Page 124 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Emerging Models of Corporate Entrepreneurship 111

formation across the company. Both share the essential aspect
of not having a significant budget for new business creation.
Instead, they work in a decentralized fashion to help business
units either create new businesses or transform how they
approach the businesses in which they currently operate. In
this second case, the company is, in effect, undertaking corpo-
rate entrepreneurship in the sense that BP’s advocate-style
organization works with business units to innovate their busi-
ness systems in meaningful ways.

DuPont: Market-Driven Innovation

In 1999, CEO Chad Holliday of DuPont realized that the com-
pany needed some new thinking because, even though mar-
gins and returns had improved during the prior six years,
growth had declined. The company was growing its earnings
largely through cost reductions rather than by increasing top-
line revenues. So Holliday asked senior executives in the cor-
porate plans group to delve into strategic options for
generating greater organic top-line growth. DuPont veteran
Robert A. Cooper headed the effort.
DuPont’s primary businesses revolved around advanced
materials. Over time, these materials would become com-
moditized, driving down margins. Also, the process of mov-
ing new materials from the lab to the market often involved
numerous fits and starts. Cooper came to the conclusion that
DuPont’s effort to derive higher margins needed more “knowl-
edge-intensive” products. The company needed to go “beyond
the molecule.” In other words, rather than continuing to focus
on generating new products in its existing markets, DuPont
needed to generate new businesses that leveraged the com-
pany’s prodigious R&D inventiveness but provided additional
value from its knowledge of working with new materials.