The Venture Imperative

Rating:
Summary: Solid Blueprint for Corporate Venturing
Review: After leading an internal iniative to bring more innovation into a corporation, I found much of the task in selling your innovative idea depends greatly on convincing the "the suits" that the business plan is sound. The practical experience from the authors provides a solid blueprint for both internal and external innovators to map out their proposed venture to evaluate the likelihood of success. I frequently refer to the numerous examples while evaluating new business deals, both pre and post launch.

I also recommend the reader concentrate on the chapter, "Battling Corporate Antibodies". The greatest barrier is often from your own team, the "middle-manager" which will require much more time and effort to emotionally educate than is ever expected. Excellent insight is provided in dealing with the numerous approval stages and cultural hurdles that a new venture proposal must overcome within a corporation to survive beyond just an idea.

I do recommend this book for those brave innovators within a corporation and the bravest, those outside the safe womb of a corporation seeking to build a new idea into a business.

Rating:
Summary: Essential tool in your corporate innovation kit
Review: After leading an internal iniative to bring more innovation into a corporation, I found much of the task in selling your innovative idea depends greatly on convincing the "the suits" that the business plan is sound. The practical experience from the authors provides a solid blueprint for both internal and external innovators to map out their proposed venture to evaluate the likelihood of success. I frequently refer to the numerous examples while evaluating new business deals, both pre and post launch.

I also recommend the reader concentrate on the chapter, "Battling Corporate Antibodies". The greatest barrier is often from your own team, the "middle-manager" which will require much more time and effort to emotionally educate than is ever expected. Excellent insight is provided in dealing with the numerous approval stages and cultural hurdles that a new venture proposal must overcome within a corporation to survive beyond just an idea.

I do recommend this book for those brave innovators within a corporation and the bravest, those outside the safe womb of a corporation seeking to build a new idea into a business.

Rating:
Summary: Provides roadmap for corporate venturing
Review: I really enjoyed The Venture Imperative. The authors provide a good framework for corporate venturing right down to a "how to" roadmap for applying their concepts. Additionally, they've developed a useful vocabulary for in house venturing. There are plenty of real world case studies that really add to the material. I've known Heidi Mason and have found her work on venturing to be very relevant to major corporations. This books brings corporate venturing into the mainstream.

Rating:
Summary: Essential tool in your corporate innovation kit
Review: Innovate or evaporate seems to be the mantra of most management gurus. Asked how to facilitate innovation these gurus usually lack an answer. Mason and Rohner are different as they show in this excellent book. Combining a clear framework with interesting examples this is a must read.

To further develop your view on the topic of facilitating innovation in your organization I would recommend 'Webs of Innovation' by Alexander Loudon and 'Radical Innovation' by Leifer et.al.

Rating:
Summary: Could Become a Business "Classic"
Review: Mason and Rohner do indeed provide a "new model for corporate innovation" based on the assumption that if done right, venturing offers several substantial benefits to the mature corporation that, in combination, cannot be obtained elsewhere: "access to exceptional talent, the means to focus on important new opportunities that didn't fit into the established mold and culture, and the ability to experiment with different ways of organizing and operating that were more suitable to the issues at hand and to future growth." In turn, the mature corporation offers a great deal to fledgling start-ups that they couldn't obtain through any other method: "access to rich resources, including deep domain experience and knowledge, technology, established brand, supplier, and customer bases." After years of rigorous research and analysis, Mason and Rohner concluded that "the dual-value propositions for corporate venturing" offer a unique and compelling opportunity for a mutually beneficial codependency, one which "reveals a clear path for success -- a new model for corporate venturing, one that lives up to its potential and is sustainable over time." With precise and eloquence, Mason and Rohner explain HOW.

They organize their material within three Parts: Laying the Foundation for Innovation, A Guide for Venturing, and Capturing Strategic Value. Following the Afterword by Gordon Bell (author of High-Tech Ventures: The Guide for Entrepreneurial Success), there are seven especially valuable appendices whose subjects range from "VBO Business Plan Elements" to "Partner Profile Template." The acronym VBO refers to "Venture Business Office" which, as the authors explain in the Preface, is a demilitarized zone" which "connects the big company, the outside venture community, and start-ups. whether they emerge from inside or outside the corporate walls. The VBO is the logical conduit between [and among] these very different yet potentially synergistic worlds."

The authors provide in this single volume a comprehensive, cohesive, and cost-effective (four-stage, step-by-step) process by which to derive maximum value from the aforementioned "convergence." Along the way, they include dozens of charts ("Figures"), micro-case studies which illustrate various innovation initiatives, checklists, summaries, "Key Lessons," and (in the appendices) just about everything anyone would need to know about the design, establishment, and development of a VBO. Presumably, many of those who read this brilliant book are involved with organizations (including corporations) which either do not need or cannot afford a VBO worthy of the name. Nonetheless, there is an abundance of information and advice which would be of great value to them. I also highly recommend this book to others now involved in start-ups or not-yet--mature organizations as well as to venture capitalists, management consultants, and other service providers (e.g. bankers, attorneys, and accountants) who can -- and indeed should -- be included in venturing initiatives.

In their Preface, Mason and Rohner suggest that "there is an opportunity to learn from the successes of venturing and create tools, organizational structures, processes, and -- most important -- a point of view that will make venturing work for most companies that are willing to take the matter seriously -- as one that may ultimately amount to corporate life or death." They realize that a VBO may not be appropriate for many organizations. Make no mistake about it: Venturing worthy of the name requires rigorous and sustained communication, cooperation, and collaboration as well as sufficient resources. In that event, however, venturing not only permits but indeed assures innovation of a nature and to an extent otherwise unattainable.