Multiple competencies for 21st century entrepreneur

Multiple competencies occur when an individual has many abilities or capabilities.

The 21st century is gradually moving away from paper qualifications to skills, say analysts, meaning that entrepreneurs with only one ability or capability may struggle to contend with the ever-changing world.

Research considers one capability as a disadvantage and limitation in the 21st century, insisting that such entrepreneurs stand the risk of being bullied by peers with several competencies.

According to experts, multiple competencies save costs, enable entrepreneurs compete better than peers, attract investments and revenue.

Adedapo Adelegan, immediate past president of the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce, recently explained the connection between multiple competencies and the 21st century.

According to Adelegan, entrepreneurs with multiple competences were those with core, pedigree and talent competences.  According to him, core competence involves skills acquired through training or studies, while pedigree competence deals with skills acquired through parents. He explained that talent competence is natural endowment or natural ability bestowed on people by God.

“When you have multiple competencies, you have multiple streams of income,” said Adelegan.

“Core competence is for the 21st century, while multiple competence is for the 21st century,” he added.

According to him, 21st century is an internet era, where jobs are being replaced by machines and robotics across the world. He urged job seekers to look closely at opportunities that would enable them become employers of labour.

“When a century is 20 years to its end, monumental things happen,” he said.

“A couple of things happened between 1980 and 2000 that gave glimpses of what would happen in the 21st century.  The first is the Internet, which came in 1984. The major consequence for a developing economy is loss of jobs. This is a robotic century, a machine century,” he explained.

“Now is for customers, not jobs. Anybody beside or close to you now is a potential customer.  So the focus of this century is how to generate customers, not jobs,” he further explained.

He said the 21st century is for ‘unreasonable people’, not for reasonable persons. He defined unreasonable people as those whom the world tried to adapt to, while reasonable ones were those who tried to adapt to the world. He added that the 21st century was for those willing to take risks and not for cowards.

 

ODINAKA ANUDU

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