Intrapreneurship is a set of methods and processes by which a person becomes an entrepreneur within his or her own company. As the name suggests, it is therefore internal entrepreneurship. Thus, an intrapreneur is both an employee and an entrepreneur who develops a project that is relevant to the organisation.
Example of intrapreneurship
To give you an example, we have selected an article from the Innovation Management website about the American food company Simplot. A potato specialist, Simplot became McDonald's largest supplier in the 1970s. In 2005, the American company supplied more than half of the fries for the fast food chain worldwide.
How did Simplot become one of the largest private companies in the world? Thanks to an innovation: the dehydrated potato, which later became the frozen Chip. The idea for this came not from Jack Simplot - the company's founder - but from employees in the field. Jack Simplot's philosophy has always been to focus on recruiting talented people. Because when faced with problems on the ground, employees have ideas for solutions that must be listened to. The company therefore continues to focus on recruiting talent and training these new recruits in the methods of the company.collaborative innovation. Employees trained in this way can then develop intrapreneurship projects if their ideas and initiatives prove relevant.
The great thing aboutcollaborative innovation and intrapreneurship is that they give birth to innovative solutions. And sometimes, before these solutions exist, you don't even know you need them. Moreover, these methods put people back at the centre and value their employees.
Intrapreneurship starts with the proposal of ideas
Not everyoneis ready for intrapreneurship. Because not everyone is an intrapreneur at heart. Indeed, the intrapreneur does not stop at simply proposing a solution or an idea. They develop it step by step: from prototyping, to testing on a larger scale, and finally to industrialisation. The entrepreneur is therefore faced with challenges for which he or she must be prepared and motivated.
On theother hand, if some employees do not feel like intrapreneurs, they do have ideas! And these ideas must be listened to. From the idea box to the collaborative innovationplatform, it is up to you to choose the form that this system will take. But what is certain is that it is the doer who knows. In other words, the employee confronted with an irritant in the field is the person best able to identify this irritant and find the solution to resolve it.
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Once you have set up a system for listening to your employees, they can form project teams to implement the ideas proposed and engage in practical intrapreneurship.
The skills required for intrapreneurship
In order for your staff to be able to imagine and, above all, develop ideas that will benefit your business, they need to start by developing certain key skills.
Knowing how to identify irritants
Intrapreneurship starts with problem identification. Then you need to understand the problem and how it works. The intrapreneur must also understand the people around the problem. Design thinking is one of the methods that can help to better understand the irritants. These methods help to define what needs to be done (in the organisation or within a team) and to understand why. To the point of identifying and pinpointing the irritants that prevent the work from being done as well as possible.
Have a sense of business
Many intrapreneurs have good or even very good ideas. But they don't always know how to present them or explain their added value in a convincing way. Methods such as the business canva or SWOT analysis can help them to better articulate their proposal. Don't hesitate to train your employees in these methods, and leave templates for them to fill in.
Be comfortable presenting
Intrapreneurship means knowing pitcher its idea. Indeed, intrapreneurs are often asked to explain their project. A good presentation - both aesthetically and pedagogically - can make all the difference.
Good prototyping skills
The prototyping phase can be initiated in several ways. For example, at a hackaton if the aim is to advance the development of a product. It all depends on the nature of the project. We advise you to organise a webinar for your employees to explain the different prototyping methods, the different methods for calculating ROI, etc. In other words, it's about explaining to them how to generalise an innovation, and how to measure its success.
