A Non Linear Model for Vibrant Growth and Continued Impact of Organizations

Last week after a long time, my Professor friend visited my office. He sat on my chair and whirled around and enjoyed the view outside from Cabin that overlooks the Bandra Worli link.

“Great view Dr Modak” he said. “You must be enjoying sitting here everyday. But how long are you going to do drab consulting work? Don’t you get inspired to change your company’s course when you look at the bridge”

He was perhaps right. I said “Well Professor, it seems not yet so boring as of now. We do interesting assignments and I stay motivated a lot to continue my work, but I feel that my company is presently caught in the typical vicious cycle of linear growth”.

More consulting business means hiring more people and the profits may not go up proportionately for sharing. Adding people today is not easy as most young professionals behave like butterflies in the garden of the sustainability business. They don’t stick around and you need to keep investing in people. That’s hard. And people are not truly understanding the canvas of sustainability although they show several certificates of different kinds.” I tried to be brutally frank as I could be.

Professor smiled and said “your company though 28 years old, is still behaving like a struggling  startup. While you are keeping your services adaptive in the changing times, you are unable to capitalize your innovations you make in providing solutions and scale up”.

He was right again. In the past 28 years, my company did more than 800 assignments, never like a boiler plate and across 17 geographics across the world. Many of these assignments were essentially results of innovations in consulting in terms of methodologies, processing of data or in developing process of co-creation. Sadly, we never had bandwidth to capitalize these innovations for our growth and impact. Growth was only marginal.

Professor continued.

“Dr Modak,  you and your company seem to be floating in the river with no plan or a bandwidth to jump on the shore and watch which way your are flowing! But then that happens to most consulting companies when they do business linearly and sometimes in fatigue. Nothing new.”

Professor made a good point. I started musing a bit. Is my company still like a startup, struggling to discover how should we focus and scale up? I must now look at a non-linear growth of my company if we want to scale up for growth and impact, I said to myself.

Professor lighted his cigar as we moved to the open terrace.

Bringing innovation and entrepreneurship in your business in a structured manner should be your future strategy, Dr Modak.

Try a hybrid of Intrapreneurship and Entrepreneurship in Residence (EIR) models to create your scalable innovation feedstock. As innovations mature into new businesses, your company can become a holding company with some equity for the sweat you will put in. 

Services will soon transform to SaaS platforms or release of new products that enjoy scalability. Bigger benefit is that your senior team will have experience of active mentoring and ownership in the business.

What Is Intrapreneurship?

Not to be confused with the similar concept of entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship refers to the practice of applying entrepreneurial skills and approaches within an established organisation.

It involves employees acting like entrepreneurs while working within a company, using their creativity and innovation to develop new products, services, processes, or business models. Apparently, studies show that Companies who listen to employees are 21% more profitable than the competition. This concept is based on the idea that significant growth and innovation can also come from within established business, not necessarily just from startups.

Visit https://ideas.sideways6.com/article/inspiring-examples-of-intrapreneurship-and-employee-ideas-in-action to see inspiring examples of intrapreneurship. But remember that these examples show essentially show “employee ideas in action” when supported by top management. Most examples do not show how to create new businesses expanding the company’s business ecosystem.

Sourced from https://www.hustleinspireshustle.com/blog/intrapreneurship

What is Entrepreneurship in residence (EIR)?

In an EIR, an experienced entrepreneur or industry professional works with a company to help with business opportunities. EIRs are often brought in on a short-term basis to provide their expertise in a variety of areas, including: Identifying new business opportunities, Conducting market research, Advising on product development and marketing, Assisting with fundraising, and Leading specific projects. In exchange for their expertise, EIRs receive support for their future endeavours, usually in the form of an opportunity to launch a new startup. EIRs may also receive a salary, office space, administrative help, and access to mentors and experts.

EIRs are solution-oriented and bring a mindset of tackling problems to the organization they join. They are often individuals who have led or currently lead a small, early-stage company with high-growth potential.

Clearly there are overlaps in EIR and Intrapreneurship though there are subtle differences although both appear to be some form of incubators within the organization.

sourced from https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/entrepreneur-in-residence

I researched on the incubators at the consulting companies and understood following advantages of such a non-linear approach, essentially a hybrid between “in residence entrepreneurship” (IRE) and “Intrapreneurship model”

• Innovation driver:

The primary goal of this hybrid model will be to encourage creative thinking and develop new products, services, or business models that align with the consulting firm’s core competencies.

• Employee engagement:

By allowing employees, especially senior team members in the company to pursue their own entrepreneurial ventures within the company, it can boost morale and attract top talent.

• Leveraging existing expertise:

The senior team members can provide valuable guidance and access to their network of clients and industry knowledge to support the incubated projects.

When we returned to my desk, Professor wrote on a blank page summary of his advice in terms of 8 bullet points for me to ponder.

• At the outset, the senior team members must be involved right in the making of the non-linear strategy of company’s growth and desired impact and take ownership.
• Induct new people to the company as EIR or talk to your senior team members if they will be interested in intrapreneurship. Not everybody of the senior team members have to agree and they can play different roles such as peer/guide
• The entry of new people can ne through careful solicitating when you are looking for senior level entrants. Make the business model clear telling what you have in your mind
• For younger professionals, entry could be through a competition/hackathon organized by your not profit mentoring company Ekonnect. Let Ekonnect train the shortlisted young professionals like a Young Sustainability Professional before admitting them into your main consulting business. Ensure that they are capable and fully aligned.
• Now “pair” the new entrants with your senior team members or essentially form teams.
• You will need to carefully balance between innovation, marketing and delivery of company’s consulting services. That is complex, difficult and challenging but that’s going to be the fizz of your company. So work hard to find a solution.
• Tie up with financiers to the ventures that you will incubate and involve the potential financiers in the periodic review of the iterations of the business models developed by the intrapreneurs.
• Be clear on the stake you will take (e.g., sweat equity) and position (majority/minority) and position on the board of these companies, rewards and sharing of your senior team members.

When I read those 8 points, I realized that why consulting companies like mine continue to be linear however exciting the non-linear approach could be. I could easily see the challenges.

But will the advantages of this “non linear experiment” outweigh the risks? I am looking for advice and answers.  

If you have tried and failed or succeeded in following such models then do let me know.

My company has been selected by the SEED program offered by Stanford School of Business for a one year transformation program starting from January 2025. I hope I get answers on “how to” for these 8 interesting bullet points. Well, as we say, when there is a will there always be a way, and so I am utterly optimistic.

If you find my model of non-linear growth for organizations interesting then do write to me on prasad.modak@emcentre.com. I will be most happy to receive your critique. Let me know if you are interested in participating in the transformation of my company as an EIR or an investor partner.

You will understand more about my companies EMC and Ekonnect at www.emcentre.com and www.ekonnect.net