The Collaborative Organization - Case Study Example

Innovation Name: University: Date: Table of Contents Innovation 1 Table of Contents 2 Abstract 4 Organisation Background 5 The Innovation at Sony 5 Managing Creativity 7 Internal and Collaborative Innovation Processes 8 Recommendation 9 There is a need for rich flow of technology and business ideas at Sony since they facilitate the development of a strong amassed technology assets base, which cannot be easily copied by rivals. Furthermore, Sony should unify its technology platform so as to increase the sense of unity as well as teamwork amongst innovators and other workers. This in consequence, enables the leaders to lead effectively and easily the company. By unifying its microprocessor platform, it is without doubt that Sony will have an effective solution at hand crucial for regaining its culture of knowledge sharing. The company must develop a platform for open aggregation, which will offer business opportunities for its new products, services, applications as well as its software providers capable of adding a novel distinctive concept services or application to the existing products. This platform will generate a win-win business paradigm between the company as well as the content providers and facilitate Sony to focus on innovation. Sony must put more effort in identification of main barriers to change as well as start mobilizing support as well as buy-in in the process of change so as to make collaboration a must. Change proponents must be recruited actively as well as posted all through the company while the company’s senior managers must become role models, providing highly discernible support to the initiatives and activities related to innovation. For Sony to maintain it innovation ability, it must introduce new workflows, job responsibilities and processes and improving the company’s communication process. Creativity can be encourage by introduction of incentive programs.by making collaboration a priority in the company’s daily research and development operations, Sony should quantify the benefits of collaboration against the company’s business objectives. 9 Sony executives can boost the company innovation, performance and productivity by looking at SAS’s management principles for direction. If Sony leverage the creative workers intrinsic motivation by reducing difficulties as well as encouraging the; eliminate the existing barriers between workers as well as managers by making sure that the company leaders are also creative; if it looks for creative ideas not just from its workers but also from the customers; and if it promotes lasting relationships with employees and customers alike, then the company’s creative capital will increase substantially. Besides that, Sony should increase its investment on generation of ideas; improve management focus; create profound customer understanding; offer rewards and incentives for innovative ideas; dedicate more resources; and utilize outside ideas sources effectively. Imperatively, Sony should promote an innovation culture where workers are expected to be open and honest, and encouraged to share ideas without fear of reprisal. Besides that, Sony should create a process understandable by all workers, and capable of assessing all creative idea. Besides that, workers must be encouraged to provide recommendations as well as suggestions when they are sure that the idea can be transformed to a product.  10 Conclusion 11 References 12 Innovation Abstract The nature of contemporary world triggers a competitive society wherein the capacity to dictate transformation as well as changes brings about the utmost value. Basically, as evidenced by Sony Corporation, competitive advantage in the management of creativity and innovation results in this ability. Therefore, efficient managers in leading corporations are focussing on developing mechanism as well as ways for better organizational creativity and innovation. Without a doubt, innovation attribution by managers as integral to competitiveness is mainly steered by the emergence knowledge economy, advancement in technology in addition to high competition within the service and industrial companies. Sony, being a technologically driven company must be more pioneering as well as innovative as before so as to compete, grow, lead as well as endure. Regrettably, technological innovation at Sony has increasingly emaciated leading to investor confidence decline as well as the falling of the Company’s stock price falling by almost 50% in 2011. For this reason, Sony must concentrate on product differentiation as well as technological innovation so as to outdo their rivals. The report prepares a plan for how Sony can improve its innovation management. Organisation Background Sony Corporation (Sony was started in 1946 and is involved developing, designing, manufacturing as well as selling different types of electronic instruments, equipment and devices for industrial, professional, and consumer markets in addition to software and game consoles. Sony’s facilities used for manufacturing are situated in Asia, mostly Japan while it used third-party contract companies to manufacture particular products. The company’s products are sold across the globe by unaffiliated distributors as well as sales subsidiaries and uses Internet to make direct sales (Tang, Misra, & Shanholt, 2012). Furthermore, Sony engages in producing, purchasing as well as distributing television programming and of motion pictures as well as the operation of digital and television networks. Sony segments include financial services, network and game services, mobile communications, home entertainment and sound, music, pictures, devices, and so forth. Besides that, Sony produces and distributes recorded music and is engaged in different financial services businesses such as operations of insurance. Sony markets most of products through retailers while professional electronics services and products are marketed by Sony Business Solutions Corporation. For electronic components, Sony sells products directly to wholesalers and manufacturers. Sony has over the years turned out a global leader in technology, producing scores of innovative products. All through its history, Sony has been creating their own internal technology standards instead of copying other manufacturers’ standards. The Innovation at Sony Since 1946, Sony has been a key innovator in the electronics market and created more than 13 disruptive innovations between 1950 and 1970s. Thanks to innovation, the revenue of the company has increased drastically. Since its arrival in U.S., a number of products have been introduced by Sony, and has consequently transformed the electronics industry. Besides that, the Walkman personal stereo as well as Sony Trinitron television have developed to be industry leaders. Sony’s innovative products are developed and produced by nearly 21,000 employees. Team members at the company are encouraged to take risks, innovate, as well as surpass the expectations of the customers. The creativity of workers resulted in the net income of almost 418.5 million U.S. dollar in 2013. Towards the end of 20th century, Sony because of its innovation strategy was the leading brand in US beating out Disney, Coca-Cola and. Ford. Undeniably, IT growth as well as the shift to digital technology has been an on-going process; therefore, Sony's 50th anniversary marked the beginning of the new digital age. Besides that, the company’s management structure was reorganized with the intention of enhancing its company system at divisional level to respond faster to changes in the market and to generate a structure capable of facilitating the development of innovative businesses. Sony understands that the future product planning can only be realised through system planning, and for this reason the company’s corporate structure was restructured into a horizontal system instead of vertical system so as to accelerate market responsiveness as well as decision making. Sony has internalized most of its technological advances, and as a result, it has placed itself in a strong position to meet its objective and strategic goals. Sony success in consumer electronic market has been facilitated by three factors; creativity in marketing, product planning and technology. Besides that, Sony created software to facilitate the movies and music copyright protection, especially those accessible through the Internet. The software utilizes a technology known as OpenMG-X so as to offer digital content distributors more control. For example, the software enables providers of the content to limit how many times a song or movie can be played as well as copied. Besides that, OpenMG-X technology can be utilized in Sony's visual and audio products. Being an innovative company, Sony Electronics concentrates more in imagination as compared to manufacturing (Bloomberg News, 2002). Whereas the company in the past focused on manufacturing hardware, it is presently pursuing a new route to the future. The company Sony has concentrated its research and development (R&D) activities on the integration of broadband realm as well as discovering synergy between content and hardware. The R&D takes place in laboratories called Sony's Creative Center, whereby innovative engineers come up with creative ways of attracting consumers. The current technique of new products development used at Sony foresees future trends. This as result helps the company understand what consumers as well as what they are willing to purchase. However, Sony faces timing issue since the production of products is always up in front of the market's ability to make use of them. Imperatively, the company promotes creativity by motivating engineers to incorporate functional and stimulating in their product designs. Sony keeps touch with its consumers, and as a consequence, the company gets insight onto the future trends and the viability of a futuristic technology. Managing Creativity Creativity according to Beghetto (2013, p. 4) is the utilization of original idea so as to generate something. In view of this, Sony always encourages innovation and creativity since it guarantees company’s future success. For all companies, creative process is crucial and must be well directed and guided. Basically, creativity takes place when a theory is translated into a fact. Creativity has offered Sony a glimpse of new possibilities and therefore, the company effectively manages creative people by making sure they are not overworked. Sony understands the importance of healthy work-life balance and so, the company makes sure employees are fresh and focused since creativity requires space and time so as to bloom, keeps. Sony most crucial asset is not their raw materials, but their creative capital since the company success has been facilitated mainly by creative employees whose ideas are transformed into valuable services as well as products. Sony’s creative workers have pioneered innovative technologies, facilitated the production of new products as well as the growth of the company’s revenue. Creativity at Sony is managed with a framework, especially through SAS so as to generate a corporate environment where productivity and creativity flourish, where flexibility as well as profitability goes together. Internal and Collaborative Innovation Processes Internal collaboration according to Cross et al. (2010) generates measurable business benefits, which support direct realization of business objectives and the bottom line may be impacted positively. Sony’s quantifiable benefits brought about by collaborative and internal innovative processes include decreased development cost and time, reduced cost and discovery time as well as increased revenue. Heightened internal collaboration at Sony has resulted in innovation and has bridged knowledge silos; thus, leading to an increased likelihood of new product development as well as improved employees’ knowledge and skills. Even though some of Sony’s business objectives have been hard to achieve, enabled and informed employees have bring about innovative breakthroughs which have been steering real value creation. Currently, Sony faces a number of barriers, which hamper successful innovative internal collaboration: technological, organisational and process barriers. In this case, the company’s divisional boundaries have limited the collaborative work of the engineers into their individual networks; whereas company segmented structure has created challenges in resources deployment. This has made it hard for the engineers to be look afar their projects to the organisational goals all together. Besides that, lengthy approval processes by the company’s management for allocation of resources crucial for innovation processes has barred collaboration from taking place. The existing mechanisms for capturing as well as communicating creative ideas are insufficient; thus, discourages engineers from collaborating as well as brainstorming with their colleagues. Sony databases appear to be disconnected and the existing platforms for supporting new product development processes are obsolete and ineffective. Besides that, non-existence of decision-support technologies creates challenges in identifying areas where innovative knowledge is required for problem solving. Recommendation There is a need for rich flow of technology and business ideas at Sony since they facilitate the development of a strong amassed technology assets base, which cannot be easily copied by rivals. Furthermore, Sony should unify its technology platform so as to increase the sense of unity as well as teamwork amongst innovators and other workers. This in consequence, enables the leaders to lead effectively and easily the company. By unifying its microprocessor platform, it is without doubt that Sony will have an effective solution at hand crucial for regaining its culture of knowledge sharing. The company must develop a platform for open aggregation, which will offer business opportunities for its new products, services, applications as well as its software providers capable of adding a novel distinctive concept services or application to the existing products. This platform will generate a win-win business paradigm between the company as well as the content providers and facilitate Sony to focus on innovation. Sony must put more effort in identification of main barriers to change as well as start mobilizing support as well as buy-in in the process of change so as to make collaboration a must. Change proponents must be recruited actively as well as posted all through the company while the company’s senior managers must become role models, providing highly discernible support to the initiatives and activities related to innovation. For Sony to maintain it innovation ability, it must introduce new workflows, job responsibilities and processes and improving the company’s communication process. Creativity can be encourage by introduction of incentive programs.by making collaboration a priority in the company’s daily research and development operations, Sony should quantify the benefits of collaboration against the company’s business objectives. Sony executives can boost the company innovation, performance and productivity by looking at SAS’s management principles for direction. If Sony leverage the creative workers intrinsic motivation by reducing difficulties as well as encouraging the; eliminate the existing barriers between workers as well as managers by making sure that the company leaders are also creative; if it looks for creative ideas not just from its workers but also from the customers; and if it promotes lasting relationships with employees and customers alike, then the company’s creative capital will increase substantially. Besides that, Sony should increase its investment on generation of ideas; improve management focus; create profound customer understanding; offer rewards and incentives for innovative ideas; dedicate more resources; and utilize outside ideas sources effectively. Imperatively, Sony should promote an innovation culture where workers are expected to be open and honest, and encouraged to share ideas without fear of reprisal. Besides that, Sony should create a process understandable by all workers, and capable of assessing all creative idea. Besides that, workers must be encouraged to provide recommendations as well as suggestions when they are sure that the idea can be transformed to a product.  Conclusion In conclusion, the report has prepared a plan for how Sony can improve its innovation management. As mentioned in the report, innovation has facilitated Sony to position itself in the mobile, game and digital imaging industry, which are its electronics business core pillars. Sony has focused much of its efforts creating new business processes and driving innovation. Innovation has helped Sony to well understand the needs of their customers and to establish collaborative relationships within the organization. To maintain its innovative ability, Sony should integrate external business practices aligning with its organizational goals, and make sure an innovation culture is existent. References Beghetto, R. A. (2013). Killing ideas softly?: The promise and perils of creativity in the classroom. Delhi: IAP. Bloomberg News. (2002, August 8). Sony Software Builds on Copyright Control. Retrieved from Los Angeles Times: http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/08/business/fi-techbrfs8.2 Cross, R., Gray, P., Cunningham, S., Showers, M., & Thomas, R. J. (2010, October 1). The Collaborative Organization: How to Make Employee Networks Really Work. Retrieved from MIT Sloan Management Review: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-collaborative-organization-how-to-make-employee-networks-really-work/ Tang, H., Misra, R., & Shanholt, E. (2012). Sony Corporation. Brighton, MI: GRIFFIN CONSULTING GROUP. Read More