Most of you know the word Entrepreneurship. But how many people know the word Intrapreneurship in Business ?
Entrepreneurship can be described as a process of action an entrepreneur undertakes to establish his enterprise. Entrepreneurship is the attitude of mind to seek opportunities, take calculated risks and derive benefits by setting up a venture. It comprises of numerous activities involved in conception, creation and running an enterprise. Entrepreneur is a person who starts an enterprise. The process of creation is called entrepreneurship.
What is Intrapreneurship ?
Intrapreneurs are usually employees within a company who are assigned a special idea or project, and are instructed to develop the project like an entrepreneur would. The intrapreneur’s main job is to turn that special idea or project into a profitable venture for the company and they usually have the resources and capabilities of the firm at their disposal. Intrapreneurship in business is also called corporate entrepreneurship.
Smart organizations will seek out employees who like to invent, innovate, and want to be on the front lines of change. Intrapreneurs are most successful when management empowers and supports them and in turn the Intrapreneurs represent the best interests of their organisations, while earning the respect of corporate peers.
Importance of Intrapreneurship in Business
Intrapreneurship in business is the best way to retain talented staff and hence reduce labor turnover. Otherwise, most of them will just quit and develop these ideas on their own or for someone else. It will be a win-win situation for both the organization and the talented employee. Google introduced Intrapreneurship program, in which all the employees are empowered and encouraged to spend 20% of their time on projects that interest them and that they think will benefit Google and their customers.
It is very much interesting to note that several of Google‟ s newest products and services such as Gmail, Google news, and AdSense were all originated through this program
Vimeo is an exceptional example of how an Intrapreneur, Anjali Sud, transformed its companies’ business model inside out and went from being the Marketing Director to the CEO of the company. Increasing sales by 54% in a year, Anjali Sud changed the struggling online video platform to a successful SaaS business.
In India also several companies introduced Intrapreneurship in business program. Kinetic Engineering Limited encourages employees to use their time efficiently for innovation in its upcoming products. The Kinetic Zing model of bicycle was the idea of an employee working in the corporation.
Advantages of Intrapreneurship in Business
- Intrapreneurship positively influences the financial performance.
- Intrapreneurship positively influences the productivity of companies.
- Intrapreneurship positively influences the growth and improvement of companies.
- Higher Employee Morale
- Larger Technology Base
- more stability and resources than entrepreneurship:
- Taking on an intrapreneurial approach gives you the opportunity to shape strategic direction at an established company
- Employee can identify what drives you to succeed, and also what doesn’t. It can help you shape your career direction.
- win-win for you and your employer
Consequences of not encouraging Intrapreneurship
Any major failures will be borne by the company and not fall on the shoulders of the intrapreneur. However, this could lead to conflict in interest, depending upon the type and reason for the failure. However, the loss and damage would end there for the intrapreneur.
Employees ultimately have to answer to the business owner. So unlike an entrepreneur who has complete freedom, an intrapreneur will have certain boundaries to adhere to.
An intrapreneur is building his dream into another person’s business. They are creating value and wealth for someone else to reap the biggest rewards. The only way in which an intrapreneur is going to have access to the spoils of business ownership, is to switch to being an entrepreneur.
A classic case of entrepreneurs is that of the founders of Adobe, John Warnock and Charles Geschke. They both were employees of Xerox. As employees they were frustrated because their new product ideas were not encouraged. They quit Xerox in the early 1980s to begin their own business. Currently, Adobe has an annual turnover of over $3 billion
To read about Best Qualities of successful Entrepreneur please follow this link — Best Qualities of Entrepreneur
To know more about Fortune Technology, please visit our Facebook Page : Fortune Technology Facebook Page