Page 42 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Understanding Corporate Entrepreneurship 29

efforts complement rather than replace Cisco’s well-established
fast second strategy. Guido Jouret, Cisco’s chief technology offi-
cer for emerging technologies, believes that the company’s
enhanced internal capabilities for new business creation have
made it even more adept at understanding and acting on exter-
nal technology and start-up opportunities. Cisco now has a
greater ability to visualize its future, because it is more actively
engaged in creating it.
Like Cisco, there are many firms in a wide range of indus-
tries that are learning how to build growth opportunities from
within. This is why all companies must address this trend. We
need to discover how to generate new company creation
within our firms. We cannot rely on luck to provide us with
enough entrepreneurial savants who are capable of navigating
the corporate abyss. We can, however, enhance our people’s
likelihood of success.

Stories from the Front

Throughout the book, we’ll share stories of corporate entrepre-
neurs in action: managers and executives who have made the
case and succeeded in building new businesses and innovation-
focused organizations to help their companies lead the market -
place and respond to new opportunities with more alacrity.
On occasion, an established company generates a new busi-
ness without a formal process or organization being charged
with doing so. Linde Corporation, the world’s largest indus-
trial and health-care gases firm, created a new business within
the company’s health-care unit that invented an entirely new
product category: pharmaceutical gases. While the unit pro-
vided exceptional growth, it became unclear to the parent firm
how the new business fit within its portfolio. Linde ultimately