BMO6622 Managing Innovation and Enterpreneurship

Published : 02-Sep,2021 | Views : 10

Question:

Conduct a literature review on these topics given is here below:
1.business models
2.dimensions of innovation
3.sources of innovation

Answer:

Innovation can be understood as translation of a business idea into a good or service, so effective and productive that it creates value for the customers and converts into a full-fledged business model. Innovation begins, when the translated idea can spin money for the company to an economical cost. In business terminology innovation generally occurs when the ideas are applied by the company in order to further satisfy the expectations and needs of the customers (Davies, 2014). For the purpose of understanding innovation can be divided into 2 categories:

Evolutionary innovation: This can be brought about by technological and incremental progress/changes in processes or technology (Wagner, 2014)

Revolutionary Innovation: As the name suggests, these kind of innovation disrupt the entire market by coming up with something new and radical (Hatch, 2013)

Business model innovation is a great source of competitive advantage and corporate restructuring. A lot of companies are moving towards business model innovation, not just because of competitive landscape, but because they have understood the rationale, that if a business has to pass the standing water test it has to keep evolving and innovate itself. Hence, business model innovation is a great organizational change process that questions existing processes, structures and modes of control (Massa & Tucci, 2013)

In the following study we will be discussing more on business innovation, why it is important for businesses and organization to innovate and how customers benefit out of it. Business model canvas will also be studied taking some examples of major innovators.

Business Model Innovation

Business model innovation has one primary goal, to realize new sources of revenue by improving product value or bring service innovation, which deliver value to the customers. The digital literacy among the population has been an impetus for business model innovation. Companies like Netflix, Airbnb, and Uber have been extremely innovative with their business models and have created disruption in the existing models of business. This has also shortened the business model lifecycles. Global marketplace is also a source of business model innovation, as it has led technological advancement to come together and infuse the same with the business processes .Hence; these forces are also pushing the companies to consistently innovate their business processes and provide more value to the customers (Markides, 2013)

Apple is one of the prominent and promising example of business model innovation, beginning in the early 2000’s, Apple’s introduction of product and services such as IPod, IPhone, ITunes helped the company expand beyond its normal market offering of desktop business. Netflix as mentioned above is another example in business model innovation, after upending the traditional video rental market, the company in recent years took advantage of the digital platform and gain a substantial advantage in the streaming media business(Martins & Rindava, 2015)

Business model innovation is thus a blend of changes the company has to make in and around the industry, enterprise and the revenue model. Never the less all these three component are entirely different and unique to each other, but they build foundation stone of the business (Zott & Amit, 2015). Let’s see what these three different models mean to the business model innovation space

The Industry model- Change the industry

White space, grey space or moving to a redefine the entire industry value chain is known as industry model innovation. Some examples of these can be

White space: Google redefining and forming a totally new industry, from a search engine it moved to Product based and started making its own data analysis tools (White, 2016)

Horizontal: Virgin airline gradually moved from the airline business to cell phones, music to space travel. Creating more and more horizontal space in its business functions (Strauss, Rupp & Love, 2016)

Redefine the value chain: Dell moving from its computer manufacturing, offering mass produced models to a wide range of customizable units.

The Enterprise model: In this type of model, the entire business structure is recreated or redefined. This might mean, moving up or down the hierarchy, leveraging a network of partners or outsourcing some of its key activities. Also, some companies in the enterprise value chain focuses on their core strength and outsourcing non key activities & assets. For example Apple has decided to move manufacturing of its batteries to china and want to focus on what they do the best, product innovation (Theyel, 2013)

The Financial Model: The financial model of business innovation is doing investment in innovative ways with different pricing strategies, there are almost 22 models of pricing to choose from, divided into 5 categories. Apple for example uses different pricing strategies for its product; it leverages certain services for a fraction of fees from its downstream and upstream service providers in order to give customer more value for the money and also reinventing its financial model (Annand, 2015)

It is researched and observed that the business models cycles have on an average reduced from 15 years to just 5 years, hence forcing the companies to innovate their product and services.

In the pic drawn above, is shown a typical framework of a business model. The individual components together helps the business to identify what are its sources of revenue and how is it earned. Every business has to make profits for itself that is the ultimate goal of any business. The same is the case with business model innovation. For a starting business, business model will include choice on the following strategic decisions

Identity: As the name suggests, this component lets the business finds its identity by knowing its mission, its values, its objectives, its preamble and also how do they want to be known to their customers.

Core Resources: As the name suggests, primary or the pivotal basic resources, which the business needs for its operation, in order to create a value proposition for its customers.

Target Group: This can be understood, as segmenting the market and focussing on specific customers or target groups which will react positively to the business model.

Channel Strategy: The strategy to reach out the customer through various channels (Online, offline), which also helps them to build a relationship with the client.

Customer Offers: Offers which a client can choose from, out of multiple offerings provided to him.

Supply chain strategy: Choice has to be made for how the product and service will be created, distributed and also at what cost.

Business model innovation can be understood as very progressive and radical in its business processes. Some business models are transformational and incremental as well, basically depending upon the industry, technological advancement etc. (Serrat, 2017). Each industry is looking out for that one breakthrough, which will differentiate its business from those of its competitors, in this race, some new businesses fail and some succeed to unimaginable heights (Netflix)

Some Facts about Business model Innovation

A business model is fixated with every company.
The business model of the company has to evolve with the changing times, if it has to make profits for the company.
The business model these days is seen as a distinct concept, on one hand the attention is on building value for the company and on the other is recording value of the company.
New business models can be generated; tools such as 4 dimension concept, business model canvas or BMI pattern cards support the generation of business models
Trial and error principle has to be followed by business models, if they want to innovate, make mistakes, learn from them, is the mantra behind the innovation.
New business models don’t necessarily require the development of completely new ideas, it is an amalgamation of old and new ideas, therefore, reinventing the wheel is not required. Tweaking business model can lead to new business model(Saebbi & Foss, 2015)
Business model innovation has a potential to revolutionize the entire industry.

These facts clearly states that the business model innovation is not about reinventing a new wheel, it about understanding what’s next and accordingly develop solution circling around this concept. The innovators have to understand, what will add on to the value to customer offering and accordingly innovate its product or service model (Garud & Tuertscher & Van, 2015)

For the successful implementation of the business model, a learning that facilitates the description and gives a room for discussion is really essential. Below are presented two concepts which will answer the question on business model innovation

The 4 Dimensional concept of the University at St. Gallen

The business model is described on the basis of 4 dimensions, which are

Who are the target customers
How does the company earn money
How is company created and delivered the benefits
How will the model create benefit for the customer (Martins, Rindova & Greenbaum, 2015)

Answering the above mentioned questions, lays the foundation of business model innovation

The Business model canvas

The business model canvas has 9 pillars on which it is standing, which are further divided into 5 sub categories. It covers all the important areas like customers, infrastructure, and finance (Joyce & Paquin, 2016)

Customer segments: People, organisations or the group which is targeted or has to be reached.

Value Propositions: It has to do with the value which is offered to the customer for the money he pays.

Channels: The channels through which company’s product or services are distributed.

Customer relations: Relationship of trust & faith that the company builds with its customer (Customer relationship manager, customer success managers, etc.)

Income source: It can be understood as the revenue business gets its business activities.

Key resources: The resources needed for the business

Key activates: The activities done by the organisation, in pertinent to the business processes.

Key alliances/Partnerships: The partners of the business mode such as strategic partners, joint alliances from a part of this group.

Cost component/Structure: The various costs involved in the creation of business.

These are the basic business models, which forms the foundation of business model innovation.

Conclusion:

Innovation in business model can be understood as the most effective ways for companies to stand out from the competition and create value for the customers. It is a process of analysing the fundamental blocks of the business model, breaking them down into individual blocks, analysing, re-evaluating them and then re arrange them separately, innovating the business model. In the times, when the word is changing frequently, technology depleting itself and then reinventing, it becomes extremely essential for businesses to keep on innovating themselves. Customers, these days are very aware of what is happening around them, they have access to information, which makes them really vulnerable to the evolving times.

Customers are always in a lookout for solutions which will make their life easier and let the problems vanish. Hence, comes into picture is the business model innovation, which quickly understands the customer perception, behaviour, also understand the role; technology can play, and are risk takers who want to innovate the business chain. Such business innovation is a boom to the society, as thinking out of the box is the key to success of business model innovation, which the innovators apply. In all fairness, disruption is good for the industry, the process may need a bit of modification, in terms of mentoring of start-ups, and some experts looking over the way processes are taking shape, but as long as the society is getting benefitted , it’s a win-win for all. Umber, amazon, Netflix, Airbnb are some of the fantastic examples of disruption models which have changed the way these industries were working before. It is the responsibility of the big firms to come forward and embrace and be a part of the change, rather than just be an audience

References:

Annand, D., 2015. Developing a sustainable financial model in higher education for open educational resources. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16(5).

Davies, A., 2014. Innovation and project management.

Garud, R., Tuertscher, P. and Van de Ven, A.H., 2015. 18 Business Innovation Processes. The Oxford handbook of creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship, p.339.

Hatch, M., 2013. The maker movement manifesto: rules for innovation in the new world of crafters, hackers, and tinkerers. McGraw Hill Professional.

Joyce, A. and Paquin, R.L., 2016. The triple layered business model canvas: A tool to design more sustainable business models. Journal of Cleaner Production, 135, pp.1474-1486.

Markides, C.C., 2013. Business model innovation: What can the ambidexterity literature teach us?. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 27(4), pp.313-323.

Martins, L.L., Rindova, V.P. and Greenbaum, B.E., 2015. Unlocking the hidden value of concepts: a cognitive approach to business model innovation. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 9(1), pp.99-117.

Massa, L. and Tucci, C.L., 2013. Business model innovation. The Oxford handbook of innovation management, 20, p.18.

Saebi, T. and Foss, N.J., 2015. Business models for open innovation: Matching heterogeneous open innovation strategies with business model dimensions. European Management Journal, 33(3), pp.201-213.

Serrat, O., 2017. Business model innovation. In Knowledge Solutions (pp. 499-507). Springer Singapore.

Strauss, S., Rupp, S. and Love, T. eds., 2016. Cultures of energy: power, practices, technologies. Routledge.

Theyel, N., 2013. Extending open innovation throughout the value chain by small and medium-sized manufacturers. International Small Business Journal, 31(3), pp.256-274.

Wagner, G.P., 2014. Homology, genes, and evolutionary innovation. princeton university press.

White, G.W., 2016. The Library as a Center for Innovation: A Collaboration at the University of Maryland. In Space and Organizational Considerations in Academic Library Partnerships and Collaborations (pp. 68-86). IGI Global.

Zott, C. and Amit, R., 2015. Business model innovation: toward a process perspective. Oxford Handbook of Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship: Multilevel Linkages. Oxford University Press, New York: NY, pp.395-406.