Wednesday, January 2, 2008

what is intrapreneurship

it is pretty much the same as entrepreneurship, except that it occurs within an existing biz structure. entrepreneurship refers to a start-up, a new venture, whereas intrapreneurship refers to restructuring existing biz as a survival strategy. the organization takes the initiative and commits resources to create and empower a team which will think and behave like entrepreneurs (meaning as if it is their own company as opposed to them working 'for' a company).

The upside of this is that it is already an up and running existing biz with its own biz momentum, its own market, its own product mix and of course its own infrastructure, so intrapreneurial effort is focused on creating an empowered 'intraprise'. as with enterprise, ideas are the starting point of all intraprises too.

the downside of this is that because it is an existing biz, battling the entrenched dogmas ('this is the way we have always run the biz; it worked well for us in the past, so why should we change it now?") tends to be highly energy-consuming. and sometimes, thwarting. and most times, frustrating.

it is not true that companies look at intrapreneurship when they start doing badly. good organizations are those that are good change managers. and good change managers are not just those who 'react' to change; they also pre-empt and prepare for change. so intrapreneurship becomes an integral part of an organization's DNA, pretty much like its vision and mission statements.

2 comments:

  1. isnt this the same as continous improvement concept. tqm etc.,

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  2. i observe with concern that no posts have been added after jan 1. Being a purchase man, i find that many of our vendors are sturggling to produce quality products and many a time fall short of the quantities too. and also ther are companies that have the potential for excellent output but due to various extraneous reasons are not able to pull themselves up together. given a situation, how does one decide, scientifically, that is , whether the company can apply the intraprenership concepts to find out what is ailing the company and what parameters need to be taken into account before revamping it? or what parameters need to be tackled to get it going.

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