Innovation
Culture
Innovation
culture is Innovation culture is the work environment that leaders
cultivate in order to nurture unorthodox thinking and its application.
Workplaces that foster a culture of innovation generally subscribe to the
belief that innovation is not the province of top leadership but can come from
anyone in the organization. Innovation cultures are prized by organizations
that compete in markets defined by rapid change; maintaining the status quo is
insufficient to compete effectively, thus making an innovation culture
essential for success. (SearchCIO, 2016)
Miller’s Innovation Culture
“Creative thinking and collaboration can be encouraged
and rewarded, or in many formal and subtle ways discouraged. It’s the leader’s
job to get it right.”
Members of an organization’s internal and external
community often have tremendous insights and ideas that lead to new innovations
such as hosting or being the sponsor for international acts here in South
Africa such as Nicki Minaj concert, Kendrick Lamar and Chris Brown concert.
Ideas don’t always come from experts. Sometimes the
greatest innovations come from novices and backroom tinkers. Open-minded
organizations often convert off-the-wall ideas into marketable products. Miller
has meetings with their stuff every 3 days in order to bring me the ideas and
they allow crazy ideas and normal ideas and end up working and them and playing
on them so they become innovative enough to use such designing new bottles that
don’t get wet from the cold on the outside but only inside so you don’t hold
get your hand wet while holding a Miller bottle.
Collaboration with outside groups omplementary
corporations, universities, government agencies, and think tanks—often brings
new perspectives and ideas to the innovation process. Miller collaborated with
events companies in order to bring down international acts to South Africa and
the whole slogan behind it was enjoy your favourite music with your favourite
drink.
Millers innovation culture is also how unique the process
of 4X Cold-Filtration, produces a unique, premium beer which is a beautiful golden lager with incredible
smoothness and refreshment. It is packaged in a distinctive clear glass bottle a break from conventional green or brown
bottles, being innovative and thinking outside the box.
Driver of Innovation
Driver of innovation is a
desire for growth, demand for increased profitability, as well as people
knowing and communicating and bring awareness to your organization.
Miller’s drivers of innovation
Keeping the right leaders,
to guide them as well as motivate the workers and give them encouragement,
Miller says that a company needed a leader with the right kind of talent, to
grow and to continue to grow.
Relationships matter,
“An emotional commitment of one person to another makes a
difference. But the control a manager has to enhance or limit an employee's
contribution to innovation is the most powerful factor," Says Conchie .
Miller says that relationships with one another is an important drive because
you cannot work with someone that you don’t have a relationship with or someone
that you don’t get along it because you lose motivation and you don’t work as
hard.
Managers matter, Miller
goes on to say that creativity needs action to become innovation. Companies
must do more with their employees' creativity than just acknowledging that an
employee has a good idea. That's why managers matter.
Does Miller practice an
established innovation process?
Yes. Miller will get ideas
and they will think of it strategically to see if it can create an advantage in
the market place as well as how ideas will work.
Research then comes into
play the design and the innovativeness of the idea will it work or wont it ,
will people like the new idea or change or won’t they.
The insight is looked
upon to see the course of inspiration and to see how the innovation will play
out in the future.
Innovation Development,
the process of design, engineering, prototyping, and testing that results in finished
product, service, and business designs.
Manufacturing, distribution, branding, marketing, and sales are
also designed at this step in an
integrated, multi-disciplinary process.
Innovation is creating new value and/or capturing
value in a new way. Value is the key word, stressing the difference between
innovation and invention. The definition is simple, easy to memorize and also
good enough to encompass innovation in all the value chain.
– Victor
Fernandes, Natura
The
innovation value chain view presents innovation as a sequential, three-phase
process that involves idea generation,
idea development, and the diffusion of developed concepts.
Idea Generation:
The
aim is to generate ideas from various sources: from with in your own business
unit of team; from other business units or teams; from across the company; from
customers; end users; competitors; universities; related industries and the
list goes on…
Idea
Conversion:
The list of new ideas need to be
appropriately screened and categorized to determine the degree of technical
difficulty to develop in terms of engineering time and resources verses the
commercial return on developing such a product or new feature. It could be that
the new idea will not bring the company or business unit direct commercial
success but will help the company enter uncharted territory or, if a new
feature, help maintain the products competitiveness due new developments in a
rival product.
Idea Diffusion
Hansen and Birkinshaw state that “Concepts
that have been sourced, vetted, funded and developed still need to receive buy
in” from various internal and external stakeholders.
The key to the article is that a company's
‘innovation value chain’: idea
generation – conversion and diffusion is as strong as the chain's weakest
link. Hansen and Birkinshaw suggest that companies need to identify where the weak links are and either create new
roles for employees to help strengthen the link – and/or when hiring new candidates seek those who will be
able to address weakness in their ‘innovation chain’.
Establish whether they have an innovation value chain and what it is?
I would say that a company with weakness
in it’s 'innovation value chain' needs
to either review it’s product
management team and come up with a plan to strengthen the product management role or consider
adopting product management as a
new function with in their company. (Morten & Birkinshaw, 2012)
With more than 300 years of
combined experience, Miller had plenty of time to refine and improve their brewing process. Each new generation has brought fresh ideas and techniques to the rich tradition. Miller's innovations adds quality. And quality
has been priority one as long as we’ve been in business. We take extra
steps unique to each of their brews to ensure excellence.
Miller Genuine Draft delivers a fresh from the tap
taste through its proprietary “cold-filtered four times” brewing process.
Introduced nationally in 1986, Miller Genuine Draft was born as the original
cold-filtered packaged draft beer. Today, Miller Genuine Draft is reinforcing
its status as the best draft beer in a bottle.
Alan Clark, deputy chairman, MillerCoors Board of
Directors said, “MillerCoors has a clear and disciplined strategy aimed at
reinvigorating our flagship American-style light lagers, capturing new growth
opportunities in the above premium segment, simplifying our economy portfolio,
driving innovation and going to market with an independent three-tier system.
While our strategies will always evolve to meet the opportunities and
challenges of the marketplace, we don’t expect any major changes in direction.
The Board will take the time necessary to conduct a thoughtful, disciplined and
collaborative process aimed at selecting the best available talent to lead
MillerCoors through its next phase of growth and development.” (Clark, 2015)
A person,
group
or organization that has interest
or concern
in an organization.
Stakeholders can affect or be affected by the organization's
actions,
objectives
and policies.
Some examples
of key stakeholders are creditors,
directors,
employees,
government
(and its agencies),
owners
(shareholders),
suppliers,
unions,
and the community
from which the business
draws
its resources
Miller’s stakeholders :
Customers- customers expect us to manage Corporate
Responsibility issues, just as they expect the same from their suppliers.
Miller seeks to work together on areas of mutual concern.
Employees-
Miller keeps their people updated on important issues about the brand
with CEO webcasts, management roadshows.
Industrial Associations- Sharing knowledge and
experiences with industry partners promotes a collective response on
industry-wide matters, such as responsible marketing and responsible drinking.
Local Communities- Miller always has seen itself as
part of the communities where they operate. They engage with local communities
to understand and respond to their concerns.
Regulators- Miller engages with regulators through
trade bodies, one-to-one meetings and written responses to policy consultation
documents.
Shareholders- As Corporate Responsibility becomes more
important to business, Miller’s shareholders are increasingly interested in how
they are planning for a sustainable future, as well as protecting their current
reputation.
Suppliers- Miller engages suppliers on the Responsible
Sourcing standards both through their regular procurement processes and the
Responsible Sourcing program.
Understanding of what barriers and enablers of innovation is;
Barriers to Innovation
It is common to think of innovation barriers as being only linked to the specific behavior of the organization and its members, but the barriers can also be linked to the environment within which the organization operates. Barriers to innovation can be both internal and external to an organization.
Internal barriers to innovation are often the result of so-called organizational routines. Over time, an organization tends to stagnate and to gain inertia. Put differently, it is not necessarily in the nature of an organization to constantly change. Routines are regular and predictable behavior patterns. Over time, any organization will develop routines whereby each employee will know his job, focus on his job, become more efficient at his job and stop learning from other people's jobs. This specialization often binds the organization together in a clear and stiff structure. Unfortunately, management will often encourage and promote this, effectively preventing routines from changing. Yet, it is precisely a change of routines that is needed if the organization is to innovate and adapt to a changing environment.
External Barriers
Among the most important external barriers to innovation identified by our respondents, we find government regulations. Such regulations may limit the scope of action and make impossible certain strategic decisions and moves for the postal operator. For instance it may be impossible to enter a new market or pursue some particular opportunity.
Another external barrier concerns the size of the home market. In most service industries a limited home market size is not a major obstacle to expansion and innovation. In many cases a limited home market will simply lead to the early internationalization of firms in the industry. Small countries, like Switzerland, often give birth to highly international product or service firms.
Some innovations simply require the benefits of size and economies of scale to be feasible for an operator. If the home market is not of a sufficient size to create these economies of scale, the operator may find it difficult to make the necessary investments.
Enablers refer to the Capabilities, forces,
and resources
that contribute
to the success
of an entity,
program,
or project.
Establish whether they have any specific barriers and enablers of innovation, and what these are.
With Miller, the only noticeable barrier is their competition. They could hinder their progress if they offer consumers more than what Miller could offer them. There are also a lot of laws in different countries that prevent alcohol companies to sell to certain age groups or in certain areas, this could lessen their exposure and productivity.
