Entrepreneurship and Innovation - Assignment Example

Course: Student’s Name: Institutional Affiliation: ENTERPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION A process of designing, launching and running a business is referred to as entrepreneurship. Mostly, it’s usually a small business which consists of a product, service or process available for either sale or hires. People who come up with such businesses and vent into them are known as entrepreneurs. Innovation is only said to be new ideas or better methodologies in a business environment. Technically, it is where new requirements and needs are applied. Part 1 ORGANIZATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS This section discusses some organisational features that facilitate innovation that helps it move from its functional model to a product design approach to enable it align its products with current demands in the market Garud et al. (2017; John et al., 2014). In this case, the group in the topic is FUBU which is an American cloth-line founded by Daymond John in the year 1992. This organization consists of t-shirts, denim jeans, baseball caps, football jerseys, shoes and much more. FUBU’s innovational approaches include: Clarity of Direction- FUBU has a clear and well-defined direction. Here, every associate and the team as a whole have the knowledge regarding what the company needs and how to go about it (Chan et al., 2017). Daymond had a strategic plan that he followed through which made FUBU grow into the big brand it currently. In as much as it just started out as a hobby, Daymond, moved on to greater heights ensuring meeting the objective of the company in terms of strategic development to reach even further improvement in service standards. Clarity on the body structures- This means that the technicalities and tasks of an organization have to be properly understood (Austin, 2012). This approach has helped FUBU reduce any errors or near misses that might happen to avoid the company organization from incurring losses. Clarity of measurement- Daymond set clarity of management for FUBU. Some of the initiatives take included increase of customer support through effective use of sales budgets, increase automation levels in all products to minimize labour costs. Actually, these were performance standards that led FUBU to grow. Lucky goal achievements- Having decided what must be done and knowing how to get it done one has to ensure it is successfully done. Currently, FUBU is among the biggest companies in the world by checking their bargaining power of suppliers and rivalry between current competitors in the market. Problem-solving- How to solve these problems is what matters (Austin, 2012). The problem-solving criteria have to be non-political and healthy. Daymond is a good example. FUBU has suffered a number of financial losses. These are some of the challenges experienced in businesses. However, the company has gained competitive advantage through low research and development, marketing and production budgets to solve its problems (Chan et al., 2017). Part 2 TASK 1: ORGANIZATIONAL STUDY The organization in the discussion is the Samsung Company. Samsung goes way back in the year 1938 when it was founded by a Korean called Lee Byung-Chul. Initially, it was not an electronic company but as a trading company but later ventured into electronics. This led to a massive growth in the company. The Samsung group has a patent circumvention during innovations. It has two specific competitors; Google and Apple. However, their innovation is centralized in focusing on increasing automation in low-end and traditional segments than high-end, performance and size segments (Kraus et al., 2017). This approach ensures that they are after the patents where their opponents seem to have protection. Secondly, they come up with a charter around its competitors’ ideas, and this makes them innovative. Basically, this is a case of maintaining low cost through efficient business operations. Additionally, the company has made a close relationship with the Russian Academy of Science. The Samsung group helps the Academy to exploit its inventions and also increase its count while the Russian Academy of Science offers cheap fundamental science to Samsung. For instance, the Russian brains helped Samsung to develop chips that were used in digital televisions and also assisted in refining its technology. This alliance has significantly led to the innovation and success of Samsung this leading in low investments in sales and promotion budgets which increase consumer awareness Hornsby et al. (2017). The bedrock of innovation in Samsung was the invention of TRIZ. TRIZ is a procedure for a systematic problem-solving. The innovation requests users to seek any clarifications or contradictions in the current technology or maybe customer needs. In this innovation Samsung saved over $100 million dollars in its first few projects since the emergence of TRIZ (Hornsby et al., 2017). The innovation further helped it to target its ideas and innovations towards specific competitors. Related to TRIZ is that Samsung has heavily invested in its people coupled with extensive training which has led to its innovative culture. Moreover, it has a repeatable procedure and forms elite creations. With the latest inventions, Samsung is proving to be the best, formidable and heavily giving it the ability to develop product that has unique attributes that desired by their customers. TASK 2: PRODUCTS’ INNOVATIVENESS Samsung has focused their innovation on strategic ideas in technology. Due to the wide range of products that are manufactured in the industry, this study focuses on the mobile communications field. Niccum et al. (2017) observed that for any organization to be successful there must be two types of technological strategies and innovations. These include the internal and external information. The exterior information involves the potentiality of technologies and how to ensure the technology is worthwhile for the business to develop. The internal communication consists of the resources as well as the capabilities of the firm for it to run smoothly. Previous studies noted that Samsung electronics had been were insignificant, cheap and of low-quality. However, its innovations have led it to be one of the leading sellers of high end phones and electronics that are sought for across the world (Alam et al., 2011). For instance, introduction of Samsung Galaxy with innovative features is seen as new high-end product that helps eliminate low-end product when it delivers negative outcome. These new devices, technology and designs seem to blend in properly. In the manufacturing of their latest mobile and LCD television sets, the company has utilised double diamond model as show below. This approach has been an innovative process for Samsung to ensure that they choose the most appropriate strategy for their products the phases are: –Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver. Figure 1: Samsung’s Double Diamond Approach Again, for it to retain its competitive nature in the market, the company has adopted research and development in its product innovativeness. This kind of approach has enabled Samsung to remain as an innovative company all this while. There was also the development of research and development staff which helped in the development of new technologies (Alam et al., 2011). The Samsung Company has developed a comprehensive academic-based support program to help align the needs of the organization (Senker, 2015). This is made possible with the development of the young minds of the students in the academic field. This enables the company to utilize new technology and protect itself from litigation. The company is aiming towards increasing its number of patents as they work in close partnerships to help secure the licenses. These alliances include; QUALCOMM, Toshiba, IBM, and Microsoft. These partnerships enable Samsung Company to acquire the go ahead of a broad range of technologies thus gaining competitive advantage through innovative products. The strategy and technology has firmly centered in the making of smart phones, Android's operating system and creating more products. Due to this, it has been able to develop a stronger base and differentiate itself from its competitors. The use of innovation and how the company has managed the innovations and inventions are what make Samsung successful. It is evident in many of Samsung’s products for instance; Samsung electronics have developed Smart TVs which have a slot at the back that enables the customers to remain up-to-date with the current technology thus campaigns a calculated persuasive approaches with an aim of convincing buyers to buy or use a given product. Regarding the design, Samsung is up front. For instance, it has created a day and night Samsung exhibition which gives a perfect duo that has been formed by two different worlds that sum up to bring out a modern concept of television. The 2016 SAHDs televisions have outstanding contrast in colors, ultra-realistic images features (Hoboken, 2013). This type of technology can transform light from all colors of the visible spectrum---making it possible without affecting the level of luminosity. The innovation offers exceptional high dynamic range for contrast in dark and light images. Samsung has formed an alliance with the Bouroullec brothers who came up with the idea of the Samsung Serif TV. This unique product not only reflects the life style of a consumer but also has integrated the cutting-edge technology. It ensures that the innovation creates objective assurance and independent process designed to look at its innovative environment so as to create an approach that add value and improve the organisation’s operations. Samsung chose Bouroullec brothers because of their ability to emphasize on aesthetics. These brothers created a piece of furniture that not only fits in any environment but was one of the most original designs ever created. The innovation relies on the imitation of the previous model. We notice this through the observance of Samsung smart phones. They are similar in design as well as their functions to ensure that as it works in a competitive environment, its innovations critically assess both internal and external factors within different theoretical framework. Both its internal and external innovations indicate that the smart phone market has been a significant rise in the company (Devin et al., 2012). It is advisable for the company to keep pursuing this area as it is one of the great areas that benefit the enterprise. It is also desirable that the operation to reduce the reliance on technology under Apple.inc so that they can enhance model of matrix of business operations organized to produce, plan and promote mega market services, goods and ideas needed for the satisfaction of identified customer needs. Developing a stronger strategy for marketing will ensure the consumers are in the know and can differentiate between the products of Samsung and those from other companies. Task 3: MARKETING From the surface, it is argued that Samsung is confusing consumers by producing a large number of smart phones such that they have no idea which one to pick. Again, some would criticize the company for manufacturing products with the same design, similar features but with different names and maybe at a higher or a lower price. However, these are marketing plans as well as structured marketing mix where they have developed slogans as their marketing tools they use to pursue its marketing objective in the targeted market. Indeed, Samsung has influenced the world through commercial awareness (Stoakes, 2014). Commercial awareness is the knowledge to know how businesses operate, give the customers what they want and ability to find out where a particular problem lies, or come up in a particular field and the knowledge to solve the problems (Hornsby et al., 2017). One of the key operating principles of the Samsung marketing mix is to meet specific group of customers to be embedded within their technologically advanced phones so as to have a financial ability to deal with the competitors. Therefore, adoption of commercial awareness helps entrepreneurs in the company to know the core values of the business, the biggest competitors concerning their business and the stakeholders. Samsung is a good example of a company that managed to beat all the odds in the industry hence emerging at the top of the pyramid through commercial awareness (Hackley, 2010). Some of the measures the company took involved: Understand the organization or business Learn the resources and suppliers Understand his/her customers Know competitors and follow through silently Understand development so as to know what to do when incurring losses Marketing products is diverse and volatile. Diversification of a product might be costly and risky, but it is a good strategy for a growing business (Stoakes, 2013). Samsung has developed strong brand reputation and this can be attested to the fact that it has engange in product diversification and it is operating where there are different and many types of people; from various demographic backgrounds. Furthermore, their marketing strategy involves two steps. Consequently, Samsung has partnered with FOX channel based in the United States to advertise their products. It also partnered with the popular TV show Jimmy Kennel live and Jimmy Fallon as well. Samsung is also utilizing viral marketing (Garud et al., 2017). These marketing approaches have ensured that it remains competitive and strategise how their customers will be influenced by their place or location of the product, quality of their product, pricing model and how their product is positioned when compared with other competing companies. Sales Promotion is a marketing tool in Samsung Company (Reuvid, 2011). Moreover, Samsung contains announcements on sales promotion on digital cameras, smart phones, school offers, accessories and many others. When new technological features were added, it resulted in some benefits for the company. The new form of technology created a market as an innovator. This led to the company having a first competitive advantage. If at all there will be a positive reception of the market, an innovator will always have a competitive advantage. Innovation promotes differentiation—or something in particular that competitors lack and consumers might find quite appealing. In a competitive market (a pushing market) the key to success is through pushing one's idea or product through advertising strategies as well as sales strategies (Mullins et al., 2013). Samsung ensures this happens as it has invested heavily in traditional advertising like other big companies such as Coca-Cola aiming to have well-cordinated actions that are focused at reaching the company’s product services. Samsung has ventured into “push market” by using endorsements from celebrities and spot placements in some of the major events for example sports. The company has focused on pull market strategy where consumers are drawn towards their products. The whole idea behind the pull market strategy is to create a way stronger brand image thus helping them make decision when it comes to structure, services, size and the range of their products to the market. Samsung does not only rely on Push market strategy but also the pull market strategy through social media advertisement; it tries to create a rapport with its customers. The company has networked with retailers from all over to help with the distribution of Samsung products. It has also come up with discount offers. These approaches contribute towards motivating their customers as well as trade partners to help distribute their products. Through this kind of a relationship with the carriers and distributors, Samsung has ensured that its products remain visible in the market. Task 4: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL IMPACT ON THE VENTURE Economic Impact Samsung has had quite an enormous impact on both the economic and social factors. The company has achieved massive economies of scale. This means that Samsung has enough capital to make more inventions hence further increasing its production and employability. This is conceptualized by its large factories and plants across the world helping in production and accommodation of their products. The economic position has further helped it realize the role of cooperate social responsibility policies in upstream and downstream relationships. The biggest factory/plant owned by Samsung is the Gumi plant which is located in Korea. It produces 400 million phones in a day (Wootton, 2016). It therefore means that it focuses more on the cost-side of its business and service quality through an integrated approach to management control systems, including upstream suppliers but benefiting the general public through its strong economic base. For Samsung to stay top of the pyramid, it has to take note of its competitor’s next move. Samsung has the capability of achieving a wider profit margin due to its inventions. It has increased the turmoil in currency as well as the financial markets. Social impact To achieve its social impact, has an elaborated corporate social responsibility achieved by a blueprint on environmental issues, internal stakeholder management and supply chain integration (Wootton, 2016) for instance, during the launch of Samsung Galaxy 6 it tailored its products in preference to the consumer in the changing market that were in line with its responsible supply chain practices program that has being encouraging specific vendor code of conduct (Wootton, 2016). In a different level, the company is concerned with social practices that seen to reduce effects its products has on the environment. Recently, the company launched five areas of focus named environmental management, corporate governance, product stewardship, occupational health and safety and supplier management (Wootton, 2016). These practices were aimed at reducing the negative impact their products have in the society. Additionally, Samsung has developed a high level feedback and involvement culture with the society where the company has incorporated the society to participate in their corporate social responsibility and looks at the opportunities that encourage independent sustainable behaviours from its suppliers and distributors so that the society benefits from their processes. Finally, the company has adopted elaborate programme that helps them have joint cooperation with the government and other institutions so that it has total commitment to environmental safety and compliance with policy frameworks in the sector. References Alam, Q., & Majumdar, N. A. (2011). Cases in business and management. Prahran, Vic: Tilde University Press. Austin, D. M. (2012). Human services management: Organizational leadership in social work practice. New York: Columbia University Press. Chan, C., Sipes, B. S., & Lee, T. (Eds.). (2017). 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