BMSK6002 Developing Innovation and Creativity For Business Advantage

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1) Stockholm Gases approach to innovation

Stockholm product is basically an industrial gas company of Sweden which is having a long glorious history of supplying and providing liquid oxygen to health care markets and also supply carbon dioxide to the beverages and drinks industry. The company is having more that 32000 employees across 70 countries of world and having a rich history of successful and creative R&D department that facilitates effective innovation which lead to its dominant position in the market from more than 80 years.

The mainly used approach of Stockholm for innovation is making signifiant modification in its product or developing a new product for teeth whitening market to attract more individuals and have growing suitability for future (Anwar, 2018). The innovation approach of Stockholm product includes an effective discussions among all influential and knowledgeable persons before making any decisions regarding the changes. A group meeting and discussion allows better innovation and creativity regarding different aspects of operations to have better review and analysis of a project before its execution which lead to more cost-effective and innovative and creative discovery of product and new features to get better results and positions in the market.

The innovative approach of Stockholm incudes analysis and evaluation of view point made by its employees belonging to different operations. On the project of development of a new product for teeth whitening market the employees and manager of Stockholm are having diverse view point. The R&D project leader is having a opinion on its plasma cleaning project that the result of using plasma as a cleaning agent in form of an ionised gas is promising and convincing. For evaluating the result of innovation, R&D has conducted an experiment on teeth of Pig which has shown a dramatic change and discoloured yellow teeth into a shade of White with exposure and use of Plasma.

The product development manger, Bernard Bing is having a different approx of innovation which has reflected a gap in market for simple teeth whitening product as a cut throat and immense competition is prevailing in the market (Clauss, 2017). Thus, the approach of innovation of product development manager is focused on a product which not only provide a teeth whitening but also have various other features like fresher breath, healthier gums, etc. to give considerable amount of competition to other existing multinational organisations like Colgate Palmolive. The product development manger also added that a product with various features and innovative technically lead to present better opportunity especially in terms of licensing technology. Thus, the approach of product development manager involves around a more scientific research to fully and properly explain the features of product and some business development managers are also having view point that teeth whitening project is a fad and Stockholm should look at marketing it as a cleaning tool which lead to more effective result. Apart from this, the licensing manger Stefan Boch, that licensing of this new product and plasma technology guarantee better revenue without any further additional costs. Further, the marketing manger of Stockholm, Maria Klaus is having a different opinion on this plasma project and development if a new teeth Whitening product as according to marketing manager a consumer product like a small plasma toothbrush is much effective option than targeting a dentists with large cylinders of plasma.

Thus, the overall invocation approach of Stockholm is based on development of new product for teeth Whitening market and plasm cleaning project for which a panel of employees and specialised manger is developed to have better decision making for sustainable innovation and enhancing creativity level of organisation to get better result, more competitive power and efficient and sustainable position in the market (Hon and Lui, 2016).

2. Role of an member of the team management in teeth whitening project

For this part of report the member chosen form the management team is Product development manager of Stockholm i.e. Bernard Bing. The product development manger plays an important and most vital role in creating and developing any new product. The important role played the product development manger of Stockholm in teeth whitening project with properly considering its individual and organisational knowledge and experience is provided with below.

Role of product development manager

The Bernard Bing who is the product development manager of Stockholm plays a crucial role in teeth whitening project as a statistical is produced by him that reflects and demonstrate the gap prevailing in the market and also explained ways and strategies for capturing lucrative and growing market with applying and making efficient use of his individual knowledge and experience with proper coordination with organisational knowledge through providing due importance and considerations to view point and opinion of its team members and other employees of organisation which has lead to improvement in viability of a project (Mårtensson and Westerberg, 2016). The important role played by project development manger in respect of its teeth whitening project are described as follows:

Ideation-

Product development mangers is having a crucial role in solicits ideas regarding new product and contributes a grate level of its skills and knowledge for creating idea for development of a new product (Dodgson and Gann, 2018). With regard to the current plasma project and development of a new teeth whitening product, the product development manger of Stockholm (Bernard Bing) has efficiently played his role of Ideation through providing an evaluation that only a teeth whitening product is not sufficient to meet the current market dimensions but a product with more diversified feature like creating healthier gums, breath freshener, etc. is required. Beside this, with the use of his individual knowledge and experience he develop an idea that a more effective research and fully proved and defined product is need to have better growth. Along with this, on the basis of organisational knowledge of product development manger i.e. through discussion with all other business development mangers the idea of marketing a cleaning tool in place of a just teeth whitening is developed on the basis of their combine organisational skills and knowledge. An idea of licensing its new plasma technology has also been evolved by product manager of Stockholm as it ensure better success and revenue in future for the whole organisation.

Market and competitive analysis

A vital role is played by an product development manger in conducting constant surveillance for having a better awareness of the market to effectively evaluate and identify and the needs and current trends of markets and customers. Apart from this, product development manager is also responsible to gather and collect all relevant information about the existing and potential products of competitors along with capabilities and strengths of competitors exists in the business market (Product Manager Role and Responsibilities, 2019). The product development manager of Stockholm is also playing this crucial role of market and competitive analysis. An important role is played by the product development manger of Stockholm in identifying the trends and demand prevailing in the market and through proper analysis of this collected data by making use of their knowledge and experience it has been concluded by product development manger that coming up with just a tooth whitening product is not sufficient as per current market trend and a more diversified and well featured product is required to counter the current demand of customers and market. Beside this, with the help of organisational knowledge of product development manger it has been evaluated that a high level of competition is prevailing in the market and the multinational organisation like Procter & Gamble, Colgate – Palmolive, etc. are having huge power in the market thus, it become necessary for Stockholm to develop better featured product with diversified advantages.

Strategy development-

The another important role played by product development manger is associated with formulation of effective strategy for betterment of an product and overall organisation. Thus process of strategy get started from the market research as it is the process that is related with the information collection and include the analysis of present and potential market trends and customers desires (Saguy, 2016). Market research comprises a detailed study about customers spending and buying habits and also creates awareness about attitude of customers towards a particular product or services which forms the base of product strategy through product development manager. Product strategy is a basically a documented written road map that provide a strategic roadmap to control and direct the production department effectively.

The product development manger of Stockholm is also performing this role of strategy development as preform a crucial role in meeting the objectives the vision of this organisation. The strategy formulated by Bernard Bing (the product development manager of Stockholm) included more emphasis on its research and development department to conduct a more in-depth research and evaluation about its new plasma project so that the findings can be more easily understood to have an effective strategy to achieve the targets through providing proper guidance and directing employees in a right way. It has been evaluated by the personal knowledge and experience of Bernard Bing that without proper research and without performing proper testing of any newly developed technology it is also risky to start production on the basis of new technology as it lead to bad effect to health of any customers which is also risky and can also lead to a threat of legal consequences in future (Mcmullan and Kenworthy, 2016). Thus, use of efficient skills, knowledge and experience is made by the product development manger of Stockholm before formulation and leading any strategy. Beside this, For gaining better strength and more competitive power in respect of these multinational organisation a strategy of licensing technology is also adopted by product development manager of Stockholm on the basis of his knowledge and experience. Apart from this, on the basis of organisational experience and knowledge it has been formulated by the product manager of Stockholm that strategy of teeth whitening product was a just result in a fad thus, a strategy of marketing a its new plasma technology as a cleaning tool is a more beneficial strategy for Stockholm as per the organisational knowledge of product development manger of Stockholm.

Product development-

Apart from strategy development, product development is also having a responsibility of product development which includes finalising the features and criteria of product. Decision regarding the pricing strategy is also a form a part of role of product development manger (Cruickshank, 2016). The Bernard Bing who is product development manger of Stockholm is also analysing and evaluating various pricing strategy with respect the price and features offered by competitors so that a best suitable price can be adopted or finalised for its new product. Apart from all the role played by product development manager of an organisation development and selection of an efficient distribution channel for product is also a responsibility of product development manger. It is essential for a product manger to work efficiently with existing distribution channels to find out the loopholes in existing distribution channels so that efforts can be made to improve current distribution channels. In respect of Stockholm it has been founded that a issue is faced regarding deciding its target professional market. A decision should be made by Bernard Bing regarding the size of the product that either it is distributed as a large cylinders of plasma to dentist or should be directly distributed to the consumer as a simple micro cylinders product. Use of its organisational knowledge and experience is made Bernard Bing to reach a decisions about the size of product so that an efficient supply and distribution channel can be adopted by Stockholm (Lampel and Germain, 2016). The personal experience and knowledge of

Bernard Bing as a product development manager of Stockholm is facilitating him to take a decision of marketing its product as a cleaning tool directly to its customers to have a better target audience and more customer base.

Thus, on the basis of above description it can be evaluated that product development plays a crucial role in ideation, market analysis, strategy formulation and finally in product development through making use of its personal knowledge and experience together with its organisational support and knowledge to ensure achievement of targets and objective of innovation and having better strength in the market through getting competitive strength.

 Open and Closed Model of innovation

Innovation can be defined as feasible and relevant product, service, process or experience which is valid according to business model and adopted by consumers in the market place. It also helps organisation to add value in terms of revenue and brand image or goodwill that assist in sustainability in market place (Lii and Kuo, 2016). In case of Stockholm Gas, Research and Development department has come up with Plasma which is an ionised gas and capable of conducting and absorbing electricity. In turn it vibrates faster leading to scrub surface resultant in whitening of teeth and convert it into viable business model. Innovation can be defined as open and closed model which helps in defining different ways of targeting market and convert ideas into business model for sustainability.

Open Innovation Model:

This can be described as combination of internal and external ideas which helps companies to advance development of technologies, processes, product, services and operations. It is process by which innovation is based beyond the boundaries of company so that potential can be increased with strategically using external environment. Thus in such case innovation arises with the interaction of internal and external ideas in order to develop promising products or business model. In this place of innovation is both inside and outside the company premises (Gudiksen, 2015). This exchange of knowledge in open innovation does not allow any type of free access to technology and knowledge of company. In such only collaborating networking is used which also involves cost and licenses of intellectual property. There are two types of open innovation, are as follows:

Inbound Open Innovation: This relates with sourcing and acquiring professional and expert outside the walls of business so that external environment is scanned successfully. This will help in identifying, selecting, utilising and internalising ideas (Rangus and Slavec, 2017).

Outbound Open Innovation: Such is concerned with commercialising purposely and capturing ideas that are developed internally with view of external environment. This can be done by selective revealing of product and reviewing selling so that feedback can be get.

Coupled Innovation Process: It combined both inbound and outbound innovation as companies work together so that ideas or solutions can be developed (Mitra, 2019). Same can be done by joint venture, loose affiliation, etc.

There is need that businesses adopts open innovation so that they are able to manage and minimised cost and risk related to new product development. They assort to such collaborations to continuously innovate and gain knowledge from external environment so that they have competitive advantage. Main advantage of open innovation model is that it provides flexibility as

there are different forms which innovation model can pursue (Hall and Williams, 2019). Some of them are collaboration, ecosystem and networks by which ideas can be developed and same can be taken into makret place by many ways. For example, corporate venture, licensing, joint research and development agreements and joint ventures. This helps organisation to get additional benefit from collaboration with assurance of adequate innovation capacity.

Closed Innovation Model:

When the innovation process is carried out in boundaries of company like from generating ideas, developing it to marketing tools all exclusively takes place in company. Such innovations does not have any interference and involvement of external environment and are defined within organisation. All the concern resources, technology, processes and property are in direct control of innovative business. For such companies invest huge amount on Research and Development activities so that internal department can be established. This functional unit helps significantly in technological inventions that resultant in products and innovative solutions (Popescu, 2015). As a result it can characterised as closed system which has fixed boundaries and activities related to research and development internally. There are number of factor which needs to be considered while implementing closed innovation model in organisation as employees should be highly qualified and company should be effective in protecting intellectual property. Such ideas and innovation are operated by employees of company and the whole process from idea generation to development. Research and development department is responsible for in – house innovation process can will be helpful in offering sustainable competitive advantage in industry.

in the above image it can be clearly seen that research projects are constrained to companies environment and there is no interaction with external environment. In this research and development department has role in designing, developing and marketing of in – house innovation process (Sulistyo, 2016). Such also helps in innovating ideas which helps in building and maintaining competitive advantage with sustainability in industry to gain leadership and be cost effective.

Justifications

There is need that Stockholm Gas adopts open innovation model so that it can have different type of advantages. Some of them are as follows:

Engaging larger audiences: With the help of open innovation, the potential of audience is larger than closed model. Such will help Stockholm Gas to identify insight of consumer buying behaviour about their taste and preferences (Lee, Wall and Kovacs, 2015). In order to gain competitive advantage it is important that company engage more and more audience so that innovation process can be effective.Worried for online essay help ?Take experts help!

Engaging relevant audiences: In closed innovation model the innovation process is dependent on employee of company thus limit the scope of new ideas. On the other hand, open innovation it is just to identify right audience so that problem can be solved effectively (Cunningham and Potts, 2015). Thus there is need that to be effective with innovation of teeth whitening solution Stockholm Gas should find out relevant audience and conduct innovation development process.

Improving Cost efficiency: In closed innovation it is working hours of staff is consumed in participating and managing whole innovation process including idea generation. In context of open innovation model employees are more effective as they are just involve in managing the process (Ravichandran, 2018). Thus it is important that Stockholm Gas needs to adapt open innovation model so that they are efficient in teeth whitening project.

Finding new talent: As open innovation takes place outside the boundaries of organisation thus it leads in identifying talents. Such process helps in engaging personnel for job opportunities rather than placing close enough candidate. Stockholm Gas will be able to identify skilled and talented professional which will help company in enhancing overall performance of new innovative project of teeth whitening.

Lucrative partnerships: In open innovation model there is collaboration with outside parties which assist in building and maintaining partnership. Such helps business to be more innovative as resources and expertise will be improved and thus effectiveness of whole project will also enhanced (Zach, 2016). In context of Stockholm Gas new project of teeth whitening there are chances that while dealing with open innovation, other companies also join hands and there are chances of partnership so that more market can be shared.

After discussing all the benefits of open innovation model to Stockholm Gas new project of teeth whitening there is need to examine that changes and advantages that it will have on overall business model.

Product complexity: There are times when company is not able to afford and manage its in - house research and development activities and thus such are outsourced. As larger companies face issues related to managing and controlling core strengths and competencies. Thus such resort to collaboration by which other business identify resources and knowledge bot of them need to compete (Schaper, 2016). Stockholm Gas in order to reduce the complexity of whole innovation process which can be done with open innovation model in teeth whitening project.

Information and communications technology: With the help of open innovation model Stockholm Gas will get complete understanding about micro and macro environmental factors. Thus will help in getting complete buying process and behaviour which influence it effectively (Alberti and Varon Garrido, 2017). In order to capture new market share business is involve in project of teeth whitening innovation which can be used as Plasma cylinder for dentists and as consumer product in shape of micro cylinder.Take assignment help to get better grades!

Private Venture Capital: Open innovation model makes it easy and accessible that new start - ups, innovative product and mergers can be done. As while interacting with outside parties there are chances that resources and investment are combined so that new product can be developed under their name (Stacey, 2016). As in case of Stockholm Gas when research and development activities are going to be carried in external environment there are possibilities that two business model combined together so that more resources and investment can be put into the project.

Thus it can seen from above advantages and merit that Stockholm Gas would be benefited by open innovation model and should adopt it. As in present scenario company came out with plasma as a substance that will help in teeth whitening and can be seen as end product. But due to lack in open and involvement of outside parties research and development department is lacking in making it totally a consumer based product (Bresciani and Ferraris, 2016). Due to competition in market it is essential that products have alternative usage so that maximum value can be extracted.

Recommendations

Stockholm Gas has annual budget of £100million for research and development activities and recently it have invested in 10% in project of teeth whitening. For this company have given 12months for project so that some innovation can be developed and company have competitive advantage for sustainability. After time period the research and development department came up with Plasma as substance which will help in the process of teeth whitening. It was effectively tested on pig's teeth and which lead to change of yellow teeth to shade of white and thus process was successful. But the drawback was discovered by product development manager that only with teeth whitening feature present in end product for consumer it would not be able to stand competition. As there are many competitors like Colgate and Procter & Gamble are some of the multinational companies which are leader in industry. Thus there is need that more value – added features are there is product like fresh breathe, cavity prevention, etc. Alternative business model that was developed in meeting was to supply it to dentist as plasma cylinder which can be use as teeth whitening substances. Another is to sell in market as consumer product, so the board meeting was stuck at this topic in how to invest further £10million in the project or not.

As discussed above it can be understood that open innovation model would be effective in the new project and investment can be made accordingly. In same case if research and development activities would have been outbound must have analysed all macro factors and came up with more innovative end product for consumer. Thus in order to invest more first step that should be taken into consideration is that innovation model have to be open one. In order to sell it as end product it is required that more features needs to be added and it should be competitive enough to compete with other multinational competitors. On the other hand, if it is delivered to dentist then there is need that relations and image need to strongly build and maintained. This will require innovation process to be open model so that outside parties can be involved as well. According to Maria Klaus, who is marketing manager of Stockholm Gas, want innovation end product to be for consumer and have competitive advantage in the marketplace. The concern about the product development manager what about the competition in the market from strong multinational companies who are well established with their products.That it is recommended thatStockholm gas build and maintain relationships with dentist and deliver it as plasma cylinder so that same can be used in their services. As the Stockholm gas is a well-known brand and Sweden this goodwill can be used in this product as well.

There is a need that research and development department conductor open innovation model and in the wall outside bodies as well in finalising the product as plasma cylinders. For this different hospitality professionals and Healthcare expertise can be involvedso that proper qualitative product can be built.In order to innovate further testing can be done at every stage so that standard can be maintained and risk associated with the substance can be reduced to minimum.Some controlling tools and techniques can be applied and professional can be hired so that idea generation is effective and can lead to capture new market segment for the company.Open innovation model will provide idea generation from outsourcing which can make and product development more effective by analysing micro and macro factors that have direct and in direct impact on the operationsIt is also recommend that company first test the cylinders on the smaller segment and on a personal basis so that risk associated can be clearly identified. This will help company to take corrective actions in case of any deviations. After successfully testing it again with the help of personal selling and direct marketing can capture a bigger market share in the industry by analysing needs and preferences company can have competitive advantage for longer time.

The Stockholm guys should invest in innovation model so that plasma cylinders can be produced and delivered to dentist as your teeth whitening solution. This will help company to diverse its operation and capture bigger market shareto enhance sales revenue and its position in the industry.

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CONCLUSION

It can be concluded from above report that innovation is ability of organisation to come up with new and creative ideas. Such can be introduce in the form of product, services, processes, technology or business model which can lead to have competitive advantage for organisation. There are different roles of product development manager like market analysis, ideation, product development, etc. with also consider their personal and professional experience and knowledge. Such roles allow them to be effective and analysis innovation process with external market and competition. There are two types of innovation that are adopted by business like open and closed innovation model which have advantages and suitable in particular situations. Open innovation model involves outside parties as well while development and are usually perform in external environment of business. On the other hand closed innovation model is developed in internal environment and all research and development related activities are carried out within company. At last, recommendations are given so that company can adopt open innovation models have sustainable competitive advantage in the industry.

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