Identifying commercial opportunities

Entrepreneurs on the lookout for new business ideas can actively create business opportunities for themselves by combining existing resources on hand, such as assets, people and available technologies, in innovative ways.

For example, a company with a fleet of vehicles originally meant to be rented out to customers could use these assets for an unintended purpose, such as to raise additional capital.

This is among several recommendations in a new book titled Identifying Business Opportunities Through Innovation. Written by Prof Boh Wai Fong, Vice President (Lifelong Learning and Alumni Engagement) from NTU’s Nanyang Business School, and Dr Thara Ravindran, a Research Fellow at the School, the book serves as a guide to finding and executing business ideas and navigating the hurdles that emerge.

Another key advice from the book for entrepreneurs to heed is to plan ahead by identifying emerging trends. For example, the next generation of consumers will have different needs and expectations, opening up new demands for businesses to fulfil.

The book collates the lessons and insights gleaned from more than 500 interviews conducted over five years on various aspects of developing and running an enterprise. These findings have also been published in reports and papers, and discussed and shared with practising entrepreneurs in classrooms over the last decade.

The book Identifying Business Opportunities Through Innovation is published by World Scientific (2023).

The article appeared first in NTU's research & innovation magazine Pushing Frontiers (issue #23, March 2024).