Jill, Ross and Michael came into the boardroom. Ross pulled up their presentation on his laptop. He didn’t remember that the WIFI in the conference room was notoriously bad, so he had to run back to his office for a USB key.
After about 5 minutes, they had it all set up and were able to begin their presentation. Jill and Ross introduced themselves, and their project: Intrapreneurship in the Family Car Dealership.
They affirmed their commitment and loyalty to the company, and expressed their concerns with the automobile industry on a whole such as pollution, traffic congestion and fossil fuel dependence.
They explained that these concerns were shared by a growing number of people particularly amongst their generation, which could eventually impact the family business.
They then presented their plan to address these concerns: the introduction of electric cars to the dealership.
At this point, Uncle Ronnie jumped in to share his opinion of electric cars, which was fairly lengthy. Jill, Ross, and even Michael tried to cut in, but it’s tough to stop Uncle Ronnie when he gets going. Just as he was saying ‘wouldn’t they be useless during power failures anyway?’ Jill managed to seize the moment and explain all of the potential growth opportunities of selling electric cars, such as selling batteries, building charging stations and even having a branch plant devoted entirely to electric vehicles.
Ross went on to present their market research, using a series of graphs and report summaries, which confirmed that the market for electric cars was growing, particularly among environmentally conscious millennials and middle class working adults. He mentioned that this dealership would not be the only one in town offering electric cars, but it would be among the few.
Jill presented the building blocks of the business plan, in a creative visual presentation. It included key milestones as well as long term goals.
Ross built on this to present a roadmap of their next steps, should the board decide to move forward with the project. He acknowledged that there would be more obstacles and challenges that they could not yet foresee, but they were prepared to handle whatever came their way.
After sharing all the necessary information, they presented an in-depth cost breakdown to get the project off the ground. They showed the total amount of money they needed, and showed how much each of them had personally contributed, and requested the remainder from the board to begin their project.
They asked if anyone had any questions, concerns or any other feedback. Uncle Ronnie reiterated his opinions, and a few other members had questions regarding the budget and the timeline. Once the questions had been answered, Jill and Ross thanked the board for their time and closed the meeting.
