Entrepreneurial innovation drives economic growth for individuals, corporations and society. Fortunate companies with a strong culture and tradition of innovation might achieve new business creation without a formal effort. But for most companies, taking an innovative vision to market is a process full of pitfalls, requiring explicit strategic direction and organizational adaptation.
That’s where we can help. We’ve studied corporate entrepreneurs for the past seven years. We’ve found corporate entrepreneurship not only where you would expect it, at technology companies such as Google and Cisco, but also at consumer and retail companies like Kraft, Procter & Gamble and Wawa, medical industry players like Zimmer and Baxter, and industrial companies such as DuPont and Cemex.
Our blog will explore their models of building new businesses and the leading practices for fostering it. For us, succeeding at innovation is more than just developing a new product or service. It is really about new business design, accounting for all of the factors that help your concepts succeed in the market. Our goal is to help you expand your thinking about new ways to innovate, such as creating new customer experiences, reaching new customer segments, capturing additional revenue in innovative ways, and creating innovative distribution channels or physical presence.
Who are we? We’re Rob Wolcott and Mike Lippitz, specialists in innovation and entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School of Management. You might already know of our work from our 2007 article, “The Four Models of Corporate Entrepreneurship” from MIT Sloan Management Review, or Rob’s 2006 article from the same publication introducing the Innovation Radar, which are both still among the site’s most often downloaded articles. Our book, Grow from Within: Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation, builds on these findings to provide more holistic guidance on the process of finding the right approach for your organization. These are just starting points for our blog, which is aimed at helping readers like you take your innovative vision to market.
Thanks for reading our blog. We look forward to engaging with you and learning from your experiences and challenges. Please let us know if you have questions, insights, aggressions… anything we might consider for a blog posting. Together we’ll all be a lot smarter.
To the Future!
Rob & Mike
