Marketing Profs

While dominance has been touted as a marketplace nirvana, the reality of the global marketplace has brought with it an unanticipated, strange and painful consequence: somehow, dominance has become as much a liability as an asset.

Small, nimble competitors can emerge from nowhere, move with blinding speed and subvert industry incumbents because incumbents can't respond quickly and effectively. Disconcertingly, dominance can disappear almost overnight.

To survive—let alone thrive—in this climate requires creating and continually renewing a spirit of disciplined entrepreneurship.

Disciplined, renewable entrepreneurship is the source for continuous generation of "disruptive innovations"—products and services that alter the rules of the competitive landscape—in your favor. It ensures rapid, effective response to evolving customer needs. It's the source of employee passion, creativity and commitment.

Yet, fewer than 3 in 10 executives think that their organizations are very entrepreneurial. Over half of executives admit that their organizations lack entrepreneurial role models and leaders do not really encourage entrepreneurship. Creating corporate entrepreneurship is clearly a conundrum.

Creating disciplined, renewable entrepreneurship is possible, but doing so demands significant changes in how we build, lead and manage companies.

Discipline and Creativity

Discipline is the brains and brawn of the entrepreneurial enterprise; creativity is its heart and soul.

Discipline is crucial for successful execution of any business model and strategy. Critical success factors for disciplined execution include these:

• A clear, well-deployed business model and strategy 
  
  
• Products and services that are tightly aligned with customer needs
  
  
• Effective, flexible core business processes 
  
  
• Clear roles, responsibilities, goals and measures for teams and individuals, coupled with a clear structure of freedom, empowerment and accountability
  
  
• A culture that rewards high performance, creativity and learning

Creativity—the pure, unconstrained, blue-sky kind—must be deep down in the core of the entrepreneurial enterprise, and safeguarded like a precious jewel. Why? It's the source of enterprise vitality and the wellspring for rule-busting "disruptive" product, service and business model innovations.