To grow a business further and to keep a company innovative and competitive in the market, it is important that the company invest in not only in its working systems, machines and technologies but also in its employees; as P&G said, “You can take the money and resources from the company and build a new one with the employees, but take the employees from the company and you remain with nothing. “
Intrapreneurship itself refers to individuals who highlight their creative and innovative minds and create new products within an organization (Coursera 2023). They have similar characteristics as an entrepreneur, with the difference that entrepreneurs work on their own businesses and intrapreneurs utilize their skills inside a company or under an organization. Companies can benefit from the intrapreneurship skills of their individuals for survival, business model rejuvenation and profitability (Hisrich 1990).
Benefits of Intrapreneurship in the Company
Intrapreneurship can be an asset for the company as it can potentially create new business opportunities and ideas within the company and open new product lines or services.
a) Building Characters and Mindsets of Individuals
The intrapreneurial mind consists of proactiveness, hardworking, innovative thinking, and a business mindset. Characters are extremely important to plant in an individual to build leadership and ownership. They are important skill sets in leading intrapreneurship initiatives and bringing those planned products and ideas to life. The individuals must create an idea, work diligently to visualize and make the idea come true using their skills and assets, build connections, collaborate, until finally the product turns into a reality (Coursera 2023).
The human brain is still one of the best “machines” for generating ideas to this day, and companies should invest in training the minds of their employees to produce innovative products.
b) Source of Innovation
Companies like Google and 3M lets their employees to work on their individual projects using some parts of their working time (Leon C. Prieto et al. 2020). By using entrepreneurial approaches, employees can use their internal knowledge from the company as well as external sources to create new products or services. When employees can think freely outside of their regular working hours, it could lead to thinking outside of the box. Without these people, the company would get stuck in place and fail to create anything new (Kocjancic and Bojnec 2013).
Successful Initiatives
1. Google's "20% Time":
Google´s 20% Time Rule became popular when it was first published in 2004. The reason for its popularity is that this rule is the reason of Google’s most famous products, such as Gmail, Ad Sense, Google Maps and Google News. The way this rule works is that Google lets their employees spend 20% of their work time to create and develop a project of their own liking. This way, employees have the opportunity to work on something they are genuinely curious and interested in, fostering their innovative thinking and product development skills. This program has greatly enhanced the intrapreneurial skills of the employees. Not only does it result in giving Google more innovative products, but it is also a way for employees to willingly develop and learn new skills when they work on a project they are passionate about(Dorie Clark 2021).
2. Adobe's Kickbox Program:
One of Adobe´s most successful programs for fostering intrapreneurial skills among their employees is their Kickbox program. The program starts by giving a “box” to their employees containing resources and information and gives the flexibility to their employees to develop an idea from the things they provide. The program was developed by Adobe´s Vice President of Creativity, Mark Randall (Mark Randall). The program consists of various levels and steps to guide employees on how to successfully bring and work on a product before selling it to the market. The employees learn how to be the CEOs of their own ideas and empower them to innovate, to be bold, and to create something new. This project has resulted in many successful projects not only in Adobe but also in companies from around the world (Rich Foreman).
3. Amazon's "Just Do It" Awards:
Amazon’s philosophy is centred around trying, always learning, and to take action. They encourage their employees to solve a problem and come up with ideas to improve a process, even though they are not the experts on the matter. The “Just Do it” awards recognize and celebrate this kind of behaviour, and winners are personally presented by the CEO Jeff Bezos. This recognition helps to motivate and empower employees to think of effective solutions, to think outside of the box to solve problems and take action(Beth Galetti 2/18/2020).
4. Microsoft's Garage:
As students have extracurricular programs at school, employees of Microsoft have their extracurricular activities in the Microsoft Garage. This program started in 2009 in Microsoft Office Labs. It allows employees to work on projects they are passionate about, even if they are from a different department, and collaborate with other colleagues throughout the company, outside of their working hour. Microsoft provide resources for employees to work on their project and assign mentors and experts from various departments such as design, or engineering to guide and give them insights on how to build a product from start to finish. At the end of the program, the employees get to compete in a hackathon, and the winners may continue to work and receive direction about their project. Some of the successful product stories are the Microsoft translator app and the Seeing AI app for people with visual problems (Athima Chansanchai 2016).
What can companies do to promote and motivate employees to become intrapreneurs?
1) Manager encouragement:
Intrapreneurship should be encouraged and supported in the workplace, especially by open-minded managers or leaders who should set an example and lead using intrapreneurial skills. They are also needed to give feedback, encouragement, and suggestions to the ideas of their employees for new products or optimization and lead them to the right directions.
2) Information and Skill Building possibilities:
Individuals should have access to important information about their business to gain a better understanding of their company themselves and design smarter products that can improve existing ones. They should also have access to sales results, such as customer satisfaction reports. Additionally, it is crucial to give training programs or online learning to develop both soft skills and hard skills for the employees(Leon C. Prieto et al. 2020).
3) Rewards:
HR should think of a way to give rewards to intrapreneurial individuals, who goes above and beyond expectations. Rewards can take various forms, such as giving extra free time, more bonuses, or award certificates. Rewards help employees to feel recognized and motivated to keep doing their best and feels a sense of pride. At best, these rewards should encourage the individuals to strive for better, pursue more and be ambitious on more creative projects to come.
4) Power:
Managers should trust their employees and give them the freedom to go by their projects. They should give the opportunity for employees to develop one skill to improve their innovation, build milestones on their project and solve problems on their own. That way the employees can feel a sense of authority and ownership, and this will increase their feeling of responsibility for their project or task at hand(Leon C. Prieto et al. 2020).
Conclusion
There are a lot of initiatives and programs from large successful companies such as Microsoft and Google that empower their employees to innovate and create. This proves that intrapreneurial skills are one of the key skills companies need to grow and always evolve. There are many benefits that companies can gain, especially in the growth, technology and digitalization, there are tons of possibility of ideas to improve and optimize internal workforce or even external products or services. There are also lots of ways that a company can encourage their employees to build their entrepreneurial skills, some of them is to introduce managers and leaders in a company that are open minded and are open for new ideas and feedbacks, to give and trust the employees and give the power over their own projects, give rewards to those that are working hard on thinking new ideas for optimization or products, and also give the employees a platform to develop their skills of interest.
Publication bibliography
Hisrich, Robert D. (1990): Entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship. In American Psychologist 45 (2), pp. 209–222. DOI: 10.1037//0003-066x.45.2.209.
Kocjancic, Joe; Bojnec, Stefan (2013): Intrapreneurship, competition and company efficiency. In Managing Global Transitions 11 (2), p. 161.
Leon C. Prieto; Simone Trixie Allison Phipps; Kenneth Kungu (2020): Facilitating a culture of intrapreneurship: an employee involvement approach. In Strategic HR Review. Available online at https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:218844525.