India has traditionally been averse to the entrepreneurial bent of mind despite several noteworthy efforts being made across time. As a populace, a majority of Indians have shied away from risk and have wholeheartedly embraced the employee way of life as a balanced means of career growth.
However, today, India is at the cusp of a widespread awakening in terms of the concept of entrepreneurship, which is now being viewed more as a collective movement across a transformational national thought process rather than just as a career option meant to test the risk-reward trade-off nous of individuals.
While it has been bandied about for ages, what is acutely required in India today isn’t entrepreneurship. It is Intrapreneurship.
Intrapreneurship is the system wherein the core principles of entrepreneurship are practiced within the boundaries of an existing corporate setup. To expand upon the concept, an Intrapreneur is a person who takes on the responsibility to innovate new ideas, products and processes or any new invention within the organization. An Intrapreneur thinks out of the box and possesses the leadership skills that don’t display the traits of risk avoidance.
The contrast between the 2 concepts can be better understood as a trade-off between the core skills involved in both as follows:
- Intrapreneurship is a restorative exercise making optimum utilisation of the company’s resources with a dependent mind set encountering a major challenge in terms of overcoming the existing company culture
- Entrepreneurship is a developmental exercise making optimum utilisation of one’s own resources with an independent mind set encountering a major challenge ij terms of overcoming the existing market mechanisms
As a final thought, India has vast pools of untapped resources in terms of Intrapreneurship potential. Organisations should propagate a fertile ground for such individuals to not only blossom and add more value to the corporate output but also contribute to the positive disruption on a national level.
How would you contribute to the success of this middle path to salvation?