Developing an Entreprenurial Mindset

Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset

Abstract

The purpose of this case is to provide insight into developing a mindset of becoming an Entrepreneur within a corporation. This insight will be taken from an interview with Dave Hilton. Dave has years of experience in the employee appreciation industry which has led him to discover and implement many new tools and features to grow OC Tanner greatly to be the successful company it is today. He has proven himself to be a true innovator in establishing multiple processes and bringing in new services to the employee appreciation industry. Findings from Dave’s interview will showcase the importance of knowing the present state of an industry before looking for new opportunity within that space. It will also showcase the importance of leadership as well as connecting with the right people who can assist with discovering a need for innovation by asking the right questions to effectively solve a problem.

The Entrepreneur’s Experience

Dave Hilton, the Executive VP of Client Services, has worked at OC Tanner for 25 years within multiple positions. OC Tanner offers employee appreciation programs for businesses to celebrate great work within their company. OC Tanner has been able to solidify itself as the industry leader in implementing unique programs that gave employees a unique way of being recognized for their hard work. With multiple services that OC Tanner offers to separate themselves from other companies, the biggest is the way they assist managers and HR Reps in creating a real experience for the company and employees that have anniversaries or do great work. The journey the manager and employee take to celebrate is a unique celebration as it gives email notifications to managers with step by step instructions to make an appreciation moment truly meaningful to the employee as the employee has opportunities to select an award online to be shipped to their home for their work or amount of service. This program truly combined the HR benefits sector of business with online opportunities as an e-commerce site to create an experience in which the employee becomes so excited about the company’s investment in them, that the employees will become a loyal worker to the company, in turn looking for opportunities to improve the company.

         Dave Hilton had many opportunities to innovate throughout his career at OC Tanner, but not because anyone asked him to. He was able to innovate because he took initiative in understanding his roles and always seeking ways to improve the experience for OC Tanner’s clients. A couple of examples will be used from Dave’s experience with innovation. One of those experiences was when he worked as OC Tanner’s first Internet Services Manager. During this time the internet was just starting to be incorporated within companies and Dave took the opportunity to look for how the internet could be incorporated within the employee recognition space. With studying man hours outside of work about the internet, Dave discovered a way to incorporate online ordering with an employee recognition experience. Since this first huge step in the industry, many companies have followed with this idea, but it was Dave’s time of studying that was the reason it was first implemented at OC Tanner. The second huge innovation from Dave that will be mentioned is the opportunity to create a new service that gave the employees celebrating their anniversary an opportunity to be congratulated through a type of brochure that not only celebrated their anniversary, but allowed them the opportunity to see award choices on paper before going only to select an award. This experience changed the process and journey an employee would take in being recognized and is still currently being implemented today.

        After talking about his journey through OC Tanner, Dave discussed what he did to create entrepreneurial opportunities. One of the biggest stand outs was Dave saying that “You have to know the rules before you break them.” In other words, you have to really understand the current situation and processes of a corporation to really know how you can change a product or service. As he truly decided to dig into his roles throughout the company, he took time after hours to study up on his role. When Dave took his position as the Internet Services Manager, he dedicated hours after work to study on what the internet was and how to incorporate it into the industry. Within 4 years of studying and learning his role, Dave had implemented a service with 5,000 websites for clients to have their recipients order online. Another great resource Dave mentioned was the people around him. It was key to Dave to listen to what others had to say. He took many ideas from others and put them together to create a solution that would essentially be his idea based on multiple ideas from others.

        When talking about evaluating the opportunity to pursue the idea of implementing online ordering through the internet, Dave said that it wasn’t a hard decision. Although it took risk being the first ones in the industry to incorporate the internet, they saw that this was new for other businesses outside the employee recognition industry and knew that there was a way to incorporate it into their business. It was a matter of understanding, finding the most effective benefit for the customer’s use, and figuring out to implement it. It took a couple years before they were able to be functioning, but those two years were full of research, development, failures, and fixing to get the best solution for their clients. The evaluation of an idea did not only come from him, but his leaders. Many hoops needed to be jumped through with getting approvals to analyze the risk for him.