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The key challenge for entrepreneurial types within companies is that opportunities get framed by corporate strategic lenses. Entrepreneurs have the freedom of challenging everything ; provided they can get some resource providers to say yes. However, intrapreneurs need to be very careful in challenging corporate strategic wisdom; entrepreneurial projects in
ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEFINED To me entrepreneurship involves a situation where someone perceives an opportunity but does not have all the resources in hand to exploit it. Viewed in this way, entrepreneurship occurs in very different contexts: new businesses, family businesses, small businesses, large public companies, and not-for-profit organizations, including universities. A special label, intrapreneurship, is attached to the large corporate context, but the key point is that the elements involved in the process of exploiting entrepreneurial opportunity share many similarities regardless of context.
Dr. Peter Kelly teaches creative entrepreneurship at Aalto University. In mid-April 2012 he shared his views on intrapreneurship with us. The following provides the highlights he presented based on his experience as an educator, practitioner and investor in entrepreneurial opportunities globally.
CONTEXT For many years, I have been struck by the often superficial awareness of and appreciation for the context within which businesses are started by young students. Many come into my classes with ill defined answers to the critical question I always ask: “what makes you the right person to exploit this opportunity?” By default, many of our recent graduates do not have an extensive base of experience of the work world and
CO-CREATION Let’s keep in mind that the “co-” means working with others and “creation” implies novelty. We know who co-creators are (founders, investors, partners, suppliers, customers) but we have very little idea what motivates the decision to co-create and what makes for a good match. The young startups that I have seen developed through the Aalto Entrepreneurship Society typically gravitate toward an independent
If you have no dialogue you cannot co-create.
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Rather than viewing corporate as the enemy, I see tremendous potential from exploring how entrepreneurs and established players can co-create together. To work, this implies a degree of openness on both sides to have a dialogue, to genuinely listen and work to shape the entrepreneurial opportunity together. Our students have a great deal of experience working with companies on projects, too often, however, the project brief has been driven by, and represents the interests of, the company sponsor. I am calling for a new approach where the entrepreneur and the company jointly determine the brief together.
route – raise some equity from outside investors to challenge corporate incumbents. Challenging corporate conventional wisdom is both exciting and potentially risky – raising resources and achieving staying power are very real issues that entrepreneurs adopting the “go-it-alone” approach face.
COLLABORATION It seems to me that entrepreneurs who are the agents of radical innovation and intrapreneurs who try to introduce an innovative spark into established companies have a potentially fruitful basis to work together. Yet, for the longest time, the discussion has been framed in terms that entrepreneurs and established companies are working at cross purposes. My message is simple – they need each other. To overcome liabilities of newness, entrepreneurs should look to corporates for resources. To explore new routines, perspectives and approaches that could inform strategic development, corporates should look to entrepreneurs for inspiration and fresh strategic insights. We have coined a term for this, co-creation.
companies can be killed with one no. The paradox is that independent entrepreneurs face a resource challenge, overcoming what are called liabilities of newness. Resources are typically not a problem for intrapreneurs but the issue of strategic misfit often stifles the developing of promising, but often radical, new opportunities in the corporate.
DESIGN & INNOVATION IN CONTEXT This coming fall a new course will be launched at Aalto: Design & Innovation In Context which will be challenged based. We want to provide an opportunity for young students to deepen their understanding of a particular context and in so doing, provide a platform for ideation. Working with a company on a challenge of interest to them, students will develop and explore creative ideas to address the challenge. We expect students to gain a deeper perspective of the challenges of innovating in the corporate world. In return, corporate gain fresh perspectives and insights that could help guide their own efforts to innovate. Cocreation in action!
it shows. I see tremendous potential to explore ways in which corporates can attract graduates who have an interest in, and a deep knowledge of, the entrepreneurial process but have not yet uncovered the right opportunity for them. It is precisely this kind of entrepreneurial spark plug that I believe corporates need to challenge conventional strategic wisdom and ask the inconvenient but often insightful questions that may guide corporates to discover and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities going forward.
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