Discuss about the Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Growth.
Innovation in the recent times can be looked upon to be a new life-line for organizations. This is the reason why the government policy markers across the globe not only emphasize upon taking innovation capacity within their economies, rather they also emphasize upon framing initiatives for encouraging together with providing the required support and resources to provide assistance in the development of an innovation culture in various core industries. So, as a result in the last twenty years, innovation has emerged as a driving force in not only shaping the competition in the business environment but also emerged as a major factor that tends to determine the survival of the companies (Randall, 2008). Moreover, it has also been observed that innovation has made significant contribution towards economic growth and this is mainly because entrepreneurs tend to produce innovation. The concept of entrepreneur as an innovator emphasizes upon underpinning the entrepreneur paradigm that emphasizes upon highlighting the role of entrepreneurs in the innovation process. So, entrepreneurship can be looked upon to be a process of creating something that did not previously exists and this creation proves to be beneficial in value addition to both the community and also to the individual (Hjorth and Steyaert, 2008). Thus, it can be said that innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurship with the help of which entrepreneurs strive towards exploiting the change as an opportunity for a different business or service. This reveals the fact that there tends to exists a potential overlap between innovation and entrepreneurship.
Thus, on the basis of the above aspect, the assignment is based upon analyzing the impact of innovation and entrepreneurship together with the domestic and international factors that tends to affect the business structure and strategy. However, these aspects has been analyzed in context to Whirlpool Corporation that is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of home appliances and the company has headquarter at Benton Charter Township in Michigan in United States (Whirlpool, 2017).
In the early times, the business organizations use to depend mainly upon their research and development department so that they can develop and launch new and innovative solutions and product ideas. So, it becomes clear that they use to depend mainly upon their developers and researchers so that they can remain competitive and sustain in the market (Piperopoulos, 2011). However, with the passage of time the competition in the business environment has become intense thereby the companies are being forced to make significant changes to their strategies that would prove to be beneficial in the speeding up the process of integration of the new ideas first to the company and then into the market.
In this context, it has also been observed that for many years the company used to adopt and follow close innovation methods and this was mainly because of the notion on the part of the business organizations that for successful innovations, the processes should be complied under total control i.e. the business organizations should be in total control of their own ideas starting from the development phase of the innovation to end phase (Drucker, 1985). However with changing trends in the business environment, it became potentially impossible on the part of the business organizations to simply rely upon the innovations that are developed within their own research centers and major constraints include the time pressure for quick market reaction and lack of enough resources dedicated to the research and development. Thus, as a result the companies started feeling the need for adopting new operation models on the basis of open innovation.
Open innovation is mainly based upon the principle where ideas and innovations are exchanged between the companies that involves the process of importing external innovations from outside and exporting the unused to other companies who might be in need of such innovations (Wagner, 2012).
Entrepreneurs can be defined as the individuals who possess the ability of using innovation for exploiting and creating change and opportunity in order to generate revenue and earn profits. Thus, it can be said that there are five key elements makes the entrepreneurs stand aside from managers and leaders. They are:
Thus, from the above discussions, it is observed that where entrepreneurs at one hand strive towards analyzing and exploiting new opportunities, they mainly strive towards being innovative in their approach to create and introduce something new. This aspect proves to be important in adding value to the society and also adding value to the existing business to remain competitive and differentiate itself from the competitors. Thus, it can be said that if entrepreneurship and innovation goes hand in hand.
Analyzing the business case scenario of Whirlpool Corporation since late 1990s, it is observed that the company was facing stagnation in revenues, market share and profits and analysis revealed the fact that the major reason behind the above issues on the part of the company was stagnation in the product line of the company. This was again due to the lack of ability on the part of the company to introduce and add innovative products in its product portfolio. So, this creates a demand on the part of the management to think of organizational development incorporating aspects like adopting innovation as core competency, laying the foundation, building the framework and reinventing the corporate culture (George and Lin, 2016). So, this reveals the fact that the business has been suffering from loss of market share, loss of profit and poor performance mainly due to lack of innovation.
The analysis of the above situation revealed that, it is only innovation incorporated as a core competency that can ensure the sustainability of the company and this is mainly because with the help of the innovative products, the company can command premium prices and also build and enhance customer loyalty. Moreover, in this context, it can also be said that it would not be possible on the part of the company to adopt innovation as a core competency and thus for this it would be important to develop a culture that would strive towards spurring the growth of the company through customer focused innovation (Audretsch, 2006). Another aspect that can be added here is that, the strategies and initiatives on the part of the company would not prove to be helpful if creativity and innovation is limited to few people within the organization and so it is important that the culture of being creative and innovative should be adopted across the organization thereby motivating and encouraging all the employees to be creative in their approach.
It was observed that as has been discussed above, the CEO of the company, Whitwam started innovation in the 1999 and in this process around 25 workers were sent to the head Quarters so that innovation and creativity and emphasized upon. However, this resulted in complete failure making the CEO realize the need for a structured approach. So, he created a new designation i.e. Director, Strategy and Development and Nancy T Synder was appointed at this post and in the year 2000, 75 employees were provided necessary training by the Consultants from Strategies and in the entire process, Whitwam acted supportively. So, when the core group was being trained, Synder emphasized upon involving the global workforce of the company in the initiative with the help of internet and innovative fairs. Moreover, the company also emphasized upon putting the required infrastructure in place and also made an effective use of the Information Technology in order to achieve its objectives, the management processes were also re-engineered and IT was also used for enhancing and accelerating the innovation chain.
On the other hand, it was observed that the management did not only took decisions and emphasized upon executing the same, rather they involved the employees actively and this was evident from the fact that employees were highly enthusiastic about the innovation initiatives. This was evident from 300000 hits at the KM site every month. The CEO emphasized upon enhancing the employees’ involvement in innovation process and this facilitated him collecting more practical ideas. New proposals were evaluated and funded by the company in the I-Board meetings and in this context Synder also came up with I-Box in order to ensure that the only the brilliant ideas reaches the I-Board i.e. I-Box acted as a screening tool.
Thus, it is observed that under the entrepreneurship of the CEO Whitwam, Whirlpool after falling into a stagnant position started regaining its revenues and this was achieved by promoting and implementing a culture of innovation and creativity throughout the organization. As, a result of the above discussed aspects into context innovation and entrepreneurship at Whirpool Corporation, the company is operating at present as a leading brand consumer product company across the globe and undergone transformation from “Sea of White” to “Embedded Innovation” and has also been successful in developing high-margin, stand alone businesses that facilitates the company in leveraging its core competencies and core business infrastructure. Again, on the basis of the above innovation and entrepreneurship base laid by the CEO Witwam, the company is still continuing its innovation (Mazzarol, 2006). This is evident from the fact that the company has undergone an innovative partnership with IBM with the help of which the Whirlpool home appliances would be connected with IBM Watson Services that would facilitate the company to collect data regarding how the devices are used out in the real world and these data can be easily accessed by the company with the help of the IBM Cloud (ibm, 2016). So, the company would be facilitated with the opportunity of monitoring and improving the products even after they have been sold and it would facilitate the company to tailor-make the future designs as per the specific usability and requirements of the customers.
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussions, it can be concluded that innovation and entrepreneurship goes hand in hand and in the fierce competitive business environment of present, innovation is the weapon that allows the company to sustain and grow.
References
Audretsch, D. (2006). Entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth. 1st ed. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Bessant, J. and Tidd, J. (2007). Innovation and entrepreneurship. 1st ed. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons.
Drucker, P. (1985). Innovation and entrepreneurship. 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row.
George, G. and Lin, Y. (2016). Analytics, innovation, and organizational adaptation. Innovation, pp.1-7.
Hjorth, D. and Steyaert, C. (2008). The entrepreneur. 1st ed.
ibm. (2016). IBM and Whirlpool: an innovative partnership. [online] Available at: https://www.ibm.com/blogs/internet-of-things/whirlpool/ [Accessed 19 Jan. 2017].
Mazzarol, T. (2006). Entrepreneurship & innovation. 1st ed. Prahran, Vic.: Tilde University Press.
Mitra, J. (2012). Entrepreneurship, innovation and regional development. 1st ed. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Piperopoulos, P. (2011). Entrepreneurship, innovation and business clusters. 1st ed. Farnham: Gower.
Randall, R. (2008). Innovation. 1st ed. Bradford, England: Emerald Group Pub.
Wagner, M. (2012). Entrepreneurship, innovation and sustainability. 1st ed. Sheffield: Greenleaf Pub.
Whirlpool. (2017). Whirlpool: About Us : Business and Operations. [online] Available at: https://www.whirlpool.com/ [Accessed 19 Jan. 2017].
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