MyOrgUK - Innovation in a Retailing Company - Case Study Example

Enterprise and Innovation Company Profile MyOrgUK is a retailing company that has been operating since the year 2000. It is food retailer chain that provides numerous products to its customer in good prices. The company aims to provide convenience food items, groceries, and non-food items like electronics, toys, sports equipment, etc. The company is expanding and increasing its market share by adopting a low-cost strategy to increase sales and profitability. In this regard, it is important to understand the nature of business and internal processes taking place within the organization so that they can instill an effective plan of action to increase their market share in the coming years. As a retailer, the company strives to target middle-class customers, as well as elite class. In this regard, they have an established clientele and loyal customers, but currently, the company looks forward to expanding itself globally. Nature of Business The company started its operations as a small store which is now expanded locally, thus the nature of business relates to selling general consumer products to its loyal customers through different distribution channels. These business activities have been operating through word of mouth, but the store promotes itself through catalogues, online website and promotional schemes. Currently, the retail store has engaged in wholesale distribution of its products as well to about 550 retailers in and around UK. Challenges faced by the company The company’s management wants to expand internationally thus, in this regard and they need to have investments opportunities and increased market share in order to cater to large audiences. In order to cultivate better prospects for the company, a seminar was held with the stakeholders and competitor’s clients to talk about the plans of the company to win better market share through business excellence, entrepreneurship and innovative workforce. However, a memorandum was sent shortly afterwards as the CEO was unconvinced about the plans put forward by the management to make improvements in increasing market share. Hence, the management needs to identify the means of building and sustaining entrepreneurship through encouragement, and innovative procedures that can help the business to flourish and have an understanding of obstacles that may have an impact on the procedures. The management is focusing on an implementation plan in order to convince the CEO about their strategy to achieve the stated goals of the company. Role of Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurs are operational or marketing heads who have the means and the authority to control their working, improve their business practice to achieve positive outcomes for the company. In other words, they are concerned with economic development of the country. Thus, in order to improve business practices, entrepreneurs can be exploited to bring in new and innovative ideas to increase profitability margins for the company (Kuratko 2013). A company can increase its share value by either focusing on profitability by monetary gain and also by focusing on non-monetary worth i.e. building and sustaining Goodwill to enhance its business activities (Trehan and Treha 2009 p.196). Focus on building and sustaining Goodwill In order to increase market share, entrepreneurs shall be encouraged to focus on building the Goodwill for the company. This can be carried out by focusing on training entrepreneurs in customer service and sales department. In this regard, it is vital to state the goodwill can only be established if the company provides excellent goods and services to its customers, where the staff is polite and courteous, and there is quick, convenient delivery of their products. These traits shall help the organization become a recognized brand name, and its goodwill shall increase (Tremblay and Tremblay 2012, p.394). Entrepreneurs need to be devoted to the company, to stay active, polite in order to build goodwill. Focus on sales and profitability In order to gain sales and increase profitability, the company needs to focus on developing a productive workforce that works with innovation in marketing and sales department to promote the products of the company. In this regard, the entrepreneurs need to be encouraged by the management to work with devotion (Birn, 2004 p.185). The following steps can be taken by the management to encourage entrepreneurship to enhance profitability, increase sales and gain market share. Ways to encourage Entrepreneurship Focusing on Organizational culture Entrepreneurship can be encouraged if they are given an effective working environment where they are inspired to work with devotion and commitment. A good corporate culture would not just make the environment relaxing but encourage creativity, and cultivate the mind towards developmental opportunities which are very essential for personal and professional growth (Davila et al. 2007). Employee Engagement In order to encourage entrepreneurs, the company shall install effective engagement processes where key employees would be required to communicate and give their opinions about various decisions taking place in the organization. This engagement process shall help young entrepreneurs explore themselves and communicate ideas for learning opportunities. Employee engagement can be practiced by conducting weekly meetings to discuss the roles, opportunities, grievances and other important matters of employees (Bennett 2014). Motivating Entrepreneurs through incentives Entrepreneurs can be encouraged by motivating them through intrinsic and extrinsic award system so that they remain focused on building their interpersonal or technical skills and bring an innovative change in the company. Intrinsic awards include praise, recognition and extrinsic award system include bonuses, promotion, etc. (Hess 2004p.211). Delegating work, autonomy and assigning challenging tasks An independent worker who can step outside his paradigm to work for others when tasks are delegated shows that he is confident to work whole heartedly for the company. Thus, the company would start delegating challenging tasks to make these entrepreneurs take responsibility of their duties. Assigning challenging tasks shall also help entrepreneurs boost their self-esteem to work whole heartedly for the company (Burggraaf et al. 2008, p.181). Training and development Entrepreneurs can be encouraged by identifying their weaknesses and installing an effective training and development plan so that they can make advancements in their career and polish their skills towards innovation and creativity. As the company is striving to increase their market share, employees would be encouraged to participate in those programs where the entrepreneurs can create new and innovative ideas in the marketing department to promote their products. Moreover, the company shall focus on improving problem-solving skills of customer sales representatives so that they can answer all the queries of the customers and solve their issues in an effective manner (Morris et al., 2010 p.190). Though, the above-mentioned motivational schemes and implementation plans can be adopted by MyOrgUK, but while encouraging the young entrepreneurs, the following obstacles can be faced by the management. Obstacles Low Self-confidence: While encouraging entrepreneurs, management may feel that entrepreneurs have a low self-esteem or confidence which may hinder their personal and professional development. The low self-esteem may be because the entrepreneur may have a fear of failing to find innovative procedures for product or service enhancement (Burggraaf et al. 2008). Procrastination: An entrepreneur may also procrastinate and apply limited effort to accomplish his tasks. Though, encouragement and incentives may motivate the employee to exert himself but procrastination is a habit which is at times difficult to break (Frese, 2009, p.14). Lack of relevant knowledge about Market As the main role of an entrepreneur is to build and sustain growth and development of the product, thus even if the employee is encouraged, he may have no access to relevant knowledge or expertise to increase the worth of the company (Lopes 2012, p.99). Lack of relevant knowledge of customers There are cases when entrepreneurs fail to have an understanding of their target market and its potential customers. This shall hinder the entrepreneur’s working capacity to stay motivated at work (Lopes 2012). Lack of Business Plan The management may have problems in getting effective results from entrepreneurs even when they are being encouraged to do because there is no business or implementation plan that can help them identify the key areas to increase sales and market share for the company (Perrini 2006, p.97). Other Obstacles There are many other obstacles the management may face like changing nature of the customers due to actions of primary competitors, and lack of relevant resources that can have an impact on the work of entrepreneurs, lack of qualified staff, lack of finances and improper network (Perrini 2006, p.97). An Analysis It is important to state while the company is positioning itself in the market; MyOrgUk needs to have an understanding about the nature of the competitors and to find out where they are positioning themselves in the market. Moreover, it is important to identify the attributes that are unique in the company and uncommon in competitors. The company also needs to have an understanding of the products to see if they are catering to customer needs. While expanding, it would be appropriate to determine the unique features of the place where the new branch of the outlet is needed to be allocated. Hence, in order to achieve the organizational objective to expand the company globally, it is necessary to remove the mentioned obstacles faced by the management. The following steps taken by the management shall help them overcome the obstacles that occur when entrepreneurs are motivated towards productivity. An understanding of the market structure An entrepreneur can be motivated towards work if they are given a proper implementation plan. They need to have an understanding of the market structure in terms of its size in UK industry, and then the market structure in terms of retailing and then the potential growth prospects of the industry, trends and potential to extend itself through sales of its products (Lopes 2012). The market analysis shall help generate an understanding of the aggregate sales of the competitors and comparisons can be carried out in this regard to estimating the potential growth of MyOrgUK. Understanding of target market The second step of the entrepreneur would be to determine the target market. The target market would allow the company to concentrate on addressing the users who have a certain amount of influence on the company. In the case of MyOrgUK, it shall help understand how the market segmentation can work to improve itself to increase market share. The segmentation factors include geographic, customers and products. In any case, if the product is more demanded in a specific geographical location, it shall help the entrepreneur to determine the target market and, as a result, the company take effective measures to increase the sales of the product in that particular geographical segment. Likewise, once a company has an understanding of the target segment and geographical area where the products of the company are demanded then it would be easier to identify the gaps within the market (Lopes 2012). Business Plan The company shall construct a business plan that would consist of the estimates of the market share for a period of next two years. In this regard, it is important to understand that industry growth would increase the number of customers but these customers would increase with time. Moreover, the business plan would provide the company’s positioning strategy. The positioning strategy is required for a company to allocate the branches of the retail store at different location where there is more demand of the products (Perrini 2006). Advantages Market share can be increased if the company adopts a strategy that focuses on encouraging entrepreneurship. In this regard, it is essential to state that an entrepreneur should be familiar with marketing strategies and market analysis. Knowledge and awareness of market analysis helps the entrepreneur have an understanding of the position of the market that helps identify the target market that can be approached garner increase in sale. An entrepreneur can use market analysis as a means to understand and allocate effective pricing, distribution and marketing strategies to develop profitable business that allows growth within the retail industry. In other words, it can be said that market analysis provides an understanding of the competitive forces to instill an effective plan that focuses on building future of the business (Morris et al. 2010). In the same way, a business plan shall also help entrepreneurs implement an action plan that can be followed to achieve the organizational objective. An entrepreneur who is motivated through right incentives, trained and engaged towards productivity can provide prospects for the company provided there is a supportive working environment (Kuratko 2013). A retail company can expand laterally if entrepreneurs can install an effective plan that captures a market condition where there is very limited competition. Furthermore, it is necessary to identify strategies for market penetration and find investment opportunities for growth opportunities. The company should have a good amount of capital that it can spend to increase its market share (Kuratko 2013). Projecting Market Share The company requires building a marketing plan that estimates the working of the company to protect their market share. It depends on how much the company is willing to distribute its projects, costs associated with it and promotional schemes that can be adopted in this market through effective entrepreneur practices. Systems to promote innovation Rapid advancement in technology and dynamic global conditions has persuaded existing retailing organization to improve their performances in order to maintain their edge in the market (George and Rodger 2010). Persistent innovation and creativity are the key elements to allow organization to enhance its long-term value. Innovation System focuses on the flow of technology and information in an organization through enhanced interaction between the decision makers and employees that can allow the organization to implement effective ideas in its operations (George and Rodger 2010). However, these decisions shall be made carefully as the inappropriate decisions shall impose adverse effects on the performance of the organization. George and Rodger (2010) in his study highlights the significance of innovation systems stating that the ‘innovation system involves a series of choices that allow the organization to maximize its long-term value (George and Rodger 2010).’ It is essential the organization should carefully identify its organizational mission, core values and business goal and shall be effectively incorporated in its innovation system. MyOrgUK system shall determine its responsibility and develop innovation system that motivates it employees and enhance organization performance and profitability. In order to attain higher share value, it is recommended that the MyOrgUK should first of all market and emerging business opportunities. Thus, smart business system should be incorporated in the business practices to improve its market share value through utilizing appropriate information system that provides comprehensive underlying to the management and decision makers of the organization. MyOrgUK shall adopt smart systems that shall allow the decision maker to have an in-depth understanding about the problems and opportunities (Simms 2010). MyOrgUK is a retailing company. Thus, it is of great importance that the decision makers should quickly assess the demands of its customers and the response to stimuli, it may be technological advancement, change in customer tastes, demands, etc. (Kneer 2013). The following are advices to be most-effective innovation system: Knowledge Management System (KMSs) MyOrgUK is operating in the different regions of United Kingdom and aims to expand its business overseas. Hence, Knowledge Management System shall be one of the most-effective innovation systems that can be implemented to improve corporate efficient, as it provides a defined framework, tools and techniques for the organization to make use of its intellectual assets (Anderson and Ackerman 2010). It allows an organization’s decisions maker to identify problems, opportunities and responsiveness to improve practices of the organization through developing effective interactions between its employees, multinational organization and decision maker (Gareth 2010). The main elements that are essential for the knowledge management are knowledge discovery, organization and sharing. The organization may survey or make use of its feedback or comments that are collected from the individuals; the discovery of knowledge is based on the ideas of individuals that can be an organization according to the preference of the organization structure (Gareth 2010). The management of the organization can extract appropriate ideas and incorporate in their strategies to overcome the gap prevailing in the organization. United Kingdom has diversified workforce, thus overcoming organizational gap is of great significance (Richard and Kang 2010). The implementation of knowledge management system can be one of the most effective as it enables the decision makers to compare, analyze the trends through historical and current knowledge. One of the significant aspects of this system is that it quickly determines the change in the trends that is one of the most important for the retailing organization. In the economic crisis decline in the consumer behaviors was one of the major threat for the retailing sector, therefore in such situation Knowledge Management System shall be one of the sources to analyze the trend (Richard and Kang 2010). It allows the decision makers to determine the change quick and provide accurate predictive approaches to deal with the changes. In addition, it provides platform for the decision makers to evaluate present progress of the organization and compare with its objectives and goals. In other words, it provides a critical approach for decision makers of the organization to assess organization progress and meet its objectives and goals (Richard and Kang 2010). The growing competition in the retailing organization is one of the crucial aspects can be overwhelmed through implying competitive and innovate strategies. The implementation of Knowledge Management System shall allow the high level to low-level decision makers to develop competitive advantages that lead the organization to develop competitive advantages, through having insight to the patterns and trends. Knowledge Management System focuses to improve capabilities of its employees and management that can allow the organization to sustain the persistent growth (Richard and Kang 2010). It encourages employees engaged to learn new things, broaden their vision, promotes creativity and innovation in the organization (Richard and Kang 2010). It provides an opportunity for the employees to tailor their knowledge with the latest trends that can allow the work environment flourish with new and latest trends (Winden, van, Braun, Otgaar, and Witter 2014). It provides an opportunity for the business to improve its performance and meet its goal with competitive advantages. One of the prominent elements of Knowledge Management System is that it improves the capabilities of its employee through anticipating latest trends that can allow the organization to achieve its goal, improve its profitability through the implementation of knowledge and related information (Rice and Cooper 2010). Considering advance check-in and checkout system in the organization, information systems (such as, ERPS, data warehouse software, etc.) that have allowed the organization to improve its performance while it has saved time and costs of the organization. Therefore, it is important that MyOrgUK should flexible to determine the change in the trend, for example reducing the carbon emission. Also, energy saving appliances has become one of the cost effective and eco-friendly ways due to which consumers are now inclined to buy these appliances than the other. Thus, the organization should be flexible to change its existing system and adopt the use of advance appliance, systems or software that can allow the organization to improve its performance and maintain its competitive edge in the market (Kneer 2013). List of References Anderson, D., and Ackerman, L. (2010). Beyond Change Management. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Bennett, R.J., (2014). Entrepreneurship, Small Business and Public Policy: Evolution and Revolution. New York: Routledge. Birn, R., (2004). The Effective Use of Market Research: How to Drive and Focus Better Business Decisions. New York: Kogan Page Publishers. Burggraaf, W., Flören, R. and Kunst, J., (2008). The Entrepreneur and the Entrepreneurship Cycle. Assen: Uitgeverij Van Gorcum. Davila, T., Epstein, M.J. and Shelton, R.D., (2007). The Creative Enterprise: Culture. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group. Frese, M., (2009). Toward a Psychology of Entrepreneurship: An Action Theory Perspective. Delft: Now Publishers Inc. Gareth, J. R. (2010). Organizational Theory, Design, and Change. New Delhi: Pearson Education. George, J. A., and Rodger, J. J. (2010). Smart Data: Enterprise Performance Optimization Strategy. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Hess, F.M., (2004). Revolution at the Margins: The Impact of Competition on Urban School Systems. Harrisonburg: Brookings Institution Press. Kneer, C. (2013). Change Managment. Berlin: GRIN. Kuratko, D., (2013). Entrepreneurship: Theory, Process, and Practice. Mason: Cengage Learning. Lopes, I.T., (2012). 7th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. London: Academic Conferences Limited. Morris, M., Kuratko, D. and Covin, J., (2010). Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Mason: Cengage Learning. Perrini, F., (2006). The New Social Entrepreneurship: What Awaits Social Entrepreneurial Ventures? Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing. Rice, R. E., and Cooper, S. D. (2010). Organizations and Unusual Routines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richard, D., and Kang, B. H. (2010). Knowledge Management and Acquisition for Smart Systems and Services. New York: Springer. Simms, H. (2010). Orgnaizational Behaviour and Change management. Cambridge: Select Knowledge Limited. Trehan, M. and Treha, R., (2009). Advertising and Sales Management. New Delhi: FK Publications. Tremblay, V.J. and Tremblay, C.H., (2012). New Perspectives on Industrial Organization: With Contributions from Behavioral Economics and Game Theory. Corvallis: Springer Science and Business Media. Winden, van, W., Braun, E., Otgaar, A., and Witter, J.-J. (2014). Urban Innovation System. New York: Routledge. Read More