Intrapreneurship Success (Corporate Entrepreneurship) in a rapidily growing Public Company

Introduction of the Intrapreneurial creation and marketing impact of the PR1ME Leasing Division from the inside by a Co-Founder and serial intrapreneur!

The underlying concept and idea of intrapreneurship, or corporate entrepreneurship, had been present in corporations in the United States, and around the world, for many decades, even before the term was used in the mid 1980’s in the mainstream media.

Back in June 1981, Dr. Howard Haller wrote and successfully defended his Master’s Degree in Management thesis on the use of intrapreneurship techniques in the creation of a captive leasing division by PR1ME Computer Inc. in 1977 to 1980. In his University Thesis, Haller provides the inside detailed qualitative analysis of PR1ME’s “Intrapreneurship Success.”

Steve Jobs, Apples’ Chairman then and now, used the word, “Intrapreneurship” in his September 1985 “Newsweek” article, when he shared: "The Macintosh team was what is commonly known as intrapreneurship . . . a group of people going, in essence, back to the garage, but in a large company." Researcher Gilford Pinchot III (1985) made the term, Intrapreneuring (and Intrapreneur), better known in his book entitled “Intrapreneuring.”

This is the brief overview of intrapreneurship success of the corporate entrepreneurial or Intrapreneurial venture within its parent company.

There are now many more examples of successful Intrapreneurship in corporations since this pioneering intrapreneurial adventure by a small OTC listed computer company in 1977. This article shares an overview of an inside, first hand, in depth the details of the four year journey of the Intrapreneurship Success of the creation of PRIME Leasing Division, within the rapidly growing public corporation that was able to grow rapidly with strong profits and invited to become listed on the New York Stock Exchange in just a few years after starting it’s Intrapreneurship adventure.

The summary overview of the details of the financial and marketing impact of creating one specific captive leasing and finance subsidiary, PR1ME™ Leasing will be shared in this article of Intrapreneurship Success. This intrapreneurial endeavor helped grow both sales and profits at record rates and to become listed on NYSE listed. Intrapreneurship materially helped "super-mini" computer company, PR1ME™ Computer, Inc. grow quickly.

The principally quantitative research documents intrapreneurial success of creating PR1ME Leasing Division. This use by PR1ME of intrapreneurial concepts helped to shorten the "super-minicomputer" sales cycle, increase profits on individual computer sales transactions, increase sales, and provide tax shelters to its parent corporation. The Intrapreneurial creation of PR1ME Leasing helped it's parent company to grow more rapidly and profitably, and was one of the key accelerants boosting it's parent company, PRIME Computer Inc., to be the Number 1 performing NYSE list stock in 1980.

One of the major challenges was that the Leasing Division was under the direct control of the Vice President of Finance of PRIME Computer, Inc., not the Vice President of Sales or Marketing. Having the commission-driven PR1ME Leasing marketing managers working under the finance department, which was staffed by accountants and financial analysts created a philosophical paradox. This case study by one of the co-founding managers of PR1ME Leasing is a "real world" example of an intrapreneurial venture in its embryonic state. It details the most salient positive and negative aspects of PR1ME Leasing's early growth.

This article tells the inside story of the intrapreneurial creation of PR1ME Leasing, its corporate structure, and statistically documents the impact of the Leasing Division on the sales, profits, and overall corporate performance it's parent company.

This article's author was a co-founder of Prime Leasing Division, within the parent corporation. Dr. Howard E. Haller used this successful and tested Intrapreneurship experience, and the results of his research, as valuable tools after leaving PR1ME to create several other very successful Intrapreneurial ventures over the next thirty years. Intrapreneurship has successfully been utilized by corporations, partnerships and non-profit firms in the US, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Haller was the Founder and Managing Director of the Western Hemisphere Finance Subsidiary for the US based Anaconda-Ericsson (a Joint venture between Atlantic Richfield-ARCO Anaconda and the European TeleCommunications giant L.M. Ericsson).

Haller then focused his proven marketing talents and Intrapreneurial expertise to built the significant Private Label IBM (Compatible) PC Division Corona Data Inc. Dr. Haller, as a Director of Corona Data, build their Intrapreneurial Private Label Division, which successfully sold the Private Label IBM (Compatible)Personal Computers to major computer corporations in both Europe and the United States. Haller's Corona OEM Data Private Label IBM (Compatible) PC Division successfully sold 10,000 PC's to Olivetti S.p.A. (HQ-Italy), 10,000 PC's to Philips Electronics NV (HQ Netherlands), 20,000 PC's to Micom (HQ-Canada), 10,000 PC's to Esselte (HQ-Sweden). Haller's crowning personal achievement for Corona Data was his successful selling of 43,000 Corona Data Systems's OEM Private Label IBM (Compatible) Personal Computers to Sperry-Univac (HQ-King of Prussia, PA).

Howard Edw. Haller used his multiple successful Intrapreneurship (Corporate Entrepreneurship) experiences in a series of Entrepreneurial ventures including co-founding and helping build a technology firm, RETIX, which produced an operating profit every Quarter starting with it’s First Quarter after creation, and built the firm, then successfully selling RETIX to a major French Bank in just a few years.