The Use of Teams within an Organization in Product Developments - Assignment Example

New Products/Processes There are various management innovation practices that are linked to strong innovation performance such as understanding technology and its contribution, use of external sources of business intelligence in a well structured way, reviewing products and services and services and the reacting to the changes in the targeted segment, and helping in the mobilization of the whole organization in developing new ideas. Generating ideas for new products and processes in a firm requires the exploitation of various sources of data that is required to generate forecast and these will include looking into historical data, previous sales projections, promotion plans, corporate objectives, market share and market research. These will give any firm a general idea on how to go about with the new products and processes (Cunningham & Harney, 2012). The use of teams within an organization in product developments is a way to encourage competition and innovations. The teams will determine product purchases in the past, sales growth and opportunities for further improvements or innovations. The team must first understand their customers before developing improvement opportunities in sales. Customers Customers provide information about products and also offer final evaluations on products and services and drive the sales volume. Customers are the most useful sources of ideas and innovations. Organizations have come up with various methods for gathering ideas from their consumers especially through social media and websites where customers give their product reviews, complaints and ideas. The information collected is then compiled and used to determine the customer’s reaction to various products and services that are offered by the organization, and this aids with product improvements, innovation of new products and market launch of new products. Competitors Learning the business strategies of the competitors will give any organization a competitive edge. This can be done through attending conferences trade fairs among others in order keep up with the competitors’ research and developments. The information gathered is then used in the improvement of the products and services and assessing the competition and their penetration into the market. The firm with superior competitor information can use this understanding to its advantage. They can apply its strengths against the rival’s weakness, by reproduction and improvement or offering discount and differentiating their products (Lawson & Samson, 2001). Internal departments The internal departments of an organization include employees, department heads. The experience and exposure to the policies and objectives of the firm puts them in a better position to generate ideas and detailed proposals for new products and services. Employees’ ideas are encouraged in firms by the management providing the necessary resources to implement them. In their day to day business the employees will find areas that require improvement ad will often come up with solutions and ways to address such problems, this increases innovation in any organization. The employees may also be brought together in various brainstorming session. There is a wide range of strategies employed y firms to develop and adopt various ideas. Some of these methods are seen as traditional but are still associated with high success rates in their implementation strategies. The traditional methods of the innovative processes are orchestrated through the harnessing of the mental capital of any organizational stakeholders through sources such as focus group discussions, brainstorming sessions, departmental idea sourcing events, customer site visits, and surveys which will involve interviews and questionnaires. Crowd-sourcing is harnesses the potential of both internal employees as well as large crowds and communities outside of the business enterprise this will include suppliers, dealers among others. It is a potential way to address innovation challenges within a short time. It is drive by new and emerging social media technologies and holds a lot of potential for the organization to extend and redefine the firm’s innovation approaches. Crowd-sourcing is a flexible model that ensures collaboration beyond the organizations boundaries thereby inspiring innovation and creativity. Internal crowd sourcing through homegrown community like the employees, dealers, suppliers and access the expertise of knowledge available within the organization for global expansion and external crowd-sourcing helps the organization widen its communities across the region. External crowd-sourcing is most relevant for market surveys for products and brands across geographies, to evolve new ideas for future product requirements or establish new markets. The benefits of crowd-sourcing are that there are improved ideas through the collaboration of various entities, there is easy tracking of ideas from employees to the shareholders in the organization. This strategy also improves the success rate for new products and services by aligning innovations with customer expectations and the business objectives (Agafonovas & Alonderiene, 2013). Brainstorming sessions are used to encourage the creativity and the generation of new ideas that the business can investigate and pursue further. This takes place in a relaxed atmosphere to encourage thoughts and ideas that can be crafted into creative solutions to a problem or generate more ideas. There is no criticism, judgment or rewarding other people’s ideas in a brainstorming session. There are various benefits of a brainstorming session in that it encourages everyone to participate in generating ideas. It also brings diverse opinions on the table thus there is a wide range of ideas to choose from. Brainstorming can be individual or group. Modern focus group may involve the formation of advisory boards of key customers to serve as sounding boards for ideas. There is the Identification of customers who tend to buy the latest versions of the firms products ad these lead buyers or adopters provide the organization with insights about where the market may be headed and how the organization can best position itself. It should not be limited to providing feedback on only ideas that exist, customers’ can also give feedback on hypothetical products and prototypes and their responses are used in product development. Focus groups involve people from all walks of life to share their opinion on different products and services, decisions must e made on the collection of data, the structure of groups and the size of the groups. The general strategy in using focus groups is to create a variety of internally homogeneous groups that capture a wide range of potentially distinct perspectives. It is a fast and inexpensive strategy (McLafferty, 2004). A survey data is collected in a standardized form and is manly done in the form of questionnaire or interview. It is used to provide a sampling of how things are at a particular moment. It helps in exploring aspects of different situations as a research strategy. Surveys produce data that is based on real world observations; it covers a wide area and gets more information than any other strategy. Survey is also relatively cheap considering the amount of data collected and the usefulness of the information gathered. These sources, although proven and structured sources, they are riddled with their own set of challenges. Most organizations have to deal with a long time for completion, the limited resources, lack of consistency and precision in the outcomes, there is limited availability of ideas in the organizations, and the low success rate of ideas. All these challenges are compounded in the face of industry pressures and intense competition to stay relevant in a very competitive environment. References: Agafonovas, A., & Alonderiene, R. (2013). Value creation in innovations crowdsourcing: example of creative agencies. Organizations and Markets in Emerging Economies, 2(1), 7. Cunningham, J., & Harney, B. (2012). Strategy & strategists. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jonassen,D., Tessmer,M., & Hannum, W.(1999). Task Analysis Methods for Instructional Design. Psychology Press. Lawson, B., & Samson, D. (2001). Developing innovation capability in organisations: a dynamic capabilities approach. International journal of innovation management, 5(03), 377-400. McLafferty, I. (2004). Focus group interviews as a data collecting strategy. Journal of advanced nursing, 48(2), 187-194. Read More