Question 1
The organization maintained the crucial part of the research and development to be world class technologists. These technologists are the key masters of the most essentials areas of the household and the personal-care businesses. Technologists are intermingled together with the employees brought out of the research and development sector to interact amongst themselves at the innovation field. This way, it will ultimately cultivate an innovation culture to be felt daily.
The organization has created a funding mechanism that give support to innovation that focuses on customer satisfaction at all times. It goes along with the establishment of an innovation process which is highly disciplined, reproducible and rank able. Furthermore, it established a leadership that is focused on profit maximization and production cost minimization.
The organization has created an important social system that can trigger new ideas and further critical decision making process. It put a lot of confident and consideration on employees as a human factor that determine the success of an organization. Human factors are a vital pillar in any organization that initiates and propagate innovation process.
Question 2
The P&G has shifted from maintaining motivated and capable workforce to putting a lot of consideration to customers as people who play a very important role in product development. The end of the tunnel is to satisfy the customer and because of that, the organization took the customer as the “boss.” The customer is the boss in the sense that the company has to do all means to satisfy and improve the living standard of the customers. From that perspective, customers are the one to say how they want the product to be and then the company will adjust to it accordingly. This means that as more and more customers buy their products now and then to meet their tastes and preferences, it will enhance the profitability of the company. The company had to listening to their customers, observed what they were doing in their daily activities and by interacting with them in the residential areas. The company does all means to market itself by being getting in touch with their stakeholders (both consumers and suppliers) to avoid being an island.
Question 3
The Olay succeeded because for them they had clearly defined and established their niche market, unlike the P&G Company. The products of the Olay had rooted in the market and yet the P&G had not thought to launch their products, and there were no radical changes in their products to distinguish. The products of the Olay by then were in accordance with taste and preference of the customers and that of the P&G has not been felt.
The implementation of the creative and innovative management has to take into consideration the following keys goals in order to succeed in their innovations.
• The company was to come up with the products with different new scents, unique packaging, exciting, unique marketing, and long expiring dates.
• The company should get in-touch with the customers through social digital media. This form of communication will help an organization to understand the needs customers much better and to get the feedback easily about sample products. Once the information had been collected from the potential customers, then the company redesigns and re-engineers their innovation in line with the customers’ specifications.
• The company should scale down the new processes. It should aggressively aim at learning through trial and error, be within the functions of the company and the company’s geographical target areas.
• The company should be open to ideas from all directions and not narrow itself to receive ideas from certain specific areas only.
• Open and maintain an open system across the world. Leaders should not be totally separate from customers and employees but instead they should interact with them.
Question 4
Employees have perceived the idea of innovation as only confined to the employees who are working on the research and development sector. According to the CEO, everybody working for the company was working on innovation. All employees in all sectors of the organization were to learn new ways of approaching issues continuously. However, it was so difficult to change the mindset of employees especially who working in sectors like marketing, sales, administration and line management.
Some of the concepts such as curiosity, connectedness, and collaboration were so difficult to be put into practice despite their very easiness to talk about them. The effect was contributed partially by the traditional way in which the company used to employ people on the ground on values, leadership, brains, and accomplishment without necessary going an extra mile to assess the flexibility and agility. The development of these employees was time consuming and expensive.
Question 5
The wrong conceptualization of innovation was made to clear by redefining the social system in order to involve all employees in the innovation game.
The concepts of curiosity, collaboration, and connectedness were put into practice by first exposing Employees into different stimuli and higher challenges across the world.
The above two plan strategies will open up the minds and eyes of the employees and make them synthesize ideas for greater achievements. Once employees are exposed to new stimuli and greater challenges, they will be forced to expand their ideas. This is evident in P&G focus on innovation that has sustained growth and double the sales from $39 billion to more than $80 billion within one decade.
Question 6
The company had taken initiatives to communicate their strategies by using an integrative thinking approach. This is a situation where the workers and other stakeholders were caused to interact together in the real ground. The employees took the products by themselves to the customers and observed personally the reactions of the consumers about their taste and preferences. This later on helps them to re-engineer and redesign products to fit customers’ needs.
