Feature

Nurturing in-house entrepreneurs

An in-house entrepreneurial policy makes employees feel empowered and enables them to achieve success through their own innovative ideas, writes Vinita Gupta

Starting an in-house entrepreneurial policy goes a long way in helping an organization and its employees grow fast in a highly competitive business scenario. With markets and technology changing fast, and good ideas getting quickly copied, there is continual pressure to devise new and better products, processes and services and hence this initiative is highly beneficial for an IT organization.

As a part of this initiative, the organization supports its employees to work on their innovative ideas. The support could in the form of providing infrastructure, finance, etc. Once the product or solution is developed and out in the market, the employees are rewarded for their innovative ideas and at times even given a share of the profits.

This entrepreneurial effort could prove to be extremely beneficial for employees. Benefits include—rewards and recognition, professional development and career growth—within and outside the organization. It provides individuals with a means to harness their skills and explore various possibilities when they plan to start their own ventures.

At the same time, these ventures could be instrumental in spinning off a different line of business as they are expected to demonstrate success through innovation and performance. An innovative idea might lead an organization to either change course or start a new venture in addition to its existing business.

To develop in-house entrepreneurial ventures across the organization calls for sustained efforts and strategic processes. It is imperative for the organization to foster a culture of creativity and innovation, encourage employees to define their own career paths and develop intra company competition, similar to that being experienced by the organization in real marketplace.

However great an idea might be, it is the successful execution that leads to profitable results. Whenever evaluating an entrepreneurial idea the organization should always analyze it with reference to its internal competence (be it systems, processes or human capital).

Need for a proper structure

As in the case of any in-house initiative, an entrepreneurial policy has certain advantages and limitations, though the benefits outnumber the limitations if structured properly.

The advantages include increased employee motivation, leveraging employee talent and exploration of new opportunities and business growth for an organization.

The limitations of a loosely structured entrepreneurial venture are risk of failure, risk of losing focus from core business objectives and employee de-motivation in certain cases.

Thus to have an effective in-house entrepreneurial policy it is imperative that companies should have a suitable structure in place which is customized to promote and approve internal entrepreneurship. Compa-nies should develop employee awareness programs regarding this and instill it in the organizational culture.

Lissette Abraham, Employee Relations Manager, MPS Technologies said, “At MPS Technologies, our focus is to empower our employees and encourage them to succeed with their ideas. We are willing to experiment and take this direction in the near future. However, at the moment we are not fully mature to support it in a structured manner.”

“Though innovation is not a process; a framework for innovation ensures streamlined, focused development aligned to market opportunities and customer requirements. Patni’s intranet portal, SPARK (Systematic Pooling, Analyzing and Researching Knowledge) captures ideas and gives easy access to Patni employees to participate. This also ensures transparency and accountability of the process,” revealed Kalpana Jaishankar, Vice-president, HR Operations and People Development, Patni.

The framework should manage various stages, from generation through evaluation and culminate in realization of a potential idea. The ideas received should be processed through a multistage validation process that establishes the feasibility and need of the proposed offering. Later this activity should be supplemented with the business analysis and incubation cell, which tracks technology updates, changes in governing laws and regulations, competitor offerings, as well as academic affiliations that give insights on the expected business and IT scenario changes.

Jaishankar believes that the Patni SPARK methodology facilitates organization-wide involvement in innovative idea generation leading to new products, solutions and service offerings.

She added, “Once an idea is selected, the incubation cell develops the offering with supporting methodologies, tools, white papers and expertise. The solution is test marketed, and a small customer base is built before releasing it to the mainstream market. The incubation cell then evolves into a CoE (Centre of Excellence). In its new role, the CoE continues to do research, provides consulting support and helps generate new releases of the offering.”    

For instance in 2005, a woman employee suggested an SOA idea through the intranet portal and then after specific stages Patni started delivering this service. She was rewarded for this.

Is training necessary?

To drive such initiatives employees need to have a balance of creativity, strategic vision, out-of-the-box thinking, market and domain expertise, business planning and sales and finance, and hence training programs are conducted by the companies to help them.

Abraham mentioned, “Companies usually provide training and development that enhance employee capabilities on-the-job. At the moment, companies are still focusing on programs that are linked to bottom line objectives and profitability.”

She believed that as this initiative garners greater momentum and popularity, structured programs to train employees to hone their entrepreneurial skills would be constituted. 

“At Patni, we are working on some training programs that will try to encourage the employees to be innovative. Here we would be discussing about the product and services which are not a part of the present offerings,” said Jaishankar.

Though most companies know the importance of having an in-house entrepreneurial policy, but sadly very few organizations really practice it. That does not however mean that companies are not supporting innovative ideas or encouraging employees, but such kind of initiatives would definitely have a greater impact on the growth of the organization, and also ensure development of employees.

vinita.gupta@expressindia.com