"Managers & Managing: Companies Encourage New Ideas, Even If They Come From `Left Field' ", By David Pringle, The Wall Street Journal Europe, le 1er novembre 2000.
... Of course, Ericsson isn't alone in losing key staff and good ideas to start-ups; Swedish telephone company Telia AB also lost several senior employees to an Internet start-up last year. Employees of big European companies no longer need to wait until their promising ideas are recognized internally. Analysts say it is now relatively easy in Scandinavia, the U.K., and to a lesser extent France and Germany, to secure seed funding for high-tech start-ups. In turn, large companies such as Ericsson, Telia and French telecoms equipment manufacturer Alcatel SA are responding by setting up formal programs to exploit employee ideas that don't necessarily fit with their current business strategy.
In doing so, they are attempting to follow in the footsteps of a number of U.S. companies, including International Business Machines Corp. and Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co., which have a reputation for exploiting ideas that fall outside their existing business strategies.
And an increasingly unpredictable business environment means it is important for companies to pursue what are known as left-field ideas, according to Yves-Michel Marti, president and founder of French consultancy Egideria. "If you follow a neat strategy you will be surprised -- there will be paradigm shifts that will render your strategy obsolete," he says. Mr. Marti recommends that about 20% of corporate funds be spent on what he calls "off-track" projects as a "safety net for the unexpected."