Introduction
The notion of intrapreneurship may sound like a buzzword, and yet more and more businesses are embracing intrapreneurial practices as a set of tools for effective corporate management. The issues intrapreneurship is assigned to tackle mainly arise from the ever-lasting struggle of the big businesses and innovation. As soon as an establishment goes global, its board becomes increasingly cautious when making risky decisions, however, calculated these risks might be; every step is thoroughly discussed, and no decisions are made unless a consensus is reached. Such companies are generally reluctant to innovate – which is understandable but not entirely productive in the long run. On numerous occasions, companies felt they have grown well past the point of collapsing unexpectedly, just before the market ousted them in favor of newer and riskier ones.
Today, the names of those that strived are recognized globally not least because they dared to adopt intrapreneurship practices at some point. Companies like 3M, Apple, and Intel are known to regard their intrapreneurship investments very seriously, especially in terms of employee training. Other giants, like Microsoft and Xerox, even establish their research and development departments to promote CE – Corporate Entrepreneurship or leading a global establishment like a small-scale start-up: boldly, creatively, and after all – successfully. The present work will focus on the intrapreneurial practices of Google and Amcor and conduct a thorough analysis of the said companies in terms of leadership, corporate culture and ethics, strengths, weaknesses, and, most importantly, approaches to innovation. The companies’ practices will be evaluated by the principles of intrapreneurship, the lessons learned and some recommendations for further consideration will be outlined about both.
Background
Amcor, Ltd.: Responsible Packaging
Amcor, the Australian-based establishment, is one of the world’s leading package manufacturers. The company supplies the industries of health care, food, and many others with multi-material packages. Its CEO, Ron Delia, has been with the company for more than a decade. The company emphasizes sustainability as its core value and works towards creating lighter, more ergonomic, and more sustainable packages. The company operates nearly 200 sites in 43 countries, with more than 29,700 employees worldwide. According to the 2015 report, the company’s 2015 sales totaled US$10 billion (Packaging innovation for a better tomorrow: Sustainability Review 2015).
To preserve its position as the global package leader, the company invests over $100 million annually in research (Driven by innovation 2015). Its strategy, however, is not confined to the research alone: it also relies on successful practices heading for the innovation that makes it excel.
Practice innovation
Amcor’s team of innovators participated in the Big Energy Project (BEP), an energy efficiency program at Botany Mill to refine the energy management practices (Amcor Big Energy Project – Saving Costs, Reducing Energy, Improving Operations n.d.). The consultants assessed the site, held a workshop, and developed a strategy with a view of reducing energy consumption at the boilers and steam plants and cutting costs by more than $200,000 within a half-year. The risks included the arguable reliability of equipment and operational inefficiency. However, the project resulted in an overall operational improvement by steam and boiler plant repairs, which brought $650,000 savings in 10 weeks, $240,000 of which were fully implemented.
Product innovation
In 2009, PepsiCo challenged Amcor to create a new design for an athletic drink bottle. In addition to being sustainable and increase the company’s competitiveness, it had to be light and ergonomic in design (Strong & Light 2016). The end product – Gatorade drink bottle – became the lightest 500-ml PET bottle in the world and was praised by the athletic community for being extra-grippy.
Process innovation
To optimize the computations modeling the most effective package production practices, Amcor implemented an HPC computer cluster by TotalCAE, which reduced the computation period from 3 days to 6 hours (TotalCAE Amcor Case Study n.d.).
Communication and outreach innovation
Amcor is recruiting talented students by selecting the best ideas of responsible packaging, which ensures the flow of valuable human resources and connection (Case study: Competition drives innovation 2016). Another means of enhancing communication is the innovative Amcor Connect platform, which unites workers globally and facilitates practice-sharing (Case study: Engaging, creating, collaborating, innovating 2016).
Google Inc.: Do the right thing
Google Inc., a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., is a global giant specializing in Web-services and related technology. Its leaders at varying times were its founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Marissa Mayer, Omid Kordestani, and Eric Schmidt; its current executive is Sundar Pichai. Google.com is deemed the world’s most visited website; the company possesses more than a million servers over the globe, and its search engine processes billions of queries daily. It is known for its rapid growth since inception, a wide array of productivity-, and entertainment-related products and services, and innovative practices in many aspects.
Radical innovation
Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, set up an ambitious idea to digitize all books ever written and thus create a global library of human wisdom. The project was codenamed Google Books and started as a single makeshift scanner where one had to hold and turn pages by hand and in rhythm. Today, Google Books features millions of books and expanding (Leong 2013).
Contributed innovation
Innovation in Google is coming from all directions. An MD working at a Google office argued for providing a suicide prevention hotline number in response to the “how to commit suicide” search query; the line’s call volume had a 9% increase in the immediate aftermath (Leong 2013). Google employees are given a fifth of their time to work on the projects that they enjoy: one of such “hobby” projects was Gmail, which has quickly grown into one of the most popular mailing services (George 2015).
Open innovation
Creating Android, the company was aware it could not afford the best developers and advertisers, so it allowed the outside developers and users to create applications and suggest marketing strategies. The result is more than 300 devices compatible with the Android OS and more than 500,000 app creators working outside Google (Wojcicki 2011).
Ambitious innovation
Projects semi-secretly pursued by X (formerly Google X) involve the technology of the future: flying cars, drone delivery, and the globe-encompassing Web connection. Behind such projects are people who do not believe in no-win scenarios, such as Sebastian Thrun, who is currently and quite successfully testing an autopilot car technology (Wojcicki 2011).
Analysis
Intrapreneurship made clear
The concept of an “intrapreneur” and “intrapreneurship” as a set of tools and features attributable to a person has been receiving much attention lately. The behavior and conduct of an intrapreneur are very similar to that of an entrepreneur, the only exception being that the former works with a large organization, not a local establishment. Defined as “dreamers who do”, they are best described as the innovators within a company (Desouza 2011). In its most recent sense, an intrapreneur is an employee working towards a specific problem that involves risk-taking; such an employee is not afraid to take risks and lead innovation (Jonkomane-Lutwama 2012). Intrapreneurs constantly update their knowledge of the recent trends and use their professional judgment to see prospective tendencies. About that ability, intrapreneurs are an extremely valuable asset to any large organization.
Some of the principles of intrapreneurship include:
- Risk-taking. Not avoiding risks to achieve the desired outcome: increased productivity, revenue, etc.;
- Innovation. Solving market-driven problems by seeking out new policies, strategies, and resources;
- Focus. Concentrating on specific problems and applying skills to a task at hand with special emphasis on the user;
- Decentralization of ideas. Everybody’s ideas matter, which is why all suggestions are considered;
- Trend-sensitiveness. Being able to single out current trends and forecast the perspectives;
- Development. The intrapreneurial perspective requires the freedom to make decisions, innovate, and grow (Haller 2014).
Risk-taking and innovation being the key elements here, intrapreneurial practices can be deemed an effective way to grow. Google is recognized globally as an intrapreneurial company, and some of Amcor’s practices fall in line with the said principles.
Evaluation
With the principles outlined, one can estimate how well the companies comply with the principles of intrapreneurship about leadership, organizational culture, challenges and solutions, approach to innovation, ethics, and social responsibility, and draw the recommendations therefrom.
Lessons and Recommendations
Lessons learned
Although the two companies’ approaches differ, they do possess intrapreneurial characteristics, which is what can be learned from them.
- User-driven and user-oriented approach to the end product. Evidenced by Android from Google and the Gatorade bottle from Amcor, keeping the customer experience tailored to their needs is one of the key intrapreneurial practices.
- Employee-centered culture. Listed as one of the best places to work, Google is the global leader at this. Amcor, in turn, facilitates employee connection and transparency between its shareholders.
- Teamwork for risk management, calculation, and mitigation.
- Innovation in terms of product quality and design.
Recommendations
There are several alerting conditions faced by both companies that do not quite comply with the principles of intrapreneurship and deserve special attention.
- “Everybody’s ideas matter” is one of the fundamentals of employee-centered culture, while Google officially grants ‘20% time for hobby projects’ only to engineers and managers. Recommendation – extend this policy to cover all employees to facilitate innovation on all tiers.
- While Amcor may not be as bold at ideas implementation, it possesses a fair share of trend-sensitivity, while Google reacts to social and political issues (such as the Chinese shutdown and privacy concerns). Recommendation – upscale their data-driven approach and combine it with the “gut feels” that comes with the leadership experience.
Conclusion
To conclude, the input of intrapreneurs makes them an indispensable part of a company, distinguishing them from all other employees. At least until Pichai became CEO, Google was regarded as a model intrapreneurial company. Although it has outrun Amcor (and many others) in terms of innovation, it can still improve its trend-sensitivity and open up to ideas even further.
References
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Case study: Engaging, creating, collaborating, innovating 2016, Web.
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Driven by innovation 2015, Web.
George, B 2015, The World’s Most Innovative Company, Web.
Haller, HE 2014, Intrapreneurship: Ignite Innovation for Escalating and Enduring Success: the Secret to Success! Coeur d’Alene, Silver Eagle Press.
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Leong, KC 2013, Google Reveals Its 9 Principles of Innovation, Web.
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Packaging innovation for a better tomorrow: Sustainability Review 2015, Web.
Strong & Light 2016, Web.
TotalCAE Amcor Case Study n.d., Web.
Wojcicki, S 2011, The Eight Pillars of Innovation, Web.