Do you have ideas for your business that you are not yet sharing at work? Do you see ways you could improve the status quo but are not sure how to gain buy-in and implement your ideas?
You might be destined to be an intrapreneur.
Named as a Top 10 workplace trend for 2013 by Forbes, intrapreneurship is not a new concept. However, it may just be the right time for this disruptive idea to take off.
Intrapreneurs are people who work within organizations who are constantly looking for ways to make improvements, introduce new initiatives or change how the company works. They give companies a distinct advantage because they create efficiencies that impact the bottom line, initiate new business ideas and keep the company competitive in their markets with new product and services ideas. Intrapreneurship is a powerful response to the changes that are taking place in the business world.
As a teacher of MBA students and an intrapreneur myself, I have challenged my working professional MBA students since 2008 to create more value in their current roles. I want them to build a great resume of going above and beyond their basic responsibilities by increasing revenue, decreasing cost, improving morale, improving a process, implementing a green initiative or any combination thereof. I want them to realize they have the front line view to see areas for improvement that no one else might see.
Some of my favorite projects this year are from:
Brett Miller, a sales engineer for Draexlmaier, had put on the back burner a particular idea when the “Innovation at Work” challenge reignited his thinking about it, prompting him to do some research, pull in some data and revisit an existing supply chain strategy. His company has facilities in South Carolina and Mexico that support the interior production of the BMW X3/X4. By resourcing sub-supplier components closer to the area of production, as well as eliminating non-value-added material handling downstream, his company could realize potential savings of $640,000 throughout the remainder of the program.
Brett’s project has been pitched, and he has received the support to kick off the evaluation and investigate in further detail.
Justin MacLanders, a key account manager for Michelin, began his project revisiting the different uses of crumb rubber based on profitability and long-term growth. While there are already a number of outlets for crumb rubber from road building to decking planks, Justin’s goal was to review long-term profitability and new uses of crumb rubber, leveraging South Carolina’s lower manufacturing costs and engineering resources to develop a new business. This will ultimately involve developing the required machinery and a manufacturing process to optimize the recycling process. Once this is complete his team will license and sell the product and process to their large dealers in each marketplace.
So far, Justin has received support for moving forward on this project, which could create a new business unit within Michelin and additional source of revenue.
Libby Boerger works for Greenville Health System, and had come to realize her department needed to improve training. She was concerned about employee retention and overall employee effectiveness. She is currently re-imagining her department’s training program, focusing on a 12-month structured calendar with updated files so that employees can see accurate, efficient and independent training slated over the course of the year.
Her process improvement project could result in greater employee satisfaction, less employee turnover and dollars for her organization.
How do companies benefit by empowering intrapreneurs?
Performance: The economic landscape has been changing drastically and at a high speed. We all know that profound shifts are happening and we are faced with a new normal. Companies that are embracing intrapreneurship are able to leverage the creativity and passion of their people while staying agile and competitive. Research indicates that intrapreneurial companies outperform non-intrapreneurial companies in several business-critical areas: sales growth, profitability and market share.
Employee engagement: In the top-down hierarchies of yesterday, people simply did what the manager told them to do. But in the current complex world of business, more is needed. Most employees are sitting on ideas that they think will be beneficial to the business, but may not be sure how to implement them. Employees who are empowered to actively pursue ideas with the potential of adding value to the bottom line feel ownership and are more fulfilled.
Consumer demands: There is big profit to be made from new services, new business models, new delivery methods and new target markets. Pioneering in these fields is exactly what intrapreneurs love to do.
Intrapreneurship is a fundamental shift in thinking about how to run a business with the potential for great rewards. I leave you with a quote from the Boston Consulting Group 2014 Global Innovators Survey:
“The cultures of most large organizations tend to thwart innovation rather than promote it. Bureaucracy, cost consciousness and caution come to define the way many companies operate. Talented people don’t want to work in bureaucracies. They want to work in companies where they can get things done. Size can give you scale, but for innovation, speed is more critical. The best companies are slowly but surely involving a growing number of employees in their innovation efforts. Innovation is not just the goal of the R&D department anymore.”
