Innovation Problem in Organization-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Describe what the innovation problem is that you are faced with in your Chosen company. Answer Introduction The report is prepared to assess the innovation problem faced within the business organization in Saudi Arabia and how it has managed to deal with that for ensuring successful business functioning. The innovation problem faced within Carrefour, which is selected as the case study here can create an impact on the establishment of a good culture as well. Due to innovation problem, the business performance may deteriorate as well as hinder the successful accomplishment of business objectives. The report will discuss about the innovation problem that Carrefour Saudi Arabia is facing and ways to resolve those issues too. Carrefour has 12 franchise-operated hypermarkets in Saudi Arabia, with five of those being in the capital Riyadh itself (carrefouruae.com, 2018). The innovation of the company includes opening a new store that provides digital solutions including m-commerce services to make the shopping experiences of the customers more convenient and flexible. Innovation problem faced with in the company There are various problems faced while enabling innovation within the business organization and due to this the organizational structure and way of managing the business operations also change. Due to this the workers of the company find it difficult to adapt to the changes and the business functioning also deteriorates. Few problems related to the innovation include lack of ability of employees to innovate due to improper leadership skills and poor support by the managers of the organization. The leaders also fail to keep the staffs motivated, because of which, the innovation outcomes may be inappropriate as well. With the innovation, changes were made and this had resulted in developing an app to make customers purchase products and services online (Katzy et al., 2013). One of the major problems was that the app was not working properly sometime, which not only created difficulties to purchase the products and the online app does not show all the available products that could be fo und at the stores of Carrefour. Another problem with innovation is that innovation is centralized to a particular functional group only, and due to this, the innovation procedures are time consuming. Having more functional groups can prevent any hindrance to the innovation pace and provide unique solutions to the problems faced by the customers. Lack of coordination and diversity also creates innovation problem and this can make the organization face risks while offering the new and innovative products in the market (Subramaniam, 2012). Innovation, if not measured or benchmarked could create difficulty to evaluate the key performable indicators and even generate new ideas required to generate greater value of innovation related approaches. With the appointment of a new CEO, certain approaches were undertaken to innovate the business operations and processes, though it brought some major problems for Carrefour. The new CEO tried to innovate by converting some of the hypermarkets of the company into franchises and even introducing some of the Sunday openings as well. The shares of the company reduced to more than thirty percent due to lesser revenue generation as well (Lorenz, 2015). Due to lack of leadership skills, the staffs were not empowered and kept motivated to perform efficiently by embracing the changes achieved through innovation within the organization. The employees were not motivated and encouraged properly to adapt to the changes, because of which they felt less motivated to innovate. Though innovation has been done like changes in organizational structure and culture, still the employees have been unable to access the necessary resources and even faced issues to cooperate with others within the workplace. The staffs were not trained, because of which, they were unable to create an app that could provide all the necessary services properly for improving the shopping experience of the clients. Carrefour operates over 12 franchise hypermarkets in Saudi Arabia and five of these are located at Riyadh (Kang, 2016). Innovation is something not similar to the invention and creativity; because the creativity and inventions are focused are solution centric whereas he innovations managed within the organization are considered as problem centric. Same has happened for Carrefour, where a new CEO is appointed who can enable changes and mange innovation with the focus on solving problems (carrefouruae.com, 2018). The innovators are focused on the issue with the own proposed solutions, because of which they may not create own ideas and concepts. Due to lack of proper leadership and managerial skills, there were conflicts and misunderstandings, which reduced the group thinking abilities and skills as well (Sloep, Berlanga Retalis, 2014). There was not a proper working condition as well, which created difficulties for the individuals to express themselves and deliver their ideas and opinions too. The innovation at Carrefour changed the organizational structure and a different culture was created, which ma ny of the staffs felt quite difficult to cope up with. The organizational policies were not in place too, which further resulted in forming an inappropriate culture where people could work. Innovation at Carrefour was managed by undertaking sustainable approaches, which increased the prices of certain products and services and left the customers unsatisfied (Urbancova, 2013). Relation between organizational culture and innovation Carrefour experienced a significant loss in business due to the recent changes made through innovation. Due to the innovation, a different organizational culture and structure was enabled, which created difficulties for many of the staffs to adjust with. Carrefour decided to create a diverse workforce consisting of people from different backgrounds and cultures, which resulted in improper communication process, which was furthermore facilitated by change in leadership and strategies. Many of the staffs even failed to accept the need for changes, which created insecurity and varied ambitions of people within the workplace (Lorenz, 2013). Due to the implementation of a new organizational structure, other problems faced were lack of communication, poor organizational hierarchy, due to which, the managers, employers and employees were confused regarding their new roles and responsibilities. The roles and responsibilities were not delegated properly to certain staffs and the cost incurred due to the innovation of organizational structure was huge as well. The company faced innovation problem because the shopping app developed to improve the online shopping experiences of the customers was not always working properly. It was due to the lack of skills and knowledge of the workers, due to which, they failed to cooperate with each other (OSullivan Dooley, 2012). Due to this, the organizational culture was not effective, which hindered the successful management of innovation at Carrefour. By maintaining a good culture within the organization, it could have been easier to OCAI instrument The Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument or OCAI is utilized by Carrefour, Saudi Arabia to assess the organizational culture and make sure that the staffs perform to their potential for enabling innovation all throughout. This would not only make them adjust with the changes but would also allow them to work in coordination and as an unit through the establishment of a good culture within the workplace. The OCAI tool is used as an effective assessment tool for evaluating the organizational culture and desire for changes implemented through the various innovation procedures. The Competing Values framework and different culture types are used as important aspects related to the OCAI assessment tool (Camisn Villar-Lpez, 2014). Competing values framework The competing values framework consists of the four major quadrants including the collaborate, create, control and compete. The assessment tool is used for enabling flexibility and adaptability and furthermore allows the employees to consider the innovation as a positive outcome. The Collaborate quadrant could enable the staffs and employees of Carrefour to work in coordination and prioritize on the shared values. This would promote good communication between the workers and develop a positive work culture within the workplace. The Create quadrant would allow them to show their creative skills and foster innovation by aligning with the vision and objectives of Carrefour. The individuals working for Carrefour must be flexible to consider the changes and this could be supported by a positive culture for moving towards the future (Eeckelaert et al., 2012). The create quadrant would also allow the staffs to become creative and emphasize on the accomplishment of outcomes with ease. This c ould have facilitated the development of the online shopping app through the development of a compelling vision and generating new ideas for the future as well. The Compete quadrant focuses on the individuals who are concerned with the competition and achievement of goals and objectives by competing against each other (Ikramullah et al., 2016). The Compete quadrant would allow the individuals to speed up the management of business processes and obtain higher market share and ensure brand equity too. The control quadrant could enable clarification of roles and responsibilities of the worker at Carrefour, furthermore conduct researches and feasibility study to understand whether the innovation procedures would be beneficial or not (Vila, Perez Morillas, 2012). To improve the organizational effectiveness, the competing values framework helped in providing better stability, control and flexibility. It was also ensured that the employees work together in coordination to create a good culture and at the same time, achieved the positive results within quick time. There are different organizational culture types that are adopted by different organizations to create good working conditions and communication between the staffs to improve the business operations efficiency. Four quadrants are associated with the different cultures and values needed to be maintained within the organization (Vila, Prez Coll-Serrano, 2014). Figure: OCAI framework values related to culture (Vila, Prez Coll-Serrano, 2014) Organizational culture Because there were problems related to the innovation, so, the company wanted to focus on the major values including the flexibility, discretion, stability and control for assisting the employees to embrace the changes with ease. This could make the employees perform their roles and responsibilities together and furthermore discuss about the issues faced by communicating with each other. The organization desired for flexibility, better stability and control and to maintain these values, Carrefour should create a market culture or clan culture (Ovseiko Buchan, 2012). The clan culture was absent previously and if the company wants to maintain the values, then the development of a clan culture can create a good working environment and address the needs of the clients by promoting participation of employees, team working and consensus. The market culture should be created for gaining reputation and success by reaching the objectives fruitfully. Market penetration and stock management could be important aspects managed through the setting of proper prices and understanding how to make the online shopping experience more convenient and easy for the customers. However, for that, a proper app should be developed that could be assessed through revaluation of requirements of the customers and creating a platform where the employees could discuss about these matters properly (Belasen Rufer, 2013). This would overcome the innovation problems as well as make Carrefour less susceptible to changes, furthermore maintain flexibility, stability and control all t hroughout. Recommendations It is recommended conduct a feasibility study of the innovation procedures at first, because innovation itself is an effective way to overcome issues with ease. Carrefour should maintain a positive culture to create good working conditions and at the same time, facilitate team working and communication between the employees. Assessment of the performances of the workers is recommended for evaluating the areas of weaknesses and trains them to improve their skills, knowledge and expertise. To deal with the innovation problems, it would be important for the leaders and manager of Carrefour to keep the employees motivated by providing them with benefits and rewards It is also recommended to create a proper organizational structure where decentralization is possible for enhancing the efficiency of the business operations and ensure gaining the best outcomes from the innovation procedures. Conclusion The report explained the innovation issue faced by Carrefour in Saudi Arabia due to the lack of proper culture, poor communication and team working between the employees. The problem analyzed here was the implementation of the online shopping app to provide the customers with a better shopping experience. It was a major step to innovation undertaken by the organization, though the app was found to be not working at certain situations along with unavailability of all the products and services that were actually available at the stores. This was due to the lack of communication between the staffs and poor coordination among them, which deteriorated the culture and even hindered the successful management of business operations. This affected the innovation negatively, due to which, the OCAI framework was utilized to determine the culture that should be the most suitable for ensuring flexibility, stability and control at the company. The market and clan cultures were found to be effectiv e and it was also recommended to provide the organizational staffs with proper training sessions so that they could understand the importance of teamwork and create new ideas for innovating the products and services of Carrefour. References Belasen, A., Rufer, R. (2013). Innovation communication and inter-functional collaboration: a view from the competing values framework for corporate communication. InStrategy and Communication for Innovation(pp. 227-240). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. Camisn, C., Villar-Lpez, A. (2014). 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