flevyblog

Flevy Blog is an online business magazine covering Business Strategies, Business Theories, & Business Stories.
MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP STRATEGY, MARKETING, SALES OPERATIONS & SUPPLY CHAIN ORGANIZATION & CHANGE IT/MIS Other

Can We Drive Growth and Innovation through Corporate Entrepreneurship?

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Design Thinking (225-slide PowerPoint presentation). [NOTE: Our Design Thinking presentation has been trusted by an array of prestigious organizations, including industry leaders such as Apple, MIT, NASA, Ford, Boeing, Fujitsu, Syngenta, Palo Alto Networks, and Mercer, to name just a few.] Design Thinking is [read more]

Also, if you are interested in becoming an expert on Innovation Management, take a look at Flevy's Innovation Management Frameworks offering here. This is a curated collection of best practice frameworks based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. By learning and applying these concepts, you can you stay ahead of the curve. Full details here.

* * * *

Foremost, what exactly is “Corporate Entrepreneurship?”

Corporate Entrepreneurship is defined as the process by which teams within an established organization conceive, develop, launch, and manage a new business that is distinct from the parent organization by leveraging the parent organization’s resources.

Corporate Entrepreneurship encapsulates more than just New Product Development. It also includes ventures to drive innovations in services, brands, channels, etc. Likewise, it can involve breaking from the existing business model of the parent organization–i.e. Business Model Innovation (BMI).

Studies have shown Corporate Entrepreneurship stimulates Innovation, revitalizes the organization, increases employee productivity, propels growth through disruptive offerings, and creates a superior market advantage. In fact, Corporate Entrepreneurship is a cost-effective approach to promote and maintain a Competitive Advantage.

So, how do we adopt and drive Corporate Entrepreneurship?

Well, there are 4 dominant models of Corporate Entrepreneurship. The model an organization adopts is dependent on how it’s positioned along 2 dimensions–organizational ownership and resource authority. Organizational ownership refers to who within the organization has primary ownership for the creation of the new venture. Resource authority addresses how the venture is funded and resourced.

These 4 models, and how they map against the dimensions, are depicted in the slide below.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into each of these operating models.

The Opportunist

All organizations begin here as the Opportunist, where there is little organizational ownership or resource authority. Under this model, the organization has no deliberate approach to Corporate Entrepreneurship. Internal and external networks drive concept selection and resource allocation.

Since Corporate Entrepreneurship is not being actively managed in the Opportunist model, this model only works well in trusting Corporate Cultures. The Culture should also be fostered to support experimentation and Innovation. Without this type of environment, many ideas can fall through the organizational cracks or never receive sufficient funding.

Usually, after seeing some success in its entrepreneurial endeavors, the organization will start formalizing and adopting one of the other models.

The Enabler

The goal under the Enabler model is to facilitate entrepreneurial employees and teams. Thus, under this model, the organization provides both funding and senior management attention to prospective Corporate Entrepreneurship projects. The thinking here is that employees will be willing to develop new ideas if they have adequate, foundational support.

A great example of the Enabler organization is Google. In fact, both Gmail and Google Maps began as employee side projects.

Google allows employees to spend 20% of their time working on Corporate Entrepreneurial projects. Activities include promoting their ideas to colleagues, assembling teams, and building prototypes. At any given time, Google is supporting over 100 new business ventures at various stages of development. If a project succeeds, the team members are awarded significant bonuses (designated Founder’s Awards)—up to millions of dollars.

The Advocate

The Advocate model exhibits strong organization ownership by evangelizing and promoting Corporate Entrepreneurship. There are 2 primary strategic goals of the Advocate:

  1. Reinvigorate or transform Business Units.
  2. Support Corporate Entrepreneurship teams.

The Producer

The final, and most mature model, is the Producer. As the most mature model for Corporate Entrepreneurship, the Producer provides full-service support by conceiving, screening, funding, coaching, scaling, and reintegrating new business concepts. This type of organization can even establish a Center of Excellence (CoE) for Corporate Entrepreneurship projects.

Interested in learning more about Corporate Entrepreneurship and its 4 operating models?  Take a look at our framework on Corporate Entrepreneurship.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro LibraryFlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“As a small business owner, the resource material available from FlevyPro has proven to be invaluable. The ability to search for material on demand based our project events and client requirements was great for me and proved very beneficial to my clients. Importantly, being able to easily edit and tailor the material for specific purposes helped us to make presentations, knowledge sharing, and toolkit development, which formed part of the overall program collateral. While FlevyPro contains resource material that any consultancy, project or delivery firm must have, it is an essential part of a small firm or independent consultant’s toolbox.”

– Michael Duff, Managing Director at Change Strategy (UK)

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

“Several times a month, I browse FlevyPro for presentations relevant to the job challenge I have (I am a consultant). When the subject requires it, I explore further and buy from the Flevy Marketplace. On all occasions, I read them, analyze them. I take the most relevant and applicable ideas for my work; and, of course, all this translates to my and my clients’ benefits.”

– Omar Hernán Montes Parra, CEO at Quantum SFE

35-slide PowerPoint presentation
A systematic Innovation process allows an organization to clearly understand who its customers are, their unmet needs, needs to be targeted, product positioning, and new products to be developed. This presentation highlights the Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI) approach. ODI is a [read more]

Want to Achieve Excellence in Innovation Management?

Gain the knowledge and develop the expertise to become an expert in Innovation Management. Our frameworks are based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. Click here for full details.

To be competitive and sustain growth, we need to constantly develop new products, services, processes, technologies, and business models. In other words, we need to constantly innovate.

Ironically, the more we grow, the harder it becomes to innovate. Large organizations tend to be far better executors than they are innovators. To effectively manage the Innovation process, we need to master both the art and science of Innovation. Only then can we leverage Innovation as a Competitive Advantage, instead of viewing Innovation as a potential disruptive threat.

Learn about our Innovation Management Best Practice Frameworks here.

Readers of This Article Are Interested in These Resources


159-slide PowerPoint presentation
This presentation is a compilation of PowerPoint diagrams and templates used to convey 36 different innovation management frameworks, models and methods. (Please note that the materials are meant to be used to supplement your own business or classroom presentations. These slides may not be [read more]


 
136-slide PowerPoint presentation
 
 
100-slide PowerPoint presentation

About David Tang

David Tang is an entrepreneur and management consultant. His current focus is Flevy, the marketplace for business best practices (e.g. frameworks & methodologies, presentation templates, financial models). Prior to Flevy, David worked as a management consultant for 8 years. His consulting experience spans corporate strategy, marketing, operations, change management, and IT; both domestic and international (EMEA + APAC). Industries served include Media & Entertainment, Telecommunications, Consumer Products/Retail, High-Tech, Life Sciences, and Business Services. You can connect with David here on LinkedIn.

, ,





Complimentary Business Training Guides


Many companies develop robust strategies, but struggle with operationalizing their strategies into implementable steps. This presentation from flevy introduces 12 powerful business frameworks spanning both Strategy Development and Strategy Execution. [Learn more]

  This 48-page whitepaper, authored by consultancy Envisioning, provides the frameworks, tools, and insights needed to manage serious Change—under the backdrop of the business lifecycle. These lifecycle stages are each marked by distinct attributes, challenges, and behaviors. [Learn more]

We've developed a very comprehensive collection of Strategy & Transformation PowerPoint templates for you to use in your own business presentations, spanning topics from Growth Strategy to Brand Development to Innovation to Customer Experience to Strategic Management. [Learn more]

  We have compiled a collection of 10 Lean Six Sigma templates (Excel) and Operational Excellence guides (PowerPoint) by a multitude of LSS experts. These tools cover topics including 8 Disciplines (8D), 5 Why's, 7 Wastes, Value Stream Mapping (VSM), and DMAIC. [Learn more]
Recent Articles by Corporate Function

  

  

  

  

  


The Flevy Business Blog (https://flevy.com/blog) is a leading source of information on business strategies, business theories, and business stories. Most of our articles are authored by management consultants and industry executives with over 20 years of experience.

Flevy (https://flevy.com) is the marketplace for business best practices, such as management frameworks, presentation templates, and financial models. Our best practice documents are of the same caliber as those produced by top-tier consulting firms (like McKinsey, Bain, Accenture, BCG, and Deloitte) and used by Fortune 100 organizations. Learn more about Flevy here.


Connect with Flevy:

     
  


About Flevy.com   /   Terms   /   Privacy Policy
© . Flevy LLC. All Rights Reserved.