RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

350 RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
demands affect leaders as well as employees, HR should also pay attention to developing
ambidextrous employees.
As said in section 1 SMEs have more difficulties in becoming ambidextrous than large
firms due to the lack of resources, administrative systems, and diversity of organizational architectures.
With regard to the five approaches it would seem that outsourcing, sequential, and
structural ambidexterity are rather difficult to achieve since they are resource-intensive and
need extensive organizational arrangements. Contextual and leadership ambidexterity seem
to be more in reach for SMEs since they depend on direct influence from central management
which is in SMEs often present due to the few management levels. The case study will
provide more knowledge about the relationship between the approaches and SMEs.
The case: Ampelmann
Ampelmann Operations is a company operating in the offshore access industry. Its core
technology is a motion compensation platform that enables easy, fast and safe access from a
moving vessel to offshore structures. The system was built and developed in-house and then
leased to clients. The leasing of the platform (including Ampelmann operators) allows the
company to maintain control over the entire process. The company was founded in 2008 as
a spin-off of Delft University of Technology (Ampelmann, 2014). The company’s starting
point was a method to cross to an offshore wind turbine that one of the founders came across
during a conference in Berlin. Back in Delft, the method and its possible applications was
discussed with others and one of the ideas was to improve the method by developing a system
platform based on the kind of platform used in flight simulators. The discussion actually
started during the conference on a terrace of a Berlin hotel called Ampelmann close to
the famous Checkpoint Charley, hence the name of the company. The mission or motto of
the company: “Offshore access as easy as crossing the street”. After the first idea was developed
in the summer of 2002, expert meetings took place throughout 2003 to discuss the feasibility
of the concept. In the following years, several students did their bachelor and master
theses on the Ampelmann concept. Three of these students and two PhD candidates (including
the two founding fathers) formed the Ampelmann team and further developed, built and
tested a demonstrator model. The team won several awards, wrote a business plan, gathered
sponsorship, partners and financing, and worked hard to build the first prototype. On 14
December 2007, these extraordinary efforts resulted in the first successful transfer of Jan van
der Tempel (one of the founding fathers) from the Smit Bronco, via the Ampelmann, to a
windmill at the OWEZ wind park. Ampelmann Operations B.V. was founded in 2008. Between
2008 and 2011, they doubled the number of systems (A-type) each year. Also, many improvements
to the original A-type were implemented, the E-type (bigger brother) was introduced,
and ’add-ons’ were developed, like a bigger gangway, Butler, KIB and ship-to-ship transfer.
In July 2013, Ampelmann sold a majority share to IK Investment Partners, to finance the worldwide
growth of the company. Four months later, Ampelmann acquired its Dutch competitor
Offshore Solutions and was able to increase its worldwide presence. Currently, Ampelmann
employs 350 people, has a turnover between 50 and 100 million Euros, and they have helped
2 million people safely moving from a moving vessel to an offshore structure, and back.
We think that Ampelmann is suitable for this research since it is an SME, it has as strong
technical base, it is a fast growing, and it faces the dilemma between exploitation and exploration.