Employees often notice where there is a problem in their company.
So did Mischa Feig, who was project and process manager at BASF in 2018.
He noticed that deliveries with hazardous substances can no longer be forwarded if a label or box is damaged;
they were mostly discarded.
And that, although the chemical products are flawless.
He joined the “Chemovator”, a BASF start-up program, and with his future co-founder Lisa Ruffing and a team of five, they developed a service to quickly replace damaged labels and packaging material so that the chemicals don't end up in landfills.
In April 2021, both ventured to spin off their start-up Boxlab Services, which is now generating sales in the high six-figure range.
Both sides benefit from this:
Good ideas like Boxlab are becoming increasingly important for companies, including corporations like BASF.
"The pressure to innovate is increasing," says Rodrigo Isidor, Chair of Human Resource Management and Intrapreneurship at the University of Bayreuth.
"Companies have to evolve and become more flexible if they want to survive in the long term." One approach is intrapreneurship.
There is no uniform definition for it.
"For me it means that employees behave in an entrepreneurial manner," says Isidor.
Programs like Chemovator can be an approach.
Or individual employees try to convince their management with a brilliant idea.
Start-up help from management pays off, because the success of the parent company correlates with commitment in this area.
No wonder that around 72 percent of German companies promote intrapreneurship, as the Intrapreneurship Monitor 2021 by Isidor and his colleague Matthias Baum has shown.
Part of the success goes back to innovation.
And around 50 percent of companies with their own intrapreneurship department were often the first to introduce a new product in their industry, as the study showed.
Without such a department, the proportion is around 30 percent.
Different corporate cultures require different approaches
In 1980, the electronics group Sony was able to celebrate a particular success of intrapreneurship.
The then junior employee Ken Kutaragi had the idea to build a game console for Sony.
His line manager didn't think much of it, but Kutaragi didn't give up and took his plan to CEO Norio Ohga.
He was able to convince him - and the famous Playstation was born.
However, it is rather rare for an employee to have a revolutionary idea and prevail against the opposition of his managers.
"Normally, the top management has to actively address the issue," says Isidor.
How bosses should proceed depends on the company culture.
“There is no one-size-fits-all formula,” he says.
Google, for example, does not have a separate program or department.
Instead, the company encourages innovation by having employees spend 20 percent of their time working on new ideas alongside their normal projects.
With success: The Gmail program introduced in 2004 was based on the initiative of an employee, as was the advertising service Adsense.
"At Google, employees work within a very agile and innovative organization," says Isidor.
"There is no need for a structured innovation program." It is different for rigid small and medium-sized companies or large corporate steamships:
If they gave their employees 20 percent of their time off, it would probably go nowhere.
"A structured, targeted program is better for that," says Isidor.
At the Chemovator, employees start with a two-day boot camp in which they test and prepare their ideas.
An entry pitch is followed by a three-month validation phase – if it was successful – in which intrapreneurs work on their idea, create the first prototypes and research the target market.
Another round of pitches heralds the incubation phase, which ends with a spin-off or a transfer back to BASF, i.e. the business model is further pursued by the group.
"Meanwhile, we support those who want to found a company with experienced external entrepreneurs," says Markus Bold, Managing Director of the Chemovator project.
“BASF also helps with its network and ensures financial security.
However, business models such as Boxlab or Gmail are only the best-case scenario.
Sometimes it doesn't work right away.
"The success of such a program can hardly be illustrated using conventional key performance indicators," says Isidor.
The strength lies in the fact that employees change their thought patterns.
Anyone who works like a founder then transfers what they have learned to their work.
"Six months after the programs, we still saw strong entrepreneurial behavior among the participants," says Isidor.
Employees become more spontaneous, more flexible and contribute more actively.
And they develop new skills during the programs and, if they are successful, can perhaps skip a few career steps if they suddenly lead a new department to their idea.