MGT613: Innovation and Sustainability at Natura & Co: A Report

This report examines the sustainability initiatives of Natura & Co, a Brazilian cosmetic company, in the context of global business. The paper discusses Natura's mission to balance innovation and nature, highlighting its commitment to transparency, wellbeing, and sustainability. It analyzes the company's ethical sourcing practices, vegan formulas, and initiatives to create a long life cycle for its products. The report identifies challenges, such as lagging behind competitors and a lack of innovation in the global market, and proposes innovation solutions. These include product diversification, integration of nature and science, improved customer and supplier relations, use of artificial intelligence, and organizational culture changes. The conclusion emphasizes that through innovative operational and production differentiation, Natura can achieve its sustainability goals, benefiting stakeholders like employees, customers, shareholders, and suppliers. The report uses references to support its arguments and provides a comprehensive analysis of the company's sustainability efforts.

Industry,
Innovation And
Infrastructure
NATURA CASE

Introduction
 The aim of this paper is to discuss the
sustainability of the initiatives taken by
the Brazilian cosmetic company Natura
& Co (Naturabrasil.com 2019).
 This presentation will be detailing the
benefits of innovation in attaining
sustainability in this global business
context.
 This aims to convince the stakeholders
by creating a transparent operation
system in the organization where the
sustainability goal set by the United
Nations will be attained.

Natura’s mission
 Natura Brazil has been established
in 1969 since when it aims to
create a better world through
commitment of transparency ,
wellbeing and sustainability
(Naturabrasil.com 2019).
 The generous beauty of nature has
been the inspiring the products of
Natura Brazil.
 Thus the company tries to balance
innovation and nature
simultaneously to attain
sustainability.

Initiatives by Natura
 The company commits towards building better future so that the
products and operations become parts of a long life cycle.
 It uses vegan formulas and does not test their products on the
animals.
 All the raw materials of this company are ethically sourced.

Sustainability problem
 Despite the company’s
ethical and sustainable
initiatives, Natura is being
lagged by the competitors
in the global level.
 This Brazil based company
offers unique products
which are compete natural
but lacks innovation.
 The global market is also
not explored by the
company.

Problems and solution
 The competitive advantage which
it would have take by
differentiating its products is not
seen in the company.
 In order to provide natural
products the company increases
price making those premium
products.
 This is the reason why the
innovation process and creation
of sustainable infrastructure is a
necessity.

Innovation solution
 In order to attain the
competitive advantage as
well as sustainability, the
company will be having
advantages of improved
productivity.
 It will be able to gain market
share by bringing product
variation (Adams et al., 2016).
 Company will be able to
reduce the cost of the
products also.

Innovation solution
 Through product innovation the
number of offerings of the
company will be increased.
 It will be able to mix the initiative
to restore biodiversity by mixing
nature and science.
 Relation with the customers and
suppliers will increase so also their
dependability to company.

Innovation solution
 The company if uses
artificial intelligence in
understanding the skin
problems and utilising
natural resources to solve
derma problems can
attract more customers.
 Innovation can be
attained if company
attempts automation
process to communicate
with the customers and
create a community
globally (Evans et al.,
2017).

Innovation solution
 Innovation process will also help the company to allot time to observe market.
 By changing policies regarding the organisational culture and giving innovative
training to the employees, the company can reduced its turnover and improved
profitability.

Conclusion
 Therefore, it can be concluded that the company can attain the
suitability goals set by the UN through innovative operational and
production differentiation.
 Through this process the stakeholders like employees,
customers, shareholders and suppliers would be gaining profit
and reputation for being a sustainable company.

References:
 Adams, R., Jeanrenaud, S., Bessant, J., Denyer, D., & Overy, P. (2016).
Sustainability‐oriented innovation: A systematic review. International
Journal of Management Reviews, 18(2), 180-205.
 Evans, S., Vladimirova, D., Holgado, M., Van Fossen, K., Yang, M., Silva, E.
A., & Barlow, C. Y. (2017). Business model innovation for sustainability:
Towards a unified perspective for creation of sustainable business
models. Business Strategy and the Environment, 26(5), 597-608.
 Naturabrasil.com. (2019). New Products. Retrieved 18 August 2019, from
https://www.naturabrasil.com/collections/new-products
 Pedersen, E. R. G., Gwozdz, W., & Hvass, K. K. (2018). Exploring the
relationship between business model innovation, corporate sustainability,
and organisational values within the fashion industry. Journal of Business
Ethics, 149(2), 267-284.