Smart Entreprising

Hi. Quite a beautiful afternoon. How about we continue this week with a new and exciting series we tag, 'Smart Enterprising'. I’m so sure you have heard about smart phone, right? You probably own one at the moment too. Cool! You also may have heard about smart city, smart watches etc. or at least, you have read about them. But I can bet you have not heard or read so much about 'Smart Enterprising'.

This is yet another very important reason to roll with the Nirmala Chellarams Centre for Entrepreneurship Skills (NCCES). You don't want to miss out on any of our deliverables nationwide, online or offline!

At NCCES, we are a vanguard of 'Smart Enterprising', a concept we believe can revolutionalize the Nigerian & Sub Saharan industrial space especially the Retail business which involves the sale of goods directly to the consumer; encompassing the storefronts, mail-order, websites, etc. Also, the corporate mechanisms, branding, advertising, etc. that support them, which are involved in the business of selling and point-of-sale marketing retail goods to the public.

Understanding the concept of Smart Enterprising (SE)

Now, to really understand the SE concept, a quick look at the underlying principles is desirable.

Underlying Principles of Smart Enterprising (UPSE)

·         Smart Goal

·         Smart System

·         Enterprise

·         Quality Management System

Without much ado, features of a smart goal require that such a goal must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic & Time bound.

Smart systems like we know incorporate functions of sensing, actuation, and control in order to describe and analyze a situation, and make decisions based on the available data in a predictive or adaptive manner, thereby performing smart actions.

Typically, it consists of a diverse components such as Sensors for signal acquisition, elements transmitting the information to the command-and-control unit, command-and-control units that take decisions and give instructions based on the available information, components transmitting decisions and instructions and actuators that perform or trigger the required action.

Enterprise refers to a company organized for commercial purposes, a business or a firm. Enterprise could also mean a project undertaken or to be undertaken, especially one that is important or difficult or that requires boldness, adventurous spirit; ingenuity. So, looking at Enterprise, as an undertaking or venture, we have synonyms such as activity, business, company, firm, operation, program, trade, venture, action, attempt, ballgame, campaign, cause, concern, deal, do, effort, endeavor, engagement, establishment, outfit, performance, pursuit, risk, purpose, scheme, speculation, stake, striving, task, work, big idea, follow through, etc.

Quality Management System (QMS) is a collection of business processes focused on consistently meeting customer requirements and enhancing their satisfaction. It is aligned with an organization's purpose and strategic direction. The term "Quality Management System" and the acronym "QMS" were invented in 1991 by Ken Croucher, a British management consultant working on designing and implementing a generic model of a QMS within the IT industry. It is expressed as the organizational goals and aspirations, policies, processes, documented information and resources needed to implement and maintain it.

Early quality management systems emphasized predictable outcomes of an industrial product production line, using simple statistics and random sampling. By the 20th century, labour inputs were typically the most costly inputs in most industrialized societies, so focus shifted to team cooperation and dynamics, especially the early signalling of problems via a continuous improvement cycle. In the 21st century, QMS is tended to converge with sustainability and transparency initiatives, as both investor and customer satisfaction and perceived quality is increasingly tied to these factors.

Of QMS regimes, the ISO 9000 family of standards is probably the most widely implemented worldwide. Standards make things work. They give world-class specifications for products, services and systems, to ensure quality, safety and efficiency. They are instrumental in facilitating trades beyond borders. Other QMS, e.g. Natural Step, focus on sustainability issues and assume that other quality problems will be reduced as result of the systematic thinking, transparency, documentation and diagnostic discipline.

Smart Enterprising therefore is an evolving business concept that blends applied QMS standards with digital technology & applications to achieve a business goal.

To be continued in our next edition!

About the Author

Evans Edebor is a finance & business development Team Lead at www.kordahitechnologies.com. He is an Influencer, an AC Mentor & the vanguard of 'Smart Enterprising' at the LYPEN.