Innovation Strategies: Billabong International Limited Analysis Report

This report delves into the concept of innovation and its critical role in the retail industry, using Billabong International Limited as a case study. It explores the importance of innovation in a competitive environment, defining its various types (technical, process, and administrative) and emphasizing the need for constant change to avoid customer base erosion. The report identifies challenges individuals and organizations face when creating innovation, such as lack of employee empowerment, motivation, and effective strategies, along with resource constraints. It also highlights opportunities for innovation, including augmented reality shopping, product customization, visual search, and fast delivery. The analysis examines how Billabong can apply innovative practices, considering its resources and the need to overcome internal barriers to achieve sustainable growth in the dynamic retail market. The report stresses the importance of strategic planning and employee involvement in the innovation process.

Creating and Developing
Innovation

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................1
Role and importance of innovation..............................................................................................1
Challenges and opportunities that individual can face in creating innovation............................3
Ability to apply innovative practices within Billabong International Limited............................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

Introduction
With the growing needs of customers to get trendy clothes, including best quality and deals,
it becomes essential for organisations to create innovation in their business operations (Fullerton,
2018). By developing creativity either in selling process or in production of goods, aid firms in
meeting with fast-changing environments (Lee and Trimi, 2018). The present report is
demonstrating concept of innovation and its importance, in shaping future of retail industry. For
this purpose, Billabong International Limited is chosen that deals in same sector within
Australian market. As competition rises continuously, therefore, to gain sustainability in such
area, in what manner respective firm can apply innovation is discussed by identifying the current
challenges of retail market. Furthermore, a critical evaluation on challenges that an individual
face while developing innovation, with process to overcome also demonstrated.
Main Body
Role and importance of innovation
In order to run business in today’s high competitive environment, it becomes essential for
every organisation to create innovation in production. By developing so, they can offer
something new at marketplace, that consumers mainly seek to consume. In every sector, whether
it is retail, manufacturing or other, without developing innovation they cannot achieve success
and growth in business (Fullerton, 2018). According to opinion of Smriti Chand (2018),
Innovation can be defined as a process of creating as well as implementation of a new idea, that
moves a business on a desired position. It refers to the procedure of generating useful ideas, then
utilise them into creation of innovative products, services or unique methods of operation
(Importance of Innovation and Creativity for Success of an Organisation, 2018). Such useful
ideas and concepts are taken as result of creativity, that is mainly prerequisite for innovation. In
other words, creativity also known as ability for combining ideas in an innovative way, that
ultimately leads to quality improvement within an organization. In context with both established
and new organisations, changes or implementation of innovation become highly important to
sustain within a dynamic environment, where competition is much high (Ab Rahman, Ismail and
Rajiani, 2018). When a firm fail to innovate and make change as needed, then it may suffer
losses in terms of decrease in customer base, at large way. In addition to this, people also face
disadvantages in consuming products or services that fulfil their desires (Lee and Trimi, 2018).
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Therefore, ability for managing innovation and change consider as most essential part of a
competencies as per managerial perspectives.
Basically, innovation can be broadly classified into three main categories as technical,
process and administration. Hereby, Technical innovation aid in creation of innovative goods and
services, that beyond the expectation of customers and retain them for longer period with an
organisation. Such type of technical innovations can occur by appropriate research and
development process, that intend to satisfy the increase demand of customers who always wait
for unique and cheaper products (Donkor, Kankam-Kwarteng and Aidoo, 2018). While process
innovation in a firm involves creation of a new way of operating, producing, distributing or
selling existing products and services. Other than this, administrative innovation within a
business occurs by designing a new organisation structure that provides better supports for
creation, production as well as delivery of goods and services (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). For
achievement of competitive advantages, an organisation can combine all such type of
innovations that helps in offering new products with unique manner of delivery services. this
would help in earning loyalty of customers and retaining them as well.
From perspective of Ian Linton (2017), it has been evaluated that innovation plays an
important role behind success and high growth of an organization. By developing innovation in
business, it helps a firm to take a major breakthrough as well as incremental improvements, in
developing creativity within existing products. For this purpose, effective management help an
organization in creating innovation and achieve high commercial benefits from it. (Importance of
Innovation Management, 2017). For managing and implementing innovations, organizations
used to encourage employees for giving their contribution to innovate something new, by
rewarding for their effort. By contributing efforts of workers into creation of unique products or
innovation in delivery or customer service, it derives up to 20% to 30% growth in terms of
revenue and profitability ratio (Chen, Yin and Mei, 2018). An innovative idea that aid a firm in
creation of new products, also requires organizational change in significant manner to bring it to
market. Along with this, firms also require to grab attention of new suppliers to gain materials
that are required for creation of innovative products. This may help in opening the new channels
to market and enable a firm to reach towards new customer base.
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Challenges and opportunities that individual can face in creating innovation
Today, with high development of technology, as customer seeks to get more innovative
and unique products. Therefore, it becomes essential for organisations to develop innovation in
business, production or in delivering processes. This would help in attainment of high success
and growth with sustainability at marketplace (Heikka and Carayannis, 2019). In such manner,
cultivating innovation in a firm need to be a critical initiative as well, that can gain only by
support of human resource. Apart from beneficial points, organisations can face a number of
internal challenges that may hinder or create barriers in the progress of innovation.
Challenges that might face by an organisation for executing innovation includes –
 Lack of empowerment within employees to create innovation: Employees are known
as one of the most valuable assets of every organisation as these are the one who perform
various roles and perform various activities in order to better satisfy the needs of
customers (Ab Rahman, Ismail and Rajiani, 2018). To encourage and implement
innovation at workplace it is very essential for an organisation to empower employees so
they perform their job role and can easily come up with an innovative idea at workplace.
Lack of employee empowerment and existence of autocratic leadership at workplace
create barriers in implement innovation.
 Lack of motivated workplace: Employees play a big role in success and failure of an
organisation. There actions and decision directly affect the success of a company. To
build an innovative culture and to implement innovative at workplace in it very essential
for company to have skilled and motivated workers (Bason, 2018). Lack of motivated
workers create unnecessary barriers in implement innovation and increase cost of
company. Different motivation techniques are there which could be use by leaders to
motivate employees at workplace.
 Ineffective innovative strategy: Sequence of steps and actions taken to implement
innovative is known as strategy and have an effective strategy to implement innovation at
workplace is very essential. It is very essential for leaders of organisation to have an
effective strategy for implement innovative at workplace (Riana and et. al., 2019). This
not only reduce unnecessary cost of innovation but at the same time help in get maximum
benefits of innovation. Proper planning should be done by all the individuals involved in
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innovation in so they can develop an appropriate strategy to implement innovation at
workplace.
 Innovation is centralised towards only one functional group: All departments
working in an organisation play a significant role in innovation so involvement of every
department in innovation is very essential to ensure its effective implementation and to
get its maximum benefits (Heikka and Carayannis, 2019). Centralisation towards only
one single department is another challenge faced by organisation while implement
innovation at workplace.
 Lack of diversity or uniqueness: In order to implement innovation at workplace and to
get maximum benefits of it, it is very essential that there should be diversity at
workplace. Lack of diversity create unnecessary barrier in implement innovation at
workplace while diversity help in implement innovation at workplace in an effective
manner (Chen, Yin and Mei, 2018). Diversify workforce help in bring more innovative
ideas at workplace and also help in implement the same. Efforts should be done by
management to build and manage a diversify workforce so they can implement
innovation at workplace.
 Shortage of finance and other resources: Every organisation require various kind of
resources to implement innovation at workplace (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). Technical,
financial, human and many more resources are required by organisation to implement
innovation at workplace. Adequate amount of resources helps in implement innovation in
organisation and lack of resources creates unnecessary hurdles in introduce innovation at
workplace. proper plan should be formulated by management in order to identify the
resources require to implement innovation so they can arrange the resources require and
can implement the innovation in effective manner in order to get all the benefits
associated with it.
In context with retail industry like Billabong International Limited, that deals in clothing
retail sector and offers a range of sporting accessories like watches, skateboards and more, is
highly required to make innovation. The reason behind this is intense competition, where
availability of alternative or substitute products, assist respective firm to create differentiation in
its products and services (Riana and et. al., 2019). This would can only be possible by creating
innovation either in core activities of business, or in production. But to above mentioned factors,
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that are ineffective innovative strategy, demotivate workers and lack of empowerment, may
affect progress or development of innovation (Bason, 2018). Therefore, it is essential for
management of Billabong to overcome from such challenges by enhancing internal capabilities
of business.
Apart from various internal challenges, there are number of external opportunities available
that assist an organisation to identify the same and adopts the best one (Ab Rahman, Ismail and
Rajiani, 2018). It includes current and future trends, that may affect core activities of business in
future and impact on sustainability as well. In context with Billabong International Limited, this
organisation is one of the branded clothing retailer of Australia, that headquartered in
Queensland but operates in entire area of this country (10 Innovative Retail Trends to Watch in
2019, 2019). In order to gain competitive advantages, upcoming trends that give opportunity to
this retail organisation are given as below –
Opportunities for implementing innovation:
 Shopping with Augmented Reality (AR) – Implementation of Artificial Intelligence
(AI), augmented reality, machine learning, sensors and other, at physical stores, will
allow firms to enhance customer shopping experience in wider manner (Fullerton, 2018).
These technologies help in creating innovation in customer services, that easily help in
enhancing satisfaction level of targeted audience.
 Customisation of products and services – To customize products and services,
introducing business on e-commerce platform or creating brick-and-mortar at stores, let
customers purchase an item that tailored their needs and specifically match their style
(Bason, 2018).
 Visual search – This type of innovation aid customers to access any branded retailer by
just snapping a pic. AI technology, in this regard, works as a magic for shoppers to
identify desired products across multiple branded stores and websites, in just a click (Lee
and Trimi, 2018). This would prove really helpful in providing a great shopping
experience for retailers to their targeted audience.
 Fast delivery – As people mostly prefer to shop via e-commerce, therefore, by
developing innovation in delivery process aid retailers to meet customer expectations on
time.
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Ability to apply innovative practices within Billabong International Limited
As it becomes essential for every firm to create innovation in business, to stay at
competitive marketplace. Therefore, for this purpose, they also required to develop competence
and internal capabilities of business, that help in creating and managing innovations easily
(Riana and et. al., 2019). In context with Billabong International Limited, as it has more than
6000 workers at workplace with high revenue, so, this shows that to create innovation, it has
sufficient resources. But the main factor that may arise barriers in front of management for
executing innovation includes lack of diversified innovative strategy (Tidd and Bessant, 2018).
For this purpose, to develop ability for successfully execution of innovation, management of
respective firm needs to adopt following main stages of innovation process –
 Idea generation and mobilisation – This is the first stage of innovation, where
successful idea can be generated and fuel by conducting a proper market research and
development (Chen, Yin and Mei, 2018). Once an idea can be generated then it passes on
mobilisation stage, that helps for progression, delay or sabotage of new idea.
 Advocacy and screening – It is second stage of innovation, where generated idea needs
to be screened before implementation. This would help in reducing the risk of failure,
with measuring the benefits and risks. Through this process, viability of idea can also be
determined.
 Experimentation – Hereby, idea is tested by using a pilot testing method, to measure if
innovative product or service delivery will be accepted by customers or not (Heikka and
Carayannis, 2019). This would help in implementing better idea for feasibility of product
acceptance.
 Commercialisation – The product after modification or development is ready to be
presented at marketplace. Therefore, for this purpose, organisations need to
commercialise their products by adopting better promotional strategy.
 Diffusion and Implementation – It is last stage where company accepts the idea for
innovation and utilise it for producing unique products.
Conclusion
It has been concluded from this entire report that to run business in sustainable manner, it
becomes essential for organisations to make innovation. This would help in offering unique
products and services to customers, with generation of more revenue. Innovation is mainly
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applicable for product development, differentiation of business from other organisations, etc.
Along with this, innovation also crucial for attainment of growth and success of business, that
creates a series of changes in product development.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Lee, S. M. and Trimi, S., 2018. Innovation for creating a smart future. Journal of Innovation &
Knowledge, 3(1), pp.1-8.
Fullerton, T., 2018. Game design workshop: a playcentric approach to creating innovative
games. AK Peters/CRC Press.
Ab Rahman, Z. N., Ismail, N. and Rajiani, I., 2018. Challenges for managing non-technological
innovation: a case from Malaysian public sector. Polish Journal of Management
Studies, 17.
Bason, C., 2018. Leading public sector innovation: Co-creating for a better society. Policy
Press.
Riana, I. G. and et. al., 2019. Creating innovation through knowledge sharing and absorptive
capacity. Polish Journal of Management Studies, 19.
Heikka, T. and Carayannis, E. G., 2019. Three Stages of Innovation in Participatory Journalism
—Co-initiating, Co-sensing, and Co-creating News in the Chicago School Cuts
Case. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 10(2), pp.437-464.
Chen, J., Yin, X. and Mei, L., 2018. Holistic innovation: an emerging innovation
paradigm. International Journal of Innovation Studies, 2(1), pp.1-13.
Tidd, J. and Bessant, J. R., 2018. Managing innovation: integrating technological, market and
organizational change. John Wiley & Sons.
Donkor, J., Donkor, G. N. A., Kankam-Kwarteng, C. and Aidoo, E., 2018. Innovative capability,
strategic goals and financial performance of SMEs in Ghana. Asia Pacific Journal of
Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 12(2), pp.238-254.
Online
Importance of Innovation and Creativity for Success of an Organisation. 2018. [Online]
Available Through:<http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/organization/importance-of-
innovation-and-creativity-for-success-of-an-organisation/21142>.
10 Innovative Retail Trends to Watch in 2019. 2019. [Online] Available
Through:<https://tinuiti.com/blog/ecommerce/retail-trends-2019/>.
Importance of Innovation Management. 2017. [Online] Available Through:<
https://bizfluent.com/info-7785390-importance-innovation-management.html >.
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