Innovation in Retail: Morrisons' Strategies, 4Ps, and Future Prospects

This report provides a detailed analysis of innovation within Morrisons, a major player in the retail sector. It begins by defining innovation and its importance, differentiating between innovation and invention, and highlighting its benefits for employees and the organization. The report then explores how organizational vision, leadership styles (autocratic, transformational, and democratic), culture (including cultural cross-sections), and teamwork shape innovation and commercialization within Morrisons. The core of the report focuses on the 4Ps of innovation (Product, Process, Position, and Paradigm) and their application within the innovation funnel, explaining each stage from concept evaluation to product launch. Furthermore, the report discusses developments in frugal innovation. The report also provides recommendations for Morrisons to foster innovation, including conducting risk assessments and testing innovations before full-scale implementation. Overall, the report offers a comprehensive overview of how Morrisons can leverage innovation to improve its market position and achieve its business objectives.

INNOVATION

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INTRODUCTION
Innovation is lifeline for organisation to survive in market for long term. It creates a
platform that provides vast number of growth opportunities to expand. Also, it helps in
generating more revenue and increasing market value. Innovation can be done in process or
products. the main aim is to improve business efficiency and productivity (Agrawal and et.al.,
2018). the new products are developed to change the taste of people and to raise their living
standards. this assignment will show innovation and its importance and how it affects culture.
Also, it is discussed the role of 4P’s and NPD. At last tools are described that can be used to
protect knowledge and information.
For assignment Morrisons is taken. It belongs to retail sector. They provide variety of
products like CD, food and drink, clothing, etc. and services to people. it performs various types
of activities such as advertising, production, etc. the market share of company in August 2017
was 10.14% a decrease in 0.86% from 2015. in recent time, firm is involved in many
controversies related to product quality. Also, there are many complaints regarding inproper
solutions of customer issues. This has created a bad impact on customer satisfaction.
LO1
P1 Explain innovation and determine its importance
Innovation Invention
It refers to create a new product. It means to add value to product by adding
some features in it.
It is single process It can be a combined process.
It is the role of research and development
department.
It can be done by any department.
Here, original idea is generated and worked
upon it.
Here, idea is implemented practically.
For example – innovation of iphone For example – iphone X.
Innovation is termed as a specific process or method through which products or services
are produced. It also includes modifying activities or process through which operations are
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performed. In this, new features in products are added and offered in market. moreover, methods
are modified so that quality can be enhanced or cost can be reduced. Innovations is done due to
change in external or internal factor. It allows business to create opportunities for growth. The
importance for innovation are as follow :-
Importance to employees- the major impact of innovation is on employees who works in
Morrisons. but it provides a lot of advantages to them as well as business. it allows them to
improve their way of working (Schut and et.al., 2016). Through this, they gain a lot of new
knowledge and skills that helps in career growth. Furthermore, the will work in creative way to
attain goals and objectives.
Providing modern tools – innovations changes method and process. This brings in new tools
and equipment’s to be used. Employees are provided modern tools. They are given proper
training on how to use them. this increases their skills and abilities. It enables in creating a better
work place atmosphere to work.
Building a diversified work force – with innovation team are formed to implement change.
This leads to diversified working with different people. through this, employee learn new things
and implement them. they share ideas and views with each other. with help of it creative working
takes place.
There are several sources of innovation as described below:-
Process need – every product is produced through a specified process in Morrisons (Fang,
Lerner and Wu, 2017). Thus, it is required that process should be modified to either to reduce
cost or enhance product quality. This can be done by innovating process or methods.
Change in market trends – Due to change in market trends company gets an opportunity to
innovate their goods or methods.
Change in customer taste- If there is change in customer needs then products are produced
accordingly. This can lead to innovation for Morrisons to grow in other markets.
Thus, in Morrisons innovation is developed by producing new products and services. it is
measured by evaluating it with set goals. Apart from this, company also uses different ways
through which innovation is developed.
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P2 Explain how organisational vision, leadership, culture and teamwork can shape innovation
and commercialisation
Innovation brings new methods or ways of performing business operations. the change
can be implemented at one stage or in overall process. With this the employee’s roles and
responsibilities are modified as well. Business have to develop goals and objectives. This
changes the organisational culture. It enables employees to adopt that change so that they can
work in creative way. for this new teams are formed and target are assigned to them. employees
work with diversified people and share ideas and views. It enables in creative working. they
learn and gain new skills and abilities. Hence, teamwork shape innovation.
In order to implement innovation leader applies different leadership styles so that change
can be adopted. Their role is to motivate employees to work with new methods so that goals are
attained. The manager develops strategies and leader execute them. leader allow them work in
team and in creative way. they guide and direct them to perform task. It brings in better
atmosphere at work place (Jaravel and et.al., 2018). Commercialisation is a process through
which ideas are implemented in organisation. it gives a brief overview of how innovation will be
embedded. With it employees get an idea about what changes will occur and where. They get
prepared to work in that way. once a creative culture is built within company it can easily adopt
innovation.
In context to Morrisons, they can foster culture of innovation by providing training to
employees. here, they can assign different roles to them to perform. Furthermore, a diversified
culture can be built by forming team. also, they can hire leader who are expert in this field.
Therefore, in this way it will be easy for Morrisons to create a new culture.
Vision of Morrison’s - striving to deliver the best.
Leadership meaning – it means to direct or influence a group or team of an organization to
attain goals and objectives
Types of leadership – there are different types of leadership such as :
 Autocratic
 Transformational
 Democratic
At Morrisons leadership styles differs according to situation. Here, leader mainly follows
participative styles in which they allow employees to take part in decision making process.
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Culture – it refers to behaviour of people according to social norms or values in a particular
organization or society
Types of culture
 Culture by aspect
 Subculture
 Cultural cross sections.
At Morrisons cultural cross section is followed as employees working belongs to
different background, caste, creed, etc. it helps in maintaining and building a positive and better
organisational culture.
Team work – it is a collaborative effort of different individual to achieve a common goal.
At Morrisons there are several teams which are formed to attain particular goals. Each of
them is having different members who are assigned various roles and responsibilities. In
Morrisons many teams are working with each other and contributing in their own way. the
culture is based on role culture where each person is assigned responsibility as per his or her
roles. In company leaders follows different types of leadership style as per situation. So, there is
positive culture within Morrisons which enable them to attain its vision.
Morrisons have developed a positive culture where employees are allowed to work with
each other. They are assigned roles on basis of their skills. Moreover, leaders lead team by
applying different leadership style (Trantopoulos and et.al., 2017). This enables in developing
creative environment. It has led to generation of new ideas and process through which operations
are done. Furthermore, it has resulted in implementation to new methods within departments.
Through this, they are able to innovate products and services.
LO2
P3 Explain the 4Ps of innovation and its use in innovation funnel
Innovation funnel – it means to develop any product or service by implementing a concept or
idea to fulfil market needs.
There are five stages in it:-
 Concept evaluation- here, an idea is generated or evaluated related to what innovation can
be done. It takes a lot of time to generate idea.
 Planning – the concept evaluated is written on paper and a proper plan is developed that
how innovation will be done. The plan must be properly prepared.
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 Development- in this product is developed by following the plan. All features are
included in it. This is done by forming team and assigning roles to them.
 Test and evaluation – the product developed in tested in market and evaluated so that
change can be made before developing final product.
 Product – at last after making changes final product is developed and launched in the
market.
Figure 1 Innovation funnel
The idea behind innovation is to create opportunities for growth. the concept of
innovation is based on 4 P’s that are used to define what changes will be done by business. 4 P’s
creates a base of development of new goods or service. they are as follows :-
Product- It shows what type of product or service will be created or developed. this type of
innovation in common (Hombert and Matray, 2018). Here, the aim is to design new product as
per needs of people. sometimes, certain features of product are modified or added and new name
is given to it. this innovation involves a high risk as it can lead to product failure. Morrisons can
develop new products for different market segment. it can offer unique and high quality goods to
people.
Process: As name depicts, this innovation refers to changing of process through which products
are produced or services are offered. The main aim to implement this is to reduce cost and to
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improve its quality. Here, changes are made in some stages or new methods are developed.
basically, it helps in enhancing the efficiency of business operations. Morrisons can change their
way of offering services. it can also introduce new process of solving customer problems. this
will benefit in gaining customer satisfaction and retaining them.
Position: it refers to expanding market where business does not exist (Christensen and et.al.,
2016). This is done to attract new customers so that market share can be increased. here,
company collect and analyse data and information to determine needs and market condition. It
helps in designing relevant product to target those areas. Morrisons can also target markets in
which they can expand business. also, new techniques can be used to advertise it so that more
people are attracted.
Paradigm: it refers to change in approaches through which services are offered or functions are
performed to attain goals and objectives. The approaches are related to innovation will be
embedded. It can be applied in machines or stages. Organisation implement new process to
produce goods. Employees are assigned new roles and tasks. Morrisons can apply new process
through which variety of products are developed. for example- they can start a help desk website
so that issues of customer are solved.
Thus, with help of 4 P\s Morrisons can develop innovation. It gives an overview about
what P should be opt that is beneficial in long term. The strategies can be formulated for the
same. By providing variety of products in market, it will be easy for Morrisons to attract more
people. with this, customer base can be increased and company can compete with rivals.
Recommendation-
Morrisons can conduct risk assessment which will help them to identify risk and develop
strategies to mitigate them. with help of it, it will be easy to implement innovation.
The innovation done must be tested in different market first and then launched overall. It will
help in making changes in product accordingly.
P4 Explain developments in frugal innovation and provide examples
In order to remain sustain for long term in the market it is important for business that they
offer new goods and services in particular time. This can be done through innovation by
developing different strategies and goals. Morrisons can easily develop frugal innovation. They
can create a blueprint to describe how activities will be changed and what products are produced.
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Frugal innovation is processed by generating various ideas. Then, a specific idea is selected and
plans are developed.
Frugal innovation -this type of innovation is implemented to reduce the complexity of methods
or procedure that are used to perform operations. it helps in eliminating those steps which are not
necessary. Also, new processes are applied. The importance is it helps in improving quality of
service with available resources. in this an example can be taken of Apple inc. they launched
Ipod in 2001 in developed countries. this was done to provide a tool or device for enjoyment.
Through this, company grown rapidly in different countries and earned huge amount of profits.
today, Apple is known as innovative company.
In similar way, Morrisons can develop new processes to improve product quality. They
can develop a website to solve customer issues (Azar and Ciabuschi, 2017). A help line number
can be started to provide real time solution to customers. it will help in gaining their satisfaction
and retaining them. in retail sector there are many companies that provide variety of products to
people. therefore, it is important that unique and different with some benefits can be offered at
low cost. For it, concept can be applied of reuse, recycle to reduce cost of goods. In this way
innovative idea can be applied in Morrisons.
Example of frugal innovation- TATA developed a Nano car for middle class people. its main aim
was to provide car at very low cost that within 1 lakh. It was developed by identifying needs of
people in Indian market. this innovation was highly successful which allowed company to gain
and build a large customer base.
For example – Morrisons can also implement frugal innovation. They can develop products at
less price for people who are having low income. It will help in developing a customer base and
fulfilling needs of people.
LO3
P5 Importance of commercial funnel
Commercial funnel – it is also known as sales funnel in which company leads customers through
purchasing products.
Application are –
 Action
 Interest
 Interaction
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 Awareness
As discussed above innovation is applied by using concept of NPD. It a framework that
provides a base through which new products are developed. Moreover, it creates opportunity for
business to grow and expand in different markets. In NPD there are many steps that followed so
that product is developed in systematic way. In retail sector there is great competition among
companies. It is because of similar products that are produced and offered by them. Thus, NPD
benefits in developing such goods that are unique.
Commercialization – this means to target a specific area and launching a new product or
service.
Business analysis – it is a concept where cost of product, profit margin, ROI, etc. are determined
so that profit can be calculated.
The role of NPD in business is very crucial. This is because of following reasons.
Long term growth – this is NPD most important role (Hovhannisyan and Keller, 2015). In retail
industry there is stiff competition among companies. Hence, they have to ensure their long term
growth. NPS assists business to remain competitive in market for long term. By continuous
development of new products business retain customers and attract new ones. Moreover, by
expanding in different market business developed relations with people. Thus, adding some
additional features in that Morrisons can interact it for several years.
Generating new value- NPD helps in generating new value of products. In retail sector it is
necessary to generate value of goods. It provides some extra features in goods that is beneficial
for people. Customer are always attracted to those goods that provide extra value. It is because
their needs increase with rise income. Furthermore, when Morrisons enters in new market its aim
is to enhance society status.
Improving society lifestyle – NPD also benefits society as by using advance and new products
people living standards arises. It gives extra benefits to fulfil their needs. With this, they start
demanding more in order to improve quality of life. Furthermore, it encourages lower class
segment to utilize products.
Hence, it can be said that NPD is useful in many ways. By using it various new products
are developed to fulfil people needs. In addition, some new features are added to attract new
customers. it enables company to operate at large scale. NPD is used to measure product quality
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so that it can be enhanced. This identifies what can be added or change to improve product
quality. NPD attracts investors to invest in business. With it company can grow rapidly.
P6 Business case for organization
The new product developed by Morrison’s will be packaged frozen food that will be provided to
people at low cost.
A business case refers in which Morrisons has to embed innovation due to rise in certain
issues. It has been observed that in recent time there are a lot of complaints regarding poor
quality of products. Moreover, issues are not properly solved. It has resulted in decline in sales
and dissatisfaction among customers (Agrawal and et.al., 2018). Morrisons can provide
packaged non-veg halal food items like meat, chicken nuggets, etc. In these many new and
different taste or variety of products like cheese, garlic, etc. can be offered to customers.
Business case steps-
 Confirm opportunity – It refers to identifying high level requirements of business. it
shows overall business case project and investment logic.
 Analyze and develop shortlisted options- Here, alternative approaches are analyzed.
Then, each one is evaluated. Here, information is gathered and some objectives are made.
 Evaluate options- In this the alternative are analyzed by comparing it with business
objectives. Moreover, financial and strategical factor is taken into consideration while
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selecting alternative. Besides this, it is analyzed that how alternative will impact
objectives of business.
 Implementation strategy- After selection of alternative, strategy is developed to achieve
goal. Also, roles and responsibilities are assigned along with resources. A risk assessment
is done to identify risks.
 Recommendations- in this alternative is implemented and business case is approved.
Morrisons should identify what is their target audience and then launch organic meat
goods in market.
 Morrisons can test the packaged frozen food in particular areas and then expand it to
wide one. It will help in finding out whether customers are attracted or not
 Morrisons can merge with companies who uses packaged food as raw materials. It will be
beneficial in marketing as well as generating sales.
Access funding
Internal – it means to raise money to start or expand in new business. here, a company does not
raise IPO or take loan rather they seed money.
External – it is opposite of internal in which company obtain funds from outside the firm. this is
done by taking loan or issuing IPO.
LO4
P7 Evaluate the different tools use to retain and protect knowledge and IP
With innovation new technology, methods, etc. are implemented. Therefore, it is very
important for organisation to protect it so that it can not be used or copied by others. This can be
added in intellectual property of company (Schut and et.al., 2016). IP refers to patents,
copyrights, trademarks, etc. that protects confidential information of business. generally, it is
used whenever innovation occurs. This is beneficial in retaining IP.
Patents – In this owner is having right to exclude others from selling, making, etc. an invention
for a limited time period. Usually, it is for 20 years.
Trademarks – it is a sign, design or logo that differentiates a product from one another. this is
used by company to distinguish their product and services from rivals.
Copyrights – Generally, it is used in art work, music, etc. in which creator grants right to user to
use their original work under some conditions.
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Design rights – in modern world this IP is used by industry to protect the visual appearance of
item. This means it is a legal right that stop an unauthorised party to use those design.
Therefore, these all IP tools are available for Morrisons to protect their IP. Other than this
they can also take several measures defined below :-
 Morrisons can register their IP with government so that it is not used by any other
company. legally registering will give them a proof and stop other from copying it.
 The company can store their IP in database. Moreover, strict policies should be
developed to use IP rights. It will ensure that confidential data and information is
protected.
 Employees should be given proper and effective training on how to use system. It will
useful in managing information within Morrisons.
 The software and application should be maintained and updated in particular time interval
(Jaravel and et.al., 2018). This will reduce the risk of getting cyber attacks. Furthermore,
high security measures and anti virus must be installed.
 No employee must be allowed to access those system in which information related to IP
is saved. For this the authorised person must be hired who manages all these things.
Hence, in this way Morrisons can protect their IP rights in effective manner. It will
enable them to implement innovation in proper manner. With help of it, Morrisons can ensure
that IP is secured.
CONCLUSION
It can be summarized that innovation helps business in long term growth. The change can
be implemented either in process or products. Employees are also benefited from innovation as
they are given modern tools to use, skills and abilities are gained, etc. There are several sources
of innovation like market trends, process need, etc. the 4 P’s of innovation are product, process,
paradigm and position. It is concluded that frugal innovation is used in complex process. NPD is
implemented in innovation funnel. There are many tools to protect the IP rights such as patents,
trademarks, deign rights, etc. it can be used by Morrisons to ensure no one copy their invention.
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REFERENCES
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Fang, L.H., Lerner, J. and Wu, C., 2017. Intellectual property rights protection, ownership, and
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