Summary BSBINN502 - ASSESSMENT TASK 1 RESEARCH AND DEVELOP ANINNOVATION SYSTEM

BSBINN502 - ASSESSMENT TASK 1 RESEARCH AND DEVELOP ANINNOVATION SYSTEM Student Name & Student ID Date Part A: Research report o Research and develop a profile of a great innovator, include: o a description of the innovation/innovator o the type of innovation (product, process, marketing or organisational) o how their innovation led to benefits for their organization o challenges and problems faced by the innovator o an explanation of how they developed the innovation with specific reference to idea generation and idea evaluation. Steve Jobs — Apple Inc. Steve Jobs was a great innovator. Steve Jobs's leadership style might be called Autocratic leadership style (Lewin, Lippitt and White, 1939), transactional leadership, or high task — low people approach (Blake, Mouton and Bidwell, 1962). Either way, the basic principles of this leadership style is: • High focus on result • Low focus on people and relationships In addition, he was also a visionary leader, with the capability to look for ahead of the industry. This explains why employees were able to stay innovative under his authoritarian leadership. He was already famous for the creation of the Mac computer, the first flagship product of Apple, a computer company at that time (and now the most valuable brand in the world). Steve Jobs was kicked out from Apple after the creation of the Mac, but he was invited back to the company as it was on the verge of collapsing due to bad business decisions. During his second tenure, he created products that revolutionized consumer behaviours. One such type of product is the Apple iPod. The Apple iPod became the flagship product for Apple for a long time before the introduction of the iPhone. It dominated the portable music player market and led to many competitors trying to copy the product. The product offers customer the ability to store thousands of songs in the device to listen to music all day, with slim and minimal design combined with a small and thin size that boosts portability to a whole new level. The product changed the landscape of the consumer electronic industry, particularly the portable music player sector. The iPod accounted for 70% market share of the sector. Steve Jobs's idea came from his own experience. As a music lover, he wanted to listen to music all the time. However, when using traditional portable music players, he was not satisfied with the experience, which led In addition, thanks to data from the industry, especially with quo Before the introduction of iPod, Apple was in financial trouble and it had to be rescued by Microsoft when the company offered to buy share from Apple in order to avoid an antitrust lawsuit in 1997. 2. Research and identify innovation system features under the following headings (dimensions of innovation): o a managed innovation process Convergent thinking Apple conducted an analysis of the existing portable music players in the market. They breakdown the benefits and the costs of these different devices and sort them according to their relative cost. Divergent thinking After an evaluation of different alternatives in the market, the company came up with the possibility of a new device that would be much more portable than current products. In addition, the company also considered the possibility of adding thousands of songs to a small device, thus giving users. The device, if manufactured, would create a whole new market sector for customers as they will completely change customer behavior towards music listening. This is a market that has not been explored, and the strategy of the company make competition irrelevant. o strategic alignment Internal alignment As a visionary leader that saved Apple from collapsing, Steve Jobs had the capability to direct people to do what he wants. People do not dare to question Jobs due to his authoritarian leadership style, but also his strategic visionary capability. Therefore, once he has set a vision and a strategy, he is able to ensure that employees in the organization will act in accordance with his order. External alignment In addition to internal alignment, Apple also looked for support in technology from external suppliers to realize the goal of manufacturing this novel product. They found Toshiba, who was also having the same vision as well as progresses in making small devices and components for consumer electronics. o industry foresight Steve Jobs saw the capability of new hard drives as technology in the industry advanced. He knew by gathering data from supply chain networks that manufacturers might now produce thinner hard drives with higher storage capacity (Toshiba). This would allow new devices with hard drives to be smaller and thinner. In addition, the PC industry at the time saw the rise of CD burning and music sharing activities, as young people used them to share music to their friends and family. The iMac offered by Apple was lacking a CD burner. o consumer/customer insight The company realize that music is a part of everyone's life. For each person, there is a type of music that might cater to their preference, which creates a global market for music consumption The company also realized that people were having a lot of inconvenience listening to music while on the go. The contemporary products in the market at that time limited the ability of customers to enjoy music in a portable manner. Traditionally, the portable music player market consists of CD player, flash player, MP3 CD player, and hard drive. A CD player can hold few songs as the number of songs depend on the number of CDS that customers can bring with them. CDs are bulky, which will prevent customers from bringing them along all the time, and each CD can only store from ten to fifteen songs, which are not enough for customers to listen to for long. The flash player does not require a music CD and is less bulky, but is more expensive than CD player. Next comes the MP3 CD player, which might hold up to hundreds of songs, reducing the cost of each song to a lower level. The MP3 CD has lower bitrate than a normal CD, and costs as much as a flash player. Finally, a hard drive jukebox player might hold up to hundreds of songs, but is also the most expensive device which was slow. All of these devices are large and bulky, which reduces their portability. o core technologies and competencies Firewire cable: the cable that is designed by Apple great data transferring capability. Compared to traditional usb cables, the Firewire allowed rapid transfer of a massive amount of information from device to device. iTunes: this is a music player available to download on computer systems (including both Windows and Mac. The software allows music to be automatically transferred from computers to the iPod device and vice versa. With the companion of the FireWire, this has created a perfect system for sharing and managing music between computers and MP3 players. Minimalism design. Apple has always been proud of its design capability. The company's devices are praised for its aesthetic appeals, such as the iMac with multiple color options that wowed the market. Using the same design principle, the company has created a portable device with minimal design that look sleek. It also allows the devices to reduce in size and become more portable for users Slim hard drive: According to Rubenstein, who was then Apple's senior vice president of hardware, Toshiba developed a 1.8 inch hard drive and did not know what to do with it. This led to the decision to use the hard drive onto the new portable music player. o organisational readiness Jobs was in charge of the organization. As a visionary leader, he was always ready to take risk. He has always created unique products that was unique and one-of-a-kind that no one was able to think of. He never followed the crowd. Instead, he set the new bar for competition every time. Therefore, Apple under the regime of Steve Jobs was always ready for risk-taking and innovation. The team working at Apple under Steve Jobs was given total freedom. The innovative culture rewarded people for being imaginative and inventive. Steve Jobs formed innovative team with the leadership of the best talents in designing such as Jonathan Ive, and Rubenstein. Another member of the team was Michael Dhuey, who designed the legacy Macintosh and Apple computer, to design electronic hardware for the device. In addition, Jobs was ready to hire people from outside the organization to bring additional capabilities that were not available at the organization, such as Tony Fadell, who developed gadgets for other companies. All these project members were given freedom by Apple to do what they want, thus allowing them to spur innovation. The studio that the innovation team worked was a large open space with communal design areas where members might collaborate in designing. Departments work parallelly on the innovative product and engage in constant review round. o disciplined implementation. Steve Jobs was highly disciplined individual. He always scolded his employees for failing to meet his expectation. This constant drive for result was the key of success for the iPod. In reality, the device only took 8 months to be produced. Considering that this was a new product that never appeared in the market, the speed of the project was remarkable. Steve jobs set a clear goal and gave the freedom for the team to innovate: A thousand songs in your pocket; for the software: so easy that your Mother could do it; and for the project: and on the shelves in eight months! 3. Research the ways that organisational and team dynamics can effect workplace innovation systems. Explain: • how different approaches to management and leadership can support or hinder innovation • challenges and barriers to innovation within teams and organisations and ways of overcoming these. A leader that does not fear failure will reward employees for innovative thinking and trying, which will motivate innovation. In contrast, a leader that often punishes their subordinate for making mistakes will create fear, discouraging from trial and errors and hinder innovation. A leader that only wants to do things on his own and do not allow employee to participate in the decision-making process will prevent staffs from progressing and making innovations on their own. This is worse for leaders that do not have the vision thinking capability. Team collaboration is an important factor that promotes innovation. Each member or department has a specific contribution to the innovation, with their own strengths and weaknesses. By working close together, members are able to leverage their strengths and offset weaknesses while combining ideas together. In addition, members are also able to keep track of what others are doing and avoid destroying the effort by them. Collaboration allows an innovative product to be developed in harmony in terms of design and function. Traditional organizational departmental structure creates a silo between departments, breaking down communication and inconsistency in product design and development between different departments. This slows down the innovation process as more time is spent on fixing the products to fit between departments. 4. Develop five to ten innovation principles, based on your research. Explain • why you chose these principles • how you could apply and promote them in a business context • Curiosity: A curious mindset encourages us to never stop asking questions and learning about new things. This pushes continuous improvement. Learning about new things and try new things give us inspiration for new ideas. To promote curiosity within an organization, the company might allocate 20% of work time for employees to work on their own project, and encourage learning and innovation with performance KPls. • Collaboration: Collaboration ensures that different members and departments work together and communicate on a regular basis in order to understand the strengths and weaknesses of one another to create an innovative product that leverage the strengths and offset the weaknesses of one another. To encourage collaboration, the company might encourage open communication between employees and managers in the organization and provide multiple methods for feedback. • Failure: Failure is part of an innovation process. Innovative products do not come easily, and ideas must often come through different iterations before they are refined and become a desired product. Failure is a chance to learn from mistake and improve the products to become better. To promote a culture that does not fear failure, the company should remove punishment for mistakes, and set KPls for learning and innovation. • Diversity: diversity creates differences in thoughts and perceptions, leading to a diverse set of ideas. If you hang out with the same people, you will never come up with new ideas. Consulting the ideas of different stakeholders, including customers and noncustomers, people working in other industries and in different departments might uncover problems that have not been addressed before. To promote diversity, the company should employ staffs from different backgrounds, and build a policy to promote and protect diversity. • Courage: Having courage allows us to step out of the comfort zone and try new things. Many organizations that have succeeded in the past have become complacent and do not want to try to break the tradition for fear of destroying the success they have accumulated overtime for their company. This eventually creates a culture that protect the status quo and hinder innovation. To encourage people to step out of their comfort zone, the company should create a culture that promote and protect new ideas, and organize contests to create new products within the company.