Beating a smart path towards a disruption agenda

Disruption and innovation erroneously used interchangeably, draw unto themselves a certain mindset. Fuelled by stories of successful companies from across the world, techpreneurship does seem like an easy path to fame, fortune, and transformation of any industry that founders and their teams focus on. Clarion calls such as ‘move fast and break things’ coined by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, roll easily of the tongue and can supercharge teams to action but on the ground, things can be vastly different, especially in emerging market contexts.

Although policy and legislation are sloths in the race to the next big thing, with entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs always looking for that loophole or highly coveted official through-pass, there remains an issue that many owners of capital do not want to address and business owners fear to highlight as risks. This is the presence of gatekeepers, rent-seekers and other shadows that exist to protect various interests that see commercial benefit from the many broken processes that plague sectors where opportunities abound to build healthy sustainable businesses.