Creativity and Innovation - Case Study Example

Creativity and Innovation Name Institution Executive Summary With the increasing level of competition within the market, both the job seekers and creators must improve their innovative skills. Business entities are continuously looking for employees with the potential of improving organizational performance through ensuring that the business activities meet the desire of the customers. In every business opportunity, it is crucial to be creative and innovative in order to stay always ahead with the rising levels of competition. However, creativity and innovation is not enough to guarantee success. Organizations must be able to manage changes on regular basis especially with the advancing level of technology. Moreover, business entities are using both concepts to drive change. Those in managerial positions are recognizing the need of designed thinking method while shaping business marketing strategies. It is from this background that the research would focus on explaining the concept of both innovatively and creativity, nature, and nurture among the employees. Introduction In order to stay on the positive side in relation to competition, businesses need to focus on innovative and creative strategies. Moreover, creating a brand with positive taste and preference among the consumers would require adequate knowledge of the trending issues in the market. It is important to note that within the market, some business competitors often create unstainable marketing strategies. Besides improving organizational performances, creativity and innovation also play crucial role in economic growth. Through effective and efficient innovative strategies, businesses are sure of upholding the quality of the environment. There are several reasons behind the increasing focus on innovation and creativity in many organizations (Burrus, 2013). These reasons include increasing the market shares, capturing of new markets, reduction in environmental degradation, and updating the outdated technologies used within business entities. Globally, innovation is becoming a tool of entrepreneurship. However, it is important to note that both innovation and entrepreneurship require creativity. Companies need to understand more business concepts rather than simply focusing on management discipline and integrity as a method of ensuring better organizational performance (Torres, 2007). Understanding the concept of innovation and creativity Creativity in most cases is used to indicate a change in culture. New ideas are coming into the market and changing the level of competition making business entities to change their marketing strategies. These changes do not only affect the performance of the businesses, but also the perception the consumers about a given product. Therefore, it is important to ensure that the type of creativity and innovation put in place in every business has the ability of improving organizational performance. From this concept, creativity could mean ability to introduce of new ideas into existence. Creativity might involve introduction of a solution to the problem, product in the market, or any artistic work that could help improve the prevailing conditions (Bytheway, 2007). Nonetheless, the implemented creativity might also negatively affect the performance of the business especially if the underlying factors are not taken into consideration. In most cases, creativity is viewed as something new and useful. Both the innovation and creativity are inextricable connected. Moreover, there is interrelation of the processes involved in the concepts since in order to find a solution to a prevailing problem using innovation process requires creativity. The major difference between the two concepts is that innovation covers the practical application of any innovative productive considered marketable. There have been several definitions and concepts relating to innovation. However, all the definitions view innovations as ways of handling technical problems or methods put in place to help foster organizational performance and productivity. To some extent, the main objective of all innovative processes is to help streamline all the technical activities taking place within an organization. Innovation could also refer to both the processes and result of these processes hence commonly referred to as polysemic. In a broader sense, innovation goes beyond science, technology, and the concept and definition differs from one area of specialty to another (Syrett & Lammiman, 2002). Business entities might find it difficult to come up with new ideas. Hence, companies must learn to acknowledge innovation and creativity from any other source if they are to flourish. In order to have an effective and efficient marketing strategy using innovation and creativity technique, it is important to involve the views of other employees. At this point, companies need to encourage personal development among the employees as the key to unlocking potential innovative and creative ideas they have. Moreover, employees must be given the scope to develop new ideas and come up with innovative and creative methods of addressing problems. However, the potential employees seeking the jobs must also begin thinking of innovative and creative ways. At some point, acquiring a job would be difficult even with the experience. Innovative and creative ideas would be the prerequisites of acquiring the jobs. If most businesses were offer employees opportunities to develop their innovative and creative ideas, then there would be organizational culture driven by self-determination (Axelrod, 2008). As a result, this gives them opportunities of thinking and reaching beyond their job descriptions. Besides, business management must also have in mind that empowering the employees to be creative and innovative only works best if the concept is clearly defined in response to organizational needs and expectations of the customers. With the ever-changing market trends, creativity plays an important role in meeting the continuous need of the business. Integration of both creativity and innovation is crucial. If an organization considers creativity as a crucial element of fostering performance, then adoption of intelligent posture as a method of ensuring creative thinking is significant. Every innovation must begin with creative ideas; hence, creativity is considered the starting point of any innovation process. In other words, innovation might be an implantation of a creative inspiration. While considering the concept of innovation, it is important to note that it takes into consideration the existence of a product. Whenever there is an existence of a product or an idea, innovation would mean alteration in the need or the original use (Pratt & Jeffcutt, 2009). However, innovation is considered successful if it exploits the new ideas and help in solving problems people face. Creativity involves the ability to bring a product or idea into existence, existing inventions into new forms, and production through imaginative skills. However, creativity does not mean creation out of nothing since that is impossible, but instead involves ability of generating new ideas through combination and reapplication of the existing ideas while at the same time taking into consideration markets changes. Organizations could improve their performance if all employee were viewed as people with substantive skills. In order to show the ability to create new ideas, being optimistic is very crucial (Hesselbein & Johnston, 2002). Employees and management need change their attitude and acknowledge change in the new need for new ideas. Moreover, creativity involves the ability and willingness of the employees to play with new idea and possibilities. Organizations focusing on creativity and innovations For entrepreneurs, innovation and creativity play a significant role in ensuring that the business is up to date with the trending market issues. The aim of every business is to meet the expectations of the customers through creation of brands that draw customers from all corners. Therefore, it is important for entrepreneurs must at all-time must align their activities with the new market requirements. Consumer demands are currently changing that every business must adjust to (Gold, 2007). Businesses are investing much to secure creative and innovative employees in order to reduce the overall cost organizational operations. For example, internet is becoming the major platform of introducing new ideas. Considering creativity and innovation application, Groundz Coffee Company is offering its client an opportunity of ordering their coffee via Twitter. Reports from the company indicate increment in the number of customers due this efficient and reliable method of reaching the customers especially the Texans. Through such innovative methods, the company has been able to increase its efficiency in operations, created a good brand among the customers, and reduced the overall cost of making the calls to the customers ordering the coffee. Even financial institutions require innovative and creative employees especially with the changing market trends and people shifting from the use of cash to debit cards. For example, the Dutch use their phones to locate the nearest ATMs. They use a mobile application identifies as ING Wegwijzer that uses the camera of the phones and the Global Position System (GPS) application. The application requires the customers to choose the camera setting as if they need to take photographs and the application would automatically display the shortest distance to the ATM. These inventions have assisted the business to create a competitive advantage. Some business often opt to create unstainable competitive advantage through reduction in the prices of the products and reducing the cost of transactions, however, with innovative and creative entrepreneurs, most business often prefer improving the quality of the products or enhancing the quality of services provided. Depending on the type competitive market created, organizations use different types of innovations. Through creation of the mobile software and allowing the customers to access, the banks are creating a marketing type of innovation since the method involved improvement in the delivery process. Marketing creativity and innovation involve implementation of new marketing strategies through changing the design of the product, packaging, and methods of sales (Paulus & Nijstad, 2003). Moreover, the aim of marketing innovation and creativity is to help adjust the method of delivery to meet the ever-changing demands of the customers and pursuing new markets. However, it is important to note that the aim of all the types of innovation is to assist in improving the sales. Besides market innovation and creativity, other types include process, organizational, and product. Importance innovation and creativity in businesses The market trends are currently changing and businesses are becoming much more competitive that companies need to adjust. It is crucial that every business have innovative and creative sales team in order to experience growth. In business, innovation plays a crucial role ranging from alteration in the method of selling products, selling tools, and ensuring proper customer engagement process. The role of creativity and innovation in business is to assist in time elimination or reduction in time taken to ensure effective and efficient production process. Through the use of modern communication systems, dispatching information have become easier since businesses are focusing on the use of emails and faxes (Sun, 2011). By using modern technology, businesses have been able to reduce time taken for communication by 90%; as a result, there have been improved reliability. Both the concepts also help in defining organizational marketing strategy. For both upcoming and already existing businesses, conforming to the changes is quite importance especially while planning to create a positive competitive advantage. Failure to come up with innovative and creative measures, the possibility of experiencing poor performance and reduced sales are high. Moreover, the management could use innovation and creativity to envision their strategic objectives, solving operational challenges, and a method of engaging new ideas for sustainable growth. In order to be creative and innovator, it is important to closely monitor daily experiences. On daily basis, people interact with problems that require solutions. To some extent, most people believe that creativity and innovation is inherited and some people are suitably meant to lead while others follow. However, it is important to note that nature does not determine the level of individual creativity and innovation. That is, there are no individuals born innovative or creative experience, but through being active and focused in solving human problems, people tend to come up with ways of managing these problems (Williams, 2013). Even though there have been debates on nature and nurture, it is important to note that environmental factors also play important role in fostering creativity and innovation especially through teaching and nurturing the experiences. For example, initially smartphone user did not consider gyroscope. In 2011, Alex Karpenko managed to figure out how to stabilize this application for recording videos. He used that knowledge to start Luma Company, which was later by Instagram. In order to be an effective and reliable thinker, it is crucial to think critically and have a wider knowledge on some of the challenges that business entities face. From this point, it would be easier to develop an attitude of being innovative. Some innovations require huge finances barring innovators from thinking critically. Moreover, there are ideas not yet implemented by any organization but most business and innovators have failed to test them due to inadequate trust (Hudson, 2015). As a result, most innovators prefer selling the idea to the companies and receiving a given portion of the proceeds from the product. Organizations should not use many resources searching for innovators but instead create a conducive environment that permits free interaction that allow innovators and creators to identify organizational problems. Conclusion Creativity and innovation play an important role in ensuring positive organizational performance. Creativity requires commitment and ability to think global. Most of the problems business entities faces have solutions. However, there is need to empower the employees considering the fact that some of them could be having the skills to solve these problems. Creativity and innovation is self-propelled. Hence, organizations should not compel the employees to come up solutions to the problems affecting organizational performance. Even though most research work indicate that creative people are born, it is important to note that environmental factors also contribute greatly. Creativity and innovation also help in creating a positive competitive advantage and enhancing the brand of a product. Nevertheless, the management should also consider the fact that implementation of poor and irrelevant creativities might compromise organizational operations. Thus, all innovations should be aligned with organizational objectives. References Axelrod, A. (2008). Edison on innovation: 102 lessons in creativity for business and beyond. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Burrus, D. (2013, December 23). Creativity and Innovation: Your Keys to a Successful Organization. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-burrus/creativity-and- innovation_b_4149993.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in Bytheway, C. W. (2007). FAST creativity & innovation: Rapidly improving processes, product development and solving complex problems. Fort Lauderdale, FL: J. Ross Pub. Gold, R. (2007). The plenitude: Creativity, innovation, and making stuff. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hesselbein, F., & Johnston, R. (2002). On creativity, innovation, and renewal: A leader to leader guide. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Hudson, P. (2015, June 17). 11 Ways Innovative People Think Differently Than Everyone Else. Retrieved from http://elitedaily.com/money/entrepreneurship/innovative-people-think- differently/1075828/ Paulus, P. B., & Nijstad, B. A. (2003). Group creativity: Innovation through collaboration. New York: Oxford University Press. Pratt, A. C., & Jeffcutt, P. (2009). Creativity, innovation and the cultural economy. London: Routledge. Sun, H. (2011). The 3-3-3 framework and 7P model for teaching creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. Journal of Chinese Entrepreneurship, 17(4), 101-110. Syrett, M., & Lammiman, J. (2002). Creativity. Oxford, U.K: Capstone Pub. Torres, N. L. (2007, May 1). Nature vs. Nurture. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/177848 Williams, M. (2013, November 26). Nature vs. nurture: can you learn to be a successful leader? Guardian Careers | The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/careers/women-leadership-blog/nature-nurture-learn- successful-leader Read More