Innovation Strategies for Birchbox: A Detailed Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of innovation strategies applicable to Birchbox, a beauty product subscription service. The report begins by defining innovation and its importance, emphasizing the potential for Birchbox to enhance its offerings through new product development, particularly in the organic beauty sector. It then explores the impact of organizational factors such as leadership, teamwork, and company culture on innovation and commercialization. The report delves into the 4Ps of innovation (Paradigm, Product, Process, Position) and the use of an innovation funnel to guide the development process. Frugal innovation strategies are also discussed, focusing on minimizing complexity and cost. The importance of a commercial funnel is highlighted, with detailed explanations of the convert, confirm, and conclude stages. Finally, the report presents an innovative business case for Birchbox, outlining potential tools and strategies for continued growth and market success. The content is contributed by a student and is available on Desklib, a platform offering AI-powered study tools.

Innovation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Innovation and its importance in Birch box...........................................................................1
P2 Impact of various organisational factors on innovation.........................................................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
P3 4P’s of innovation and use of innovation funnel....................................................................3
Innovation Funnel........................................................................................................................4
P4 Frugal innovation in Birch box...............................................................................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................5
P5 Importance of commercial funnel in Birch box......................................................................5
Commercial Funnel......................................................................................................................5
New product development (NPD)...............................................................................................5
P6 Innovative business case for Birch box..................................................................................6
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................6
P7 Different tools that Birch box can use....................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Innovation can be considered as the process of involving some new ways of innovation or
creativity. Also, it is not about developing new ideas, rather it can also be considered as
modifying some of the ideas and options that are already processing in the organisation (Jarrar
and Smith, 2014). There are different types of innovations that can be involved by the
organisation and it can further help the company in achieving all the targets and goals. Thus, also
it can help in gaining a huge amount of popularity as well as productivity. The report is about
innovation and various factors associated with it which can help Birch box in gaining a huge
amount of productivity.
TASK 1
P1 Innovation and its importance in Birch box
Definition
Innovation can be considered as an effective option that Birch box can involve by various
means. As Birch box deals with an efficient range of beauty products for women, it can involve
some innovation in creating or modifying some beauty product in order to satisfy the customers.
Importance of innovation
This can prove beneficial enough for the employees of the company as well as for the
customers because for employees also, it will be a sort of change and for customers also, it can
satisfy their current requirements. Innovating new ideas and thoughts can be a very good option
that can actually help the organisation at a wide extent. In comparison, of innovation with
invention, it can be said that innovation does not only mean creating ideas but also modifying the
ones that are already running in Birch box whereas invention is when a proper new concept is
being developed and on the basis of that, further implementation will be done (Uyarra and Yeow,
2014). So, in case of Birch box, the employees can keep their focus on innovating various new
thoughts and ideas so that their customers can also get some change . It will help Birch box in
gaining a huge number of satisfied customers. Birch box can think of involving an organic range
for people suffering from skin issues. There are various number of people who suffer from
different skin issues for them Birch box can make sure to involve a complete range of organic
products for different skin issues so that they can get it resolved. This feature can prove attractive
enough which can gain attention of various other people as well. This can further help Birch box
in gaining various number of satisfied customers along with a higher rate of productivity.
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P2 Impact of various organisational factors on innovation
There are various factors that are associated with the organisation and these include
vision, leadership, culture, teamwork etc. all these factors have a different influence on the
innovation and commercialisation and it is described as under :
Leadership
An efficient leader can be considered efficient enough to resolve any conflicting
situation. So, Birch box can also make involvement of a person who can be an efficient leader
that can help in managing all the operations and procedures of the company. As the company is
thinking to involve an organic range, so for that an efficient leader can make sure that the
processing is being done in a god way as the ingredients for the organic products are pure and
original. It is important because any poor element can harm the skin to a very bad extent, thus
can make the image of the company worse as well (Nicholls, Simon and Gabriel, 2015). So, a
good leader can make sure that all the processes and operations are being done efficiently. So,
Birch box can ensure the involvement of a good leader to make sure the processing goes smooth
enough.
Team work
Team work is also considered as an efficient tool because a single mind can think a few
ideas but many minds can think various ideas. So, concluding all those, one can reach to a better
conclusion. It is obvious enough that when many people sit together, different ideas pop out from
their mind. Keeping focus on each, a better, efficient and more appropriate one can be selected
that can help Birch box as well (Piggott, Barker and Roberts, 2014). Thus, Birch box can divide
the staff and employees in some teams or groups so that every team can focus on a single
responsibility. This can also term an efficient and attractive feature for Birch box and this
teamwork can help the company in achieving their targets and goals at a much faster rate. The
work and hard work of a team can actually take the organisation to higher limits.
Culture
In terms of culture, what makes it happier involves happy employees interacting with
each other, keeping their focus on the goals so that they can achieve it etc. Birch box shold
involve some ways that can also lead to a happy culture. As they can divide equal amount of
work within all the employees as the maximum they can handle. This will not create any
pressure on the employees, thus it will help in maintaining their focus on the work. Further, it
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can help in making the culture happier enough radiating positive vibes (Bhattacharya, 2016).
Therefore, it can be considered as an important factor while the innovation and
commercialisation in Birch box.
Vision
The vision of Birchbox is to make involvement of a variety of innovative factors so that
they can be able to expand their operations on a wider basis. Also, this will help them to gain a
higher rate of productivity by satisfying a major rate of customers. The vision os Birchbox is
wide enough to achieve all the targets and goals.
TASK 2
P3 4P’s of innovation and use of innovation funnel
4p’s of innovation can help in providing an idea of the functionality of it in the Birch box.
These are described as under :
Paradigm
It involves how Birch box should frame the idea because at such times, it is very
important to ensure that an idea can result positively but also, it can also go bad as well.
Therefore, Birch box should think properly about involving the range of organic products. Also,
they can take feedback of their customers whether they are interested in such involvement or not.
It will help in providing them an idea whether it can be a good option for them or not to gain a
huge amount of customers.
Product
It involves how Birch box can make modifications in some of their product so that it can
gain attention of people. Involving the range of organic products can be considered as a better
choice because variety of people are these days suffering from skin issues. So, it can be
considered as an efficient option to gain those customers also if Birch box involves a complete
organic range that can help in satisfying their different skin issues.
Process
Birch box can ask from their customers whether they are interested in this idea or not. F
they are, and then Birch box can continue the processing. Also, they can make sure that the
ingredients that are being used are pure and complete organic so that it can actually affect good
on the skin of the people. This can be a better move for the Birch box. Thus, it will also help the
company in gaining a huge amount of customers as well because the website already has
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enormous number f customers. Adding it to the organic ones also can actually help in increasing
the productivity of the company to a higher extent.
Position
The target of the Birch box in this case is the ones that are suffering from different skin
issues because it can be a good choice actually. As Birch box sends beauty boxes to their
customers so now for a sort of promotion, they can send the organic beauty boxes as well. By
this way, customers will reach them slightly, thus maximizing the rate of popularity as well as
productivity.
Innovation Funnel
An innovation funnel can be considered as a process that helps in identifying the steps in
a very systematic way that the whole process of innovation by Birch box can take place in an
effective manner. It is obvious that innovation can be done either by putting some new ideas or
concepts in the one that is already running in the company. Also, it can be considered as creating
a properly new idea or concept that can seem efficient enough in satisfying the basic
requirements of the customers (Antony, Setijono and Dahlgaard, 2016). There are three phases of
an innovation funnel which comprises investigations, development and then the shipping. It
means Birchbox should ensure first that what people think about creating the range of organic
products. Then its development can be started accordingly and after that, the further
implementations ca take place accordingly. Also, it can prove effective enough for the company
to achieve al the targets and goals at a much faster rate.
P4 Frugal innovation in Birch box
Frugal innovation can be considered as the procedure of minimizing the overall rate of
the complexity along with its cost and production. Birch box can also make involvement of the
frugal innovation. This can mean maximizing the durability, thus reducing the cost so that it can
seem as an affordable option to the customers. Also, it has bee observed in various cases that
frugal innovation decreases the resource use in various factors, whether it is about production,
operations of delivery. It has resulted in various and a huge decrease in the cost of the products a
well as in the services. So, Birch box ca also consider the fact and try to develop the products in
a way that seems affordable enough to everyone. This feature can prove very beneficial for the
company as it will help in gaining a huge number of customers. By means of frugal innovation,
Birchbox can exclude all the complex features etc. such as extra tax amounts etc. so that it will
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be able to provide some sort of happiness to the employees and this will help them to gain higher
rate of productivity as well.
TASK 3
P5 Importance of commercial funnel in Birch box
Commercial Funnel
The commercial funnel actually consists of three stages, convert, confirm and conclude.
Every factor has a different influence on the operations and functions of the Birch box. Convert
involves the designing process in which Birch box can make involvement of any new
modification or any new development in some product. Confirm involves the fact that after
deciding the idea of developing organic range, Birch box can take feedback from people, their
own customers etc. to check whether the idea they have chosen is efficient or not. Also, they can
contact people and ask what qualities they want so that on the basis of that only, they can make
any further implementations. It can be considered as an appropriate option because when Birch
box will develop changes according to the customers only, this will prove attractive enough ad
can also gain a huge number of customers as well (Johnson, 2016). Conclude involves
representing people what has been formulated since a longer time. It means providing them the
rage of organic products to them so that they can also check and try. After expanding the whole
idea and function ability, Birch box can take feedbacks from customers also, whether they liked
it or not, whether there are some changes that needs to be replaced or modified etc.
New product development (NPD)
NPD refers to the new product development which means the process of bringing any
new idea in some products. So, Birch box can also make sure to develop some new product as
they are planning to involve a range of organic products so that their customers can also get
something new and attractive. Such features helps in maintaining the interest of the customers
and that is a very good factor for Birch box. For every company, it is very important that the
interest of customers can stay maintained in a company because it assures company some
genuine and honest customers. Permanent customers also play a very important role for an
organisation. New process development (NPD) is usually considered as the process of
introducing completely new concept but it should be tangible enough that it can provide benefits
to the company (Standing and Gengatharen, 2016). Along with tangible and other important
characteristics, it is very important that the company can provide efficient quality of the product
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and services to their customers. There are some specific stages of the NPD which involves
generation of the ideas, screening it whether it can actually work out or not, testing of the
concept by providing some samples to a few customers, then development of the product, its
marketing test etc. After getting tested in the marketing phase, if it acts reliable enough, then
only it is being implemented by the Birch box in the market. Although there are various number
of stags but these are essential enough for ensuring that the specific product or service can act
capable enough for the company, thus will help the company in achieving all its targets and
goals.
P6 Innovative business case for Birch box
As Birch box deals with a wide range of cosmetics and beauty products that has satisfied
enormous number of customers till date. So, it is obvious that when they will involve a complete
organic range, they must be requiring funds as well. Also, it will increase the hard work of the
employees as well. So, the company can look for different ways because collecting original
ingredients from the forests etc., making them clean enough so that they can be used in the
processing etc. it also requires a lot of hard work. Also, the company must be requiring funds
too. So, the company can take help from banks etc. it can be considered as a good option because
when their organic range will be out, it can help them in gaining that productivity again, so at
that time, they can return the amount to the bank. But the idea of involving an organic range with
the range they are already processing is considered as an appropriate option that can help the
company in achieving popularity and productivity as well.
TASK 4
P7 Different tools that Birch box can use
There are some steps that every business along with Birch box should involve in order to
prevent any sort of threat. Although there are various tools that can be used for protecting the
intellectual property but some of them are discussed as under :
Avoiding revealing too much
This means that when Birch box will decide to implement a range of organic products,
that time, it is very important to ensure that their competitors cannot have an idea of this. Birch
box can take feedbacks from customers on their website r application etc. instead of asking
openly because if asked in open, it can actually help in making aware their competitors. Then the
competitors can involve any such conflict way for them by which they can de motivate them. So,
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for protecting oneself from such situation, Birch box can consider that they should not reveal
much before the final implementation.
Trademark
Although Birch box already has a certified trademark but after involving the organic
range, they should also ensure to trademark it as well because any competitor can try to steal the
copyright (Antony, Setijono and Dahlgaard, 2016). Birch box cannot afford that because there
has been a lot of hard work in finding the natural ingredients and then cleaning of it etc. so, they
cannot afford that this hard work of them can get steal by some other external body.
Copyright
After involving and implementing a wide range of the factors and processes, Birchbox
should ensure to register their implementation. It is considered as a major factor of the copyright
so that no competitor or rival etc. can be able to steal their information and then can use the same
as their own. Therefore, it is very important to be considered by Birchbox.
Trade secrets
A trade secret can be considered as a proper strategy or formula that Birch box can
involve in order to protect the intellectual property from other external bodies. Various examples
can be classified as the examples of the trade secrets and some involve the soda formula's, results
of the survey, computerised algorithms and the customer lists. So, each of them plays a very
important role in protecting the data from any sort of unauthorised access. One thing Birch box
have to ensure here is that they cannot register their trade secrets and even it is being registered,
it cannot guarantees any sort of protecting from the unauthorised ones. IT is very essential to
maintain because there are various competitors that may try to put down Birch box and their
factors. So, factors like trade secrets etc. can actually provide help in protecting the data.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the report that Birch box can involve various ways of innovation as
it can actually help in increasing a higher rate of productivity as well as popularity. Innovating
new ideas or doing any sort of modifications in some process that is already being running in the
company. Birch box can also take use of frugal innovation along with the commercial funnel in
order to make the processing of the organic range efficient enough. Also, there are some ways
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and factors that Birch box should consider protecting their information and ideas from any sort
of theft etc.
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REFERENCES
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A practical guide for life sciences organisations. Wellcome Trust.
Standing, C. and Gengatharen, D., 2016. Enhancing individual innovation in organisations: a
review of the literature. International Journal of Innovation and Learning. 19(1). pp.44-
62.
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Tukker, A., Charter, M., Vezzoli, C., Stø, E. and Andersen, M.M. eds., 2017. System innovation
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production. Routledge.
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the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
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