Intrapreneurship and labs how banks are fostering innovation - Viewpoint - careers advice blog Viewpoint careers advice blog

Intrapreneurship and labs how banks are fostering innovation - Viewpoint - careers advice blog Banking is at a crossroads. The industry is facing multiple challenges: disruptive competition from Fintech; an intense raging war for talent; new consumer needs; a tighter regulatory framework and the fast pace of digitalization. Staying competitive and retaining talented staff is increasingly difficult for financial firms. The result is the rise of intrapreneurship, or letting entrepreneurs loose within financial institutions with surprising effects. Intrapreneurship: corporate entrepreneurship “Intrapreneurship”, “internal innovation” or “corporate entrepreneurship” have become recent buzzwords, yet the concepts behind the words are not new. 3M introduced it as early as 1948. The firm’s “15-percent programme”, where employees used paid working time to experiment with innovative products or solutions, resulted in the creation of many huge hits, including Post-it notes. Today, all Silicon Valley giants run in-house innovation programmes such as contests, skunk works or hackathons to develop new concepts. After all, this is how Facebook’s ‘like’ function was created. Some banks have chosen to mimic tech companies and have started experimenting with internal innovation. Conveniently, by turning talented employees into ‘intrapreneurs’ and empowering them, banks can foster great innovation internally without having to look elsewhere. Stefan Lindegaard, innovation consultant and author of the 15inno blog, defines an intrapreneur as “a person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation.” A committed focus on intrapreneuership makes it easier to attract and keep top talent Intrapreneurship has several benefits. At a time of talent shortage, it can do wonders in improving the ‘cool factor’ of a brand for recruitment purposes. It also helps retain talent by fulfilling the needs of the most creative minds within a company’s ranks. “The most important resource is talent. A committed focus on intrapreneurship â€" perhaps even a new career track â€" improves the corporate image and makes it easier to attract â€" and keep â€" the top talent,” notes Stefan. We all know stories of talented workers who have quit successful careers in the financial sector, lured by the promise of striking gold by starting new ventures or just the excitement of starting their own project. Financial innovation: the need for speed Another reason why banks are keen to let their own employees innovate from within is the need to accelerate the innovation process. ”Everyone is trying to do things better than their competitors and since the accelerated pace of business has become standard, everyone will look at ways to reduce the time it takes to bring new products, technologies or services to market,” says Stefan. Banks are acutely aware of this need. They are widening their in-house innovation strategy and increasingly mixing internal and external innovation channels to speed up product development. For example, in September 2014, American bank Wells Fargo launched its own financial accelerator programme: Wells Fargo Labs. Its experiments include “drive-through banking” or letting customers pre-order transactions by using their mobile phones. Meanwhile, Citigroup’s Citi Innovation Labs are testing three internal blockchain distributed ledger technologies to test a crypto-currency. Banks are increasingly mixing internal and external innovation channels to speed up product development In June 2015, Deutsche Bank created not one, but three innovation labs in Berlin, London and Silicon Valley, in partnership with three technology partners (Microsoft, HCL and IBM). In 2012, Barclays launched the Social Innovation Facility, an internal accelerator for the development of commercial solutions to social and environmental challenges. Headed by Mark Thain, the programme aims to provide innovative solutions to issues such as affordable healthcare in Africa, access to education in the US, or access to basic financial services in Uganda. “A qualified accountant turned intrapreneur, Mark had extensive experience in project finance before joining the Barclays Community Investment team in 2009,” highlights Barclays. “Initially taking responsibility for strategy, finance and impact evaluation across a global portfolio of community partnerships, he later brought together the worlds of business and society to develop the concept of a Barclays Social Innovation Facility.” This is a perfect illustration of what intrapreneurs can achieve when enabled by their organisation. Be part of the conversation. Join our Financial Markets Industry Insights LinkedIn group to share your thoughts and stay up-to-date with the latest financial markets business, employment and recruitment news. //