Implementing Creative And Innovative Management Ideas For Unilever, An Essay.

Establishing Key Goals and Priorities

Questions:

1. Produce an appropriate rationale to persuade stakeholders of your chosen organisation of the benefits of a creative and innovative management idea?

2. Communicate a creative and innovative management idea to stakeholders of your chosen organization?

3. Establish key goals and priorities for implementation of a creative and innovative management idea for your chosen organization using feedback from stakeholders?  

4. Assess the barriers to the implementation of a creative and innovative management idea in your chosen organization?

5. Plan a strategy to overcome identified barriers to the implementation of a creative and  innovative management idea in your chosen organization? 

6. Explain how a strategy plan for overcoming barriers will ensure innovative change is achieved in your chosen organization?

7. Communicate a strategy plan for overcoming barriers to relevant stakeholders in your chosen organization?

Creativity and Innovation is the process of critically thinking and developing something new that would benefit the organization and then implementing the new ideas to avoid obsolescence.  This creativity and innovation can occur at different levels of a company right from the floor level to the board level. It is not just restricted to the artistic individuals. However some of the organizations do not realize the potential of creative and innovative thinking as they feel that thinking logically itself is creativity that is creativity and logical thinking are mutually dependent (Stierand, Dörfler and MacBryde, 2014). Organizations need to study and analyze the strategies or actions that would help them to carry out their operations effectively. It is the duty of the managers to create a culture in the organization where employees view creativity and innovation as valuable (Henry, 2006). This report would discuss the creativity and innovation management ideas of Unilever and discuss the strategies that the Unilever can use to implement creativity and innovation management ideas. The report will also try to find out some barriers associated with this implementation and develop a strategic plan to overcome those limitations accordingly. The report will be concluded by giving a small overview of the overall report.

Before implementing any change in the creativity and innovation ideas, it is necessary that the managers and the top management members of the organization assure that the shareholders and the stakeholders are aware of changes that the Unilever is trying to implement for the benefit of the employees and also the organization in various ways. Thus it is the responsibility of the top management (CEO) and the managers to make sure that they create a rationale which will explain their stakeholders about the benefits of the change for the success of the organization (newdawn.com, 2011).

To persuade the shareholder, the top management or the managers need to conduct stakeholders profiling that will help the organization to unveil the information to tailor the benefits of communication that would suit the stakeholders group. The top management should explain about the changes to the stakeholders that will help Unilever to handle the challenges (Famuyide, 2014). To improve the outcome through creativity and innovative management ideas, the senior managers must be able to distribute the knowledge to the employees thereby providing an opportunity for the improvement of the latest mechanism of production. This would help Unilever to adopt innovation properly.

Assessing Barriers to Implementation

Further, the senior managers must seek the approval and consent of the stakeholder from the starting of changing process, instead of just waiting for sign-off. This would help them to reduce the oppositions, avoid late changes and save time.  The managers are not just responsible for communicating the innovation and change instead they need to identify the decisive areas that might act as barriers to the changing process of Unilever (Cialdini, 2009). The managers should also decide towards investing in new technology and innovation. Unilever needs to come up with creative ways that will enable to invest for particular area of technology. This way, the organization can allow the employees to take part in the changing process and thereby implementing the organization’s desires.

The most responsible person for communicating the creative and innovative management idea to the stakeholders is CEO as he/she is the person who decides about the implementation of change in the organization. The CEO is responsible for demonstrating the implementation of changes to the stakeholders. For effective communication, it is necessary for CEO to carry out a detailed research pertaining to the process of change thereby explaining the stakeholders about the necessity and benefits of change (Murray, Markides and Galavan, 2008).

The best way of communicating with the stakeholders is using facts. Thus the CEO must make sure that he/she has all the sufficient information, data and facts related to creativity and innovative change process that he/she desire to invest in Unilever. Therefore, while communicating with the stakeholders, the CEO must collect various facts related to the changing process that will be implemented in the company for its success (Verzuh, 2008).

Demonstration is another process that enables the individuals to understand how change is helpful and how it works. Here the responsibility of the CEO is to explain the stakeholders about his/her initiative towards the organization through creative and innovative management ideas. However, the CEO should make sure that the demonstration is realistic such that the stakeholders believe that the investment is worthy. Further, the CEO needs to collect some relevant information related to change and should make few FAQs that might address the questions of stakeholders properly. This would make CEO confident of answering to the queries of stakeholders in an effective way. However, if the CEO is not able to communicate properly with the stakeholders about the benefits of creativity and innovation towards Unilever, then the stakeholders might reject the overall idea which restricts the organization to adapt the new changes (Osborne and Brown, 2005).

Before planning to invest in creativity and innovation, there are few things that have to be prioritized. It is important to gather information related to operation of Unilever and then determine the important operations that influence the productivity and performance of Unilever. Here the senior managers and the CEO of Unilever should decide the various strategies to implement innovation in the organization. Creativity and innovation should be executed phase wise by aligning the important sections of the organization with the phases.

Planning a Strategy to Overcome Barriers

The financial resources also need to be considered before implementing the change. Unilever might feel that it is important to invest in a particular change; however, it might fail because of insufficient funds. Therefore, innovation should only be implemented in the areas where the organization can afford and necessary. From this point of view, it is important to carefully understand and monitor the flow of funds and ensure that a specific section is in need of change. For example, Unilever may make a decision to invest in a specific change but the management finds that there is insufficient fund and there by puts the organization under risk for not meeting the expectations (Afuah, 2009). Therefore, in this viewpoint, the stakeholders should be notified about the changes that is being implemented of Unilever and also discuss about the funds that is needed. This is needed because it will make sure that the stakeholders later on do not complain anything related to the misuse of funds after they realize that the failure of any specific strategy.

Another goal is to train the employees regarding the implemented change. This would help to improve the performance of the organization instead of deteriorating. Additionally, training would help the employees to accept and get adapted with the change which would help to improve the organizational operation. And this training also requires funds, which the top management needs to notify to the stakeholders and to avoid misappropriation of funds.

These are some of the priorities that need to be set before implementing any kind of change in the organization and also communicating the goals and priorities to the stakeholder would help to determine the innovative change in Unilever.

Unilever might be susceptible to various barriers while deciding investment towards innovation. Thus the CEO and the senior managers of Unilever must be aware of the barriers that the organization can encounter and should be monitored adequately to avoid failure of system. One of the major barriers is unpreparedness of employees. This is because almost all the employees in the organization are already habituated with the normal operation that Unilever engages in, and any change in the organization will make it difficult for the employees to cope with the present state of affairs. This would lead to lowering down of the productivity of Unilever, making its competitors to go ahead (Shavinina, 2003).

Another barrier is the present financial position of Unilever, to manage any kind of change in the organization. By investing in innovative process, but due to some financial constraints, the organization may land up failing totally due to inefficient innovative and creative practices. This would not only harm the performance of the organization but also affect the brand image which would make the organization difficult to rise from the failure.

Convincing the stakeholders is also another barrier that Unilever must take care of. The stakeholders might reject to accept the new innovation form, if the management of Unilever fails to convince the reason behind such change and also funds need for such. This might lead to barrier towards adoption of change in the organization.

Communicating Strategy Plan to Relevant Stakeholders

Also, non-qualified personnel in the organization might lead to unsuccessful change in Unilever. The major responsibility of the top management is to observe the experts team who can implement the innovative change in the company. However, with the rise in the competitiveness in the business, there are few professionals who need adequate training to guide the company towards innovation. Thus the top management of Unilever is responsible for searching the non-qualified professionals to avoid wrong makings in the organization as it might lead to collapse of the organization.

Despite of having so many barriers, the Unilever can adopt various strategies to overcome such barriers. Execution and monitoring of strategies is one of the problematic areas in the organizational innovation practices. Thus it is necessary for the management of Unilever to consider the above mentioned barriers that exist in the business environment and plan some strategies to cope with the issues.

Putting the plan into practice, the Unilever can concentrate on some broad set of issues that are related to fundament, execution, commitment and funding (MacLennan, 2011).

• Fundament is about understanding the reasons behind choosing the process by Unilever, the risks, tradeoffs and assumptions underlying with the chosen strategy and ways that Unilever can utilize to respond to such assumptions and risks.
• Execution is about doing the process that is implementation, identifying the accountable for the process and also ways to keep track of success and execution.
• Commitment is to finds ways to inform about the process to the employees and making promises to deliver the result
• Funding is about the cost that is needed for the overall strategic plan and also determining the expected result out of execution.

Taking into account the various aspects of strategic planning, it is necessary that the management of Unilever adopt innovative strategies that are consistent with the organizational requirements. The CEO especially should make sure that a thorough study is conducted about the business environment of Unilever and make clear strategies according to the need of the organization. This would help the organization to form innovation for specific areas where needed, gather information and enable success of the operations.

As identified, that unpreparedness of the employees is one of the barriers which Unilever can overcome by ensuring the employees receive adequate training about the new change and adopt to the desired change. The top management must make sure that the training session is been completed before implementation of change and should check that the employees are ready to accept that change.

Unqualified professionals can also lead to the failure of innovative change. Thus to avoid such issues, the top management of Unilever should make sure that a thorough research is conducted to find the best qualified staff in the market who have experience related to creativity and innovative management.

Thirdly, as discussed inadequate funds also act as a barrier. This can be resolved by finding some important devises using which the organization can collect sufficient funds so that it can cope with the changes that Unilever business operates in. The company can mobile the funds during capital investment or in the form of loans and profits that would help to rise funds to make possible creative and innovative management.

Each organization wants to overcome limitations found in its business environment so it can rise effective while actualizing innovative changes in its frameworks. By embracing techniques to defeat the different hindrances that are show in the working environment therefore, a business can possibly guarantee that it accomplishes change. Therefore Unilever, can accomplished if CEO, managers and the shareholders show their responsibility towards addressing different hindrances that create barrier to the implementation of innovative change in a successful way. Unilever should prepare all the employees in advance before the innovative change is executed (Anthony, 2012). This shows that proper planning has impact of enhancing the performance of Unilever.

Importance of Creativity and Innovation in Unilever

With rapid change in technology and increase in globalization, it is imperative for organizations to set aside sufficient funds to solve for such issues. In this point of view, CEO of Unilever should typically guarantee that all funds inside the association are accounted. This condition of undertakings empowers Unilever to be prepared for any progressions that happen.

It has likewise been noted that most business ventures today are composed in such a way, to the point that they can have the capacity to adapt to innovative change paying little heed to whether the change obliges a change in the infrastructure of a business. Besides, Unilever need to consult their stakeholders and shareholders before putting resources into any innovation change and hire experts to guide their activities to perform better than those associations that don't take after such methodology. It is accordingly genuine that the procedures that are embraced for overcoming barriers are successful as far as making it feasible for Unilever to accomplish change.

The stakeholders of Unilever play a crucial role to make sure that the innovative change is achieved by the company. Therefore, it is necessary for the Unilever stakeholders to understand the strategies to overcome the barriers through proper employee training, hiring qualified experts and also keeping adequate funds. This is can only be done by thorough research and seeking the opinion of the stakeholders.

Further, the strategic plan can be communicate through training or informational sessions. This would help to make the stakeholders aware of the gaps and necessity of implementing the innovative change. While communicating, the senior managers or the top management of Unilever should (epa.go, n.d.):

• Outline the goals and objectives of the communication
• describe the key message
• identify and communicate the specific purpose for creative and innovative change
• Lastly, obtain feedback from the stakeholders

There are some communication tools that Unilever can utilize to deliver the strategy to the stakeholders like (wbginvestmentclimate.org, 2007):

• Factsheets: One page documents that consists of key priorities and goals and also initiates of stakeholders
• Workshops and Conferences: This would help to educate the stakeholders about the issues that Unilever is facing and also explain them about the importance of innovative change
• Presentations: Allow the stakeholders and also employees to understand the issues and also the facts and data.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this present report explores the importance of creativity and innovative change in the organization in the introduction part. The report continues discussing the ways to persuade the stakeholders regarding the rationale of creative and innovative change in the organization. To make the report more specific the report chooses Unilever to discuss issues of implementing creative and innovative management idea in the organization. The report highlights three different barriers inadequate training, insufficient funds and unqualified professionals that creates barrier in the change process of innovation and creativity. The report highlights few solutions to overcome such barriers and also likewise discusses the ways in which the strategy can be conveyed or communicated to the stakeholders.  

References

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