The Strategic Role of Technology in Littlewoods Company - Case Study Example

Introduction

In UK, Littlewoods is one of the biggest and also the best retail companies in the country. There is an expectation that new system that their newly acquired system will serve more than 6000 Call-Centers advisors in all the three branches of the company found in Crosby, Preston and Sunderland. Meanwhile, the new call environment marks the Littlewoods company aim in the delivery of very high standards of customer services (Prince, 2000). At the same time, the project makes it possible for the company to be satisfied since it has an improved efficiency with respect to the accessibility of both new and also the current products and services (Viitanen and Pirttimaki, 2006). For this reason, this paper seeks to analyze the strategic role played by this technology based on the below headlines.

How the company uses the information systems to support its business strategy

Following several years of Littlewoods Company’s aim in reducing the cost of operations brought by effects of recession, the management is at present championing for the organization to seek for ways by which it the technology may support its business operations (Van De Poel, 2000). For instance, the company seeks to enjoy the benefits of differentiation and efficiencies at a go. In this regard, the company has strong beliefs that the technological innovation will come with efficiencies and as result making the company to enjoy the benefits of competitive advantage (Van De Poel, 2000). Due to this reason, Littlewoods company, believe that technology will be the best tool to cover all these dimensions altogether.

The instance is due the fact that the information systems make it possible for the company to meet the demands of its clients strategically (Viitanen and Pirttimaki, 2006). At the same time, the instance also adds strategic values in occasions where the company adopts the mobile technology, network socially and also the evaluation of customer behaviors and their trends. With regards to all these parameters they support the innovation growth in the company.

Despite Littlewoods Company using the innovation technological developments, the innovation itself is far from technology as much as there is a use of technology in the innovation process (Viitanen and Pirttimaki, 2006). Innovation to Littlewoods Company is to facilitate the creation solutions to problems that in turn lead to good products and market outcomes. In this regard, the company engages in the process of innovation by researching on valuable technologies and also the application of the existing technology in ensuring the improvement in the current processes taking place in the company (Viitanen and Pirttimaki, 2006). Likewise, as a way of ensuring that the company remains strategically placed in the utilization of its underlying technologies through value addition, the company assists in the development and implementation of end to end types of innovation processes (Chen, Chan, Hung, Hsiang and Wu, 2015). The reason is due to the fact that it more likely to discover the innovations, plus their better assessment and conversion into profits, an idea also known as the cash process. For this reason, Littlewoods has contribution in this field through the below distinctive areas;

 Provision of assistance in order to create and manage the process of innovation where in this case is indeed a principal member of the executive committee and in turn the business, strategic management altogether.

 bringing together and also the implementation of the technology where the enterprise is involved in the execution of majority of the process of innovation

With regards to the above two distinctive areas, the company appears to be very much comfortable with the second option since the experience it has on the implementation of the enterprise related resources as enterprise resource planning, ERP, supply chain management and the order-to-cash (Viitanen and Pirttimaki, 2006). At the same time, since the company is a more of a technological company, it is comfortable with the first option since it entails business reengineering the process or may be above the technological implementation and in consequence making the management to have thoughts that cut through the processes. Added to this, the companies know how in the design and the implementation of the previous processes facilitates for the systems to be naturally absorbed in the process of innovation altogether.

As at present, there is yet to be a company to reach the same levels in terms expertise the way Littlewoods Company has concerning assisting in digitization and rationalization of business processes cutting across the functional boundaries and also the competencies (Youtie and Kay, 2014). The instance here is in a bid to source and also make the use of those technologies that are essential in collectively putting them together for weaving the siloed forms of processes towards the enhancement of efficiency (Youtie and Kay, 2014). At the same time, where the company has reputations in the creation of the step change forms of improvements during the execution of the major business processes, then instance appears to be much better in this case altogether.

Evaluation of the company’s strategy and strategy frameworks

In Littlewoods Company, it is the design of the end to end process of innovation that is at the front line where in this case, it is the role played by the management as much as it may not appear as the role played by technology (Chen, Chan, Hung, Hsiang and Wu, 2015). The instance is because it constitutes a strategic business position, the exact component where the management team is expected to achieve for their companies. Despite the fact that very few companies give the consideration to innovation as the end to end process, the majority of them with the inclusion of Littlewoods in this case still regard it as the eureka moment (Chen, Chan, Hung, Hsiang and Wu, 2015). For this reason, it becomes basic as the very first stage for Littlewoods Company to admit for the process of innovation needing the enterprise transformation for enhancing consistency to ad hoc and also the decentralization of the processes going on in the business altogether. The instance here is because the process itself is a re-engineering effort in made in business.

Elsewhere, in the past, Littlewoods Company had experienced the episodes of the end to end forms of innovations plus also coming into use with the best patterns of the practices (Xia, 2012). Also, previously, many business activities were mainly given consideration as the end to end flows, where their patterns were local while not global and couples of process optimizations that constitute staff interventions where work goes past the boundaries of work (Xia, 2012). Others are the various distinct and inconsistency in the conditions that have similarities for the company’s business entities as well as the incapability in the prediction of the manner by which changes occur for every enterprise on their impacts on each other (Chen, Chan, Hung, Hsiang and Wu, 2015). In this case, the company begins to undertake to the transformation of the siloed and also the sub-optimal process to the seamless and efficient kind of end to end process, it then calls for the company to pay attention to the below deliverables or models;

i. Common nomenclatures

The instance defines productive and valuable rationalization term for all units in the business perspectives that are essential (Mukherjee and Mondal, 2009). With an expectation in the agreement of the wider scopes of the business to come into agreement with critical issues like the case of process, design becomes quiet complex in occasions where they do not concur with each other. On the other hand, there is a rare treatment of the innovation process as that an activity that needs a common nomenclature by most companies (Mukherjee and Mondal, 2009). Research and development, R&D, market study, partner associations, sales and other business units in many cases make use of their defined vocabularies for those activities that create precedence, inspiration and also innovation creativity. For the Littlewoods Company to realize the scope of an en enterprise-wide, end to end process of innovation, it requires the familiar nomenclature that gives emphasis to the terms applicable in the definition of problems and also the solutions underlying its operations.

ii. Digital Interfaces

Presently, computers with digital interfaces are continuously replacing the human mediation though they emerge as the building blocks for any form of end to end business process such as the innovation (Chen, Chan, Hung, Hsiang and Wu, 2015). The reason here is because the process itself has both inflows and outflows taking place in more than one unit of business (Viitanen and Pirttimaki, 2006). Also, since majorities of companies do not regard the process of innovation as prone to end to end redesign and management, even the companies such as the Littlewoods in this case that has with it idea system of management may realize that the same ideas may be much more at the very beginning or selection stages (Viitanen and Pirttimaki, 2006). The reason is that these ideas are not digitally integrated during the process of selection compared to the design, prototyping, alpha and beta tests plus other flow stages. In this regard, Littlewoods require digital interfaces that are between the stage in existence with the end to end process of innovation while not just at the start and the final stages the funnel’s idea.

iii. Introduction of technology enhanced new processes

Indeed, the information technology leads to complementation instead of the replacement of the intelligence of human beings. With regards to the past studies over the same, the introduction of technology in the execution tasks that people cannot perform in an efficient manner results into an improved end to end processes (Malik and Bergfeld, 2015). Also the addition of data leads to feeding into the business the application of credit cards at the costs of the formulation of reports. In this regard, it leads to the generation of fewer errors though the omission of work may happen where there is the mediation of computer. At the same time, new process opportunities towards innovation aids in the solution of problems from activity taking place at every stage of the idea to cash life cycle (Massmann, C2004). However, certain mental disciplines with identified values in reference to innovation may be complicated for many staff to access (Liu and Liu, 2011). With reference to Littlewoods Company, in this case, there are emerging technologies that are capable of handling this incoming challenge thus enhancing for the new process of innovations and also the deliverance of much and also efficient changes.

How Littlewoods is using technology to build a sustainable competitive advantage

By factoring the aspect of an end to end process of innovation that is defined also having in place its management structures, it is possible for the Littlewoods Company to realize sustainable business advantage through the implementation of the tools that promote improvement in the flow of information and process altogether (Koch, 2000). For this reason, the company should have in place the idea management tools to realize this objective in an efficient manner.

Idea management tools are those tools that enable the creation of ideas through the capture of the idea, its assessment, and tracking of its status (Chen, Chan, Hung, Hsiang and Wu, 2015). Also the tools have the provision for the translation of high standards of strategic challenges defined by the management following the evaluation of the current operations in a bid to determine their demands on the enterprise for those ideas that aids in addressing particular problems and opportunities (Epperson, 2000). In many circumstances, enterprises have challenges or competitions that lead to the creation of ideas for handling strategic challenges. For instance, the most complicated idea system of management is the tracking of every stage from the strategy through following the plan to cash process.

Idea capture and status monitoring are indeed the easiest components of the idea management tools even they are invented home or commercially acquired form of managers. However, its critical or tricky area is the assessment of the idea itself (Boter, 2006). For instance, there is the need to have the assessment of the notion based on many aspects instead from the experience from an individual or his opinions. In this regard, it will be possible for the Littlewoods Company to be in a position of accessing both the internal and the external knowledge repositories with regards to their ideal nature.

Conclusion

Technological innovation is not the same as the past cases of the process of improvements since it is more strategic and idea oriented. However, there is still another optional process that can be of useful in capturing many values for a company, such as Littlewoods Company in this study in an effective manner. Littlewoods knowledge in the whole at a process level plus the method it utilizes to systems and process design lead to the creation of unique capabilities useful in moving the innovation far from the cases of ad hoc hit or miss cases of activities. On top of this, Littlewood Company should utilize the knowledge and skills that enhances the creation of platforms for promoting innovation processes enjoying the same advantages that technology also brings to the business altogether.

The process here is the speed, predictability in execution, consistency, deep insights and efficiency. In future, as the company seeks to realize increment in its technological advancement, it should remain strategically focused all the time in doing more that has the potentiality in the identification and support of various initiatives towards technological improvements. In this case, for example, the company may design the end-to-end innovation process that leads to a better business in the first place and then enable it as well.