In response to the upcoming Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition for universities in China, SKEMA Ventures China manager Chali Zhou organised on October 13 an entrepreneurship workshop at the International Joint Audit Institute in Nanjing Audit University (NAU), a partner university of SKEMA in China.

Chali began by explaining the GloCal (Global+ Local) aspect of SKEMA Ventures and gradually guided students into the context of entrepreneurship by presenting the examples of Apple, Coca-Cola and Evian. His talk enabled the students to understand the basic characteristics of entrepreneurship and learn that responding to the needs of consumers is a good start.

Exchange of ideas

Thereafter, he led the students to conduct their project analysis. Jingnan Chen and Yue Li from the IIA class introduced their entrepreneurial projects in response to the demand of “the logistics support for high-end talents”. All the participants actively discussed customer segmentation and value propositions.

Chali encouraged these two students to pitch their ideas in front of the participants. As he challenged these two student entrepreneurs, he gradually introduced the concept of a “business model” to motivate the students to consider their entrepreneurial projects from a much more comprehensive perspective.

Finally, Chali emphasized that entrepreneurship involves much more than innovation, business model, etc. There is a lot of “homework” to be done in the entrepreneurial world: entrepreneurs need to practice entrepreneurial skills and analyze the external elements. “Whether you choose to start a venture or serve a company in the future, possessing an entrepreneurial mindset is indispensable, and requires continuous training and learning,” he explained. He encouraged the students to take the first step by preparing for the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition and joining the various events organized by SKEMA Ventures.