Assignment
Write a one page comment based in each answer below.
1- Corporate entrepreneurship is an oxymoron where new business concepts are developed, the ideas might be impossible with regard to the organization's plan and structure those large companies may have built so carefully over years. Though corporate entrepreneurship is an important tool for innovation and growth of an organization, they are also inherent dangers lurking (Mungule and Van Vuuren, 2016). Entrepreneurs are mostly associated with determination, pure grid and risk-taking make them do marvelous things. They are often engaged in startup business where they create their own businesses. Startup entrepreneurs usually identify an opportunity, shape the opportunity and develop it, then turn the opportunity into a successful business venture. Once they identify an idea they go about capturing the opportunity in the idea. They create value where there was none and are always willing to risk while learning, are extremely persistent and resolute in the pursuit of their dreams.
Big companies are turning towards corporate entrepreneurship due to the failure to get the continual innovation, growth and value development that they once had. Uncertainly, many company executive officers see very few entrepreneurially minded folks in their own companies .perhaps they don't show up to work due to either their dislike for large company bureaucracy and politics or learned to stop pushing. Large companies have a way to erode their entrepreneurial underpinning. In large companies, the managers are praised for minimizing risks, following rules and doing their functional role to their perfection. They look forward to a predictable paycheck and a fair bonus (Kuhn, Eymann, Urbach and Schweizer, 2016). A majority of big company managers are mostly hard pressed to call themselves value creators. They are a quota and budget developers. They plan, organize and are more rule adherent. Big companies have slavishly gone after waste and redundancy with other times spectacular success. These mechanisms rarely create long-term sustainable value for stakeholders.it helps the bottom line but not the top line.
The idea of corporate entrepreneurship is basically an inward view of startup entrepreneurship.it has been categorized into four major divisions. First, corporate venturing entails starting a business within another business usually emerging from a core competency. Ventures involve the development, nurturing and creation of a new business within an old business but with a different market opportunity (Mungule and Van Vuuren, 2016). New but not foreign competencies are required. Entrepreneurship is an attempt to adapt the behavior that external entrepreneur have then inculcate these characteristics into their employee. The company targets a subset of managers in this case that acts as a corporate entrepreneur. The subset managers then create an environment that favors innovation and entrepreneurial behavior. Organizational transformation, on the other hand, involves innovation, a new arrangement of resources or a combination of resources to create a product of a stable economic value. Lastly, industry Rule Bending focuses on changing the rules of competitive arrangement.it earns many companies dizzying market capitalization.
Despite the lack of clarity around the concept of corporate entrepreneurship, the four divisions share common elements. They try to come out with a new thing that has never existed. The new thing could be made from within s business or from another business but has a long-term sustainable economic value (Kuhn, Eymann, Unrbach and Schweizer, 2016). The created thing also requires additional resources or a change in the existing resources. Learning is needed for the creation of the new thing and its implementation in both cases. Most companies need a jolt, an infusion of creativity if they are operating in a changing environment. Speed and flexibility are what allows startup and small entrepreneurial companies to send chills down the spines of large bureaucratic brethren.
2- Product champions often play a major role in facilitating entrepreneurial behavior and innovation within organizations. Without the influence and efforts of these entrepreneurial champions, many organizational initiatives would not be successful. Examples of organizational initiatives often influenced by champions include: new product development, new internal ventures, implementing a new information technology (IT) system, strategy creation & implementation, etc. Prior research, however, finds that up to 70% of change/innovation initiatives fail (Higgs & Rowland, 2005). Howell and Higgins (1990) describe the role and importance of product champions this way:There is no shortage of creative idea. However, for innovation to occur someone must take the creative idea, guide it through the trying period when resistance hits a peak, and persevere until it becomes an innovation. In short, every idea needs a champion.
Therefore, a product champion is a senior individual or executive at a company that takes charge of furthering the internal development and external promotion of a certain good or service. Many business operators have discovered that having a product champion can significantly improve the chances of a product's eventual success in the marketplace. According to Ron Jeffries, he recently posted about the need for a Product champion, someone who knows the customer marketplace, who can be accountable for maximizing success. He refers to the Scrum Product Owner and XP Customer as possible implementations of the Product Champion.
If the Champion is to be accountable for maximizing success, they need to know the product market. Make it so. If they know the market, they must have access to customers, prospective customers, and so on.
The Champion is probably not expert in all the details of building a successful product. If it's an animated movie, she doesn't know all there is to know about story-boarding, tweening, character development, storytelling, dialog, and all the other things that make up a movie. If it's a software product, she doesn't know all the UX, the database, the coding, the testing, and all the creative work that goes into making a delightful product.
What she has is a team and access to the world of people who may want the product.
Perhaps in early days, the Champion serves to outline the product, describe who wants it, describe what they need. She works actively with the team to figure out what needs to be done. She brings in real customers, or real prospects, to talk with the team.
For example, many people think that product champions do not exist in Scrum, but the truth is that it surely does. However, Scrum even has that activity, "Backlog Refinement". Some organizations think that means that the PO sits in an office somewhere writing story cards, but that's certainly not what Scrum's experts say. Refinement is an activity, not a meeting. It takes place during the current Sprint, readying backlog items for upcoming Sprints, particularly the next one, but not limited to that. Backlog Refinement is supposed to include some or all of the Dev Team members.
It's perfectly good Scrum. However, it is great for Scrum because if the Champion brings in problems and the Dev Team solves the problems. The more flexibility the Champion has in her question, the more power the Team can bring to bear. A conversation takes place, some stories get created, the testing Dev Team members propose a few Executable Acceptance Checks, and the Sprint Goal becomes "Solve this problem.
Moreover product champion can be achieved by:
Learn to build a product increment every two weeks. Use our Scrum Sprint Review to show the product to our Produce Owner (Champion-in-training), and to all the stakeholders we can find.
Join actively into Backlog Refinement sessions. Ask questions about the problems behind the stories if stories are too specific. Whenever possible - and it always is - offer better ideas for how to solve the problems.
Ask questions about what prospects and users said. Ask to talk with them. If necessary, find some of our own and talk to them. Use what we learn to help the Champion.
Make our Product Champion a hero in the organization. Don't worry that we won't get credit: if we make them a hero, they'll keep supporting us and helping us get happier.
Use leaders to influence the Product Champion, and the organization. That's what they're for. Do the same with other team members. Learn to make an elevator pitch. Use your contacts.
Therefore, if an organization can effectively implement the above ideas very well, their situation will probably improve. If the organization is toxic enough and the situation does not improve, that means that such organization have not built up their skills as individuals and as a team, so that the organization can find a better niche to chose from.