“A finished product is a ‘finished’ business.” – thinkUP
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”. —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Author in this context means a person who begins or creates something, while finisher means a person or thing that finishes something.
Are you an author? Are you also a finisher? What are you creating? What are you perfecting?
Man is not perfect, God is. Manufacturers are not perfect, God is. While it is true that entrepreneurs attempt to make finished products from from raw materials, I have come to understand that there are no perfect authors and there are no perfect products. Eventhough raw materials are always perfect in the sense that they exist in their perfect state or form and could be used to create just any product. Perfection, therefore, only exists in raw materials and not in finished products.
Manufacturers create products but do not finish them. The energy of creation or invention is from 0 to 1 while the energy of perfection and innovation is from 1 to infinity. The energy to move from raw material to product is from 0 to 1 while the energy to move from product to finished product is from 1 to infinity. What this means is that no product is entirley finished because innovativeness and creativity cannot be exhausted, but raw materials can be depleted.
The mystery behind the sustainability of innovation is the infinite energy of newness and genuineness. Infinity is the state or quality of being infinite. Similar words include endlessness, infinitude, infiniteness, boundlessness, limitlessness, unlimitedness, extensiveness, vastness, immensity…Innovativeness is as infinite as space. Creativity is as boundless as God. Boundless means limitless, without limit, unlimited, illimitable, unbounded, untold, bottomless, immeasurable, measureless, incalculable, inestimable, abundant, abounding, great, inexhaustible…
There are no finished products, only finished raw materials. To say a product is finished is not only limiting, it is also anti-business. There is always a better or an improved version of any product.
Your brand is a product, it is not finished, else it is ‘finished’. A finished product is a ‘finished’ business. Manufacturers have mastered the art of deliberately creating unfinished products to later wait for consumers to demand for improved or upgraded versions. No business entrepreneur wants to do a one-off transaction with customers. It is the space for innovation and the infinity of creativity that keep businesses running and new.
It is against this background that I wish to confidently assert that there is no more business in finished products but here are more products in an unfinshed business.
Congratulations if you understand this short message.
Don’t start to finish, start to ‘fish’.
In 2009, I invented a product and I thought about the quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”. You will notice that I bragged about having a finished product which ‘finished’ my business due to lack of flexibility and further possibility thinking. Take a cursory look at that quote again and you will notice that literarily, there is nothing more for consumers to take away with a perfect or finished product.
Imperfection is the core of business. Problems must always be solved for businesses to stay relevant. Sometimes problems are created artificially and perfection is not created deliberately just to achieve some business goals strategically. I for one prefer the latter strategy.
I recently came across the opposite of the word innovation. Guess what that is…Exnovation refers to the process of terminating a practice, technology, or product within an organization, community, or society. It is essentially the opposite of innovation, involving the elimination of unsustainable, irrelevant, or unsuitable elements to improve and renew the innovation process. Exnovation is at the end of the innovation life-cycle where it “discards” or even purges existing practices to allow the organization to adopt different and fresh thinking to any new innovation activities. A number of writers have discussed exnovation but its first use was attributed to Kimberly in 1981, who described innovation as a series of processes which in combination define an innovation life-cycle (Fiona Patterson, City University for NESTA).
Exnovation can also be an opportunity to discard existing practices or improve on them. During projects, a lot of junk tends to build up in terms of policies, practices, rules and regulations – many of which may have outlived their utility. It’s an examination of what’s working and what doesn’t. Exnovation gives us the opportunity to jettison what is no longer relevant and the space to create something more relevant to the current project.
It is therefore convenient to conclude that exnovation is a finisher of products but when it is done radically instead of incrementally, it technically turns out to a ‘finisher’ of business. Improving your products without removing yourself from business is therefore the wisdom you need as a start entrepreneur and manufacturer.
PS: If you are a manufacturer and have a business in Nigeria, do well to register with the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria. The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) is a national industrial association that serves and represents over 2000 companies in private and public sectors in manufacturing, construction and service sectors of the national economy. The group is headquartered in Lagos and was founded in 1971. MAN acts as a platform that manufacturers use to influence economic, industrial, labour and social policy within Nigeria.
To grow naira, patronise made in Nigeria goods!
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