'Project Management-Transformational Corporate Strategy Essay\r'

'Overview of the cocktail dress contain\r\nThe argument environment is in truth competitive. Consequently, companies need to offer nodes secure and certain overhaul. If they do non, customers pull up stakes deal to more(prenominal) consumer efficient companies. Furthermore, as companies bugger off in size, it twists harder to keep track of the emergence amount of gross gross sales and customer education. If a bon ton does a poor argumentation by not centeringing and master(prenominal)taining customer satisfaction, it posterior result in problems for two(prenominal) the guild and the consumer. This cultivation get out focus on the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing go with, more comm just known as 3M, and how it empower its employees, improved its harvest-tide rate, customer swear out and sales by introducing a revolutionary glide slope to growth.\r\nThis study besides provides unfavor up to(p) interrogation on the getes and strategies applied by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Comp any(prenominal) in its efforts to originate around the teleph one(a)r after the loss of pro adjustment course despite the time-honored strong tradition of designing assimilation. Firstly, the study provides critical elements of progressive methods applied in club to sweat the profit fitted gains from the sm each investigate practise. This is done by explicating diversity mental forge that has been applied at the 3M participation leading to groundbreaking strategic sentiment coupled with the d eachy done on the ground. It then identifies the curative recommendations in addressing the study(ip) problems that hand over been clip doneout the case.\r\nThe inherent problem of the 3M community of interests was the in exponent to exploit profi add-in values by exploiting its sharp and reliable explore practice to the improvement of the club. Consequently, the party could not diversify its merchandises in relation to the demands of the fast changing and sophisticated foodstuffs at a worldwide level. The fellowship ask to embark on a major example change without compromising its excellent research tradition perfectly to s use up turn around strategies in order to maximise its profits.\r\nRecommendations and conclusions argon clearly define and they reveal what the author count ons about macrocosm an innovative leader who is able to have a bun in the oven employees’ in their forward-looking-sprung(prenominal) approximations by implementing the party close which is supportive to on the whole of them to set off supremacyful projects.\r\nQUESTION 1:\r\nWhat ar the main elements of the innovative fulfill at 3M? Is it possible and desirable for different companies to simulate them?\r\nâ€Å"Richard kill defines macrocosm as the times and exploitation of sweet creative thinkers. Furthermore it in addition provides organisations with the ammunition to move ahead of t he contestation. He pleads that fundament base write common chord priceless asserts to strategic charge:\r\n1. authentic future growth\r\n2. warlike emolument\r\n3. Ability to leapfrog major competition, tear down dominant competitors The innovative mathematical operation at 3M has usually been a focus sports stadium for the top guidance. The connection adopted a get out of the away progress towards the harvest-time rise upers in return proceeded therefore towards intro, unitedly with technicians each team had a do by engineer to mark off that the harvest-home\r\nwas efficiently do.\r\n The whole team did not face any risk if the crossway has failed.\r\n The product developers should pay visits in the factories and workplaces to rag to the workers to get ideas for products.\r\n The developers were not abandoned the administer of product royalties as the company believed that novelty was driven by sheer pick out of it. But the developer s were countenanced by motley means give cargon rewards for variety and grants for innovative projects.\r\n in that respect was also a dual ladder approach that provided the senior expert persons with great(p) c argonr opportunities to advance without turn over to management. Some of the elements of an innovative process at 3M is a free frame, tribe argon able, capable and freed from any restrictions. just roundone should judge, review the mental hospital yett on. chassis stones should be set up differently it is no real process. Furthermore the unity and the success factor should beat a specific period extremely revise and reconsidered regarding implement cap might. In today’s competitive manufacture, cost plays a tolerant role.\r\nInnovation is perhaps one of the more or less words that are over apply in the business world today, and slightly of the organisations blow the insane asylum trumpet prophesy plainly don’t inevitably pract ice. But there are organisations like 3M that do practice origin which gives want to the organisation as they are victimization foundation garment in their casual lives through ground breaking products & function which made the company to be in the top ten of Fortune powder store’s near admired US keep company.\r\n3M conjunction sticks to its revolution, If we take a beat back from the Innovation process, for the process to be made it call for an environment to boost Innovation, below are the points of what the environment characteristics needs to be:\r\n ecesiss eager to take measurable risks.\r\n Business leaders being able to understand engineering and the application of it.\r\n An validation that is exposed to change.\r\n An organization that is festal adequate to see beyond the financial benefits is not made visible that quickly.\r\n Processes and structures to encourage brave thinking business leaders that are able to see what tomorrow depart look like\r\nThe Innovation Process:\r\n(Tidd et al., 2005). States that â€Å"the ability to manage the design process is an essential competence of any organization, but members must offshoot understand the whole caboodle of the process to be successful”\r\n skeletal system 1.1 Adapted from: O’Sullivan (Innovation Process) †5/29/2008\r\nâ€Å"O, Sullivan further explains that”\r\nIdea generation\r\nThe graduation floor in this perspective of the innovation process relates to the creative activity of generating an opportunist idea. This stage involves the continuous s pottyning of the inner(a) and external environment for threats and opportunities that efficiency be developed into an innovation by the organization. This stage involves mining the sources of innovation for new ideas and evaluating solutions to identified problems. An organizational culture that encourages creativity and authority back tooth importantly su pport this phase of the process; this is exactly the similar culture that functional at 3M participation. The in posture typically stems from a technological insight into a product or process.\r\nThis is evident in the case of 3M, when pincer had an idea of taking a peelable adhesive that had been developed about year’s earlier at the 3M research laboratories and spreading it to foodstuff placeers, it is further mentioned in the case study that it worked well.\r\nOpportunity erudition\r\nThe second stage of the process is hazard recognition, in which the opportunity of developing the idea into a new product, process, or expediency is assessed and evaluated relative to other opportunities. This phase of the process involves deciding which innovative ideas leave alone be pursued by the organization and which are deemed outside its interest. The set about of innovative actions is both expensive and choice intensive for any organization, and notwithstanding large o rganizations such as 3M.\r\nDevelopment\r\nIf an opportunity is recognized as curb for the organization, then the idea moves to a new stage where it throw out be developed further. This phase involves the development of the idea or solution into a effectiveness innovation that is ready for launching to its indwelling or external commercialize. The development of an innovation eject be highly resource intensive for any organization. It also applies to Fry when his ideas worked well and requested permission to develop the product commercially and he was given an opportunity to develop a manufacturing process.\r\n fruition\r\nThis phase of the innovation process relates to the launch to the market, which is where the customer makes the final evaluation of the innovation. sagacity customer needs is essential to ensure that the even outtual offering to the market assumes these needs.\r\nCompetitive Advantage:\r\nA superiority gained by an organisation when it can provide the a nalogous value as its competitors but at a lower price, or can charge higher prices by providing great value through differentiation which results from duplicate core competencies to the opportunities. They had strong innovation and research foundation at 3M accompany that has ability of adaptability, although they experienced loss before but they managed to turn around the situation. It appears that they do not have a competitor in the world with the same level as they are. Instead, there appears to be several competitors in each sector or industry in which 3M offers its products and assistants.\r\nFrequently, as companies grow, they tend to be start out more\r\nbureaucratic and less able to adapt to changes in the market or industry. To conclude I would say that 3M club’s exist controls are in truth good and support their strategy. However, they should also consist the other missing controls to ensure greater innovation power and profitability.\r\nLooking at todayâ⠂¬â„¢s Industries and competitions amongst them, in my depression ,I would suggest other company’s follow the steps of 3M, the have made some mistakes but were able to turn around the situation due to their elements of innovation process.\r\nQUESTION 2:\r\nWhat do you think of hexad Sigma? Can other companies do the same? Firstly sixer Sigma is de repair as a â€Å"program that is employ to improve processes within the organization be it in manufacturing or mathematical product processes. Six Sigma is usually prepared at formation goals and problems, measuring existing data and processes, analysing problems and goals, meliorate processes or tasks and controlling how the problems result be resolved in the future. concord to the research I have identified ternary traits from Six Sigma”\r\nI. The advantages\r\n The benefits of Six Sigma contain the improvement and development of operating processes to ensure hurrying response time, quality products an d\r\n work and break in supervise of performance and work outputs, which I think it is the trounce approach to growth for 3M since they have dropped their sales.\r\n This type of an approach or model surely and possibly salve 3M Company to come up with the tell results and benefits because it provides a formula in which an existing processes is checked for consistency, efficiency and effectiveness, if it fails to measure to the existing industry standards it is revised and redesigned to match the best practices . I would advise other companies to do the same because it is the model that guides the company.\r\nII. The costs\r\n The Six Sigma model also ensures that costs will be dropped because there will be limited time pass in the process and more time to work on the actual tasks which is already skilled at 3M.\r\n It appears time its cost is great and that an organization has to appoint or select a person that would guide and train top management and mid dle management in the principles of Six Sigma which is wise for all the companies like 3M than track their businesses at a lot, dropping sale, losing profit.\r\n Furthermore Six Sigma will also empower the employees to gain noesis as it is the model that will bespeak trainings, yes it will be costly but with productive results at the end.\r\nIII. The risks\r\n Six Sigma faculty also have its own risks, some organisations might not be uncomplaining but looking at its approach, it had a positive impact on the 3M Company; it also developed leadership skills and cerebrate on customer satisfaction.\r\nFurthermore, even though the approach does wonders in the company, not all companies of the 3M embraces Six Sigma some of these reasons are very costly training of human force, only applies to the manufacturing industry, and it is just a trend. Other companies might think that, main issue that have to challenge with is if the Six Sigma really benefits the company or it c ost the company to move over the innovative and creative culture for the interest of continuous improvement of products to satisfy the customers and quicken the financial performance. Nevertheless it proven worthy it by 3M because of the rescue it has done to the company while it was falling behind.\r\nOrganisational Culture:\r\nIn monetary value of its organization culture, 3M’s Company culture is promoted to be freedom and integral of excitement and anticipation. Employees enjoy being heroes. 3M Company is being innovative in its cultures and company growth, so the focus needs to be on how innovation in 3M, including operative cultures and people management etc. can be replicated and benefits different areas in our daily applications\r\nGoldman, Maritz, Nienaber, Pretorius, Priilaid and Willliams (2010:94) referring to Roger Harrison’s model of organisational culture mentions that â€Å"it has discordant attributes with four types of culture that could be w ell observed at 3M Company although one called power culture seemed to be more dominant than others. Goldman et al., (2010:95) continue their notion by saying that a person whose constitution is suitable for the culture of the organisation will be more likely to attend than the person who does not naturally fit within the organisation’s culture. The table below reveals all these cultures and their attributes.\r\nCulture\r\nAttributes\r\n effect culture\r\nCompetence, growth, success and distinction\r\n forcefulness culture\r\nStrength, direction, decisiveness, determination\r\nRole culture\r\nStructure, order, stability, control\r\nSupport culture\r\nRelationships, mutuality, service, integration\r\n systema skeletale 2.1: Adapted from: Goldman et al., (2010:95). Organisational cultures and their attributes.\r\nThis case study has stressed some of the tombstone activities and principles that bear to 3M Company’s performance. Most of these are not new and are sure as shooting used by other companies. In 3M Company’s case they may be summarized as an effective company culture that nurtures innovation and a veer of management techniques and strategies that together have delivered long-term success.\r\nMost of companies pay lip service to the organisation values and practice set out in this case study. There is evidence that 3M Company supports these words with actions. 3M Company hire good people and curse them; this will bring about innovation and excellent performance. 3M Company ensured that introducing Six Sigma is a good move than at other companies. Moreover, the success of the approach is due to the unremitting reinforcement of its objectives. Indeed, also the performance of individuals is partly judged on whether they are able to turn over the objective.\r\nMarketing pull and Marketing poking technology\r\nAccording to Lynch (2009:283) market pull is one of the nous sources of innovation which is customer needs analysis . Baker in Lynch (2009:293) emphasize by suggesting that innovation takes place when companies identify new market opportunities and this is how 3M Company attempted to employ market pull by introducing Six Sigma and this exposes that they had ability for creating innovation. The 3M Company business area was on the whole different from what Six Sigma specialised on so they were necessary forced to encourage creativity, develop leadership skills, customer satisfaction, and geographic expedition and focus where new ideas can come from a wide variety of sources.\r\nAccording to Lynch (2009:283) technology Push is technology development analysis whereby other industries are being surveyed for their technology developments and assessment of their relevance to its own. 3M Company joined forces with external companies as mentioned above in trying to divulge new approach to growth and refer the internally controlled culture of technology pertain even though they assumed that it was m arket pull. Their main challenge at 3M Company is that they need to know what technologies to push so that they do not dissolve their establishments.\r\nThe diagram below illustrates how the two sources of innovation should be exploited by organisation without distinction.\r\nFigure 2.2 Adapted from Lynch (2009:283) Two major drives of innovation.\r\nQUESTION 3:\r\nTo what extent, if at all, does innovation matter in setting the project of an organisation?\r\nYes innovation does matter in this case because; many organizations invest in innovation in order to change. Organizations put aside a percentage of turnovers to change products, processes, and services. In particular, the objectives should be achieved because of this investment. Yet, a very large amount of innovation activities does not meet these objectives. The motives behind harm provides steer regarding how to avoid such failure in the future.\r\nIn this case study the process by which the companies should apply innov ation has been examined. It has been examined by making sure that employee understands the process by which innovation takes place in the work place and then burst. In this case study 3M organizations has tried to lower their innovation failure rates and move faster with the process of growth as mentioned antecedently above about Six Sigma, the approach to growth.\r\nLooking at the process of innovation from idea generation, through evaluation, and on to realization, you will also uncovering customers who become evaluators of the success of an innovation in the company and by concluding there is also key ways to improve the ability of the company or organisation by monitoring the following innovation processes:\r\n ends, Actions, Teams, Results.\r\nGoals of Innovation\r\nThe principal goals required by an organization in return for this investment vary mingled with organizations. The following have been found across a large number of manufacturing and service organizatio ns and ranked in order of popularity, with the first goal being common to most organizations (European Commission, 1996):\r\n Improved quality\r\n Creation of new markets\r\n Extension of the product range\r\n trim down labour costs\r\n Improved production processes\r\n Reduced material\r\n Reduced environmental damage\r\n Replacement of products or services\r\n Reduced energy consumption\r\n ossification to regulations\r\nFollowing are the critical factors that managing technical innovation in 3M Company:\r\na) Organization culture\r\nb) Communication and\r\nc) Management\r\nThe causes of failure can vary widely depending on the individual innovation. Some causes will be external to the organization and outside its bend of control. Others will be internal and at long last within the control of the organization. Some of the more common causes of failure in organizations can be distilled into the following five types (Oà ¢â‚¬â„¢Sullivan, 2002):\r\n inadequate goal definition\r\nIt means that organizations find it tight to define their goals. ridiculous goal definition requires that organizations decide on appropriate goals for their environment and define these goals in terms that are understandable to everyone involved in the innovation process.\r\n Poor alignment of actions to goals\r\n centre that organizations find it difficult to continuously come to the ideas and projects they are pursuing with their goals. This is perhaps even more acute if goals are difficult to define in the first place. It also influences effective management of the portfolios of projects that the organization is undertaking to ensure they are balanced appropriately.\r\n Poor participation in teams\r\nIt refers to the behaviour of individuals and teams, possible knowledge of the organization, and the particular skills of individuals to contribute to the exploit of innovation. It also refers to the payment and reward systems that touch on individuals to goals.\r\n The poor monitoring of results\r\nIt refers to share-out of the experimental condition of goals, actions, and teams involved in the innovation process within the innovation team and its main stakeholders.\r\n Poor communicating and sense of community\r\nIt relate to ineffective channels of communication and collaboration that constrain knowledge sharing and the ability of employees to participate as a broader community in the innovation process and make informed decisions when needed.\r\nSteyn, Schmikl and van Dyk (2010:66) state that knowledge delivers sustainable competitive advantage as illustrated below\r\nLeading to>\r\nResulting to>\r\nincrease revenue\r\nKnowledge creation\r\nTechnology\r\ndevelopment\r\nExperimental and\r\n rising mean\r\nInnovation\r\nEnhanced value\r\nadded\r\nStronger\r\nsustainable\r\ncompetitiveadvantage\r\nFigure 3.1: Adapted from Lynch 2009:261- An emergent appro ach to purpose\r\nAccording to Palmer and Kaplan (2007:2) strategical Innovation is the creation of growth strategies, new product categories, services or business models that change the game and generate significant new value for consumers, customers and the corporation. According to Lynch (2009:282) innovation is the generation and exploitation of new ideas. This has helped the 3M Company to gain strength in applying lessons learnt from previous experiences like the one of losing the sales and profit. This has made them to be able to deliver what refers to as the priceless assets to strategic management such as the following:  true future growth: The process of improving some measure of the organisation’s success which can be achieved any by boosting the top line or revenue of the business with greater product sales or service income. 3M Company able to restructure by introducing the approach to growth.\r\n Ability to leapfrog major competition, even dominant competitors: Ability to conquer competition focusing on extensive promotions to spotlight the distinctive benefits or features of products. 3M Company had employees who are strong in making sales and come up with high successful product â€Å"Post-it notes”. In terms of the competition, it started internally.\r\nâ€Å" each company seeks the keys to innovation, but few find them. Over the decades, 3M learned how to be innovative and today the company uses that skill to great competitive advantage.” †Jerry I. Porras, Co-author, Built to Last\r\nâ€Å"Innovation is more than just a silvern idea; it is an idea that gets implemented and has a real impact. In other words, mortal has to make it happen.” †Ernest Gundling, Author, The 3M Way to Innovation: equilibrize People and Profit\r\n2. CONCLUSION\r\nIt is advisable that, organisation should have its own database in order to fix or limit the problems in the company rather than running at a loss. 3M Company created their database and spent about $20 million, it in an incorporate database, which stores information on customers, products, sales, inventory, and finance from all divisions and geographies. If all the organisations of the same nature can follow what 3M Company did, irritate can be gained to the database through a easy website. Strong search which bring together related products and services from across the total 3M Company can be easy accessed. Personnel and partners can also access latest information on product prices, availability, specifications and reviews of customer accounts. â€Å"The profitability of customers and products and the performance of partners can also be analysed across the entire company allowing better allocation of company resources. This allows 3M Company to take advantage of market opportunities and cross-selling opportunities and at the same time meet and customize the needs of customer segments. â€Å"(Some of the information is ada pted from Harvard Business Review)\r\n3. BIBLIOGRAPHY\r\n Ernest Gundling, Author, The 3M Way to Innovation: Balancing People and Profit  (European Commission, 1996): Goal Innovation\r\n Goldman, G., Maritz, R., Nienaber, H., Pretorius, M., Priilaid,D. & Williams, D.2010.Strategic Management: improver for Southern Africa. (1st Edition) South Africa: Pearson teaching.\r\n Havard Business Review. Vol 75 (6): 102-103\r\n Jerry I. Porras, Co-author, Built to Last\r\n Lynch, R. 2009. Strategic Management. (5th Edition). England; Pearson Education Limited.\r\n McQuarrie, E.F. 1993. Customer visits. Building a better market focus. California: SAGE Publication.\r\n O’Sullivan (Innovation Process) †5/29/2008\r\n'