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Who will become entrepreneurs?

5 septembre 2016, 14:00

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TO BE or not to be? It happens to most of us, at some point of time. We get an inspiration, an idea dawns upon us and we start thinking about leaving that boring job, and become an entrepreneur and self-employed… For many it’s a dream that takes shape slowly, for some it comes like a pressing urge due to passion, creative energy & ideas. If you are reading this in the morning, between 7.30 am to 9.30 am, in your office with a cup of tea, you have never taken the steps to become an entrepreneur.

Faded dreams, suppressed passion and suffocated ideas… Look around you, and try to find those who have succeeded in becoming an entrepreneur. There are very few who succeed in that endeavour.  The adjacent table shows that there are 3 main categories of emerging entrepreneurs. For entrepreneurs, it can be a question of personal choice to live one’s passion (Category A), or a matter of duty or family responsibility (Category B) or even a course of action of last recourse due to a force majeure (Category C)! Now in each category there are 3 main types of challenges or gaps that the potential entrepreneurs need to bridge: Gap1 – they may be uneducated or unskilled; Gap2 – they may be educated, skilled and even affluent but are risk averse; and finally, Gap 3 – they may be educated/skilled/ risk taker but lack the financial means!

Hence there are 9 main challenges or gaps that need to be addressed to facilitate the emergence of entrepreneurs. (See table)

Across the world, socio-economic development, cultural changes and job creation depends on a very large extent on entrepreneurs. In India for example, the fastest growing economy, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) contribute to nearly 8 percent of the GDP, 45 percent of the manufacturing output and 40 percent of the exports! That is why a lot of emphasis is being put on the development of entrepreneurship, on the emergence of entrepreneurs and on the development of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector. There have been a number of other initiatives from the government, NGOs and the private sector for a long time.  The current eco-system allows just a trickle of potential entrepreneurs to emerge. And this is the biggest challenge that we have to tackle in the SME sector of Mauritius. Just operational improvements in the current policies and procedures will at most improve the quality of the trickle! What is required to have a clear stream is another kind of eco-system which will allow more people to emerge as entrepreneurs and to succeed.

The Masterplan for the development of the SME sector of Mauritius, which the Ministry of Business, Enterprise & Cooperatives has commissioned, shall hopefully draw an efficient roadmap to bridge all the nine gaps (Gaps A1C3) which exist in two folds: firstly for traditional sectors like manufacturing and agriculture and secondly for new emerging sectors like biotechnology and ocean industry.

“Across the world, socio-economic development, cultural changes and job creation depend on a very large extent on entrepreneurs.”

Who become entrepreneurs? It is essential to understand who currently succeed in becoming entrepreneurs. A socio-demographic profile of successful and failed entrepreneurs must also be drawn. Traditionally in Mauritius, entrepreneurship has been considered as a solution to unemployment and loss of jobs in the private sector. Hence Category C, where, paradoxically, the potential entrepreneurs are most unprepared, has always generated lots of expectations! This is quite counter-productive as it gives rise to at most “subsistence entrepreneurship” akin to subsistence farming when the entrepreneurs do succeed and to greater misery when they fail!

The success rate of entrepreneurs worldwide is not greater than 30%, and it will be lesser in Category C. The source of the greatest number of successful entrepreneurs in Mauritius has been Category B, and especially its sub-category consisting of families already established in business (the economic elite) because they already have the funds, the contacts and access to the markets. However, the most innovative and influential entrepreneurs worldwide come from Category A, where we have a combination of ambition, education and passion in the most neglected category in Mauritius! There are many people out there doing their duties but dreaming of starting their business… but they hesitate to take the leap of faith.

Unlike other countries where entrepreneurs thrive, the markets here are limited, out-crowded by Category B entrepreneurs and there are no venture capitalist or angel investors. Moreover, the scheme of service of the Mauritian Civil Service (working 9.15 am – 3.45 pm, lifetime employment, automatic increments/promotions, generous holidays with the options of ABC & PRB etc.) is intoxicating. The societal pressure to “settle down” is very high and with so much comfort, entrepreneurship is postponed till the next birth! Those in the private sector face another kind of challenge.  They study up-to Masters level and beyond not to become masters of their own but to serve other masters, often from 8 am to 9 pm, with the risk of losing their jobs at the slightest deviation and at the mercy of the swings and whims of the masters or the markets.

Generally in Mauritius the idea of “settling down in life” is to have a car in a garage and to toil in silence to repay the mortgage. Occasionally, when an unbearable boredom or when the ideas are too big and the passions are too strong, few people with indomitable courage take the steps to “unsettle”.  Entrepreneurship can be thought of as a different idea of a life, a lifestyle choice, a choice between fulfilling the dreams of other people or working for one’s own, between living one’s own passion or living others’ life script. However it requires lots of courage and encouragement.  Lots of mindsets need to change to change the eco-system in order to help more people to emerge as successful entrepreneurs. Imaginative schemes in the public and private sectors, as part of the CSR programs for example, are required to enable people to take limited risks at any stage of their career. One such scheme could be encouraging part-time work. Otherwise, who will become entrepreneurs?