativity can achieve, it is definitely not magical.
Creativity is simply approaching things with a different perspective. The simplest approach to
creative thinking can be copying different elements, transforming them, combining them and
eureka! There is a new idea. This essentially makes use of existing elements. As Kirby Ferguson
says, “It happens by applying ordinary tools of thought to existing materials. And the soil from
which we grow our creations is something we scorn and misunderstand even though it gives us
so much — and that’s… copying.”

Step 4: Incubation

During the incubation stage, ideas that have the potential to solve a problem tend to flourish.
This stage is characterized by the unconscious thought process of refining an idea. Apparently,
there are many activities at work during this stage, but the overall goal is to find a solution.
Evaluating existing projects can help to generate viable ideas. Some researchers even refer to the
creativity process as re-creativity since it takes inspiration from existing ideas and molds them in
an innovative way.

Step 5: Illumination

Incubation leads to clarity of ideas. This is the “solution finding” stage. Now the creativity
process leads to the knowledge of some practical ideas that can be put to work. It is like a “light
bulb” moment, hence it’s called illumination.

Step 6: Verification
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This stage determines whether the “found” solution even has the potential to work or not. The
idea can either be accepted as such, modified with minor or major changes, or rejected
altogether, requiring that the whole process be done again.

Step 7: Critical thinking

Generating innovative ideas is a comparatively easy task. The major success of an

entrepreneurial endeavor lies in critically examining the viability of an idea. Critical thinking
enables an entrepreneur to self-judge in order to evaluate the idea. It is defined as a self-directed,
self-disciplined, self-monitored and self-corrective process of evaluating an idea.

No one else is aware of the aspects of the problem as well as the proposed solution like the
entrepreneur is. Therefore, a very honest opinion about the viability of the idea can come from
the entrepreneur himself.

Critical thinking offers many competitive advantages to the entrepreneur, such as:

1. It helps formulate the best possible idea.

2. It allows for exploring new horizons and seeing the big picture.

3. It enables the entrepreneur to evaluate and ask questions that have not been considered
previously.

4. It helps in taking decisive actions, the result of creativity.

Therefore, the process of creative thinking that starts with brainstorming “ends” at the critical
analysis of the idea’s viability. The resulting potentially viable ideas can lead to the creation of
actual entrepreneurial enterprises or improvement of the existing ones.

HOW TO BE CREATIVE AND THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

In business, if one aspires to achieve more, then it requires doing more. Everyone is comfortable
with the norms as they are pretty established with few chances of risks. However,
entrepreneurship cannot thrive on the “norms”, rather it requires building something innovative
from those norms.

Creativity leads to innovation, which in turn leads to improvement in the business one way or the
other. Creative thinking leads to new products and services, increasing market competition.

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Creativity being a very important factor of the whole endeavor can sometime not be that easy to
achieve. An entrepreneur cannot rely upon occasional “light bulb” moments to achieve
professional greatness. However, there are certain ways that can “train” the entrepreneur to be
able to think creatively on a frequent basis, boost the process and make it more efficient.

Think freely, but focus on the major question you want answered, the product you want
developed, or the area you want improved.

Free thinking is primary to creating more contemporary and profitable business practices.
Likewise, a creative mind is expected to come up with innovative ideas; something not thought
of before. However, the basic focus of the creative process should revolve around a problem and
building a solution for it. Putting up some restrictions and establishing some parameters is
important in the creative process. Endless opportunities interfere with the generation of viable
ideas. Focused thinking helps in detailed idea generation that has the potential to be
implemented.

Brainstorm.

Choosing a successful idea requires that there are enough viable ideas on the table in the first
place. Creative thinkers need to churn out every possible alternative they have in mind. In fact,
the collection of ideas or brainstorming is so important that there should be regular brainstorming
sessions. This helps in compiling every idea starting with the most absurd ones. One should
know that a very weird idea could be made wonderful later on.

Encourage and reward creative ideas of your team.

The team can be the greatest asset an enterprise can have. Conscious efforts should be made to
encourage the employees to think creatively. There could be small trips arranged for employees
to get inspiration and effectively engage in creative thinking. At the end, there should be rewards
for employees who help in increasing the company’s value. There could be certificates,
vacations, awards or another motivational strategy to inspire employees.

Share ideas and solicit feedback.

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We learn a lot from our experiences. Nevertheless, in entrepreneurial endeavors, it is better that
an idea is refined and theoretically foolproof before it is taken to the step of execution. One
person could be ignoring some very important aspects of a problem, however, sharing ideas and
soliciting feedback can give a multidimensional perspective.

Evaluate your ideas.

Princeton Creative Research has laid out a checklist for entrepreneurs to evaluate an idea. Some
salient checkpoints are given below:

1. Do you think your idea has some realistic need and is beneficial toward that?

2. Can you pinpoint the issue your idea resolves?

3. What will be the expected short-term and long-term results and gains of implementation?

4. Do you know any limitations of the idea? Are there any risk factors involved?

5. Is the implementation simple or complicated?

6. Do you think the market can accept your idea? Do you know who your potential
customer would be?

7. Is there a need of your product or service? Alternatively, will it have to be created by

marketing and promotion?

VARIOUS WAYS THAT CAN ENABLE AN ENTREPRENEUR ACCELERATE

HIS/HER BUSINESS GROWTH ON BOTH CREATIVITY AND FINANCE

Managing finance in today’s economy requires CFOs to juggle three priorities:

 Focusing on the future

 Growing the organization
 Managing uncertainty.

Balancing those items is no easy agenda, and financial professionals need to use their creative
instincts and help achieve their companies’ goals. Here are three essentials for finance
professionals to tap into that creativity.

Be willing to fail.

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At risk of sounding cliché, what we’re calling the “new” economy is arguably composed of more
risk-takers than in generations past. Facebook, Airbnb and Google all share a common trait: they
started with little bets that paid off big. More important, these companies made discoveries along
the path to their success by taking risks that didn’t pay off. Does anyone recall Apple’s flip
phone or Google Lively? Not likely, because these products weren’t around long enough to
become colossal failures and tank these two stalwarts as a result. (For it’s part, Google Lively
had a shelf life of only six months and cost the company relatively little to develop.)

Continuous development is a critical element driving today’s entrepreneurial, creative business

environment. And failing fast is an important step toward that development. Granted, finance is
inherently risk-averse, so adopting this mindset can be a challenge. “A program that espouses the
merits of ‘failing fast’ can put a few people off. It's not usually what one aspires to at work,” says
Christopher Whitlock, VP, executive creative director at Fidelity Investments.

But, he adds, “creative types … are used to having a wastebasket full of ideas that weren't going
to go anywhere.”

Be customer-centric, beginning with your own colleagues and executives.

The finance organization needs to be a strong team player. As the eyes and ears of the company,
it needs to tap into every department and every piece of the business. And that means treating
each part of the business as you would your customer—listening to them, understanding their
needs and adjusting accordingly—if it’s in the company’s best interest.

Smart business partners understand this concept. They look at stakeholders and partners as if
they were consumers of a product. For the CFO, the product happens to be financial advice and
leadership.

Create a culture of continuous learning.

Finance groups are notorious for saying “no,” and that needs to change. Start saying “yes” and
practice what you preach by using innovative techniques and technology. Whether it’s leading-
edge analytics or design thinking, inculcate a culture of creativity and experimentation by
dabbling with new techniques and methodologies.

Design thinking in particular is a concept whose time has come for finance. Tim Brown, CEO
and president of IDEO—and a leading advocate of design thinking—describes the concept as “a
methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human-centered design
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ethos.” In design thinking, says Brown, “innovation is powered by a thorough understanding …
of what people want and need in their lives and what they like or dislike about the way particular
products are made, packaged, marketed, sold, and supported.”

Practiced around the world among a wide array of disciplines, design thinking helps solve
complex problems by combining logic, creativity, instinct, and trial and error to reach tangible
goals. Organizations as diverse as Citrix Systems and Stanford University are embracing the
principles of design thinking and seeing greater, tangible results. As Fidelity’s Whitlock says,
“Design thinking can be applied to bring about cultural change in an organization.”

Conclusion 

These evaluation marks can help supply detailed knowledge of the idea’s viability, providing
another tool to check the idea along with critical thinking.

Entrepreneurship could simply be the solution for the economic problems of today’s world. It
brings the most innovative and exciting ideas to reality. The above discussion helps us realize the
importance of creativity in the entrepreneurial process. Creativity and entrepreneurship are
intricately related and go hand in hand with each other. However, both are important to each
other; and one cannot guarantee success without the other.

Creativity, innovation, and thinking outside what we consider the traditional parameters of
finance requires challenging the status quo, thinking counter-intuitively, going against the grain
and disrupting norms. In some ways, people in finance have a head start because they are
naturally curious. Now it’s time to put that curiosity to work and start questioning “why” with
more vigor.

And organizations themselves need the flexibility and resilience to embrace new ideas. As Adam
Grant, professor of management and psychology at the Wharton School says, “Most people are
… quite capable of novel thinking and problem-solving, if only their organizations would stop
pounding them into conformity.”.

Creativity in business is a crucial first step that needs to be prioritized by senior leadership.
A survey by IBM of more than 1,500 chief executive officers shows consensus: Creativity was
ranked as the number one factor for future business success—above management discipline,
integrity, and even vision.Eight in 10 surveyed CEOs said they expect their industry to become
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 significantly more complex. Only 49 percent, however, are confident their organizations are
equipped to deal with the transformation.
“Every industry is being challenged by dynamics globally and changes in technology,” Marion
saysSeveral retailers, like Apple, are trying to rise to the challenge by creating “experiences.”
Take Starbucks, for example. Customers visit for more than the seasonal beverages; they go for
the ambiance. From the warm, welcoming interior color scheme to the alternative music and,
often, neighborhood-inspired furniture or art, there’s more to the brand than what it’s selling
behind the counter. “Now we’re selling experiences, and those experiences need to be well-
designed,” Marion says. “Creativity lends itself to that and inspires good design.

References

Adam Grant (2012). Strategic Finance for Criminal Justice Organizations (1st ed.). Boca 
Raton, Florida: CRC Press. pp. 53–54.

Amabile, Teresa M.; Pratt, Michael G. (2016). "The dynamic componential model of 
creativity and innovation in organizations: Making progress, making meaning". Research in
Organizational Behavior. 36: 157–183.

Doss, Daniel; Sumrall, William; Jones, Don (2012). Strategic Finance for Criminal Justice 
Organizations (1st ed.). Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press. p. 23.

Gilad, B. (1984). “Entrepreneurship: the use of creativity in the marketplace”, Journal of

Creative Behaviour, Vol.18, pp.151-161. 

James C.; et al., eds. (2010). The Dark Side of Creativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Mayseless, Naama; Eran, Ayelet; Shamay-Tsoory, Simone G (2015). "Generating original

ideas: The neural underpinning of originality". Neuroimage. 116: 232–9.

Meusburger, Peter (2009). "Milieus of Creativity: The Role of Places, Environments and 
Spatial Contexts". In Meusburger, P.; Funke, J.; Wunder, E. (eds.). Milieus of Creativity: An
Interdisciplinary Approach to Spatiality of Creativity. Springer.

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