Managing & Developing Innovation & Creativity

Managing & Developing Innovation
& Creativity

Contents
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................3
TASK....................................................................................................................................................3
Specific problem that exists within a firm.........................................................................................3
Creative and innovation methodologies to the production of possible solutions................................5
Select a solution and construct a plan for implementation.................................................................7
Recommendations for overcoming all the potential issues................................................................9
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Innovation is widely acknowledged as a critical source of long-term comparative
strategy that firms may use to thrive in today's dynamic business environment. In addition to
this, creativity is the act of developing anything new, whether it is a new idea, concept, or
approach. The use of creativity to improve the effectiveness of the program, person, team, or
business is referred to as creativity (Perry-Smith and Mannucci, 2017). Thus, it is crucial for
effectively manage as well as develop innovation and creativity as it provides assistance to
company in attaining competitive success at market place. Current report is based on H&M,
is a Swedish clothing company that operate their business in over the world with the aim of
attaining competitive advantage. Basically, company is sells fast fashion at cheaper prices
and serve quality services to its customers as per their needs and wants. H&M has more than
around 1500 stores in various countries which serve best quality products. Company also
implements innovative and creative ideas within their operational functions to improvise their
overall productiveness. In addition to this, company is also facing various issues in marketing
activities that may put negative impact over the brand image. As, H&M facing issues in
marketing, it was slow to sell online, customers experience needs some improvement, brand
positioning gone wrong and many more are the major issues that company is facing. Report is
going to describe creative and innovative methodologies to production of possible solution.
Furthermore, plan for implementing solution is also mentioned in this project. At last,
recommendation for overcoming all the potential issues is discussed here.
TASK
Specific problem that exists within a firm
Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) is multinational clothing retail firm and it is known for the
clothing of women, men and children. In November 2019, this company operated in almost
74 countries with more than 5000 stores under different form brands. H&M remains a major
player in unsustainable fast fashion sector. This one has a major environmental effect because
of promotion of the "disposable" fashion and continual rotations of latest trends and items.
Because of these factors, rising percentage of inexpensive apparel ends up in garbage after
only few uses. There have been different marketing issues faced by H&M organization and it
negatively impact on the organizational performance as well as productivity (Proctor, 2018).
H&M has already been going backwards their physical store expansion strategy in recent
years. Despite disappointing performances in year 2017, the retailer shuttered roughly 140
stores in year 2018 and reduced its planned shop openings to 175 to 130 throughout the

world. H&M is also still expanding its physical presence but has begun to slow down after
more than decade of fast growth. H&M's shift in approach is now in part due to competition
from both online and physical businesses. H&M is really not immune to shift in clothes sales
to internet, which has harmed mall as well as store traffic but also resulted in bankruptcy of
specialized garment stores such as Aeropostale or Wet Seal. competitors of H&M have
grown as result of online shift. For example, the well-resourced internet behemoth Amazon's
fashion ambitions. H&M company faces intense competition from online-only competitors
such as ASOS and Boohoo while Inditex owner of the rival fast-fashion shop Zara has had
some decent sales. Physical retail will continue to be largest market for foreseeable future,
but sales are increasingly moving online and also trend is inexorable. To preserve or increase
market share, brands including H&M must enhance online performance. Similarly, in 2017
annual report, H&M criticized internet retail for lower football in the stores. A poor sales
development in H&M brand's physical stores had negative impact on profit during year. It is
mostly owing to sector's continuous transformation wherein purchases are progressively
going to take place online, but group's online share has failed to offset for lower attendance in
shops. Despite the fact that H&M has made a concerted effort to grow its online presence,
there is still work that can be done. H&M company has physical stores in 71 locations
throughout the world, and only 47 of them sell online, 4 of which have been introduced in
year 2018. H&M company just began selling online in year 2010, more than a decade later
ASOS. This appears that company was late to see potential of e-commerce, or that it believed
that store network would be sufficient to stave off online market. These sites were also badly
built with several usability issues that made this difficult to generate revenues from them. On
the other hand, SEO strategy of H&M appeared to also be non-existent at times and this made
several severe blunders that negatively harmed its search engine rankings. Search traffic is
too important for any online store to ignore. A great search ranking brings cheap visitors
to site and this is a great way to get new customers.
The H&M is one of many high-profile western companies which has sparked outrage
in China due because of its stance on the alleged human rights violations in cotton-growing
Xinjiang province (Sigala and Chalkiti, 2015). As result, company's business has been
subjected to barrage of internet criticism as well as its e-operations have mostly vanished
in country. H&M is also now forced to employ high discounts and offers in order to clear
backlog of unwanted merchandise. However, owners as well as analysts are concerned that
the company's brand image would be harmed as result of this aggressive campaign. The