Entrepreneurship post-COVID: Must-have entrepreneurial skills for resilience

COVID-19 has been an eye-opener. It has made organizations across continents realize how much their business models depended on a smooth-sailing environment. In all honesty, eight months ago organizations were woefully unprepared for a pandemic marketplace, compared to what was needed. The pandemic has also influenced the way today’s workforce and aspiring talent plan their future. There is a fear of uncertainty and job security amongst many, causing them to shift their career objectives from depending on organizations as employees, towards becoming their own hirers.

But, how difficult or easy is it to become an entrepreneur?

The government at the center has been pushing the Make-in-India agenda and that is broadly favourable to entrepreneurship. Small entrepreneurs are already benefiting from various advantageous policies including single-window clearances, government funding, loan policies, tax sops etc. Women entrepreneurs will also thrive on the back of favourable policies. Cognizant of the way start-ups have shaped up during the pandemic, there are a few must-haves for entrepreneurs to thrive in the long-term.

Entrepreneurship is a mindset, that doesn’t fall prey to risks

The most crucial characteristic of entrepreneurs is their ability to take risks. While the pandemic forced numerous start-ups to halt their businesses, some decided to leverage it as an opportunity and make the best of it. For instance, when all the cinema halls and theatres were shut down for months, leading ticketing giant BookMyShow decided to support online events and help artists sell tickets online. Delivery giants, Swiggy and Zomato, also started delivering groceries and other essentials, instead of pulling the plug.

An entrepreneur is an ideas person, always looking for a new, unique solution

Jeff Bezos once said, “One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.”

That is how entrepreneurs think - always in search of ideas. They have a powerful solution-oriented approach and the willingness to make work easier for their customers and target audience.

Their ideology - Creating what matters to their customers

Amidst the lockdown when people were standing in long cues at grocery stories, numerous start-ups recognised the need of online services and diversified their roots by delivering food items at doorsteps. The list includes leading start-ups like Flipkart, Yatra, Snapdeal and ClubFactory, in addition to comparatively newer ones like the social-commerce start-up Meesho, fitness start-up Cure.fit, and BharatPe, a mobile payment facilitator.

An entrepreneur thinks human and machine, not human vs. machine

Automation has impacted operations pervasively. Many would argue that it might displace jobs in the foreseeable future. However, a crucial characteristic of an entrepreneur is to understand that man and machine are to be leveraged alongside and not against each other.

An entrepreneur is intuitive, yet a good decision maker

An essential quality of entrepreneurship is learning the art of quick decision making, often on a daily basis. The reason behind characterizing it as art is that every entrepreneur has their own style of decision making based on their strengths like being data-driven, reason-driven, intuitive, etc.

An entrepreneur must have commercial acumen

Having commercial acumen is the ability to view situations from a commercial perspective - knowing the business, its processes, trends and having skills to make better decisions based on insights. It is a core competency for entrepreneurs as it helps them understand the impact of day-to-day decision-making on every aspect of the business, be it technical, financial, operational or sales. Excellent commercial acumen can help entrepreneurs show their partners or employees the bigger picture and where they fit into it, making them feel connected to the company’s success.

Above all, an entrepreneur understands the need for value creation

The value used to be a term for the price, but in today’s business world where sustenance and empathy are at the core of every business, value creation stands for a commitment towards delivering quality to customers, stakeholders, employees and the community. For an entrepreneur, it is imperative to understand the importance of value creation by prioritizing the best needs of stakeholders to ensure business success in the long run.

The current pandemic situation has affected the start-up ecosystem of India in numerous ways. This is why the Government of India has initiated some action points to spring them back to their feet. This includes grants, debt opportunities and equity for start-ups fighting against COVID-19 effects on the country. Government schemes such as Atal Bimit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana are introduced in support for employers who are struggling to pay wages to their employees. To solve working capital requirements, the government has also facilitated Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) which has been making efforts to provide financial assistance and stability to start-ups through schemes like COVID-19 Start-up Assistance Scheme (‘CSAS’) and more.

Being an entrepreneur is difficult, especially amidst the changed market post-COVID. However, hasn’t it always been a crisis that gave birth to a world-shaping idea? As Steve Jobs once said, “I'm convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure PERSEVERANCE.”

The author is President-HR, Essar Group & CEO, Essar Foundation and Author-Fetch Your Own Coffee

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own and do not reflect those of DNA.)