Business leader and seasoned entrepreneur, Ifeanyi Oputa, Team Leader at Studio24 Nigeria, has submitted that no organization should ignore the disruptive noise and opportunities posed by digital innovation. He urged brands to restrategise by envisioning new value curve that will unlock unoccupied territories to innovation and entrepreneurship.

According to him, industries are being disrupted with new technologies and the fastest way for businesses and professionals to sustain growth is to cultivate and develop an enterprise mindset as either a prospective or existing entrepreneur.

The consummate business professional stated this during the kicking off of a two-day EXMAN Brand Experience Summit, which was held on 12 and 13 July, 2023, at the Balmoral Convention Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos. The event was organized by the Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria (EXMAN).

The passionate investor opined that the future is not predictable, especially in an unstable economy, adding that in an overcrowded business environment, one size-fits-all approach growth is not sustainable without creating new markets within existing markets based on gained insights from customers. He mentioned the existence of immense opportunities that abound in Nigeria, such that individuals can latch on to break free from the pack through the adoption of innovative ideas.

“There are few people who are entrepreneur-driven; not everybody who is enterprising that has to be an entrepreneur. If you have an enterprise thinking mindset, you can start small, understand the business, and adopt measures and strategies to improve the business. Seek out people who have been there, get some advice from them, avoid people who have no track record in business, try not to make them your role model. If you want to organize an event, please, do not bring people who do not know what they are doing to come and teach young  people,” advised.

Mr. oputa emphasized the need for business operators to adapt to the changing landscape to fast-track a revolution and a paradigm shift in a particular ecosystem, and also lead to a new product or services to discourage monopolistic practices among some groups. The innovative leader who believes in the tenets of hard work and dedication, charged business owners to continuously assess the status of the market environment by leveraging data and gaining new insights into how to redesign their value curves to focus on a previously overlooked set of customers with the goal to create new market space

“You have to have an enterprise mindset; if you do, your thinking will no longer be that of strictly repetitional. With an enterprising mindset, if you study the market, it will enable you to target the right customers because you will ask yourself the question, “who am I serving, who are the people in this market, what will happen in this kind of market and why am I seeing less number of people, what can I do to change it?”

“Those who were doing the experiential business some years ago, technology killed most of their markets, but some of you are surviving and thriving. Technology also killed the photography landscape as well and it is still taking a huge toll on everybody on imaging. But in spite of this, there are still immense opportunities abounding in that industry. As you understand your market as an enterprise, you still need to watch where new trends are going to bring in new areas,” he said.

Oputa, who shared his experience at the initial stage of his business explained how he leveraged advertising to boost visibility and awareness.

“When we started, advertising was not by YouTube and  other social media; it was more of traditional media. We could not afford it, so I sought to find out how we could get in front of peoples’ faces without having to spend such huge amount. The easiest thing to do was through billboard advertising. This was by paying advertising companies to pay for billboard space,” he said.

The Studio 24 boss recommended the adoption of a shift in price and a change in model for brands and businesses, in order to be on top of their game in either the new or existing market. He urged them to challenge the status quo by navigating and introducing new processes, value curves that will focus on a previously overlooked set of markets that will birth an innovative and entrepreneurial company that will thrive for a long time.