“Innovative solutions to new challenges seldom come from familiar places.”
-Gyan Nagpal
Corporations are beginning to invest in intrapreneurs because the latter understand innovation in a changing market. By giving intrapreneurs the platform and resources to innovate, it allows the unlocking of ideas and passions that can improve multiple aspects of organizations, such as product enhancement and internal startups. But wait, what is intrapreneurship?
Corporate intrapreneurship allows employees to act like entrepreneurs within a company by coming up with innovative ideas that would be beneficial to the organization. Companies invest in employees’ ideas and passions with the belief that these ideas can improve the overall customer experience. Because of corporate intrapreneurship, business line startups begin to emerge from within the company. Business line startups are internal ventures developed from within an organization resulting from internal ideas and resources. Some of these ideas even become the features that can help corporations penetrate new markets and promote growth, like Google with Gmail.
The early stages of investing in corporate intrapreneurship begin with creating a micro-organization of intrapreneurs, where individuals within this group innovate on ideas without limitation. However, such an organization should still work within proximity of the corporation with open doors to allow innovation to occur across the board. Corporate intrapreneurship should also not be limited to creating new products. It should also include market insights and knowledge to help the corporation stay ahead of changing environments in the market.
Investing in corporate intrapreneurship can lead to new successful business lines and enter businesses to new industries. The creation of Google Gmail and GSuites are examples of successful business lines resulting from corporate intrapreneurship. The power of corporate intrapreneurship unlocks hidden potential and creativity in employees with a business.