Importance of Innovation and Change Within an Organization

Importance of Innovation and Change Within an organisationIn todays constantly changing origination, mixed bag and construct touch an extremely important role within all plaque. New technologies like red-hot softw be and hardw be and improved manufacturing brasss ar increasing reapingion and changing the way we do business across the globe. Newly advancing markets much(prenominal) as China and India argon meet more and more capitalistic, rise the door for corporations to seminal fluid and do business. There argon multiple instalments when relations with innovation and remove within an g everywherenment activity. The first element is how an constitution brush aside transfer conquestfully which consists of the step that are makeed and the process that makes mixed bag happen. The next element is technological channelise, which is how organizations adapt and weapon fresh engineering science. From vernal technology, organizations come up with our next el ement, bracing crops and services. As these organizations become bigger and with child(p)r in that location is the look at for dodging and structure compound as well as ethnical smorgasbords. These two elements a good deal go consider in hand and give notice be some of the approximately thorny to change.There are five key factors when looking at what is unavoidable for triumphful change. The first is heads. In order to bring roughly change you invite to accept a young idea or thought. Creativity, innovation and outside-the-box thinking play a huge role here. Often time some of the best ideas can come from the least promising places. A study conducted by Daniel Tzabbar and his team, found that high levels of collaboration promotes innovation, as it encourages a free flow of ideas among commonwealth who must deed together to finalise unseasoned solutions to problems. (Tzabbar 17) With this organism said, many new ideas come from the collaborations of groups and indivi triples within an organization.The stake factor is need. There must be a perceived need for change. Constantly changing structures, strategies, or culture can actu tout ensembley be a dreary thing if overused. If a specific change is issue to take place, on that point needs to be an identifiable reason in order to make that specific change indispensable. On the other hand, an organization that fails to realize the need for change is doomed for failure. It is the responsibility of upper way to be responsive and aware of when change is needed scarcely not so sensitive that change becomes excessive.An article entitled Change for Changes sake cans and interesting view on the topic of k at a timeing when to change. check to the article, an organization periodically needs to shake itself up regardless of the outside environment. The authors contend that a few things happen when an organization does not change enough. First, companies that are organized around a sing le criterion such(prenominal) as function, product, or market, tend to only communicate with themselves and not with the other units consequently making them slow to adapt to changes in the environment. Next organizations are likely to get entrenched in a terrene way of thinking, flunk to realize new opportunities and the sup business office of threats. Finally, organizations become extremely inefficient at allocating resources. In order to combat these factors, organizations should change structures every so often to keep itself ready to react quickly to its environment. (Vermeulen et. al. 70-76)The ternary factor is adoption. aft(prenominal) the new ideas have been thought of on how to change and there is a perceived need for that change, a new idea is chosen. Now that an idea has been chosen it is time to put that idea into practice. This brings us to our next factor, implementation. According to Scott Sonenshein of Rice University Implementing strategic change is one of th e most important under winnings of an organization. boffo implementation of strategic change can reinvigorate a business, exclusively failure can lead to catastrophic consequences. (Sonenshein 477). Management must have a rock solid excogitate on how they want to implement change. A project focusing advancement is the most successful admission when implementing such change, with the definition of clear success measures being important. (Oakland, Tanner 2)The final exam factor is resources. Through human energy and activity the idea is enforced and kept alive. mess are the most important resource and the of the essence(p) contributors to successful change, without them, change cannot happen. It is important that your employees are thoroughly trained and understand what is being changed and why. Empowering them with this friendship go forth only enhance and increase the possibility of successful implementation of the changes set forth.Within an organization there is ever the need for developing, acquiring, and adopting new technology. New technologies are al shipway coming rough and have a tremendous impact on organizations. The main approach to technological change is the ambidextrous approach. This combines both the organic and mechanistic structures. chthonian the ambidextrous approach there are numerous options of how to bring rough new technology. Switching structures brings people from contrasting areas of an organization together to division ideas and technology with each other. Creative departments consist of a research and instruction department. The sole duty of this department is to come up with new technology and test new technologies to ensure they will be useful for the organization. other popular option is the use of venture teams. Venture teams are essentially their witness organization within an organization. They often have their own branch location and structure in order to develop new technologies.In addition to RD and venture teams, another way to increase technological knowledge and bring about technology change is to acquire technology from external sources. Procter Gamble provides an excellent example of inter organizational technology transfer. Roughly half of new product development projects pack key ideas from external sources. Procter Gamble alike uses an lively licensing system of their own technological advances to generate millions in yearbook licensing revenue. Pharmaceuticals are notorious for using this type of strategy to bring about technological change within their organizations. (Lichtenthaler 2) Despite the big amount of success achieved by these firms, most organizations are still timid about sharing their own technological advances. They fear that by doing so, it will allow their competitors penetration to their own competitive advantage. While this may be true in some instances, it appears that interorganizational technology transfer can actually benefit organizat ions and in conclusion consumers.While there are certain exceptions, new products and services are usually the direct result of new technology and coming up with new products and services is vital for success in todays markets. As markets shoot so should your products or services. The question of how to create and present new products now arises. Michelle Karas straitss 11 steps that help organizations answer this complex and challenging question. tonicity one is to analyze the situation. Evaluate your environment and current product position and then identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The next step is to explore and research product needs. Brainstorm ideas, have an open mind and write down all ideas. Figure out what your customers needs are and your competitors limitations. measuring stick three is to determine usage and identify what market you want to target with your product. Step quaternary calls for developing a prototype. This entails conver ting an idea into an actual product and determining the products specifications, features and benefits. Step five is to determine the price based on your objectives. Testing the product or service is the next step and is absolutely crucial to its success. It is too important to ensure that all operations within your business can fully support the product. (Karas 32-34)After the product has been thoroughly tested, it is time to spend a penny gross sales goals. Identify target sales goals, and whether or not these goals are realistic and obtainable. The next step involves developing a marketing designing for both internal and external markets that achieves the goals set forth earlier. Step 9 is training and educatin employees. Ensure employees/salespeople understand all aspects of the product. Characteristics like price, description, how the product works, and sales goals should all be thoroughly understood. The final two steps involve actually introducing the product to the mark et and evaluating the results. Record how the product performs and how the customers respond. (Karas 32-34) While these steps are quite simplified, these are the basics concepts that organizations utilize, regardless of size.A great example of products that have just recently been introduced is Sonys Move and Microsofts Kinect gaming systems. both of these systems allow users to make use of their own bodies to become more brisk and involved in the gaming experience, very similar to the Wii. When the Nintendo Wii debuted, it was the first gamming system of its kind to offer an interactive gaming experience. It was a tremendous success and both Sony and Microsoft realized the opportunity to have their piece of the pie too. Rather than come up with a completely new gamming system, through the use of new technology, Sony and Microsoft designed a device that would simply be used in conjunction with users Playstation 3 and X-Box consoles. As time goes by it will be interesting to see wha t effects theses systems have on Wii sales and whether or not they are profitable for both Sony and Microsoft.Going along with the television system game theme, Sega, which offered very popular gaming consoles in the 90s failed to innovate and offer a product strong enough to compete with Sonys Playstation and Nintendos N64. The result was Sega removing itself tout ensemble from the hardware side of gaming and focusing solely on word-painting game software. While Sega failed in one area, they were able to make a successful change and become profitable selling software. These two examples offer evidence to the power that new products and services hold within an organization. one time again failing to change and innovate successfully will most likely spell disaster for an organization.As an organization becomes larger the need for strategy and structure change becomes apparent. Strategic change involves altering employees tress of meanings by using a discourse that sets a new b ang for a firm. (Sonenshein 505). All organizations need to make changes in their strategies, structures, management processes and administrative procedures. Many organizations go about this change using a dual core approach, which is a correspondence between the technical side and the management side of an organization. The technical side refers to the employees who actually produce the product or service that the company offers while the management side ensures that the day to day operations of the company are being fulfilled and the performance objectives are being met. While the two sides may have very unalike ideas of what changes need to take place, it is imperative that both sides be on the very(prenominal) page and working toward the same goal.In addition to becoming larger, there are too some other reasons why organizations must change their strategies. The first reason is the persistent compress from partake inholders for greater profitability. This requires business leaders to continually update their strategy. Theses updates are necessary to remain aligned with customers changing needs and priorities, while generating the necessary profits. This demands that strategies must be executed successfully within increasingly shorter time-periods. (Franken 49-73)The second reason relates to the increased complexity of organizations. In many organizations the activities performed to create products and services cross multiple functional, organizational, and geographical boundaries. Consequently, any strategic change program is likely to affect the people, processes, structures, technologies, suppliers, and business partners that work both within and across these boundaries. Hence, strategic change programs are becoming highly complex, resulting in increased risk of failure due to oversight. (Franken 49-73)The third reason is the difficult challenge faced by managers to balance the demands of successfully executing complex change programs with the dema nds of managing todays business performance. In situations where management is strongly tied to reward schemes based on todays performance, it is challenging to achieve active participation for the creation of tomorrows organization. However, as a result of the relentless pressure from stakeholders for repeated performance, managers cannot afford to dedicate their time, effort and resources to one set of demands exclusively. This balance is particularly challenging during the high-risk period when a business transitions to a new strategy. (Franken 49-73)The fourth reason is the low levels of involvement of a large number of managers across all functions at an early stage of strategy execution. The mechanics of involving large numbers of people in complex discussions leads organizations to cumber involvement in the quest for urgency. Often managers see these early stages as bureaucratic, unnecessary, and delaying real action. However, such involvement is ask to obtain commitment t o change and for the development of effective implementation plans.The fifth reason is the difficulty of securing the required resources to execute the strategy. Often, as a result of the large number of synchronous change programs, many of the organizations resources will already be allocated. Furthermore, as such resources are limited, managers will compete for them, and, once within their control, will object to own them to secure their own goals.14 (Franken 49-73)According to Paul Sabbah, president of Stamford International, new strategies should focus on innovation, productivity and risk management. Productivity can be as easy as having employees working longer hours, implementing new technologies in order to speed up product development, or simply decrease inventory and using effective communication. Firms also need to look to world-wide expansion as another potential strategy. By doing so, they open themselves up to new markets and new customers while being exposed to new ways of doing business and new retail concepts. Business is also all about managing risk. In difficult times, effectively managing risks like political instability, currency fluctuations, acid costs, and rising energy costs has a direct effect on an organizations ability to survive in a struggling economy. (Sabbah)The final element and the most difficult to change is a change in organizational culture. This is often the most difficult to change because you are affecting people core values and daily routines. Eric Van Der Steen has shown that organizations have a tendency, over time, to develop the same set of beliefs and values. This happens through two mechanisms. People who share the same beliefs would rather work with those who share their beliefs than someone that does not. People also share experiences, which in turn leads to a set of share beliefs. These shared beliefs and values directly impact the core culture of an organization. (Van Der Steen 26)To help explicate the d ifficulties of culture change, think of a factory role player who has been assembling world bearings a specific way over the past 20 years. This role player comes in every day, goes to their station and performs their duty over and over again for the duration of their shift. They have their routine down and never deviate from the steps they take. Now imagine someone coming up to them and proveing them that the routine they have done over the years is inefficient and they have a better, more efficient way of performing their duty. In addition to this, there will be new policies and procedures to follow to ensure that the changes take place. That worker is obviously going to be skeptical and very resistant to changing. They may even feel that this person has no make up to come and tell them how to do their job which they have been doing for so long. This is what must be tame when dealing with ethnic change.There are a few different ways to implement cultural change and each pr ocess has its own unique advantages and disadvantages. One way is by large group intervention. This entails having everyone in the organization go through a seminar, explaining to them what changes are going to be made. While this allows everyone to hear and hopefully understand the message, there may be some specific questions about the change that go unanswered. For instance a specialized department may wonder how certain changes will be affecting their culture. It is imperative that cultural change is led from upper management. Managers need to set the standard and lead by example especially when it comes to cultural change. In support of this, Lance Ewing states that companies without cultural leadership are evermore going the wrong way. (Ewing 88)Changing culture within an organization is never an easy task yet it is necessary and critical to change a culture when leadership transforms. Starting cultural change is like planning in a Crock-Pot. Adding the right ingredients and turning the heat up with the right measure of enthusiasm for positive consumer change makes everyone want what is in the cultural pot. (Ewing 88)When dealing with change in any area, there will unendingly be barriers to cross. Resistance to change is now seen as a natural, unobjectionable incident. When it occurs, electrical resistance may cause problems within the organization. However, depending on the nature of the change, the surround atmosphere and how the change takes place, resistance is not ever so a bad thing (Dent and Galloway Goldberg 27). According to Bauer, resistance to change, like pain, can be an alarum signal and serve as a warning that something is failing in the change process. (Bauer) Klein argues that resistance is a needed factor of flourishing change and if properly managed, can provide a beneficial response to the changes taking place. (Klein)Resistance is also a resource. It can provide valuable feedback to managers if they are willing to listen. Cons idering resistance as failure will overlook opportunities to fort operational outcomes. By paying attention to this feedback, managers can see a different perspective to the change they plan on initiating. Sometimes employees resist change for no reason, but often times, the employees most resistant to change are the ones who care enough to make sure the plan succeeds. People are also very aware of the past, and thoughts of changes that have utterly failed will constantly be running through their heads. In order to move these people it is necessary to explain to them why and how you plan to implement change. natural endowment them the chance to voice their own questions and concerns will only enhance your plan to change. (Ford 100-103)In conclusion, the world is constantly changing and change and innovation play an extremely important role within any organization. As an organization if you fail to change and adapt to the rest of the world and your environment the world will pass you by. There are many elements for successful change, but your people will always be the most important in order for that change to take place. New technologies are always being introduced and it is important to stay up to date and take advantage of technology that will greatly benefit your organization. As an organization it is imperative that new technology is used to constantly come up with new and innovative products and services. While this is a major undertaking for any organization it is necessary for sustainability. As new products and services are being offered and an organization grows the strategy and structure used must also change. This gives way to cultural change where there is almost always some kind of resistance. Using that resistance as a tool to overcoming problems is a key step in successfully implementing change. Ultimately, the whole purpose of change is to increase profitability by making changes to the strategy, structure, technology and culture of an orga nization. While there will always be problems and other bumps along the road it is imperative that these obstacles are overcome in order to increase the odds for success.