Hello, how are you doing, welcome! In this new module we are going to go deeper into the relevance of corporate entrepreneurship as part of the general strategy of the organization. In other words, how corporate entrepreneurship, either in specific programs or in projects around the creation of companies inside the organization, will promote a very relevant part of the global strategy of the company. This is generally known as the entrepreneurial orientation of the organization There are both, internal and external variables which will determine whether a company is more or less entrepreneurial, but the most important thing here is how the strategic variables, that is, the business practices that lead to greater competitiveness of the organization, precisely line up with the entrepreneurial culture. Let’s look at some of these strategies: Why do they use corporate entrepreneurship? Many of the examples that we are going to see are of a general nature. As we have said before, something that is really important is to ensure the competitive position of the organization. Why? Because the globalization of the economy, and the increased competition also derived from globalization put pressure over the different companies and industries, and as a result organizations want to preserve their position against the competition. Another factor is ensuring the growth in some mature markets such as the construction sector, where growing above average is very important. In some more innovative sectors, for instance, the high-tech ones, it is very important to follow the growth of the industrial sector. As we will see, ensuring growth is widely connected with the innovation concepts that we analyzed before. Another important topic is, from a strategic point of view, the relevance of diversification. As we have discussed before, it is corporate entrepreneurship the one that can create the adequate environment for the creation of businesses or foster the development of products or services which will be lined up with the diversification of the company’s portfolios. Corporate entrepreneurship helps these strategies given that this is a very important source for the design and later introduction of products or services to the market. Finally, in a general way, corporate entrepreneurship as a strategy helps to the adoption of changes in the environment which adapt to the customers’ needs. We are currenty living many changes derived from technological developments, demographic variations, and even political changes, where corporate entrepreneurship is a very important tool which can answer how we face these changes in the environment. Let us now take a look at some more practical aspects of how companies use the corporate entrepreneurship strategy particularly. A first interesting example is exploiting the technological assets. If an organization possesses some kind of technology, they can use it to develop a very important number of products and services around this technology itself. Do you remember the 3M post-its? This is a great example. Many organizations have also got research and development departments. It is important to connect the innovations that come up from research and development departments, with corporate entrepreneurship projects. In other words, we can have corporate entrepreneurship help to funnel the initiatives of research and development for them to be commercialized, and this is important. A third example has to do with the open window to adopt new technologies or opportunity windows.For instance, many companies use many methodologies to promote services that emerge from new technologies. A corporate entrepreneurship project can be adapted to the way in which a service is offered, and this can also foster the creation of new business units. Another very important thing is to create flexibility inside the organizations. Many companies have very strict and rigid schemes. When corporate entrepreneurship projects are implemented in a more systematic and strategic way, the organization can be more flexible and streamlined, as this enables to face many of the challenges we had defined previously. Something that is very important is to give space to the generations of entrepreneurs so that our own collaborators or employees can be the innovators who want to see their innovations materialized. If a corporate entrepreneurship project or program is produced, it is important to accommodate it, and it is a very easy way to withhold those persons with entrepreneurial talent. Another interesting aspect is to encourage some type of challenge so that current directors and even preparing future directors, by corporate entrepreneurship programs, to get more strategies strategies and the ability to create a new business unit, which can also become a very important training mechanism for this group of directors or employees inside the organization. Finally, without being exhaustive, another example may be using the excess capacity. Many times we see that several companies use, for instance, some type of machinery for a certain period of time. If this machine can be adapted in a quick and streamlined way, and it doesn’t involve much additional cost, this machine may create other products, other services, that, despite being redundant, it can be more interesting for more products and more services, and these can be commercialized. And this generates new business opportunities which are connected to what we were first discussing about exploitation, for instance, technological assets inside the organization. To conclude with this section, we may remember that the entrepreneurial orientation of the company will depend on external variables, internal variables, but above all, of the strategic variables, from the point of view which may include the mission or the growth strategies that an organization must have, to be correctly lined up with corporate and competitive practices which will finally promote the development of projects of corporate entrepreneurships. If the company effectively and efficiently develops these entrepreneurships, they can have the growth of the organization as a result.
