Risk taking ability, Self-confidence, Decision making ability, Knowledge of cumin growing to

harvesting technology, Economic motivation, MARKET orientation, Risk factors, Soil and firm
condition of experiences, Water resources, Water quality and volumes, need to cumin for all
technical factors, Ability of co-ordination to cumin related activities, Achievement, Motivation,
etc. indicators are behavior of entrepreneurial.
Entrepreneurship has gained greater significance at global level under changing economic
scenario. Global economy in general and Indian economy in particular is poised for accelerated
growth driven by entrepreneurship. Admits environment of super mall culture we find plenty of
scope for entrepreneurship in TRADING and manufacturing.
An entrepreneur is a person who is able to look at the environment, identify opportunities to
improve the environmental resources and implement action to maximize those opportunities
(Robert E. Nelson) it is important to bear in mind the entrepreneurial skills that will be needed to
improve the quality of life for individuals, families and communities and to sustain a healthy
economy and environment. Taking this into consideration, we will find that each of the
traditional definitions has its own weakness (Tyson, Petrin, Rogers, 1994, p. 4).
The first definition leaves little room for innovations that are not on the technological or
organizational cutting edge, such as, adaptation of older technologies to a developing-country
context, or entering into export MARKETS already tapped by other firms. Defining
entrepreneurship as risk-taking neglects other major elements of what we usually think of as
entrepreneurship, such as a well-developed ability to recognize unexploited MARKET
opportunities.
Entrepreneurship as a stabilizing force limits entrepreneurship to reading markets disequilibria,
while entrepreneurship defined as owning and operating a business, denies the possibility of
entrepreneurial behavior by non-owners, employees and managers who have no equity stake in
the business. Therefore, the most appropriate definition of entrepreneurship that would fit into
the rural development context, argued here, is the broader one, the one which defines
entrepreneurship as: "a force that mobilizes other resources to meet unmet market demand",
"the ability to create and build something from practically nothing", "the process of creating value
by pulling together a unique package of resources to exploit an opportunity".
It combines definitions of entrepreneurship by Jones and Sakong, 1980; Timmons, 1989;
Stevenson, et al., 1985. Entrepreneurship so defined, pertains to any new organization of
productive factors and not exclusively to innovations that are on the technological or
organizational cutting edge, it pertains to entrepreneurial activities both within and outside the
organization. Entrepreneurship need not involve anything new from a global or even national
perspective, but rather the adoption of new forms of business organizations, new technologies
and new enterprises producing goods not previously available at a location (Petrin, 1991).
This is why entrepreneurship is considered to be a prime mover in development and why nations,
regions and communities that actively promote entrepreneurship development, demonstrate
much higher growth rates and consequently higher levels of development than nations, regions

and communities whose institutions, politics and culture hinder entrepreneurship. An

entrepreneurial economy, whether on the national, regional or community level, differs
significantly from a non-entrepreneurial economy in many respects, not only by its economic
structure and its economic vigorousness, but also by the social vitality and quality of life which it
offers with a consequent attractiveness to people.
Economic structure is very dynamic and extremely competitive due to the rapid creation of new
firms and the exit of 'old' stagnant and declining firms Redefining entrepreneurship and
innovation Succeeding as an entrepreneur and an innovator in todays world is vastly different
from what it was earlier. Organizations will face seven trends in the next decade as they flight to
survive, grow and remain competitive.

Speed and uncertainty will prevail.

Technology will continue to disrupt and enable.

Demographics will dictate much of what happens in business.

Loyalty will erode.

Work will be done anywhere, anytime.

Employment as we know it will disappear.

Women Entrepreneur:
Women entrepreneurs have been making a significant impact in all segments of the economy in
India, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Australia and the United States. The areas chosen by
women are retail TRADE , restaurants, hotels, education, cultural, cleaning, insurance and
manufacturing The New Thrust suggests following two factors pulling or pushing women in an
entrepreneurship Factors leading women to be an entrepreneur:Women entrepreneurs choose a
Women takes up business enterprises to Profession as a challenge and an get over FINANCIAL
difficulties and respond- adventure with an urge to do some - visibility is thrust on them due to
family -thing new, liking for business and circumstances. to have an independent occupation.
With the spread of education and new approaches/awareness, women entrepreneurs are
achieving higher level of 3Es, namely: (i) Engineering (ii) Electronics (iii) Energy. Though we
should not forget certain Psycho-Social Barriers which hinders the growth of women
entrepreneurs.

Opportunities :
Free entry into world TRADE .

Improved risk taking ability.

Governments of nations withdrawn some restrictions

Technology and inventions spread into the world.

Encouragement to innovations and inventions.

Promotion of healthy completions among nations

Consideration increase in government assistance for international trade.

Establishment of other national and international institutes to support business among nations
of the world.

Benefits of specialization.

Social and cultural development

Challenges:
Problems of raising equity capital

Difficulty in borrowing FUND .

T hought-cut completions endangered existence of small companies.

Problems of availing raw-materials.

Problems of obsolescence of indigenous technology

Increased pollutions Ecological imbalanced.

Problems of TRIPS and TRIMS.

Exploitation of small and poor countries, etc.

Suggestions
Govt. should provide separate financial FUND of womens entrepreneur.

We should provide her special infrastructure facilities what ever she deeds.

Govt. should arrange special training programmes of women entrepreneurship

Govt. should felicitated top ranker womens entrepreneur.

Women entrepreneur should

international MARKET .

Use should invite successful women entrepreneurs from foreign countries.

more

competitive

and

efficient

in

the

local

&

Women Entrepreneurship in India

Out of total 940.98 million people in India, in the 1990s, females comprise 437.10 million
representing 46.5 percent of the total population. There are 126.48 million women workforce but
as per the 1991 census, only 1, 85,900 women accounting for only 4.5 per cent of the total selfemployed persons in the country were recorded. As per a rough estimate the number of SSIs are
expected to be2.5 billion having 9% women entrepreneurs in to it. Considering this trend, women
participation in another five years was 20 % more, raising the number of women entrepreneurs
to about 5, 00,000. Combined effect of motivational drive, preparation of information material,
conducting training, creation of women industrial estates, and training of promoters and use of
mass media all together is bound to accelerate the process of women entrepreneurship
development. Some psycho-social factors impede the growth of women entrepreneurs are as
follows:

Poor self-image of women

Inadequate motivation

Discriminating treatment

Faulty socialization

Role conflict

Cultural values

Lack of courage and self-confidence

Inadequate encouragement

Lack of social acceptance

Unjust social, economic and cultural system

Lack of freedom of expression

Afraid of failures and criticism

Susceptible to negative attitude

Low dignity of labour

What New Awareness has to say about it? The new Industrial Policy of the Government of India
has specially highlighted the need for special entrepreneurship programmes for women
entrepreneurs in the nature of product-process oriented courses to enable them to start smallscale industries. A majority of women entrepreneurs are from the middle class families who have
low technical education, less family responsibilities but desire to become entrepreneurs. This
potential should be identified and tapped.
Rural Entrepreneur Succeeding as an entrepreneur and an innovator in todays world is vastly
different from what it was earlier. Besides the existing generation of entrepreneurship also is
passing through the transition period. They experience financial resource limitation to promote
or to develop a venture and there is also look of research and innovation to meat with marketing
challenges. Indian rural economy is also experiencing behavior of entrepreneurial. Aim of most
farmers is to earn profits from farming as from any other business, if he determines the
objectives. A farm business necessary requires deliberate decision and proper INVESTMENT ,
after assessing risk and available resources to maximize profit. There for entrepreneurship is not
simply adoption of new activity but it is transformation of a person from traditional of modern
India is known as Home spices and is in fact the largest producer, consumer and exporter of
spices in the world. Though, cumin cultivation requires more inputs and production prices are
high but last two years monetary output is uncertain. It is also sensitive crop to many disease,
pest and also highly risky crop considering natural hazards, as well as the day to day fluctuating
wholesale price index. Organizations will face seven trends in the next decade as they flight to
survive, grow and remain competitive.

Speed and uncertainty will prevail.

Technology will continue to disrupt and enable.

Demographics will dictate much of what happens in business.

Loyalty will erode.

Work will be done anywhere, anytime.

Employment as we know it will disappear.

Opportunities For rural Entrepreneurs.

Crashed Scheme for Rural Development

Food for Work Programme

National Rural Employment Programme

Regional Rural Development Centers

Entrepreneurship Development institute of India

Bank of Technology

Rural Innovation FUNDING

Social Rural Entrepreneurship.

Challenges For Rural Entrepreneurs

Growth of Mall Culture

Poor Assistance

Power Failure

Lack of Technical know how

Capacity Utilization

Infrastructure Sickness
Present Entrepreneurial Scenario
Mr. Ratan Tata had clearly articulated to us his vision for Tata Motors. The company has very
successfully launched its passenger cars- Indica and Indigo and recently in January 2008 they
have set a benchmark in the history of four-wheeler industry all around the globe by offering
their masterpiece NANO to be the worlds cheapest car worth 1 Lac rupees only. The company
has also taken over the business of Corus, a giant in the steel industry.
Vijay Mallya and talk of innovation, to hit the Indian MARKET . Vijay Mallyas mission was to
create brand Kingfisher as a generic brand for lifestyle. There happened to be some sort of
compatibility between the way he lived his life and the brand image that he was thinking to
create. One of the key ingredients of innovation is to simply be yourself. He did the restructuring
process of United Breweries without any sense of embarrassment. We are all sometimes stymied,
curbed and limited by ourselves. Philips, Sony, Honda, Ford provide the signposts of
entrepreneurship today for all to emulate. Some of these have come up only in recent years and
from small beginnings. In India, too, one sees glimpses of such entrepreneurship. ICICIs
experience tells a great deal about entrepreneurship good as well as not so good.
Following Indian firms will keep on dominating the corporate world in the future too

Tata Steel & Motors

Indian OIL Corporation

Reliance industries

Infosys Technologies

Moser Baer

Bharti Tele-ventures
Twaalfhoven and Indivers (1993, pp. 3-4), they are run by dynamic entrepreneurs, who manage
and lead their companies not only to remain in the business but to expand it. Dynamic
entrepreneurs look for growth, they do not have only a vision but are also capable of making it
happen. They think and act globally, look for expansion, rely on external resources, seek
professional advice or they work with professional teams. They challenge competitors instead of
avoiding them and take and share risks in a way that leads to success. In this way economic
vitality of a country largely depends on the overall level of entrepreneurial capacity, i.e., on its
ability to create rapidly growing companies
Summary
The entrepreneurs provide a magical touch to an organization, whether in public or private or
joint sector, in achieving speed, flexibility, innovativeness, and a strong sense of selfdetermination. They bring a new vision to the forefront of economic growth.

How Big Companies Are Becoming

Entrepreneurial
Editors note: Dan Schawbel is the managing partner of Millennial Branding, a Gen
Y research and management consulting firm. He is also the author of Me 2.0 and
was named to the Inc. Magazine 30 Under 30 list in 2010. Subscribe to his
updates atFacebook.com/DanSchawbel.
You probably believe that big companies are anti-entrepreneurial because you
assume they are slow growth dinosaurs that resist change, but history teaches us
otherwise. Corporations have been run entrepreneurship-type programs for many
years, like the fabled Lockheed Martin Skunk Works a small group of employees
working on revolutionary products such as famous aircraft designs including the U-2
and SR-71 Blackbird. Even today, some companies still refer to these projects as
skunkworks projects.
Today, companies are starting new entrepreneurship initiatives because they need
fuel for innovation, desire top talent and need to sustain a competitive advantage.
Smart companies are catering to entrepreneurs, allowing workers to pitch their ideas,
and even funding them. They are holding entrepreneurship contests, investing in
startups and bringing on entrepreneurs in residence (EIR). In the war for talent and
innovation, companies have to think entrepreneurially in order to survive and thrive.
Intrapreneurship is on the rise
In the past, we heard of intrapreneurs or individuals that behave like entrepreneurs in
major companies. These were the all-star engineers who would come up with
original ideas and create new products. These days, companies have embraced
intrapreneurship to drive innovation, stay ahead of the competition and as a
recruiting tool. This trend has been driven in large part by Generation-Y, a
generation of entrepreneurs that want to reinvent the business world as we know
it. Companies are going to have embrace entrepreneurship if they want to be
successful. Google is a great example of a company that understands this. If you
work there, you are in a startup culture within a major corporation. It is part of the
reason why they receive thousands of resumes each day. My prediction is that in the
future, all companies will resemble startups and have a startup culture, regardless of

size. Intrapreneurship programs are promising because talent can drive new ideas
and products and caters to employees who are entrepreneurial but lack resources.
Corporate entrepreneurship contests
Colleges arent the only ones starting their own entrepreneurship contests.
Companies are using similar contests to engage their own workforce and as external
recruiting and branding tools. Ernst & Young, for instance, has The Innovation
Challenge, which is an internal competition where employees come up with new
service offerings for their clients. PwC, another major consulting company, runs the
PwC PowerPitch, which is an innovation contest where the winning team receives
the sum of $100,000 to implement their idea. Mitra Best, the US Innovation Leader
for PwC says that several of the top PowerPitch ideas have been implemented
already and are creating value for the company. For example, two of the top ideas in
2011 were on predictive analysis and PwC created an analytics centers as a result of
the ideas. Three of the ideas were related to PwCs role in cloud computing, which
are now in the idea refinery where workshops bring several ideas together and
develop two to three services around them.
Amazon Web Services has the Start-Up Challenge, which is a competition for startups that use its Web, e-commerce and cloud-computing technology to build their
infrastructures and businesses. Prizes include a cash grant of $50,000, mentoring
sessions and a potential investment offer from Amazon. In 2011, Fantasy
Shopper was the grand prize winner and Localytics was the runner up. Qualcomm
Ventures offers the Qprize Competition, which is an international business plan
competition open to mobile industry entrepreneurs. The top prize is $250,000 of
convertible-note financing. Corporate contests are promising because people are
competitive in nature, it gives them the opportunity to make a name for themselves
at a big company, and great PR.
Companies are investing in startups
Companies are investing in startups instead of just acquiring them. The most recent
example of this is Microsofts Bing Fund, which is a new angel fund and incubator
program that seeks to partner with entrepreneurs that focus on the mobile and web
experience spaces. Microsoft also invested $240 million in Facebook for 1.6 percent
of the company back in 2007. Last month, Dell announced the Dell Innovators

Credit Fund, which provides entrepreneurs up to $100 million in financial and

scalable technology resources. American Express announced last year that they
would invest $100 million in digital commerce startups that would help fuel their
digital transformation. Also, Advance Publications invested $10 million in Unified, a
software company used by brands and ad agencies to buy, manage and measure ad
performance on social networks. Startup investments are promising because
companies cant always acquire a startup in the early stages, when they invest they
get a new partner and they fuel growth.
Entrepreneurs in Residence
When people speak of entrepreneurs in residence, they usually talk about successful
entrepreneurs who have a position at a venture capitalist firm or within a business
school. Today, innovative companies have embraced the idea of an EIR by claiming
their own. Both Google and Dell have recruited EIRs to stay ahead of the curve and
to advise them on startups. Stacy Brown-Philpot has been an entrepreneur in
residence at Google Ventures since May. While Stacy never started her own
business, she led operations for more than forty different products, including Google
Search, Chrome and Google+.
Ingrid Vanderveldt recently landed her position as Dells first entrepreneur in
residence. Unlike Stacy, she is currently an entrepreneur as the CEO of Green Girl
Energy, the creator of the GLASS Forum (Global Leadership & Sustainable
Success), CEO of Ingrid Vanderveldt LLC and Managing Director of VH2 Energy
Investments LLC. More brands will start to bring on EIRs in the future, especially in
the technology industry, where acquisitions and investments are the norm. EIR
programs are promising because they have knowledge on what startups are worth
investing in, can oversee entrepreneurship programs, and can be used to attract new
startups into corporate ecosystems.
Entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship programs drive business results
Industry experts believe that 30% of large companies now provide seed funds to
finance intrapreneurial efforts. One of the most notable successes comes from 3M,
who created the Bootlegging Policy, which is a program that allows employees to
spend 15% of their time at work doing creative projects. In 1987, Art Fry took
advantage of this program to create the ultra profitable Post-it Notes product.

Google also has a legendary program that allows all employees to spend 20% of
their work time on projects that benefit Google customers. These 20% projects
have resulted in a number of very successful new products including Gmail, Google
News and AdSense. Gmail, for instance, has 425 million users. By 2009, half of all
Googles products originated from the 20% program.
Facebook, on the other hand, has a more non-traditional intrapreneurship program
called Hackathons, which promote product innovation through their engineering
teams. A Hackathon is an event where programmers collaborate intensively on
software-related projects. They have had over 30 hackathons to date and during
one of them, they conceived Facebooks legendary Like button, which is a major
part of the Facebook brand and ecosystem. Then theres Microsofts initiative called
Microsoft Garage, which is a company-wide program that encourages innovation.
Employees gather in a real garage during after- hours and build things that they
dream up and as a result, 99.9% of the projects either ship as part of a Microsoft
project or remain internal.
Finally, PwCs PowerPitch program that I previously mentioned was an
entrepreneurship contest that engaged 60% of their entire global organization of
30,000 employees. They had expected 100 ideas to come in, but received over 779
in the first round. In speaking to Mitra, she told me that their new offerings have
helped them get new clients and support existing ones. Their biggest result was that
the outcome helped them think differently about how to come up with new services.
As more companies invest in their own talent pool, and externally, they will be able to
innovate and break into new markets faster than ever before.

5 Reasons Why Intrapreneurship is Important

BY: SUSAN FOLEY - NOVEMBER 8TH, 2013 ADD COMMENT

Intrapreneurship is entrepreneurship in the corporate world.

There are lots of reasons why Intrapreneurship is important. Here are 5 reasons
why.
1. Growth: During the economic downturn most companies stopped INVESTING
in the future. Now they are sitting on piles of cash. They know they need to grow,
they just arent sure how. Intrapreneurship answers the question of HOW!

The goal of Intrapreneurship is to create the entrepreneurial mindset and

infrastructure needed to support growth. It takes a systems view of growth. It is a
framework for transformation.
Intrapreneurship helps organizations generate new business growth.
2. Innovation: Innovation is the key element in providing aggressive top line
growth. But doing one or two innovation initiatives a year will not support or sustain
innovation. Organizations need to be innovating all the time. Failure rates for
innovation are still high, 50% to 90%.
Innovation alone is not enough. Organizations need to set the context for
innovation; the right people, the right processes and the right
environment. Innovation and intrapreneurship are entwined, they are tied together.
You need both to be successful.
Intrapreneurship provides an environment to support and sustain innovation over
time.
3. Leadership: Research has identified leadership as the key predictor of
innovation success. Yet a majority of CEOs to not feel like they have the capabilities
inside their organizations to achieve their growth agenda. The skills and capabilities
that propelled most executives to the top in the past are not the skills required to
build new growth businesses. Only 4% of leaders are intrapreneurial.
Intrapreneurship requires a new set of competencies and behaviors. Intrapreneurial
leaders think and act differently, they have different motivations and aspirations, and
they prefer working in different work environments. It is this differentiation that
makes them the perfect candidate to lead new growth initiatives.
Intrapreneurship is the one of the best ways to attract and retain your
most entrepreneurial leaders.
4. Change: Change is one of the least understood and under developed management
disciplines. Most studies report a 60% 70% failure rate when it comes to change
initiatives. Risk adverse cultures and resistance to change impede an organizations
ability to grow.
Intrapreneurial leaders are change agents. They blaze new trails. They become the
very change they wish to see. Not just driving change, but modeling change so others
can change as well.
Intrapreneurship enables organizations to effectively accelerate and manage change.
5. Engagement: Gallup Research estimates that disengaged employees cost US
organizations over $450 billion in lost productivity. In 2012, only 30% of American
workers were engaged and committed to their workplace. Lost productivity
translates to slow or no growth.
Intrapreneurship provides a platform to engage employees in work that is
challenging and meaningful. Intrapreneurs are highly engaged in their work. Their
passion and determination inspire others to get involved and try new things. As they
grow, the organization grows.

Intrapreneurship helps employees stretch and grow while keeping them engaged.
Intrapreneurship has become a critical imperative for all organizations and a survival
strategy for others. Organizations that have embraced Intrapreneurship have
achieved higher FINANCIAL returns, increased productivity, more innovation and
higher levels of employee engagement.
Isnt it time you took a closer look at Intrapreneurship and what it can mean for your
organization.

A New Model for Innovation in Big

Companies

Beth Altringer
NOVEMBER 19, 2013

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It seems were all racing to get more entrepreneurial. Increasing creativity and innovation is not
only on the priority list for start-ups; its also a strategic goal for CEOs of small, medium, and
large-sized companies. Despite this growing obsession, however, big companies are still not very
good at it. How many times have you had a strategy meeting that gathered a smart, enthusiastic
team to generate interesting ideas and debate their merits, yet after the meeting nothing
much happened?
Studies show that efforts to stimulate intrapreneurship entrepreneurship within an established
company more often than not fall flat. According to my current research at Harvard on
innovation models in global companies across diverse sectors, these types of projects fail
between 70% and 90% of the time.This should be a deeply troubling, motivating statistic. And
its one that stems from a very human problem in most big organizations.
There are lots of things that can be done in large organizations but simply arent because
nobody has the time or resources. Call it a grim view, but this quote from my research
summarizes a pattern I see frequently. This participant the CEO of the India and South Asia
division of a global firm continues: To actually get something going in a large organization,
you need the ideas and you need the people who believe in them, but the people who are actually
capable of these things are the good ones, and they are already stretched by their work in the
corporate environment. It [becomes] impossible for them to pull it off.
As companies grapple with long odds on innovation like these, they are also looking for ways to
improve the likelihood of their intrapreneurial success. Internal innovation presents a number of
challenges, including but not limited to the inherent risk of promoting new ideas; complacency
and attachment to the status quo; and the actual amount of capable people with the time to
effectively build new ideas into workable products.
Traditionally, companies have found ways to navigate these challenges internally, in research and
development (R&D) divisions like the famed XeroxPARC, founded in 1970, or through
programs that encourage employees to dedicate a small percentage of their time to side projects,
as 3M began doing in 1948. Many companies, including Google, follow similar models today.
Since the 1990s, however, more and more large companies have been outsourcing their
intrapreneurial efforts. They pay upwards of $300K to $1 million to consultancy firms that
conduct MARKET analyses and in-depth need-finding, identify new opportunities, generate
promising ideas, and, often, develop ideas into working prototypes. The client company then
refines these concepts and prototypes and takes them to market. Innovation consultancies tend
to have a preferred methodology for working with their clients, such as human centered design
(also called design thinking, popularized by IDEO, Continuum, Frog Design and others), Lean
Start-up, or analytical models used by large management consulting firms. Results from these
business-to-business collaborations have at times been phenomenally successful, as was the case
with the Bank of America Keep the Change program (IDEO) and the Swiffer(Continuum
Innovation).
Undoubtedly, not all inventions from these collaborations achieve equivalent fame, or we likely
would have heard about them. It is difficult to say whether the success rate of clients working
with innovation consultancies is radically above the 10-30% success rates for intrapraneurship

projects, but there is some indication in my research that design firms indeed provide their large
company clients with ideas promising enough to improve on these odds. In addition, anoftenunderappreciated factor influencing how successful the design team to client handoff will go is
whether the client is set up organizationally to deliver the product. And this brings us back to the
question of whether the people required to do this internally have the time and resources to pull
it off.
All of this can make clients, who are paying high fees for innovation consulting, nervous. And it
seems to be opening the door for new options that emphasize a deeply pragmatic approach to
innovation, including mixing entrepreneurs and corporations.
A Different Approach
Remo Masala, Chief MARKETING Officer at Kuoni, is one of the executives taking his
company in a new direction. Masala has been at Kuoni, a leading travel services company, since
2007, and is known for frequently shaking things up. He even sees this as a fundamental part of
his job: You need to understand as a company, to be different means also to start to act
differently.
So nobody was shocked when, for a recent strategy project, Masala passed over many wellknown consultancies that he viewed as having already made a science out of their way of
thinking of restructuring. He was looking for an outside team to help Kuoni approach this
question, but there were a few ground rules. He wanted them to be open to multiple methods.
He was especially sensitive to the human side of how this would get approved and implemented
internally. Masala also wanted everything to happen quickly for the teams to work within very
tight time and budget constraints, produce fast results, quantitatively analyze them, and to help
Kuoni make the decisions required to take the ideas forward.
Thats when Masala met Hamish Forsyth, Co-Founder of OneLeap, a UK-based innovation
consultancy with a rather unusual background. OneLeap began a platform enabling aspiring
entrepreneurs from around the world to contact high profile INVESTORS , corporate leaders,
and partners to help grow their start-ups. As they built up a unique network of thousands of
entrepreneurs across 35 countries, they started to see that there was a lot of demand in reverse
companies kept asking them for advice on how to become more entrepreneurial instead of
wanting to simply connect with entrepreneurs. This led the organization to start experimenting
with ways that companies could learn directly from their network of entrepreneurs.
Instead of bringing teams of multi-disciplinary designers into large companies as other
consultancies have been doing, OneLeap began bringing in teams of diversely skilled
entrepreneurs. On the surface, this may sound similar to other innovation consultancies. But
beyond the surface, there are several core differences.

OneLeaps entrepreneurs remind big companies of their riches, and to take nothing for
granted. Large companies often think theyre strapped for resources, but entrepreneurs cant
believe how many resources they have. For example,Dorjee Sun, one of the entrepreneurs
brought in to Kuoni, has been starting companies since he was 19. This Singapore-based
entrepreneur has had multiple exits in tech and education, and was recognized in 2009 by Time as
a Hero of the environment for his work in the Carbon Conservation business. While working
on the project, Sun kept emphasizing possibilities: If I had 2 million people coming through my
500 stores, and I had this many thousand people working for me, and I had a 160 year history, of
course I would do that. If Instagram and AirBnB and KAYAK and Hipmunk can start with
zero, just think what they would have done if they had had your distribution pipe!
Entrepreneurs, says Sun, can help remind companies to value what they might take for granted
by asking, Why dont you do this? How can you not [do this]?!
Entrepreneurs help large companies to combine relentless focus, expansive search and a
bootstrapping mentality. In a start-up, if entrepreneurs dont focus relentlessly on the core of
their idea, the results can be devastating. Related to this radically resourceful
view, research shows that, compared to more established, well-resourced companies,
entrepreneurs and companies with entrepreneurial management practices are innovative in
part because of their resource constraints. Constraints encourage them to focus on their existing
advantages and remain experimental. Instead of INVESTING primarily in maintaining the
familiar, as those with excess resources tend to do, they invest heavily in active search for unmet
needs, creative ways to recombine knowledge or resources, and new opportunities to apply their
competitive advantages.
OneLeap thus starts the process of working with large firms with a systematic analysis of the
companys advantages conducted by a group of diversely skilled entrepreneurs. This can provide
a useful contrast to blue sky innovation sessions, where no ideas are bad ideas and many ideas
are so outside of a companys core competencies that they arent remotely actionable.
Entrepreneurs can help big companies try on a bootstrapping mentality, where there is no time
or budget to lose focus. This may seem counterintuitive in a larger organization. After all, big
companies have the luxury of experimenting broadly, right? While that may be true in terms
of FINANCIAL luxury, this perception can also be misleading. It can take the perceived
pressure off, while underestimating the fact that it takes dedicated time and human resources to
build a promising idea into a viable product, and those resources are often already accounted for
on other projects.
Tailored short-term teams with radically diverse yet relevant skills help identify
opportunity areas quickly. OneLeap does not employ entrepreneurs; they employ facilitators,
and are essentially a network of, and platform for, entrepreneurs to engage with large companies.
This means their entrepreneurial teams are not coming from the same consultancy. Rather, they
are one-time teams of proven entrepreneurs, hand-picked from an active network of thousands
of them, and brought together on a case-by-case basis for each client project. This means the
client can specify the skills they need, and OneLeap can compose a group that has them.
Once this team is confirmed, OneLeap works with their client to set up a semi-autonomous unit
of entrepreneurs inside the large company for about six weeks. OneLeap structures and manages
the engagement between the entrepreneurs and client internal management according to research
on key differences between start-up and established company approaches to innovation.

OneLeaps partnership with Kuoni began with selecting the right entrepreneurs for the project.
They were selected based on the following criteria: experience, recognition (objective
awards, FINANCIAL exits, other recognition), peer referencing, geographic representation
(entrepreneurs had experience living and operating in markets of interest to Kuoni), sector
expertise and variety (some expertise in travel, but also in sectors from which recombinant
innovation was possible e.g. food, retail services etc), and functional variety, with strong
digital representation (entrepreneurs are naturally multi-functional, but may have specific areas of
domain expertise). On this project, an exploration of B2C opportunities in a market beset with
digital new entrants, digital was important. However, OneLeap always tries to include a good
digital representation because digital entrepreneurs are comfortable with seeing how a
product can be quickly prototyped.
Facilitated internal hackathons help companies get past slow decision-making and
embrace competition. The entrepreneurial teams work with the client teams to build real
prototypes on-site. And they dont leave until it is done. One of the entrepreneurs, Sun,
describes it as: a workshop turned into a hackathon. By having these internal hackathons, it is
like replicating a Facebook culture, where basically Timeline was developed in 24 hours as people
just went about it. In essence, OneLeap runs something like an accelerated competition and
incubator inside the company. OneLeap and the entrepreneurs help the company select the top
ideas for prototyping.
OneLeap helps companies test prototypes quickly with real customers to get the right
data to decide whether to keep or kill ideas. The prototypes then move through an intensive
analysis phase. OneLeap has built ways to test prototypes first within the company and then with
real consumers, and analyze the results with the objective of preparing the company to make an
informed decision on what to take forward, how to get buy-in and out how to scale it. The
prototyping and analysis process is highly data-driven and can wrap up in as few as six weeks. To
do this, OneLeap built a simple white-label prototype and tested it with several thousand of
Kuonis existing customers. The prototype was very light, but explained the concept using a
mockup of the fully functional product, and tested varying levels of commitment through
signups, a basic diagnostic, and social shares. While not yet proof that the product would
succeed, it gave Kuoni the data it needed to discuss the concept and engage the board. And
subsequent access to OneLeaps resources can help maintain momentum.
Several months after the program, I interviewed Masala again, this time to ask about his return
on INVESTMENT . He articulated two lasting benefits: organizational and product-related.
First, he said, you have to fix the basics. His experience with OneLeap provided assurance that
what they were trying to do made sense, and they have since begun to structure themselves
differently. The organizational return was a shift to a more entrepreneurial and experimental
mindset in the daily business. The experience left a good feeling in the company, we were very,
very satisfied, and OneLeap will be back with us.
Beyond the organizational returns, Masala is thinking long term. We were lucky to have many
ideas, but if Kuoni starts a business from one of the ideas that emerged from working with
OneLeaps entrepreneurs, judging the ROI is different. He compared it to assessing ROI with
any method: if you build an idea out to delivery, you still have to find the right people and you
still have to deal with risk. When determining his returns so far from working with OneLeap, he
would have to compare this cost-wise to building it out on a green meadow. In the end, he
assumed the cost would be similar. But for him, the key question is: in which version are you
more successful? In the end it is about the people doing it. That is, Kuoni and Masala are

serious about allocating resources people, time and FUNDING so that ideas developed
in the workshop have a fighting chance to succeed.
Although companies seldom address it head on, between idea and implementation often lurks
the I will if you will attitude that avoids a real discussion of time and resource INVESTMENT
into the innovation pipeline and breeds diffusion of responsibility and complacency. This
tricky mentality is enough to suck the air out of even the most promising ideas. OneLeap and
Kuoni present a provocative case for a new form of organizational collaboration that uses
entrepreneurs to stimulate and sustain innovation in large companies.
Instead of the typical meeting to generate and debate ideas that then languish thereafter due to
lack of sufficient INVESTMENT and time and resources, your next innovation project could
have one key difference: a forceful group of successful entrepreneurs from selected fields
participating in the sessions. Theyre not only contributing ideas and mocking them up, but also
importantly they are asking tough questions that just might help big companies kill the
dreaded I will if you will dynamics that can stymie the development of promising ideas.