Comprehensive Report on Innovation Issues at Carrefour Saudi Arabia

This report analyzes the innovation challenges faced by Carrefour in Saudi Arabia. It delves into the specific problems encountered, such as issues with a new shopping app, lack of employee motivation, and difficulties adapting to organizational changes. The report explores the relationship between organizational culture and innovation, examining how Carrefour's culture impacts its ability to implement new ideas effectively. It discusses the use of the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) and the competing values framework to assess and understand the organizational culture. The report further provides recommendations, including conducting feasibility studies, fostering a positive work environment, assessing employee performance, and motivating employees to address the innovation problems and improve business outcomes. The analysis considers the impact of leadership and management practices on employee engagement and the overall success of innovation initiatives within the company.

Running head: INNOVATION PROBLEM IN ORGANIZATION
Innovation Problem in Organization
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Innovation problem faced with in the company..............................................................................3
Relation between organizational culture and innovation.................................................................5
OCAI instrument.............................................................................................................................6
Competing values framework......................................................................................................7
Organizational culture..................................................................................................................8
Recommendations............................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The report is prepared to assess the innovation problem faced within the business
organization in Saudi Arabia and how it has managed to deal with that for ensuring successful
business functioning. The innovation problem faced within Carrefour, which is selected as the
case study here can create an impact on the establishment of a good culture as well. Due to
innovation problem, the business performance may deteriorate as well as hinder the successful
accomplishment of business objectives. The report will discuss about the innovation problem
that Carrefour Saudi Arabia is facing and ways to resolve those issues too. Carrefour has 12
franchise-operated hypermarkets in Saudi Arabia, with five of those being in the capital Riyadh
itself (carrefouruae.com, 2018). The innovation of the company includes opening a new store
that provides digital solutions including m-commerce services to make the shopping experiences
of the customers more convenient and flexible.
Innovation problem faced with in the company
There are various problems faced while enabling innovation within the business
organization and due to this the organizational structure and way of managing the business
operations also change. Due to this the workers of the company find it difficult to adapt to the
changes and the business functioning also deteriorates. Few problems related to the innovation
include lack of ability of employees to innovate due to improper leadership skills and poor
support by the managers of the organization. The leaders also fail to keep the staffs motivated,
because of which, the innovation outcomes may be inappropriate as well. With the innovation,
changes were made and this had resulted in developing an app to make customers purchase
products and services online (Katzy et al., 2013). One of the major problems was that the app

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was not working properly sometime, which not only created difficulties to purchase the products
and the online app does not show all the available products that could be found at the stores of
Carrefour.
Another problem with innovation is that innovation is centralized to a particular
functional group only, and due to this, the innovation procedures are time consuming. Having
more functional groups can prevent any hindrance to the innovation pace and provide unique
solutions to the problems faced by the customers. Lack of coordination and diversity also creates
innovation problem and this can make the organization face risks while offering the new and
innovative products in the market (Subramaniam, 2012). Innovation, if not measured or
benchmarked could create difficulty to evaluate the key performable indicators and even
generate new ideas required to generate greater value of innovation related approaches.
With the appointment of a new CEO, certain approaches were undertaken to innovate the
business operations and processes, though it brought some major problems for Carrefour. The
new CEO tried to innovate by converting some of the hypermarkets of the company into
franchises and even introducing some of the Sunday openings as well. The shares of the
company reduced to more than thirty percent due to lesser revenue generation as well (Lorenz,
2015). Due to lack of leadership skills, the staffs were not empowered and kept motivated to
perform efficiently by embracing the changes achieved through innovation within the
organization. The employees were not motivated and encouraged properly to adapt to the
changes, because of which they felt less motivated to innovate. Though innovation has been done
like changes in organizational structure and culture, still the employees have been unable to
access the necessary resources and even faced issues to cooperate with others within the
workplace. The staffs were not trained, because of which, they were unable to create an app that

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could provide all the necessary services properly for improving the shopping experience of the
clients. Carrefour operates over 12 franchise hypermarkets in Saudi Arabia and five of these are
located at Riyadh (Kang, 2016).
Innovation is something not similar to the invention and creativity; because the creativity
and inventions are focused are solution centric whereas he innovations managed within the
organization are considered as problem centric. Same has happened for Carrefour, where a new
CEO is appointed who can enable changes and mange innovation with the focus on solving
problems (carrefouruae.com, 2018). The innovators are focused on the issue with the own
proposed solutions, because of which they may not create own ideas and concepts. Due to lack of
proper leadership and managerial skills, there were conflicts and misunderstandings, which
reduced the group thinking abilities and skills as well (Sloep, Berlanga & Retalis, 2014). There
was not a proper working condition as well, which created difficulties for the individuals to
express themselves and deliver their ideas and opinions too. The innovation at Carrefour changed
the organizational structure and a different culture was created, which many of the staffs felt
quite difficult to cope up with. The organizational policies were not in place too, which further
resulted in forming an inappropriate culture where people could work. Innovation at Carrefour
was managed by undertaking sustainable approaches, which increased the prices of certain
products and services and left the customers unsatisfied (Urbancova, 2013).
Relation between organizational culture and innovation
Carrefour experienced a significant loss in business due to the recent changes made
through innovation. Due to the innovation, a different organizational culture and structure was
enabled, which created difficulties for many of the staffs to adjust with. Carrefour decided to

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create a diverse workforce consisting of people from different backgrounds and cultures, which
resulted in improper communication process, which was furthermore facilitated by change in
leadership and strategies. Many of the staffs even failed to accept the need for changes, which
created insecurity and varied ambitions of people within the workplace (Lorenz, 2013). Due to
the implementation of a new organizational structure, other problems faced were lack of
communication, poor organizational hierarchy, due to which, the managers, employers and
employees were confused regarding their new roles and responsibilities. The roles and
responsibilities were not delegated properly to certain staffs and the cost incurred due to the
innovation of organizational structure was huge as well. The company faced innovation problem
because the shopping app developed to improve the online shopping experiences of the
customers was not always working properly. It was due to the lack of skills and knowledge of the
workers, due to which, they failed to cooperate with each other (O’Sullivan & Dooley, 2012).
Due to this, the organizational culture was not effective, which hindered the successful
management of innovation at Carrefour. By maintaining a good culture within the organization,
it could have been easier to
OCAI instrument
The Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument or OCAI is utilized by Carrefour,
Saudi Arabia to assess the organizational culture and make sure that the staffs perform to their
potential for enabling innovation all throughout. This would not only make them adjust with the
changes but would also allow them to work in coordination and as an unit through the
establishment of a good culture within the workplace. The OCAI tool is used as an effective
assessment tool for evaluating the organizational culture and desire for changes implemented
through the various innovation procedures. The Competing Values framework and different

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culture types are used as important aspects related to the OCAI assessment tool (Camisón &
Villar-López, 2014).
Competing values framework
The competing values framework consists of the four major quadrants including the
collaborate, create, control and compete. The assessment tool is used for enabling flexibility and
adaptability and furthermore allows the employees to consider the innovation as a positive
outcome. The Collaborate quadrant could enable the staffs and employees of Carrefour to work
in coordination and prioritize on the shared values. This would promote good communication
between the workers and develop a positive work culture within the workplace. The Create
quadrant would allow them to show their creative skills and foster innovation by aligning with
the vision and objectives of Carrefour. The individuals working for Carrefour must be flexible to
consider the changes and this could be supported by a positive culture for moving towards the
future (Eeckelaert et al., 2012). The create quadrant would also allow the staffs to become
creative and emphasize on the accomplishment of outcomes with ease. This could have
facilitated the development of the online shopping app through the development of a compelling
vision and generating new ideas for the future as well. The Compete quadrant focuses on the
individuals who are concerned with the competition and achievement of goals and objectives by
competing against each other (Ikramullah et al., 2016). The Compete quadrant would allow the
individuals to speed up the management of business processes and obtain higher market share
and ensure brand equity too. The control quadrant could enable clarification of roles and
responsibilities of the worker at Carrefour, furthermore conduct researches and feasibility study
to understand whether the innovation procedures would be beneficial or not (Vila, Perez &
Morillas, 2012).

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To improve the organizational effectiveness, the competing values framework helped in
providing better stability, control and flexibility. It was also ensured that the employees work
together in coordination to create a good culture and at the same time, achieved the positive
results within quick time. There are different organizational culture types that are adopted by
different organizations to create good working conditions and communication between the staffs
to improve the business operations’ efficiency. Four quadrants are associated with the different
cultures and values needed to be maintained within the organization (Vila, Pérez & Coll-Serrano,
2014).
Figure: OCAI framework values related to culture (Vila, Pérez & Coll-Serrano, 2014)
Organizational culture
Because there were problems related to the innovation, so, the company wanted to focus
on the major values including the flexibility, discretion, stability and control for assisting the
employees to embrace the changes with ease. This could make the employees perform their roles
and responsibilities together and furthermore discuss about the issues faced by communicating
with each other. The organization desired for flexibility, better stability and control and to

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maintain these values, Carrefour should create a market culture or clan culture (Ovseiko &
Buchan, 2012).
The clan culture was absent previously and if the company wants to maintain the values,
then the development of a clan culture can create a good working environment and address the
needs of the clients by promoting participation of employees, team working and consensus. The
market culture should be created for gaining reputation and success by reaching the objectives
fruitfully. Market penetration and stock management could be important aspects managed
through the setting of proper prices and understanding how to make the online shopping
experience more convenient and easy for the customers. However, for that, a proper app should
be developed that could be assessed through revaluation of requirements of the customers and
creating a platform where the employees could discuss about these matters properly (Belasen &
Rufer, 2013). This would overcome the innovation problems as well as make Carrefour less
susceptible to changes, furthermore maintain flexibility, stability and control all throughout.
Recommendations
 It is recommended conduct a feasibility study of the innovation procedures at first,
because innovation itself is an effective way to overcome issues with ease.
 Carrefour should maintain a positive culture to create good working conditions and at the
same time, facilitate team working and communication between the employees.
 Assessment of the performances of the workers is recommended for evaluating the areas
of weaknesses and trains them to improve their skills, knowledge and expertise.

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 To deal with the innovation problems, it would be important for the leaders and manager
of Carrefour to keep the employees motivated by providing them with benefits and
rewards
 It is also recommended to create a proper organizational structure where decentralization
is possible for enhancing the efficiency of the business operations and ensure gaining the
best outcomes from the innovation procedures.
Conclusion
The report explained the innovation issue faced by Carrefour in Saudi Arabia due to the
lack of proper culture, poor communication and team working between the employees. The
problem analyzed here was the implementation of the online shopping app to provide the
customers with a better shopping experience. It was a major step to innovation undertaken by the
organization, though the app was found to be not working at certain situations along with
unavailability of all the products and services that were actually available at the stores. This was
due to the lack of communication between the staffs and poor coordination among them, which
deteriorated the culture and even hindered the successful management of business operations.
This affected the innovation negatively, due to which, the OCAI framework was utilized to
determine the culture that should be the most suitable for ensuring flexibility, stability and
control at the company. The market and clan cultures were found to be effective and it was also
recommended to provide the organizational staffs with proper training sessions so that they could
understand the importance of teamwork and create new ideas for innovating the products and
services of Carrefour.

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