MBA501 Assignment: Analyzing EFS's Disruptive Innovation

This assignment provides a comprehensive analysis of Essendon Food Solutions (EFS), focusing on its capacity for disruptive innovation from various perspectives. The internal perspective highlights issues within the human resources team, the division of the company into subsidiaries, and the need for merging them. The external perspective addresses the company's relationship with shareholders, the need for a new CEO, and opportunities in overseas markets. The marketing perspective emphasizes the importance of customer interaction and empathic designs. The technology perspective underscores the need for EFS to embrace technological advancements. The strategic leadership section discusses the implementation of Gandhi's leadership qualities, succession planning, and the importance of understanding market conditions. The analysis provides recommendations for improvements in each area, contributing to EFS's overall innovative capabilities and strategic leadership.

Dynamic strategy and
disruptive innovation

Internal perspective
• The human resources team of the company do not follow
innovative process.
• EFS needs to hire a team comprising of younger individuals ageing
between 25 and 35 years to bring innovations in the company.
• EFS must hire employees who are suitable for their marketing and
sales department.
• New employees in the company have a hard time to understand
the company ethics initially.
• The older employees of the company must help the new
employees to get accustomed to the work culture.

Internal perspective
 The division of the company in two subsidiary, EnzymeTech and
Essendon Emulsifiers is dividing the resources of the company.
 The competition between the two groups is hampering the growth of
the market.
 The company must merge both the groups into one which will be
saving the resources of the company and can be used towards the
disruptive innovation.
 The company is huge in size which will be hampering the
implementation of disruptive innovation in the company.
 EFS can divide the company into smaller units which will be
facilitating in implementing disruptive innovation.

External perspective
 The company has not been totally honest with the shareholders
associated with the company.
 The company needs to hire a new CEO for the company to bring
innovation in the company.
 Existing experienced employee can not be selected by the company
since they have no idea bout innovations.
 A new executive needs to be hired by the company who has a vast
idea about the present market conditions.

External perspective
 the company is unable to spread its business in the overseas which is
a major drawback.
 Some of the products of Essendon which are not doing good in
Australia are doing great in china, Indonesia and Vietnam.
 The company is lacking in capital for increase its branches in the
overseas market.
 The company needs to grab these opportunities for disruptive
innovation by implementing new marketing team.

Marketing perspective
 The staffs of the R&D department do not talk to the customers of the
company directly.
 The R&D department thinks that they know everything and they do
not need to gather customer reviews.
 Connecting with the customers directly will help the company to
understand how much the customers like the company’s product and
what changes are needed (Goldberg,Fishbein and Middlestadt 2018).
 The mangers and the R&D team staffs needs to gain more and more
customer insights to develop new products according to customer
needs.

Marketing perspective
 Empathic designs must be implemented by the R&D team and the
managers of the company to gather insight on the customer needs.
 The company must find out its loyal customers who will be ready to
try out their new products as soon as it hits the market (Hill and
Alexander 2017).
 Lead user process will be helping the EFS to comply with the various
customer needs and bring innovations in its products.

Technology perspective
 EFS needs to be more technologically advanced as compared to its
competitors.
 By taking ideas from the various customer needs the company can
form products which will be user friendly.
 Products with good packaging may be manufactured by the company
to attract more customers.

Strategic leadership
 EFS can follow the leadership quality of Mahatma Gandhi to improve
their company ethics.
 Gandhi has been a phenomenal leader who has been very decisive in
taking new steps (Schoemaker,Krupp and Howland 2013).
 EFS needs to implement succession planning so the management of
the company works smoothly.
 Jonathan is doing good in the company as because he is the only
person responsible for maintain the organization more than 40 years.
Jonathan also takes various types of responsibilities like turning
around the company turnover to the stakeholders of the company. He
is known for taking decisions very fast

Strategic leadership
 There a lot of aged employees who will be retiring soon.
 Succession planning must be implemented by the company so that
they remain competitive in the market (Covin and Slevin 2017).
 The leaders of the company needs to follow the repetition of
empathic designs and lead user process so that they can easily mater
these process.

Strategic leadership
 The previous experience which has been gathered by the leaders by
repetitive empathic designs will be helping in making newer products
to meet customer satisfaction.
 The company must select its upcoming leaders who will be able to
understand the market conditions of Australia.
 The leaders of the company must understand the need of the
company to increase their branches in the Asian market.

Reference list
 Cavusgil, S.T., Knight, G., Riesenberger, J.R., Rammal, H.G. and Rose, E.L.,
2014. International business. Pearson Australia.
 Covin, J.G. and Slevin, D.P., 2017. The entrepreneurial imperatives of strategic
leadership. Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating a new mindset, pp.307-327.
 Covin, J.G. and Slevin, D.P., 2017. The entrepreneurial imperatives of strategic
leadership. Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating a new mindset, pp.307-327.
 Goldberg, M.E., Fishbein, M. and Middlestadt, S.E., 2018. Social marketing:
Theoretical and practical perspectives. Psychology Press.
 Hill, N. and Alexander, J., 2017. The handbook of customer satisfaction and
loyalty measurement. Routledge.
 Schoemaker, P.J., Krupp, S. and Howland, S., 2013. Strategic leadership: The
essential skills. Harvard business review, 91(1), pp.131-134.