Innovation and Enterprise: Developing an Innovative Idea for Freemans

This report discusses the importance of innovation in business and focuses on developing an innovative idea for Freemans, an online clothing retailer. It explores theories of innovation and idea generation techniques to come up with a creative concept. The report also includes a business proposal, justification for the idea, marketing strategies, target audience, costs, and launching plan for the new concept.

Innovation and
Enterprise

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
LO2..................................................................................................................................................3
With the help of theories of innovation and idea generation to product, process, or services,
develop an innovative idea.....................................................................................................3
LO3..................................................................................................................................................5
Proposal for an innovative product, process or service for a working organisation and produce
an implementation plan..........................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCE...................................................................................................................................9
INTRODUCTION

Innovation is a term widely used in the modern era which is based on the concept of
practical implementation of ideas into reality that results is development of new products,
services and processes or bringing up necessary improvements into the existing offerings of a
company. With the changes taking place at an exponential rate, there is a need for the business
firm to come up with an innovative business solutions (Aslam and et. al., 2020). They are
significant in meeting the needs of a customer in efficient way meanwhile enhancing the
profitability and performance level of a company. Freeman Plc was founded in the year 1905,
which is an online and catalogue clothing retails store, headquartered at Bradford, England,
United Kingdom. The company offers products related with homewares, footwear and clothing.
Below mentioned report is to develop an innovative idea for the business with the use of relevant
theories and to prepare a proposal and implementation for the innovative idea.
MAIN BODY
LO2
With the help of theories of innovation and idea generation to product, process, or services,
develop an innovative idea
Innovation is a term which is widely used in the context of business which is concerned
with the process of making something new that has not existed before or making improvements
in the products and services. There are several types of innovation such as product innovation,
process innovation, marketing innovation and an innovation of the organisation based on the
nature and requirement of the company. There are several theories of innovation which can be
used as a sources for the development of an innovative idea.
Disruptive innovation is one the significant theory among the three others theories of the
innovation matrix. Disruptive innovation is viewed inferior to the existing product or services in
term of the value derived by these products (Hardey, 2020). Disruptive at initial stages focus on
the small target audience usually not profitable but slowly and gradually focus on serving the
high end customer. Therefore, Disruptive Innovation refers to the innovation that transforms
highly sophisticated products or services into the affordable products with greater reach of the
target audience. The idea behind disruptive innovation is to transform the expensive products
that were catering to the needs of the high end customer segment to those who were out of the
reach of the company and to a broader population.

Freemans is an online clothing retailer who sells range of products majorly in clothing,
footwear and homewares to the prestigious customers of United Kingdom, keeping in mind their
needs, desires, choices and preferences. Freemans is recognised for selling clothing items
through its well-designed catalogue each month to the entire United Kingdom. Freemans with
the disruptive innovative approach have opened up a new online retail store for the customer
who aspire to wear the clothes of “Freemans” brand in affordable pricing (Barwinski and et. al.,
2020). The concept of a business model is to open a store of used clothing product of
“Freemans” from the wardrobe of the high end customer segment and make them available to the
broader or large population. Through this Freemans wants to make their products more
accessible to the larger population and make use of apparels which are of no use for the customer
because they are out of fashion or the customer lo longer wish to wear the dress. Freemans can
introduce a new style to its existing high end customer meanwhile creating a demand for the
products that are out of fashion and of no use of customers.
Idea generation can be referred to as the process of generating ideas or heavy influx of ideas into
mind. This creative process become basis for the innovation strategy that encompasses idea
generation, development and communication of new concepts and thoughts (Mysachenko,
Komarov and Reshetov, 2020). Idea generation is important because great ideas leads to the
innovation and then commercialisation. Use of appropriate techniques helps the business to come
up with a highly relevant ideas and concepts.
SCAMPER is a techniques that is significant in critical thinking and problem solving. With
the holistic approach this methods is applied to modify ideas, concepts or process that already
exists through critical thinking. The objective behind is to provide better solutions through
making necessary adjustments into the business products, services and process. There are seven
stages in SCAMPER model which are as listed below:
 Substitute: This stage suggest to bringing up of ideas that are based on the concept of
replacing a part of existing products, services, or process to obtain results and deliver
more values to the customer (Zhu, Zhao and Abbas, 2020). Freemans can offer designer
clothes with more alluring designs or bio-degradable polyester.
 Combine: With the help of combine techniques, more effective and reliable solution can
be developed through combining two ideas into single. For instance, Freemans can offer

affordable clothing to the people through replacing it from the wardrobe of high end
customer to the more common segment to increase its customer base and sales revenue.
 Adapt: Adapt model lay emphasis over making the process more flexible through
analysing more possibilities and focus on same incremental improvement to process,
idea or concept (Aslam and et. al., 2020).
 Modify: The concept off modify is to view the problem and opportunity from a bigger
prospective and suggests to improve overall result rather than just focusing on idea.
 Put to another use: Put to another use, as the name implies, this approach lay emphasis
over finding ways to use ideas for some another purpose. The idea behind to determine
the possible benefits from the existing solution or idea if applied to other parts of
business. At this stage, it is checked how successful an idea or solution is.
 Eliminate: Elimination technique is to determine the outcome if two or more parts of the
concepts is eliminated. For instance, elimination of homewares products from Freemans
to add second hand clothing retail store.
 Reverse: Model reverse or reengineer, or rearrange is based on the concept of making
transformation through reversing the order of elements of an idea (Hardey, 2020). For
instance, new business model is based on the concept of swapping an old and outdated
fashion clothes with new and trendy ones.
LO3
Proposal for an innovative product, process or service for a working organisation and produce an
implementation plan.
Business proposal
Justification
To remain relevant and make profits in the industry, as well as to maintain a competitive
edge, it is important for the organisation to develop new concepts or creativity (GUAN, CHEN
and GENG, 2018). In reference to Freemans, the launch of store that provides used cloths, it will
assist the organisation in targeting those customers who cannot afford high rates clothing. The
below are some of the advantages that the business will benefit as a result of this recent
innovation:

 Increase brand image and value: The advantage of creative idea for Freemans will be
increased market image and reputation, as the firm will open a shop where used clothes
will be sold to meet the demands and desires of consumers and attract those who cannot
afford high-quality apparel (LIU and et. al., 2017). It will contribute to the creation of a
positive brand name and value as well as quality among prospects and potential
customers.
 Profit increase: The introduction of a new concept would enable the business to draw a
significant amount of buyers, increasing the company's financial performance.
 Enhancement of productivity: This latest new concept would assist the organisation in
successfully increasing its overall efficiency.
 Competitiveness: The generation of new ideas often results in the business having a
strategic advantage in the industry. In the case of Freemans, the introduction of a new
concept would assist the business in gaining a strong position in the industry.
Marketing
Marketing is the practise of making consumers aware of a product or service through
different promotional campaigns such as advertisements, direct sale, social media marketing, or
digital marketing and many more. With the support of these marketing methods, businesses can
make consumers aware of their new creative concepts, which lead in attracting a huge customer
base and effectively growing market size. Marketing tool can help the firms in communicating
with prospective customers to create awareness (Amara, Hong and Hafeez, 2019) . As social
media is a powerful tool for interacting with the customers directly, Freemans can use social
media for promotion of the new idea to creating awareness about their new launch. This will help
the organisation in creating customers base as well as assists in enhancing the brand image in the
minds of the people. Since users log on to social media on a regular basis and are open to
businesses, it has significant opportunity for Freemans to communicate to the people. Along with
this, they can also use social media influencers to promote their innovative idea. Social media
influencers are those individuals who have large number of followers on social media sites such
as Instagram, YouTube and many more (JIA, WANG and XUE, 2017). By promoting with the
help of social media influencers, the organisation will be able to cater large number of people
which leads in getting more number of visitors. It will raise market awareness of the new
innovation, allowing the company to expand its consumer base and improving its profitability.

Target audience
The method of sorting a broad market into groups markets so that organisations can better
concentrate on them is known as targeting. It enables businesses to more efficiently stay focused
on a certain key demographic and consumer (Exiang and Dandan, 2018). In context to Freemans,
to launch of their innovative idea, organisation is making plan to target those people who cannot
afford their products. Their target customers are of all ages where anybody can purchase. This
will assists people who do not come under the category of elite class for purchasing the cloth
(BAO, LI and YU, 2018).
Cost and launching
The cost of the new concept will be focused on value based pricing analysis. As the idea
is to launch a store where the used clothing item will be sold, the product pricing will be less as
they are used and second the most important, it will affordable to all the people.
In order to launch the new idea, the organisation will firstly will perform trial running and they
will evaluate the results. After the successful trial running, the organisation will launch their idea
in the market with the help of different strategies as well as promotional tools. This will lead to
the development of a vision and strategy for the entire organisation. It is essential that all staff of
a corporation have common targets and commit to the organization's task. Along with this, it can
have strategic advantages. Organizations can receive valuable information into business
environment, customer segments and products that can have an effect on their performance.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that innovation is important to the
achievement and development of a company and it can be done by introducing innovation into
products, services and processes which helps businesses in achieving a strategic edge over its
competitors. Entrepreneurs are always aiming to introduce creative abilities and development
into their products and services in order to expand their businesses and improve efficiency. In
this report, it includes theories of innovation and idea generation for developing an innovative
idea for an organisation. Along with this, a business proposal is also mentioned which will
assists the organisation in knowing the implementation. Moreover, it also includes how the
organisation can be benefited and involves justification of the idea, marketing, their target
audience, costs and launching of the new idea.

REFERENCE
Book & journals

Amara, D. B., Hong, C. and Hafeez, M., 2019. Evaluating the eco-innovation strategy in
business opportunity identification-enterprise business growth nexus. International
Journal of Information Systems and Change Management, 11(3-4), pp.272-291.
Aslam, F., and et. al., 2020. Innovation in the era of IoT and industry 5.0: absolute innovation
management (AIM) framework. Information. 11(2). p.124.
BAO, Y., LI, B. and YU, L., 2018. Influencing factors of enterprise innovation capacity based on
group DEMATEL decision approach of intuitionistic fuzzy preference. Journal of
Shanghai University (Natural Science Edition), p.05.
Barwinski, R. W., and et. al., 2020. Changing with the time: New ventures’ quest for
innovation. Journal of Small Business Strategy. 30(1). pp.18-30.
Exiang, L. and Dandan, H., 2018. The Impact of Cooperation Network Structure Hole on
Enterprise Technological Innovation Capability——Taking China's IC Industry as an
Example. Journal of Industrial Technological Economics.
GUAN, H. G., CHEN, D. and GENG, C. C., 2018. The Influence of “Customer Participation” on
Enterprise Innovation Performance under the Internet Environment: Analysis Based on
the Role of Knowledge Creation Intermediary. Journal of North Minzu University
(Philosophy and Social Science).
Hardey, M., 2020. Social innovation and the university: the impact of intervention for the micro
creative economy in North East England. Social enterprise journal.. 16(2). pp.203-220.
JIA, J. N., WANG, S. X. and XUE, X. Y., 2017. Research on the promotion of enterprise
innovation ability in Hebei province from the perspective of human resource flexible
management. Journal of Hebei University of Engineering (Social Science Edition), p.03.
LIU and et. al., 2017. Connotation, Structure and Measurement of Enterprise Inclusive
Innovation from the Perspective of Perception-Response. Journal of Anhui University of
Technology (Social Sciences), p.01.
Mysachenko, V. I., Komarov, V. Y. and Reshetov, K. Y., 2020. Innovation and structural
transformation of industry. In Complex Systems: Innovation and Sustainability in the
Digital Age (pp. 257-265). Springer, Cham.
Zhu, H., Zhao, S. and Abbas, A., 2020. Relationship between R&D grants, R&D investment, and
innovation performance: The moderating effect of absorptive capacity. Journal of
Public Affairs. 20(1). p.e1973.