Monthly Archives: May 2004

BUSINESS: Corporate Entrepreneurship (07) – New roles and competencies of managers

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I would like to present you now different types of processes concerning entrepreneurship on the three different management levels (operating/front-line, middle/senior, top):

  • renewal

  • integration

  • entrepreneurial

    • [1]

    On the three different management levels, we can observe huge shifts and transformations in the fields of roles and tasks, induced by a new entrepreneurial spirit:

    [1]

    For each of these three management levels, these shifts and transformations need new competencies, so that the managers can play their new roles:

    [1]

    [1]

    [1]

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    Bibliographical references:

    [1] The Individualized Corporation: A Fundamentally New Approach to Management

    Sumantra Ghoshal, Christopher A. Bartlett, 1999

    BUSINESS: workshop with Gordon Simpson, BEA’s deputy CTO

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    Wahou :-)

    We had the chance this evening to meet Mr Gordon Simpson, deputy CTO of BEA Systems.

    Some articles from Gordon:

  • Interview: Focus on solutions

  • Importance of Software Architecture

  • A call for agile IT

    • .

    We discussed very intensively different themes, as:

  • the mid-term vision and positioning of IBM Web Sphere, BEA Web Logic and the Microsoft .NET solutions

  • the current standardization processes (J2EE, Java, etc.) in comparison with other ones, not so successful (CORBA specs)

  • the future of SUN (HW, Java)

  • the strategy of BEA concerning Linux

  • UDDI: hype or market standard?

  • offline solution and caching

  • SOA on IBM mainframes

    • Real out-of-the-box discussions and a real great person ;-) Thx Gordon for this great workshop!

    BUSINESS: Corporate Entrepreneurship (06) – By 3M

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    After having talked about General Electric and Jack Welch in one of my last post, I would like now to mention some interesting thoughts from 3M, another well-known company for its innovation and entrepreneurial processes. It is quite obvious that 3M places also its innovative strengths in the center of the Corporate communication:

  • About 3M – Inside the Innovation

  • Innovation at 3M

  • A century of innovation

    • Why is Corporate Entrepreneurship important for 3M?

  • By the 1990s, the entrepreneurial initiative of generations of “ordinary people” in 3M created a portfolio of over 100 core technologies that had been leveraged into 60’000 products managed in 3’900 profit centers clustered under 47 product divisions.
  • Yet despite its size and the maturity of many its businesses, [this company] continues to grow through individual initiative that allows 3M to generate more than 30 percent of its sales from products introduced within the previous four years.

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    Some management rules by 3M:

  • In 3M, the 15 percent rule allowed anyone to spend up to one-seventh of his or her time pursuing personal “bootleg projects” that might be of potential value for the company.
  • In 3M a philosophy of “make a little, sell a little” reflected management’s belief that the market was usually a better judge of business potential than the management hierarchy.
  • Managers must retain a respect for ideas coming up from below. They have to ask, “What do you see that I am missing?”. And they have to close their eyes for a while, or leave the door open a crack when someone is absolutely insistent that their idea has value. [DeSimone]

    • [1]

    About training and career plan:

  • Instead of being indoctrinated through training sessions describing how to navigate through the procedures required to obtain formal approval on a project, the new 3M employee is likely to be regaled with stories about how legendary innovators challenged the system to get their ideas funded.
  • At 3M and at most other high-performing companies, training and development play a major role in building the different competency profiles required by the newly defined frontline, senior-level and top management roles. But their approach is far from the traditional model built around carefully standardized training programs and a well-trodden career path of ticket-punching. Instead of trying to force employees into the one-dimensional mold of the “organization man”, these companies use a portfolio of educational activities and career experiences to leverage very different natural traits and talents.

    • [1]

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    Bibliographical references:

    [1] The Individualized Corporation: A Fundamentally New Approach to Management

    Sumantra Ghoshal, Christopher A. Bartlett, 1999

    PRIVATE: computer geek :-)

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    Somehow, I have to say that I am a …. computer geek :-) I realized last sunny Sunday one of my technology-dream:

    I was sitting in my garten with my laptop and … a WiFi connection to my server at home and consequently, my DSL connection. I was like a little boy, surfing and chating and sending email, with a view on the swimming-pool. I told you, I’m a computer geek ;-)

    What is a “geek”?

  • Social undesireable who, if not for the computer industry, would often be considered unemployable, but because of the computer industry, they often take home more money than people who work for a living

  • Deragatory term for a person with limited social skills, and usually strong technical skills. While anybody can become a nerd, geeks are born, not made.

    • BUSINESS: Corporate Entrepreneurship (05) – By General Electric

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    As promised, and after some definitions (I hope you have seen that this kind of notion is actually quite…large, complexe but interesting ;-), it’s time to look at some concrete examples. Let’s begin with General Electric and some thoughts about Corporate Entrepreneurship from Jack Welch.

    Concerning Jack Welch and to avoid misunderstanding: Mr. Welch is definitely NOT my leadership model in all fields. On the other hand, it is unquestionable that he was a great leader and that he developped some interesting ideas, not all very ethic to my “European” point of view ;-) His story, linked with the development of GE during the 1981-2001 period, is greatly related in his autobiography – not so many leadership’s information but definitely a great book:

    About Corporate Entrepreneurship:

  • Welch wanted GE’s operating-level managers to develop their roles around what he defined as ownership, stewardship and entrepreneurship of the company’s portfolio of competitive businesses.
  • The behavior Welch was most trying to create within GE was a sense of entrepreneurial drive and initiative.
  • Welch also wanted to signal clearly the kind of entrepreneurial behavior he sought by reinforcing it through the reward system. […] He started acknowledging true corporate entrepreneurs with salary increases in the 10 to 15 percent range, bonuses of 30 percent to 40 percent to many fewer managers, and stock-options that he began distributing to hundreds of effective frontline managers rather than continuing the practice of reserving them for the top echelons.

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    Bibliographical references:

    [1] The Individualized Corporation: A Fundamentally New Approach to Management

    Sumantra Ghoshal, Christopher A. Bartlett, 1999

    BUSINESS: Corporate Entrepreneurship (04) – Definitions part III

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    Hierarchy of terminology in Corporate Entrepreneurship

    It can be interesting to classify the different terms used in the field of Corporate Entrepreneurship according to a hierarchical system. The goal of this grading is to identify some characteristics and dimensions of population and groups, characteristics which can define discrete types of entrepreneurial processes. On a high level, entrepreneurship can be divided in two main categories: internal and external processes (with the company as reference). You can find below the complete overview of this hierarchy of terminology:

    [1]

    For the Internal Corporate Venturing process, we identify specifically four dimensions:

  • Structural autonomy: defines the type of relationship with the parent (e.g.: integrated, separate profit center).

  • Degree of relatedness: defines whether the business is quite the same as the parent or a new one (reference = the existing company).

  • Extent of innovation: defines the degree of innovation (reference = the existing market).

  • Nature of sponsorship: defines whether the process is formal and induced entrepreneurial process or an informal and autonomous one (in the Burgelman’s sense).

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    Bibliographical references:

    [1] Toward a reconciliation of the definitional issues in the field of Corporate Entrepreneurship

    Pramodita Sharma, James J. Chrisman, In: Entrepreneurship theory and practice, 1999

    NEWS: we are 25 :-)

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    Yes, we were 15 and now, we are 25 in the European Union!

    What are the new members of the EU?

  • Estonia

  • Latvia

  • Lithuania

  • Poland

  • Czech Rep.

  • Slovakia

  • Hungary

  • Slovenia

  • Malta

  • Cyprus

    • Some figures about this “new extended” EU:

  • 453 million inhabitants

  • Gross Domestic Product: 9’997 billion euros

  • 20 official languages