Marketing as an Entrepreneurial Force
Many firms task their marketing teams to promote a culture of entrepreneurial thinking via initiatives in and outside the organization.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Relate entrepreneurial marketing practices and thinking to a corporate environment
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Key Points
- Intrapreneurship, a form of employee entrepreneurship, represents corporate management styles that integrate risk taking and innovative approaches, as well as reward and motivational techniques traditionally aligned with entrepreneurship.
- Entrepreneurial company cultures can foster innovation and creativity, as well as improve brand differentiation is competitive and crowded markets.
- Organizations can gather valuable industry and marketing data as a result of intrapreneurs’ learning experiences.
Key Terms
- entrepreneurship: The art or science of innovation and risk taking for profit in business.
- crowdsourcing: Delegating a task to a large diffuse group, usually without substantial monetary compensation.
- flash mobs: a group of people who assemble suddenly in a place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression.
Marketing as an Entrepreneurial Force
The size and scope of marketing efforts is determined by organizational factors, such as budget, people, the supply chain, customers, competition, and external environments. Likewise, marketing can influence various parts of the organization to help drive brand awareness, strengthen market positioning, encourage product innovation and, ultimately, increase sales. Many brands task their marketing teams to promote a culture of entrepreneurial thinking via initiatives in and outside the organization. The American Heritage Dictionary defines this practice as “intrapreneurship.” The practice of intrapreneurship represents corporate management styles that integrate risk taking and innovative approaches, as well as reward and motivational techniques traditionally aligned with entrepreneurship.
Intrapreneurship: In marketing, best practices can be used to encourage innovation within organizations.
Employee Intrapreneurship
While improving marketing effectiveness, marketing strategies also transform ideas into profitable initiatives for the overall organization. Brand differentiation strategies aimed at making products more successful than competitor products and brands can facilitate entrepreneurial behavior that follows the goals of the organization.
Employees often serve as examples for intrapreneurship, and motivate other employees to undertake new or even revolutionary initiatives. Marketing employees, in particular, must constantly be versed in the latest online communications and industry best practices to competitively position brands in domestic and international markets. Likewise, marketers attempt to use innovative and creative promotional elements (e.g., flash mobs, crowdsourcing) to develop clever and relevant campaigns.
The Role of Marketers as Entrepreneurs
Marketing executives or employees engaged in special projects within a larger firm are encouraged to behave as entrepreneurs. These individuals often have the resources, capabilities, and security of an entire corporation at their disposal to execute marketing programs and achieve notable results. Although these “intrapreneurs” may face obstacles (e.g., cultural or fiscal conservatism, lack of research) and experience failures before achieving success, organizations can benefit from valuable data resulting from intrapreneurship. For example, trials and errors learned during a product launch can be used to modify future marketing plans and better utilize organizational resources.
Companies including Google and EM are known to be intrapreneur-friendly, allowing employees to spend a portion of their time to pursue personal projects. Some of these brands also have policies in place to fund these projects, as well as create an innovation-friendly atmosphere and intrapreneurial reputation in the marketplace.