Corporate Innovation

The assignment demonstrates the innovation management based on the seven basic rules of innovation required to maintain a good competitive profile and at the same time, facilitate both open vs. closed innovation to improve the business performance and efficiency.

Running head: CORPORATE INNOVATION
Corporate innovation
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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The assignment demonstrates the innovation management based on the seven basic
rules of innovation required to maintain a good competitive profile and at the same time,
facilitate both open vs. closed innovation to improve the business performance and
efficiency. The business organisation selected here is the Sky City, which has achieved pillars
of success with the management of corporate innovation and by implementing innovation
theories and concepts for enhancing the effectiveness of business practices, furthermore
ensure attainment of good decision making skills along with sustaining within the
competitive business environment with much ease and efficiency (Amore, Schneider &
Žaldokas, 2013). The essay will also represent the various findings associated with the Blue
Oceans strategy required to be implemented by following various stages and integrate the
business strategies with the corporate goals and objectives of innovation.
Sky City is a centre of casino and events located in Auckland, New Zealand and is
present at the Sky Tower base and has been the most well-known casino in Auckland, NZ.
The various functions managed at the centre include casino, hotels and even managing a
convention centre for arranging events, parties, workshops, etc (Skycityauckland.co.nz,
2019). The owner of the centre is Sky city Entertainment Group and some of the major
innovations include the Sky Tower and a theatre comprising of 700 seats along with 12 bars
and restaurants, two hotels and even a convention centre and casino that are consistently
innovated for undertaking special initiatives and cater the needs and preferences of people all
over New Zealand with ease and efficiency.
Importance of innovation and understanding the impact of open vs. closed innovation
application
There are demands for management of innovation, which have constantly changed
from time to time and it is found that the research and development activities are critical to

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the management of innovation. The innovation is managed to meet the increase in demands
for changes and the two major approaches include open innovation and closed innovation.
According to Weiblen & Chesbrough (2015), the corporate innovation, both open and closed
can manage transformation of business with the management of business operations and
processes for the achievement of sustainable growth and development along with aiming to
achieve sustainable competitive advantage and gain higher level of profit too in business
(Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015). The innovation concept not only facilitates generation of
new business ideas and concepts, but also enables considering the major components
including the management of good leadership along with implementation of new strategies,
managing processes, allocating the resources properly along with management of
performance metrics and measuring the performance of the organisation too (Felin & Zenger,
2014). As stated in the case study, the innovation is based on seven major rules including the
exertion of strong leadership, integrating the concept of innovation with the business ideas,
matching the innovation aspects with the business strategies, which can facilitate critical
thinking as well as manage the natural tension between capturing value and managing
creativity as well. The neutralisation of organisational antibodies, i.e., those affecting the
business performance negatively, managing a good network for innovation and maintenance
of reward systems for innovation perspective are also considered as major rules to facilitate
innovation at Sky City (Skycityauckland.co.nz, 2019).
Seven rules
The exertion of leadership is possible with the formation of a new ICT leadership
team to manage operations in both Australia and New Zealand. It has been aimed at
managing better communication with the implementation of information technology,
furthermore ensure spreading positive messages and information about the Sky City services

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to clients and draw in more clients with ease and efficiency (Chemmanur, Loutskina & Tian,
2014).
The company has been well positioned in terms of product offerings and one of the
positive impacts is created with the involvement of the manager, who acted as a great
leader. The manager used his leadership skills to manage construction of NZICC, which is a
major decision made towards innovation with the management of multiple cranes and more
than 400 workers performing at the site on a daily basis.
As stated by Chatterji & Fabrizio (2014), the innovation aspects are matched with
the business strategies by operating integrated entertainment complexes in both Australia
and New Zealand along with the addition of casino gaming facilities along with bars,
restaurants and conference facilities to attract both domestic and international clients
(Chatterji & Fabrizio, 2014). The innovation has been possible at Sky City with the
management of string partnerships with the major stakeholders and at the same time focused
on sustainable measures to become responsible corporate citizen too.
The resources are allocated properly to facilitate creativity and at the same time
capture and add value, considering the approaches to gaming and host responsibilities as
essential principles of the CSR strategy by Sky City. The Labour Practices and Human rights
pillar are managed properly to ensure proper investments on labour and maintaining good
efficiency of workforce through better management of human resources (Sapra, Subramanian
& Subramanian, 2014).
The innovation network is facilitated with the management of good relationships
with the suppliers and Sky City has managed it by distributing Ethical Sourcing Code to the
major new suppliers while the supply chain sustainability assessment has further helped in
expanding reach across New Zealand and Australia.

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The management of incentives and rewards provided to the staffs for becoming part
of the innovation team, responsible for managing enhanced operational effectiveness has
further kept the staffs motivated and encouraged to perform to their potential, thus improving
the level of innovation management and enhancing business performance too (West et al.,
2014).
The difference between open and closed innovation lies in the fact about the way
innovation is created and managed at Sky City. The closed innovation enables managing
innovation within a self-contained environment while the open innovation facilitates
management of external knowledge and skills to improve the relationship with external
stakeholders and aiming to ensure innovation all throughout for sustained positive business
outcomes (Herrera, 2015). The community development has been facilitated as part of the
innovation with spending over $7.4m in contributing to the community along with new
sponsorships and contributing to the Trust as well. One of the major innovative ways to drive
employee performance has been the newly developed remuneration review policy where
there absence of systematic gender driven pay gaps. More opportunities and scopes for
women empowerment are promoted through leadership development programmes or the
female employees within the organisation (Chu, Tian & Wang, 2018). The closed innovation
has further been improved with the development of an online strategy that could create an
online casino and other forms of entertainment available via online platforms and thus
created convenience for clients. The focus on artificial intelligence and virtual reality has
create ease in bookings made by clients, furthermore made sure to reduce the waiting time
and gain advantage by trialling different new things in the small properties and sometimes I
different segments of properties too (Unger, Rank & Gemünden, 2014).
The leaders of the organisation made sure to create a reward system where the employees
who provided new business ideas for the business to innovative were awarded with both

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monetary and non-monetary rewards. This is a major approach to facilitate and encourage
their behaviours and mind sets, furthermore allowed them to perform to their potential for
maintaining consistency in innovation all throughout the operations and processes managed
at Sky City (West & Bogers, 2014).
Considering the open innovation, the innovations are managed by the company itself
through generation of new business ideas and enhancing the development and marketing
techniques’ efficiency outside the organisational boundaries. The management of processes,
technologies newly implemented and management of intellectual properties are core to the
control of innovation at Sky City (Kim & Mauborgne, 2014). To innovate the sustainable
measures towards the protection of environment, Sky City has introduced fully compostable
coffee cups and lids in the Auckland and Hamilton restaurants, which has reduced the waste
generation by 10 percent and allowed the company to complete three year of baseline
environmental footprint data. It could be understood that Sky City managed good networks
with the suppliers through distribution of Ethical Sourcing code. It has helped in managing
supply chain sustainability, furthermore covering most of the spending in New Zealand
across the major categories, which is considered as a major open innovation. This kind of
innovation has allowed for managing strategic use of environment along with the integration
of employees, clients, suppliers, competitors, shareholders or investors (Kim & Mauborgne,
2017). One of the major open innovation examples could be the investments done hugely on
the redevelopment project at Adelaide Casino of Sky City, which has helped in transforming
the casino into integrated entertainment destinations that has been surrounded by major
drivers of demands. To meet clients’ demands and provide something unique, Sky City has
adapted to the fast paced technological growth and developed new partnership with new
partnership with Let’s Play Live Media, a major eSports entertainment and broadcasting
company in NZ with around 40 percent share (Chandrakala & Devaru, 2013). This has

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innovated the business performance by developing the first e-sports broadcasting studio open
at the Sky Tower’s Level 2, thus prioritising on something unique delivered to clients for
ensuring higher level of customer satisfaction as a whole. With the engagement of
employees in the process of decision making by the manager or leader of Sky City, the
employees have been influenced to deliver their innovative views, ideas and opinions,
furthermore should assist the organisation to maintain a competitive profile within the
business environment (Skycityauckland.co.nz, 2019). This, it is understood that with the
innovation aspects matched with the corporate strategies, proposition of value has been
possible with the management of good supply chains and being able to target the right clients
for ensuring changes and achieving sustainability too.
Innovation theory with the formulation of a Blue Ocean Strategy for Fonterra Co-
operative Limited
The Blue Ocean strategy enables management of design for innovation approaches to
sustain in the marketplace. According to the strategy, the organisations are considered
holding the unknown space of the market whereas the Red Oceans strategy focuses on the
existing markets that are known space of the market. The strategy has been implemented by
Sky City for the purpose of creating new demands in the market and thus gain accessibility to
the opportunities created to generate higher revenue and attain profitability in business as
well. The Game Rules does not play any part in the Blue Ocean strategy, due to which, there
are no such competitors as well (Chandrakala & Devaru, 2013). Sky City, thus has no such
intent to generate higher revenue in terms of comparison with the competitors, rather the
approaches to innovation have been focused on to facilitate creation of value all throughout
the business. Considering the objective of the strategy to provide benefits to both the clients
and organisation, the unknown spaces remain new and open to the market, which has further
created opportunities for differentiating the products and services and offering those at lower

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prices too. Sky City has helped in aligning the system to manage differentiation of products
along with managing the lower prices of products and services for ensuring client satisfaction
and creation of positive mind sets among them too (Kim & Mauborgne, 2015).
During the first stage, the Blue Ocean strategy is formulated for the creation of value
and benefits, which has further allowed Sky City to provide some unique products and
services by clearly representing the costs associated with it, which facilitates creation of value
and staying ahead of the competitors. The assessment of needs is important, where it is
necessary to understand what the customers actually need to buy from Sky City. The second
stage enabled identification of the no-customers, i.e., the individuals who have bought the
products only one time and did not buy again, the individuals who would not purchase the
products and those who actually are not considered as customers by the organisation
(Skycityauckland.co.nz, 2019). The third and last stage allowed the company to focus on
three major aspects including the removal, reduction, increase and creation of value to gain a
sustainable position within the marketplace. To facilitate innovation, Sky City made sure to
replace or remove the traditional marketing techniques mostly with the online marketing
strategies for maintaining am online casino and manage different forms of entertainment to
do the right time at the right time (Kim & Mauborgne, 2014). With the focus on artificial
intelligence and virtual reality, innovation has transformed the existing business operations
and processes at Sky City and allowed the clients to access the hotel rooms and make
bookings at the casinos online. Based on the mean of the market, the clients visiting the
organisation should provide effective reviews and feedbacks regarding the services delivered
for making any necessary changes and ensure improvements in a rapid scale for the
accomplishment of business goals with ease (West & Bogers, 2014).

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References
Amore, M. D., Schneider, C., & Žaldokas, A. (2013). Credit supply and corporate innovation.
Journal of Financial Economics, 109(3), 835-855.
Chandrakala, V. G., & Devaru, S. D. B. (2013). Blue ocean strategy and bottom of the
pyramid marketing. International Journal of Management Research and Reviews,
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Chatterji, A. K., & Fabrizio, K. R. (2014). Using users: When does external knowledge
enhance corporate product innovation?. Strategic Management Journal, 35(10), 1427-
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Chemmanur, T. J., Loutskina, E., & Tian, X. (2014). Corporate venture capital, value
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Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. (2015). Blue ocean strategy: How to create uncontested
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