Page 50 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Understanding Corporate Entrepreneurship 37

entrepreneurs become adroit at constructive questioning of all
aspects of businesses, from product and customer value propo-
sitions to supply chains, business models, and talent.
The next chapter presents an approach to thinking holisti-
cally about a new business opportunity, accounting through-
out the process for all of the business decisions that must be
made to support success. We refer to this concept as new busi-
ness design, and it is one of the most powerful perspectives you
can apply to succeeding at corporate entrepreneurship.

Too Broad

While initiatives can become so focused that they become
myopic, the opposite can also occur. Gather a few creative,
motivated people, and you’ll often find that you have more
opportunities than could rationally be pursued. People
charged with leading innovation initiatives can find them-
selves pulled in many directions, from building new businesses
and helping established business units reinvent themselves to
developing radical new products or even transforming their
company’s culture. The most successful corporate entrepre-
neurs tend to stay focused on the right objectives without los-
ing the big picture.

Lacking or Losing Focus

A team of creative, motivated people that is pursuing the
future is always at risk of having too many promising oppor-
tunities to pursue. Independent entrepreneurs often face the
same problem, but lack of capital and human resources and the
life-or-death nature of getting to positive cash flow can provide
a more powerful focusing mechanism. Although corporate
entrepreneurs face resource constraints as well, they run an