Discussthe below:
Task:
You are a management team in a selected virtual organization. Your business is shifting its focus and has indicated innovation as a high priority. To integrate innovation into the culture of the company even further, an employee measurement and reward system is being developed by your team.
Access the Virtual Organization web page to Huffman Trucking as the basis for your team assignment.
Create a business proposal. Determine how you might measure and reward employees for innovative thinking and write an informal proposal of your ideas to the organization's CEO or founder Your proposal must be at least 500 words and include the following:
• Define how success will be measured.
• Describe how the system will affect the hiring process.
• Describe how employees will be rewarded for innovative thinking.
• Describe how the system might affect financial management, investor relations, and market perceptions among shareholders.
Organizational Ecosystem Case Study
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is a leading company in its industry and a widely recognized name, both domestically and internationally. Additionally, Wal-Mart has taken steps to ensure the success of not only its company but also their business ecosystem.
Wal-Mart Stores, established in 1969, is the largest retail company in the world, with over 4,000 stores in 12 countries. Wal-Mart has three types of retail stores: discount stores, supercenters, and neighborhood markets, as well as Sam's Club warehouse stores. Between the various types of Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. offers merchandise and services that range for grocery goods and household supplies to tire and lube service, clothing, and vision centers. Additionally, Wal-Mart has an online music store, a private label cosmetics brand, and pre-paid debit cards for low-income US customers. Some of the company's private-label brands are Sam's Choice, Equate, No Boundaries, Mainstays, and Parent's Choice. Wal-Mart also stocks several licensed brands, including General Electric, Disney, McDonalds, and Mary-Kate and Ashley. For the fiscal year ending in January 2008, Wal-Mart reported over $375 billion in revenue (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Company Profile, 2008).
Wal-Mart has dominated its market, in part, due to the way it approached its business ecosystem (Iansiti & Levien, 2004). There are many examples of Wal-Mart's ecosystem approach, including their procurement system and their recent focus on more specialized stores.
Keeping its ecosystem in mind, Wal-Mart has built a procurement system that not only enhances its performance, but the performance and operation of businesses within its ecosystem. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. requires that all of its suppliers operate the RetailLink® system (Requirements, 2008). RetailLink® is a one-of-a-kind system that allows suppliers to receive real-time data regarding their product in individual stores. Such real-time data allows suppliers to effectively plan for and execute distribution, while also personalizing their product supply by store. According to Iansiti & Levien (2004), "Wal-Mart's procurement system offers it's suppliers invalueable real-time information on customer demand and preferences, while providing the retailer with a significant cost advantage over its competitiors" (p. 69).
Stankevich (2002) noted the success of Wal-Mart's system in terms of micromarketing and efficiency. Jon Ragsdale, vice president of marketing at Dickies, discussed with Stankevich the way RetailLink® brought to light the differences in demand for different sizes and colors of products in different markets. Ragsdale noted, "Before RetailLink®, we were using pretty much a cookie cutter approach to stores" (para. 10).
In recent years, Wal-Mart has begun to take a more specialized approach by offering different goods and adjusting the layout of the stores based on location demographics. Once a one shop fits all store, Wal-Mart now has several stores that cater to the needs of a specific location. One store in Plano, TX has been adapted to appeal to the higher number of affluent customers in that area. The store now offers consumer-electronic specialists, that are more versed in the specifics of electronics than a typical sales associate. Also, that particular store adapted the sporting goods section to have more of a child focus, based on the notion that more affluent individuals purchase their sporting goods from country clubs (Zimmerman, 2006).
In terms of competition, Wal-Mart plays an interesting role. While the most obvious conclusion is that Wal-Mart is the biggest competition for small businesses and retailers, it is apparent that their approach to a business ecosystem is also positive for small business owners. "For small manufacturers and small consumer-goods companies, Wal-Mart is the customer they pray for and the one that can propel their company into big-time sales. Wal-Mart is the ‘elephant' they dream of bagging" (Campbell, 2005, para. 5).
Questions
Response the below questions in 200 to 300 words each.
1. What is a business ecosystem? Do all businesses function within an ecosystem? Why or why not?
2. What potential role does the ecosystem play in Wal-Mart's innovation efforts? Provide examples.
3. In terms of innovation and creativity, what are the advantages and disadvantages of functioning within an ecosystem?
References
Campbell, A. (September 19, 2005). On Wal-Mart, small businesses and business ecosystems. Small Business Trends. Retrieved June 13, 2008 from https://www.smallbiztrends.com/2005/09/on-wal-mart-small-businesses-and.html/
Iansiti, M. and Levien, R. (March 2004). Strategy as ecology. Harvard Business Review. 82(3). 68-78. Retrieved on June 13, 2008 from Ebscohost database.
Requirements. (2008). Wal-Mart. Retrieved on June 16, 2008 from https://walmartstores.com/Suppliers/248.aspx
Stankevich, D. (March 1, 2002). Sizing the market: Wal-Mart masters the micromarketing of clothing. Velocity Company. Retrieved on June 16, 2008 from https://www.velocity.biz/company/pr_sizing_walmart_retaillink.htm
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Company Profile. (May 2008). Datamonitor Business Information Center. Retrieved on May 30 from Marketline Business Information Center.
Zimmerman, A. (2006, September 7). Thinking local: To boost sales, Wal-Mart drops one-size-fits-all approach. The Wall Street Journal. p. A1. Retrieved on June 13, 2008 from ProQuest database.
Innovative Technology Worksheet
Your company, a large online high school, is planning to implement a new innovative social networking technology for their students. The technology would allow students to get to know one another, network, and participate in school activities, such as having virtual student body elections and virtual student committees. The company feels that the ability to have this type of interaction and involvement among students will set the school above the competition.
As the Chief Innovation Officer, you are responsible for the implementation and evaluation of the chosen technology. The company must decide between developing their own social networking system or acquiring a small online high school that has already started development on a similar type of system and is struggling financially. Your director, the company CEO, has come to you with some specific concerns and questions regarding which technology to select.
Create a one-page response to your director responsing all of the following questions:
1. What factors must be considered when implementing an innovative technology internally? What factors must be considered when implementing an externally acquired innovative techology? How do the implementaion issues differ? How are they the same?
2. What factors must be considered when evaluating an internally implemented innovative technology? Why?
3. What factors must be be considered when acquiring an innovative technology externally? Why?