Essay: Environmental Approach To Innovation At Woolworths For Development.

The problem that the innovation can solve

Discuss about the Environmental Approach to Innovation-Oriented Development.

The report is prepared to discuss about the innovation perspective that can be suitable for enhancing the potential of the organization Woolworths. The topic illustrates about the innovation that will be developed sustainably over a commercially viable period. The innovation perspective will not only help in improving the online shopping experience, but will also create more scopes and opportunities for the business to sustain in the marketplace. The innovation that is considered here as useful and can benefit the retail company can be the development and implementation of Wi-Fi device prototype named Wooly to improve the online shopping experience and make it easy for the customers to place orders, gain access to the products and services (woolworths.com.au, 2018). Few effective business models shall be utilized for identifying the scopes and opportunities and promote the innovation with ease and effectiveness.

The most important problem is the lack of ability of the customers to place orders sometimes during a certain time when they need it. Few individuals lack the necessary knowledge and skills to manage online shopping. It can be a situation when the client may feel to place an order but due to the absence of the smart phone or smart system, he can be unable to place the order properly. In such cases, Wooly, the Wi-Fi device prototype can be useful. It can not only resolve the issue, but will also promote innovation for benefiting the business and generate positive business outcomes at Woolworths, Australia. The organization managed to gain help and support from the IT companies to develop an innovative Wi-Fi device named Wooly for implementing the voice recognition technology. The voice recognition technology will be used to allow the customers add items that they want to purchase automatically to the online shopping basket and get those delivered at their doorsteps with ease (Boons & Lüdeke-Freund, 2013). The Wooly sage could also transform the entire online shopping experience and prevent the customers from forgetting to add an item, furthermore make the shopping experience much more ease and convenient. By partnership working with the Tech Labs and IT companies, Woolworths will be able to introduce the new technology as a major aspect of innovation to enter different segments in the marketplace as well as deliver a better customer experience (Boons et al., 2013).

Woolworths operates within a competitive business environment, thus enabling innovation is important to adapt to the demands of the customers and facilitate the technological implications. The customers are more dependent nowadays on the personal devices, because of which the company has grabbed this opportunity wholeheartedly to take the shopping experience to an entire new level. Few of the problems associated with the online shopping at Woolworths are quality issues and lack of appropriate reviews regarding the quality. According to Tukker et al., (2017), the e-commerce sites have order tracking systems though sometimes these are not accurate and thus the delivery of the products at a particular time slot can be a problem (Tukker et al., 2017). Often the orders placed might need to look for the wide range of products at first and then place orders, which could be a problem sometimes due to the issues with network connectivity.

Benefits of Innovation

The retail companies nowadays find out new ways to respond to the changing needs and expectations of the customers and bridge between the digital and physical shopping experiences to transform the retail experience and make it much more convenient for the customers to make purchases. This will not only create higher level of satisfaction among the customers, but can even attract more customers, which will automatically result in higher revenue generation. The various retail chains have introduced new concepts to check out how the customers have been interacting with the technologies and services prior to making purchases. The retail industry has been affected the most due to the digital business transformation (Richter, 2013).

There is need to manage both the digital and physical experiences and link those with the in-store experiences for creating a positive mindset among the customers and use the Internet of things to provide an immersive experience in the virtual and augmented reality. The innovation will not only create ease for the customers make purchases of the products and services but will also allow the company to reduce the time taken to innovate things, enhance the speed and create openness and transparency. Based on the responses of Bocken et al., (2014), there was competition due to the presence of digital customer experience, which increased the cost pressures and resulted in increasing the prices of products and services (Bocken et al., 2014). The innovation, i.e., the introduction of a Wi-Fi device prototype named Wooly will be beneficial for improving the online shopping experience and at the same time, facilitate the marketing process through empowerment of new technologies and staffs.

The Wooly Wi-Fi device prototype will not only help in utilizing the voice recognition for addition of products to the online shopping baskets, but can also transmit the voice data to the mobile shopping list app for managing the online order effectively. The other benefits include ease of scanning the barcodes of the existing items added to the list along with other reliable features. The voice recognition feature could allow the clients to send their voice message to the concerned device and ensure placing the orders quite easily (Bocken et al., 2013).

The voice recognition technology is a major innovation aspect happened at the organization that can enable providing better customers’ services and improve the ability of self servicing to enrich the experiences of the customers and reduce the cost of organizational operations too.  The voice recognition technology enables the callers to gain inputs such as name, order placed and the other necessary information provided for the product order placed. According to Matos & Silvestre (2013), the voice recognition technology in the Wi-Fi device prototype could also help in saving a lot of cost and minimize the need for live agents while enhancing the customers’ experiences at the same time. The self-service system’s containment will be improved, which can result in delivering the best quality customers’ services, create a better self service interaction and automate the ordering process by obtaining dynamic data including the name and address to whom the order shall be delivered within the specified time (Matos & Silvestre, 2013). The innovation will bring greater benefits for Woolworths, as the products available can be easily demonstrated, furthermore enrich the self-servicing interaction with the customers with much ease and efficacy.

Strategic Response

The innovation at Woolworths can benefit the organization in terms of financial performance and create an impact on the economic growth and development too. With the help of voice recognition, the billing process will be much more easier and convenient, which can also help in spreading positive mindsets among the customers. This could attract more customers, influence them and therefore increase the sales revenue for the Australian retail business too. The rate of accuracy with the use of voice recognition technology is unparalleled. It allows the clients to put their voice based on, which the product order will be placed and it will create convenience in capturing the information, and data that is needed directly into the mobile device (Halme & Korpela, 2014). This could also eliminate the need for multiple steps and individuals’ involvement, because of which, the operational costs should also be overcome. The level of production would increase, which could result in higher revenue generation and positive business outcomes too.

The business models and strategies of innovation are major aspects of gaining sustainability and improve the economic, social and environmental performances, furthermore support the organizational growth and development. The business model innovation for sustainability could help in identifying the scopes and opportunities to sustain in the marketplace and at the same time, facilitate the abilities of Woolworths to approach towards a healthy working environment. This could allow the organization to achieve higher growth, productivity and greater profit in business. Successful innovation is beyond the generation of ideas. There are different issues, because of which, the companies find it difficult to innovate, which requires proper skills of communication, leveraging the structure of teams and use of tools to assess the opportunities and manage optimization of business processes (Schaltegger, Hansen & Lüdeke-Freund, 2016). To manage proper strategic response and plan, it is essential for Woolworths, Australia to innovate and transform the ways by which the company will be able to operate as well as deliver services to its customers. The digital disruption at certain times shortened the business life cycle models and transformed the innovation for managing financial success. The global marketplace has driven the needs for business model innovation, which may increase the competition in the marketplace and enhance the chances of potential systematic risks. Thus, the business model innovation will be required by Woolworths to stay competitive in the marketplace and ensure steady growth and development in the competitive business environment (Breuer & Lüdeke-Freund, 2014).

One example of how Woolworths can manage the business model innovation to ensure successful strategic response or plan is the in-house customer trial of Wooly, the Wi-Fi device prototype. It will be able to integrate the voice recognition capabilities and enable the users to add items to the online shopping list. The device will also be useful for scanning the barcodes of the items and then add those to the shopping cart. The device will be stuck to a fridge on any other kitchen appliances when not in use. The device will be linked with the mobile app developed by Woolworths to add the item to the shopping list feature via the smart phone application. This has reduced the issues of waiting in queues or visiting the stores to make purchases, rather the customers can nowadays purchase items by providing their voice (França et al., 2017). The customers could speak up the word and the device would listen to the word, thereby create ease for the addition of products to the online shopping list and place the online order quite comprehensively. For example, once the customer says ‘milk’ or ‘meat’, a milk item or frozen meat product will be automatically added to the online order. To respond to the changing needs and requirements, the company will need to strategically respond to them by considering the ways to keep them satisfied and create convenience for them to purchase the products ad services. As soon as the words are spoken, the product will be added to the online shopping list and after that, the device will deliver an automated recorded voice regarding the confirmation of the order (Baranenko et al., 2014). Once the client will say “yes”, the product will be on the way. Woolworths can try to involve its customers in the innovations and development with the use of this Wi-Fi device prototype and by working closely with the trial of the device, the shopping will be much easier, simpler and quicker for the customers all over (Baumgartner, 2014).

The stakeholders involved are shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, managers of the organization, etc. The shareholders or investors provide finance for the management of project regarding the implementation of the Wi-Fi device prototype named Wooly to create convenience for the customers and enhance their shopping experience. Due to this, more customers will be attracted and the sales revenue will increase as well, which can make the business more profitable. The employees are considered as vital assets who expect good wages for the kind of effort that they have put for implementing the new system while the customers’ needs and requirements are changing from time to time and it is natural for them to switch on to some new product of some other company. Thus, it will be essential for Woolworths to ensure that a new system is developed to create much ease for them to purchase the products by sitting at home and just by using their voice to place orders. The suppliers also demand good rates of return for the supplies they provide, i.e., the raw materials and resources required to develop the system (Lyasnikov et al., 2014). The stakeholders must be assured that the new system will bring in more clients to place orders for the purchases they will made and this can also create positive mindset and buying behaviors among them.

The net present value analysis helps in finding the difference between the present value of inflow of cash and the present value of the outflow of cash during a certain period of time. It is used in the capital budgeting concept that allows for analyzing whether the costs incurred during the implementation of the system for innovation will be able to bring good amounts of profit in business or not. It is used for analyzing the profitability of the projected investments done for the implementation of the system and furthermore determine whether the Wi-Fi device prototype named Wooly will be able to become successful or not o enrich the customers’ experiences (Schaltegger, Lüdeke-Freund & Hansen, 2016).

The Wolfram Alpha is the computational knowledge engine that determines the answers from the external sources regarding the implementation of the new device with the help of search engine optimization. It can also evaluate the answers of certain questions related to the success of using the Wooly Wi-Fi device prototype at Woolworths to improve the shopping experience of the customers. It will also ensure checking the feasibility of the system and its benefits that can be derived with the integration of voice recognition technology in the device. 

To deliver the recommended solution of providing ease of online shopping experience, it is important to check few things such as:

• The placement of Wooly should be done on the smart phone’s screen during the setup with the lens in the downward position
• The protective film cover of the Wooly lens must be removed to ensure proper functioning of the device
• The Wi-Fi network must not need web authentication so that the browser could be open properly
• A Wi-Fi environment must be created for making the device function and allow the clients to speak the words that should be obtained by the device while placing the order
• The delivery of the system will be possible by making it accessible for the customers at the Woolworths stores.
• To ensure that the voice enabled online ordering works properly, it must be tested and controlled to make customers place the right order among the wide range of products available

Conclusion

The report discussed about the concepts of innovation and ways by which Woolworths could manage it by enabling the new Wi-Fi device prototype named Wooly. It would not only integrate the voice recognition technology but would assist in the scanning of orders while placing the orders. The customers would be able to place orders by speaking something and ensure that the orders that were placed could be delivered at their doorstep once they confirm it by saying just ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. It would make the online shopping experience more customer friendly and convenient, which should influence the mindsets of the customers. This should be considered as a major innovation concept for driving business growth, profitability and sustainable competitive advantage.

References

Baranenko, S., Dudin, M., Lyasnikov, N., & Busygin, K. (2014). Use of environmental approach to innovation-oriented development of industrial enterprises.

Baumgartner, R. J. (2014). Managing corporate sustainability and CSR: A conceptual framework combining values, strategies and instruments contributing to sustainable development. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 21(5), 258-271.

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Bocken, N., Short, S., Rana, P., & Evans, S. (2013). A value mapping tool for sustainable business modelling. Corporate Governance, 13(5), 482-497.

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França, C. L., Broman, G., Robèrt, K. H., Basile, G., & Trygg, L. (2017). An approach to business model innovation and design for strategic sustainable development. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, 155-166.

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woolworths.com.au. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.woolworths.com.au/