Unfold-Cisco Round Table


The Unfold-Cisco Round Table held in May, 2017, focused on the value of ‘intrapreneurship’ in a firm. It also discussed strategies to increase awareness in the community. Attendees included Accenture, Capgemini, Cisco, HCL, Inmobi, Intuit, SAP, Schneider, Target, Tesco and Unisys.

The round table was lively and insightful. Key discussion topics included whether firm-wide intrapreneurship was indeed possible or if it needed to be restricted to a few teams. Participants discussed the impact of intrapreneurs on innovation in diverse sectors: products, services, service delivery and consulting.

Notable insights from the discussion:

  1. Firms that operated at the intersection of talent, opportunity and passion were “most likely to innovate”.
  2. Silos, lack of clarity on the problem being solved, and the inability to pitch solutions effectively were cited as the top obstacles to innovation.
  3. Value is not always immediately linked to the bottom-line. It is important to define innovation and intrepreneurship more broadly.
  4. For an intrapreneurship culture to succeed, the perception of innovation would need to transcend age, technology, and the authoritarian-conformist culture that’s been ingrained by our education system.