Disruptive Innovation and Leadership Analysis: MBA501 Presentation

This assignment is a video presentation analyzing the disruptive innovation capabilities of Essendon Food Solutions (EFS) for the MBA501 course. The presentation examines the company's internal structure, external factors, marketing strategies, technological advancements, and strategic leadership. The analysis covers internal perspectives such as resource competition between subsidiaries and lack of employee empowerment, suggesting recommendations like skill-based promotions and collaborative decision-making. The external perspective highlights the need to explore international markets and address regulatory and cultural challenges. Marketing perspectives focus on consumer insights and market expansion, while technology perspective emphasizes the need for disruptive technology investment. The presentation also addresses leadership challenges, particularly the top-down decision-making process, and proposes strategies to improve communication and employee empowerment. The aim is to provide a comprehensive strategic analysis of EFS's innovation potential and leadership effectiveness, offering actionable recommendations for future growth and sustainability.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Hi all
In this video, we will discuss about the various regulatory as well as economic conditions that
possess the potential to affect the Essendon Food Solutions (EFS). We have segregated out
discussion into four chief parts that includes internal perspective, external perspective, marketing
perspective, technology perspective and strategic leadership.
A. Internal perspective
In this portion, we will analyse the key internal factors that possess the potential to impose
impact on the innovative capacity of them mentioned organization. After going through the case
study it can be clearly understand that lack of the urge to keep up to date with the ever changing
market trends can be considered as one of chief issues that is hampering the innovative capacity
of EFS. While the company possess highly qualified and experienced employees, lack of current
market research and making strategies on the basis of the same is hindering their business.
The first perspective of the organization that is hampering it’s innovate company includes high
competition between the two subsidiaries EnzymeTech and Essendon Emulsifiers for resources.
Although, high competition between the two subsidiaries is imposing positive impact on the
profitability of the organization, currently, in future, it may result in conflict situation, drop of
production, inefficient operation, attrition of employees and eventual consumer situation.
Considering the fact that the organization follows a top down structure, crucial decisions like
project appraisal as well as selections only depends on the General Manager and the senior
executive team. This in turn is resulting in lack of employee empowerment in the organization

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The second internal perspective that is hampering the business is that only aged and experienced
staffs posses the potential to work effectively in the R&D department. Lack of effective
communication skills and promotion on the basis of seniority may result in job dissatisfaction of
skilled junior employees which may result in attrition (Weberg et al. 2019).
In order to deal with the above mentioned issue, some effective recommendations have been
provided bellow:
The company needs to recruit or promote senior executives on the basis of their skills instead of
age. This will not only ensure fair job ethics but will also ensure even distribution of senior and
junior employees throughout the organization (Schoemaker et al. 2018).
The second step that needs to be taken by the organization includes incorporating both junior as
well as senior executives while making effective decision for the organization. This will not only
ensure empowerment of the employees but will also enhance their loyalty towards the
organization.
As a mother company, the EFS should stop making its subsidiaries fright for the resources.
Instead the company should invest on the resources of its subsidiaries. Enhancing the investment
cost will ensure enhancement in the quality of the products of the subsidiaries. This in turn will
not only enhance the reputation of the organization but will also enhance its consumer base and
revenue in the long run. The subsidiaries may opt to disruption (Yeh and Walter 2017).
Disruption can be defined as a process with fewer resources. Disruption can be defined as a
process that smaller organizations with fewer resources opt for to challenge established
incumbent businesses.

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The training program of the mentioned organization should also incorporate training on
disruptive innovation technique since senior managers may not understand the promise of
disruptive innovation since they were previously trained in conventional business programs.
Along with this training should be given for enhancing the communication skills of the senior
R&D employees so that they develop the potential to communicate with the consumers by
themselves by ensuring sub-optimal organizational culture. Effective communication skills as
well as positive approach towards fellow workers will lower attrition rate of the junior
employees to a great level.
Instead of recruiting employees on the basis of qualification, employees should be recruited on
the basis of experience and potential to enhance consumer base. An additional team at corporate
level is required for being responsible to collect disruptive innovation ideas as well as implement
them.
B. External perspective
In this paragraph, we will prepare an analysis of the key external factors impacting the
organization’s innovative capacity and offer recommendations.
The first most crucial internal perspective that is affecting the organization includes that the
company don’t has the energy or expertise to move to highly potential markets of China and
Indonesia. Considering the fact that the organization is operating in a highly saturated market of
Australia, lack of investment and innovation to enhance its business will eventually result in
lowering the revenue. While majority of the employees who wants to develop new technologies
are not provided with effective resources.

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As a recommendation, I would suggest that the CFO of the mentioned organization should invest
on the innovation of the subsidiaries so that the company offer the consumers with high quality
and innovative products. This is highly necessary for the organization in order to enhance its
competitive advantages since majority of the competitors of EFS is opting innovative strategies
for retaining and enhancing consumers (Holland and Piper 2016).
The second factor that needs to be focused on is the scope of targeting potential consumers in
less saturated nations like China and Asia. According to researchers, regulation and cultures
possess the potential to discourage disruptive innovation. The company should invest on
recruiting and training another team who possess high cultural competence and capability to visit
as well as meet international consumers.
C. Marketing perspective
The first marketing perspective that can be pointed is lack of interest of the company to invest
for high potential and long term R&D project. The perspective of the management is that
investing on this will send wrong massage and impose negative impact on the share price.
The second marketing perspective of the mentioned organization is that the company lacks
interest in establishing their business organizations at potential markets despite the fact that
export market have done well in the recent decade (Coulson-Thomas 2017). The organization
consider the consumers of Australia as their chief marketing sectors and lacks the interest to
invest on other potential markets across the world. The market manager has visited the export
market last year in spite

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Considering the fact that the mentioned organization sees Australia to be their potential market,
they should invest on potential consumer visit program. This in turn will help the organization
for gaining the insights of the consumer. Understanding the needs and feedback given by the
consumer will help the organization as well as its subsidiaries to develop effective strategies that
possess the potential to enhance consumer satisfaction.
Managers should visit the consumers individually and as a manager of cross functional team
including the R&D and marketing. This will help the company for overcoming conflicts, implicit
assumption as well a poor communications.
D. Technology perspective
The technological perspective of the organization, the Enzyme tech is known for its
commercialization as well as research on the enzyme solutions. The R&D staffs of the
organization are known for the different enzyme application that has been developed by them
over years. However, due to lack of investment, currently the team is unable to develop effective
and innovative technology. Thus it can be clearly understood that the organization has conducted
very little research when it come to how the company may approach systematically as well as
indentify or create potential disruptive technologies.
As per my opinion, given the highly vulnerable market competition of the company, it is highly
crucial for the same to spot disruptive technology opportunity on an emergency basis. The 1st
strategy that needs to be invested as per the scenario is to enhance the investment of the mother
organization on its subsidiaries (Christensen et al. 2015). This will enable the researchers to

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develop innovative technologies that will not only beneficial since it will cause enhancement of
the consumer base
Strategic Leadership
In this paragraph, I will conduct an analysis of leaders within the organization. Considering the
fact that the organization follows top down structure, lack of empowerment of junior employees
has been noticed. Majority of the decision are fund to be taken by the GM as well as the senior
executives. As a result of this, junior executives of the organization feel lack of empowerment.
Another major issue with leadership is lack of environmental analysis. Considering the fact that
the competition between the organizations has got increased to an enhanced level, lack of
knowledge of the market change and the demands of the consumer is resulting in attrition of
consumers for both EFS as well as its subsidiaries (Coccia 2018). The third issue that has been
encountered with the organization is lack of focus on the communication skills of senior
employees and enhanced attrition of employees. In order to deal with this issue, it is highly
crucial for the organization to incorporate effective leadership strategies. Effective training
programs for development of cognitive abilities of the leaders and changes in strategies and
organizational structure is highly required.

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Reference list
Christensen, C.M., Raynor, M.E. and McDonald, R., 2015. What is disruptive
innovation. Harvard Business Review, 93(12), pp.44-53.
Coccia, M., 2018. Disruptive firms and technological change. Quaderni IRCrES-CNR, 3(1),
pp.3-18.
Coulson-Thomas, C., 2017. Driving performance excellence through disruptive innovation and
visionary leadership.
Holland, D.D. and Piper, R.T., 2016. High-Trust Leadership and Blended Learning in the Age of
Disruptive Innovation: Strategic Thinking for Colleges and Schools of Education. Journal of
Leadership Education, 15(2).
Schoemaker, P.J., Heaton, S. and Teece, D., 2018. Innovation, dynamic capabilities, and
leadership. California Management Review, 61(1), pp.15-42.
Weberg, D., Davidson, S., Porter-O'Grady, T. and Malloch, K., 2019. Leadership for evidence-
based innovation in nursing and health professions. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Yeh, S.T. and Walter, Z., 2017. Determinants of service innovation in academic libraries through
the lens of disruptive innovation. College & Research Libraries, 77(6).