Creativity and Innovation - Shell Oman Marketing Company - Case Study Example

Section 2: Case Study - Creativity and Innovation Student name Course name Institution Date of submission Student Number Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive Summary 3 Introduction 3 Application and Analysis 4 Conclusion 8 Recommendations 9 Reference List 10 Executive Summary Shell Oman nurtures an atmosphere of innovation and creativity through its policies and workplace environment, most of which have made the company receive much attention and commendation for its remarkable organizational culture. Its culture of freedom to think and consult has encouraged innovations. The environment is also supporting, as it provides direct communication to the executive management. The joint brainstorming sessions using Google Moderator software policy has also led to discussions and exploration of new ideas and technological insights. Shell Oman needs to provide some form of psychological motivation to induce its marketers to be creative. It should also use seeding to encourage creativity and adopt quality constraints to benchmark the standards of ideas it expects across its departments. Introduction Shell Oman Marketing Company is Oman-based subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, which is a multinational petrochemical manufacturer, and natural gas producer and marketer (Shell Oman 2015). Shell Oman’s core business areas include marketing of fuel and lubricants. The company’s service range includes aviation, automotive, and marine fuels, greases and lubricants. Additionally, it has a network of more than150 Shell retail service stations, which are strategically placed across Oman (Shell Oman 2015). At the company, my role entails managing a team of eight marketers with focus on advertising the company through integrated media and communication tools, such as the internet, television, magazines, radio and billboards. Working at the company has enabled me gain deep insights into innovation and creativity. The company nurtures an atmosphere of innovation and creativity through its policies and workplace environment, most of which have made the company receive much attention and commendation for its remarkable organizational culture (Thompson 2015). Shell Oman has also kept the innovation pipeline running by tapping its staff and allowing ideas to seep into all levels of the organisation, whether management, entry level, sales representatives, or support staff. I have witnessed how the company ideates and juggle with multiple projects to improve the quality of its existing Shell-branded product range, such as aviation, automotive, and marine fuels, greases and lubricants (Anon, 2015). Being part of the marketing research team has provided me with an opportunity to witness creativity in action through brainstorming and brain writing, as well as to explore how creativity and innovation are encouraged, given support and sustained, in addition to the barriers to creativity and innovation. Application and Analysis By running a team of marketing representative at Shell Oman, I have been fortunate enough to witness how to ideate, pursue, and work on varied products, based purely on innovation and creativity. While some have been big wins, others have not. I admit that our dedication to innovation, creativity, and risk had remained steadfast, giving us a competitive edge. During these occasions, we have also encountered dilemmas on whether to improve the existing products or innovate. In fact, the company has believed in pursuing both areas in order to keep our potential to imagine and visualise alive, as it keeps the innovative pipeline running. Simply, this reflects what Matthews (2007) and Babu et al (2013) mean by suggesting that creativity consists of enhancing an individual potential to imagine and visualise new ideas without restrain. Shell Oman has kept its innovation pipeline fertile by harnessing the creativity of its staff and allowing ideas to penetrate at all organisational levels, whether in the management, entry level, sales representatives, or support staff (Anon, 2015). This strategy is consistent with Matthews’s (2009) idea that innovative ideas should originate from anywhere, as well as manifest themselves in varied ways. Compared to other department, my department has a relatively small employee base of nearly 10 workers. Despite the small size, the Shell Oman allows the department to join other departments in fashioning an arena where workers can pull together to innovate petrochemical products. The company has tried various channels for expression, as it recognises that people are different and that since it operates using a diverse employee base, where people have different cultures, values, ideas, methods of communication, understanding, modes of expression, and different levels of innovation, then it needs different channels to cater for each one. The company also allows direct communication, such as the use of direct mails to the executive management. This has inspired and motivated employees, as well as effectively promoted innovation and creativity. Indeed, Davenport (2004) agrees that inspiration and motivation inspires creativity. When an employee has an idea that needs consultation or endorsement, accessible executive management ensures that the requisite features of the idea are easily discussed and mentorship provided. This is since the company believes that innovation can originate from anywhere, whether the bottom or the top, or the least expected places (Leong, 2013). At one time, a cleaner at our company made a persuasive argument that Shell Oman has a moral obligation to ensure that it decreases pollution. She suggested that polybutylene pipes that Shell Oman used were corrosive once exposed to chlorine, and suggested that the company needed to research on better pipes. Her ideas were later adopted. An additional significant tool that the Shell Oman depends on as an innovation management tool is the Google Moderator, which is an internet-based crowd-sourcing tool that allows employees to ask questions, make suggestions or brainstorm and interact online, while at the same time allowing other employees to vote on the best ideas (Google, 2011). The moderator or facilitator of the brainstorming session later examines the ideas and the votes for each idea to determine which idea needs to be pursued further. This has helped to minimise generation of irrelevant, off-topic or overlapping ideas. Kolfschoten (2011) named such redundant ideas Coherence Effect. The tool was adopted based on the premise that when employees hold conversations or meetings, they can let anyone to ask questions, participate in the discussion, and elect the ideas and questions that need to be pursued further. It is a crucial brainstorming tool, which has enabled the company to discover innovative ideas. In my view, the use of Google Moderator shares some similarities with the Osborn-Parnes process, which is a 6-stage process entailing envisioning a problem, collecting information on the envisioned challenge, Problem Finding, Idea Finding, identifying a solution using evaluative criteria and lastly, validating or implementing the solution (Sousa et al 2011). Indeed, during these processes, we have to use our imagination to come up with ideas. Indeed, as Isaksen (1998) suggests, two stages are vital while using the Osborn-Parnes process: problem redefinition, which requires some level of research, and idea generation, which requires some level of discussion or deliberation through brainstorming. For instance, it is through Google Moderator that Shell Oman realised its role in polluting the environment. Consequently, several eco-friendly ideas were conceived. The company depend on innovation to stay ahead of the competition. During one brainstorming session, the key question of interest was how Shell Oman can respond fast to seismic changes in the energy market. The brainstorming session transformed each one, whether a marketer, engineer or designers, into big-thinking futurists. During this period, one of the staff members posed a question on how Shell Oman should respond to climate-change over the next decade. The staff members agreed that the demand for energy worldwide is increasing, and the alternative energy sources would not keep up and that climate-change effects are real and hazardous. At the end of the session, two innovative ideas came up: using eco-friendly designs for company products and, marketing the company as an eco-friendly company. To promote creative thinking, the company has a policy that allows us to dedicate part of our work time pursuing personal projects outside the core work areas (Anon, 2015). This has, specifically been delightful, as it has enabled the employees to be at liberty in setting aside time to pursuit favourite ideas, many of which have enabled product improvement. Still, we do encounter some “blocks to creative thinking,” where as I lead a team of marketers in my jurisdiction, we identified the wrong challenges, which were out of line with what the marketers at the headquarters had envisioned. According to Adams (2005), identification of the wrong challenges due to lack of agreement on critical issues is as barrier to creativity. The marketing team has always suffered intimidation due to unjustified criticism during brainstorming, through Google Moderator. This discourages my unit from creativity because of fear of intimidation by the employees at the headquarters. Hence, lack of success in winning the support of the colleagues discouraged the marketing team from engaging in creativity. Hence, marketing team failed to challenge ideas generated by the marketers during the Google Moderator session. In fact, Sousa et al 2011) warns that despite how convincing an idea may be, it has to be vetted. Company policy is also a key barrier to creativity and innovation, as it is becoming increasingly rigid. Indeed, the decision to disband the policy where the staff could dedicate free time to innovate shows how the company today restricts the potential for creative thinking. One explanation, in my view, is that the company appears to be focusing on larger returns or productivity than creative development. The shift from focusing on creativity and innovation to productivity and revenue generation, as Anderson et al (2014) and Adler et al (2009) confirm, has limited the efforts to dedicate more time to creative development. Conclusion In my view, the work environment at Shell Oman is supportive of creativity and innovation, although it does face some blocks to creativity. Its culture of freedom to think and consult has encouraged innovations. Shell Oman has kept its innovation pipeline fertile by harnessing the creativity of its management, entry level, sales representatives, or support staff to ensure that creative ideas originate from any level. The environment is also supportive, as it provides direct communication to the executive management. The joint brainstorming through Google Moderator and “20% out of work time” policy have led also to discussions and exploration of new ideas and technological insights. These tools are consistent with the Osborn-Parnes process, which ensures that all employees are provided with a mechanism to picture or identify the right problem, search right information, explore the problems, generate the right ideas and identify relevant solutions. The decision to disband the 20 percent free time shows how the company today restricts the potential for creative thinking. The shift from focusing on creativity and innovation to productivity and revenue generation has limited the efforts to dedicate more time to creative thinking. Identification of the wrong challenges and solutions is also a barrier to creativity. In particular, this discourages my unit from creativity because of fear of intimidation or incapacity to attract the support of the employees at Shell Oman headquarters. Recommendations Because of the blocks to creativity, several recommendations are made as follows: Shell Oman needs to provide some form of psychological motivation to induce its marketers to be creative, as the company has tended to concentrate on its engineers and developers and neglected the contribution of the marketing team. The marketing team has always suffered intimidation due to unjustified criticism during brainstorming, through Google Moderator. Shell Oman should, therefore, use Osborn’s model to set rules that limit criticism (Al-khatib 2012). Shell Oman should also use seeding to encourage creativity. This means Shell Oman should prompt its employees at all departments with the perspectives to the problem to prevent distraction that tend to occur when ideas already ideated tend to be continually recaptured in other departments, hence wasting time. This is particularly so in instances where new ideas are needed rather than already conceived solutions. Indeed, Hesse and Hentzen (2002) argue that providing a structure to brainstorm helps scope the brainstorm, which contextualises the problem, as a result saving time. Shell Oman should also adopt quality constraints to benchmark the standards of ideas it expects across its departments. Since, it has different department, similar kinds of innovative ideas or idea of what is good cannot be expected from two departments. 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