1990 20 Entrepreneurial Startegy

Review the following and provide a response to the questions provided. Make
sure that you format your paper in the APA style with supporting
references. Your work should include a cover page, reference page(3-5
atleast), and written response(1-2 pages). Please note in Bb
and example as to how I would like you to structure your paper. Also,
this assignment will be reviewed for plagiarism.

Read over this true story and decide if such an approach
can be feasible in every industry. Provide substantiation for your
answer by seeking out articles on line that discuss other firms attempts
at team projects.

Robert F.
Hettinger, a venture manager with Signode Industries, Inc., in Glenview,
Illinois, smiles as he recounts the strategy initiated by Jack
Campbell, director of corporate development. “He strongly believed,”
Hettinger says, “that you have to kiss a lot of frogs in order to find a
prince. Most ideas in raw form aren’t winners—you really have to work
them out before success sets in.”

Signode, a $750 million-a-year
manufacturer of plastic and steel strapping for packaging and materials
handling, wanted to chart new directions to become a $1 billion-plus in
the next ten years. In pursuit of this goal, Signode set out to devise
an aggressive strategy for growth: developing “new legs” for the company
to stand on. It formed a corporate development group to pursue markets
outside the company’s core businesses but within the framework of its
corporate strengths.

Before launching the first of its innovation
teams, Signode’s top management identified the firm’s global business
strengths and broad areas with potential for new product lines:
warehousing/shipping; packaging; plastics for nonpackaging, fastening,
and joining systems; and product identification and control systems.
Each new business opportunity suggested by an innovation team was to
have the potential to generate $50 million in business within five
years. In addition, each opportunity had to build on one of Signode’s
strengths: industrial customer base and marketing expertise, systems
sales and service capabilities, containment and reinforcement
technology, steel and plastic process technology, machine and design
capabilities, and productivity and distribution know-how.

The
criteria were based on business-to-business selling only; Signode did
not want to market directly to retailers or consumers. The basic
technology to be employed in the new business had to already exist and
had to have a strong likelihood of attaining a major market share within
a niche. Finally, the initial investment in the new opportunity had to
be $30 million or less.

Based on these criteria, Signode began to
build its “V-Team” (innovation team) approach to intrapreneurship. It
took three months to select the first team members. The six initial
teams had three common traits: high risk-taking ability, creativity, and
the ability to deal with ambiguity. All were multidisciplinary
volunteers who would work full-time on developing new consumer-product
packaging businesses. The team members came from such backgrounds as
design engineering, marketing, sales, and product development. They set
up shop in rented office space five miles from the firm’s headquarters.
“We put them off-campus in order to create an entrepreneurial
environment,” Hettinger recalls.

The first innovation team
recommendation, complete with a business plan, was to produce plastic
trays for frozen entrees that could be used in either regular or
microwave ovens. The business potential for this product was estimated
to be in excess of $50 million a year within five years.

Signode
launched a total of six teams in two years. All team volunteers passed a
rigorous selection process. Typically, the employees were borrowed from
operating divisions; after their team’s work was finished, they either
returned to their old positions or took positions with the newly formed
business unit and further championed the new ideas.

According to
Hettinger, the I-Team experience rekindled enthusiasm and affected
morale overall. In every case, an I-Team member became a better
contributor to Signode. Most important, their V-Team approach became a
strategy for members to invent the future rather than waiting for things
to happen.

Source: Mark Frohman and Perry Pascarella, “Achieving Purpose-Driven Innovation,” Industry Week (March 19, 1990): 20–26; and personal interviews, 2015.

Minimum of 1 page double spaced. Excluding title and reference page