Sub: Innovation and sustainable business developementWeighting: 50%Length: 2000 wordsAssessment...

Question

Sub: Innovation and sustainable business developement

Weighting: 50%

Length: 2000 words

Assessment Overview

This assessment must be completed by students individually. The assessment is designed for students to develop understanding of the close links between the business environment, business innovation strategy, business capabilities and business value creation. The assessment involves writing a 2000 word innovation strategy report in response to a real case.

Assessment Context

Generally, innovation initiatives within a parent firm are driven by an innovation strategy. An innovation strategy is a subset of firm’s overall strategy. The innovation strategy describes the future development a firm’s innovation capabilities and the future direction of its innovation activities. A firm’s innovation strategy does not exist in a vacuum, it responds to a specific set of circumstances including innovation trends and provides an important context; direction; guidance; monitoring and facilitation of an organisation’s innovation initiatives. Thus, firms take care to diagnose the firm’s circumstances including innovation trends to inform the design and development of its innovation strategy.

Assessment Tasks

You are required to write a 2000 word innovation strategy report to the board of your selected organisation. Your innovation strategy report must:

Succinctly introduce the selected organisation and selected innovation trend.

Succinctly define the following concepts and their relationships: the organisational environment, innovation trend, innovation strategy, innovation capabilities, innovation value creation and capture.

Succinctly describe how the creation of an innovation strategy ensures strategic alignment within organisations and why it is important.

Analyse the impact of the selected innovation trend on the selected organisation. You should apply at least one strategy tool to analyse the impact, opportunities and threats to the organisation.

Recommend how the organisation’s innovation strategy best responds to the innovation trend by answering the following questions.

How should the organisation organise its innovation activities?

What additional innovation capabilities should the organisation develop?

What innovation initiatives should it pursue?

How should the organisation ensure that it creates and captures value from the innovation?

6.Recommend how the organisation best ensures strategic alignment to address the innovation trend.

Assessment Criteria

Your report will be assessed according to the following criteria.

Your report must demonstrate:

Thorough understanding of relevant innovation management concepts, principles, theories, tools and models in regards to the assessment tasks. 60%

Appropriate and well structured, concise and clear expression of innovation management arguments. 10%

Clear flow of thought throughout the report with a clear and succinct purpose described in the introduction and a clear and succinct conclusion. 10%

Critical review skills and integration of relevant academic and profession literature. A minimum of five (5) academic journals must be used. 10%

Appropriate in text referencing and reference list. Adherence to CQUniversity APA Reference Style. 5%

Clarity of expression, grammar and spelling. Appropriate report format within (±10%) of the word limit: 2000 words. 5%

Soumi · Accepted Answer

Running Head: INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT	1
INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT	2
REPORT TITLE: INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
BUSINESS NAME: LEGO
UNIT NUMBER AND NAME: MGMT20132 INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
ASSESSMENT NUMBER: _____________________
GROUP STUDENT NAME: ____________________
Executive Summary
The report discusses the organisational innovation strategy in context of Lego: toys manufacturing company and Robotic Automation as the innovation trend. It explores how the innovation strategy ensures strategic alignment within organisations and analyses possible impact of Robotic Automation on Lego using SWOT strategy tool. The biggest learning Lego had from the debacle in early 2000s was that employing any innovation strategy would not work. For success, it must remain close to its core product and evolve culture of innovation in the organisation.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary	2
Introduction	4
Background of the company— LEGO	4
Innovation Trend: Robotic Automation	4
Discussion	5
1. Organisation Environment and Innovation Trends	5
2. Their Relation with Innovation Strategy, Capabilities, Innovation Value-Creation and Capture	6
3. Innovation Strategy Alignment with Organisation	6
4. Analysing Impact of Robotic Automation on Lego through SWOT	7
5. Organising Innovation Strategy	10
6. Recommendations to best ensure Strategic Alignment for addressing Innovation Trend	10
Conclusion	11
References	12
Introduction
	The present study discusses the scope of Robotic automation as an innovation trend in the Lego company, and how it has contributed to leverage the innovation outlook in the organisation, with so much success that Lego, which once filed for the bankruptcy in early 2000s, became the Forbes most valuable company by 2015.
Background of the company— LEGO
Lego Group is the Danish-based company, one of the biggest toys manufacturers, especially interlocking plastic bricks. It was founded in 1932 by Ole Christiansen. The word ‘Lego’ comes from abbreviation of Danish word “LEg GOdt”, which means “play well”. Since 1932 Lego group has been emphasising on high quality and safety, which is evident from their motto ‘Only the best is good enough’. Lego products has been based on the philosophy of development and learning through play. Lego bricks systems are positioned as the game, which has the potential to enhance creativity, as the bricks can be arranged and rearranged in innumerable combinations. All of Lego products are environmentally checked, so that they their disposal do not cause damage to the environment (Peacock, 2016).
Today, Lego group is called as the ‘Apple’ of toys industry and in 2015 was nominated by Forbes as one of the most powerful brands in the world. Lego sells at the rate of 7 boxes every second and there are more Lego “mini-figures” than there are real people in this world. From the state of bankruptcy in 2004 to the most powerful brand in 2015, Lego has redefined itself by rewriting the rules of innovation.
Innovation Trend: Robotic Automation
The factories of the future are changing with flexible, cheaper and capable technologies accelerating the development of fully automated production facilities. More robots are being used by the companies than real workers. For example, in Philips plant in the Netherlands, robots’ workers outnumbered production workers by about 15 to 1. This tendency of the modern production facility to phase out human workers is because of following benefits: firstly, it improves the quality and production efficiency. Secondly, robots can be used for dangerous and dirty jobs and it is cheaper to employ a robot than employing human workers, thus automation saves the cost for the organisation in the long-run (Eesley, Hsu & Roberts, 2014).
Discussion
1. Organisation Environment and Innovation Trends
Every organisation follows their own working style, which is based on the forces or institutions surrounding them. It includes all the internal and external environmental factors. Some of these external factors include: competitors, governmental policies, regulatory agencies, customers, suppliers, economic conditions, public opinion among others. The internal environment consists of factors, entities within the organisation, examples include, organisation’s culture, vision and mission statement, and leadership style (Walker, 2014).
In the 21st century, innovation has become the key ingredient for the firms to succeed and score above the competitors. The most innovation trends mean what are the new developments in the field of research and innovation. Some of the innovation trends include Augmented reality, Robotics, Internet-of-things, Artificial intelligence, Blockchain among others. Amidst all the innovation trends around, it is important for the firms to define their own innovation strategy and not blindly follow others. 
As suggested by Gassmann, Frankenberger and Csik (2016), every organisation must follow certain guidelines— firstly, they should understand what innovation means in their environment because innovation is a collaborative process and not the result of lone individual. Secondly,

Sub: Innovation and sustainable business developement Weighting: 50% Length: 2000 words Assessment Overview This assessment must be completed by students individually. The assessment is designed for...