Introduction
The 21st century business environment condition is highly dynamic and demanding because there has been higher level of expectations of customers from the business and service providers. The advancement in the field of technology and globalisation of businesses has all resulted into increased opportunities to customers in claiming highly advanced products and services. Customer expects something new from their service providers and this requires them to make adequate level of consideration to innovative in their operations so that they can efficiently meet out their customer requirements. Creativity and innovation are crucial to modern day businesses because the organisation that offers something new to their customers have the opportunity to create differentiation and thereby making distinctive competitive edge over others. However, creativity and innovation are not easy for the businesses to achieve as this requires efficient leadership and skilled employees in organisation that can create sufficient level of newness with respect to their offerings. Thus, collaborative efforts from employees as well as management are essential in ensuring that creativity and innovation are pursued in a highly efficient manner.
This report is aimed at analysing the importance and necessity of creativity and innovation in respect to large modern organisations. The specific organisation that has been selected in performing analysis for the need and importance of creativity is Apple Corporation which has been a US based Multinational Corporation that accounts for providing large range of innovative electronics products to its customers. The analysis is focused towards assessing the ways in which leadership in organisation facilitates staff acceptance and participation in innovation, the ways in which vision creates sufficient level of creativity and encourages a culture of innovation, role of diversity in promoting creativity and the association of risks if any as faced by the organisation from the creative idea.
Leadership Encouraging Staff Participation and Innovation
The role of leadership is crucial in any kinds of organisation because it is mainly the leaders that account for creating positive environment that facilitates smooth performance of organisational processes aimed at accomplishing organisational goals positively. It is the leadership as practiced within organisation that facilitates staff acceptance for innovation and positively encourages them to innovate so that they can contribute positively towards accomplishing organisational goals. The role of leaders is therefore crucial from the point of view of encouraging innovation and creativity within organisation. An analysis of the case of Apple Corporation indicates that it is known as the most innovative organisation that primarily accounts for providing creative electronic products and services. The credibility as being the most innovative organisation is mainly because of the strong leadership as pursued by the previous CEO of the company Steve Jobs who was known as the most innovative leaders. Steve Jobs was able to revolutionise the entire organisation on his own ability, as he has turned the organisation as being the leader in the industry (Schein, 2010).
It was mainly the leadership of Steve Jobs that has facilitated higher level of success to Apple, and after his leadership, the responsibility of leading the organisation has been undertaken by Tim Cook. Tim has also been able to encourage positive level of innovation and creativity within its employees and this is evident from the fact that under his leadership, there has been the introduction of iPhone 5C and 5S and iPhone 6, iWatch and the most latest version of iOS to date which has been able to create significant level of impact in the industry. Thus, Tim Cook has also been highly creative in respect to achieving innovation and creativity within its employees, and this is paying positively in terms of increased revenue generation and growth to the company. An analysis of leadership of Tim Cook indicates that he facilitates a strategy of inclusion whereby diverse employees are being encouraged to participate in the workforce. This has been an important way of facilitating creativity within the organisation (Murphy, 2013).
In addition to this, the strategy of Tim Cook in facilitating innovation and encouraging employee participation is identified from the fact that Tim Cook is placing risky bets on developing or acquiring new technologies. This allows for the positive support to its employees in achieving higher level of creativity in their activities as undertaken by them. Diversity has been the core strategy of Apple’s leader in facilitating higher level of innovation within its employees, and this strategy of diversity also acts as a motivating factor within its diverse group of employees to accept change. In addition to this, a critical assessment of the leadership of Tim Cook indicates that he ensures complete acceptance of its employees to participate and innovate by being polite to its employees, rather than adapting a fire and fear approach which has been considered by Steve Jobs (previous CEO of Apple). This particular strategy of ensuring positive level of employee acceptance is also proving to be positive from the point of view of achieving higher innovation within organisation (Gupta and Henderson, 2013).
Leaders are known for having the ability of shaping the entire organisation’s performance through the application of their individual efforts and contribution. They have the ability of getting the task done through others and their influencing capabilities allows them in easily achieving desired results and actions from their employees. The staff participation is therefore an easier task to the leaders in organisation, and this is quite clearly reflected in the given case of Apple Inc whereas the CEO Tim Cook has the ability of positively motivating the employees in participating within the needed creativity in achieving higher level of success and growth of the firm. Tim Cook has not only been efficient in achieving employee participation, but there has been sufficient level of contribution from them that has also been achieved towards the desired brand image of Apple of being the most innovative company (Sinding and Bøllingtoft, 2012).
Vision Contributing towards Creativity and Innovation
Creativity and innovation within the employees can be encouraged by way of providing them specific target to achieve. This implies that the role of goals as set for them needs to be highly realistic and it should encourage sufficient level of innovation within them in their activities as carried out by them. The vision statement is one such statement that describes about the long term vision that the organisation seeks to achieve from its efforts. It is mainly the strategic goals that guide the strategies and actions of each individual within organisation and it is therefore essential that the vision should be highly supportive to encouraging higher level of innovation within its employees.
An analysis of the vision of Apple Inc indicates that it is mainly stated as “Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings” (Apple, 2014). This particular vision statement of Apple indicates that the main focus area of the company has been towards bringing the best personal computing experience to all its important stakeholders that become the potential user of the company’s products and services offerings. The vision statement itself includes the word innovation whereby the company emphasises on focusing towards innovative hardware, software and internet offerings to its customers. This gives an indication of the fact that higher level of innovation is being encouraged at Apple within its employees, and the employees are encouraged primarily by its vision to innovate in the activities as undertaken by them.
This vision of Apple in satisfying its customers and other important stakeholders through higher level of innovation in its hardware and software is quite useful in creating a highly innovative culture within organisation. The successful accomplishment of vision of Apple requires higher level of commitment from all its employees, and this vision has encouraged the development of such culture at Apple supporting innovation from all the employees. The strategies in the form of diversity management as supported at Apple are mainly driven by the vision of the organisation to offer highly innovative cultural products and services to its customers. Overall, the assessment of the vision of Apple indicates that it has been the primary driving factor behind such higher overall promotion of innovation of Apple within all its employees. This positive level of support towards highly innovative culture has mainly driven the organisation towards attaining leading position in the industry as being the most innovative industry.
Utilisation of Diversity in Promoting Innovation
An important contributing factor towards accomplishing higher innovation within organisation is mainly the promotion of diversity within its employees. An analysis of the case of Apple indicates that the management promotes the culture of inclusion whereby it supports higher level of diversity within its employees. There are employees from all the cultural background that are being included within the workforce at Apple, and this diverse workforce has become the core strength to the organisation in its process of supporting innovation. At Apple, diversity has been utilised in order to achieve creativity and this in turn benefits the entire organisation in supporting higher level of innovation and growth (Arredondo, 1996).
As for instance, the utilisation of diverse employees is performed through supporting group work within organisation. This working in groups facilitates positive level of support in achieving creativity and this is mainly because group work allows for positively sharing the knowledge of each and every employee within organisation. As a result of this, there is the promotion of creativity within employees because the diverse knowledge allows for better supporting the creativity and innovation. In addition to this, the combined knowledge of employees from all the backgrounds allows for better solution to the problems as faced by the organisation.
Diversity can be utilised in promoting innovation in a number of ways. The knowledge of groups can be utilised in a positive manner because a single person would not be able to contribute knowledge that would be achieved from group of people. The knowledge as shared by the diverse group members is of higher importance in achieving creativity because different members present different ways and point of view of carrying out organisational tasks. As a result, promotion of diversity is highly encouraged at Apple by way of following inclusion strategy whereby people from diverse backgrounds are considered to contribute in their knowledge in achieving higher overall success (Barak, 2013).
Mismanagement of Diversity: The mismanagement of diversity could result into the generation of undesirable effect within organisation. As for instance, the diverse members within the groups are from different cultural background and as such, they have different cultural values. This would lead to the generation of feelings within them that their culture is superior than others, and as a result, they would likely to foster their own culture as being superior with others. This would lead to difference with respect to the attitude and behaviour of diverse group members. Since there has been difference with respect to the culture of each of the employees, there are higher chances of conflicts from their improper management. This necessitates the need to perform the management of diverse employees within organisation in a positive manner because they would otherwise have adverse impact on the performance conditions of entire organisation (Barak, 2013).
Diversity is essential in modern day organisations because of businesses globalising their business activities, and it is therefore crucial that they should focus towards efficient management policies in managing them. Their improper management could lead to undesirable effects in terms of operational inefficiency, conflicts within members, lower productivity and it may lead to decline in the overall effectiveness of the organisation. A sound management policy is therefore essential in ensuring the efficient management of diversity within organisation. This is the reason leading to the management of diversity in an efficient manner at Apple, and it positively contributes in achieving innovation and creativity at higher level (Arredondo, 1996).
Innovative Idea Introduced by Apple
An analysis of Apple Inc indicates that it has been a highly innovative company that accounts for offering large number of innovative products and services. There are large ranges of innovative products that are included within the product database of Apple Inc and the recent most innovative product as launched by the company was Apple iPhone 6. This is the most innovative product that has been recently launched and it has specific features that made it best over the previous iPhones as introduced by the company. The company has introduced the most advanced version of its operating systems iOS in its newly built iPhone and this has enhanced the overall performance level of the product. This is an innovative idea of offering higher quality features and services in its smart phones which is mostly demanded by the younger generation of people (Lowensohn, 2014).
Benefits of this Idea: There are significant levels of benefits that are accomplished by Apple from the introduction of this innovative idea. The analysis indicates that there has been significant rise in the revenue being witnessed by Apple Inc from considering the introduction of such latest version of its iPhone and this has ultimately contributed towards the growth of the entire firm. The iPhone 6 has resulted into the attainment of significant level of benefits to Apple, as iPhone 6 has resulted into the leading revenue surge to the company. It not only contributed towards revenue generation, but it is also significantly beneficial to the company in achieving the brand image as being the provider of most innovative smart phones to customers. The company has been able to efficiently compete within its competitors from the introduction of such highly innovative iPhone. These are the major benefits that are directly attained by Apple from the introduction of highly innovative product in the form of iPhone 6 (iPhone 6 seen leading Apple revenue surge, 2014).
Risk to Organisation from Implementing the Idea
The first mover has certain major advantages over others and from introducing newer and innovative products; there are certain major risks that are also to be faced by them. The risks are significant in the process of introducing newer ideas and as a result, it is highly essential that there should be adequate consideration of risks that should be made by the firm from the newer idea as planned by them. As for instance, in respect to Apple Inc, the company has already performed the introduction of series of iPhones in the past and this iPhone 6 was the latest version of its iPhone introduced so far. Since the company has already introduced large number of iPhones in the past, the level of risks associated from the introduction of iPhone 6 is relatively lower. However, an important factor in this respect which has increased the level of risk to the company is mainly that the introduction has been performed under the leadership of Tim Cook. However, most of the previous successful iPhones were introduced under the leadership of Steve Jobs. As a result, the little risk as present is mainly in terms of its meeting out the innovative criterion for which Apple Company is already known for, and has the brand reputation of the same.
Apart from the non performance risk with respect to the newer innovative product of the company i.e. iPhone 6, there are certain other risks that are also associated to it. As for instance, the risk of impacting the brand reputation of the company is another significant risk to Apple from its decision of introducing iPhone 6. This is mainly in the sense that Apple has established itself as the most creative and quality provider of electronic gadgets, and any kinds of risk with its product is likely to affect the overall reputation of the company. This indicates the presence of reputational risk to the company from its consideration of introducing iPhone. Apart from this, in performing the introduction of newer products, a huge amount of money is spend on R&D and various other activities, and the in-efficient performance of iPhone 6 could have resulted into financial risk to the company in terms of significant loss in it.
These are the major risks to the company from the consideration of iPhone 6 introduction by it. However, the company has done well and this is evident in terms of improved profitability performance and growth of the company.
Conclusion
In this report, a critical assessment has been carried out in respect to the importance and need for achieving higher creativity and innovation in organisation, and the organisation as considered for analysis is Apple Corporation. The analysis as carried out has resulted into the identification that there is a higher overall need to the company in supporting creativity and innovation mainly because of the fact that company already has achieved good reputation in the industry as being the highly innovative company and this led to the requirement in maintaining such reputation by it. Based on the analysis, it has been identified that the leadership has been highly efficient at Apple and this has created significant level of opportunities to Apple in ensuring sufficient level of staff acceptance and participation within the innovation process.
The analysis also leads to identification that Apple Inc has a highly deterministic vision that makes it essential to the management in creating a culture that support creativity and innovation. The vision of Apple requires innovation and this is positively supported through the application of inclusion strategy within organisation. The analysis also indicated that diversity can be utilised for the purpose of promoting creativity, as there could be the knowledge and ability of diverse individuals that could be applied for the purpose of achieving innovation. The innovative idea as introduced at Apple is in the form of iPhone 6 which has promoted creativity and also ensured higher level of success and growth to the firm, but there are certain major risks that are associated with it.
References
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