Term 4 2017 BSBINN501: Innovation's Role in Business Sustainability

This discussion board post examines the critical role of innovation in ensuring business sustainability. It defines innovation as the process of creating more efficient processes, ideas, and products, and emphasizes its importance in helping businesses adapt to market changes. The post explores different types of innovation, including product, process, and service innovation, and discusses various methods companies can use to innovate. It highlights the challenges to innovation and provides examples of how companies like Nike have used innovation to achieve sustainability. Furthermore, the post discusses corporate venturing and strategic entrepreneurship as key strategies for establishing an effective innovation strategy. The author concludes that innovation is a key requirement for business sustainability, emphasizing the need for management to foster an innovative mindset within the organization and overcome obstacles to innovation. References from various academic sources are provided to support the discussion.

Online Learning Component Cover Sheet
Week 5
Term and Year Term 4 2017
Assessment Type Discussion question
Date
Student Name:
Student ID No:
Submission deadline: Due at the end of Week 5 (upload on Sunday by 11:59pm) via Moodle Submission
Point
Qualification : BSB50215 Diploma of Business
Unit Code: BSBINN501
Unit Title: Establish systems that support innovation
Assessor’s Name
Student Declaration: I declare that this work has been completed by me honestly and with integrity.
Name:
Signature:
Date:
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Task
Innovation is key to business sustainability. Discuss (not more than 800 words).
As per Nidumolu, Prahalad and Rangaswami (2009), business sustainability can be defined
as managing triple bottom line- a procedure through which corporations can manage their
social, environmental and financial threats, opportunities and obligations. Many experts refer
to these three impacts as people, planet, and profits. Innovation can be described as changing
procedure or creating more efficient processes, ideas, and products. In case of business,
innovation can be defined as designing dynamic products, implementing new ideas, or
improving the existing services. Many experts catalyst innovation in business as a factor of
success which helps them grow and adapt according to the marketplace. Modern
corporations are facing global innovation challenges due to a new wave of economic
developments. Establishing a corporate innovation strategy provide numerous advantage to
an organisation including the development of new products and services, competitive
workforce, help in motivating peoples and many others. Creating and innovation are
different processes; creativity is defined as the procedure of generating new ideas whereas
innovation takes a step further by turning such ideas into reality. Innovation is the procedure
through which entrepreneurs and corporations convert their opportunities into marketable
solutions. In the business sector, the innovation is divided into three types, product, process
and service innovation (Boons et al., 2013).
Product innovation is related to changing physical attributes of the products; the process
innovation focuses on making beneficial changes by modifying the procedure of
manufacturing or services. The services innovation concentrate on changing the services
provided to customers. There are different methods through which a company can conduct
innovation in its procedures such as invention, duplication, extension and synthesis
(Schaltegger, Ludeke-Freund and Hansen, 2012). In case of businesses, the requirement of
innovations has raised due to various factors such as continual downsizing, increased
worldwide competition, weakness in traditional management, dramatic change in marketing
trends and exodus of innovative minded employees. These factors force corporations to
innovate in order to expand their growth and sustain their business. There are several factors
which create obstacles in corporate innovation such as less or no time, poor incentives,
underfunded projects, no allies, job domain, and actions of fellow employees including
neophobia, uninformed judgement, caution, and politics.
Many experts have provided that performing usual activities of business is not enough to
achieve business sustainability, instead of leading corporations to innovate new products,
services, and processes to gain competitive advantage and attain business sustainability
(Schaltegger and Wagner, 2011). Nike is a good example; the company engages in a wide
variety of stakeholders to ensure sustainability in their products. Nike has engaged in crowd-
sourced techniques to connect with customers to collect their feedback for products; such
data improve logistics, resource use, supply chain, energy and life cycle impact of products.
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The business world is filled with problems which seem like impossible to solve, and
companies can overcome those only through innovation. For example, the innovation of
internet provides a new platform to corporations to sell, advertise and expand their
operations worldwide (Carayannis, Sindakis and Walter, 2015). The business sustainability
can be achieved by ensuring that corporation achieves its objectives and perform at higher
productivity, but it is impossible since market conditions are constantly changing. To ensure
corporations can achieve sustainability in their business operation companies are required
innovating its operation as per market requirements.
The companies which failed to implement innovative strategy also failed in the market as
well. For example, Nokia becomes number one seller in world by introducing new features
such as cheap phones, better cameras, and Symbian operating system, but the company
failed to innovate to a modern Android operating system which results in fall of the
corporation. It shows the requirement of innovation in the business of operations for
ensuring its future sustainability. In order to establish an effective innovation strategy, there
are two prime factors which can be established by a corporation, corporate venturing, and
strategic entrepreneurship. The corporate venturing approach focuses on adding new
business, whether a portion or entirely new department, into the organisation. There are
three methods of implementing this approach- cooperative corporate venturing, internal
corporate venturing, and external corporate venturing (Hall and Wagner, 2012). The
strategic entrepreneurship provides that the corporation should adopt innovations for
competitive advantage. These innovations may or may not add a new business for the
company.
As per above discussions, in order to establish innovate mindset in a corporation, the
management is required to ensure that every section of the organisation is involved in the
innovative projects, and they understand the challenges of such ventures. The management
should also make the process of innovation less intimidating for employees by creating self-
confidence within the workers, so they are motivated to act on innovative opportunities.
Clearing the obstacles from the innovative projects to ensure its growth. The innovation
ensures proper allocation of resources and protects the environment from pollution, for
example, innovation of electric cars, natural energy houses, and many others (Malville,
2010). The business can increase its sales and expand its operations worldwide by
innovations. Therefore, the innovations are a key requirement for business sustainably.
References
Boons, F., Montalvo, C., Quist, J. and Wagner, M., 2013. Sustainable innovation, business
models and economic performance: an overview. Journal of Cleaner Production, 45, pp.1-8.
Carayannis, E.G., Sindakis, S. and Walter, C., 2015. Business model innovation as lever of
organizational sustainability. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 40(1), pp.85-104.
Hall, J. and Wagner, M., 2012. Integrating sustainability into firms' processes: Performance
effects and the moderating role of business models and innovation. Business Strategy and
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the Environment, 21(3), pp.183-196.
Melville, N.P., 2010. Information systems innovation for environmental sustainability. MIS
quarterly, 34(1), pp.1-21.
Nidumolu, R., Prahalad, C.K. and Rangaswami, M.R., 2009. Why sustainability is now the
key driver of innovation. Harvard business review, 87(9), pp.56-64.
Schaltegger, S. and Wagner, M., 2011. Sustainable entrepreneurship and sustainability
innovation: categories and interactions. Business strategy and the environment, 20(4),
pp.222-237.
Schaltegger, S., Lüdeke-Freund, F. and Hansen, E.G., 2012. Business cases for
sustainability: the role of business model innovation for corporate
sustainability. International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 6(2),
pp.95-119.
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