Page 236 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Learn from E very where 221

tunist than like a Producer or an Advocate, as there is no spe-
cific IBM organization designated as the one that will pick up
on promising concepts. Innovation Jam and GIO are not for-
mally associated with IBM’s Producer effort, Emerging Busi-
ness Opportunities (EBO), although ideas that have come out
of them have been adopted by that program. For example, Joel
Makower of GreenBiz reported that the 2006 Innovation Jam
generated opportunities in green technology. Some of this trans-
lated into an EBO known as Big Green Innovations in 2007.
These cases are excellent examples of how open innovation,
pursued as a general innovation strategy, can work together
with a formal corporate entrepreneurship effort. Ultimately,
firms that are capable of leveraging multiple approaches build
powerful innovation competencies as well as more options for
successful growth.

Globalization and Corporate Entrepreneurship

While corporations explore the power and pitfalls of more
open approaches to innovation, globalization generates an
environment of intensifying competition, diversifying markets,
and proliferation of consumers worldwide. There is perhaps
no dynamic greater than globalization compelling companies
to master new business creation. Back in 1998, a Louis Harris
& Associates survey of 308 CEOs found that “globalization”
was judged to be the most important trend affecting compa-
nies. The trend has only accelerated since that time.
While some firms, such as Royal Dutch Shell and IBM, have
been global in character and strategy for decades, for the most
part the concept of a “global economy” has emerged as a com-
mon factor in corporate boardrooms only since the turn of the
century. The demands of serving diverse customers in varied