Why Intrapreneurship Is Essential to Sustained Organizational Success

By Louis Gump, Andersen Alumnus(1993-1996) and Author

So many Andersen alumni have extensive experience with organizations that are navigating through major industry and technology change. Many companies highlight the importance of innovation to their future growth and success. Yet how many times have we heard someone lament about the very real challenges to exploring and realizing the potential of new initiatives that support the broader strategy?

Intrapreneurs create value through innovation and growth within a larger organization. For example, they include business unit leaders and heads of new initiatives, as well as individual contributors and functional experts who see new opportunities. Based on a wide range of experiences and resources, including the results of interviews for The Inside Innovator , an overall finding emerged: intrapreneurship activates innovation. Further, four key themes emerged as the top benefits of this practice.

1. Intrapreneurs push established organizations to adapt.

Intrapreneurs bring a skill set that fits exceptionally well with the reality of continuous change. For many large and successful organizations, intrapreneurs are the voice of change, creativity, and innovation. They are the insiders with the outsider perspective. They are positioned to help a big organization see the possibilities and embrace the future.

2. Intrapreneurs train the next generation of leaders.

Even as employees serve the current mission of an organization, they can imagine and experience how to contribute in new and innovative ways. Intrapreneurs can then create those experiences for themselves and for their teams. This is the way many new leaders emerge from within the ranks of an enterprise - not walled off from the change around them, but trained to face it and embrace it.

3. Intrapreneurs create transformative growth opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Within the walls of a large enterprise, it’s often the intrapreneur that is trying to do something new and different. The intrapreneur and the entrepreneur often have reciprocal, compatible, mirror-image needs. So, the intrapreneur can be the individual who will be most open to the entrepreneur’s pitch. This is the person who can create an entry point for someone who has just invented something entirely new and is looking for a path to wider adoption.

4. Intrapreneurs drive value creation within the organization.

Intrapreneurs lead a large portion of the most meaningful new growth within larger enterprises. They also have the ability to effect these advances at a rapid clip, especially after an initiative has passed its start-up stages. It’s like a transformative lever that already exists within the capabilities of the organization, available to any person and team that successfully identifies attractive opportunities and then harnesses their potential.

Because of these themes, organizations that consistently encourage and support intrapreneurship increase their ability to succeed and motivate teams over time. Organizations that neglect this important area at minimum miss opportunities, and often struggle to adapt. By understanding and elevating intrapreneurship, companies increase their ability to activate innovation.

Louis Gump is a business builder, transformational leader, and award-winning author. He has worked with some of the most recognized companies in the world, developing talented teams and achieving remarkable success for growth businesses.

Gump has served as a senior executive within large corporations, as CEO of smaller companies, and in strategic industry leadership roles. Building on these experiences, he is also author of the Amazon bestselling book The Inside Innovator: A Practical Guide to Intrapreneurship , which is available from Fast Company Press wherever books are sold.