How mature companies can reignite their start-up spirit – New Roland Berger book on re-entrepreneuring presents success stories from different branches

Munich, November, 2018: In times of disruptive change, traditional companies must radically overhaul their business models and organizations to survive. A new book from Roland Berger outlines how corporations can bring back the energy of their start-up days and rekindle their success story (Download preview here).

"Most people associate entrepreneurship mainly with a company's early years," said Charles-Edouard Bouée, CEO of Roland Berger. And it's true: in the start-up phase, the courage and willingness of entrepreneurs to take risks is essential to creating new firms and making them successful. Regrettably, as a company matures this spirit often gets lost. "But entrepreneurship remains important for firms to provide new inspiration and secure their success by renewing their business model."

Roland Berger collated its expertise and experience of re-entrepreneuring in a new book, Re-entrepreneuring – How organizations can reignite their entrepreneurial spirit. The objective of re-entrepreneuring is to revive the mindset and behavior typical of start-ups and to lend a business fresh impetus. "Practically all organizations have that entrepreneurial spirit, but it's often hidden," said Bouée. "It takes the right incentive to bring it back to the fore and help an organization break out of established routines."

Several cases illustrate re-entrepreneuring

The book is based on years of experience gathered by numerous Roland Berger Partners. The authors draw on specific examples from across different industries and regions to explore how firms have revived entrepreneurial instincts and built new business. Re-entrepreneuring involves the interplay of two seemingly opposing forces that seldom co-exist: the strengths, assets and experience of large established organizations and the entrepreneurial mindset characteristic of start-ups. Consequently, it doesn't seek to go back to square one. In the case of 'Wargaming', a Belarusian video game company that had become less profitable as it grew, the key to success was to separate all relevant support functions from the creative aspects that were needed to develop exciting new games. While the former were centralized in order to build a strong infrastructure and relieve the developers of administrative tasks, the latter remained with independent local studios. It was only a few months after this reorganization that 'Wargaming' was able to set world records again.

"While 'entrepreneuring' signifies people building new companies out of literally nothing, 're-entrepreneuring' means cultivating and applying this creativity and mindset to an established company," said Bouée. "When you do that, production resources and capabilities can be rearranged to develop new strengths, seize opportunities and meet challenges. This makes re-entrepreneuring the method of choice to remain an agile and viable business in our volatile world."

The book:

ROLAND BERGER PARTNERS

Co-editors: Charles-Edouard Bouée and Stefan Schaible:

RE-ENTREPRENEURING – How Organizations Can Reignite Their Entrepreneurial Spirit

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-4729-4824-3

ePDF: 978-1-4729-4823-6

eBook: 978-1-4729-4825-0