Page 174 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Which Model Is Right for You? 161

such an effort needs to be politically savvy and respected
within the corporation, so that homes can be found for suc-
cessfully incubated concepts. Separated organizations face the
hardest battle in reintegrating new businesses back into the
corporate core. We’ll discuss this problem a bit more in the fol-
lowing section, on transition and scaling challenges.
Keep in mind, also as pointed out in Chapter 3, that very large
companies may implement different models at different levels
of the corporation, or sometimes even within the same organi-
zation. We explained how IBM maintains a Producer team called
Emerging Business Opportunities, while ThinkPlace and Inno-
vation Jams encourage ideation and networking in the fashion
of an Advocate Model. Like an Enabler, IBM supports divisional
processes for concept development and experimentation, and
IBM has distributed power bases that enable corporate entre-
preneurs to opportunistically find pockets of interest and
resources across the corporation without structured facilitation.

Start with Quick Wins

The early stages of building a corporate entrepreneurship team
should be dynamic and exploratory; however, the trial-and-
error approach must be balanced by the recognition that the
corporation has a limited horizon for seeing a return on its
investment. Make sure that when the reviews come around,
you can show some early successes, while protecting the longer-
term game changers. Teams that seek only game changers often
fail to win the right and the runway to see them take flight.
Whatever corporate entrepreneurship model you’re pursuing,
it’s a good idea to focus initially on a small number of projects
that can be brought to successful fruition quickly, that is, the
“low-hanging fruit.” Early success builds credibility, and it makes
communicating the corporate entrepreneurship group’s mission