Abstract
Growth is an imperative need of business and industry. Growth is needed not only as a quest to gain prominence and gain in size to satisfy the stakeholders search for higher economic returns, although these can be justified as sufficient reasons, but primarily to sustain the operations. Firms have always faced challenges of several types and from various quarters. Challenges from the customers, from suppliers, and from unrelenting competition are well known. The net impact of these age old challenges have been summed by many a researchers in the form of low costs, acceptable quality to the customer, speed of availability of products, ability to make a fast change in the product mix and offer of variety. The strategies adopted to sustain the efficacy of business took the shape of business models. One of the most popular models to grow has been always to identify the main rivals, and focus on their strategies adopted, match or perform better than them and beat them in their own game. How else do we explain the principles of ‘benchmarking’? Decades of 1950s through 1960s saw a relentless pursuit to reduce costs of production through stress on approaches that will increase productivity. Cost cutting no doubt increased the margin by building up the bottom line through increasing the spread between the gross and the net, but it was not to be a strategy to increase revenue through growth, except marginally. The 1970s and 1980s brought business models that advocated quality management through approaches as TQM, 6-Sigma, Business Excellence Models. Moving away from the functional role of inspection of inputs, processing and the finished products, Quality then came to occupy an exalted status to create competitive edge. Sooner, quality emerged as a part of the culture of the organization, embedded in all the management processes. It was no longer a philosophy to achieve growth, but a qualifier to enter the market. It meant that you had to ensure a minimum quality if you had to continue in business. Your competitor for similar reasons will raise the bar of qualifying standard to push you to new standards for survival. Achieving real growth remained a distant goal. In search of an approach to growth, many organizations took shelter behind the protection provided by the state in the form of regulations that did not permit competition through prohibitive new entry or restrictions on increasing the capacity. With the fall of communism and its diluted forms known in various types of socialism, the business was through open to a new regime of unrelenting change and competition at a level playing field. The firms tried new models centred on creating value for customers as a sure shot to grow. There is an underlying common thread behind these approaches. The organizations go through a process of intense competition that can be cut throat, a fight for the same customer and the market. Tucker (2002) sums up, ‘The fact is, no matter how bulletproof your firm’s current business model. It will be challenged by new business models. Over time, it will also be imitated, and thereby diluted and commoditized and copied to death’.
How to drive growth continues a major issue and a challenge. Strategy of innovation has been suggested as a single overreaching strategy in the quest for growth. King and Anderson (2003) refer that the term ‘innovation’ has become management buzz-word over the last two decades; the business leaders have urged upon industry the need to respond to competition by becoming more innovative. Skarzynski and Gibson (2008) refer to leading companies, GE, P&G, IBM, Whirlpool, Royal Dutch/Shell, CEMEX, and more who their success in building and sustaining a deep, corporate-wide capability for Innovation. To this list one can add Danone, Amul, P&G and GC (Sardana, 2014).
Gaynor (2002) defines innovation as invention plus implementation/commercialization. Harvard Business Essentials (2009) offers an elaborate definition, ‘innovation is the embodiment, combination, and/or synthesis of knowledge in original, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services’. There are misconceptions associated with the word. It is often associated with technological activities such as product or process design in an organization. Innovation involves all entities of an organization. It covers various functional areas such as HRD—not just promoting but also carrying out administrative activities of recruitment, retention, motivating, employees innovatively, financial function in finding funds in innovative ways and in carrying out audits and controls; in purchasing through innovative purchase policies; and in various management tasks. Innovation involves more than gaining knowledge or promoting continuous learning, it calls for translating knowledge and thinking into action. An idea alone cannot be called an innovation, although it can be a starting point. Another misconception lies in considering that innovation is accidental or comes from a special breed of creative persons. King and Anderson (2003) quote characteristics of organizational innovation as being tangible, new to the social setting, intentional rather than accidental, must not be a routine change, must aim at producing benefits, and it must have discernible impact. Then there is a view that innovation is meant to yield only radical results. Harvard Business Essentials (2009) points out that incremental innovation exists and is understood to exploit existing forms or technologies; radical innovation in contrast adds something new to the world departing from existing technology or methods.
Innovation emerges as the key driver of growth, bottom line and competitive advantage. It is responsible for growth as it creates new market space and hence revenue at the top of the table, by looking across the conventionally defined boundaries of competition: across substitute industries, across strategic groups, across buyer groups, across complimentary product and service offerings, across the functional-emotional orientation of an industry and even across time (Kim & Mauborgne, 2001). The cases included in this issue discuss innovation in different dimensions drawn as they are across boundaries of competition. The stress is on applications and practices followed by many firms in diverse business and administrative situations.
The issue opens with a case from Paula Rossi, Pasi-Heikki Rannisto and Jari Stenvall that focuses on the conflicting logics of multiple actors involved in planning, organizing and providing health and social services in an innovative way. The case highlights the experiences of the actors coping with the complexity of the multiple, often contradictory logics: the costs-based logic of the public administrators and politicians, and the service-based logic of the citizens and public service producers. The case concludes stressing the needs to consider the service perspective, new hybrid practices and changing meanings given to cooperation in public sector leadership to strengthen the development of public services to serve the citizens better innovatively.
Katherina Kuschel, Francisco Cotapos and Sebastián Hercovic next discuss the dilemmas facing a woman entrepreneur to scale her start-up in crowded fashion garments online retail business. The case brings out the milestones of the journey the entrepreneur started in 2008 in partnership after her graduation in business management and internships. After knowing the online business, Cecilia decided to dedicate herself to technological entrepreneurship. For this reason, in 2013 (along with her husband) she started ‘RenováTuVestidor’ (Renew your Wardrobe). This is a website dedicated to the marketplace, specifically in purchase and sale of second-hand, ‘cool’ clothing for women. The case brings out innovations in the otherwise massively copied business, as well as the new problems she faces.
Ritesh Patel in the case that follows discusses the travails of a young entrepreneur in her start-up of a Tattoo Studio. Ahmedabad is one of the growing cities of India where small businesses are carried out in the midst of large textile mills. A small business suffers from many handicaps to grow. It lacks the financial strength to organize into a large business and possess state of art technology; the owner is the production manager, marketing manager and the HR manager, all rolled up into one; and it has neither any pedestal to stand high and claim to possess a differentiation. It distinguishes itself when it is customization and customer service. The author narrates the story of a businesswoman who has successfully transformed a home-based unorganized vocation into an organized retail chain of the tattooing business. It explains how small businesses can sustain and keep alive the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation.
Vasu Keerativutisest and Bruce Hanson next present a case study about a leading engineering service company in Thailand, referred as ‘Thai CLV’. The company is well known since long for quality performance of its maintenance projects for oil tanks. The management of the company opines that innovative utilization of team structure could deliver a flexible working environment and better outcomes for the project in the midst of the rapidly changing engineering and technological landscape and the rising competition. The focus of this article is Thai CLV’s effort to further organize itself around innovative high-performance teams by exploring the opportunities of external functions toward a high-performing entrepreneurial team.
The next case from Malla Mattila and Hanna Lehtimaki examines technology commercialization as networked processes. The case presents a longitudinal analysis of a technological invention called intelligent paper over a period of 13 years in 1997–2009. In the analysis, six technology commercialization phases are identified and the role of various actors in each phase is depicted. The study shows how the processes of technology development commercialization intertwine and shape each other. The study contributes to literature on commercialization of innovation by presenting an empirical case study where the processes of technology development commercialization are complex and continuously evolving processes.
Deepika Upadhyay, Hari Shankar Shyam and Mukesh Chaturvedi next discuss management dilemma in the midst of a crisis in human resource management at Hotel Waterlily, listed as a popular and upcoming hotel of Indore (India). The promoters intend to develop the hotel as a five star property. Third and fourth financial quarters are considered to be the most business friendly quarters of the year for the hotel as it garners maximum business during this period. During the last month of second financial quarter, 18 employees resigned in mass. They had an offer from an emerging hotel of the city. All of them were quite seasoned employees of the hotel. They demanded 25 per cent hike in their salary to continue their service. Can there be innovative solutions?
Indus Motor Corporation Ltd (IMCL) of Pakistan is the focus of study in the next case from Mustaghis-ur-Rahman and Mati-ur-Rahman. IMCL incorporated in 1989 as a joint venture between the House of Habib (HOH), a local conglomerate and Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) and Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC) of Japan. The company manufactures and markets Toyota brand vehicles in Pakistan. IMCL has set unique examples of corporate social responsibility: it has planned community development, environment protection measures and research on the road safety, and traffic congestion under wits ‘Concern Beyond Cars’ programme. The case deals with the IMCL leader’s concerns which were beyond making cars. Many of these comprise innovative ideas.
Albert Tan and Sumit Mitra in the case that follows analyze growth and transformation of Food Malayan Berhad (FMB) from a family run business to a professionally managed organization. The case discusses how FMB shaped its growth strategy, given the current competitive environment and increasing operating costs by aligning its business objectives with its operations. While the CEO of the company was optimistic about the growing demand for food products in the region, he was worried about the future profitability of the industry. Domestic competition was growing and putting pressure on prices, while global competition was driving up prices for scarce commodity resources. FMB has drawn plans that include several large capital investments, and the CEO wants to be sure that this growth would strengthen the group’s bottom line.
Jitesh Parmar points out that companies proposing to operate internationally require to understand need of different cultures. Although brand helps to capture markets in alien cultures, there is need for these companies to understand regional differences. The present case concerns food-processing company Vimal Agro Private Limited, Bardoli (Dist. Surat, Gujarat, India) with special focus on brand SWAD. Promotional activities conducted by the company at local and international level have been studied.
The next case from Paul Lapoule and James Rowell has objectives to identify the conditions for a company developing a B2B trade show’s communication to move into an efficient Omni-channel communication approach. The case study method is used to describe the issues facing Plastic Omnium Environnement Company in deploying an Omni-channel communication approach. This company provides services to local authorities and private sector companies to dispose of their waste. This case study provides an insight in an organization that is optimizing its communication strategy in a specific market.
Neha Wason and Sidhartha Wason in the case that follows present a typical problem that a new generation entrepreneur faces if he wants to enter a traditional Indian textile industry working on the lines of old business framework unaltered till date. The main topic in study is the challenges faced by the traditional textile industry of India. The presented account of information concerns with the Chikankari textile a subsection of the vast traditional textile industry of India. The case puts forward a challenge to find a feasible solution to set up a profitable business venture keeping in mind the challenges present for the industry.
Next case from Bijoylaxmi Sarmah and Zillur Rahman highlights Indian Tobacco Corporation (ITC)’s journey from being a pure leaf tobacco selling company to a reputed conglomerate with popular brands in diversified areas. ITC’s CSR and sustainability activities taking a turning point with the company taking an immense interest in integrating societal problems in its company’s policies and strategies. These transformations can be seen in almost all the business divisions of ITC. Mangaldeep division, an incense stick division is not an exception to this change. The authors carry out an analysis from different perspectives such as CSR, sustainability and shared value initiatives.
Burak Erkut next discusses SAP Labs India as a very good example of innovativeness in products and attractiveness as an employer in a rapidly changing business environment. The study goes on to explore how SAP employees and scholars are perceiving innovation processes to which they contribute. The study has been conducted by using publicly available blog entries and discussing these within the concepts of perceptions, innovation and nudging. Being close to customers and feeling self empowered are the consensus points; latter one reached by ‘nudge’. These perceptions can give new insights on successful innovation management, especially in absence of hierarchies.
The last of the case studies included in this issue is contributed by Dhruba Kumar Gautam and discusses Nepal Tele Communication (NTC) and NCell are the two dominant players in the telecom space in Nepal. While NTC provides all type of the phone services, NCell has been exclusively focusing on providing Global System for Mobile (GSM) mobile lines. Over the past few years, NCell, with its aggressive marketing and better services, has been chipping away at NTC’s market share. While NTC continues to lead in terms of number of total subscribers, NCell recently overtook NTC to become the leading provider of GSM mobile lines in the country. Based on this, the present case study of two dominant telecommunication service providers of Nepal highlights the current scenario and attempts to explore the possible strategies to manage them effectively.
Innovation is prevalent in an organization and can take place on many fronts. The prominent of the areas include products, services, process technology, logistics and business models (Harvard Business Essentials, 2009). Innovations have been responsible for business growth, transformation and competitiveness. In the last mentioned domain, innovation is now talked of as a factor that brings competitive advantage. Each of the cases in this issue highlights the role of innovation in some front or the other leading to economic growth.
We trust that the cases drawn as these are from live situations will kindle the flame of knowledge to know more about innovation and its creative benefits. For the practitioners, this issue, we hope, shall motivate to encourage the culture of innovation at the workplace.
We look forward to receive your critical comments and valuable suggestions for improvement of the journal as always.