Individual Reflection: Stakeholder Support for Innovative Ideas - Assignment Example

INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION: STAKEHOLDER SUPPORT FOR INNOVATIVE IDEAS Lecturer: INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION: STAKEHOLDER SUPPORT FOR INNOVATIVE IDEAS Idea and identified stakeholders Creativity is certainly a process, rather than an event. This means that for there to be any creative innovation, a person has to go through a series of tasks and activities, all of which must be successfully implemented before the creative innovation can be realized (Long, 2010). Very key among the tasks that are involved in the collective process of creative innovation is the need to have a creative idea, and also identify stakeholders whose approval and support will be necessary for realizing the creative innovation.

In my case, the first task of having a creative idea has been successfully executed, which deals with the plan of having virtual marketers for my organization. These virtual marketers will simply be made up of internet based marketers who will promote the product and services of our organization to local people and based on the outcome that each virtual marketer produces via follow up from people or customers he markets the company to, the person will be paid. For this creative idea, list of stakeholders who need to approve and support include the chief executive officer, executive director, general manager, deputy general manager, assistant deputy general manager, branch manager, assistant branch manager, human resource manager, sale and marketing manager, and the budget and finance officer.

Stakeholder Analysis Generally, the stakeholders identified can be categorized into three major groupings as depicted in the table below. Table 1: A breakdown of stakeholders Level of authority Functional area (stakeholders) Top Level Management Chief executive officer Executive director General manager Middle Management Deputy general manager Assistant deputy general manager Branch manager Assistant branch manager Operational Core Human resource officer Sale and marketing officer Budget and finance officer Among the three categories of stakeholders, each of them is expected to have a different perspective towards the implementation of my creative idea, as well as different issues that will be important to them.

This is because each of these represents different levels of authority and at each level of authority, different information needs are required for decision making (Applegate, 2008). For the top level management, what is going to be most important for them is the short to medium term impact of the idea to the organization. This means that they would be involved in a decision making process that will be based on what the outcome of the idea in the short to medium term will be. This is because these people represent the external image of the organization and will be readily held reliable if they allow any idea that does not produce profitable outcomes.

The middle management will on the other hand have as an important issue for them, the availability of resources within the organization to carry out the idea. This is because most of these people are managers whose core mandate is to harness resources to make de execution of decision and ideas possible within the organization (Golovatchev, Budde and Kellmereit, 2010). Finally, what will be important for those at the operational core is processing detail involved in implementing the idea. This is because these are going to be the main architects for the implementation of the idea if order comes from above and so they must ensure that they have all it takes to execute orders successfully.

Risk Management and Strategies in winning stakeholders Analytically, the idea to go ‘virtual’ with marketing will come with major information risk for the company. This is because the company would have to take the risk of exposing key in-house or internal organizational information to these virtual marketers, who would need the information to effectively market the ideas of the company to potential customers. Meanwhile, this could lead to information hacking whereby leaked information could get into the hands of competitors who would take advantage of the information, creating information asymmetry (Howitt and McManus, 2012).

For the stakeholders, the impact of their different interest could simply promote or sabotage the idea. For the top level management, all they need to say is ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and the implementation will start. But after saying yes, the middle management may sabotage with delays in releasing funds. And even when funds are released on time, the operational core may also sabotage by showing apathy towards the implementation of tasks. To address these risks and impacts, thorough consultative discussion and lobbing will be done at all levels of authority before formally bringing the idea to bear.

After this approach to consultative and lobbing mechanism has been exhausted, a team-building exercise that is aimed at making each stakeholder see him or herself as equally responsible for the successful implementation of the idea will be developed. As Long (2010) noted, stakeholders are always bound unto ideas if the success or failure of it thereof rests with their decisions. This strategy will therefore ensure that each stakeholder sees him or herself as a team, where the need for any sabotage will be against the collective success of the team.

References Applegate, L. M. (2008). Stakeholder analysis tool (Harvard Business School Exercise No. 808–161). Retrieved from http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/pl/20331266/20417624/228933ffcd7a490ad593b938d1bc61d1 Golovatchev, J., Budde, O., & Kellmereit, D. (2010). Technology and innovation radars: Effective instruments for the development of a sustainable innovation strategy and successful product launches. International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, (7) 3, 229–236. Howitt, M.

, & McManus, J. (2012). Stakeholder management: An instrument for decision making. Management Services, 56(3), 29–34. Long, S. (2010). The strategic implications of non-technical stakeholder acceptance in high technology system design and implementation. Human Systems Management, 29, 205–215.