Part -1:

Effective strategic thinking, as noted last unit, included the ability to analyze and evaluate current patterns and trends in the environment, as well as the ability to use foresight to project what the future might hold and how the business should prepare for that future. As such, good strategic thinking also requires that an organization build capabilities to be creative and to innovate, to bring new products and services to current markets, and to bring new products and services - and combinations of current products and services - to entirely new market spaces (blue oceans).

Innovation, within the strategic management context, is a process and is the outcome of creating the environment so that people in the organization can produce creative ideas and transforms them into value-added goods and services that customer's value and for which they will pay. The capability to innovate is vital for business growth and sustainability, yet it is a difficult capability to build, as it requires patience, openness and a tolerance for failure on the part of senior leadership.

This unit focuses on a range of innovation strategies that companies can attempt to deploy, including those outlined by Kim and Mauborgne (2004) and Pitt and Koufopoulos (2012: Chapter 9). You will analyze how innovative thinking can help expand an organization's reach through the development of blue ocean strategies, and you will evaluate strategies for expanding an organization's performance frontier for ecosystem sustainability and growth.

Learning Objectives

Students will:
- Evaluate innovation strategies in the marketplace

- Analyze an organization's environmental, social and governance approach (ESG) to enhancing sustainable innovation and performance

- Evaluate strategies for performance frontier innovativeness and sustainability

Part -2:

Read:

Shared Activity: What Color Is Your Ocean?

While the framework that Kim and Mauborgne (2004) outline may seem simple to understand, it is very difficult to implement. In part, it is very difficult for companies to do new things, or to do things in new ways, because inertia is real in all organizations.

This unit's Shared Activity has been designed to help you evaluate innovation strategies in the marketplace, through traditional innovation life-cycle frameworks, and through the more holistic blue ocean framework outlined by Kim and Mauborgne (2004). Think carefully, and fully, about potential ways that an organization might do things in a fundamentally different way to meet its customers' or new customers' needs - given its skills and capabilities. Companies in the global mobile communications industry must continuously innovate or risk losing customers. A smartphone is an example of this type of innovation. These devices use an operating system that has advanced computing and connectivity capability. These advances have shown the strongest growth in mobile sales in recent years. They also allow for greater access to mobile computing for users who do not have access to computers or Internet technology. As mobile companies pursue new applications, they also seek to enhance the technical specifications of their phones. Companies are currently engaged in planning for future generation wireless systems. At some point, the number of mobile subscriptions will exceed the total number of people in the world. Consider companies that have introduced smartphones and tablets. These companies strive to create innovative products that support a variety of information, communication and entertainment applications that will attract loyal customers. Some smartphones and tablets (or even ‘Phablets') become successful in the marketplace, while others languish. Also consider the ESG aspects of each company's overall strategy.

To prepare for this Shared Activity:

- Review the Readings.

- Select a minimum of two, three if possible, of the major corporations from the global mobile communications manufacturing industry (i.e., who are designing, manufacturing or having proprietary mobile communications devices made in their name)

- Search for scholarly sources and the online business and technology press for articles on companies in the global mobile communications manufacturing market. Be sure to cover the past 10 years.

- Using the frameworks of Pitt and Koufopoulos (2012) and Kim and Mauborgne (2004) as a minimum, consider the innovation strategies that your selected smartphone or tablet manufacturers have followed.

To complete this Shared Activity:

- Conduct a thorough and well-argued analysis of the past 10 years of innovation for your selected companies (particularly relative to one another), which explains the evolution of the industry through the lenses of both traditional and blue ocean innovative strategy frameworks.

- Based on your analysis, provide a cogent argument on which company or companies you think are best positioned strategically (based on their innovative capabilities) to make the next important steps in the industry and to be most successful. Be sure to clearly argue how you have reached your conclusions and why you think they are appropriate.

- Be sure to support your postings with evidence from the Readings and current literature from other sources. Consult the Harvard Referencing Style Guide for proper citation and referencing information.