Innovation is increasingly being considered as a core competency that organisations must develop. Companies that consistently innovate don't rely on chance; they address innovation in a systematic way.
Drawing on a wide range of literature on innovation develop a framework that you could use to assess an organisation in terms of innovation. Describe your framework and justify the critical elements (with reference to the literature).
The next step is to apply this framework to a particular organisation of your own choice. Where are the gaps? What is being done well, what areas need to be improved? Note: This organisation may be your own workplace, or an organisation you would like to work for.
Finally, develop a plan to address areas of weakness. You may choose to focus on a few key areas and discuss them in detail.
Answer:
Introduction
Innovation and creativity within an organization refers to the procedure which helps the firms in the hotel and hospitality industry can develop their reputation, improve the product and service quality, increase profits and cut costs. Especially in restaurants, innovation can be described as the approach that is comparatively new to the product, service or business model and it brings considerable changes as well. In this competitive business world, new services and products are often copied by the other competitors (Niggli, 2015). Therefore restaurants should have a continuous innovation system for gaining a competitive edge. This report will develop an innovation framework for the Arbory Bar and Eatery and discuss the application. It will also develop a plan for addressing the weakness of the organization.
Innovation framework
According to (Specht, et al., 2014) the organizations in restaurant industries tend to confront uncertainty on a regular basis for improving their sustainable performance which may also prevent the innovation. The theory of the diffusion of innovations has proposed five PIC or Perceived Innovation Characteristics involving compatibility, relative advantage, observability, complexity and triability (Ruiz, et al., 2014). These are the significant elements that are to be considered while employing the innovation skills. The adoption procedure for innovation in organizations needs to take a lot of things into account, such as the organizational scales, external environments, attitudes and structures of innovation etc. It can be said that the organizational innovations are also associated with sufficient resources, beliefs on creativity and willingness for accepting the risk (Grunert, Hieke, & Wills, 2014). Some other literatures also focus on other elements for adapting innovations such as social networks, support from government, environmental situations and the awareness regarding innovation technology (Tilman & Clark, 2014). All these factors help illustrating the innovation adapting behaviour (McKenzie & Williams, 2015). In Arbory Bar and Eatery, there is a lack of sustainable service innovation. Therefore, this framework addresses this issue.
- Green food purchasing policy: This is a significant framework to identify the sustainable development in bringing innovation in restaurant service. This policy should also draw out the delight of customers in determining its usefulness as well.
- Using cooking process that is energy-efficient: This refers to bringing new technology for producing the food; therefore it reduces time, labour and carbon emissions to a great extent.
- Green management: The management of restaurant can consider sustainable development which will reduce pollution, wastage and cost.
- Using green equipments: The restaurant should also use appliances consuming low energy; therefore prioritize safety and health of customers.
Application of the framework
This framework should be immediately applied on the management of Arbory Bar and Eatery as the organization is still lacking green and sustainable management. Developing a sustainable product and service innovation will help the organization to increase the productivity and profitability of the restaurant, but it will also boost its reputation. The restaurant already has made its place in the restaurant industry in Melbourne, but developing the green product and service will lead towards a sustainable future. As it still does not use energy efficient cooking process or use the green food materials for cooking, the management can usefully apply these innovative technologies for producing food. By changing the traditional way of cooking, by recycling the kitchen and garbage wastages or importing the rainforest certified coffee, by implementing ordering through smart phones, they can bring considerable innovative changes in the service and product management.
Plan for addressing the areas of weakness
While the restaurant plans for implementing sustainable innovation in the food product and service system, the major areas of weakness need to addressed immediately.
- The technology should be used as a major tool in bringing the proposed innovations in the restaurant, but it should also make sure that the process is simplified. In most cases, entire procedure becomes more complicated, therefore it can annoy the customers. Therefore this should be taken into account and simplify the usage of customers.
- Bringing sustainable innovation can cost a huge amount of money at the initial stage. Therefore the management should make sure that this issue is addressed immediately. It may seem that the new kitchen appliances are costly, but in long term they can perform better than the current ones and save more energy.
- The entire procedure also requires effective training and development to the staff members. Therefore it should be addressed immediately and an training program should be arranged.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that with the increasing awareness regarding the environment amongst the customers, the restaurant can boost their reputation by bringing the sustainability product and service innovation. However, the environmental issues should also be taken into account for increasing the knowledge regarding the environmental issues.
References
Grunert, K. G., Hieke, S., & Wills, J. (2014). Sustainability labels on food products: Consumer motivation, understanding and use. Food Policy, 44, 177-189.
McKenzie, F. C., & Williams, J. (2015). Sustainable food production: constraints, challenges and choices by 2050. Food Security, 7(2), 221-233.
Niggli, U. (2015). Sustainability of organic food production: Challenges and innovations. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 74(1), 83-88.
Ruiz, K. B., Biondi, S., Oses, R., Acuña-Rodríguez, I. S., Antognoni, F., Martinez-Mosqueira, E. A., & Bazile, D. (2014). Quinoa biodiversity and sustainability for food security under climate change. A review. . Agronomy for sustainable development, 34(2), 349-359.
Specht, K. S., Hartmann, I., Freisinger, U. B., Sawicka, M., Werner, A., & Dierich, A. (2014). Urban agriculture of the future: an overview of sustainability aspects of food production in and on buildings. Agriculture and human values, 31(1), 33-51.
Tilman, D., & Clark, M. (2014). Global diets link environmental sustainability and human health. Nature, 515(7528), 518.
