Managing Innovation: Interview with John Paul Jones DeJoria

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Running head: Managing innovation
Managing Innovation

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Managing innovation
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Section A:...................................................................................................................................4
The reason behind selecting the entrepreneur for conducting this interview on....................4
The insights that were gained from talking to Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria..........................4
Things that could have been done differently based on the discussion of the interview.......5
The advice that could be offered to Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria..........................................6
Summary of the interview......................................................................................................6
Section B....................................................................................................................................6
1) Reflection...........................................................................................................................6
2) Planning.............................................................................................................................9
Section C:.................................................................................................................................13
Overview of models.............................................................................................................13
Selection of a model.............................................................................................................18
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................21
References................................................................................................................................22

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Managing innovation
Introduction
This project is all about the innovation and entrepreneurship and will able to understand the
different aspect of the innovation. Innovation is one of the important facts in the business
process and also gives rise to the concept of the entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is a man who
adopts the innovation in their business to provide the new concept in the market.
In this project the interview with Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria is conducted. The experience of
this interview will be described in depth. In addition, evaluation of the strength and weakness
of my own activities in contrast with the interviewer will also be placed. Personal
development plan and several innovation models will also be described in this assignment for
a better understanding of the topic. Lastly, the suggestion of the implementation of model and
reason will be elaborated properly.

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Managing innovation
Section A:
The reason for selecting the entrepreneur for conducting this interview on:
The respective interview was conducted to share experience and ideas from an entrepreneur
for understanding the skills and qualities an entrepreneur has to possess to achieve the
respective success of entrepreneurship. So for that purpose, Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria
could be considered as one of the best choices for the interview.
Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria is the co-founder of the organisation or the company named the
Paul Mitchell, which does the business of various hair products and hair care accessories
along with the company The Patrón Spirits. Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria is a self-made
billionaire. Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria is one of the well-known entrepreneur and a
philanthropist. Therefore, it would be very accurate to choose such an entrepreneur who
achieved the success all on his own to gain some valuable advice about entrepreneurship. In
the period of his struggling career, he experienced some very valuable lessons, sharing which
with all of the people looking forward to doing a start-up business and aspiring their dreams
could encourage them and enrich them with wisdom and knowledge about the challenges that
they could face in the process.
The insights that were gained from talking to Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria
Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria is one of the well-known faces of the entrepreneurs of the
modern American fashion industry. He has started from the small and developed his own
business into a giant modern business organisation. He went through lots of struggle and ups
and down, in this interview the history behind his success will help to learn lots of things.
At the earliest stage of his life, Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria worked even as a janitor, or as a
door to door salesman selling encyclopaedia and even as an insurance salesman. After this,
his first introduction to the respective business of hair care and hair care products started with

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Managing innovation
the job as an employee of a local company where he started to gain knowledge about the
business. However, after a short period, he was fired from the job as he claims that there was
a disagreement about the business strategies between him and the authority of the company.
After this Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria founded own small business organisation. The
entrepreneur did market research, tried to identify the requirements of customers and then
based on the research has taken the risk to introduce hair care products that can fulfil the
customer requirements.
Thus, in his story, it could be said that the passion for one’s work and continuous hard work
will always reward the person with the success they deserve. Many people could be more
talented than the entrepreneur in the respective area of business, but an entrepreneur is the
one who builds the ability to recognise the opportunities at the right time and takes the right
steps for achieving success (Crumpton, 2012).
Things that could have been done differently based on the discussion of the interview
In the separate interview, Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria has shared some of his business
strategies an mindset, which could be useful in order to achieve success in the respective
business area, he works in. He said that the basic key factor to becoming an entrepreneur and
reaching the top of the business industry lies in the good understanding of the business and
applying the right process to the right place at the right time.
However, there are certain factors that Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria has mentioned in the
interview, which could be modified in order to get even better results. He concluded that he
refuses to change his signature strategy of doing the promotion of his business and keeping it
quite a low key and let the talent and quality of his products and services do the publicity
instead. But it would be even better to advertise his product more on the social media and in
other offline media such as the magazines, newspapers and many other media so that it could

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Managing innovation
gain the attention of more people as well as the new generation which is becoming more
interested in the fashion industry day by day.
The advice that could be offered to Mr John Paul Jones DeJoria
It would be quite an audacity to give advice to such a big entrepreneur as Mr John Paul Jones
DeJoria about the respective business of hair care and products. However, it will be better for
him to take the more new initiative in the business as the public is becoming more interested
in the fashion and self-care industry day by day. He could introduce more innovative
technologies and modern techniques in his work to attract the modern generation even more.
Summary of the interview
Date of the interview: 15 September 2018.
Time of the interview: 1 pm.
Length of the interview: 1 hour and 15 minutes.
The format of the interview: video calling.
Section B
1) Reflection
This part is going to deal with a personal innovation capability audit where I will reflect on
my skills as well as a plan for how I intend to develop these going forward. I can derive from
the feedback from my parents, teachers, and co-learners as well that I have enough innovation
capabilities. However, I do also have some flaws and weaknesses as well that I have to
rectify. As a student in the business management, I need to focus on my capabilities and my
weaknesses.
Strength: I have enough innovative capabilities. I can fix my goal very well. I know that the
goal should have a SMART approach that my goal has to be specific, measurable, achievable,