Innovation at a Company - Case Study Example

Innovation at DHL Company Name Institution Innovation at DHL Company Introduction Innovation is the process in which ideas, products and other processes are changed or improved to effectively increase the chances of a business or organization succeeding in what it does (Osborne and Brown, 2013). Innovation comes along with better productivity and higher performance whether it is in an individual, business or an organization. In sectors, for example, business sector, innovation involves adjusting to various changes in the marketplace. To be specific, organization innovation entails implementation of more sophisticated organizational procedures in carrying out various practices, external relations and organization in your place of work. This is a process that requires substantial amount of input and commitment. It involves the progression of translating first what commences as a creative idea into something more beneficial. It is directed and motivated with individual creativity within the organization and moreover, the need to comprehend what motivates creativity and what aids to facilitate it (Osborne and Brown, 2013). Although innovation is mostly about improving the already existing idea into a more efficient one, it is also important to recognize that innovation is not all about bringing up radical ideas, products or services. Innovation is a step process to greater achievements and may involve the following key steps. First, an analysis is conducted in order to establish customer needs and competitors (Osborne and Brown, 2013). This step should be able to accommodate new ideas and ought to be adaptive to any arising situations. Secondly, a strategy and a proper responsive plan are formulated and it should focus on innovation as its key aspect. Lastly, inspirational leadership to motivate and empower innovation with the organization should be in place. This paper will explain how innovation processes are beneficial to DHL Company and also how it manages creativity within them and how the innovations processes have led to their improvement. The paper will also highlight some recommendation that may enhance innovation in DHL Company. DHL Company DHL is a logistics company that offers global delivery services. It is one of the oldest and widespread intercontinental air-express (Rushton and Walter, 2007). It serves more than 70,000 destinations integrated within 227 nations. It delivers both light and heavy parcels. Some of the destinations that benefit from DHL services include Middle East, Europe, United States and the Pacific Rim countries. DHL has been organized into four operating categories or divisions. These include Mail division, Express division, Global Forwarding Freight division and Supply Chain division. The Mail division involves transportation of national and international parcels. In this division, they also promote electronic services regarding to mail delivery. It also particularizes in dialogue marketing which involves provision of customers with online tools in order to ensure that the proper management of customer addresses quality and efficiency in identification of target groups (Rushton and Walter, 2007). Express division deals with courier and direct services to consumers in more than 220 nations. They are regarded as the most widespread network worldwide. Global Forwarding Freight division deals with distributing goods via rail, road or sea. DHL are considered the number one Freight operators internationally and also are among the chief overland forwarders in Europe. Finally, Supply Chain division handles contract logistics, managed transport and provision of storage at various links in the respective supply chains (Rushton and Walter, 2007). This division also offers resolutions to corporate information and management of information suited to meet the demand of their consumers. Innovation Strategies used by DHL Company DHL as an organization monitors and recognizes the importance of managing creativity and innovation within their organization. This comes about with the huge number of employees, which ranges up to 300,000 employees, motivated and dedicated to offer mail delivery, freight forwarding and Corporate Information Solutions to the widespread consumers (Rushton and Walter, 2007). The organization aims at coming up with a business integrity that advocates fresh new ideas from their members of staff (Rushton and Walter, 2007). This has been made possible by the emergence of prosperous creativity workshop programs aimed at assisting the employees understand and employ the ‘process’ of creativity which in turn gets out their best and strongest assets which help them thrive. Also the tightening of markets worldwide under global recession has influenced the organization to understand that innovation and creativity of its employees has a major impact on driving the business. This has enabled the organization to introduce Impact Factory creativity team to study individual creative behavior of its employees. These practices enabled the employees to freely brainstorm on alternative methods the organization can use to transport mail, for example, around the UK (Treacy and Wiersema, 2007). DHL Company has partnered with local business people in an attempt to be innovative. These people acts as DHL resellers. For instance, thousands of vendors including electronic store vendors, travel agents and grocery shops around the world allow their customers in the local area to send DHL shipments together with their normal offerings. In doing so, such businesses benefits from DHL by receiving a commission on all DHL sales they make. This is considered a win-win situation. The company offer an opportunity to the small shop owners to earn more revenue and credibility by associating with an international brand. The company is always willing to partner with any business that wishes to be a DHL reseller. All the businesses DHL partner with undergo extensive training to make sure that they comply with all the set DHL’s requirements and procedures (Treacy and Wiersema, 2007). DHL Company has also partnered with large companies including mobile network operators, fuel retailers and retail business centres. Partnering with vendors not only brings more revenue to the company but brings DHL closer to the consumers. A mother in South Africa is able to ship birthday gift to her daughter in United States while filling up her car at the fuel station, whereas an entrepreneur in Mauritius is able to send sample to a particular client in France from the same location he picks his newspaper (Dhillon, Stahl and Baskerville, 2009). In addition, in order for the company to get closer to the customers, DHL has streamlined its pricing and packaging options in order to fit with what the customers want (Treacy and Wiersema, 2007). In order to enhance awareness and brand, the streets of Africa are most often than not painted yellow and red incorporated with tactful advertising strategies involving dancing and offering special DHL giveaways. With the passion of its 4,000 employees around sub-Saharan Africa, the company has changed the perception that DHL only gratify multinationals and huge businesses. Retail consumers do not have to be stuck in traffic for hours in order to send a parcel, but can just find DHL service point around the corner. In the continent like Africa, a company’s retail approach should not just revolve around high-end shopping malls. Therefore, DHL operate on a level where they can relate well with the customers and where they can access the customers easily (Treacy and Wiersema, 2007). The company set out DHL service points in locations where their brand connects to an average person. DHL, its subcontracted fleets and a number of buildings have environmental impacts more so related to the emission of CO2. For this, DHL has committed itself to improving carbon efficiency and thus came up with GOGREEN which is an environmental program that has enabled the company contribute positively to the world and enhance its sustainability thereby increasing its customer base (Dhillon, Stahl and Baskerville, 2009). GOGREEN covers management aspects including water, air, natural resources and noise. The program is also a carbon-neutral shipping alternative for customers of DHL and is available for its customers in over 35 countries. Generally, an individual may choose to send international express shipment as GOGREEN (Dhillon, Stahl and Baskerville, 2009). With this program, all transport-related emissions of CO2 are first calculated before counterpoising through climate protection projects. In-house Carbon Management group is responsible for calculating and controlling carbon credit generated from the projects. As the first company to set up carbon efficient target, DHL has promised to remain the best at achieving technological and innovative target such as the GOGREEN strategy (Dhillon, Stahl and Baskerville, 2009). In addition, as the largest logistic company globally, the fundamental responsibility of DHL is to deliver products and mails around the world (Sahay and Mohan, 2006). For this, the DHL staffs are able to speak local languages thus ensuring efficient and easy communication with the customers. Also, in every European country, DHL Freight contains terminals in market and business centres to make sure that transportation is effective and convenient. The key transportation network used by DHL company includes rail, ocean, air and road. Thus, with the exclusive range of delivery service, the company has the capacity to satisfy all requirements by assimilating the professional expert’s idea and novel technology (Sahay and Mohan, 2006). furthermore, the DHL employees are very patient when communicating to the customers. The company offer high quality services and offer additional benefits to the customers such as professional advice pertaining excise duties, customs and added-value tax, take full transparency to customers’ flow of goods and have bonded warehouse which offer easier transit operations. The innovative idea of the company to invest in information technology has enabled DHL ship and track packages quickly and effectively (Landa, 2015). Technological use is one of the company’s innovative strategies. DHLNET is a high-speed communication network used by the company to allow customers track the status of delivery, pricing and shipment around the world. The use of DHLNET allows information to travel ahead of the commodities. Also, use of electronic data interchange improves on speed and efficiency of shipping and data management. In a number of countries, DHL offers tracking system that ensures shipments are safe and secure globally (Landa, 2015). Recommendation Although DHL is number one logistic company in the world, it is faced with competition from companies such as UPS (Plunkett, 2009). In order to keep the position of power, there are some innovative approaches that the company should take. DHL company do not have liability insurance which may result to customer loss. Therefore, as a recommendation, DHL should institute liability insurance system in order to enhance its competitive advantage (Plunkett, 2009). Furthermore, the company has been known to contain few employees and this is linked to efficiency problem. Few employees on the side of the company may lead to negative impacts on employee’s health due to overwork. Additional recruitment is an option to solve this problem. Also, the managers have the responsibilities of caring for the well-being of the employees. DHL is known to control components including transportation improvement, delivery time and supply chain process (Scott, Lundgren and Thompson, 2011). In order to do this, the company work very closely with the suppliers and customers. However, DHL is more expensive compared to the competitors. This is because, the company offer good number of ports for transportation, deliver mails and commodities anywhere and is not responsible for the tariff as the customers are expected to take care of tariffs by themselves (Scott, Lundgren and Thompson, 2011). For this, some individuals may reject DHL. Customers may prefer cheaper service that they can afford. If the company controls its costs and set up acceptable prices, then it could gain more customers. DHL should deal with an acceptable brand identity as soon as possible. Also, the company can offer discounts for the customers in order to inspire sustainable business (Landa, 2015). Giving rewards and honour to the employees who work exceptionally can motivate them to work hard hence increasing productivity at the long run. With so many competitors watching, in order to remain number one innovative and excellent company, DHL should continue surprising its customers and competitors. The company should invest more on R&D and consummate service. Conclusion The innovative activities allow companies to be sustainable in this complex business environment. DHL is the leading logistic company in the world whose success has been attributed to the incorporation of innovative activities and processes in its operation. DHL holds the position of being a trusted brand in the service world. Innovative strategies used by DHL include use of information technology in its shipments, the establishment of sustainability programs such as the GOGREEN that has brought positive effects to the organisation, partnership with small businesses and vendors to name few. However, in order for the company to remain number one logistic company and to further enhance their competitive advantage, DHL should establish liability insurance, reduce its price and hire more personal. DHL is an example of company that has succeeded due to use of creativity and innovation in its operations. References Dhillon, G., Stahl, B. & Baskerville, R. (2009). Information systems creativity and innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises : IFIP WG 8.2 International Conference, CreativeSME 2009, Guimarães, Portugal, June 21-24, 2009 : proceedings. Berlin New York: Springer. Landa, R. (2015). Nimble : thinking creatively in the digital age. Cincinnati, Ohio: HOW books. Osborne, S. & Brown, L. (2013). Handbook of innovation in public services. Cheltenham, UK Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Plunkett, J. (2009). Plunkett's transportation, supply chain & logistics industry almanac. Houston, TX: Plunkett Research. Rushton, A. & Walker, S. (2007). International logistics and supply chain outsourcing from local to global. London Philadelphia: Kogan Page. Sahay, B.S & Mohan, S. (2006), 3PL practices: an Indian perspective, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 36 No.9 pp. 666 – 689. Scott, C., Lundgren, H. & Thompson, P. (2011). Guide to supply chain management. Berlin Heidelberg New York: Springer. Treacy, M. & Wiersema, F. (2007). The discipline of market leaders : choose your customers, narrow your focus, dominate your market. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co. Read More