If you work at a large company, you may feel like your hands are tied. You might need more time or resources to create an intrapreneurial culture in which employees can feel compelled to take risks. However, a culture of innovation and experimentation within an organisation can lead to teams with higher levels of engagement and collective innovation.
What is Intrapreneurship?
Intrapreneurship is a term that refers to people who work within large companies and have ideas for new products, services or business models. They may also try to disrupt their company’s current operations by introducing new technologies or processes. These employees can be found in all departments. Still, they are most common in engineering and marketing departments as they often have more technical expertise than other employees and exposure to different customers.
Intrapreneurs need to get approval from their bosses before working on their idea—they aren’t entrepreneurs who start a whole new venture outside the company structure. However, intrapreneurs have some say over what happens with their opinions once they’ve been approved by senior management: If there’s interest from senior leadership or customers, intrapreneurs can often choose how best to develop their product or service before it’s launched into the market (e.g., whether to build it internally vs outsourcing).
Does Intrapreneurship in Large Companies Work?
Intrapreneurship is a growing trend, and for a good reason. It’s a way for large companies to innovate, for employees to feel empowered, and for employees to feel like they are contributing. Just ask Apple Inc., whose intrapreneurship program has resulted in some of the company’s biggest successes. The iPhone would never have been created without it.
How to Establish an Intrapreneurship Program at Your Company
Before you begin to implement your intrapreneurship program, it’s essential first to define the problem and create goals. This will keep things simple and help you avoid getting too caught up in the details. Here are some tips on how best to do that:
- Think big, but start small. It’s easy for your ideas to get lost in the shuffle if you don’t have a clear path for achieving them, so be sure that each goal has a starting point and an end goal with clearly defined steps along the way.
- Don’t worry about what other people think of your ideas or expectations—the only thing that matters is what works for YOU! You know yourself better than anyone else does (including us), so why not take advantage of that knowledge? If something inspires YOU but doesn’t interest others as much—go with it! We promise no one is going anywhere any time soon unless they want out severely enough…and even then, I’m pretty sure they’d still miss us eventually when they realised how awesome we all were together
- Be ambitious but realistic at the same time because sometimes dreams can come true…it just takes some hard work.
How do Their Employees perceive top Executives?
When you ask a room full of employees to name the most important people in their organisations, they will most often respond with a list that includes the CEO or president. After all, these leaders are seen as visionaries, experts and leaders who have the power to make things happen. They also set the tone for an organisation’s business and how customers and clients perceive it.
This isn’t surprising; after all, top executives are paid large sums of money because they are perceived as having high value (and therefore being able to generate lots of profits for shareholders). But there’s another reason top executives hold this esteemed position: intrapreneurship.
Can We Act Like Entrepreneurs At Large Companies?
- Be a risk-taker.
- Be open to change.
- Be willing to take risks.
- Be willing to take the initiative.
- Be willing to take responsibility. This is important because it means you’re responsible for your success or failure, not just following orders from the top and hoping everything works out okay! If you can’t do this, you’ll end up making excuses (“it’s not my fault”) and wasting time trying to figure out someone else’s mistakes instead of getting on with work that needs today! When something goes wrong at work, it’s always more accessible for people who don’t want responsibility for their actions to blame others . . . but this doesn’t get anything done; if anything, it makes things worse since everyone starts pointing fingers instead of working together towards solutions.”
Why Do Company Leaders Need to Know About Intrapreneurship?
The answer is simple: it’s a key driver of innovation. Intrapreneurship is a way for companies can get out of their comfort zone and grow their business. It’s also a great way to get employees engaged with their work. If you manage an intrapreneurial company or are thinking about starting one, your leadership team needs to understand why intrapreneurship matters so much—and how they can support your efforts.
The Benefits of Empowering Employees to Be Intrapreneurs
When you encourage employees to be intrapreneurs, you can expect several benefits for your business:
- Higher levels of engagement. People feel better about their work when they feel empowered and have input into the process. When that’s the case, they’ll be more engaged in their jobs, leading to increased productivity and efficiency.
- Collective innovation. Encouraging intrapreneurship is a great way to build up an internal network of ideas, knowledge, and talent that will help grow your company in new ways over time as people help each other out with projects or collaborate on new ideas together.
- Better business results. Companies with high levels of employee engagement tend to perform better financially than those without it—and studies show that this trend holds even when comparing companies experiencing economic downturns! That’s because when people are engaged at work (and feel like they’re being heard), they care about doing their best for the company; this leads directly to having better overall results across all departments.
Creating intrapreneurial cultures in which employees can feel compelled to take risks will result in teams with higher levels of engagement and collective innovation.
- Intrapreneurship is the act of creating a new business within an existing organisation. It’s for more than just startups.
- Intrapreneurship can help large companies grow—and find new business opportunities.
- Creating intrapreneurial cultures in which employees can feel compelled to take risks will result in teams with higher levels of engagement and collective innovation, leading to sustained growth over time.
Bottom Line
Ultimately, intrapreneurship can give employees the autonomy to work in new ways and create a culture that supports innovation. When we understand these principles and apply them to our daily lives, we can thrive in any environment—even if it’s not an entrepreneurial one.
Who am I?
I am Dotun Adeoye, a Business Growth Strategist & Author of the 5 Pillars of Business Growth.
I’ve built up my experience via serial entrepreneurship, consulting leadership roles in business growth, business development and product innovation in large companies worldwide in the last 29 years.
Today, I consult with large businesses on how to sustainably grow their businesses, sustain infinite growth, ensure business continuity and achieve a legacy.
Hire Dotun Adeoye to Speak Virtually or In – Person at your company’s event to cover this or other topics. You can also get in touch via +44 203 097 1718
