Blog: Intrapreneurship is severely under-rated

Organisations that provide a soil for intrapreneurs to try, a systematic structure to find and unleash them from different parts of the organisation over time create a foundation and rock solid platform to innovate from. Just like startups, most intrapreneurial projects do not see the light at the end of the day, but intrapreneurs become change agents, champ

ions and culture bearers on whom you can pin important digital projects to be delivered on. Most intrapreneurs are comfortable taking risks and decisions even if they do not have all data, challenge chosen truths and most

importantly understand the importance of courage rather than knowledge.

Similarities between intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship

• You take risk and time
• The outcome is unknown, and most of the times the path is not well travelled
• The mindset it takes to succeed is similar
• The toolkits you can use are very standardised e.g. lean startup, design thinking, iterative thinking, sprints etc.
• The need for a strong team to execute your vision is the same
• Just like a startup has a board, most good intrapreneurial projects have a steering committee made up of top managers whose sole job is to remove obstacles and in cases fund the scaling of a successful pilot

Key differences between intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship

• Most intrapreneurial projects do not need money to get going, but in most cases space to try, resources from the core organisation and bandwidth from top managers
• Intrapreneurs do not have to worry about not taking a salary home, compared to entrepreneurs eating noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner • The idea in most cases is owned by the parent organisation / corporate with some incentives carved out for the intrapreneurs.
• If an intrapreneurial project fails, you can simply fall back onto their regular job