Case Study on Corporate Entrepreneurship: Steve Jobs of Apple

Corporate Entrepreneurship is broadly described as the process whereby an individual or a group of individuals, in association with an existing organization, create a new organization or instigate renewal or innovation within that organization. This definition includes two aspects of CE, a new business creation within existing organizations and renewal of the current strategy of the corporation. The vital notion is that corporations must capitalize on the entrepreneurial thinking of the managers to chase future evolution under changing and uncertain environments. Overall, studies suggest that Corporate Entrepreneurship activities are composed of three areas: idea generation, selection, and implementation or retention. Autonomy is an integral and central part of CE. Under conditions of change and uncertainty, providing autonomy to enterprising managers and encouraging them to elaborate on their own experience and ideas is a more promising approach than formal strategy development that relies solely on top management. It has been argued Continue reading

Strategic Entrepreneurship

Strategic Entrepreneurship is integration of two disciplines: Entrepreneurship (Identifying opportunities through Innovation) and Strategic Management (Manage the firm’s resources/innovation efforts). So we can define strategic entrepreneurship as a firm’s efforts to exploit its today’s competitive advantages while exploring for the innovations that will be the foundation of tomorrow’s competitive advantages. Identifying opportunities to exploit through innovation is entrepreneurship dimension of strategic entrepreneurship, while determining the best way to manage the firm’s innovation efforts is the strategic dimension. Entrepreneur is a word derived from French language which means: “One who undertakes” and entrepreneurial capabilities are conditions in which new good or services can be launched to satisfy a need in the market. These opportunities exist because of the competitive imperfections in markets and among the factors of production and to produce them and when information about these imperfections is distributed asymmetrically among individuals. As a process, entrepreneurship results in creative destruction Continue reading

The Need for Corporate Entrepreneurship

Corporate entrepreneurship or Intrapreneurship is an important element in large and medium organizations. Intrapreneurship exists within the organizations. It plays important role in organizational and economic development. Intrapreneurship leads not only to new ventures, it leads to other innovative activities and orientations such as development of new products, technologies, services, strategies and competitive postures. In good or bad economic times, companies seek innovations to remain competitive. Intrapreneurs are more intelligent and have ability to perceive the big picture. They are self motivated, and optimistic. These people are action oriented and move quickly to get things done. Corporate entrepreneur is a person who focuses on innovation and creativity to transform dreams into profitable reality. A charismatic leader in a company instills an entrepreneurial philosophy in the employees in an organisation. These entrepreneurs must have leadership characteristics. They must be visionary and flexible. Entrepreneur encourages team work and builds coalition of support. Continue reading

Case Study on Entrepreneurship: Ted Turner

Ted Turner, founder of Turner Broadcasting System, is an entrepreneur who loves living on the edge. Who else would buy an unprofitable Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio for $ 1.6 billion? Who else would bet on producing the Goodwill Games with U.S. versus Soviet athletes at a cost of about $ 50 million? Who else would report that “the thrill of victory is everything we imagined it would be,” following the triumph of Turner’s Atlanta Braves in the 1995 World Series, following three consecutive, unsuccessful trips to the playoffs? Robert Edward Turner III was born in 1938, and his boyhood was spent primarily in Savannah, Georgia. As a boy, he was an enthusiastic reader of books about heroes, from Horatio Hornblower to Alexander the Great. Unsuccessful in playing any of the major sports, he turned to one that required no special physical attributes but relied on the ability to think, take chances, Continue reading

Value Architecture – Snapshot of the Company’s Business Model

For an entrepreneur is very important organize his key operational activities to make fundamental business decisions with respect to ‘focus’ — the strategic relevance and prioritization of these activities to achieve a developmental milestone; ‘locus’ — where you should geographically conduct these activities; and ‘modus’ — the way in which these different activities are executed. At the business model level, the focus, locus, and modus of the entrepreneur’s activities represent the company’s output, so represents the unique way in which a business executes its strategy to the market. Focus: Focus decisions are related to the strategic importance and allocation of a company’s resources to business activities, like where to invest additional resources or disinvest resources. The entrepreneur has to focus his attention on what business activities demand priority, resources, and attention. The key decision process here is to prioritize which activities to focus on during a specific stage of growth Continue reading

The Other Side of Entrepreneurship

People who have opposite opinions against entrepreneurship point out ten potential risks. First is management mistake that is the primary cause of business failure. Sometimes the owner of a small business lacks the leadership ability, sound judgment, and knowledge necessary to make the business work. Second is lack of business experience which indicates that most entrepreneurs tend to be beginners to be easy to make management mistakes in their own businesses. Third one is poor financial control. Effective managers realize that any successful business venture requires proper financial control. Business success also requires having a sufficient amount of capital on hand at start-up. Under-capitalization is a common cause of business failure because companies run out of capital before they are able to generate positive cash flow. Entrepreneurs tend to be overly optimistic and often misjudge the financial requirements of going into business. Fourth one is weak marketing efforts that means Continue reading