International Entrepreneurship Infusion International Entrepreneurship

International Entrepreneurship Infusion

International Entrepreneurship at Infusion

Entrepreneurship is crucial to the health of any business. It helps start ups flourish, as well as more mature organizations stay innovative by taking advantage of the creative innovation of its employees. This is how Infusion has benefited from the entrepreneurial process, especially as it has grown into a revered international technology name. Infusion embodies the true entrepreneurial spirit, one which it hopes to continue using locally driven strategies to facilitate creative employee contributions.

Originally founded by George Brill and DeBorah Johnson, who had left positions in other organizations in order to strike out on their own, Infusion has come a long way since its humble beginnings. The company's very first client was a huge resource that helped Infusion start off strong. This success was then augmented with working with Lehman Brothers, where executives at the company realized there was an opportunity to capitalize on in regards to the new launch of training programs geared at investment banks in New York on software and technology training. There was more opportunity in the fact "that technical managers approached the trainers after class with a request for them to take a close look at their production systems," which eventually morphed into consulting (Williams & Davis, 2011, p 2). From there, Infusion realized that it had countless opportunities and room to grow, with so many people in need of good technology guidance. Thus, Infusion continued its strategy of growth by branching out to Somani and Fernandez to expand Infusion's role in Canada. Thus, the executives at Infusion offered to incorporate S-Squared into Infusion and allow the pair the opportunity to "drum up business in the Canadian market, targeting financial institutions such as the Bank of Montreal, the Royal Bank of Canada and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce" (Williams & Davis, 2011. p 3). The entrepreneurship of local Canadians helped Infusion gain strong footing in the Canadian market.

Meanwhile, Infusion had continued branching out into new industries, as seen with the 2000 book deal with New Riders for the technology publication Applying COM+. The company was branching out and diversifying based on the entrepreneurship of employees who contributed to the underlying organizational strategy. Infusion even partnered with Microsoft, one f the primary competitors in order to stay relevant and open up new opportunities with a truly global powerhouse. Infusion's next move was into new markets, like India, where they could use their ability to adapt in order to meet a growing demand in that country (Williams & Davis, 2011). Although the India deal did not work out, and closed shortly after, Infusion learned its lessons and never stopped trying to branch out in what it saw as a lucrative opportunity. This lesson learned was later translated into Infusion's expansion into London and Dubai. Thus, the innovation and entrepreneurship was focusing on a strong growth strategy with stretches into new industries and partnerships with big brand names that would undoubtedly keep Infusion relevant in the ever-changing marketplace. The company had found success growing in both physical space and diversity of interests served.

However, the company's independent spirit began to conflict with the need to better structure itself to deal with running an international conglomerate. After several years of success in 2010, "in many ways, the entrepreneurial vision of Infusion's original founders lived on, but the company had found it necessary to install an administrative structure with a professional management later to underpin delivery in both domestic and international markets" (Williams & Davis, 2012, p 1). Thus, the company had grown into a more matured organizational structure. Still, it is possible to keep innovation and entrepreneurship alive in such a context. Infusion structured a management layer in order to be able to cope with being so spread out across the globe. The management layer helped keep all the local leadership in line. Here, the case study states that: entrepreneurship was in the company's DNA. But professional management practice had been needed for the company to deliver increasingly large and complex projects" (Williams & Davis, 2011, p 13). It became more and more important to focus on strategies that would structure the company to efficiently operate, while continuing to foster the creativity that drove it forward in the first place.

There are several ways the company can remain nimble and innovative enough to compete along with constantly emerging technology, despite its maturing organizational structure. The primary importance is a structure which relies on local leadership. Having locally centered power will allow the company to adapt as it needs to in a very diverse global marketplace. Infusion needs to focus on not falling into the trap of old molds, where the international business becomes too structured, and thus inflexible and rigid, causing it to miss out on the individual creativity of its employees serving within very specified markets (Lord, deBethizy, & Wager, 2005). It would be beneficial "to appoint someone to lead operations locally" in order to facilitate stronger and more capable leadership, but also to open up pathways for greater creativity and innovation for those working in the field with first hand knowledge of the developing marketplace. This allows managers to be flexible and free to adapt their own strategies depending on the unique structures and demands of the markets they help control. As such, the company can be "highly individualistic, situation specific, and unique" managerial opportunities that allow Infusion to better adapt to the ever-changing marketplace and continue a strong growth strategy (Oyson, 2012, p 3).