An intrapreneur, (an inside entrepreneur) uses their skill within an organization to create a new product or service. The benefit to the intrapreneur is he or she will have all the resources of the organization without risking any of their capital.
The downside is you will not profit as much if the venture becomes successful. Small and large companies are creating environments within their organizations to encourage their employees to explore new ideas and possibilities.
Exploiting Your Opportunity
Intrapreneurship is all about assessing your organization and finding the opportunities available to you. While it looks easy enough, this exploration is time consuming and requires the ability to see what others overlook. Once you have identified these opportunities you have to ask whether the resources your organization has is enough to successfully launch your new product.
Resources
The resources in your organization may not be enough to support your intrapreneurship venture entirely. You may have access to human and manufacturing resources but not enough capital to support a full scale production and delivery of the product to the market place. Before you begin any venture, consult with personnel in the organization who are able to give you the full capability of the organization regarding your venture. If you have confidence in the product and there is not adequate support look for funding from sources outside of the organization.
Assembling The Right Team
The people you choose can make or break your project. If the talent pool in your organization is not strong enough to see the project to completion with success, look for external assets to help you. The biggest mistake organizations make when going ahead with intrapreneur ventures is to insist on using in-house talent to save money. It is possible that your employees are very good at what they do but it does not mean they can do everything. If you are choosing employees from your organization assess each person objectively for the talent they possess and can bring to the team.
Marketing
The wrong marketing campaign has ruined everything from cars to movies. You have to conduct marketing studies about your products potential, growth and competition. If the studies establish you can compete in the market place with your product, use every resource available to let the world know about it.
Selling Your Venture To Your Organization
No matter how great your idea is, you have to understand the capability of your organization. Your product has to take into consideration the primary objective of your organization and whether it can be produced parallel to that objective. If it disrupts the company in anyway it will be more difficult to green light the project. If the pitch does not work, don’t give up on your idea. Timing is everything so if you don’t get the green light the first time, try to bring it up again when the company is doing better and they are looking for opportunities.
Companies more than ever are eager to exploit the talent of their employees and if you are an intrapreneur with ideas that can increase the bottom line of the organization, don’t hesitate to put your idea forward.
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