Developing Individuals And Team Creativity - Report Example

Developing individual and group creativity Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction The purpose of this report is to find out the creative tools and how creativity is important in any business organization and how organizations encourage creativity. This report also aims at discussing how different canvas business models are implemented in organizations. Furthermore, the report will provide various applications of creative models and how they are important in the businesses not forgetting that implications of these tools as well as their reflection in the business. Creativity is the process of coming up with new ideas and skills for accomplishing tasks and situations that may arise (Anderegg & Gartner 2001). It involves observing both the external and internal factors to make a decision. Creativity develops new ideas on how to design products of a Company so that it will gain competitive advantage over other companies because the created ideas can be unique and hard to be imitated by the competitors. Therefore creativity is of great benefit to the organization. Tesco Company Tesco Company is a public limited Company in Britain which is a multinational grocery and merchandise Company. Its head quarter is in the United Kingdom. It is among the largest revenue earners in the. It was started in 1919 by Jack Kogen. The business grew very first and by 1939, the Company over 100 stores in the UK. Later Tesco diversified its resources into other sectors like clothing industry, electronics and communication services. The first 24hour store was opened in the year 1996. Tesco also expanded to international market. The reason for choosing Tesco Company is that this company has applied creative thinking effectively in entering new markets. It applied creative thinking in entering the South Korean market hence is a good example which has applied creative thinking in its operations. It became the second provider of grocery services in South Korea. The company used Home plus name in entering the South Korean market. At first the Company made losses but instead of quitting the market they continued to remain focused on how they will acquire more stores. Home plus applied creative thinking by taking the stores to where the customers already existed and they can buy the products. This is a creative idea because the Company never left the market but came up with creative ideas on how to get customers. They also became creative by using real displays as those which appear in the stores. They also designed a system by which a customer can order for product through a phone. By use of virtual store campaign they managed to improve their sales as well as making more new customers. In this regard I chose Tesco because it's the best example of how creativity will help a company to solve the issues at hand. Business model canvas Business model canvas is a tool for management that is used to develop other business models. It is a chart that shows the organizations’ value position, the key partners, activities, resources, the channels of distribution, the relationship of the customers, the finance structure and the revenues for the organization. Tesco Company puts more interest on its key partners. It reaches out its customers through advertisements of the products on facebook and on Farmville. It has a strong buyer-supplier relationship. This will attract and maintain customers. The key activity of Tesco includes Purchasing goods, their delivery, Total cost control and being innovative with the existing products so as to meet the customer demands. Key resources lead to creation of contents that will be used by marketing department to market the products so as to reach many customers and include human resources, physical resources and company culture. Value position shows how Tesco differentiates itself from the competitors by gaining competitive advantage through offering good quality products, reducing the cost of production and appropriate pricing. Customer relationship of Tesco is achieved by free interactions between the Company and the customers at the social sites like the facebook page and the home page of the Company. The channel of distribution of Tesco is between the production site and the customer service point which is faster thus increasing the value position of Tesco. Market segmentation clearly illustrates how Tesco has divided its market into units called segments that include Middle class, Young People, family class, Low income earners and Value-price shoppers. The cost structure of Tesco shows the monetary effect when the Company is applying different kind of business models with Tesco having a cost-driven structure. Revenue streams show the sources through which the Company gets money from each segment market mainly through selling its own brand and selling goods. The diagram below represents the above explanations of the business model canvas for Tesco Company: Tesco Company – Business Model Canvas Creativity tools Tools for creativity are the ways in which an organization will generate new ideas and solutions to problems. The following are some of the tools for improving creativity either individually or as a group; Team structures as a creative tool (Pink 2005). When people come together and reason as a team they are likely to come up with better ideas than an individual. Therefore when there are teams in an organization they will generate more and good ideas which are meant to solve the problems of the products. These teams should work like voluntary basis so that the chances of conflicts arising will be minimized and thus the group will work together effectively and generate more good ideas. A good example is Tesco Company which applied team work to enter into new markets. Organizational brainstorming is another creative tool. For an individual to come up with new ideas it takes into account the cooperation of the whole organization. By sharing ideas like moderations by experts will lead to development of new ideas the groups or the individual. Therefore taking the ideas of the employees and transforming into innovative ideas will motivate them to come with more good ideas hence they become creative. Providing incentives will also motivate employees to be creative (Gerald et al 2006). When the employees of the organization receive incentives as a whole and not individual will motivate them to be creative and innovative for the well being of the population hence it promotes creativity and commitment from each employees. Individual incentives may cause conflicts and hatred hence it may not work better than the whole organization incentives. Availability of equipped library, a well equipped library encourages employees to do some research concerning the ideas of products hence they will come up with new ideas and features. The library helps them to have resources for comparison like comparing the performance of the product and projecting the possible performance of adding certain features to the product. Therefore the library makes materials available for conducting research. Breakdown is another tool for creativity. It involves careful exploration of the whole system of production of the products. This system helps the individual to identify the loop holes where necessary changes can be done. Identify stages where some features can be added to the product helps individual to generate new ideas on which feature to add to the product at that stage hence creativity is possible. Encouragement of absence thinking is tool creativity. Absence thinking is all about thinking about the features which are not there. By thinking beyond what is existing the individual or the group will be able to generate new ideas which have not been exhausted hence this thinking leads to generation of new ideas. Uses of creativity in an organization Creative thinking helps organization to develop ideas and skills on how to handle situations in the business environment. Creative thinking enables the organizations to think beyond the already known strategies (Michael 2003). Therefore creative thinking finds solutions to organizations. Creative thinking helps the organization to develop effective policies and procedures. Due to innovation and generation of ideas an organization is able to design strategies which can utilize resources at the lowest cost possible. This is as a result of the modifications made from the existing policies and procedures. Creative tools are used to enhance growth of the organization (Michael 2003). Creativity helps organization to identify strategies for entering new markets and how best they can place their products to the new customers. For example Tesco Company used creative thinking for entering the South Korean market despite other stores which were known by customers to be the best groceries. In this aspect creativity helped the company to grow its business to new places. Creativity tools are used by organizations to gain competitive advantage over other businesses. For instance adding some features to the products of a company will ensure that the products are unique in the market. Uniqueness of the products will lead to less competition from the same products which don’t have these unique features hence these products of the organization will be selected more by the customers than the products of other companies. Creative tools are used to satisfy the customer demands (Anderegg & Gartner 2001). The organization that uses the creative tools is more likely to satisfy the customer demands better. This is because the organization collects some buying trends of the customers from the research and tries to think on how best the products can be improved to satisfy the customers better and increase the sales. This is done by coming up with new ideas to add to the products so as to meet the changes in customers’ demands for example designing clothes which meet the demands of young people. Impact and usefulness of creative tools Creative tools have great impacts on the business. These effects can be positive or negative according to the research conducted. The first positive effect is that creative tools lead to innovations of new products and new processes (Michael 2003). By coming with new ideas which have not been exhausted anywhere the organization will be able to develop new products and processes which will enable the organization to increase its market share through increased sales as well introduction of new products in new markets. This maximizes the profits of an organization. Another effect of creative tools is that it increases the productivity of an individual and the organization as a whole. Creativity ensures that there is effective utilization of resources and that the limited resources are used to produce the maximum products as possible. The employees also come up with better and faster processes of accomplishing tasks thus increasing productivity. Creative tools lead to high performance of the organization (Gerald et al 2006). According to the research this can be achieved because creativity enable the organization to come up with new products and features which will attract the attention of the customers and they will be enticed to buy the products as a result of the good features which are added in the products. This improves the sales of an organization and the market share for its products. Creative tools also lead to increased quality of the products of the organization. This is because creativity identifies better processes for doing tasks as well as adding some features to the product which are value adding. Innovation enables individuals to come up with more viable ideas on how to improve the quality products. Reflection of creative tools Reflection of the creative tools is very important for nay organization. Reflection of theses tools provide the external and internal feedbacks. Internal reflection is where an innovator expresses his or her skills through creativity while external reflection is where the organization shares ideas and information with other people like the customers to come up with products which reflect the will and requirements of the customers. These tools reflect that teamwork in any organization is important for the development of that organization than individual efforts. Teamwork is encouraged because it benefits the whole organization and not personal gains. These tools are also reflecting how the employees can be motivated in order to be creative and innovative as well as the ability of the organization to be effective in the competition for the market share. Creative tools help the organization to reflect the growth rate of the organization. These tools help the organization to evaluate the rate at which the employees become innovative. If the employees come up with ideas more frequently it will reflect that the organization is growing in terms of diversification of resources. This means that the organization has grown to the extent of providing drives for change like the equipped libraries. Creative tools also reflect the good relationship between the employees and management. When the employees’ efforts of creativity are appreciated collectively that is all employees enjoy the incentives as result from the increased performance of the organization it will reflect the good relationship between employees and the management. Productivity is only improved as a result of good relationship among the employees. Good relationship leads to creativity of employees because they can share ideas and skills with the aim of improving organization productivity. Finally, creativity reflects the good management of the organization. When the employees work hard to be innovative it reflects the good management of the organization which involves recognizing the efforts of employees’ by giving rewards to motivate them. Poor management does not motivate the employees hence no innovation among the employees. Conclusion According to the research done in this report, it is recommended that for any organization which aims at improving its business activities it should apply the above creative tools to encourage creativity among its employees. For any organization which intends to capture the attention of the customers it needs to motivate its employees to be creative in processes and features. These features add value to the products of the organization hence it meets the customer demands. Specifically, creativity is more important because it improves the quality of products, it ensures there if efficiency in the production process, it increases performance, it ensures there is flexibility in decision making and it helps in continued improvement of the products (Pink 2005). Some of the creativity drives according to the research include; availability of library, provision of incentives, organizational brainstorming and team structures of the organization. In relation to this report it is expected that the future performance of organizations depends on the creativity of the employees. References Anderegg, D & Gartner, G 2001, Manic dedifferentiation and the creative Process. Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol. 18, p. 365-379. Gerald, J., Mary, C & Mance, M 2006, Creative Leadership: Skills that Drive Change, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications. Michael, J 2003, Adaption-Innovation in the Context of Diversity and Change, New York, Routledge. Pink, D 2005, A Whole New Mind, New York, Riverhead Books. Read More

Tesco Company puts more interest on its key partners. It reaches out its customers through advertisements of the products on facebook and on Farmville. It has a strong buyer-supplier relationship. This will attract and maintain customers. The key activity of Tesco includes Purchasing goods, their delivery, Total cost control and being innovative with the existing products so as to meet the customer demands. Key resources lead to creation of contents that will be used by marketing department to market the products so as to reach many customers and include human resources, physical resources and company culture.

Value position shows how Tesco differentiates itself from the competitors by gaining competitive advantage through offering good quality products, reducing the cost of production and appropriate pricing. Customer relationship of Tesco is achieved by free interactions between the Company and the customers at the social sites like the facebook page and the home page of the Company. The channel of distribution of Tesco is between the production site and the customer service point which is faster thus increasing the value position of Tesco.

Market segmentation clearly illustrates how Tesco has divided its market into units called segments that include Middle class, Young People, family class, Low income earners and Value-price shoppers. The cost structure of Tesco shows the monetary effect when the Company is applying different kind of business models with Tesco having a cost-driven structure. Revenue streams show the sources through which the Company gets money from each segment market mainly through selling its own brand and selling goods.

The diagram below represents the above explanations of the business model canvas for Tesco Company: Tesco Company – Business Model Canvas Creativity tools Tools for creativity are the ways in which an organization will generate new ideas and solutions to problems. The following are some of the tools for improving creativity either individually or as a group; Team structures as a creative tool (Pink 2005). When people come together and reason as a team they are likely to come up with better ideas than an individual.

Therefore when there are teams in an organization they will generate more and good ideas which are meant to solve the problems of the products. These teams should work like voluntary basis so that the chances of conflicts arising will be minimized and thus the group will work together effectively and generate more good ideas. A good example is Tesco Company which applied team work to enter into new markets. Organizational brainstorming is another creative tool. For an individual to come up with new ideas it takes into account the cooperation of the whole organization.

By sharing ideas like moderations by experts will lead to development of new ideas the groups or the individual. Therefore taking the ideas of the employees and transforming into innovative ideas will motivate them to come with more good ideas hence they become creative. Providing incentives will also motivate employees to be creative (Gerald et al 2006). When the employees of the organization receive incentives as a whole and not individual will motivate them to be creative and innovative for the well being of the population hence it promotes creativity and commitment from each employees.

Individual incentives may cause conflicts and hatred hence it may not work better than the whole organization incentives. Availability of equipped library, a well equipped library encourages employees to do some research concerning the ideas of products hence they will come up with new ideas and features. The library helps them to have resources for comparison like comparing the performance of the product and projecting the possible performance of adding certain features to the product. Therefore the library makes materials available for conducting research.

Breakdown is another tool for creativity. It involves careful exploration of the whole system of production of the products.

Read More