Organizations Must Innovate to Survive and Thrive - Literature review Example

Organizations must innovate to Survive and Thrive Introduction In the current world of business, just undertaking rigorous marketing and ensuring a consistent supply of products to customers is never enough to achieve organizational sustainability. Therefore, for an organization to achieve the best in terms of profit realization, it must institute innovation strategy towards product and service delivery because innovation is of potential to winning the heart of loyal customers. Weber recommends that an organization innovate to survive and thrive. According to oxford business dictionary, innovation involves renewing or constantly transforming either products or business process with an attempt to increase and improve the existing one. According to Porter & Malloch (2011), business innovation does not only mean inventing, but it embraces the transformation the business model to accommodate current changes such as, improving better service delivery. Being an important aspect in business, innovation has pushed bigger companies to set up specific departments that handle product development while implementing strategies essential to improving product development. However, it cannot be dismissed that small micro enterprise are now short of innovative ideas, but it may be slightly expensive to divert resources to a full time innovative department in such small enterprises. Reasons why organizations must innovate to survive and thrive due to the following reasons: Improves the organizational profit margins It is acceptable that a company should maintain its legacy by engaging in production of unique products with a perception that innovation might make it lose its reputation. However, innovation has proven to increase company’s turnover and its rate of competitiveness thus making an improvement on profit margin. Innovation may not require public sensitization during its initiation process, but its consideration often delivers recommendable benefits after a full implementation. Besides, innovation does not have to be limited to scientific and technological companies because; it requires positive engagement from all the stakeholders of the company. Such initiatives ensure ease in the identification of barriers while sustaining minimal resistance from the organizational members (Porter & Malloch, 2011). The innovation process in a business always subjects an organization to incur many expenses such as the amount required in handling feasibility study and hiring the expatriates for the evaluation processes. However, there is no doubt that an innovation is essential to the success of the business. There are clarifications that most businesses that have incorporated the process of innovation thrive in contrary to the ones that have stagnated and ends being wiped out. Organizations that embrace innovation are capable of determining future trends of customer’s demands. It helps in identifying the current and future opportunities while anticipating towards achieving such goals and missions of the company. Innovation allows businesses to adjust quickly to the future market demands and this make companies to be always ahead in the competition during shift in business and technological transformation (Porter & Malloch, 2011). Innovation cultivates competitive trends Innovation runs right through the heart of the business, especially through the platform of technology, this helps in rapid identification of positive ways to quickly improve on the customers’ demands that later translate into positive returns to the company affirms (Porter & Malloch, 2011). Conversely, this comes at a price because the cost of setting up a technological interface within an organization is often high. For instance during first time acquisition innovative systems, an organization would put them to test and implementation before being allowed to assume full control of the innovative process. Besides, innovation is part of creative development in a company. It creates an avenue through which an organization is acquainted with creativity that is always that perceives healthy for growth and development of the company. Employees in an innovative company, when made to understand the value for creativity, will explore the skills and open up opportunities to further business skills or ideas of the current market trend. Porter & Malloch (2011) clarifies that innovation allows companies to practice full exploitation of its resources. The process does not only engaged in the creation of new product for sale, but it also put much focus on how to uplift the current status of the business while improving on service delivery to the customers. An organization that is on a continuous process of innovation often attracts potential employees thus leading to a pool of skills and expatriates, which are detrimental to long term success of the company. On contrary, this does not go well with the employees who feel that the innovative trend reduces workforce dependency hence creating high chance of losing job opportunities. However, the potential of generating a skilled workforce becomes so high due abundant labor expatriates who can always assume positions left by unskilled labors, and this improves productivity levels. Organizational value improvement While the art of innovation is expected to bring a mutual reduction in the operation costs to the company, it may incur unprecedented cost to the organization. In essence, an organization may be forced to bear the cost of putting up the technology needed to implement the innovative process. Nonetheless, this would be insignificant in the end because, innovation brings the business to the upfront where it gains popularity and adds value to the products. Moreover, it allows a business to gain commercial advantage in highly competitive markets. It enlightens an organization positively by giving it more opportunities to attract customers as majority are always willing to buy improved, sophisticated products that more improved than seeking cheaper products that have minimal value. Besides, innovation is one of the leadership development processes vital to instilling the art of creativity among the organizational leaders. Through this process, leaders of an organization always learn new tips to be more innovative. It helps in organizational image sustainability and brand maintenance (Porter & Malloch, 2011). Innovation expands the market radius The expansive use of social media in an innovative campaign makes it easier to manage and motivate an organization. While focusing on issues of high potentials to growth and development of the organization, social media may be used for innovative perspective to draw a pool of ideas from a wide range of population. The use of such media creates an avenue to solicit ideas about customers’ idea concerning the products or the management of an organization thus uplifts the organizational standards. Despite the fact that the use of social media is subjective to exposing privacy of the company, it positively identifies and improves the organizational competitiveness in the global market. Besides, the technological advantage brought by media exposes the business to understand current transformation in the business thus detrimental for future quality improvement (Porter & Malloch, 2011). Based on the social media aspect, innovation is needed to cope up with the high customer’s expectation. In the current business environment, most customers are less patient to stagnate on products that do not embrace modern standards. As such, modern generations think about such products as stressful, tired and are of less value (Porter & Malloch, 2011). Moreover, with innovation cycles becoming too short, companies that engage in vigorous, innovative process are, therefore, in a constant generation of returns. Such companies are well understood by the customers because, in modern business environment; customer is not only interested in the product, but moving towards a solution to their problems. This is a clear identification that for an organization to reap economies of scale in the current business world then it must consider innovation among its strategies (Porter & Malloch, 2011). Innovation is an Insight of culture of transformation Porter & Malloch (2011) explains that every company develops fever when it comes to the transformation process in either, products, service or management because they have priorities and specific issues in their top most list of the agency. Besides, companies tend to slug about innovation due to fear of losing competitiveness brought by introduction of new brands. This is dismissed by the fact that innovation is a successful change in direction that alters the organizational policies of investments. As such, it creates sustainable balance in current products in liaison to future development. This is substantial to improving market share of the business while generating more return on the future capital of the business, therefore, a component to the success of the business. When an organization embraces innovation, it creates a culture of successes both internally and externally to the competitors as an alarm towards development. By incorporating business development models such as, development model, the company creates an image of success towards improving the quality of products and service delivery. In addition, it draws a pool of investors, therefore, reducing chances of failure because more investors would mean more capital potentiality. Furthermore, companies are at liberty to choose from different approaches of innovations for instance incremental process that involves buying of new ideas to support an existing alternative. By incorporating modern solutions to run concurrently with already existing ideas, helps in minimizing the cost of innovation thus improving the organizational returns in the end (Porter & Malloch, 2011). Innovation bridges the gap between entrepreneurship and success Since the act of entrepreneurship is based on creativity and innovation, therefore, for an organization to be distinct from each other then it must cultivate a culture of innovation and creativity. By expressing innovative ideas in an organization, entrepreneurs indicate signs of extreme novelty and creativity aimed at improving economic sustainability of the business. Innovation is an experimental concept that allows for risks and evaluation, in such a case it is used by the company in evaluating and analyzing of risk. This is a bigger effort in determining the future prospects of the company. Besides, it helps in the transformation of habitual entrepreneurial behavior into a success full thought of the company (Porter & Malloch, 2011). Conclusion For an organization to be successful and improve its productivity then it must consider innovation within its strategies of achieving a competitive edge. Therefore, an organization it is an organization oriented towards future prosperity that develops innovative ideas and considers future opportunity in a comprehensive manner. In order to be sustainable in the current business environment, an organization must consider innovation, as something that future oriented business must learn to embrace in their strategy. This paper has also clarified that some of the business tend to compare the cost of innovation to additional costs incurred by the business, but the reality is that, long-term benefits achieved by the company exceed the cost incurred during the implementation process. Moreover, it is stated that innovation enables the business to gain commercial in a congested market conditions because, it enlightens an organization positively thus attract more customers as majority are always willing to buy products that are believed to be of high value. In conclusion, companies must innovate to Survive and Thrive. Reference list: Porter, T & Malloch, K. (2011). Quantum leadership: advancing innovation, transforming health care.Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Read More