Managing Innovation in Business: A Report on M&S's Future Strategy

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Mark & Spencer's innovation strategy, focusing on the future of the retail industry and M&S's competitive positioning. The report begins with an executive summary and an introduction to the concepts of innovation in the business context, specifically for the retail sector. It explores the future of the retail industry, highlighting key innovations expected by 2020 and beyond, such as virtual reality applications. The report then applies Porter's Five Forces model to assess M&S's current market position and identify innovation requirements, focusing on competitive pressures and customer bargaining power. It recommends innovations such as voice assistance, robotic technology in packaging, and augmented reality to enhance customer experience and maintain a competitive edge. The analysis further utilizes the VUCA model to assess the uncertainties and risks associated with these innovations. The report concludes with recommendations for building future innovation capabilities, including the adoption of open innovation principles and the MVIS model for filtering and implementing innovation ideas, emphasizing the importance of employee and customer input in the innovation process. The report is available on Desklib, a platform offering past papers and solved assignments for students.

Managing Innovation In
Business

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is continuation of previous report i.e. CW 1 which describes about the
innovational history, existing innovational performance and capability of Mark & Spencer. Now
current report provides a detail description of the Future innovation by 2020 and beyond. In
addition to this it also contain an elaboration of innovational requirement and capability that
M&S required. To determine innovational requirement porter's five model has been applied
which provide an information that competition and bargaining power of buyer is relatively
higher that may affect the performance of company.
So, in order to deal with this it is recommended that company must focus over bringing
innovation which help in binding customers with company's services. Apart from this to
determine the future capabilities VUCA model has been applied which identify the level of
uncertainty as well as risk involve in the project. So from this analysis it is recommended that
M&S must bring innovation such as “Augmented reality as a shopping expert to customers”.
This will support M&S in providing more customised services to customers that contribute
toward offering a satisfactory shopping experience to them.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Future of Industry 2020 and beyond......................................................................................1
The organisations Innovation requirement 2020 and beyond................................................3
Building the Future Innovation Capabilities for organisation................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Innovation refers to the process which involve number of activities that uncovers the new
method of doing things. Innovation in business refers to bringing some innovational process or
product to improve the quality of services for achieving competitive advantage. Mark & Spencer
is a multi national brand which is headquartered in UK and belongs to retail industry. It deals in
wide variety of product categories such as home accessories, furniture, grocery items, luxury
food, clothings and gift items (Altuna and et. al., 2015). M&S provide its services through two
mediums i.e. from setting up its physical stores over several geographical areas and through its
online web page. The main purpose of this project is to analyse the innovation that Mark &
Spencer can introduce which support them in achieving competitive advantage.
This report is divided into three parts where first section describes about the future of
retail industry by 2020 and beyond in term of upcoming innovations. The second part of this
report describes about the innovational requirement of M&S by conducting Porter's 5 force
model. At last third section involves a detail description about building up of future innovational
capability which contains a road map for implementation of innovation.
Future of Industry 2020 and beyond
Retail industry refers to the group of companies which sell goods or services to end users
who purchase them for their personal use and not for business. It includes all type of firms
ranging from small groceries stores to supermarket chain and large departmental stores. Retail
industry is one of the fastest growing sector which continuously move with an aim to bring new
innovation to improve the quality of services. This is one of the most competitive sector where
number of players run toward eating one another's market share by improving their services
through bringing new innovation every day (Biemans, 2018). There are number of players that
always work over introducing new innovation or improving the existing product to creating
value and keep bringing the discerning customer back.
But innovation is just not that simple thing as managing innovation involve dynamic
capability where always new methods are required to deal with changes. In order to become
compatible with changing innovation require maintaining a connection between networks,
structure, technological infrastructure through people. This innovation network can be better
connected using spaghetti principle of innovation which work toward integrating knowledge
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around innovational idea of several people belong to that project and then combine knowledge to
make innovation happen. By using spaghetti innovational network organisations will be able to
gather collective efficiency and learning which support in achieve competitive advantage at
marketplace along with greater performance. It also work toward integrating knowledge of
several people and resources which provide benefit of collective risk taking. Therefore spaghetti
principle is very essential that support in connecting the knowledge for innovation through
several sources that leads to decrease in product development cost and market time.
Innovational development plays a crucial role in improving the market position as well as
profitability of company that support them in retaining customer for longer period of time. Retail
industry is consider as one of the most competitive sector as it is much easier to enter into this
segment (Carayannis, Sindakis and Walter, 2015). But for surviving in such competitive market
it is very essential for each player to innovate or improve their product as per the changing
demand of market. There are number of players in retail industry which provide tough
competition to one another by bringing new innovation day by day. Some of the known
innovations that are expected to be launched by 2020 in retail industry i.e. virtual reality by
IKEA to present furniture to its customer in 3D form by visually creating a room as per their
dimensions and presenting the furniture into it to make up their mind. This innovation will
contribute toward increasing the level of competition among other players that further work
toward encouraging them to bring new innovation. Apart from this M&S will get a chance to
enhance their knowledge which support them in bringing something new over this innovation.
But in order to implement these innovations effectively it is very essential for company to
adopt the concept of open innovation which is the use of purposive inflow and outflow of
information to promote internal innovation and expanding market for external innovational use.
There are some models under open innovation which support in planning about the new
innovation as per the knowledge drawn from group of expertises and among them most common
model is Mod Station Model. In this model the idea for innovation come up from global
community with an aim to come up with new use of existing product (Chen and et. al., 2016).
For example, Virtual reality is not a new concept as it is generally used by animation industry in
games and movies, but the concept of IKEA for virtually creating room to fit furniture is totally a
new innovation.
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The organisations Innovation requirement 2020 and beyond
M&S is a well known international brand which offer a variety of product like, apparels,
home accessories, furniture, Luxury food items and grocery. Company belongs to retail sector
and hold up a strong position within his competitive environment. But in order to maintain its
position in marketplace it is very essential for Mark & Spencer to bring innovation in their
operations for letting its custom bind with themselves (Chiu and Hofer, 2015). By applying
Porter's five force model, M&S will be able to determine the position which it holds within
industry and threats that it may consider before moving toward bringing any innovation.
Porter's five force model:- Rivalry among existing competitors:- The competition within the retail sector is
extremely high as players are constantly trying to improve their services to make their
customers have either by bringing new innovation or by diversifying business into non-
core fields. For example: Sainsbury is a second largest supermarket of UK which started
as grocery store and then it diversified its operation by offering several product categories
such as clothing, financial services, home accessories and electrical items. Threats of substitute:-M&S offer products like cloth in high quality which also costs
higher which is not affordable to each customer. So, competitors like TESCO, ASDA
etc. started offering cheaper alternative and because of which the threat to substitute is
relatively higher. Bargaining power of supplier:- The supplier relatively have lower bargaining power as
M&S manufacture its own product. It only purchase raw material and not finished goods
from suppliers. Bargaining power of buyer:- It is relatively higher as customers have number of
alternatives present in market which offer similar product at relatively lower price as
compare to Mark & Spencer.
 Threat of new entrant:- The risk of new entrant is relatively lower, as retail sector is one
of the most competitive industry which requires new business to invest more capital for
positioning themselves in such competition prone sector (Dawson and Andriopoulos,
2014). In addition to this there are several political as well as legal legislative factors that
are required to be followed by new retailers which make it difficult for them to enter or
survive in marketplace.
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Through this analysis it can be identified that the competition is relatively higher for M&S and
customers have number of alternatives present in market which provide similar product or
services. Therefore company must try to offer its customer something unique that help in
attracting them as well as providing customer a mean of choosing M&S over other brands.
Following are the innovation that M&S must required to introduce by 2020 or beyond in order to
sustain in this dynamic and most techno-driven market:
Voice assistance:- It refers to the technology or software agent which perform task or
services for individuals and as per their order (Kim and Min, 2015). This will be one of the most
demanding feature in future as it support company in enhancing the quality of their customer
support services. M&S can implement this technology in their customer support service
department where it help in handling the issues that are being discussed by customers. Under this
department company can replace its staff member with this IT software that will provide more
accurate and reliable solution to customers. In addition to this, it will also be helpful in solving
more issues as compare to human staff this will save time and it will also contribute toward
improving the brand image in marketplace.
Robotic technology in packaging:- Another innovation that can bring by Mark &
Spencer is implementing robots in packaging and labelling process. This can be done by
adopting robots on place of human being to pack the products that are being ordered by
customers and then shipping further to get delivered over their mentioned address. This action
will support M&S in reducing the chance of human error like improper packaging, wrong
delivery etc. which may affect the brand value or image among customers.
Augmented reality:- Apart from all the above mentioned innovation, Augmented reality
as a apparel design is new and unique concept. Under this innovational plan, M&S can provide
its customer an option to virtually evaluate the clothes in order to imagine how it will look when
user wore it (FASHION TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION SHAPE THE FUTURE OF
FASHION, 2019). Apart from this, it will also help online shoppers to buy clothes with right
look and size using a right blended reality mirror which also reduce the number of returned item.
In order to use this augmented reality option, customer can open their web camera where the
dress will automatically get fit to them. Through this customers can determine how it will look
over them when they wear it in reality.
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These all are the innovation that can be introduced by company up-to 2020 or beyond
which support them in improving their brand image and marketing position. But in order to
implementing these innovations effectively M&S must adopt MVIS model which focuses on
filtering the innovation ideas to extract most positive result from the efforts performed by
company (Lewrick and et. al., 2015). It consider the most essential building blocks such as
employees, customers, technological as well as human resources etc. that help M&S in creating
most reliable and strategically focused innovation function. It help in ensures that good ideas
must be encouraged, shared and promised for effective innovational planning and for which
company must ask its employees as well as customers to suggest some ideas for innovation. This
will support company in developing internal as well as external knowledge about the area of
operation and in addition to this it will also be able to determine the changes that are required in
innovational plan that leads to organisational success at marketplace.
Gantt Chart of innovation
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Building the Future Innovation Capabilities for organisation
Innovation plays a significant role in growth and success of a company by providing
them an opportunity to achieve competitive advantage and attracting large number of customers.
M&S is an international retailer which focuses toward providing high quality services for
satisfying the need of customers, but this factor is not enough for maintaining a competitive
advantage within industry because there are number of player that provide such benefits. So, in
order to maintain its customer base company is required to bringing new innovation to keep its
customers satisfied with services (Malhotra and Majchrzak, 2014). There are number of
innovation that are number of innovation that are expected to be experience in retail industry by
2020 or beyond and among which M&S can also adopt one that help them in improving their
performance in market. So in order to identify most appropriate innovation, M&S can use
VUCA(volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) model.
The VUCA model is used to identify the key characteristics of external environment in
order to determine the ambiguity and uncertainty present in actions taken by a company. This
model is generally used to predict the outcome of actions for formulating effective strategy that
support company in achieving success (Pantano, 2014). VUCA model perform analysis over
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external environment on the basis of four major factors to determine the validity of innovation
plan:
Volatility:- This factor focuses over evaluation of external factor to determine the rate of
changes i.e. after implementation of innovational idea how frequently the demand of market get
changes. If the changes are frequent then it may result in heavier loss for the company and when
these changes are moderate then it is a sign of future success for M&S.
Uncertainty:- This factor evaluate the external environment to predict future innovation
in order to determine the future risk or uncertainty that may be faced by company after
implementing the innovational plan.
Complexity:- This factor analyse about the level of complexity that Mark & Spencer will
face while working over their innovational plan and after launching it in marketplace.
Ambiguity:- It refers to the lack of clarity about the result of particular action and
through this analysis M&S will be able to determine that whether the vision is clear or they are
not able to predict the idea about innovation.
These all are the factors that must be consider by Mark & Spencer before planning for
any innovation as it support in predicting the success or failure of project (Pearlson, Saunders
and Galletta, 2016). But in order to implement this effectively, M&S is required to formulate a
road map which provide step by step implementation of this innovational plan. The step included
in road map are explained below:
Suggest and reason:- Using VUCA analysis it has been determined that option like
“augmented reality as a shopping expert for customers” over company's official website is
expected to be more fruitful and successful innovation then other two. The robotic technology
and voice assistance will contain more complexity and chance of uncertainty is also very high as
their system get fails which require regular maintenance. Apart from this the cost of
implementation is also very higher which don't let company to save cost or earn profit. But
beside this augmented reality technology is highly in demand or interest area of society where
they use it for entertainment like movie, games etc. So, this will easily get accepted by customers
and doesn't involve uncertainty or complexity factor into it (Tidd and Bessant, 2014).
Impact of changes:- This factor work toward analysing the area that are highly get
influenced by the innovation which Mark & Spencer going to implement. Following are the
factors that are involve in this:
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 Research & development:- In order to Implement innovation effectively in business it is
very essential for R&D department to conduct market research for determine the demand
of customers. Apart from this M&S can also identify the views of their targeted
customers toward experiencing augmented reality as a shopping expert while purchasing
some product or services online.
 Required resources:- For converting this innovation plan into reality M&S require
resources like fund in order to invest it this plan, purchasing software for providing this
option over website and performing action toward it to successfully introduce in market
(Lawrence, Dover and Gallagher, 2014). In addition to this company required to hire
more software managers to handle company's website after adding augmented reality
option and instruments for execution as well as maintenance of this innovation.
 Technical skills required:- For implementing augment reality option effectively,
technical expertise team of M&S require some skills like programming, web handling
and maintenance etc. This will support them in maintaining the operations effectively
over website after adding augment reality option into it.
 Legal aspects/ compliances:- Augment reality provide an option to offer more
customised services to customer's but despite of all this, as website will assess the
location as well as other details of customer company is require to ensure protection of
customers (Koen, Bertels and Kleinschmidt, 2014). For this M&S is required to comply
with Data Protection Act, Electronic Communication Privacy Act, Computer Fraud and
Abuse Act etc. This help in ensuring customers that can trust over company while using
this option and their privacy doesn't get disturbed (laws regarding internet and data
security, 2019).
 Cost of changes:
Expenses Amount
R&D 16000
Marketing 30000
Advertising 21000
Material 380000
Human resources 32000
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Total 479000
Above given budget provide an estimations about involving augmented reality as an
option to provide more customised services to customer. For working in this area M&S required
16000£ for R&D, 21000 £ for advertising and 32000£ for hiring as well as training of
employees.
Feasibility:- This step of roadmap will work toward evaluating the viability of
innovational plan i.e. “Augmented reality” in order to determine the soundness of project that
whether it will be successful or not after getting launched in market. It work over three major
areas such technical, financial and operations feasibility. Through this analysis, M&S will be
able to determine that whether it have all the technological instruments, finance or people for
performing the operations effectively or required to arrange it for project.
Approval process:- Once the innovational plan of “Augment reality as a shopping expert”
has been evaluated and analysed effectively on the bases of its validity, reliability and durability,
next step is to take approval from board of directors. For this, board meeting can be organised for
taking approval in which plan can be presented in front of board members with all the research
conducted in above stages to evident the validity of project.
Apply the change:- Once board directors approved the innovational plan then will be
able to convert their plan into action. M&S can purchase software and hire new technical experts
to implement that software over official website of M&S and maintain that software effectively
after its implication over website (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2017).
Review the impact of changes:- After the software has been developed and implemented
effectively, the technical expertise team will check it in order to determine whether the
innovation is ready to launch in market or required some modification. Once the changes has
been implemented and final evaluation has been performed over its functioning the “augmented
reality as a shopping expert for customers” will be ready to launched into market.
CONCLUSION
From the above given report it can be summarised that innovation plays an essential role
in the growth as well as success of a business which provide them a medium to retain its
customers for longer period of time. Retail industry is consider as one of most competitive sector
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