What Is & Who Is Intrapreneur? A Detailed Guide with Examples

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What is Intrapreneur?

Let’s start this to know What is an Intrapreneur?

Intrapreneurship is a new term that was recently added to business terminology. But what exactly is Intrapreneurship? Well, let us educate ourselves with this new age concept and its features.

Intrapreneurs are individuals who are dedicated to their companies but also have the fiery passion and creativity of entrepreneurs. They desire to bring revolutionary ideas to life and yield higher returns for their companies, but want and usually obtain, the freedom to do so without passing through all of the processes that exist within large companies. An intrapreneur is a person who takes on the responsibility to innovate new ideas, products and processes or any new invention within the organization.

Intrapreneurs are individuals who are dedicated to their companies but also have the fiery passion and creativity of entrepreneurs. They desire to bring revolutionary ideas to life and yield higher returns for their companies, but want and usually obtain, the freedom to do so without passing through all of the processes that exist within large companies. An intrapreneur is a person who takes on the responsibility to innovate new ideas, products and processes or any new invention within the organization.

Definition of Intrapreneur:

An intrapreneur is a person who takes on the responsibility to innovate new ideas, products and processes or any new invention within the organization. However, the intrapreneur has access to the resources and capabilities of an established company.

As per google say,

A manager within a company who promotes innovative product development and marketing.

Types of Intrapreneur:

As an entrepreneurial leader, you will need three types of people on your team to be successful in the market.

  1. Creators
  2. Doers
  3. Implementors

Research showed that there are subtle differences between intrapreneurs that distinguish one from another.

Creators:

Other than entrepreneurs, creators are those who came up with different and innovative plans, ideas and business strategies that help the organization in the business growth. They are also known as idea generated people. As they develop and discover ideas that fuel innovation.

Doers:

After creators, doers are the ones who focus on achieving the objectives of the business because they are task-oriented and highly dedicated to their work. They understand the strategies and get involved when it is required. They know what needs to get done. They just go for it.

Implementors:

Implementors are those who make things happen. They got the skills to get things done or figure out how to get them done. They work well in high-pressure situations because they are high on closures.

The Myth Of Intrapreneur:

The myth of Intrapreneur is like a modern version of an animal farm, It’s filled with corruption, greed, and indifference. A successful Intrapreneur is often more myth than reality. They faced resistance from colleagues and leaders, and with little expectation for resources beyond 20 percent time for exploration, they somehow beat the odds. They became the heroes of intrapreneurship. It is like enabling the employees to apply their entrepreneurial skills in the job roles; they are assigned to, yet they still work under the radar.

Types of Intrapreneur

Importance Of Intrapreneurship:

Intrapreneur has the courage to take a risk, they do experiments with their work so that they can achieve the goal of the organization. So, there are many reasons for Intrapreneurship being important for any company. Every organization wants growth in their business, nobody wants to face downfall and Intrapreneur plays an important role in the growth of any business.

Business Growth:

The goal of Intrapreneurship is to create the entrepreneurial mindset and infrastructure needed to support growth. Business grows with the contribution of each and every member working in the organization. Intrapreneur’s creative mindset helps them to deal with any given situation. It takes a systems view of growth. It is a framework for transformation. Therefore Intrapreneur helps an organization to generate business growth.

Leadership:

Intrapreneurial leaders think and act differently, they have different motivations and aspirations, and they prefer working in different work environments. They work passionately and know what they won’t do, they have the ability of decision making and risk-taking, and they can do assign work solely and with other fellow employees, It is this differentiation that makes them the perfect candidate to lead new growth initiatives.

Innovation:

Innovation plays a vital role in the growth of the organization. Organizations need to be innovating all the time. Failure rates for innovation are still high, 50% to 90%. Innovation gives the organization a new perspective to see things from a different sides.

Strategy game:

Intrapreneurship has become a critical imperative for all organizations and a survival strategy for others. intrapreneurs with an entrepreneurial mindset will always make the best of their strategy. They know which idea will work on which situation. Intrapreneurs have a strategy that helps employees stretch and grow while keeping them engaged.

Difference between an Intrapreneur And an Entrepreneur

Intrapreneurship


Intrapreneur:

  • Intrapreneurship is actually a clever combination of two words. It is the combination of ‘intra’ meaning within the company or corporate and ‘preneur’. Whereas, an Intrapreneur refers to an employee of the organization who is in charge of undertaking innovations in product, service, process, etc..
  • Financed by the company.
  • Taken by the company
  • Use the resources provided by the company.
  • An intrapreneur is given responsibility and authority to run his division, he is not completely independent.
  • The employee who puts the ideas and plans into actions, a process by which many new ventures are born within an existing organization.

Entrepreneur:

  • Entrepreneur refers to a person who sets up his own business with a new idea or concept. Also, An entrepreneur is a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.
  • Raised by him.
  • Borne by the entrepreneur himself.
  • Uses own resources.
  • An entrepreneur is completely independent of all his business decisions.
  • An entrepreneur is an individual who sets up and grows his own business.

 8 Examples Of Intrapreneurship:

Nobody knows your business better than your employees. Any employee could be holding onto a crown jewel of an idea which, if voiced, has the potential to make a huge, positive impact of your organization in the market.

  1. McDonald’s
  2. Google
  3. Facebook
  4. Sony
  5. Amazon
  6. Starbucks
  7. Intel
  8. Kodak

7 Successful Intrapreneurs:

The idea that employees should behave more like entrepreneurs have become so entrenched that it has its own term,  intrapreneurship. Here we provide you a collection of inspirational true stories that prove that great things happen when companies listen to their employees.

1: Dick Brams

He was an employee in McDonald’s back in 1977 where he was a regional manager in the branch of Mcdonalds at St Loius. He came up with an idea to introduce a mean just for kids.

He presented his box-based idea to management, and they were lovin’ it!

By the time, the idea was approved by the management and two years later, McDonald’s rolled out its first Happy Meal. It was circus-themed and very similar to the one we see today. 3 million Happy Meals are sold every day. One enduring myth about Happy Meals is that they are just for kids, and we assure you that’s definitely not the case.

2: Ken Kutaragi AKA Tinkerer

Sony junior staff member Ken Kutaragi, a self-proclaimed ‘tinkerer’, came up with an innovative idea to make a chip to make his daughter’s Nintendo more powerful and provide a better gaming experience. Kutaragi reached Sony’s CEO, Norio Ohga. In 1994 Sony launched The Playstation and  Kutaragi went on to become Chairman and CEO at Sony, and no one at Sony questions the credibility of the gaming industry anymore.

3: Leah Pearlman

She is a current comic book artist and former Facebook employee from Denver who is credited with the button’s inception. She wanted to find out how did one little tool on one social media site tap into something so fundamental to human psychology? And this really worked. Today, all social platforms have a version of the like button.

4: Peri Hartman

If you ever visit the Amazon website, then you must have noticed the enticing ‘buy with 1-click’ button. Peri Hartman was a programmer in Amazon and he wanted to make the ordering system completely frictionless. So, he built software which was patented by Amazon, and the software was to enable ‘1 click purchase’

5: Cheryl Pohlman

He was a worldwide product and marketing communications director for inkjet systems at KODAK. The company was struggling to transition into the digital age. She knew what would grab customer’s attention so, instead of focusing on making vastly cheaper printers, she decided to make our ink cartridges 50 percent cheaper than our rivals that really grabbed customer’s attention and sold more than 5 million printers which helped sales in the company’s digital business grow 17 percent in the last quarter of 2007.

5: Paul Buchheit

He was the creator of Gmail. It took him 3 years to complete this project. He started on the project in 2001 and worked up to its launch on April 1, 2004. Gmail became the first email with a successful search feature and the option to keep all of your emails instead of frantically deleting to stay under your limit. It’s something you probably use multiple times a day.

6: Paul Gale

He is a smart barista at Starbucks. Paul gale came up with the idea to write the names of their customers on the cups to create a connection between baristas and customers m, and it was his business strategy, that Starbucks actually misspells the names on purpose to trick customers into giving them free advertising. The more ridiculous the botched name is, the more likely consumers are to share a photo on social media. So, Starbuck’s handwriting names on cups and yelling them out is likely a wise business practice.

What are the benefits of Intrapreneurship?

As we already defined briefly what is Intrapreneurship and who is Intrapreneur. You might have got the idea of what advantages does the services of an Intrapreneur provide the company, but let us tell you briefly the benefits of Intrapreneur:

  • In today’s ultra-competitive market, it is essential that an organization develops that something different to stand out from the rest.  When an organization allocates any room for innovation, in the face of an Intrapreneur, the company growth increases and the company doesn’t have to run the risk of “falling behind” as a result.
  • Intrapreneurship allows businesses to react to new opportunities, ideas generated from intrapreneurship are also vital to a company’s pipeline of new products and services.
  • The organization will profit from the fresh ideas and perspectives of their intrapreneurial employees and can be seen to be progressive.
  • Intrapreneurs improve operations and products and create new products. They make the company adapts to changes in the market to stay competitive and therefore has a better chance for survival.

How to Spot Intrepreneur within your company?

Intrapreneurs are almost always present in companies that embrace the spirit of innovation. Virtually everyone has some internal creativity waiting to be expressed. Here are some few characteristics that may be helpful for you to spot an Intrapreneur within your company:

  • He/She is mission-oriented
  • He/She is enthusiastic
  • He/She knowledge thirsty
  • He/She is visionaries
  • He/She is an innovator
  • He/She is dedicated
  • He/She is an opportunities seeker
  • He/She is Adaptable
  • He/She is The Anchor

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